{"id":5011,"date":"2017-11-09T09:57:42","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T14:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/?page_id=5011"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:29:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:29:35","slug":"faculty-council","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/about\/faculty-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BU Hillel Faculty Council advises Hillel staff on student and faculty concerns as issues arise throughout the academic year and serves as a liaison cohort to the University. The group meets three times per year (at the end of the fall and spring semesters and at the end of the summer).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Debbie Danielpour-Chapel<\/strong> (Co-Chair) is associate chair of COM\u2019s Department of Film and Television.\u00a0 She writes fiction, libretti, and screenplays and teaches screenwriting, genre studies, and fiction to film adaptation.\u00a0 A recipient of COM\u2019s teacher of the year award in 2011 and 2017, she earned her BA at Harvard University, an MA in film production at San Francisco State University, and an MFA in fiction at the Bennington Writing Seminars.<\/p>\n

\"SteinbuchPearl\"Pearl Steinbuch<\/strong> (Co-Chair) is a professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law at Boston University\u2019s Questrom School of Business. Professor Steinbuch previously served as a professor in the department of business administration at Mount Ida College, a senior manager of corporate development at Oracle Corporation, and in a variety of senior consulting and management roles at American Airlines\/Sabre (AMR Corporation).<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mira Angrist<\/strong> is a Hebrew language and Jewish culture specialist. She is the head of the Hebrew Language Program at Boston University. Angrist has taught at the Modern Languages and Comparative Literature Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University since 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Bigio\"Irving J. Bigio<\/strong> received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Michigan in 1974. From then until 2000 he was a member of the scientific staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico), including service as Leader of the Laser Science and Applications Program (1988-1994). During leaves of absence, he has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Israel, a Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and a Guest Fellow of Pembroke College at the University of Oxford. Since 2001 he has been Professor at Boston University, with appointments in Biomedical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Physics, and Medicine (Gastroenterology). \u00a0Dr. Bigio leads a research program in biomedical optics, focusing on the development of diagnostic optical spectroscopy for clinical applications, on optical monitoring of drug delivery and response to treatment, and on the imaging\/sensing of basic cellular dynamics. \u00a0He is a Fellow of the OSA, the SPIE, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Abigail Gillman<\/strong> is an Associate Professor of Hebrew, German, and Comparative Literature in the Department of World Languages and Literatures. Gillman is an active member of the Jewish Studies faculty, and served as interim director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies in 2016-17. <\/span>She recently published\u00a0A History of German Jewish Bible Translation (<\/em>University of Chicago Press, 2018). This book takes as its starting point the remarkable number of re-translations of the Hebrew Bible produced in Germany\u2014translations into German and Yiddish\u2014from the Haskalah through the twentieth century.\u00a0 The book demonstrates that bible translation in Jewish society was (and still is) used to promote diverse educational, cultural, and linguistic goals. She is currently writing about the parable\/mashal across Jewish Literature, and about \u201cmonstrous motherhood\u201d in recent Israeli (and Jewish) films and memoirs.<\/p>\n

\"\"Dr. Dori Hutchinson<\/strong> has worked at Boston University for 36 years and is currently the Director of Services at the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, an Associate Professor at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Services, the faculty advisor for BU\u2019s ACTIVE MINDS group, and a Faculty in Residence in a first-year dorm, living with 600 first years students.<\/p>\n

Over the last 2 decades, Dr. Hutchinson has worked to develop innovative college mental health services that support the success of students who live with mental health conditions.\u00a0 Her programs and services help students cope with wellness strategies, build skills that promote resiliency and help students thrive, support student-led initiatives in Peer academic coaching for students with mental health conditions and suicide prevention.\u00a0 In addition, Dr. Hutchinson works closely with faculty and staff to enhance their knowledge and strategies in supporting students with empathy and responding to students in distress.\u00a0 She is a firm believer that everyone on campus has a responsibility and a role to play in creating campus cultures to support student mental health.<\/p>\n

