Promotions to Full Professor on the Charles River Campus
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
I am delighted to announce the promotion of 19 members of our Charles River Campus faculty to the rank of Full Professor at Boston University.
Great faculty are the lifeblood of successful institutions. And Boston University is fortunate to have some of the very best across our schools, colleges, and academic units. The individuals we recognize today have emerged as leaders in their respective areas of research and in their classrooms and laboratories. They are forging multidisciplinary collaborations to discover solutions for some of our most pressing challenges, authoring foundational texts that help advance our understanding of the world, and working to inspire a new generation of young scholars and professionals. In doing so, they exemplify each day the excellence and impact of Boston University’s talented academic community. We are proud to count them as members of our faculty and are excited to see them reach this significant milestone here at BU:
Sean Andersson, ENG, Mechanical Engineering, specializes in dynamics and controls, using single particle tracking, scanning probe microscopy, and robotics to advance new applications for technologies in real-world environments and living systems. A recognized leader in the field of atomic force microscopy, he is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and past National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award winner and has published two book chapters and nearly 100 articles in premier scholarly journals, including International Journal of Molecular Sciences and Applied Physics Letters. His current work is supported by major grants from the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Linda Doerrer, CAS, Chemistry, designs, studies, and synthesizes novel inorganic compounds that can improve sustainability by reducing the waste of industrial transformations and the impact of harmful algal blooms. A past Fulbright Fellow and recipient of the BU Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program’s Outstanding Mentor Award, she has published a book chapter and over 70 widely-cited research papers in leading chemical research journals. She is a member of the editorial advisory board of Inorganic Chemistry, and her current research is sponsored through grants from the NSF and the American Chemical Society.
Abigail Gillman, CAS, Hebrew, German & Comparative Literature, is a scholar of Jewish literature and culture of the German-speaking world, with special focus on Kafka, Freud, Mendelssohn, Schnitzler, Israeli film, and Holocaust memory and monuments. She has published two books, including most recently, A History of German Jewish Bible Translation (2018), six book chapters, four book reviews, and numerous essays – among them a 2015 work on philosopher Martin Buber, which received the Egon Schwarz Prize for Outstanding Essay in German-Jewish Studies.
Vivek Goyal, ENG, Electrical & Computer Engineering, specializes in signal processing, computational imaging, information theory, and decision making. His most recent research has centered on computational periscopy, using a standard camera and advanced mathematical modeling and computational techniques. A recognized leader in the field of single-photon image analysis, he is an IEEE Fellow and past NSF CAREER Award winner, holds 19 patents, and has published two books, four book chapters, and dozens of widely-cited papers and articles in leading journals, including Science and Nature.
Cheryl Knott, CAS, Anthropology, examines orangutan and great ape physiology and behavior, focusing on how primates cope with environmental changes – particularly those resulting in fluctuating food availability. She is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, has authored dozens of book chapters and journal articles chronicling her research, and is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences and other forums on orangutans, great apes, and rainforest conservation. In 2017, she received the Orang Utan Republik Foundation’s Pongo Environmental Award for ongoing conservation efforts in Borneo, Indonesia.
Mark Kramer, CAS, Mathematics & Statistics, specializes in mathematical neuroscience, incorporating techniques from network theory, differential equations, and statistics, among several fields, to produce new discoveries in the study of epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. A current NSF CAREER Award recipient, he has secured significant additional funding from NIH to support his work and has been championed for identifying a dynamical mechanism that controls the termination of seizures in humans. He has published a book, a book chapter, and dozens of articles in top scientific and mathematical journals, and is an editorial board member at the Journal of Neuroscience Methods.
Timothy Longman, CAS, Political Science; Pardee, International Relations, focuses on state-society relations in Africa, looking in particular at human rights, transitional justice, religion and politics, gender and politics, and the politics of race and ethnicity. He is the director of the Pardee School’s Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs (CURA) and, alongside seven book chapters, has authored two award-winning books, including most recently, Memory and Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda (2017), which received the Best Book in African Politics award from the African Politics Conference Group.
Cathal Nolan, CAS, History, is a military historian whose work chronicles multiple eras of armed conflict – and subsequent technological and societal advances – from 11th century religious battles to World War II. He is the director of BU’s International History Institute and has written three acclaimed books, the most recent of which, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (2017), received the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military History. A frequent international lecturer, he has been interviewed on CBS Radio, Radio Free Europe, Newstalk (Ireland), BBC Mundo, and PBS, and consults on military history for thePBS series NOVA.
D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, CGS, Rhetoric, specializes in communication and motherhood studies, researching various ways in which contemporary motherhood is constructed rhetorically through popular culture. Recognized among the formative voices in her field, she has published seven books, examining subjects from reproductive choice to the influence of celebrity culture on body perception. Last year, she served as lead co-editor for the Routledge Companion to Motherhood. She has additionally written more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries and presents regularly at national and international conferences.
