Gloria Ampadu-Darko (CAS’24) served as the 2021-2022 Initiative on Cities National League of Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. A sophomore majoring in International Relations with a minor in Political Science and Public Health, her interests include international development, human rights, civil rights, and social justice. She aspires to pursue a career in which she can make a meaningful impact in one of these areas.

“I’m the type of person that’s always looking for opportunities like internships, so when I received an email about a possible opportunity from one of the political science advisors I immediately checked it out,” she said. “What made me interested in the Fellowship was the list of topics on which one could focus. So many of the topics were intriguing, but community health and wellness caught my eye because it is an issue that I recently became interested in. When I realized that the Fellowship would be the perfect chance to dive deeper into this topic with the directed study and the internship, I rushed to apply.”

Gloria was born in London but raised in Ghana until she was four years old. She moved to the United States and grew-up in the metro Atlanta area. Her experiences of being from a developing country and growing up in a low-income neighborhood are what fuel her passion to bring about changes for others in similar situations. Gloria has interned with local nonprofits, engaged in cultural clubs in high school, and volunteered to tutor elementary school students. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, listening to true crime and self-care podcasts, journaling, reading, and going on picnics with her friends. On-campus, she currently works as an assistant at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and is involved in Charcoal Magazine.

“My decision to focus on housing stemmed from my personal connection to the topic,” she said. “Being from the metro Atlanta area, I have experienced and witnessed how gentrification has drawn people out of their homes, how the growing popularity of the city has dramatically increased housing costs, and how the severity of the homelessness issue is only growing. Knowing that this is currently a major issue in a lot of cities, like in Boston where the South End has become completely gentrified over the years, I had no doubt that this was the topic I wanted to study.”

Read more on the Initiative on Cities website

Trying to keep up with Zhenghui Wang (CAS’22, GRS’22) requires the stamina of a long-distance runner. When he’s not working as an RA on Bay State Road, he can be found racing to classes (he graduates with a joint BS/MS in computer science in May), clocking in at his other job, as a senior office assistant and media assistant in BU’s Student Employment Office, or volunteering as a tech lead with the BU chapter of Hack4Impact and as a senior tech lead with Google Developer Student Clubs.

“I am committed to working at the intersection of social justice, education, and computer science,” Wang says. “I’ve taught advanced computer science to high school students, facilitated workshops to help students gain technical skills and jump-start their own projects, as well as offered academic support and mentorship to underprivileged students in the Boston area. I love to effect positive change.”

In the accompanying video, Wang, armed with a GoPro camera, takes us along on a typical day in his life as a college student, traversing one end of campus to the other. Take a look.

Read more in BU Today

When Sabrina “Sabi” Liu (CAS’23), social media coordinator of BU’s Queer Activist Collective (“Q”), arrived on campus as a transfer student in September, she was searching for the kind of community she’d found with queer affinity groups she’d been part of in high school and at Suffolk University, where she began her college career.

She was drawn to Q because the organization works to provide members with a sense of community, resources, and support. The largest club serving LBGTQ+ students, with more than 80 members, Q is committed to ensuring awareness, visibility, and full inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community.

“I’ve seen firsthand the importance of having spaces that are tailored specifically for the LGBTQ+ community,” Liu says. “Spaces like Q are so precious for people who don’t always feel welcome in other places. And in the absence of an official, BU-led space for LBGTQ students, Q plays a vital role on campus.”

As the organization’s social media coordinator, Liu is responsible for making sure all social media platforms are updated. She also helps facilitate the club’s many events, among them speaker series, game nights, charity drag shows, and mental and sexual health, legal rights, and inclusivity and allyship workshops. She also helps support the organization’s various initiatives, like the recently launched gender-affirming product program.

Q provides and fosters a place where everyone feels comfortable being themselves, Liu says. It’s a home for anyone on campus feeling lonely—not just a queer trans space, but great for anyone.

In addition to her role with Q, Liu is also the social media coordinator for the nonprofit Massachusetts Asian + Pacific Islanders for Health (MAP) and works as a lifeguard at FitRec, as well as working at the Oak Square YMCA in Brighton.