\"Jacobs\"Karen Jacobs<\/strong>, EdD, OT, OTR, CPE, FAOTA is a past president and vice president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). Dr. Jacobs is a clinical professor of occupational therapy and the program director of the online post-professional doctorate in occupational therapy (OTD) program at Boston University. She has worked at Boston University for 34 years and has expertise in the development and instruction of online graduate courses. In addition, she is a faculty-in-residence at Boston University where she hosts the weekly Sargent Choice Test Kitchen. In addition to being an occupational therapist, Karen is also a certified professional ergonomist (CPE) and the founding editor-in-chief of the international, interprofessional journal WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation (IOS Press, The Netherlands) and is a consultant in ergonomics, marketing, and entrepreneurship. Dr. Jacobs earned a doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts, a Master of Science at Boston University, and a Bachelor of Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.<\/p>\n

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Leora Halpern Lanz<\/strong> is Assistant Dean, Academics of Boston University\u2019s School of Hospitality Administration and Associate Professor of the Practice, also currently serving as Chair of its Graduate Programs. At Boston University she also serves as Faculty Advisor to the Alpha Kappa Psi business fraternity. Prior to joining Boston University in 2015, Leora served as principal of LHL Communications, worked for nearly ten years as Director of Public Relations & Advertising for the ITT Sheraton Hotels of New York and for five years as Director of Public Relations for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau (now MeetBoston). A native of New York, she volunteered in the IDF when she was 20, brought her children to Israel for their bar and bat mitzvahs, and loves following Israeli chefs on Instagram.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Francine Montemurro<\/strong> <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>was appointed Boston University\u2019s first Ombuds in September 2009. She practices in accordance with<\/span>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>International Ombuds Association (IOA)\u00a0<\/span>Code of Ethics\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Standards of Practice.\u00a0<\/span>She holds a BA from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Binghamton,\u00a0 and a JD from Syracuse University.\u00a0 She established the Office of the University Ombudsman at SUNY Binghamton 1997, and served as the Ombudsman there through 2009. She has extensive experience in alternative dispute resolution, including providing interventions and workshops on mediation and conflict management. She served two terms on the IOA\u00a0 Board of Directors and served on numerous IOA standing committees.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>She is also the ombuds for American Finance Association.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Nancy Moore<\/strong>, Professor of Law and Nancy Barton Scholar, is a nationally recognized leader in
\nthe field of professional responsibility, an area in which she first became interested while
\nworking as a prosecutor in Philadelphia. Before joining Boston University School of Law in
\n1999, Professor Moore taught at Rutgers University School of Law, where she offered the
\nschool\u2019s first course in professional responsibility. Professor Moore has written numerous articles on attorney ethics. Her most recent articles include \u201cForming Start-up Companies: Who\u2019s My Client?\u201d, \u201cThe Future of Law as a Profession,\u201d and \u201cWhy is There No Clear Doctrine of Informed Consent for Lawyers?\u201d She recently published a case book titled Professional Responsibility for Business Lawyers. She was chief reporter for the ABA Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct (\u201cEthics 2000\u201d) and is a former chair and current member of the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination Test Drafting Committee. A member of the Boston Bar Ethics Committee, Professor Moore served twice as chair of the Association of American Law Schools\u2019 Section on Professional Responsibility and was an adviser to the American Law Institute\u2019s Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers. She was the 2021 recipient of the annual ABA Michael Frank Professional Responsibility Award.<\/p>\n

\"\"Roi Orzach <\/strong>is a faculty member in the economics department at Boston University. His research is primarily in microeconomic theory with a focus on reputational concerns and organizational economics. He completed his PhD in economics from MIT and conducted his undergraduate studies at University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

