Of the 23 BU’s Charles River Campus promotions to associate professor, 21 are with tenure, and 2 are non–tenure track. Photo by Andy Costello

Promotions

Nearly Two Dozen Charles River Campus Faculty Promoted to Associate Professor

List represents “teachers and scholars of national impact and recognition”

An astronomer who investigates the formation of planets in concert with the formation of new stars, an award-winning  playwright whose work explores the intersections of race, class, and gender, and a neurobiologist who examines how perception and behavior arise from intricately interconnected neural circuits, specifically through the sense of smell, are among the 23 Charles River Campus faculty promoted this year to rank of associate professor, 21 with tenure. 

“Each year, these promotions and awards of tenure mark an especially proud moment for the BU community, as we’ve had the pleasure of watching these talented colleagues develop from promising junior faculty into teachers and scholars of national impact and recognition,” says Jean Morrison, BU provost and chief academic officer. “In diverse fields across the University, these faculty members are having demonstrable impact in their disciplines and excelling as teachers in our classrooms and laboratories. We continue to see great things ahead for them and are pleased they have chosen BU as the institution at which to advance their careers.”

Promoted to associate professor with tenure:

Kimberly Arkin, College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of anthropology, is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research has explored questions of identity, race, and belonging among Jews in France, and more recently expanded to include medical ethics in the French Mediterranean. A frequently invited conference lecturer, she has published one book, Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness in France (Stanford University Press, 2013), which won the Jordan Schnitzer Book Award, as well as dozens of papers, book chapters, journal articles, and book reviews.

Ksenia Bravaya, CAS associate professor of chemistry, studies theoretical and computational quantum chemistry, examining electronic structure phenomena and electronic transfer processes between biomolecules. She is a 2020 Sloan Research Fellow and past winner of BU’s Hariri Institute Research Award and the Patricia McLellan Leavitt Research Fund Award, and has published nearly 40 widely cited articles in top scientific journals. Her research is supported by major grants from the US Department of Energy, the Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). 

Charles Chang, CAS associate professor of linguistics, explores language acquisition, focusing on the ways individuals’ native languages influence—and are influenced by—the phonological systems of heritage or later learned languages. A 2016 recipient of BU’s Peter Paul Career Development Professorship, he has published 6 book chapters and 15 articles in premier field journals, including Language and Journal of Phonetics, and has received significant grant support from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

Ian Davison, CAS associate professor of biology, is a neurobiologist who examines how perception and behavior arise from intricately interconnected neural circuits, specifically through the sense of smell. His past research has centered on innate social behaviors, such as aggression and courtship, while his current studies focus on neural and vascular disruptions caused by traumatic brain injury. Supported through major awards from the NIH and NSF, he is a past Klingenstein-Simons Fellow in neuroscience and has published extensively in his discipline’s leading journals, including Neuron and Frontiers of Cellular Neuroscience. 

Katherine Levine Einstein, CAS associate professor of political science, is a scholar of American politics; her research focuses on political participation, inequality, race, and urban politics. She is a faculty affiliate of BU’s Initiative on Cities, is on the editorial board of Urban Affairs Review, and has coauthored two books, including Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2019), as well as two book chapters and a dozen articles in top political science journals. Her work has been supported through grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the NSF, and she is a past recipient of the CAS Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising and Mentoring. 

Catherine Espaillat, CAS associate professor of astronomy, investigates the formation of planets in concert with the formation of new stars. Recognized as a pioneer in the study of circumstellar disk structure and evolution, she is an NSF CAREER Award recipient and a past Sloan Research Fellow, Scialog Fellow of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. She is a frequently invited conference speaker and has published dozens of articles in leading astrophysics journals.  

Kirill Korolev, CAS associate professor of physics and bioinformatics, focuses on questions in biology and physics related to population dynamics, from ecology and evolution of interacting species to developing evolutionary approaches to cancer and new statistical tools for analyzing microbiome data. His advances in research and teaching have led to his being named a Simons Investigator in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems by the Simons Foundation and a Cottrell Scholar and Scialog Fellow by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. He has published dozens of articles in leading scientific journals, including Science and PLoS Computational Biology.  