The political science major has a strong interest in civil rights and social advocacy. She plans to take the LSAT this summer, she says, with a goal of working with immigrants or other communities.

“I’m hoping to make a difference,” Liu says.

Read more in BU Today

It’s challenging enough holding down one part-time job on campus while balancing school work, but Warren Liu manages two jobs, one as a BU Marketing & Communications social media team intern, another as a BU Admissions ambassador. Crisscrossing the campus, he proudly dons his BU Bands windbreaker (he plays trumpet for the BU Concert Band).

In addition to jobs and classwork, Liu (CAS’22, COM’22), who has a double major, in religion and public relations, is involved in the Chinese Students & Scholars Association and Kappa Kappa Psi, a coed fraternity serving BU’s music ensembles.

In the video below, Liu, GoPro camera in tow, takes us along on a typical day in his life, which includes a quick lunch with friends at the GSU, a band rehearsal, a class presentation, and homework. Following graduation, he plans to pursue religious studies in graduate school and hopes to someday work in the video game industry. Fittingly, he winds down his days playing video games before his 1 am lights out.

Read more in BU Today

Sidney Hare (CAS’22), an Earth and Environmental Sciences major from Utah, launched the Warren Towers Rooftop Mini Garden with support from the BU Urban Climate Initiative’s Campus Climate Lab. She began working with BU Sustainability during her freshman year to start planning a rooftop garden. Her project moved ahead after she received funding from the BU Urban Climate Initiative’s Campus Climate Lab, which funds research projects that use the BU campus as a living laboratory to advance sustainability practices and support the University’s Climate Action Plan.

Hare and classmate Stella Dzialas (CAS’24) oversaw the design and planting of the rooftop garden with mentorship from Curtis Woodcock, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment, Dennis Carlberg, associate vice president for University sustainability, and Lisa Tornatore (CAS’02), BU Sustainability director. Hare says they worked to convert an empty unused space into a “productive and inviting space for students to spend time and see food being grown that they’ll have access to.”

“I knew that when I went to college I wanted to establish a garden on campus,” Hare says. “ I think that urban gardening is an essential step forward in helping to reduce food deserts, helping mitigate urban heat island effects, and working to greenify cities in a productive manner. Gardening is my passion and I did not want to let living in a city impede me from doing that.”

Read more and watch the video

Ian Smith is a PhD student in the Department of Earth and Environment in the BU Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and the BU URBAN Program. He graduated from Boston University in 2017 with a major in Environmental Science and minor in Economics. His research interests center around anthropogenic influences on the carbon cycle. He received a 2021 Early Stage Urban Research Award from the Initiative on Cities (IOC) for his project, “Where Do Urban Trees Get Their Water?”

“I am interested in studying how cities can engineer the landscape to adapt to projected changes in the climate,” he says. “Trees are a powerful tool for cities to use in preparation for warmer average temperatures due to their ability to cool the surface and air around them through shading and transpiration. However, trees can only provide cooling benefits given a high rate of survival and access to water. We currently don’t know which sources of water city trees rely on and therefore we might not be managing the health of Boston’s urban forest as efficiently as we could be. This study is the first of its kind in that out of hundreds of studies that use stable isotope methodologies to identify tree water sources, only two have been conducted in cities, both of which were in arid ecosystems in the western US with very different water dynamics than the mesic northeastern US.”

Read more and watch the video

Luke Glowacki, Anthropology

Jane Luu, Astronomy

Michaelyn Hartmann, Biology

Tuan Leng Tay, Biology

Zeba Wunderlich, Biology

Meg Younger, Biology

Jordan Nelson, Chemistry

Nolan Shepherd, Chemistry

Danyelle Greene, Cinema & Media Studies

Brandon Jones, Classical Studies

Ahmed Ibrahim, Computer Science

Devon Colcord, Core Curriculum

Andrew Bell, Earth & Environment

Steven White, Economics

Jennifer Cho, English

John Ott, Ray and Margaret Horowitz Visiting Professor in American Art, History of Art & Architecture