\"\" Abraham (Avi) Seidmann<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>is the Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar of Information Systems, Associate Research Director for Health Analytics and Digital Health at the Questrom Digital Business Institute, and a Senior Fellow of the Boston University Institute for Health System Innovation & Policy.\u00a0<\/span>He is a national expert in the areas of Digital Health, Healthcare Analytics and Telemedicine, and has been leading clinical and economic research in these areas for the past 25 years. His current research interests involve around telemedicine 2.,0, medical applications of AI\/ML, digital therapies, aging in place and loneliness in society. Professor Seidmann is the author of over one hundred research articles, has over 8,000 research citations, and in October 2012 he was named a \u201cDistinguished Fellow<\/em>\u201d by the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Information Systems Society of INFORMS. The award was given to him in recognition of his contributions to the information systems discipline. Professor Seidmann has done pioneering work in Digital Health addressing medical imaging, neurology, ophthalmology, oncology, and dental care. He has consulted and works together with America\u2019s foremost pharmaceutical companies and hospital systems, and earlier in 2020 he got invited to join the New York State Corona Task Force addressing the \u2018safe opening\u2019 policies upstate.\u00a0Prior to joining Boston University, Professor Seidmann has taught at the University of Rochester, Tel-Aviv University, Ben Gurion University, the Technion and at Yale University.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Professor Seidmann is the president of several commercial companies dealing with real estate, management consulting, medical imaging CME, and medical software development.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Amy Shanler<\/strong> has 25 years of experience managing communications activities for multiple organizations and industries, including retail, technology, business, health care, and entertainment. Amy co-directs the award-winning PRLab, the nation\u2019s longest-running, student-led public relations agency, named \u201cBest Training\/Education Program\u201d by PR News\u2019s Agency Elite awards in 2018. In addition, Amy teaches courses on principles of public relations, crisis communications, and media relations.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Starobinski\"David Starobinski<\/strong> is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Systems Engineering at Boston University, with an affiliated appointment in the Department of Computer Science. He is also a Faculty Fellow at the U.S. DoT Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. He received the B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees, all in Electrical Engineering, from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in 1993, 1996, and 1999, respectively.\u00a0 During the academic year 1999-2000, he was a post-doctoral researcher in the EECS department at UC Berkeley, and in 2007-2008 he was an invited professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL (Swiss Institute of Technology in Lausanne).\u00a0 Dr. Starobinski received a US National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award and a US Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career Award for his work on Quality of Service engineering and network modeling.<\/p>\n

\"\"Aaron<\/strong> Stevens <\/strong>is a Senior Lecturer at Boston University, with appointments in the College of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Computer Science, and the Questrom School of Business in the Department of Finance. Aaron’s teaching interests include courses in computer programming, application development, data analytics, derivatives and risk management, personal finance, and programming for investments.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"faculty_poster\"Ari Trachtenberg<\/strong> received his Ph.D. in Computer Science (2000) and M.S. in Computer Science (1996) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), and his S.B. in Mathematics with Computer Science (1994) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Trachtenberg has been involved with Ben Gurion University (Distinguished Scientist Visitor, 2016), TripAdvisor (2016), MIT Lincoln Lab (2015), and the Technion (Visiting Professor, 2014). \u00a0He received the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (2013, 2003), a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2002), and the UIUC Kuck Outstanding Thesis Award (2000).<\/span>\"\"<\/p>\n

Nancy Harrowitz<\/strong> is the Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies and Chair of the\u00a0<\/span>Dept. of Romance Studies at Boston University. Professor Harrowitz\u2019s research and teaching interests include\u00a0 nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italian literature, science and\u00a0 literature, and Holocaust Studies. She is a specialist in Primo Levi\u00a0 and is currently writing a book on Levi, science and Jewish identity.\u00a0 She has published\u00a0<\/span>A<\/em>ntisemitism, Misogyny and the Logic of Cultural\u00a0 Difference: Matilde Serao and Cesare Lombroso<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>(1995), has edited\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>(1995), and co- edited with Barbara Hyams\u00a0Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger\u00a0<\/em>(1996). Her work includes articles on Primo Levi, Giorgio\u00a0 Bassani, Carlo Levi, and Margherita Sarfatti among others.<\/p>\n