Siu-Cheong Lau, CAS associate professor of mathematics and statistics, studies complex algebraic geometry and symplectic geometry and their close relations with physics, working specifically in the area of mirror symmetry. Regarded among his field’s leading experts, he is a past recipient of the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematicians Distinguished Paper Award, has delivered dozens of invited lectures, and has authored two book chapters and numerous articles in top mathematics publications, including Memoirs of the American Mathematical Society.  

Christopher Laumann, CAS associate professor of physics, is a quantum condensed matter theorist whose research interests lie at the interface of quantum computation and many-body theory. His most recent work has focused on interacting localization effects in dynamical systems and on characterizing generic constraint satisfaction problems. A frequent keynote lecturer and organizer of high-level conferences, he is considered among his discipline’s most influential young voices. He is a current NSF CAREER Award recipient and past Sloan Research Fellow, and has written extensively, publishing two book chapters and dozens of papers in preeminent physics journals.  

Alexander Nikolaev, CAS associate professor of classical studies and linguistics, specializes in Indo-European historical linguistics and comparative philology, centering much of his research on Greek language, comparative grammar, and etymology. He additionally focuses on Greek literature, mythology, and religion, especially of the Archaic period. Fluent in 11 ancient languages and regarded internationally among the leading linguistics scholars of his generation, he has published a book, 12 book chapters, and dozens of articles in top peer-reviewed journals. He is a past winner of the CAS Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

Juan Ortner, CAS associate professor of economics, is a microeconomic theorist, whose work in pure and applied theory involves dynamic settings (including bargaining and collusion), with applications in industrial organization, corporate finance, and political economy. He has coauthored articles in some of his field’s premier publications, including Econometrica and the Journal of Political Economy, and serves on the editorial board of American Economic Review, which he has given him two Excellence in Refereeing awards. 

Ana-María Reyes, CAS associate professor of history of art and architecture, is a scholar of Latin American art, specializing in modern and contemporary South American art and visual culture. She has published two books, The Politics of Taste: Beatriz González and Cold War Aesthetics (Duke University Press, 2019) and a coedited anthology on Simón Bolívar, Simón Bolívar: Travels and Transformations of a Cultural Icon (University Press of Florida, 2016), along with four peer-reviewed journal articles. She is a founder of the Symbolic Reparations Research Project, which seeks to leverage the arts, cultural practices, and humanities to support victims of human rights violations.  

Michelle Amazeen, College of Communication associate professor of mass communication, advertising, and public relations, researches mediated persuasion and misinformation, investigating how media practices (such as political fact-checking and native advertising) facilitate and challenge public perceptions of society. She is a regular presenter at leading academic conferences and has coauthored a textbook, Key Thinkers in Critical Communication Scholarship: From the Pioneers to the Next Generation (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015), in addition to 3 book chapters, an encyclopedia entry, and 19 articles in top-tier journals, including Journalism. Her work has been supported by the American Press Institute and New America. 

Christopher Wells, COM associate professor of journalism, studies how news coverage takes shape, and how citizens learn politics and choose to participate. His current work investigates the impact of social media on coverage and how citizens use digital media to communicate and create possibilities for civic engagement. He has published a book, The Civic Organization and the Digital Citizen: Communicating Engagement in a Networked Age (Oxford University Press, 2015), and dozens of articles in premier communication journals, among them Communication Theory and Journal of Communication. In 2018, he received the International Communication Association’s Young Scholar Award.  

Chuanhua Duan, College of Engineering associate professor of mechanical engineering, studies the transport of fluids and energy at the nanoscale, exploring phase-change heat/mass transfer and developing new devices for biomolecule sensing and separation—research translatable to biomedical applications. He is a current NSF CAREER Award recipient and a past winner of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award and has authored or coauthored numerous widely cited articles in high-impact nanoengineering journals, including Nature Nanotechnology and ACS Nano. 

