Faculty Tenure and Promotions on the Charles River Campus
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
President Brown and I are delighted to announce the promotion of 24 members of our faculty on the Charles River Campus to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure and 2 to the rank of Associate Professor, non-tenure track.
Each year, these promotions and awards of tenure mark an especially proud moment for the BU community, as we’ve had the pleasure of watching these talented women and men develop from promising junior faculty into scholars and teachers of national impact and recognition. In fields as diverse as the social and health sciences, information systems, musicology, mathematics, marketing, and communication, these faculty members have fulfilled the promise we saw in them as they began their careers at Boston University. They are having demonstrable impact in their disciplines and excelling as teachers in our classrooms and laboratories. We continue to see great things ahead for them and are pleased they have chosen BU as the institution at which launch their independent careers:
Marié Abe, CFA, Musicology & Ethnomusicology, explores the relationship between music, social justice, and human rights, focusing her research on sound studies, listening practices, street performance, and the ways in which music is used by marginalized or politically oppressed groups. She has published a book this year, Resonances of Chindon-ya: Sound, Space, and Sociality in Contemporary Japan, authored a book chapter and numerous articles and reviews, and co-produced an NPR radio documentary. She additionally serves as Director for Undergraduate Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences’ American and New England Studies Program. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Sudha Arunachalam, Sargent, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, specializes in early language development, with specific focus on verb learning and children’s ability to extract meanings from everyday interactions. The recipient of numerous grants from the NIH and NSF, she has authored dozens of widely cited journal articles and book chapters, is an elected Fellow of the Psychonomic Society, and is Director of the Child Language Lab within SAR. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Michael Birenbaum Quintero, CFA, Musicology & Ethnomusicology, examines world music cultures and pop music and culture, concentrating his research on the music of the black inhabitants of Colombia’s Pacific coast region. He is the author of a forthcoming book, Rites, Rights, and Rhythms: A Genealogy of Musical Meaning in Colombia’s Black Pacific (2018), two book chapters, and numerous reviews and invited presentations at major colleges and international conferences. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Patricia Cortes, Questrom, Markets, Public Policy & Law, focuses dually on gender economics and the economics of immigration and migration, investigating the impact of cross-national migration on national economies and the economic factors shaping the careers of highly educated female professionals. A frequently invited presenter, she has published 10 articles in leading business and economics journals. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Joanna Davidson, CAS, Anthropology, specializes in cultural anthropology, centering her research on the Diola peoples of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa through lenses of economic development, agriculture, gender relations, inter-ethnic conflict, and the politics of storytelling. She has authored a critically acclaimed book, Sacred Rice: An Ethnography of Identity, Environment, and Development in Rural West Africa (2016), co-edited another, and published numerous articles and reviews in top scholarly journals. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
David Glick, CAS, Political Science, explores American politics, with particular emphasis on political institutions (law and the courts), federalism, decision-making, and public policy questions. He has published extensively in the nation’s premier political science journals, chaired the Law and Courts section of the New England Political Science Association this past year, and won several awards for his writing from the American Political Science Association. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Phillip Haberkern, CAS, History, specializes in religious and intellectual history in late medieval and early modern Europe, focusing specifically on German and Czech religious reform movements. A past winner of BU’s Gitner Family Undergraduate Teaching Prize and the Templeton Award for Student Advising, he has published a book, Patron Saint and Prophet: Jan Hus in the Bohemian and German Reformations (2016), along with four book chapters and several articles in scholarly journals. He has additionally held prestigious fellowships with the BU Center for the Humanities, the University of Southern California, and the University of St. Andrews. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Nathan Jones, SED, Special Education, focuses on teacher quality and development and school improvement, researching measurement strategies for teacher effectiveness in evaluation systems. The recipient of more than $8.3 million in grant support for his research as PI, co-PI, or co-investigator, he has authored eight book chapters and a dozen articles in premier field journals on special and general education teacher effectiveness. He is an editor of The Elementary School Journal and serves on the editorial board at The Journal of Teacher Education. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Hiroaki Kaido, CAS, Economics, specializes in econometrics, specifically microeconometrics, applying innovative statistical models to better dissect economic data, understand anomalies, and forecast future trends. A frequent presenter at national conferences, he has authored a book chapter and eight articles in leading economics journals and secured significant grant support from the NSF for his research. He is additionally a past winner of the BU Graduate Economics Association’s Advisor of the Year award. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Jessica Kramer, Sargent, Occupational Therapy, researches measurement and self-advocacy interventions for young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, working to enable their participation and learning in public school settings. She has secured consistent federal and foundation grant funding to support her research and published 15 book chapters and 53 scholarly articles in the highest ranked rehabilitative sciences journals. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Brian Kulis, ENG, Electrical & Computer Engineering, specializes in computer vision applications, devising new methods to make it easier to analyze large-scale data and helping to resolve core problems in machine learning, including metric learning, content-based search, clustering, and online learning. A past NSF CAREER Award winner and recipient of BU’s inaugural Peter J. Levin Career Development Assistant Professorship, he has published nine book chapters and nine articles in important engineering journals. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
