People Notes September 2021
WELCOME
Jill Parlee joined the team at Tufts Gordon Institute as associate director of programs and operations, assisting in Gordon Institute’s administration, operations, and program management. She brings deep experience with Tufts’ operating systems from her previous role as assistant director for programs at the Tufts Institute of the Environment, where she helped launch the Master of Science in Sustainable Water Management. Before Tufts, Parlee was deputy director of philanthropy and project development for CARIBSAVE, an NGO focused on fostering sustainability in the Caribbean, as well as program manager at McGill University’s Bellairs Research Institute in Barbados.
Will Trevor has joined the team at Tufts Gordon Institute as director of programs and operations administration. He brings strong online experience to his role, and joins Tufts from Albany Law School, where he was assistant dean and director of online programs. Previously he was faculty program director for undergraduate business programs at Excelsior College, while also running his own digital marketing firm.
New faculty members in Arts, Scienecs, and Engineering, along with promotions, follow below.
KUDOS
John Burgess, professor of practice in the LL.M. program at The Fletcher School, has been honored with a Governor’s Award in the Humanities, which recognizes individuals for their public actions, grounded in an appreciation of the humanities, to enhance civic life in Massachusetts. Burgess served for eight years on the Massachusetts Humanities Board, including two years as chair. He is currently a member of the WBUR board of directors and chair of its governance committee. Throughout his career, Burgess has also served as a trustee of the Roxbury Latin School and audit committee advisor to the Broad Institute.
Karen Freund, chair of medicine at the School of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Tufts Medical Center, and Dallas Reed, chief of genetics, director of perinatal genetics and assistant professor at the School of Medicine, are among those named to Boston Magazine’s 2021 Faces of Women in Healthcare list.
Brian E. Gravel, E01, E04, AG11, assistant professor and director of elementary STEM education at the Department of Education, and colleagues at Boston University recently received a Lyle Spencer Award from the Spencer Foundation for “Reimagining Alternative Education: Designing for Geographies of Care and Responsibility.” The four-year project is a partnership with Community Academy (CA) in Boston and colleagues at the BU Earl Center for Learning and Innovation and will explore the cultivation of a community garden at CA as a model for care and responsibility. “Through co-design, we will explore spaces where youth can thrive in the many relations of their lives, including school, their community, and to the natural world around them,” Gravel says.
Linden Hu, Paul and Elaine Chervinsky Professor of Immunology at the School of Medicine, has been selected to co-chair the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Tick-Borne Disease Working Group. The Working Group is tasked with reviewing federal efforts related to tick-borne diseases, examining research priorities, and identifying and addressing unmet needs.
Valencia Koomson, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor at MIT. At Tufts, she leads the Advanced Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab, which investigates the design and implementation of innovative high-performance, low-power microsystems. Recently she also contributed a chapter to Cardiac Surgery Capacity Development in Low and Middle Income Countries, to be published in October by Springer Nature. She is first author on the chapter “Emerging Opportunities for Sustainable Digital Health Enhanced Care Delivery Models for Improved Cardiovascular Surgery Outcomes.”
IDEAS
Justin Hollander, A96, professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, co-authored the book Supporting Shrinkage: Better Planning and Decision-Making for Legacy Cities with Eliza Kinsey, AG14, an associate research scientist at Columbia University, and researchers at the University of Massachusetts.
Maurice Parent, professor of the practice in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, and co-founder of the Front Porch Arts Collective, reports that the collective will begin a three-year residency with the Huntington Theater as part of a five-year plan to create a future for emerging Black theater. It has also received a grant from the Boston Foundation of $175,000 over the next two years. “The residency and the major investment help us take a huge step towards our goal of self-sustainability,” says Parent.
ALUMNI
Darwin Conner, AG22, has joined Eversheds Sutherland as chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, residing in the New York office. He is credited with playing an integral role in developing antiracist frameworks at previous law firms.
Michael A. Fernández, F12, has joined the New York office of Rivero Mestre, an international arbitration firm. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, he has deep experience in international disputes.
