Boston University has announced the promotion of 27 faculty on the Charles River Campus to the rank of associate professor with tenure, and 5 to the rank of associate professor, non-tenure track. Photo by Above Summit

Promotions

Meet BU’s Newest Associate Professors

32 Charles River Campus faculty promoted

An aquatic biogeochemist who seeks to understand the impacts of human- and climate-driven change on aquatic environments. A systems neuroscientist studying the mechanisms of learning and memory. An expert in digital marketing whose work has helped advance understanding of the dynamics of online advertising. A computer scientist who researches the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. These faculty are among the 32 on Boston University’s Charles River Campus recently promoted to the rank of associate professor. 

They are teachers and scholars who have earned national reputations in their respective fields of study, and they reflect the breadth and depth of research being conducted at BU.

Faculty promoted to associate professor, with tenure: 

Elizabeth Coppock, College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of linguistics, specializes in formal semantics, addressing foundational topics in truth, reference, quantification, and measurement through the lens of specific empirical puzzles. She works in several languages, including Hungarian, Swedish, Elfdalian, Kathmandu Newari, Turoyo, and Mandinka and has led a 100-language fieldwork project funded by the Swedish Research Council. She has published 19 articles in top-tier journals, including Language, Natural Language Semantics, Journal of Semantics, Linguistics and Philosophy, Semantics and Pragmatics, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, and Glossa, and made 42 contributions to edited volumes. She also served for eight years as associate editor for Semantics and Pragmatics. 

Sarah W. Davies, CAS associate professor of biology, is an integrative biologist who seeks to better understand the mechanisms underlying symbiosis establishment, maintenance, and loss in reef-building corals and how coral genetic diversity is shaped by climate change. Supported by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), her research aims to provide real-world solutions to the grand challenges of the coral reef crisis. She is a past National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Early Career Fellow and was recently awarded the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS) Early Career Award and became an ICRS Fellow. She has published 66 articles in scientific journals, including articles related to equity and mentorship. 

Zeynep Demiragli, CAS associate professor of physics, is an experimental particle physicist working at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider located at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland. Her recent work focuses on searching for dark matter at the forefront of a newly emerging synthesis of cosmology and particle physics. A past winner of the CMS Young Researcher Prize, she is supported by multiple grants from the US Department of Energy (DOE) and NSF, including a CAREER award. She additionally chairs multiple international and national commissions on beyond-standard-model physics and advancing detector development in high-energy particle physics experiments. She is an editor of the Particle Physics Data Book and has well over a dozen publications in top-tier journals, including Nature. 

Cédric Fichot, CAS associate professor of Earth and environment, is an aquatic biogeochemist and remote sensing specialist who seeks to understand the impacts of human- and climate-driven change on aquatic environments. His research blends fieldwork, laboratory analyses, remote sensing, and modeling to address fundamental questions about carbon cycling, coastal resilience, and water quality. His work has been supported by multiple grants from NASA and NSF. He recently published a review in Earth-Science Reviews and has dozens of publications in top-tier environmental science journals, such as Remote Sensing of Environment, Environmental Science & Technology, and Geophysical Research Letters. 

Jeffrey Geddes, CAS associate professor of Earth and environment, is an atmospheric chemist who studies the role of the biosphere on atmospheric composition. His research has been supported by grants from NSF (including a CAREER award), NASA (including a New Investigator award), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, he explored climate-driven and land use–driven trends in atmospheric nitrogen cycling. He is also interested in satellite observations of air pollution, contributing algorithms and scientific insights related to new geostationary observations of air quality over North America. He has published numerous articles in leading atmospheric chemistry journals and is an editor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics. 

Neha Gondal, CAS associate professor of sociology, is a mathematical sociologist researching the role of social networks and culture in the exacerbation of status-based inequalities. She is a founding member of BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences and core faculty at the BU Global Development Policy Center’s Human Capital Initiative. Funded by several National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants and other fellowships, she has published 3 book chapters and 16 articles in leading journals, including Social Networks and Socio-Economic Review. She has been an elected representative at three American Sociological Association sections and served on the editorial board of five flagship sociology journals, including American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Social Forces. She is currently deputy editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 

Victor Kumar, CAS associate professor of philosophy, specializes in ethics, cognitive science, and evolutionary theory. He has written extensively about moral reasoning, moral learning, and moral disgust, with current work focusing on the psychological and cultural underpinnings of progressive and regressive social change. A past recipient of BU’s Peter Paul Career Development Professorship, he has coauthored a book, A Better Ape (2022), about the evolution of morality and moral progress, and published essays in top philosophy journals, including Ethics, Philosophical Studies, and The Philosophical Quarterly. He is also director of BU’s interdisciplinary Mind and Morality Lab.

