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.
While this past year has been one of extraordinary trial and disruption, it has also served to remind us of the strength of our campus community and the centrality of an outstanding faculty to our success. Like so many of their colleagues across our campuses, the individuals we recognize today have not merely persevered, but continued to adapt, innovate, and excel in their craft as teachers and researchers. All have emerged as leaders in their respective areas of study and in their classrooms, studios, and laboratories, pushing their respective fields forward, forging multidisciplinary collaborations to discover solutions to pressing societal 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:
Michel Anteby, Questrom, Management & Organizations, examines how individuals relate to their occupations and the organizations to which they belong, with particular focus on how work practices help or hamper efforts to sustain their chosen cultures or identities. He has gained international recognition for his theoretical contributions and field-based studies, and is a past Questrom Dean’s Scholar and winner of the Academy of Management Annals’ best paper award. A frequent conference presenter, he has published two books, including 2013’s Manufacturing Morals: The Values of Silence in Business School Education, alongside four book chapters and over 25 articles in respected academic journals.
Margaret Beck, CAS, Mathematics, specializes in partial differential equations and dynamical systems, working to develop theoretical tools for understanding the long-time behavior of solutions to such systems. This includes analyzing the existence, bifurcation, and stability of nonlinear waves and coherent structures. She is a past Sloan Research Fellow and 2019 winner of the J.D. Crawford Prize, the premier international award for rising researchers in nonlinear science. Supported by an active grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), she has presented at two of the world’s top conferences on dynamical systems theory and has authored numerous articles in leading mathematical publications.
David Carballo, CAS, Anthropology, is a scholar of Mesoamerican archaeology, focusing specifically on the Pre-Hispanic civilizations of central Mexico. His current projects at the ancient city of Teotihuacan seek to better understand urbanization, neighborhood organization, the daily life of commoners, and the city’s political economy. In addition to his professorial work, he serves as the University’s Assistant Provost for General Education, overseeing the BU Hub. He has authored three books, including, most recently, Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain (2020), edited three others, and published dozens of book chapters and articles in leading archaeological reviews.
Paul Carlile, Questrom, Information Systems, explores the relationship between knowledge and innovation in organizations, with particular focus on breaking down boundaries between areas of expertise to enhance collaboration and innovation. Recognized among the world’s leading experts in this space, he has partnered extensively with the private sector to deliver workplace solutions in the automotive, software, aerospace, and pharmaceutical industries. He serves as Questrom’s Senior Associate Dean for Online Learning and is a past winner of the school’s Allen and Kelli Questrom Award for Institutional Leadership. He has published three books, including 2016’s Reimagining Business Education: Insights and Actions from the Business Education Jam, along with 15 book chapters, and numerous articles in premier business journals.
Kathleen Corriveau, Wheelock, Applied Human Development, specializes in early childhood learning, focusing on children’s cognitive and social development and how they discern trustworthy sources of information. A past NSF CAREER Award winner and Peter Paul Career Development Professor, among a host of honors, she is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, which previously named her a Rising Star in 2015. Her research has received extensive national media coverage, and she is a PI or co-PI on several major grants from the NSF and the Templeton Foundation. In 2020, she co-authored a book, The Questioning Child: Insights from Psychology and Education, and has additionally published 11 book chapters and nearly 70 articles in prestigious child psychology and development journals.
Ayse Coskun, ENG, Electrical & Computer Engineering, specializes in computer systems – from chip to data center design – and the development of novel methods to increase energy efficiency, power, and temperature management. She is recognized internationally for algorithmic advances that synchronize software performance, hardware activity, and thermal balance to optimize system performance. A past NSF CAREER Award winner and recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Ernest S. Kuh Early Career Award, she is PI or co-PI on three major ongoing NSF and Sandia National Laboratories grants. She holds six patents, has edited a book, and has authored five book chapters as well as dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceeding publications.
Michael Dietze, CAS, Earth & Environment, develops methods for better understanding and predicting ecological systems, studying the ways in which iterative forecasts can improve and accelerate basic environmental science, while at the same time making that science more directly relevant to society. He is the author of Ecological Forecasting (2017), the only existing book exploring this topic, and has received numerous major grants from NASA and NSF, among others, to support his research. He is a past NSF Distinguished Lecturer and has written dozens of articles and peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific publications.
Robinson (Wally) Fulweiler, CAS, Earth & Environment and Biology, is a marine geochemist who explores the impact of human activity on marine systems, including questions about energy flow and biogeochemical cycling of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica), carbon, and oxygen in a variety of environments. She was among the first Sloan Fellows in Ocean Science, is a past winner of BU’s Metcalf Cup and Prize and CAS’s Neu Family Award for excellence in teaching, and has received numerous prestigious grants for research on climate change and evolving ecosystems. A frequent conference presenter, she has published five book chapters and dozens of widely cited papers and articles in top scientific journals.
James Galagan, ENG and MED, Biomedical Engineering and Microbiology, develops computational and experimental methods to better understand the systems biology of microbial organisms – knowledge that is then translated into biomedical applications, including biosensors and wearables. In addition to his professorial work, he is associate director for systems biology at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL) and associate director of BU’s Precision Diagnostic Center. A past ENG Distinguished Faculty Fellow, he is PI or co-PI on several major ongoing grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the US Department of Defense. He has also published two book chapters and nearly 100 journal articles and papers on genomics, molecular and computational biology, electrical engineering, and technology development.