Sarah Loerzel, EG18, lead engineer for the Wide Area Surveillance Program’s site activation team within the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, was recently honored by AFCEA International with the Emerging Leadership Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the nonprofit’s Lexington-Concord chapter. Loerzel was cited for planning and volunteering at events such as the New Horizons Symposium and the Run for STEM 5K. She also took the lead in the Children’s Discovery Museum science classroom at Hanscom AFB’s schools and ran the Lexington High School Science Fair judging and MathCounts Project’s statewide competition session. She has volunteered in Hanscom AFB’s Starbase Program functions, where she encouraged children to pursue STEM-centric fields.
Jeff Seftel, A90, award-winning filmmaker and founder of Smartypants, directed Bruce & Alvin, which had its world premiere at the 30th Woods Hole Film Festival this summer. The documentary focuses on Bruce Strickrott, chief pilot of Alvin, the human-occupied, deep submergence vehicle at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The film documents one last mission before an overhaul that will allow the submersible to dive to 21,325 feet. Watch the trailer here.
Elin Suleymanov, F03, has assumed duties of the ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the United Kingdom.
Adam Wilson, A04, reports that the paperback edition of his novel Sensation Machine comes out in September. Set in post-pandemic New York City in the not-too-distant future, the novel deals with issues ranging from greed, automation, and universal basic income to wearable tech, revolutionary desires, and a broken justice system. His novel Flatscreen was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and he is a recipient of the Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize for Humor.
NEW FACULTY MEMBERS IN ARTS, SCIENCES, AND ENGINEERING
ChaeWon Baek joins the university as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. She recently completed a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley with a dissertation titled “Essays in Macroeconomics: Business Cycles, Monetary Policy, and Labor Market.” As a graduate student instructor, she received an award for outstanding teaching. Her research interests include macroeconomics, macro-labor economics, international macroeconomics, and macro-econometrics. Baek’s research quantifying the economic effects of stay-at-home policies during the pandemic is forthcoming in the Review of Economics and Statistics.
Aggeliki Barberopoulou is a new lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. She comes to Tufts from Salem State University, where she was a visiting assistant professor. She previously worked at AIR Worldwide, GNS Science, and the Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California. Her areas of expertise include earthquake and tsunami risk modeling and hazard assessment and mitigation. Barberopoulou has a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.
Yonatan Brafman has started at Tufts as an assistant professor in the Department of Religion. He comes to Tufts from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he was an assistant professor of Jewish thought and ethics. Prior to that, he was a visiting assistant professor and associate research scholar in the Department of Religion and Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. His areas of specialization include modern Jewish thought, Jewish law and ethics, philosophy of religion, and moral and legal theory. He was a co-editor of the volume Jewish Legal Theories and has a forthcoming book titled Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Norms and Social Normativity. He has also published numerous articles and book chapters. Brafman has a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Cristóbal Cea is a new professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts. His work focuses on the relation between digital media, history, and memory. and has been exhibited internationally in venues including Charlottenburg Kunsthal, Microscope Gallery, Ars Electronica, National Museum of Fine Arts (Chile), Lund Konsthal, Sala Alcalá, and the Museum of Fine Arts of Chile. He has also been a resident artist at MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Kohler Arts/Industry Program, and received awards such as the Fulbright Fellowship, Goethe Institut 18O Grant, MAVI Emerging Art Award, UC Artistic Research Grant, and RISD Bridge Academic Research Grant. He also has teaching experience at institutions in both Chile and the United States. Most recently, was assistant professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile’s School of Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Kate Conlon joins the university as a professor of the practice at the SMFA, with expertise in print media. She earned an M.F.A. at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; she also taught courses there, as well as at Columbia College Chicago. Conlon’s sculpture, print, and book works have been exhibited at venues including 68 Projects Berlin; OC OSAKA; Julius Caesar, Chicago; Goldfinch, Chicago; MANA Contemporary Chicago; Museu do Douro, Portugal; and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. She has received grants and residencies from Kala Art Institute, ACRE, and Chicago Artists Coalition and was named the Chicago Public Libraries’ artist in residence for the 2020-2021 year.