Emily Ryan, ENG associate professor of mechanical engineering, creates computational models of reactive transport, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and electrochemistry to aid in the development of cleaner, more efficient energy systems. Supported by major grants from the NSF and US Department of Energy, she has published a book chapter and dozens of conference papers and articles in leading journals, including Chemical Engineering Science. She is a Scialog Fellow of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and was recently named associate director of BU’s multidisciplinary Institute for Sustainable Energy. 

Michelle Sander, ENG associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, explores optical material interactions and femtosecond pulse generation techniques to help develop compact fiber lasers and integrated microphotonic systems—research with applications in communications, biomedical diagnostics and treatment, environmental sensing, and spectroscopy. She is an NSF CAREER Award recipient, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Photonics Society, and a past recipient of the Optical Society’s Ambassador Award. A frequent conference presenter, she has published 19 articles in leading field journals, and her work is supported through grants from the NSF, the NIH, and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research. 

Jeremy Menchik, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies associate professor of international relations, studies comparative politics, focusing on the role of religion in politics and civil society, including Muslim societies in Indonesia, global Christian missionary activity, and Wilsonianism. He has authored a book, Islam and Democracy in Indonesia: Tolerance without Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2016), which won the International Studies Association’s award for best book on religion and international relations, as well as three book chapters and numerous articles in top-tier journals, including International Studies Review. He is also a past winner of Pardee’s Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence. 

Pnina Feldman, Questrom School of Business associate professor of operations and technology management, works at the intersection of operations and pricing management, specifically exploring innovative pricing strategies and strategic consumer behavior. She is a senior editor at the Production and Operations Management Journal and is acknowledged as being among the first to demonstrate the boundary conditions associated with advance selling. A recent recipient of Manufacturing & Service Operations Management’s Meritorious Service Award, she has published numerous articles in top-tier field journals, including Management Science and Marketing Science. 

Tyler Perrachione, Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences associate professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences, integrates basic science and clinical approaches to treat developmental disorders of language, learning, and reading, specifically in the area of dyslexia. He is director of Sargent’s Communication Neuroscience Research Laboratory, associate director of BU’s Hearing Research Center, and is a past Peter Paul Career Development Professor, with current research funded through major grants from the NIH and the NSF. He has published a book chapter and dozens of articles in leading journals across multiple disciplines, among them Science, Neuron, and Brain and Language. 

Yoonsook Ha, School of Social Work associate professor of social welfare policy, researches the well-being of low-income children and families, focusing on how access to resources from the nation’s social welfare system can be improved to produce healthy outcomes. She is a regular presenter at national conferences around social policy, and her work has been supported through major grants from the US Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the BU Initiative on Cities. She has published extensively in top field journals and been tapped to coauthor reports for the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Promoted to associate professor, non–tenure track:

Kirsten Greenidge, College of Fine Arts associate professor of playwriting and theatre arts, is a playwright whose works, which examine intersections of race, gender, and class, have been performed at major regional theaters around the country, including Lincoln Center Theater and Playwrights Horizons in New York and Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company. She has produced dozens of acclaimed plays, two—Milk Like Sugar (2011) and The Luck of the Irish (2012)—have received the Independent Reviewers of New England’s Best New Play award. She is a past recipient of a PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award and the TCG/Edgerton New American Play Award, and has also been honored with an Obie Award. Her adaptation of J. Anthony Lukas’ Pulitzer Prize–winning Common Ground is scheduled to be produced at the Huntington Theatre Company next year. 

Canan Gunes Corlu, Metropolitan College associate professor of administrative sciences, develops and analyzes stochastic simulation models that account for input uncertainty in inventory and supply chains—tools used to help guide operations decision-making across a variety of industries. A frequently invited conference presenter, she has published extensively in her field’s top journals, including Operations Research, and is a member of INFORMS Simulation Society, INFORMS Analytics Society, and Women in Operations Research and Management Science.