Myriam Dali, Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Linguistics

Matthew Moore, Mathematics & Statistics

Emily Stephen, Pardee School of Global Studies

Jonathan Greenacre, Psychological & Brain Sciences

Heidi Meyer, Romance Studies

Maria Bobroff, Romance Studies

Jim Carter, Romance Studies

Amanda Lee, Romance Studies

Jonathan Mijs, Sociology

Jinsu Kim, World Languages & Literatures

Dennis Wuerthner, World Languages & Literatures

Cynthia Becker, College of Arts & Sciences professor of history of art and architecture, specializes in African art, focusing on the art forms and visual culture of North Africa. She has authored several acclaimed books, including the Choice book award–winning Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity (2006), and most recently, Blackness in Morocco: Gnawa Identity through Music and Visual Culture (2020). A frequently invited lecturer at museums and universities around the world, she has been supported by multiple grants from Fulbright and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, among others, and is a past winner of the Innovative Teaching Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association.

Arianne Chernock, CAS professor of history, is a scholar of modern Britain (post-17th century) whose work examines aspects of feminist thought, gender history, and the monarchy. Recognized internationally among the leading historians in her field, she is a member of the Royal Historical Society and the author of two books: 2019’s The Right to Rule and the Rights of Women: Queen Victoria and the Women’s Movement and 2010’s Men and the Making of Modern British Feminism, which received the John Ben Snow Foundation Prize from the North American Conference on British Studies. She has published three book chapters, and numerous journal articles and essays, including a forthcoming entry in The New Cambridge History of Britain.

Aaron Garrett, CAS professor of philosophy, is an expert in the history of early modern philosophy (1600–1800), focusing on ethics, political philosophy, method, metaphysics, and the philosophy of art and film. A scholar in the writings of Baruch Spinoza and David Hume, he is a frequently invited speaker at universities in America and Europe, and is the former editor of History of Philosophy Quarterly and the inaugural editor in chief of The Journal of Modern Philosophy. He is a past recipient of the CAS Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching and has authored three books, edited seven others—including the Routledge Companion to Eighteenth Century Philosophy—and published dozens of journal articles, reviews, and encyclopedia entries.

Walter Hopp, CAS professor of philosophy, is an expert in the philosophy of perception and knowledge, integrating phenomenological (experience and consciousness) approaches with the philosophy of mind and epistemology. He is co-editor of Husserl Studies, the leading research journal devoted to the writings of German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, and has authored two well-received books, including 2020’s Phenomenology: A Contemporary Introduction, along with 7 book chapters, 15 journal articles, and 5 book reviews and encyclopedia entries. He is associate chair of philosophy and a past recipient of the CAS Templeton Prize for Student Advising and Gitner Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Malika Jeffries-EL, CAS professor of chemistry, focuses on the development of organic semiconductors and their use in optical and electronic devices—research that has resulted in numerous novel advances, including the design of new blue light–emitting material. An elected fellow of the American Chemical Society, she is associate editor for the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, has published over 40 widely cited articles in leading science journals, and has delivered over 100 lectures domestically and abroad. She is a past NSF CAREER Award winner, and her research has been consistently supported through grants from the NSF. In addition to her scholarly work, she is associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Sanjay Krishnan, CAS professor of English, is a scholar of English-language postcolonial literature from the Caribbean, Africa, and Southeast Asia, as well as globalization and the history and theories of the novel as a genre. He has published two widely praised books—most recently, V. S. Naipaul’s Journeys: From Periphery to Center (2020)—along with 3 book chapters, 40 conference papers, and 8 articles in top literary studies journals. A third book, on the challenge of world literature, is forthcoming. A past recipient of major fellowships from the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and the Mellon Foundation, he is a frequently invited lecturer and has delivered talks in South Africa, Trinidad, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

Ashley Mears, CAS professor of sociology, specializes in gender studies and economic sociology, focusing on the intersection of culture and markets and the commoditization of beauty and glamor. She has emerged as a nationally recognized scholar in sociological literature, authoring two acclaimed books, including 2020’s Very Important People (VIP): Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. She has also published nine book chapters and more than a dozen articles in top peer-reviewed journals, including American Sociological Review (where she is an editorial board member) and Socio-Economic Review, exploring the impact of race, gender, and class inequalities on culture. She is a past recipient of the Best Publication Award from the American Sociological Association’s Body & Embodiment section. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation.

