Faculty Highlights - Academic Year 2021-2022

Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science Michael Beckley joined NPR's “Fresh Air” to discuss his new book, co-authored with Hal Brands, entitled Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict With China (Norton 2022).

Associate Professor of Political Science Pearl T. Robinson is the recipient of a fellowship from the Africa-America Institute to support completion of a book manuscript for an intellectual biography of Ralph Bunche. Support for this project aligns with AAI’s Africa Illuminated Initiative, which aims to disseminate and broaden access to quality knowledge about Africa and the worldwide African Diaspora.

Charles Sykes, John Wade Professor of Chemistry, and his team at Tufts have been awarded the 2022 Faraday Division Horizon Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) for their groundbreaking work on single-atom catalysts. The single-atom catalyst research, which began more than 15 years ago, has the potential to transform the chemical industry, reducing the cost of chemical production, improving efficiency, and significantly reducing release of carbon dioxide and other unwanted by-products of the catalytic process.

Kasso Okoudjou, Professor, Department of Mathematics, has been awarded a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation for his project titled "Topics in Abstract, Applied, and Computational Harmonic Analysis."

Deborah Schildkraut, Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, has been awarded the American Sociological Association Population Section's Otis Dudley Duncan Book Award along with her co-authors for their book States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion (Russell Sage Foundation, 2021). 

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Daanika Gordon published a book entitled Policing the Racial Divide: Urban Growth Politics and the Remaking of Segregation (NYU Press 2022), which offers a behind-the-scenes account of the harsh realities of policing in a segregated city.

Daanika Gordon, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, was named one of 10 Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the award supports scholars focusing on contemporary American history, politics, culture, and society, who are committed to building an inclusive campus community. Each recipient receives a stipend of $17,500 while working toward tenure. 

Freeden Blume Oeur, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, has been awarded the American Sociological Association's Section on Children and Youth's Early Career Award, which honors excellence in research and teaching on the sociology of children and youth.

Natasha Warikoo, Professor, Department of Sociology, has published a new book Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools (University of Chicago Press, 2022), which examines competition, power, and privilege in suburban high schools. 

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021) by Winfred Rembert, as told to Erin Kelly, Professor, Department of Philosophy, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and was awarded jointly to the late Rembert and Kelly.

Maurice Parent, Professor of the Practice, Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, is the director and choreographer of a production of the Tony Award-winning musical Ain't Misbehavin'--The Fats Waller Musical produced by The Nora@Central Square Theater, The Front Porch Arts Collective, and Greater Boston Stage Company. The production was recently reviewed by WBUR. 

Sarah Pinto, Professor, Department of Anthropology, has been selected as a 2022-2023 Fulbright U.S. Scholar.

Eitan Hersh, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, has been awarded the first-ever Ilia Salita Excellence in Research Award for Antisemitism Research from the Jewish Funders Network and Genesis Philanthropy Group. Hersh was honored for his research on antisemitic attitudes across the political spectrum in the United States.  

Richard M. Lerner, the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, has been appointed by the American Educational Research Association as one of the co-editors of the 2023 edition of the Review of Research in Education. 

Steve Cicala, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, is the author of an article titled "Imperfect Markets versus Imperfect Regulation in U.S. Electricity Generation" published in the journal American Economic Review. The article was featured as one of the journal's research highlights. 

Amy Lischko, Professor of the Practice, Department of Community Health, is a co-author on the publication “State Strategies for Slowing Health Care Cost Growth in the Commercial Market” for The Commonwealth Fund.

Professor of the Practice at SMFA at Tufts Anthony Romero co-authored a book entitled Lastgaspism: Art and Survival in the Age of Pandemic, which includes contributions from Professor of the Practice in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture Kelli Morgan and Lecturer Erin Genia. Lastgaspism is a collaborative effort to attempt to make sense of the present moment by engaging with the ecological, political, public health, and spiritual crises of our time in terms of breath, both literal and allegorical. A related exhibition, also entitled Lastgaspism, will be on view at Drexel University's Pearlstein Gallery from March 31 – May 25. This book grew out of a previous collaborative project, Organize Your Own: The Politics and Poetics of Self Determination Movements, the catalog for which was edited by Anthony Romero.

Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies in the Department of Political Science Brian Schaffner's co-written book Hometown Inequality: Race, Class, and Representation in American Local Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2020) was named one of Choice Review's Outstanding Titles of 2021.  

An article co-written by Michael Beckley, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, titled "China Is a Declining Power-and That's the Problem," was named the #1 Best Long Read in Foreign Policy for 2021. 

The World Organization for Early Childhood Education (Organisation Mondiale pour L'Éducation Préscolaire--OMEP) has designated Fernando Salinas-Quiroz, Assistant Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, as an OMEP representative in the United Nations for 2022. 

Tatiana Chudakova, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, is the author of a new book titled Mixing Medicines: Ecologies of Care in Buddhist Siberia (Fordham University Press, 2021). The book delves into the practice of Tibetan medicine in Russia's Buddhist regions in Southeastern Siberia. 

Deborah Schildkraut, Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, is co-author of a new book titled States of Belonging: Immigration Policies, Attitudes, and Inclusion (Russell Sage Foundation, 2021). The book focuses on research conducted by Schildkraut and an interdisciplinary team on the impact of state and local immigration policies on attitudes about immigrants and immigration and residents' sense of belonging in New Mexico and Arizona. The publication recently received coverage in Axios Latino's Newsletter.  

Lorgia García Peña, Mellon Associate Professor, Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, has been selected as an inaugural 2021 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. The award supports "emerging leaders in academia whose research can provide critical insight to social justice leaders and whose ideas encourage all of us to imagine how we can radically improve our democracy, economy and society."

Anne-Christine Rice, Senior Lecturer, Department of Romance Studies, has been named the 2021 recipient of the Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture, an annual program of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

Ethan Murrow, Professor of the Practice, SMFA at Tufts, has been awarded honors in the 21st Annual Massachusetts Book Awards in the Picture Book/Early Reader Category for the book he co-wrote with Vita Murrow, Zero Local: Next Stop: Kindness (Candlewick, 2021). State Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz said of the book and the honor, “This is a well-deserved honor for a thoughtful, generous book about the power of art, kindness, and diversity.”

Daanika Gordon, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, has been elected to the Law & Society Association's Board of Trustees. She will serve a three year term on the board.   

Kerri Greenidge, Mellon Assistant Professor, Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, has been awarded Fordham University's Ann M. Sperber Book Prize for her book Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter, (Liveright Books (W.W. Norton, 2020). The prize is awarded annually to an outstanding autobiography, memoir, or biography of a journalist. 

A new report from two universities in China has found that Tufts Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development (IARYD) is the world leader in publications about positive youth development from 1995 to 2020. The report also found that Director of IARYD Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair of Applied Developmental Science, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, was the second most frequent first author involved in these publications. 

David Hammer, Professor, Department of Education, is co-author of a new paper published with Lara Appleby, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vesal Dini, Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy, Ellise LaMotte, Associate Dean of Student Diversity, Inclusion, and Success, and Lily Withington. The paper, titled "Disciplinary significance of social caring in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics," was published in the journal Physical Review Physics Education Research and focuses on research conducted in a BEST program course at the School of Engineering. 

Justin Hollander, A96, Professor, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, co-authored a journal article in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research based on work he conducted with professors from the Czech Republic (Dr. Jaroslav Koutsky) and China (Dr. Kai Zhou) who both visited Tufts through the Fulbright program during the 2018-2019 school year and were appointed Visiting Scholars in UEP. 

Professor of the Practice at SMFA Guadalupe Maravilla is the 2021 recipient of The Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award, which is awarded to a distinguished artist whose work will inspire and motivate future generations to active participation and social responsibility.

Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair of Applied Developmental Science, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, and director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Society for the Study of Human Development (SSHD) Distinguished Lifetime Career Award. Lerner will formally receive the award at the 2021 SSHD meeting in November. 