Christopher Coscia joins Tufts as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. Since completing a Ph.D. at Dartmouth College in 2020, he has been a visiting assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at Hamilton College. His interests include combinatorics, graph theory, and probability, especially Markov chain mixing and the probabilistic method, with applications to random permutations and political redistricting. He has published his research in the journals Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science and The Electric Journal of Combinatorics.
Christine Cousineau has been a part-time lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning for more than 30 years, and is now being promoted to full-time lecturer. Cousineau is an architect and planner with experience in community development. Most recently, she was a senior campus planner at Harvard University, and for several years an associate at the architectural and planning firm Goody Clancy. She was also previously an assistant director at the City of Boston’s public facilities department and worked for the Massachusetts division of capital planning. She holds a Master’s in Architecture and a Master’s in City Planning from MIT.
Kathryn Davies starts this fall as a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. She completed her Ph.D. in New Zealand at the University of Auckland, and comes to Tufts from the University of Utah, where she was a research assistant professor in the Department of Geography. Her research interests include climate change, coastal and marine governance and management, cumulative effects, ecosystem services, ecosystem-based management, participatory modelling, social and cultural values, social-ecological systems, social and environmental justice, stakeholder engagement, transdisciplinary research, and urban planning. She has published her research in journals such as Marine Policy and People and Nature.
Robert de Bruijn comes to Tufts this fall as a lecturer in the Department of Biology. He earned his Ph.D. at Tufts and is a well-traveled researcher, having worked in the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Canada, and California. Most recently he was a lecturer at California State University San Marcos. His interests include stress physiology, animal behavior, wildlife endocrinology, conservation physiology, active learning strategies, and evidence-based pedagogy and best practices. He has published his work in physiology and ecology journals, including Journal of Experimental Zoology and Hormones and Behavior.
Nathaniel (Nat) Eagan joins the university as assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin under the direction of Professor George Huber. His thesis was entitled “Catalytic Conversion of Biomass-Derived Platform Molecules to Distillate-Range Fuels.” Eagan spent a year investigating catalysis by dilute alloys as a postdoctoral associate in the IMASC EFRC under the supervision of Tufts professors Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos and Charles Sykes before transferring to Harvard to continue this work under the supervision of professors Cynthia Friend and Robert Madix.
Meredith Edelstein joins Tufts as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Education. She is a nationally licensed school psychologist and has for more than 10 years served special needs populations in public schools, therapeutic mentoring settings, and therapeutic after school programs. Edelstein previously was a part-time instructor in the Department of Education at Tufts, providing writing supports and supervising alumni in the Licensed Educational Psychologists seminar. She holds an M.A./Ed.S. in school psychology from Tufts and a Ph.D. in counseling and psychology from Lesley University.
John Fu begins this fall as a professor in the Department of Community Health. He comes to Tufts from Saint Louis University, where he was a professor and co-director of the Data and Analytics Core of the Research and Equity in Action for Child Health (REACH) Center. With expertise in biostatistics, his research addresses how genetic, behavioral, environmental, and societal factors contribute to major depression and substance dependence. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the Alzheimer's Association. Fu holds a Doctor of Medicine from Southern Medical University in China, a Master of Arts and Ph.D. from the University of Alabama.
Lorgia García Peña joins Tufts this fall as a professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. She comes to Tufts from Harvard University, where she was the Roy G. Clouse Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of History and Literature. Previously, she was an assistant professor at the University of Georgia. Lorgia’s 2016 book The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction won the 2017 National Women’s Studies Association Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, the 2016 Latino/a Studies Book Award, and the 2016 Isis Duarte Book Prize in Haiti and Dominican Studies. García Peña is also the recipient of the 2018-2019 Martin Luther King Jr. Distinguished Research Fellowship from MIT. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Simon Han is a new professor of the practice in the Department of English. His novel Nights When Nothing Happened was named a Best Book of the Year by TIME, the Washington Post, and Harper’s Bazaar. Han has published his short stories and essays in publications such as The Atlantic, Virginia Quarterly Review, Guernica, and more. He has received awards from MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and Vanderbilt University, where he received his M.F.A. He was previously a visiting assistant professor at the University of Tulsa.
Trevion Henderson joins the university as assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He earned a Ph.D. in higher education from the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan. He received an M.A. in higher education and student affairs from Ohio State University, where he also earned a B.S. in computer science and engineering. Henderson holds secondary appointments in the STEM Education program in the Department of Education and in the Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI).