Sean Mullen, CAS professor of biology, is an evolutionary biologist who uses genomic tools to study the origin and maintenance of species diversity. He has garnered significant attention in his field for seminal research on speciation genomics and the adaptive evolution of butterfly wing color pattern and mimicry. Recent work has focused on the role ecological interactions play in shaping adaptive diversification among neotropical adelpha butterflies. His research has been supported by major NSF grants, and he has published over 40 articles in top-tier biology journals, including Evolution, Nature, and Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Stephanie Nelson, CAS professor of classical studies, is a scholar of Greek and Roman epic works (particularly those of Hesiod, Homer, Virgil, and Ovid), Greek comedy and tragedy, ancient philosophy, translation, and the works of James Joyce. Recognized internationally among the leading academic voices in the classics, she has authored three widely praised books, most recently, Aristophanes’ Tragic Muse: Tragedy, Comedy, and the Polis in Classical Athens (2016), with a fourth volume exploring James Joyce’s Ulysses and Homer’s The Odyssey in development. She has published seven book chapters, delivered numerous invited lectures and conference papers in the United States and abroad, and won the CAS Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching and Susan K. Jackson Award for creating community.

Michael Prince, CAS professor of English, specializes in 18th-century British literature, particularly fiction and the novel, as well as rhetoric and composition. His scholarship examines how literary texts respond to debates of that period in Britain over moral virtue, the existence of God, the nature of human thought, and the possibility of human freedom. He has published three acclaimed books, including 2020’s The Shortest Way with Defoe, which won that year’s Walker Cowen Memorial Prize for the best book in 18th-century studies. A regularly invited speaker at national and international conferences, he has also authored a book chapter and numerous book reviews, editorials, and articles for leading literary journals.

Kim Sichel, CAS professor of history of art and architecture, is an art historian who explores European and American modern art, focusing specifically on the history of photography. A past department chair, she has written two well-reviewed books, including Making Strange: The Modernist Photobook in France (2020), in addition to an edited photobook, six book chapters, and numerous exhibition catalogs examining from aerial photography to early works of African American photographers. Her work has been supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2020, the College Art Association named her one of the 20 most prolific PhD advisors in art history.

Allen Speight, CAS professor of  philosophy, provides philosophical explorations of art, literature, and religion through the lenses of German romanticism and idealism. Recognized among the nation’s leading scholars of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, he has written two books and coauthored or coedited seven more, including 2020’s The Future of the Philosophy of Religion, in addition to over 50 journal articles and book chapters. He is a past Fulbright Professor at Leuphana Universität Lüneburg in Germany and a Berlin Prize Fellow of the American Academy in Berlin. He has twice won BU’s Undergraduate Philosophy Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and serves on numerous editorial advisory boards and as a manuscript referee for Cambridge University Press and the Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Susanne Sreedhar, CAS professor of philosophy, examines early modern political thought—namely the relation of 17th-century British thinker Thomas Hobbes’ writings to foundational issues (including natural right, civil liberties, civil disobedience, and toleration) and their relevance to contemporary public policy, as well as how other philosophers of that era treat gender, sexuality, and marriage. She has authored an acclaimed book, Hobbes on Resistance: Defying the Leviathan, with another volume exploring Hobbes’ thinking on sexual morality in production. A frequent conference speaker, she has published 24 articles and book chapters and is a past recipient of the CAS Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Outstanding Mentor Award from BU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. She is also codirector of the Mentoring Project for Pre-Tenure Women Faculty in Philosophy.

