Leadership And Support

Sara Wadia-Fascetti, PhD

Director of ADVANCE and Principal Investigator
Special Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Development
Email: swf@coe.neu.edu

Sara Wadia-Fascetti serves as Director of the Northeastern ADVANCE program and Special Assistant to the Provost for Faculty Development. She served previously as Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement where she worked on policy development, initiatives to support faculty development and the university-wide faculty mentoring program. Professor Wadia-Fascetti has been a member of the faculty in the Civil & Environmental Engineering department since 1994. She performs research in the use of nondestructive sensing technologies for condition assessment and diagnostics on structural systems, co-directs the (VOTERS) initiative, and is a member of the Executive Committee for NSF-funded Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems (Gordon - CenSSIS). She directs the NSF funded Interdisciplinary Graduate Education and Reseach Traineeship (IGERT) site on Intelligent Diagnosis for Aging Civil Infrastructure and serves as Director of Graduate Programs in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department.

Luis M. Falcon, PhD

ADVANCE Co-Principal Investigator
Vice Provost for Graduate Affairs
Email: l.falcon@neu.edu

Luis M. Falcon is Vice-Provost for Graduate Education at Northeastern University. In this role, he has oversight over graduate education policy, financial aid, marketing and recruitment, and program initiatives. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as vice-provost for faculty. Previously, he served as Associate Dean for Faculty and Director of the Graduate School in the College of Arts and Sciences. Between 2000 and 2002, he chaired the Department of Sociology and Anthropology where he has been a tenured member of the faculty since 1994. His research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council and the National Institute on Aging. His published research is in the areas of labor market inequality, minority aging, and mental health. His most recent publications are in the journals of Aging and Mental Health (forthcoming), Journal of Aging and Health (forthcoming), and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2009).

Jacqueline Isaacs, PhD

ADVANCE Co-Principal Investigator
Associate Director, Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing
Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
Email: jaisaacs@coe.neu.edu

As an Associate Director for the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN), Jackie Isaacs leads the research thrust on responsible nanomanufacturing. CHN is an NSF funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), a collaborative effort among several university partners (Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, the University of New Hampshire, and Michigan State University) and the Boston Museum of Science. Interdisciplinary collaborations on societal implications have led to the formation of the Nanotechnology and Society Research Group (NSRG), which works to address the impact and ramifications of nanomanufacturing technology. Professor Isaacs also serves as the NU CHN Education Coordinator, for which she helps to organize educational opportunities for students at various levels of education. Within the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, her research focuses on economic and environmental assessment of nanomanufacturing processes as well as development of related educational games. She also leads an NSF-funded project to create SHORTFALL, a game for engineering students to green the automobile supply chain.

Graham B. Jones, PhD

ADVANCE Co-Principal Investigator
Chair of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Co-Director of the Barnett Institute of Chemical & Biological Analysis at Northeastern University
Email: gr.jones@neu.edu

Graham B. Jones is Professor and Chair of Chemistry & Chemical Biology and Co-Director of the Barnett Institute of Chemical & Biological Analysis at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Jones was educated in the UK, receiving BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from the University of Liverpool and the Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine respectively. He then moved to the USA as a NATO fellow and conducted independent research at Harvard University with E. J. Corey, the 1990 Nobelist in chemistry. His research expertise lies at the interface of organic and medicinal chemistry, and has resulted in over 100 publications, generated in excess of $10M external funding and forged numerous collaborative partnerships with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He has been appointed to several editorial posts for scholarly scientific journals, and was awarded the DSc degree in 2006 for his contributions to medicinal chemistry. Graham has held a variety of influential executive positions in the academic sector both in the UK and USA. These include Directorship of the Northeastern Biotechnology Initiative, as the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Enterprise at the University of Hull.

Kathrin Zippel, PhD

ADVANCE Co-Principal Investigator
Email: k.zippel@neu.edu

Kathrin Zippel is an associate professor of sociology at Northeastern University and Co-PI to the ADVANCE program. Her current work explores how globalization of academic communities impacts gender relations in academia. She has published on public and social policy, gender politics, social movements, law, and the welfare state. Dr. Zippel is also the Co-PI on the Transatlantic Research on Gender Equity Training (TARGET) grant, funded by the (ATLANTIS) program from the US Department of Education (FIPSE) and the European Commission in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, the Compultense University Madrid, the Radboud University Nijmegen and Humboldt University, Berlin. She is affiliated with the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University and co-chairs the Gender, Politics and Society Study group there.

