Faculty, Staff, and Students to be Recognized with 2025 SPH Awards
Urmi Phanse, Chris Louis, Nicole Huberfeld, Mary Murphy-Phillips, David Jernigan, and Anita DeStefano are among those who will receive awards at convocation. Congratulations to the members of the School of Public Health community who will be honored with awards at the 2025 SPH Convocation!
25 Years of Innovate@BU’s New Venture Competition Showcases Decades of BU Innovation
The Social Impact Track’s second-place winner of $10,000 was Culinary Commons, founded by Andrea Catania (MET’24). Culinary Commons builds public kitchens to foster a sense of community in urban areas like Boston, focusing on food justice and social cohesion.
Proposed SNAP Cuts: The Health and Economic Impact on Families With Young Children
Using data from 2007–2015, we studied how reductions or terminations in SNAP benefits — triggered by modest income increases — affected families with children under the age of 4. We focused on economic hardships (such as food and energy insecurity, unstable housing, and forgone health or dental care), as well as caregiver and child health.
Prof. Williams Joins BU Initiative on Cities’ 2025 Public Impact Scholars Cohort
Dr. Darien Alexander Williams, assistant professor of macro practice at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), was selected to join 20 other cutting-edge BU researchers as the 2025 cohort of BU Initiative on Cities’ Public Impact Scholars program. Hailing from six colleges and 13 departments across the university, Williams and his cohort will participate in programming that builds the skills and knowledge necessary to translate their research into critical policy work with consequential societal impact.
2025 Civic Tech Hackathon Breaks Record in Attendance and Creativity
On February 22-23, 2025, Boston University’s Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences transformed into a hub of innovation for the 2025 Civic Tech Hackathon. In record turnout for the event’s third year, 190 students from 40 teams gathered with a shared mission: to address pressing community issues through technology. As the largest national civic tech hackathon, students from diverse academic and technical backgrounds collaborated in teams, all vying for over $7,000 in prizes.
Special Legislative Commission to Study and Provide Recommendations to Update and Clarify the “Residential Landlord and Tenant Act”: 2-24-2025
Loretta Lees to Receive the 2025 Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs Award
We are pleased to recognize Dr. Loretta Lees with the 2025 Contribution to the Field of Urban Affairs award. Dr. Lees is an urban geographer and urbanist. She is the Director of the Initiative on Cities and a Professor of Sociology at Boston University. Before joining the faculty at Boston University, she was on the faculty at Leicester University and King’s College London in the UK. Dr. Lees is a fellow of Academia Europaea, the UK Higher Education Academy, the Academy of Social Science, and the Royal Society for the Arts. She is internationally known for her research on gentrification, urban regeneration, global urbanism, urban policy, urban public space, architecture, and urban social theory. Her contributions to urban affairs span scholarship, public engagement, and education. She is co-author or co-editor of more than seventeen books. She has also published more than sixty articles and more than forty chapters. Dr. Lees is the co-organizer of the Boston Urban Salon. She previously co-organized The Urban Salon and was Chair of the London Housing Panel. Dr. Lees has mentored over 25 doctoral students and supervised the work of several visiting scholars at universities where she was a faculty member.
Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellows Begin Work
Two mechanical engineering faculty members are undertaking curriculum projects with the support of the new Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellows program. Associate Professor Scott Bunch (ME, MSE) is leading a review of the course sequence for graduate student teachers, while Master Lecturer Caleb Farny (ME) is working to tie the engineering curriculum to public infrastructure challenges in the Boston area.
Urban Refuge Alumni Reunion Highlights Careers and Impact
On November 18, the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies hosted a career networking roundtable as part of Professor Dr. Noora Lori’s Urban Refuge Reunion Initiative, bringing together alumni from the 2016 Forced Migration and Human Trafficking class with the 2024 cohort. Six distinguished alumni—Meaghan Delaney, Sara Lopez Gonzalez, Ellie Hitt, Raina Kadavil, Victoria Kelberer, and Taylor Resteghini—shared how they transformed a classroom innovation into a lasting humanitarian initiative.
‘He made you feel seen’: Tom Menino remembered for his all-consuming love of Boston
As Boston marks the tenth anniversary of former Mayor Tom Menino’s death by lighting City Hall green Wednesday night — an homage to the color Menino used on signs and buttons in innumerable campaigns — the vast political network he left behind is reflecting on his life and legacy.