S. Rebecca Martin, CAS, Greek Art, focuses on the intersection of the Greek and Phoenician worlds, with emphasis on ethnicity, identity, and culture. The co-director of a major archaeological excavation at Tel Dor (in modern-day Israel), she is the author of an acclaimed recent book, The Art of Contact: Comparative Approaches to Greek and Phoenician Art (2017), five book chapters, and five articles in leading archaeology and architecture journals. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Bobak Nazer, ENG, Electrical & Computer Engineering, specializes in information theory and wireless communication, developing new techniques for distributed, reliable computation over networks and working recently to apply information theory concepts to neuroscience. He is a past NSF CAREER Award winner, has earned special recognition for his writing from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and last year received his college’s Dean’s Catalyst Award and his department’s Faculty Service Award. He has co-authored a book chapter and published 11 articles in premier information theory journals. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Joshua Pederson, CGS, Humanities, specializes in trauma studies and religion and literature, exploring issues of pain and atonement in religious, modernist, and contemporary literature. A regular presenter at major scholarly conferences, he has authored a book, The Forsaken Son: Child Murder and Atonement in American Literature (2016), a book chapter, and numerous articles and book reviews in leading scholarly publications. He is a past recipient of the James Phelan Award for best essay of the year from the journal of the International Society for the Study of Narrative. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Russell Powell, CAS, Philosophy, works in the areas of medical ethics and philosophy of biology, examining problems in evolutionary theory, as well as the metaphysical and epistemological dimensions of debates in contemporary bioethics. He has received numerous major federal and foundation grants and fellowships supporting his research, has co-edited a book, and has published five book chapters and 23 articles in prestigious philosophy and bioethics journals. He is currently Associate Editor for Life Sciences for the journal Philosophy & Technology. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Zachary Rossetti, SED, Special Education, studies the social belonging and participation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), focusing on how educators and family members can facilitate friendship opportunities between students with and without IDD. A frequent conference presenter, he has published five book chapters and 15 articles in leading scholarly journals and has received significant foundation grant funding to support his research. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Kate Saenko, CAS, Computer Science, specializes in machine learning, concentrating on the development of new systems to enhance vision and language understanding. A recipient of several active federal grants supporting her research into artificial intelligence, she has published four articles in leading computer science journals, serves as program chair for the 2020 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, and last year received the Most Innovative Solution award, alongside her students, from the IEEE in its Large-Scale Activity Recognition Challenge. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Nachiketa Sahoo, Questrom, Information Systems, specializes in machine learning, integrating computer science, social science, and statistics to explore personalized information filtering and the extraction of valuable data from social media content. A past Reidy Family Career Development Professor and Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow, he has co-authored four articles in premier journals and delivered more than 30 invited conference presentations. In 2014, he received the Best Paper award at the Workshop on Information Technologies and Systems. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Konstantinos Spiliopoulos, CAS, Mathematics & Statistics, researches probability, stochastic processes, and statistics, exploring the application of stochastic partial differential equations to challenges in the sciences, engineering, and finance. A past NSF CAREER Award winner, he is an elected member of the Center for Information & Systems Engineering, a past Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellow, and a frequently invited lecturer. He has published two book chapters and 34 articles in important mathematics journals. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Cara Stepp, Sargent, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, specializes in the treatment of voice, speech, and swallowing disorders, integrating speech science, computer science, and engineering – among several disciplines – to improve diagnosis and rehabilitation of communication-based challenges. She is a current NSF CAREER Award recipient, with multiple active federal grants supporting her research, and is a past Peter Paul Career Development Professor. A frequent presenter at conferences, she has published two book chapters and more than 50 articles in science and health journals. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Monic Sun, Questrom, Marketing, examines the optimization of marketing via digital technology, focusing on the impact of online search, digital media and consumer-generated content, mobile campaigns, and social networks on firms’ advertising strategies. She has published nine articles in premier marketing journals, delivered more than 60 invited talks and presentations, and serves as an associate editor forInformation Economics and Policy and on the editorial boards of Marketing Science and Customer Needs and Solutions. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Mina Tsay-Vogel, COM, Mass Communication, focuses on the effects of entertainment and social media on individuals’ emotions, cognition, and behaviors, drawing from theories in communication and social psychology. She has published 22 articles in high-impact communication journals and delivered dozens of invited conference presentations. She serves as co-director of the Communication Research Center at BU and is a past recipient of the Division of Media Studies’ Teacher of the Year Award and her college’s Faculty Advisor of the Year Award. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Tammy Vigil, COM, Mass Communication, studies political campaign rhetoric, with a current focus on speeches at national nominating conventions, including orations by spouses of presidential nominees. She has published four acclaimed books, including, most recently, Connecting with Constituents: Identification Building and Blocking in Contemporary National Convention Addresses (2015), along with two book chapters and four articles in scholarly journals. A frequent conference presenter, she has more than 40 media appearances and is a past recipient of the Wrange-Baskerville Award from the National Communication Association. She has been promoted to Associate Professor.
Yoon Sun Yang, CAS, Korean and Comparative Literature, specializes in modern Korean literature, with additional expertise in gender studies, literary translation, film, and graphic novels. She is the author of a recent book, From Domestic Women to Sensitive Young Men: Translating the Individual in Early Colonial Korea (2017), has published two articles in literary journals, and is editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Modern Korean Literature. She is a frequent conference presenter and has delivered six invited lectures. She has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Jason Yust, CFA, Music Theory, researches topics in mathematical music theory, music analysis, and music perception and cognition, with current emphasis on musical structure across different modalities in tonal music. He is the founder of the Mathematics of Music Analysis Group in the Society for Music Theory and has authored seven articles in leading music theory journals, along with a book chapter, numerous essays, reviews, and a forthcoming book now in production. He has been promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure.
Guanglan Zhang, MET, Computer Science, studies health informatics, focusing specifically on the development of computational algorithms in biomedical and health sciences. The co-inventor of two patents and a key participant on two current grants, she has published 51 articles in biomedical and bioinformatics journals, along with seven book chapters, and has developed more than 15 online computational systems. She has been promoted to Associate Professor.
Please join us in congratulating these exceptionally talented rising scholars, teachers, and researchers on their recent promotions. The standards of academic excellence across a range of fields that they – and you – continue to achieve herald an incredibly bright future for Boston University as both a research leader and an intellectual home for some of the nation’s finest faculty.
Faculty Tenure and Promotions on the Charles River Campus – 5.17.18