\"\"Raviv Murciano-Goroff<\/strong> is an assistant professor of strategy and innovation at the Questrom School of Business. Professor Murciano has been teaching at Boston University since 2019 and previously was a research assistant professor at the Wagner Graduate School at New York University. He has published many research articles in gender equality within the sciences and the tech industry as well as new technology softwares and the effects of privacy laws in security conscientiousness. He has also won the 2019 award for Collaborative Archive & Data Research Environment Fellowship, the 2016 awards for Kauffman Foundation, Dissertation Fellowship, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and both the 2016 and 2015 award for Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at Stanford University.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid H. Webber<\/strong> is the author of the critically-acclaimed book, The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor\u2019s Last Best Weapon, published by Harvard University Press. Webber toured extensively for the book and published op-eds about it in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. It was reviewed or otherwise covered in the New York Review of Books, the Financial Times, Publisher\u2019s Weekly, Bloomberg Radio, CSPAN\u2019s BookTV, Forbes, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, the Harvard OnLabor blog, Cornell University\u2019s ILR Review, Rorotoko, de Volkskrant, Calcalist, Splinter News, The National Review and Dissent. The book was published in Korean in 2020. In 2022, Webber published scholarly articles in the Harvard Business Law Review, the University of Chicago Business Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Business. He has a coauthored paper forthcoming in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business, and Finance and has previously published in the New York University Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, and the Vanderbilt Law Review. He has presented his research at the Harvard Stanford Yale Junior Faculty Forum, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and the American Law and Economics Association conference. His coauthored article, \u201cShareholder Value(s): Index Fund ESG Activism and the New Millennial Corporate Governance,\u201d was selected as one of the top ten corporate and securities law articles of 2020 in a national survey of law scholars by Corporate Practice Commentator. The BU Law Class of 2023 voted him the Mark Pettit Teaching Award winner. He also won the 2023 Dean\u2019s award for excellence in teaching. In 2017 he was awarded the Michael Melton Award for Teaching Excellence. He has also received the Dean\u2019s award for service to the law school in 2020 and 2021. He co-teaches the Pensions and Capital Stewardship course for the Harvard Trade Union program at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Columbia and NYU Law School, where he was an editor for the law review.<\/p>\n

Jodi Luber<\/strong> is associate dean, faculty and student actions, and associate professor of the practice, film and television. She also is co-founder of womesforum.com, a top-10 website for women. After running womensforum.com as a start-up for three years, she secured $17 million in venture funding from Vantage Point Venture Partners. Today, womensforum.com is recognized as one of the pioneering women\u2019s content and advertising networks in the industry. In 2012, womensforum.com was acquired by H.I.G. Growth Partners, a subsidiary of H.I.G. Capital. Prior to starting womensforum.com, Jodi wrote and produced for cable television and was a freelance writer. She earned a Master of Science degree in Reporting on Science and Medicine and a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from Boston University. She is also the founder of thejewishkitchen.com, a website and mobile platform devoted to Jewish recipes and the stories behind the food.<\/p>\n

