Sara Wadia-Fascetti, PhD

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies
Director of ADVANCE & 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.

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

Amanda Wittman, PhD

Email:

Dr. Wittman received her M.S. in College Student Services from Oregon State University and Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests lie in organizational politics, the promotion of women at work through program development, and international relations. During her Ph.D, she worked for the Scottish Executive and researched the barriers gendered change efforts face in political organizations. Her role with ADVANCE will be to devote her time researching various mentoring and networking opportunities for women and minority faculty, examining cultural competencies for faculty, and evaluating ADVANCE programming at Northeastern University.

Amy Lubitow

Email:

Amy Lubitow is a Graduate Research Assistant for Northeastern University's ADVANCE Program. Amy received her B.A. in Sociology from Ithaca College and her M.A. in Sociology from Northeastern. She is currently pursuing her Doctoral degree in Sociology and her dissertation focuses on environmental social movements and chemical regulation in the U.S. Amy has also conducted research related to toxic chemicals and women's bodies, environmental justice and transnational family ties. At ADVANCE, Amy is responsible for assisting in the process of data collection, transcription, and analysis and also as works on reviewing and compiling literature related to ADVANCE research projects.

Jimmy Lee

Email: lee.jim@neu.edu

Jimmy Lee is a second year economic graduate student at Northeastern University. He received his bachelor degree in Energy Resource Management from Bridgewater State University. Jimmy works at Advance office as a social science research assistant, whose responsibilities include data collection, data analysis and performing clerical tasks. In his free time, he likes to learn how to use different statistical packages to carry out research works. Jimmy would like to become a consultant in the energy industry or business world.