Ashley Holmes is a new lecturer in the Department of Community Health. She started as a part-time lecturer in community health in fall 2019, teaching courses in biostatistics and epidemiology. Holmes’ research interests include nutrition and cancer epidemiology, cancer prevention and control, nutritional immunology and inflammation, food and nutrition policy, food history, and biostatistics. She earned a Ph.D. from Emory University and an M.P.H. from George Washington University. She previously taught at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Cara Iacobucci has been promoted to full-time lecturer in the Museum Studies program and the Department of Education at Tufts. She had previously been a part-time lecturer. Iacobucci holds an M.A. in the history of art from Tufts and an Ed.M. in arts in education from Harvard University. She has worked in the museum field for more than 20 years and has held positions at Historic New England, the Paul Revere House, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and Vose Galleries. She has also worked as an independent museum consultant.
Milod Kazerounian joins Tufts as an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Computer Science. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, where he studied programming languages with his advisor, Professor Jeff Foster. Kazerounian’s research explored ways to introduce expressive type systems to dynamic languages like Ruby. His research spans numerous methodologies, including programming language design, type theory, formal verification, and machine learning.
Alexandra Kredlow is a new assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. She has a background in clinical psychology, and her research examines methods to harness memory processes with the goal of developing novel interventions for emotional disorders such as anxiety, trauma and stressor-related, and mood disorders. She has published her work in journals such as Research & Therapy, International Journal of Psychophysiology, and American Psychologist. She earned a Ph.D. at Boston University, and comes to Tufts from Harvard University, where she was a postdoctoral fellow.
Amy Lischko now is a professor of the practice in the Department of Community Health. She has been at Tufts since 2007 as faculty member at the School of Medicine. Her research interests include health policy and health care delivery. She has policy expertise from serving in senior roles in Massachusetts government for more than 14 years, including being the director of health care policy under Governor Mitt Romney. In her roles with the Commonwealth, Lischko provided leadership during the rapid restructuring of the Massachusetts health-care system. She has spoken widely at many national policy conferences and has provided consulting services to AcademyHealth, Mathematica Policy Research, the National Governor’s Association, and individual states. Lischko holds an M.S.P.H. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a D.Sc. from Boston University.
Guadalupe Maravilla joins Tufts as a professor of the practice at SMFA. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including most recently the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a Map Fund Grant, and a Soros Art Fellowship, all in 2019. Maravilla has performed and presented his work in the United States and internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Queens Museum. Maravilla comes to Tufts from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was an assistant professor. He received his M.F.A. from Hunter College.
Claudia Mattos Avolese is a new senior lecturer in visual and material studies at SMFA. Before coming to Tufts, she was a professor for history of art at Unicamp in São Paulo, Brazil. Mattos Avolese was previously a visiting scholar at Harvard University and was also president of the Brazilian Art History Committee. She teaches courses in a variety of subjects in 19th and 21st century Brazilian and European art, as well as art theory. She has published several books and several co-edited volumes, most recently Arte não-Europeia: conexões historiográficas a partir do Brasil (Estação Liberdade, 2020). She earned a Ph.D. from the Kunsthistorisches Institute der Freie Universität, Berlin.
Muoki Mbunga joins the university as an assistant professor in the Department of History. He recently completed his Ph.D. at West Virginia University, where he won awards for outstanding teaching. His research interests include the cultural and social history of modern East Africa, specifically the Mau Mau War; ritual, religion, and resistance; race, ethics, and violence; age, class, gender, ethnicity, and resistance; moral economy; the invention of tradition; decolonization and the Cold War; Pan-Africanism; and oral history. Mbunga has published work in the Journal of Intercultural Disciplines and Postamble.
