Faculty Highlights

Professor of Music Joseph Auner was featured in an article in the South China Morning Post describing a conference in Shenzhen, China celebrating the 150th Anniversary of renowned composer Arnold Schoenberg’s birth. Auner wrote the original program preface for an opera about Schoenberg's life and gave a keynote on “Schoenberg’s Technological Imagination."

Professor of Music Richard Jankowsky is the winner of the Alan P. Merriam Prize in the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) for his monograph, Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form (Chicago 2021). Awarded annually by the SEM, the award recognizes the most distinguished English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology. Jankowsky's same book, Ambient Sufism, received honorable mention from the American Institute for Maghreb Studies L. Carl Brown Book Prize. Jankowsky was also the joint keynote speaker for the Society for Arab Music Research and Religion, Music, and Sound Section at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology. 

Assistant Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Shan Jiang recently presented her research on "Mining Small & Big Data for Smart, Equitable, and Resilient Urban Futures" at the 10th Urban China Forum "Transformations and Opportunities of Urban Planning in China in Recent Decades."

Professor of Mathematics Kasso Okoudjou and Robinson Professor of Mathematics Todd Quinto were recognized as 2024 Fellows of the American Mathematical Society (AMS). AMS fellows have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. Okoudjou and Quinto were among 43 mathematicians chosen to be AMS Fellows out of over 16,000 eligible members.

Professor and Chair of the Music Department Kwasi Ampene received a 3G Legend and Lifetime Achievement Award at The 12th Edition of the 3G Annual Awards and Celebrity Bash in New York City. The award was in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Highlife music in Ghana and the US, and the music industry in Ghana broadly. He also presented the keynote lecture for the African and African Diaspora Music Section of the 68^th Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Ottawa-Canada. The title of his keynote speech was “What is African Music? Reflections on decolonizing the study and performance of the musical arts of Africa in the Academy.”

Professor of Chemistry Charles Sykes was recently recognized with the Henry Albert Award by the International Precious Metals Institute. His groundbreaking work on palladium single atom alloys was the first to conclusively show that isolated single atoms of a metal could act as powerful heterogenous catalysts. 

Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Keren Ladin's published an article entitled “Shared Decision Making Among Older Adults With Advanced CKD” in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases (AJKD). It was awarded AJKD's Editors’ Choice Award, recognizing outstanding articles for the year.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Aerielle Allen, Professor of Psychology Lisa Shin, and Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Psychology Department Samuel R. Sommers received a NIH Director's Transformative Research Award from the National Institutes of Health to fund a 5-year study entitled "The Effects of Racism on Brain and Physiological Pathways to Health Disparities." In addition, Tufts co-investigators include Professor of Psychology Heather Urry and Assistant Professor of Sociology Felipe Dias. 

Professor of Physics & Astronomy Gary Goldstein received a major grant to spearhead a project entitled "Accelerator Research and Development for Current and Future Nuclear Physics Facilities" using AI and machine learning to reveal the 3 dimensional structure of nucleons and nuclei.

Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Penn Loh published a new study in the Journal of Climate Resilience and Justice entitled Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience: Learning from Community Responses in the Boston Area.

Senior Lecturer in the Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Department Sumeeta Srinivasan published a paper entitled "Risk factors for persistent fatal opioid-involved overdose hotspots in Massachusetts 2011-2021: A spatial statistical analysis with socio-economic, access and prescription factors."

Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Justin Hollander and his team published a new article in the Journal of Climate Resilience and Justice entitled "Climate Change and Urban Migration in Sub-Saharan African Cities: Impacts and Governance Changes."

Professor of Political Science Brian Schaffner and several recent graduates of the Political Science Department, including Scott Blatte ’23, Yonatan Margalit ‘22, Carolina Olea Lezama ‘22, Aadhya Shivakumar ‘22, and David Wingens ’23, published a research article entitled “Critical Race Theory and Asymmetric Mobilization” in the peer-reviewed academic journal Political Behavior. 

Chair of the Department of Music Kwasi Ampene met with the king of the Asante Kingdom and a representative of the UCLA Fowler Museum to present returned artifacts taken during the Sagrenti War.

Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science Vickie B. Sullivan's essay entitled “Montesquieu on Slavery” was included in The Cambridge Companion to Montesquieu, edited by Keegan Callanan and Sharon R. Krause (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
 

Associate Professor of Sociology Freeden Blume Oeur has published a new co-edited volume entitled Gender Replay: On Kids, Schools, and Feminism (NYU Press, 2023). Professor of Sociology at the University of California Barrie Thorne’s Gender Play was a landmark study of the social worlds of primary school children that sparked a paradigm shift in our understanding of how kids and the adults around them contest and reinforce gender boundaries. Thirty years later, Gender Replay celebrates and reflects on this classic, extending Thorne’s scholarship into a new and different generation.

Assistant Professor in Earth and Climate Sciences Rebecca Jackson co-authored a paper that was recently published in Nature Geoscience entitled "Melting of Glacier Ice Enhanced by Bursting Air Bubbles." National Geographic also covered Jackson's research in a recent article.

Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning Justin Hollander, A’96, co-authored a new book with Nicole Stephens, G’22, entitled Buildings for People: Responsible Real Estate Development and Planning. The book explores socially responsible and sustainable approaches to real estate development and planning, complementing the UEP Department’s newest graduate certificate offerings in Impact and Sustainable Investing (CISI).