Xi Ling, CAS associate professor of chemistry, is an experimental physical and materials chemist whose research focuses on the synthesis science and physical properties of two-dimensional materials for electrical, optical, and quantum devices. She is a lead or coprincipal investigator on multiple major grants from NSF, DOE, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, and the American Chemical Society. Her work in the discovery and development of graphene-enhanced Raman scattering has been recognized with an NSF CAREER award. She is a past recipient of BU’s University Provost’s Career Development Professorship. She has published a book chapter and over 90 articles in top-tier scientific journals, including Nature, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials. 

Renato Mancuso, CAS associate professor of computer science, specializes in embedded and real-time systems, focusing on reconfigurable hardware platforms and multicore resource management for high-performance, safety-critical, and cyber-physical systems. Supported by industry leaders—including Red Hat, Bosch, Cisco, and NSF (including a CAREER award)—his work enhances timeliness and safety in autonomous systems like unmanned aerial vehicles and driverless cars. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and his advances in the classroom were recognized last year with BU’s Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed papers, received numerous best paper awards at top conferences, and garnered over 2,300 citations. 

Michaela McSweeney, CAS associate professor of philosophy, writes extensively about fundamental problems in the philosophy of logic and metaphysics. Her recent work develops a systematic account of understanding and uses it to explore topics in epistemology, moral philosophy, the philosophy of mental illness, and social philosophy. She has published numerous articles in leading journals, including American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, and Journal of the American Philosophical Association. She is currently working on a monograph about the metaphysics and epistemology of abstract reality, as well as several papers that expand upon her work on understanding. 

Christoph Nolte, CAS associate professor of Earth and environment, studies land conservation decisions and the effectiveness of environmental policies. His research draws on geography, economics, and data science to infer causal effects of land conservation, estimate conservation costs, and value environmental amenities and risks. He leads and coleads several grants from NASA and NSF that combine satellite and social data to estimate effects of public conservation finance, develop cost-effective strategies for long-term conservation, and track changes to lake water quality amenities. He has published over 50 articles in leading interdisciplinary journals, including PNAS, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Conservation Letters, and Land Economics. 

Steve Ramirez (CAS’10), CAS associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, is a systems neuroscientist studying the mechanisms of learning and memory. His current work focuses on manipulating memories to understand their causal role in cognition and behavior and using that knowledge to help combat mental disorders. A past winner of BU’s Metcalf Cup and Prize for excellence in teaching, he has earned an NIH DP5 award and an NIH Transformative Award, the Smithsonian’s American Ingenuity Award, National Geographic’s Breakthrough Explorer prize, MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 award, the Chan Zuckerberg Science Diversity Leadership award, and a Pew Foundation award. He has additionally delivered two TED talks and was featured on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list. 

Mickey Salins, CAS associate professor of mathematics and statistics, is an expert in probability, stochastic partial differential equations, and infinite dimensional stochastic dynamical systems. His research examines the evolution of a vast array of models that consider the presence of randomness, an inherent component in models throughout the physical and engineering sciences. A member of the American Mathematical Society, he has published 25 articles in leading mathematics journals, including the Annals of Probability and Analysis and Computations, working to resolve long-standing open questions of the role of noise in the behavior of stochastic dynamical systems. 

Christopher Schmitt, CAS associate professor of anthropology, is a biological anthropologist who incorporates techniques from genetics and genomics to study development and life history in wild primates as they relate to energetics and metabolic disorders. His research has been funded by NSF, the Leakey Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. He is a recent recipient of the BU Undergraduate Academic Advising Award and CAS’ Susan K. Jackson Award for Excellence in Service to the College for his efforts at queer community-building in STEM fields. He is also past president of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics. He has published a book, Savanna Monkeys: The Genus Chlorocebus (2019), along with 32 peer-reviewed articles and 15 non–peer reviewed articles or book chapters.

Jessica Simes, CAS associate professor of sociology, studies the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in US communities, with a focus on structural racism and health. Her recent work examines exposure to policing and harsh prison conditions as drivers of social inequality. An NSF CAREER award recipient, she is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Arnold Ventures and is a past recipient of BU’s University Provost’s Career Development Professorship. She is the author of 2021’s Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment, which won the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Book Award. Her 19 peer-reviewed articles have appeared in a wide range of outlets, including Science Advances, Annual Review of Sociology, Criminology, JAMA Network Open, and PLOS ONE. 

Indara Suarez, CAS associate professor of physics, is an experimental particle physicist who searches for new phenomena to help better understand the characteristics of the Higgs boson and the nature of dark matter. To this end, she has developed novel computational tools using artificial intelligence for data analysis and next-generation detector electronics. Supported by numerous DOE and NSF grants, she has received DOE’s Early Career Award to utilize data from the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN in Switzerland. She has earned additional recognition, meanwhile, for her mentorship, working actively to increase the participation of traditionally underrepresented groups and women in science at early stages in their undergraduate careers. 