Triton Mobley comes to Tufts as a professor of the practice at SMFA from the University of Georgia, where he was an assistant professor of studio art core. He is a new media artist, researcher, and educator whose work has been exhibited at CURRENTS Virtual Festival, Geidai Games Online at Tokyo University of the Arts, and Art Basel Miami. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Rick Moody is a professor of the practice in the Department of English and at SMFA. He comes to Tufts from Brown University, where he was the Bonderman Professor of the Practice of the Literary Arts. He is an award-winning author of six novels: Garden State, The Ice Storm, Purple America, The Diviners, The Four Fingers of Death, and Hotels of North America. He has also published three collections of short stories, a memoir, and a collection of essays. His short fiction and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Harper’s, and the Atlantic, among other publications. Moody’s many awards include the Aga Khan Award from the Paris Review, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and most recently an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also taught at Princeton University, New York University, Bennington College, and SUNY Purchase. Moody received an M.F.A. from Columbia University.
Kelli Morgan joins the university as a professor of the practice and director of curatorial studies in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture. Specializing in critical-race curatorial analyses, she has held curatorial positions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She has taught at Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan. She also has experience with anti-racism facilitation for art institutions. She earned a Ph.D. at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Ng’endo Mukii is a new professor of the practice at SMFA. Mukii is an award-winning film director most well-known for Yellow Fever, her documentary-animation exploring Western influences on African women’s ideals of beauty. She is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and holds a Master of Arts in Animation from the Royal College of Art. Mukii is an alum of Berlinale Talents, Uruou Media REALNESS Screenwriter’s Residency, and the Goethe Institute Bahia Vila Sul artists residency. She is a writer on Netflix’s Mama K’s Team 4 series and is one of 10 directors selected for the upcoming Disney+ and Triggerfish animated anthology Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire.
Laurel Nakadate is a new professor of the practice at SMFA. She earned an M.F.A. at Yale University. Her first feature film, Stay the Same Never Change, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to be featured in New Directors/New Films at The Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center. Her second feature film, The Wolf Knife, premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award, and an Independent Spirit Award. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Princeton University Art Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, LACMA, the Guggenheim Museum, the Saatchi Collection and other private collections in the U.S. and abroad.
Greses Pérez joins Tufts as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Pérez is an engineer, learning scientist, and educator. She received a Ph.D. in science education with a focus on learning sciences and technology design from Stanford University. Her scholarship specializes in the interdisciplinary study of language and cognition for students who experience a cultural and linguistic mismatch between the practices of their communities and those in engineering and science. In addition to her work on culturally relevant learning through emerging technologies, Pérez uses mixed methodologies to investigate the strengths multicompetent individuals, whose lives exist between languages and/or cultures and who might be able to contribute to the social fabric. Her mission is to expand who is heard and can contribute to the disciplines as society demands professionals with backgrounds as diverse as the challenges we face. Before studying at Stanford, she was a bilingual educator at low-income elementary schools in Texas. As a civil engineer, Pérez led EU-funded projects in the Caribbean to create educational opportunities for coffee farmers and their families. She holds a B.S. in civil engineering from Santo Domingo Technological Institute, an M.Eng. in civil engineering from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, and an M.Ed. in school leadership from Southern Methodist University.
Courtney Sato is Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. She comes to Tufts from Harvard University, where she was a Global American Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. Her research and teaching fields include Asian American history; U.S. intellectual and cultural history (late 19th-20th century); women, gender, and sexuality studies; U.S. empire; transpacific studies; and digital and public humanities. Her article, “‘A Picture of Peace’: Friendship in Interwar Pacific Women’s Internationalism,” was published in Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences. Sato earned a Ph.D. at Yale University.
Miriam Said comes to Tufts as an assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where she was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Her research interests include art of the first millennium, ritual and religion, and the representation and function of hybrid beings in art. She completed a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkley, with a dissertation titled “Materializing Apotropaia: The Entangled Body in Neo-Assyrian Magical Arts, 9th–7th c. BCE.” She also has previous experience at other museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Fernando Salinas-Quiroz is a new assistant professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. He comes to Tufts from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Mexico and has additional experience in private practice and school psychology settings. He is interested in child development and LGBTQ families. Salinas-Quiroz is the author of the book Ciudadanía, democracia y sexualidad [Citizenship, Democracy, and Sexuality] (Fundación Arcoíris por el Respeto a la Diversidad Sexual, A.C, 2020). He earned a Ph.D. at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.