James Uden, CAS professor of classical studies, researches and writes about Latin literature and the transformation of Greek and Roman ideas in later eras, particularly the 18th and 19th centuries. He has produced seminal scholarship on Roman satire and first-century CE Roman cultural history, authoring two books, including 2020’s Spectres of Antiquity: Classical Literature and the Gothic, 1740–1830, with a third book in development (funded by a New Directions grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) exploring medicine and literature in the Roman Empire. He has published six book chapters and seven book reviews. He is a past Peter Paul Career Development Professor and winner of the CAS Gitner Award for Distinguished Teaching and sits on the editorial advisory board for Cambridge University Press.

Read about our faculty members who were promoted to full professor

Jennifer Bhatnagar (CAS’04), associate professor of biology, is a microbial ecologist who uses biochemical analysis and sequencing technologies to investigate how climate warming, pollution, and changes in land use affect soil microbial communities and the resulting impact on terrestrial ecosystems’ productivity and carbon-storage capacity. Supported through major grants from the US Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation (NSF), she is a previous Peter Paul Career Development Professor, a recipient of the CAS Patricia McLellan Leavitt Research Award, and past chair of the Microbial Ecology Section of the Ecological Society of America. She has coedited a laboratory manual and published a book chapter and over three dozen articles in leading science journals, including Research.

Solesne Bourguin, associate professor of mathematics and statistics, uses method development and analysis to research the central limits, dynamic behavior, convergence, distributional properties, and estimators of many types of random variables and stochastic systems—work with broad, practical applications in cosmology, data science, machine learning, and econometrics. He is the principal investigator on a current Simons Foundation Research Award and a frequently invited conference presenter. He has published two book chapters and over two dozen widely cited articles in premier mathematical journals, including Annals of Probability.

Alina Ene, associate professor of computer science, studies the design and analysis of algorithms, the mathematical aspects of combinatorial optimization topics (such as submodularity and graphs), and their applications to machine learning and computer vision. She is a NSF CAREER Award winner and a recent recipient of a Sloan Research Fellowship in computer science. A frequently invited lecturer, she has published 7 articles in premier journals and over 40 refereed conference articles at algorithmic and machine learning venues, including the Symposium on Theory of Computing and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Carolyn Hodges-Simeon, associate professor of anthropology, bridges the fields of evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and biomedical anthropology to investigate the evolutionary origins of gender differences and how environmental inputs during puberty and adolescence shape the development of boys and girls. Her research, which explores the relationship of attributes like voice, physical condition, and testosterone levels, combines lab-based experiments with fieldwork in Central America and is supported by multiple NSF awards. She has presented extensively at national conferences and colloquia, and has coauthored a book chapter and over 25 articles in leading science publications, including Scientific Reports.

April Hughes, associate professor of religion, is a scholar of medieval Chinese Buddhism whose work uses lenses of history, politics, and art—including Chinese Buddhist manuscripts and mural paintings—to understand religion within broader cultural and social contexts. A past recipient of BU’s East Asia Studies Career Development Professorship, she has authored a recent book, Worldly Saviors and Imperial Authority in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021), as well as articles in leading Asian art journals. She is her department’s director of undergraduate studies, an active member of the Association for Asian Studies and the American Academy of Religion, and a frequent presenter at national conferences on issues of art and religion.

Melissa Kibbe, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, explores the basic building blocks of cognition, using experiments and computational modeling to better understand how children and adults store, organize, and represent information, how they use those representations to guide behavior, and how cognitive systems interact during complex tasks. A frequent conference presenter, she is supported by grants from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and has published over two dozen articles in top psychology journals, including Cognition and Developmental Psychology. She is additionally a past recipient of the CAS Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising & Mentoring.