\"JedJed Handelsman\u00a0Shugerman<\/strong> joined BU Law in 2023 after spending a year as a visiting professor. He received his BA, JD, and PhD (History) from Yale. His book,\u00a0The People\u2019s Courts\u00a0<\/em>(Harvard 2012), traces the rise of judicial elections, judicial review, and the influence of money and parties in American courts. It is based on his dissertation that won the 2009 Cromwell Prize from the American Society for Legal History.\u00a0<\/o:p>He is currently working on two books on the history of executive power and prosecution in America. The first is tentatively titled \u201cA Faithful President: The Founders v. Royalist Originalism,\u201d questioning the Robert Court\u2019s evidence for its theory of unchecked and unbalanced presidential power. This book draws on his articles \u201cVesting\u201d\u00a0(Stanford Law Review<\/em>\u00a0forthcoming Spring 2022), \u201cRemoval of Context\u201d (Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities<\/em>\u00a02022), a co-authored \u201cFaithful Execution and Article II\u201d (Harvard Law Review<\/em>\u00a02019 with Andrew Kent and Ethan Leib), \u201cThe Indecisions of 1789\u201d (forthcoming\u00a0Penn. Law Review\u00a0<\/em>Fall 2022), and \u201cThe Creation of the Department of Justice,\u201d (Stanford Law Review<\/em>\u00a02014). The book offers a new explanation for why a general removal power was not a traditional executive power in early modern America, and it turns out to be a surprising twist (called the \u201cvenality of office\u201d) that helped create the modern nation-state and the modern administrative state.<\/o:p>The next book project is \u201cThe Prosecutor Politicians: Race, War, and the Causes of Mass Incarceration,\u201d focusing on California Governor Earl Warren, his presidential running mate Thomas Dewey, the Kennedys, World War II and the Cold War, the war on crime, the growth of prosecutorial power, and its emergence as a stepping stone to electoral power for ambitious politicians in the mid-twentieth century. One of the most significant causes of mass incarceration is that American prosecutors doubled their rates of turning arrests into prosecutions in the late twentieth century.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jonathan Katz<\/strong> teaches branding, marketing and communications courses in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Boston University\u2019s School of Hospitality Administration. He also serves as the faculty liaison for the BU Chapter of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the School\u2019s Parent Advisory Council. In addition, as a partner at Acom Healthcare, Mr. Katz has worked closely with a broad range of clients within the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device markets to bring their corporate, product and service brands to life in a compelling manner. With more than 37 years of industry experience, he has extensive experience in leading brand workshops, strategic development sessions and advisory boards that are dynamic and highly interactive. Mr. Katz has been committed to helping clients cultivate, actualize and evolve positive brand experiences that are meaningfully differentiated and customer-focused. His pragmatic approach puts strategy first and is guided by understanding the market and prioritized needs of key constituents. Whether launching a game-changing innovation or helping an existing product capture additional share, he is focused on creating persuasive branding that resonates with audiences, shifts behavior and builds enduring loyalty. He has a keen interest in the intersection of healthcare and hospitality and firmly believes that there is an opportunity to develop optimal brand experiences based on shared objectives. Mr. Katz is a member of the Public Relations Society of America, New England-Israel Business Council, and the Forbes Boston Business Council. He also served for four years on the Washington University National Public Affairs Advisory Council and has guest lectured at Boston University and Northeastern University. He is also a licensed Justice of the Peace in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Before joining Acom Healthcare, he was a co-founder of Braithwaite & Katz, a firm dedicated to providing strategic public relations counsel. Mr. Katz holds a B.A. in Sociology from Ithaca College and a Master\u2019s degree in Communications from Boston University.<\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Creighton <\/strong>is a scholar with specializations in German literature and modern Jewish culture. He is currently at work on preparing a book manuscript based on his doctoral dissertation, entitled \u201cThe Hidden Father and the Problem of Generations in Luther, Freud, and Kafka.\u201d His writings have appeared in such publications as\u00a0<\/span>Religion and the Arts, Glossolalia, The Encyclopedia of The Bible and Its Reception, Sightings, The Journal of Religion, Religious Studies Review<\/em>, and\u00a0<\/span>Reading Religion<\/em>. Creighton has been an instructor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Elmhurst College, Dartmouth College, and the University of Chicago. He began teaching at Boston University in Fall 2021 and has led courses on Western culture, Holocaust representation, and European and American rhetorical traditions. He also serves as an Undergraduate Mentor through BU\u2019s College Access & Student Success initiative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BU Hillel Faculty Council advises Hillel staff on student and faculty concerns as issues arise throughout the academic year and serves as a liaison cohort to the University. The group meets three times per year (at the end of the fall and spring semesters and at the end of the summer).\u00a0 Debbie Danielpour-Chapel (Co-Chair) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13863,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13863"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5011"}],"version-history":[{"count":53,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11534,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5011\/revisions\/11534"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/hillel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}