James Cummings, College of Communication associate professor of emerging media studies, examines the human-computer interaction and the psychological processing of media, with areas of focus including multitasking, emotion, motivation, and physiological responses. He cofounded the first media effects lab at Boston University, the Communication Research Center, introducing biometric tools and virtual reality workstations and developing the College of Communication’s research participant pool. A visiting scholar within Stanford University’s Human Screenome Project, he has written extensively in high-impact field publications, including the Journal of Communication, the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Communication Research, and New Media & Society, as well as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Occasional Papers series.

Wenchao Li, College of Engineering associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, is a computer scientist whose research focuses on building safe and trustworthy autonomous systems. His research group develops new theories and tools across several areas, including design automation, cyber-physical systems, formal verification, and deep learning. He is a past recipient of BU’s Peter J. Levine Career Development Professorship, and his research is supported by numerous grants, including an NSF CAREER award. He has published two book chapters and dozens of articles in top journals and conferences, including the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, the International Conference on Learning Representations, and the International Conference on Machine Learning. 

Lei Tian, ENG associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, researches imaging technologies and computational optics. His work explores cutting-edge methods for high-throughput imaging, computational microscopy, and deep learning–based imaging analysis. Recent projects include developing novel optical systems for 3D microscopy and creating algorithms to analyze large-scale biomedical datasets. He has been recognized as a Scialog Fellow for Advancing Bioimaging and is an NSF CAREER award recipient. His research has been published in leading science and technology journals, including Nature Communications, Optica, and Light: Science & Applications. 

Rachel Brulé, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies associate professor of global development policy, explores the political economy of gender and power, primarily in South Asia. Her research combines experimental methods, innovative theory building, and in-depth qualitative work to identify the causal impact of changes in institutions on the ability of women and members of other traditionally marginalized groups to engage the state and advance transformative change. Her first book, Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India (2020), won the 2021 Luebbert Prize for the Best Book in Comparative Politics from the American Political Science Association. An NSF CAREER award winner, she is now partnering with the US State Department on a major project to advance Afghan women’s economic resilience. 

Mahesh Karra, Pardee associate professor of global development policy, studies development economics, health economics, and applied demography, with extensive fieldwork in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. He is also associate director of the BU Global Development Policy Center’s Human Capital Initiative. His current research uses randomized controlled trials to evaluate the health and economic effects of improving access to family planning and maternal and child health services in Malawi, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. He has published over 20 articles in journals such as Studies in Family Planning, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. He has also worked for the Population Reference Bureau and the Futures Group International and served as a consultant to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Population Council. 

Garrett Johnson, Questrom School of Business associate professor of marketing, researches digital marketing, measuring its effectiveness and privacy issues. His work has helped advance understanding of the dynamics of online advertising, including how companies can effectively measure and maximize the impact of ad spending in an online environment. He has published nine articles in top field journals, such as Management Science, Marketing Science, and the Journal of Marketing Research, and won numerous prizes for his writing, including INFORMS Society for Marketing Science’s John D. C. Little Award and the American Marketing Association’s Paul E. Green and Weitz-Winer-O’Dell Awards. In addition to his research, he has designed and teaches a digital marketing class offered in Questrom’s undergraduate, MBA, and MSBA programs. 

Laurina Zhang, Questrom associate professor of strategy and innovation, examines the organizational and policy levers that influence innovation and inequality. Specifically, her work explores how technology and information affect innovative, entrepreneurial, and creative outcomes through democratization of access and participation for disadvantaged subgroups. She has published seven articles in top field journals, including Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Harvard Business Review, and garnered numerous awards, including the Best Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management, the Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship, and Questrom’s Shahdadpuri Faculty Research Award. She has additionally received financial support for her research from the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Innovation Policy and the Economics of Digitization working groups. 

Deepak Kumar, Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences associate professor of physical therapy, is a biomechanist, movement scientist, and physical therapist. His work seeks to develop mechanism-based and technology-enabled movement interventions that reduce pain and improve physical function in middle-aged and older adults with knee osteoarthritis. He has received several young investigator awards, including the American Physical Therapy Association’s Eugene Michels New Investigator Award, and secured major federal and foundation grant support for his research. A member of the editorial board for Arthritis Care & Research, he has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals and delivered over 100 presentations at national and international conferences. 