Dan Li, associate professor of earth and environment, is an expert in environmental fluid mechanics, using a range of tools, including multiscale numerical modeling, high-resolution simulations, and satellite remote sensing to assist in climate modeling and to better understand land-atmosphere interactions and the impact of climate change on urban areas. Supported by numerous grants from the DOE, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and NSF, he is a past recipient of the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers. He has presented at dozens of national and international conferences and authored or coauthored over 90 articles in leading science publications, including the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

Wen Li, associate professor of astronomy, studies space plasma waves around earth, employing satellite observations and computational modeling to create simulations that test notions of wave generation, propagation, and particle interaction. Her recent research has used modeling and simulations to explore the nature of the aurora around Jupiter. She is an NSF CAREER Award winner, an American Geophysical Union Fellow, and a past Sloan Research Fellow in physics, and her work is supported by major grants from NASA and NSF. She has delivered dozens of invited talks at national and international conferences and published eight book chapters and nearly 200 refereed articles in her field’s leading publications, including Geophysical Research Letters.

Kristin Long, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, focuses on the cultural and family aspects of childhood illness and disability and on health disparities in autism diagnosis and treatment. She has additionally worked to expand family-based psychosocial care for children with chronic illnesses to include their siblings. Supported by multiple major grants from the NIH, she received the Society of Pediatric Psychology’s Donald K. Routh Early Career Award last year and was the inaugural recipient of BU’s Graduate Women in Science & Engineering Mentor of the Year award. She has delivered over 60 conference presentations and published over 40 scholarly papers in prestigious psychology journals, including the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

Alexander Sushkov, associate professor of physics, is a scholar of experimental physics, developing new quantum tools for precision measurements and employing them to address key problems in fundamental and applied science. His additional research utilizes nuclear magnetic resonance techniques in the search for dark matter. A past Sloan Research Fellow, he is PI or co-PI on several major grant awards from the Department of Energy, NSF (including a CAREER Award), and the Templeton Foundation. He is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences and has published a book and over 50 refereed articles in premier journals, including Science and Nature Physics.

Read about our newly-tenured faculty

Rachel Abercrombie, CAS, Earth & Environment, is an expert in geophysics. Her scholarly work addresses earthquake mechanics and the use of seismology to measure, model, and further understand the mechanisms involved in earthquakes. She has published numerous widely cited articles in the top geoscience journals and is actively engaged in research funded by the US Geological Service and the National Science Foundation. She has had leadership roles on the Scientific Earthquake Advisory Committee and at the Southern California Earthquake Center and the Seismological Society of America. She was recently elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. She has been promoted to research professor.

Mira Angrist, CAS, World Languages & Literatures, is coordinator of BU’s Hebrew program. She has developed and teaches several language and culture courses and has served as lecturer coordinator in the department to mentor lecturers, facilitated professional development meetings, and raised funds for conference attendance. As an affiliated faculty at the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, she serves on committees and helps organize cultural events and discussions. She is a member of several professional organizations for foreign language teachers and has presented at multiple international conferences. She has published articles on current issues in language pedagogy. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Heather Barrett, CAS, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars on topics in 19th century American literature, Gothic fiction, queer theory, and gender and sexuality studies. She also leads the CAS Writing Center, teaches “Tutoring in the Global University,” and mentors the center’s staff of consultants. In 2021, she was the recipient of CAS’s Award for Distinction in First Year Undergraduate Education, as well as a Mentor of the Year award from the Student Employment Office for her work as Writing Center coordinator. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Jessica Bozek, CAS, Writing Program, teaches classes on a range of topics at the intersection of poetry and politics. She is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, The Tales (2013) and The Bodyfeel Lexicon (2009), as well as several chapbooks, including How to See the Wind (2018) and Squint into the Sun (2010). Winner of the 2012 NOS Book Contest, The Tales is based largely on the “Reading Disaster” seminar she taught at BU from 2007-2012. She also teaches in the Kilachand Honors College and the Cross College Challenge. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

María Datel, CAS, Romance Studies, has been teaching Spanish at BU since 1999, serving as course coordinator for first-year, second-year, and third-year courses. She also created advanced language courses with the themes of “Crime Writing,” “Sailing with Darwin to Patagonia,” and “La Frontera/The Border,” an advanced course for heritage speakers. She has taught the romance studies department’s course on language-teaching methodology, is co-organizer of the Second-Language Learning and Disabilities Conference, and is interested in inclusive pedagogy, working to create curricula that represent all students. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Sean Desilets, CAS, Writing Program, researches and teaches film, religion, queer theory, poststructuralism, and intersectional feminism. He is author of Hermeneutic Humility and the Theology of Cinema: Blind Paul (2017), and his essays have appeared in Camera Obscura, Film Criticism, Literature/Film Quarterly, and Studies in French Cinema. His current book project is titled A Theology of Media: Migration, Expenditure, Revelation. He teaches courses in women’s and gender studies, the Core Curriculum, and the Kilachand Honors College, as well as in the Writing Program. He has been promoted to master lecturer.

