William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professors Appointments
April 25, 2017
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to announce the appointment of two of our colleagues as William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professors. The Warren Professorship is the highest recognition that the University bestows on any faculty member. Azer Bestavros, Professor of Computer Science, College of Arts & Sciences, and Bonnie Costello, Professor of English, College of Arts & Sciences, have been chosen to join this group.
Professor Azer Bestavros is founding director of the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, where he is leading initiatives on cloud computing, big data, and cybersecurity. The work of the Hariri Institute has been essential to the current data science collaboration across the University. His areas of expertise include networking, distributed computing, and high-assurance systems, and his research earned the ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award, among other accolades. His widely recognized work (ranking him in the top 1% of the most-cited authors in computer science) has led to multiple patent applications, the formation of a start-up company, and over $20 million in externally funded research projects. He has served on numerous internal and external boards and committees, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC) initiative, and has led interdisciplinary University initiatives, including the Data Science Initiative, the BU Computing Alumni Network, and the Council on Educational Technology & Learning Innovation. He also received the United Methodist Teacher/Scholar of the Year Award. He earned his PhD at Harvard University in Computer Science.
Professor Bonnie Costello teaches modern and contemporary American poetry, with a special interest in the relationship between poetry and visual arts, publishing books about still life and landscape in modern poetry. She is an internationally recognized literary critic and authority on modern American poetry and is known for her scholarship on poets Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop. Her latest book, The Plural of Us: Poetry and Community in Auden and Others, will be published this year. She is a fellow at the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has received Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Mellon, and Cullman Center/ACLS fellowships, the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the United Methodist Teacher/Scholar of the Year Award. She has served as chair for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Jury, in addition to having multiple editorial and advisory board roles for academic journals such as Modernism/Modernity, The Wallace Stevens Journal, and Twentieth-Century Literature. Professor Costello earned her PhD in English and American Literature at Cornell University.
These appointments conclude the process initiated in the fall of 2016 with a call for nominations. Professors Bestavros and Costello join ten other active faculty members who hold the title of Warren Professor:
- Professor George Annas, School of Public Health/Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, 2009
- Professor Catherine Costello, School of Medicine/Department of Biochemistry, Physiology & Biophysics, 2013
- Professor Howard Eichenbaum, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, 2015
- Professor Wendy Gordon, School of Law/Legal Instruction, 2011
- Professor Keith Hylton, School of Law/Law and Economics, 2013
- Professor Nancy Kopell, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of Mathematics & Statistics, 2009
- Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of Economics, 2009
- Professor Thomas Kunz (Emeritus), College of Arts & Sciences/Department of Biology, 2011
- Professor Robert Pinsky, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of English, 2015
- Professor Eugene Stanley, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of Physics, 2011
- Professor James Winn, College of Arts & Sciences/Department of English, 2009
Through their teaching, research, and scholarship, Professors Bestavros and Costello have served and represented our community with distinction—enriching the academic experience for our students and raising our stature as a major research university. We are pleased to honor them as William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professors. Please join me in congratulating them.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brown
President