Faculty Highlights

Professor of Music Kwasi Ampene was one of the speakers at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music annual Black Sacred Arts Conference at the University of Ghana. The conference was organized in collaboration with the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana from July 22-24. This year’s theme was “Religions at the Crossroads: Africa’s Creative and Spiritual Heritage." Ampene's presentation was titled "Staging and performing sacred soundscapes: Ivory trumpeters, poetic rhetoric, and the spiritual essence of the number seven in Africa and the African Atlantic."

Justin Hollander, A96, A25P, Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning co-wrote an op-ed  in the top Silicon Valley newspaper, The Mercury News. The op-ed was partially based on research he did for his forthcoming book City of Bots: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Urban Planning.
 

Professor of the Practice of Biology Frank S. David, along with his son, co-constructed the New York Times crossword on September 13, 2026.
 

Associate Professor of Music Frank Lehman's new book, The Skywalker Symphonies: John Williams and the Music of Star Wars (Oxford University Press 2026), was published on August 28th and within weeks was already at the end of its first print run. The book is a first of its kind study of these scores, and argues that they are not just examples of consummate dramatic film scoring, but historically important works of symphonic scope, depth, and cultural impact.

 

Assistant Professor of Community Health Leah Abrams was awarded a National Institutes of Health K01 Career Development Award entitled, “The changing landscape of work in the United States and stalling life expectancy improvements.”

Professor of the Practice in Drama and Film Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies Khary Jones will be joining the Fall 2026/Winter 2027 fellowship cohort at MacDowell, a leading American contemporary arts organization.

John McCann Assistant Professor of Music Jeremy Eichler launched a new event series titled "On Listening," which explores how we hear music and the world. The inaugural event featured celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax in dialogue with Eichler.

Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy Soubhik Kumar recently wrote a paper finding a new mechanism for black hole formation in the early universe that was published in Physical Review Letters. He was also recently profiled in the New Scientist Magazine.

Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development and Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science Richard Lerner delivered the 2026 Lawrence Kohlberg Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education (AME) in Madrid. A published version of the talk is featured in the Journal of Moral Education.
 

Lecturer in Music Attah Emmanuel Poku recently performed at Howard University, the Akwasidae Festival at Bowie University, and the Millennium Excellence Awards in Washington DC, where he performed for the Ashanti King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Professor of Mathematics Xiaozhe Hu was awarded a new National Science Foundation grant to support his Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (CDS&E) project, which addresses the growing need for computational methods capable of designing advanced manufacturing systems with spatially varying material properties. The CSS&E project will explore how emerging quantum computing technologies can transform computational engineering by accelerating multi-material topology optimization and enabling new approaches for engineering design.  

Teaching Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning (UEP) Penn Loh was awarded a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support UEP's Repairing and Empowering Policy and Planning (REPP) program. REPP promotes the advancement and transformation of the public policy and planning fields through a fellowship program at Tufts that recruits up to 5 master’s students each year. Selected REPP fellows receive tuition scholarships, career support, stipends, networking opportunities, and leadership skills. 

Assistant Professor of Psychology Marcus Matthias Weera and his Addiction Neuroscience Lab were awarded a R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project entitled “Behavioral Neurobiology of Stress, Alcohol Responsivity, and Alcohol Drinking.”