Lilian Duséwoir, CAS, Romance Studies, teaches French and Spanish, has served as course coordinator, and has designed language courses focusing on the graphic novel, gender in cinema, and horror in French film. She is a proponent of student-centered pedagogy and inclusive methods, has been recognized for excellence in mentorship and advising, and has been faculty adviser to the Center for Gender, Sexuality, and Activism and to the French Club. She serves as a faculty-in-residence and is a past winner of the Award for Outstanding Service to BU’s Residence Life. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Dora Erdos, CAS, Computer Science, teaches introductory and intermediate-level courses in algorithms and data science, including a new course that she co-developed on the foundations of data science. She has advised hundreds of computer science majors and minors, originally as undergraduate program director, and now as director of undergraduate studies in computer science. She has also been instrumental in curriculum revision, including her leadership of efforts to expand and strengthen the introductory course sequence for computer science majors. She is additionally a reviewer for scholarly journals and a program committee member for academic conferences. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Max Greenberg, CAS, Sociology, teaches courses on political sociology, youth and families, and gender. His most recent book, Twelve Weeks to Change a Life: At Risk Youth in a Fractured State (2019), examines the reorganization of state power around short-term grants and fleeting programs. His research has been published in Social Problems, Sociological Perspectives, and International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Laura Harrington, CAS, Religion, explores the history of Mahayana Buddhism, with a focus on its intersections with politics, art, and material culture. In addition to numerous published journal articles, and book chapters, she is currently working on a book about the impact of covert CIA funding on Buddhism in Cold War America. She additionally teaches as part of CAS’s Core Curriculum program. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Sophie Klein, CAS, Core Curriculum, focuses on the ways in which themes and devices from Greek and Roman theater pervade and influence other ancient and modern art forms. Her projects have explored Horace’s use of dramatic material in the Sermones and Epistles, the chorus in Sophocles’ Ajax, mute characters in the plays of Plautus and Terence, parallels between Roman comedy and modern television sitcoms, and the similarities between the comedic formulas employed by Greek satyr drama and the American cartoon, Animaniacs. She recently authored a guide to Plautus’ Menaechmi as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions series. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Gwen Kordonowy, CAS, Writing Program, teaches interdisciplinary writing seminars that focus on cultural studies, cultural geography, and migration, as well as the Writing Program’s first upper-level undergraduate course, “Public Writing.” She has also taught literature and writing courses in the English department and the Kilachand Honors College, in addition to courses that prepare graduate writing fellows to teach in the program. Her scholarly interests include cultural studies, genre studies, innovation in the classroom, and public writing. She currently serves as associate director of the Writing Program. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Katherine Lakin-Schultz, CAS, Romance Studies, is overall coordinator of the French Language Program, and coordinator of fourth-semester French. She has been integral in shaping curriculum and program objectives. Through her scholarship in Francophone African literature and civilization, she seeks to share the diversity of the Francophone world, focusing on the relationship between West Africa and France in her more advanced courses. She frequently presents on campus and at national conferences on best teaching practices, the effective use of technology, and integrating culture in the language classroom. She recently contributed to the publication of Défi Francophone (2022), a new French language textbook. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Carlos Martinis, CAS, Astronomy, studies the phenomena, processes, and physics in the earth’s high upper atmosphere and ionosphere, connecting to weather and the solar wind. He and collaborators stationed all-sky imagers at “magnetic conjugate” points in the northern and southern hemispheres (points on the earth joined by the same magnetic field line) to obtain powerful data sets for upper atmosphere studies and to provide “ground truth” for NASA satellites. He has been promoted to research associate professor.