Shahla Haeri, CAS, Anthropology, is a scholar of Iranian anthropology who addresses questions of gender, marriage, religion, and women’s authority in the Muslim world. Recognized among the pioneers in her field, she has produced cutting-edge ethnographies throughout her career exploring Iranian and Pakistani culture. She has published three books, including 2020’s The Unforgettable Queens of Islam: Succession, Authority, Gender, which examines the lives and legacies of Muslim women sovereigns throughout history. She is a past director of CAS’s Women’s Studies Program and, in addition to her books, has authored 11 book chapters and numerous journal articles and media productions on gender relations in Muslim societies.
Hyeouk Chris Hahm, SSW, Social Research, bridges epidemiology, theory building, intervention development, and testing to better understand the causes of depression, self-harm, and suicidal behaviors among Asian American women. A Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research and member of several editorial boards, she is the chair of her department and has earned national recognition for developing the Asian Women’s Action for Resilience and Empowerment (AWARE) program to test interventions and reduce mental health problems in non-clinical populations. She has received major grants from NIH and NSF to support her research, has published a book and over 50 journal articles, and is a past winner of the Outstanding Mentor Award from BU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.
Lucy Hutyra, CAS, Earth & Environment, specializes in terrestrial ecology, with particular focus on the impact of humans on the carbon cycle. A recognized leader in the fields of urban carbon ecology and carbon cycle science, she has garnered significant support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, US Department of Agriculture, and NSF (including a CAREER Award) for uniquely innovative approaches that integrate atmospheric, biometric, and climatological information to produce new findings. She is a past National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow and winner of CAS’s Templeton Award for Excellence in Student Advising. She has delivered dozens of invited presentations and published extensively in leading journals, including Science.
Samuel Isaacson, CAS, Mathematics & Statistics, specializes in mathematical biology, numerical analysis, and mathematical physics, developing computational and mathematical approaches to address problems in molecular cell biology. His recent research has focused on the modeling of biochemical systems at the scale of a single biological cell. Regarded among the top innovators in his field, he is a past Simons Foundation Fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, has published dozens of articles in top journals, and has garnered considerable grant funding, including an NSF CAREER Award, to support his research in biophysical modeling.
Paul Katsafanas, CAS, Philosophy, is a scholar of Friedrich Nietzsche, applying the 19th century German philosopher’s thinking to contemporary examinations of agency and meta-ethics, moral psychology, and the conception of the self. Recent work explores Nietzsche’s view on the connection between sacred values, nihilism, and happiness, as well as roots of fanaticism in psychological and evaluative fragility. He has published three acclaimed books, including 2016’s The Nietzschean Self: Moral Psychology, Agency, and the Unconscious, along with 17 book chapters, and serves on both the executive committee of the North American Nietzsche Society and the editorial board of the History of Philosophy Quarterly.
Lucia Lin, CFA, Violin, is a concert violinist of the highest rank among her peers and a past concertmaster with the London Symphony Orchestra. As an artist-teacher at BU, she blends studio teaching with current literature and repertoires of orchestral performance in the training of rising orchestral musicians. She is a past prize-winner of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition (considered the Nobel Prize of music) and recipient of three Grammy Awards for recordings produced with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Her 2020 recording with Gloria Dei Cantores of Stabat Mater by Arvo Pärt debuted at #5 on the Billboard Classical Albums Chart. At BU, she is a regular performer with the Muir String Quartet and continues to play with the BSO.
Pankaj Mehta, CAS, Physics, is a theoretical physicist whose research seeks to understand how large-scale, collective behaviors of biological systems emerge from the interaction of many individual components – work that has applications to biology, data science/machine learning, and quantum optimization. A founding member of BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, he has published extensively in top scientific journals and is a past Sloan Research Fellow in Physics, Simons Investigator in the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems, and co-recipient of BU’s first Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. He additionally serves as an active member of the BU Bioinformatics Program, the BUMC Center for Regenerative Medicine, and the BU Biological Design Center.
Donna Pincus, CAS, Psychological & Brain Sciences, specializes in the development of effective, evidence-based treatments for anxiety and related disorders in children and adolescents. A nationally-recognized leader in child and family therapy, she is director of the Child and Adolescent Fear and Anxiety Treatment Program at BU’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and a 2020 recipient of the American Psychological Association’s Florence Halpern Award for distinguished contributions to clinical psychology. She has secured considerable grant support to advance her clinical and home-based research, presented at dozens of national and international conferences, and authored five books, 21 book chapters, and over 90 widely cited articles in top journals.
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. A Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, she is editor of the prestigious Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research and in 2019 received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She is a past Peter Paul Career Development Professor and NSF CAREER Award recipient, with multiple active federal grants supporting her research. A frequent presenter at conferences, she has published two book chapters and 88 articles in science and health journals.
Irena Vodenska, MET, Administrative Sciences, is an expert in network theory and complexity science in macroeconomics, using quantitative approaches to model and better understand the dynamics of financial networks and predict market volatility. Recognized as a trailblazer in the use of artificial intelligence – including neural networks and deep learning methodologies for natural language processing – to analyze corporate performance and global economic trends, she has secured interdisciplinary grants from the European Union, the US Army Research Office, and the NSF to support her research. She has published a book and a book chapter, written extensively in top economic and scientific journals, and is a regularly invited speaker at international conferences.
Please join me in congratulating these wonderfully talented colleagues on their recent promotions and in wishing them continued success. It is thanks in large part to the sustained commitment of all our faculty that Boston University continues to uphold 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 – 3.10.21