Merav Opher, CAS, Astronomy, combines modeling, model applications, and simulations to explore how plasma and magnetic effects reveal themselves in astrophysical and space physics environments – in particular, the interaction of stars, the solar system, and extra-solar planets with surrounding media. Supported with major grants from NASA, she is a past recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), has published numerous papers in top field journals, and is an editor for Geophysical Research Letters.
Gael Orsmond, SAR, Occupational Therapy, is a developmental and clinical psychologist who researches the development of youth and adults with autism, with particular focus on family, social, community, and school contexts. She is Sargent College’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and serves on the editorial boards ofAutism: The International Journal of Research and Practice and American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. She has published four book chapters and dozens of journal articles, and her current research is funded by the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
Zhongjun Qu, CAS, Economics, studies econometrics, researching a variety of topics including structural changes in one or more equations, estimates of the long memory parameter in the presence of level shifts, and adjustments to improve the finite sample performance of stationarity and cointegration tests. His expertise spans series, cross-section, and applied econometrics, and he has published numerous articles in premier economics journals. His teaching and mentoring have been recognized with the BU Graduate Economic Association’s Advisor of the Year award.
Andrew Shenton, STH, Music, is a choral conductor, organist, and internationally recognized scholar of composers Arvo Pärt and Olivier Messiaen. He is James R. Houghton Scholar of Sacred Music in the School of Theology (STH), directs the Master of Sacred Music degree jointly offered by STH and the College of Fine Arts, and directs STH’s Religion and the Arts Initiative. He has recorded multiple award-winning CDs and published nine book chapters, four encyclopedia entries, and three acclaimed books, including 2018’s Arvo Pärt’s Resonant Texts: Choral and Organ Music 1956-2015. He additionally serves as artistic director of the Boston Choral Ensemble.
Nancy Smith-Hefner, CAS, Anthropology, is a linguist and anthropologist whose research explores language, gender, religion, and sexuality studies in Southeast Asia, most recently focusing on the experiences of Muslim Javanese youth. A frequent presenter at international conferences, she has published extensively in leading scholarly journals and authored or co-authored three books, including 2019’s Islamizing Intimacies: Youth, Sexuality, and Gender in Contemporary Indonesia. Current projects include a volume due out later this year on gender, education, and global delays in marriage and a handbook on gender in Southeast Asia from Routledge.
Ian Sue Wing, CAS, Earth & Environment, uses econometric techniques to study how energy systems affect climate change and how climate change, in turn, affects agricultural systems, water sources, and technological change. He is a past Rhodes Scholar, has received numerous federal, state, and private grants to support his climate research, and has published two books, nine book chapters, and dozens of articles in leading journals of economics, science, and technology.
Maciej (Matthew) Szczesny, CAS, Mathematics & Statistics, works at the nexus of geometry, algebraic geometry, representation theory, and mathematical physics, particularly in the areas of vertex and Hall algebras and the algebraic geometry over F1. His most recent work is in the new area of factorization algebras. A regular speaker at international conferences (including a lecture series he led at Trinity College in Dublin), he is considered among the discipline’s leading innovators for seminal contributions in field theory and gauge theory and has published over 25 articles in premier mathematics journals.
Evimaria Terzi, CAS, Computer Science, specializes in data mining, focusing on algorithms for extracting useful knowledge from massive datasets. A well-known authority on privacy in social networks (the subject of a book she co-authored), she has published dozens of widely cited conference papers and journal articles, received a prestigious Microsoft Faculty Fellowship and IBM Outstanding Award, and secured several grants from Google, Yahoo, and NSF, including a CAREER Award, to support her data collection research.
Alice Tseng, CAS, History of Art & Architecture, is a scholar of Japanese art and architecture, with particular focus on the 19th and 20th centuries – from institutional buildings, collections, and exhibitions to the role of the visual arts in cultural transformation. She has received prominent fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Gallery of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Foundation, among others, and published three books, including most recently, Modern Kyoto: Building for Ceremony and Commemoration, 1868-1940 (2018). Her current research examines the visual and spatial representations of Japan’s modern emperors.
Beth Warren, Wheelock, Language & Literacy, is an expert on designed learning environments at the intersection of culture, language, and learning in disciplinary literacies (including the sciences and humanities), with the goal of expanding possibilities for children in historically marginalized communities. Widely recognized among the field’s pioneering voices, she is director of Wheelock’s Earl Center for Learning & Innovation and has published three books and dozens of journal articles and book chapters on human learning. Her research has been supported extensively through grants from the NSF, US Department of Education, Ford Foundation, and most recently, the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
Please join me in congratulating these wonderfully talented colleagues on their recent promotions and in wishing them success in their new ranks. It is thanks in large part to their hard work and to yours that Boston University upholds its tradition of excellence and is well positioned to remain a research and teaching leader for many years to come.
Promotions to Full Professor on the Charles River Campus – 3.6.20