Anna Panszczyk, CAS, Writing Program, brings together expertise in writing pedagogy, material culture, art, and children’s literature for a host of writing seminars including “Boston and Children’s Literature,” “American Boyhood,” and “Childhood in Three Disciplines.” Her work has appeared in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly and Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. She co-founded the Writing Program’s Collaborative Mentoring Initiative and has published numerous articles on mentoring. She also teaches in the English department and the BU Hub’s Cross-College Challenge. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Christine Papadakis-Kanaris, CAS, Computer Science, teaches introductory courses in programming and data structures, as well as a graduate-level course that she developed in object-oriented software principles. She has advised hundreds of master’s students in her role as director of master’s studies in computer science. A former software engineer, she is developing a summer bridge program for new master’s students who come from fields other than computer science and is involved in efforts to expand and strengthen the introductory course sequence for computer science majors. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Shilpa Parnami, CAS, World Languages & Literatures, has played a significant role in coordinating and giving shape to BU’s Hindi-Urdu program. She teaches language and culture courses on South Asia and has taught in the BU Hub’s Cross-College Challenge. She focuses extensively on pedagogical issues and has received funding from the BU Center for the Humanities for the Boston Area Pedagogy Conference. She is a leader and facilitator for instructors of Hindi around the US and has been a contributor to several STARTALK programs throughout her career. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Kelly Polychroniou, CAS, Classical Studies, is a teacher of modern Greek and an advocate for Greek culture and pedagogy in America and abroad. She is the co-founder of the Boston University Philhellenes and leader of CAS’s summer study program in Athens. She is particularly interested in contemporary Greek writers and has co-organized an international conference of Greek women authors and translators to be held on campus during the fall 2022 semester. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Randi Rotjan, CAS, Biology, has served as a lecturer and research assistant professor in biology since 2016. She employs an array of active and inquiry-based learning strategies in her courses, particularly related to science communication. An expert in global change biology, she specializes in ecological processes governing marine ecosystem structure. At BU, she is a faculty associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and a faculty affiliate of the Initiative on Cities; externally, she is the co-chief scientist at the Phoenix Islands Protected Area and on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy Caribbean. She has been promoted to research associate professor.

Malavika Shetty, CAS, Writing Program, brings a background in linguistics and global education to writing seminars for English language learners and on topics related to language and society. An expert in teaching with technology, she uses Wikipedia in her classroom to help develop her students’ research and information literacy skills. She has authored an award-winning children’s book, The Sweetest Mango (2012), and her work has been featured in The Kenyon Review, among a range of publications. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Blair Szymczyna, CAS, Chemistry, conducts research at the junction of chemistry, biology, and physics. He teaches the “Principles of General, Organic, and Biochemistry” course series, “Principles of Biochemistry,” “Biochemistry I,” and “Physical Biochemistry” to students interested in pursuing healthcare professions, with the goal of providing the chemical literacy and critical-thinking skills necessary to tackle biochemical problems and communicate results. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Didem Vardar-Ulu, CAS, Chemistry, is an experimental biophysical chemist, who specializes in protein biochemistry and spectroscopy. She is interested in designing and implementing student-centered, interdisciplinary curricula and novel competency-based assessment strategies in lecture and laboratory chemistry courses. Her current chemistry education projects explore the learning benefits of engaging students in reflective assignments and activities around enhancing visual literacy. She is a two-time Biology and Mathematics Educators fellow, and this year received CAS’s Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.

Lesley Yoder, CAS, Writing Program, brings expertise in language acquisition, visual rhetoric, and French to the Writing Program’s full sequence of English language learner (ELL) and non-ELL courses, with writing seminars focused on graphic memoirs, topics of translation, immigration, and creativity and madness. Other research interests include visual literacy and graphic narratives, drawing to learn, 19th century French literature and the figure of the poète maudit, and self-writing and the journal intime. She has been promoted to master lecturer.

Read about our promoted lectures and research professors