Michael Smoot is a new professor of the practice at SMFA. He completed Tamarind Institute’s Professional Printer Training Program in 2007 and has worked at several professional fine art print studios, including Atelier Towson, the Experimental Print Institute, Tamarind Institute, Landfall Press, and Janus Press. He has given lectures and demonstrations on printmaking at Towson University, Goucher College, East Carolina University, Southeast Missouri State University, Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, Georgia State University, Valdosta State University, UMass Amherst, Bennington College, Keene State College, and Smith College. In addition, he has worked with a number of art-related community organizations, including School 33, Art with Heart, Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, Governor’s Institute of Vermont, Empty Bowls, Seedlings Program, and Baltimore Talent Development High School.
Alice Sullivan joins Tufts this fall as an assistant professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture. She comes to Tufts from the University of Michigan. She was also previously a lecturer at Oakland University and a visiting assistant professor at Lawrence University. She specializes in the artistic production of East-Central Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres between ca. 1300 and ca. 1700. She has published her work in peer-reviewed publications such as The Art Bulletin, Speculum, and Gesta and she co-edited the volume Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Brill, 2020). Sullivan earned a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan.
Abiy Tasissa is now an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics; he had been a Norbert Wiener Assistant Professor in the department since 2019. Tasissa’s research is in applied mathematics with a focus on algorithms for the distance geometry problem and fast convex algorithms for graph matching; a recent interest is in theoretical analysis of deep learning in certain applications. He has published his work in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematics, Physical and Engineering Sciences and IEEE Transactions of Information Theory. He received a Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Lawrence Uricchio is the Youniss Family Assistant Professor of Innovation in the Department of Biology. Uricchio comes to Tufts from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a postdoctoral fellow. His research combines theoretical population genetic models, genomic data, and observational ecological data in an effort to predict when species will or will not be able to adapt sufficiently rapidly to persist. Previously, he was an NIH Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, San Francisco and taught ecology courses at San Jose State University.
ARTS, SCIENCES, AND ENGINEERING PROMOTIONS, TENURE, AND NAMED PROFESSORSHIPS
Julian Agyeman in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning was named the Fletcher Professor of Rhetoric and Debate.
Rachel Appplebaum has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of History.
Kimberly Bain in the Department of English was named the John Holmes Assistant Professor in the Humanities.
Steve Cicala has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of Economics.
Heather Curtis in the Department of Religion was named the Warren S. Woodbridge Professor in Comparative Religions.
Moon Duchin has been promoted to full professor without limit of time in the Department of Mathematics.
Karen Edwards has been promoted to assistant teaching professor in the Department of Computer Science.
Alan Finkelstein Shapiro has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of Economics.
Liz Foster has been promoted to full professor without limit of time in the Department of History.
Jess Keiser has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of English.
Monica Link Kim has been promoted from full-time lecturer to senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy.
Milo Koretsky, who has a joint appointment in the Department of Education and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the School of Engineering, was named the McDonnell Family Endowed Bridge Professor.
Hoda Koushyar has been promoted to assistant teaching professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Xandra Kredlow in the Department of Psychology was named the Dean of Arts and Sciences Assistant Professor, effective January 2022.
Sergiy Kryatov has been promoted to distinguished senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry.
Daniele Lantagne has been promoted to the rank of full professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Kris Manjapara has been promoted to full professor without limit of time in the Department of History.
Melissa McInerney has been promoted to full professor without limit of time in the Department of Economics
Carmen Merolla has been promoted from full-time lecturer to senior lecturer in the Department of Romance Studies.
Ekaterina Mirkin has been promoted from full-time lecturer to senior lecturer in the Department of Biology.
Megan Monroe has been promoted to associate teaching professor in the Department of Computer Science.
Matt Panzer has been promoted to the rank of full professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Alexander Queen has been promoted from full-time lecturer to senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology.
Elizabeth Race has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of Psychology.
Shomon Shamsuddin has been promoted from assistant to associate professor without limit of time in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning.
Cathy Stanton has been promoted to distinguished senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology.
Tom Vandervelde has been promoted to the rank of full professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Qiaobing Xu has been promoted to the rank of full professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.