2023-2024 Career Development Professorship Awardees
From Dr. Kenneth Lutchen, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer ad interim
Each year, Boston University has the pleasure of awarding Career Development Professorships to several talented junior faculty members emerging as future leaders in their fields.
Presented to promising junior faculty early in their careers at BU, these awards are made possible through the generous support of University Advisory Board Member Peter Paul (Questrom ’71); Trustees Richard Reidy (Questrom ’82) and his wife Minda and Nathaniel Dalton (LAW ’91) and his wife Amy Gottlieb Dalton (LAW ’91); a donor who wishes to remain anonymous; and proceeds from the University’s Technology Development Office.
The professorships include a three-year, non-renewable research award designed to support research, scholarship, and creative work, as well as defrayal of a portion of the recipients’ salaries. Nominations are submitted by the academic deans, and awardees are selected by the Office of the Provost. The following professorships were awarded this year:
- The Peter Paul Career Development Professorship recognizes a faculty member in the School of Medicine.
- The Reidy Family Career Development Professorship is given to faculty members in the College of Engineering and the Questrom School of Business.
- The David R. Dalton Career Development Professorship advances the participation and success of women in the natural and computational and data sciences.
- The Global Business Career Development Professorship, established this year by an anonymous donor, supports outstanding junior faculty members at BU who have distinguished themselves in the field of global business.
- The Innovation Career Development Professorship recognizes junior faculty whose translational research is likely to lead to future licensed technology.
This year’s Career Development Professorship recipients have been recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments in their areas of study, their passion for the creation and transmission of new knowledge, their efforts to enhance the student experience, and their potential to develop into outstanding faculty members. I am delighted to announce that this year’s Career Development Professors are:
Peter Paul Career Development Professorship
Philipp Mews
Assistant Professor of Physiology & Biophysics, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine
Philipp Mews studies metabolic and epigenetic processes that underlie brain plasticity, working to develop novel therapeutic strategies for treating neuropsychiatric disorders, including PTSD and substance abuse. He received his PhD in cell and molecular biology and a BS in molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a BS in biology from Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Reidy Family Career Development Professorship
Leroy Gonsalves
Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations, Questrom School of Business
Leroy Gonsalves uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate how technological change affects the future of work – in particular, how management practices including remote work, activity-based offices, and algorithmic valuation change employees’ experience of autonomy and their meaning of work. He holds a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard Business School, AM and MA degrees in sociology from Harvard University and the University of Toronto, respectively, and a bachelor’s in business administration from York University in Toronto.
David R. Dalton Career Development Professorship
Minjung Son
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences
Minjung Son is an expert in energy production and transfer and utilizes ultrafast optical spectroscopy and microscopy to better understand the photophysical mechanisms governing energy and charge flow in molecular, materials, and biological systems. She received her PhD in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in chemistry from Yonsei University in South Korea. She completed her postdoctoral research at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Global Business Career Development Professorship
Luis Ballesteros
Assistant Professor of Strategy & Innovation, Questrom School of Business
Luis Ballesteros studies the impact of systemic shocks (social and environmental) on the decision making and corporate success of international businesses, and particularly the innovations and resulting efficiency gains and social value – including philanthropy – created in the aftermath of such disruptions. He holds a PhD in applied economics and management from The Wharton School, a master’s degree in international development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and bachelor’s degrees in business and economics from Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
Innovation Career Development Professorship
Sabrina Neuman
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, College of Arts & Sciences
Sabrina Neuman has helped pioneer the concept of “robomorphic computing,” designing special-purpose hardware and accelerators for robotic processing tasks to achieve far quicker performance than off-the-shelf solutions – technology with potential to improve human well-being, including in assisted living and elder care settings. She earned her PhD and master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also received a bachelor’s degree in electrical science and engineering.
Please join me in congratulating these talented junior faculty for their achievements and in wishing them continued success in their teaching and research at Boston University in the years ahead.
2023-2024 Career Development Professorship Awardees – 9.13.23