Kareem Khubchandani, Mellon Bridge Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, is the winner of the 2021 de la Torre Bueno Prize from the Dance Studies Association for the book Ishtyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife (University of Michigan Press, 2020). This prize is awarded annually to the best book in Dance Studies published in the English language in the previous year.

Richard Jankowsky, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Music, has published a new book titled Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form (University of Chicago Press, 2021). The book explores the role of women and underrepresented minorities in shaping the ritual musical healing practices of North Africa. Jankowsky developed a companion website to the book in collaboration with Anna Kijas, head of Tufts' Lilly Music Library. New Books Network recently featured an interview with Jankowsky about the book. 

The DevTech Research Group, directed by Marina Bers, Professor, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, has published an edited book titled Teaching Computational Thinking and Coding to Young Children (IGI Global, 202). The book showcases years of work the group has done around Computational Thinking in early childhood education. Along with Bers, the book has 14 other contributions from the DevTech Research Group, including 6 former doctoral students, 4 current doctoral students, 1 undergraduate student, and 3 past and present staff members. Bers was also recently mentioned in Mehmet Tekdal's article "Trends and development in research on computational thinking" as one of the top 5 most cited researchers in computational thinking. 

Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm (Duke University Press, 2020) by Alex Blanchette, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, has been awarded the 2021 Diane Forsythe Prize, the science and technology studies prize in anthropology, as well as the 2021 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. Porkopolis also received an Honorable Mention for the Gregory Bateson Prize from the Society for Cultural Anthropology. In addition, his co-edited volume How Nature Works (University of New Mexico Press, 2019) has received the 2021 Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize. 

Khary Saeed Jones, Professor of the Practice, Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, has been selected as a recipient of the 2021 William Greaves Fund from Firelight Media for his in-progress film project Night Fight. The fund supports mid-career filmmakers from racially and ethnically underrepresented communities and provides grants for research and development on a feature-length non-fiction film. 

Ayanna K. Thomas, Dean of Research for the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor, Department of Psychology, has been awarded the competitive Psychonomic Society's 2021 Mid-Career Award. The award is given to mid-career scientists who have made "excellent scientific contributions to the field of experimental and cognitive psychology and related areas." Thomas will be recognized at the Psychonomic Society's 2021 Annual Meeting. 

Lynne Pepall, Professor, Department of Economics, and Chair, Department of Community Health, and Daniel Richards, Professor, Department of Economics, have co-authored a new book about advertising entitled Advertising and the Marketplace: An Economics Perspective (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021). Pepall and Richards are also the author of a recent paper published in The Review of Industrial Organization titled "Targeted Value-Enhancing Advertising and Price Competition." 

Freeden Blume Oeur, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, guest edited a special Fall 2021 edition of Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, which commemorates the 100-year anniversary of the publication of The Brownies' Book, the first major periodical for Black children. Blume Oeur was also recently awarded the 2021 Distinguished Book Award from the Sex & Gender section of the American Sociological Association for his book Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Schools (University of Minnesota Press, 2018).

Cynthia Kinnan, James L. Paddock Assistant Professor in International Economics, Department of Economics, is co-author of a new paper published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics titled "Measuring the equilibrium impacts of credit: Evidence from the Indian microfinance crisis". The paper studies a data set from for-profit microlenders and household data from the National Sample Survey to examine the effects of the state government in Andhra Pradesh, India halting microfinance activities. 

Peter Probst, Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture, is the co-editor of a new book titled National Museums in Africa: Identity, History, and Politics (Routledge, 2021) with Raymond Silverman and George Abungu. The volume presents close to 20 African scholars and museum professionals critically examining the roles national museums in Africa have played in the societies in which they are situated.  

Keith Maddox, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, has been awarded the Jenessa Shapiro Award for Contributions to Diversity and Inclusion by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Susan Barahal, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education, has been named as the Higher Education Art Educator of the Year by the Massachusetts Art Education Association.