Introducing our latest Institute Fellows
The Hariri Institute is excited to announce our latest cohort of Junior Faculty Fellows and Graduate Student Fellows! These fellows are using computational tools to answer research questions in law, biostatistics, astronomy, engineering, social work, economics, marketing, and more. The Institute supports these computing and data-driven researchers by contributing to their research developments and connecting them with one another to lead Institute-sponsored events. Learn more about them, below.
Ana Fiszbein, Biology, CAS: “Ana discovered thousands of previously underestimated hybrid exons that can serve as transcription start or splicing sites in different isoforms. Her findings offer a way to understand how transcription initiation and splicing are co-regulated across tissues and species during evolution,” wrote Kimberly McCall, Professor and Chair of Biology.
Scott Hirst, Law, LAW: “Scott demonstrates a strong commitment to computing-enabled, data-driven, interdisciplinary research that has clear applications to public policy in his field of corporate and securities law. His work involves integrating corporate governance, voting, and financial data to analyze and improve laws and regulations governing corporations,” wrote Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Dean and Professor of Law.
Jihye Jeon, Economics, CAS: “Since arriving at BU, she has developed a new paper studying consumer choice of pharmaceutical insurance under Medicare Part D. She provides a new representation of behavioral bias that leads consumers to make non-optimal choices and measures the effect of this empirically,” wrote Marc Rysman, Professor of Economics.
Garrett Johnson, Marketing, QST: “He brings experience working with digital companies (including Google, Yahoo! and Facebook) and an understanding of the issues central to online advertising and privacy, which have become increasingly important today,” wrote Shuba Srinivasan, Adele and Norman Barron Professor of Management and Marketing Department Chair.
Laura Lewis, Biomedical Engineering, ENG: “By integrating computational techniques with the systems neuroscience of sleep, her research promises to make important new insights in the neuroscience of the human brain, and ultimately the clinical impact of neuroimaging techniques for understanding brain health,” wrote John A. White, Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering.
Eshed Ohn-Bar, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ENG: “He heads the Human-to-Everything (H2X) laboratory. He is currently focusing on data-driven perception, planning, and control systems for safety-critical applications in transportation, including autonomous driving and assisted navigation for people with visual impairments,” said W. Clem Karl, Professor and Chairman of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Prasad Patil, Biostatistics, SPH: “Dr. Patil is an outstanding junior faculty member who leads novel, high impact research at the interface of machine learning, statistics, and translational medicine,” wrote Josée Dupuis, Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics.
Afra Feyza Akyurek, Computer Science, CAS: “Feyza’s current research focus is on the problem of machine learning when there are no/few annotated data for a particular task. Her approach focuses on training the machine learning model with related and augmented examples that will allow the model trained with few/no training examples to generalize to unseen examples for the task,” wrote Abraham Matta, Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science.
Munib Hasnain, Biomedical Engineering, ENG: “For his dissertation research, Munib is taking aim at a powerful and increasingly influential theoretical model that might explain how the brain controls how information is routed between neural circuits in different parts of the brain,” wrote Mary J. Dunlop, Associate Professor & Associate Chair for Graduate Studies of the Biomedical Engineering Department.
Chen Ling, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ENG: “Her research is about combining Data Science and psychology to better understand and mitigate online abuse such as harassment and hateful speech. In her research, Chen combines aspects from qualitative research (e.g., thematic analysis) with computational methods like machine learning and word embeddings for natural language processing,” wrote Gianluca Stringhini, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Hilary Miller, Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences, SAR: “Hilary is currently leading a data‐driven collaborative project to determine the primary neural characteristics of stuttering in a large data set that combines previously collected neuroimaging data in children and adults who stutter, across multiple imaging sites,” wrote Cara Stepp, Professor in Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences.
Devlin Moyer, Bioinformatics, CAS: “He aims to generate a new approach for creating cancer genome-scale metabolic models (GSMMs) to identify groups of patients with similar metabolic disruptions and identify novel cancer subtypes,” wrote Thomas Tullius, Director of the Graduate Program in Bioinformatics.
Adam Samuels, Astronomy, CAS: “Adam found a remarkable, and unexpected, result: the satellite galaxies appear to have made very few orbits around their host galaxies, compared to the expectations of standard galaxy formation theory,” wrote Paul Withers, Director of Graduate Studies in the Astronomy Department.
Adrianna Spindle-Jackson, Social Work, SSW: “Adrianna’s research interests center broadly on improving the housing, health, and social and economic outcomes of youth and young adults who are homeless or housing insecure or are members of other marginalized groups,” wrote Daniel P. Miller, Associate Professor and Director of the PhD Program in Social Work.
Hao Wang, Electrical and Computer Engineering, ENG: “His project focuses on Multiscale, Multimodal computational microscopy in highly scattering media by synergistically combining novel computational physics models and advanced deep learning techniques to break the physical tradeoffs in acquisition speed, spatial resolution, penetration depths, and contrast,” wrote Lei Tian, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Jianing Wang, Biostatistics, SPH: “She is developing novel statistical approaches to answering important questions for substance use disorders using large administrative datasets. This highly computational work requires significant statistical and computational innovation and is highly impactful in public health practice and policy,” wrote Laura F White, Director of Graduate Studies in Biostatistics at the Boston University School of Public Health.