BU Today: Boston University Names Seven Junior Faculty Career Development Professors
Excerpt from BU Today | By: Rich Barlow | October 3, 2025 | Photo: Jackie Ricciardi. Chao photo courtesy of Wei-Lun Chao. Liu photo courtesy of Hongwan Liu
Deepti Ghadiyaram is a CDS Faculty Fellow and was named Moorman-Simon Career Development Professorships, endowed by BU trustee Ruth Moorman (CAS’88, Wheelock’89,’09) and her husband, Sheldon Simon.
Technology is the through line connecting the work of the seven scholars who have been named this year’s Boston University Career Development Professors—“talented junior educators emerging as future leaders within their respective fields.” Most of the recipients’ research involves artificial intelligence; all study how digital technology affects our lives or the physical universe we inhabit.
“Supporting our faculty at every stage of their careers is central to Boston University’s success,” says Gloria Waters, University provost and chief academic officer. “Our Career Development Professorships not only recognize the extraordinary promise of these emerging scholars, but also reflect our commitment to recruiting and retaining world-class academic talent. By investing in their research and teaching, and thanks to the generosity of our donors, we are strengthening BU’s role as a global leader in innovation and discovery.”
Deepti Ghadiyaram, a CAS assistant professor of computer science, with appointments in the College of Engineering and the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, studies machine learning and computer vision (AI that allows computers to derive information from images and videos). “One of her hallmark projects,” writes nominator George Kollios, a CAS professor and chair of computer science, “aims to advance sign language recognition for low-resource languages,” with potential to improve access and interactive learning for deaf and hard-of-hearing communities. “Since joining our department, Deepti has established herself as a visionary scholar whose work exemplifies the power and promise of interdisciplinary research,” Kollios says. “These projects reflect a broader research agenda dedicated to building safe, interpretable, and robust computer vision systems with positive societal impact.”