Senior Personnel

Carolyn Lee-Parsons, PhD

Carolyn Lee-Parsons is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and serves as Senior Personnel focusing on networking activities on the Northeastern ADVANCE program. Her research interests are in biochemical engineering and metabolic engineering, specifically engineering the enhanced production of pharmaceutical compounds from plant cell cultures and biodiesel from microalgal cultures. Her research investigates the bottlenecks to production at the gene expression and at the global metabolic levels. Carolyn is also involved as an advisor to the Professional Masters Program in Biotechnology at Northeastern. Her primary research areas are Production of pharmaceutical compounds from cell culture; Plant cell and tissue culture; Metabolic engineering.

Rosanna Garcia, PhD

McCarthy Family Research Fellow
Email: r.garcia@neu.edu

Professor Rosanna Garcia joined the Marketing Department in the Northeastern College of Business Administration in 2002 and in 2006 she became a McCarthy Family Fellow. Professor Garcia's research interests are in new product development, radical innovations, and complexity theory. Recent studies have investigated the diffusion of resistant innovations; in particular, screw caps on fine wines, alternative fuel vehicles and nanotechnologies. Other research looks at the flow of information through social networks using agent-based models. Professor Garcia, who holds a doctorate in Marketing, has a diverse educational background including a BS in Chemical Engineering, BA in Business Economics, and an Masters of Business Administration (MBA). She is a co-PI on the NSF sponsored project, MUSES: Environmental Policy, Auto Design & Material Flows.

Program Manager

Kathryn Schulte, PhD

Email:

Dr. Kathryn Schulte is the Program Manager for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. She received her Ph.D. and Master's degrees in civil engineering from Columbia University. Dr. Schulte is also a Northeastern University alumna, where she obtained her Bachelor's degree in civil engineering. She also has broad experience in leading the development of and managing women's social and professional networking groups at the university level. Her role with ADVANCE will be to manage the many programs and initiatives sponsored by the Northeastern ADVANCE program ranging from faculty recruitment to networking to leadership engagement.

Post Doctoral Research Associate

Debra Guckenheimer, PhD

Email:

As the Northeastern ADVANCE Postdoctoral Research Associate, Debra Guckenheimer is conducting research on gender, social networks, and international research collaborations of Northeastern faculty members. Her research interests include social movements and organizations as well as gender, race, and class intersectionalities. Debra's recent dissertation explored how organizational insiders bring about changes often connected to social movements, utilizing the case of faculty efforts to increase institutional diversity. She has also published on sexual violence, rape crisis centers, and Israel. She received an Emerging Diversity Scholar citation from the National Center for Institutional Diversity at University of Michigan and an award from the Flack's Fund for the Study of Democratic Possibilities.

Kanchan Chaudhari

Email:

Kanchan Chaudhari is a Graduate Research Assistant for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. Kanchan holds a Bachelors of Engineering degree in Electronics and is currently pursuing her Masters degree in Telecommunication Systems Management from Northeastern University. Her role at NU Advance is data and resource collection for NU STRIDE, organization, management and maintenance of databases, website maintenance, working on various softwares needed by the ADVANCE program and also helping with technical support.

Saleha Chaudhry

Email:

Saleha Chaudhry is a Graduate Research Assistant for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. Saleha holds a bachelors degree in psychology and sociology from Mount Holyoke College. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral degree in Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology from Northeastern University. Her research interests are in the treatment of women and minorities in mental health and the strategies for improving mental health practices in the United States. Saleha is involved with social science research for the STRIDE committee, data collection, organization of databases, and event planning at the ADVANCE program.

Undergraduate Students

Alexandra Charest

Alexandra Charest is the Undergraduate Research Assistant for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. She is currently pursuing a degree in Economics. Her role with the Advance team is to provide clerical and research support. She is a member of the College of Arts and Sciences Honor Society as well as the International Honor Society in Economics.

Emily Batt

Emily is an undergraduate research assistant for the ADVANCE program. She is currently pursuing a degree in physics at Northeastern. In the ADVANCE office, she is assisting in the network research study and CV analysis project.

Kevin Levesque

Kevin Levesque is an Undergraduate Office Assistant for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. He is currently pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering. His role with the Advance team is to perform clerical tasks.

Jonnas Jacques

Jonnas Jacques is an Undergraduate Office Associate for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. He is currently pursuing a degree in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Structural Engineering. His role with the Advance team is to manage communications and promote office efficiency.