Shively T. J. Smith, School of Theology associate professor of New Testament, focuses on the traditions of Peter and the General Letters of the New Testament, diaspora studies, approaches to biblical interpretation, former Marsh Chapel Dean Howard Thurman (Hon.’67), and 19th-century African American women’s writings. She has published two monographs, including 2023’s Interpreting 2 Peter through African American Women’s Moral Writings, and written numerous articles and essays for major anthologies, like The New Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation. The director of STH’s PhD program, Smith has served as associate editor for the critical study bible of the Society of Biblical Literature guild and is a board commissioner for the Association of Theological Schools. Her research has been supported by numerous grants from organizations like the HistoryMakers, the Wabash Center, the Louisville Institute, and the Calvin Institute, and she was recently awarded the Forum for Theological Exploration’s Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Naomi Caselli (Wheelock’09, GRS’10), Wheelock College of Education & Human Development associate professor of deaf studies, is a cognitive scientist whose work focuses on language development that is inclusive of sign language and centers the experience of deaf youth. Caselli’s work is supported by more than $5 million in external funding from the NSF, the NIH, and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. She directs the BU AI and Education Initiative and codirects the BU Wheelock Deaf Center and is recognized internationally for developing widely used open-access sign language databases. She has given more than 30 invited presentations and published 25 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading journals, such as Psychological Science, Cognition, and the Journal of Pediatrics. 

Christina Dobbs, Wheelock associate professor of teaching and learning, directs Wheelock’s English Education for Equity & Justice program, with research focusing on academic language development, the argumentative writing of students, and professional development for secondary content teachers. Her work is supported through significant external funding from the John Templeton Foundation, as well as through several competitive internal awards. A frequent invited presenter, she has earned international recognition for collaborative work focusing on teacher professional development. She has published 4 books, including 2019’s Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry & Instruction, along with 5 book chapters and 15 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading journals, such as Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy and Professional Development in Education.

Faculty promoted to associate professor, non-tenure track:

Rébecca Bourgault, College of Fine Arts associate professor of art and art education, is an artist-scholar whose research examines lifelong learning in communities, socially engaged art practices, and approaches to arts research that explore transdisciplinary, translingual, and holistic ways of knowing. Recent publications include two coedited books—one on contemporary arts research, the other a collection of life stories about arts and aging. She has presented her work internationally and published numerous chapters and journal articles. In 2022, she was elected to the North American World Council for the International Society for Education Through Art, where she is now an associate editor for their flagship journal, International Journal of Education Through Art. She is an active member, contributor, reviewer, and juror for Canadian and American art and art education organizations. 

Andrew Goodrich, CFA associate professor of music and music education, is a peer mentoring scholar in the field of music education. Additional research interests include studying adult amateur musicians in community music settings, preservice music teacher preparation, and jazz education. He has published a book, Peer Mentoring in Music Education: Developing Effective Student Leadership (2022), along with 19 scholarly peer-reviewed articles, 8 music practitioner articles, and 7 book chapters in Oxford University Press and Springer publications. He serves on the editorial boards of several leading music education publications, including the Journal of Research in Music Education, the Journal of Music Teacher Education, and the Journal of Popular Music Education. 

Nicholas Rock, CFA associate professor of art, graphic design, is a practicing graphic designer and design strategist who teaches in the School of Visual Arts undergraduate and graduate graphic design programs, where he is also director of graduate studies. His development of a comprehensive methodology for evaluating and discovering references in experience design culminated in The Experience Design Handbook, a web-based, publicly accessible repository that organizes and catalogs case studies in experience design for easy reference and discovery. His design practice, meanwhile, focuses on the importance of human connection and the transformation of social systems through collaborations with various national design studios, with clients including Harvard Graduate School of Design, Apple, and American Express. 

Reza Rawassizadeh, Metropolitan College associate professor of computer science, researches a broad spectrum of digital fields, including AI, machine learning, Internet of Things technology, and wearable technology and their integration into healthcare informatics. His interdisciplinary work seeks to improve model efficiency, speeding up processing and reducing the on-board computing power needed to complete a given task, resulting in unique new approaches to digital health issues. He has published over 60 articles and 30 proceedings in leading journals and conferences, including The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, and Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a past recipient of the Global Annual Achievement Award for Artificial Intelligence for Best New Algorithm for AI and the British Computing Society Search Industry Award for Best Search User Experience.

Shengzhi Zhang, MET associate professor of computer science, is a scholar whose work falls at the intersection of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, with particular expertise in issues affecting Internet of Things devices, automobiles, and mobile and operating systems. His recent work has helped advance understanding of adversarial attacks against automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems, exposing the threats that exist to commercially available ASR devices like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa and identifying ways to mitigate those threats. Zhang’s research has been funded by Cisco and the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. He has published two book chapters and dozens of articles and refereed papers in prominent cybersecurity conferences, including IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Computer and Communications Security, and USENIX Security.