Messages & Writings
09.13.07
To all Faculty and Staff:
Last year, based upon numerous discussions with the faculty colleagues and deans, we made an early commitment to faculty recruitment. In addition to the Academic Investment Initiative, we launched an Interdisciplinary Faculty Initiative. I am writing to give you a progress report.
Let me start by reiterating that faculty recruit faculty. Our collective efforts are bearing fruit. We are recruiting faculty colleagues from first-rate programs who are often turning down very competitive offers to join us. Our new faculty colleagues cite our interdisciplinary and translational culture, as well as our momentum, as key reasons for joining us. This year we have recruited 36 new faculty members—24 at the senior rank of full and associate professor and 12 at the assistant professor level.
The growing richness of Northeastern’s collaborative research environment can be measured in part by the 10 percent increase in research funds awarded to our faculty over 2006-2007 for a total of $54 million. These awards highlight the excellence and competitiveness of our talented faculty researchers. They also reaffirm the choices and investments we have made. Moving forward, we need to review our business processes to ensure that they optimally serve our growing faculty’s quest for extramural funding.
Here are some of the highlights of our faculty’s achievements
in the research arena over this past year.
You can read more on our research Web site.
- Assistant Professor Rebeca Rosengaus in the College of Arts and
Sciences became the first Northeastern faculty member to receive the
prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Early Career
Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)—the highest honor
bestowed by the United States Government on scientists and engineers
beginning their independent careers. Professor Rosengaus’ research—which
combines evolutionary biology, behavioral and chemical ecology, and
immunology and genetics—looks at the adaptations termites have
made to resist disease, pathogens and parasites.
- An interdisciplinary team of researchers won a $1.4 million grant
from the NSF to study the societal and policy challenges posed by
emerging nanoscale innovations and products. The principal investigators
on the project come from several social sciences fields:
- Christopher Bosso, Professor of Political Science; Associate Dean
of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy;
and Lead Primary Investigator
- Ahmed Busnaina, Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
- Jacquiline Isaacs, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering
- William Kay, Associate Professor of Political Science
- Ronald Sandler, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religion
- Northeastern competed successfully for its second Integrated Graduate
Education and Research Training Program (IGERT) award from the NSF.
Sara Wadia-Fascetti, professor of civil engineering and associate
vice provost for faculty advancement is principal investigator on
the $3 million grant. The award will fund an IGERT program in Intelligent
Diagnostics for Civil Infrastructure.
- Northeastern formed a technology-transfer partnership with Greek
universities and research centers, at the heart of which is the creation
of a Northeastern University-Greece Innovation Center. The center
will enable the exchange of scientists and facilitate the transfer
of technology— in fields like energy, nanotechnology, biotechnology,
and drug discovery—to the economic and intellectual benefit
of both. Spearheading the project was Graham Jones, Professor of Chemistry
and Chemical Biology and Special Assistant to the Provost for Faculty
Affairs and Technology Transfer.
-A team of Northeastern University researchers received a $1.2 million
grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation to develop an innovative multifunctional
nanochip that will serve as a powerful nanobiosensor and drug delivery
system. The researchers spearheading this unique interdisciplinary
project come from three schools within the University:
- Project leader Ahmed Busnaina, W.L. Smith Professor of Engineering
and Director of the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for
High-Rate Nanomanufacturing
- Barry Karger, James L. Waters Chair in Analytical Chemistry and
Director of the Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis
- Vladimir Torchilin, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Director of the Center for Pharmaceutical
Biotechnology and Nanomedicine
Another measure of the vitality of Northeastern’s research
environment is the health of our graduate education program. I’m
happy to report that this area has never been more robust. During
the past two years, graduate applications increased by nearly 50 percent,
a testament to our innovative and creative research environment. Our
graduate students, working alongside our faculty, have contributed
greatly to the advancement of science, thought, and creative expression.
Many have earned prestigious academic awards for their investigations.
Here are highlights of just a few:
- Patricia Morris, a graduate student in the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology, was one of just 7 percent of applicants awarded
a 2007 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, which
is administered by The Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation and the Woodrow
Wilson Foundation. Her award was based on her study of the sociology
of professions, particularly the socialization of veterinary students.
- With the support of an NSF grant, graduate student Dan Kunkle and
Professor Gene Cooperman, both of the College of Computer and Information
Science, established a new record for solving any configuration of
the Rubik’s cube in just 26 moves—demonstrating mathematical
ingenuity and computing capabilities that can then be applied to a
variety of fields from artificial intelligence to operations. They
presented their research at the International Symposium on Symbolic
and Algebraic Computation in Waterloo, Ontario.
- Marta Rodriguez-Galan, a doctoral candidate in sociology, has just
been awarded one of the four Charles H. Farnsworth Trust fellowships
in Aging Policy Research for 2006. She is conducting research for
her doctoral dissertation entitled “Depression among Aging Hispanics
in Massachusetts: The Role of Informal and Formal Social Support Systems.”
- History graduate student Stefany Boyle won a Fulbright Dissertation
Fellowship to conduct research on her doctoral dissertation, which explores
the impact of religious movements on urbanization in nineteenth and early
twentieth century Egypt. She is the first History doctoral student to have
received a Fulbright Fellowship.
In both faculty recruitment and research, we have made impressive achievements, and I look forward to the continuation of our momentum on both fronts in the coming academic year. In the next of these series of messages, I will discuss the advances we made last year in student enrollment.
New Faculty, Fall 2007
For more detail, please visit our New Faculty Web site
Bouvé College of Health Sciences
Alisa Lincoln, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
Theresa L. Osypuk, Assistant Professor of Health Science
Kevin Reilly, Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology and Audiology
College of Arts and Sciences
Albert-László Barabási, Distinguished Professor
of Physics
Matthew Bracken, Assistant Professor of Biology
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, Associate Professor of English
Sara Doris, Assistant Professor of Art and Design
Marcelo Febo, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Craig Ferris, Professor of Psychology
Gregory Goodale, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
Kirsten Hardy,
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Denise Horn, Assistant Professor of International Affairs
Katherine A. Luongo, Assistant Professor of History
Lucy Maulsby, Assistant Professor of Architecture
Matt McDonald, Assistant Professor of Music
Shelley McDonough-Kimeberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology and
Anthropology
David Monje, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies
Antonio Ocampo-Guzman, Assistant Professor of Theatre
Lev Perelman, Professor of Physics
College of Business Administration
Charles W. Bame-Aldred, Assistant Professor of Accounting
Elitsa Banalieva, Assistant Professor of International Business and
Strategy
James Dana, Professor of Economics and Strategy
Irem Demirkan, Assistant Professor of International Business and Strategy
Joy Godesiabois, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Anna Lamin, Assistant Professor of International Business and Strategy
Kimberly K. Moreno, Associate Professor of Accounting
Nancy Upton, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Arnold R. Wright, Joseph M. Golemme Research Chair in Accounting
College of Computer and Information Science
Pangiotis (Pete) Manolios, Associate Professor of Computer and Information
Science
College of Criminal Justice
Ekaterina Botchkovar, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
Hillary Farber, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
Walter Forrest, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
College of Engineering
Andrew Gouldstone, Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering
Jeff Kharoufeh, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering
David Luzzi, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Dean
of the
College of Engineering
Kai-tak Wan, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
School of Technological Entrepreneurship
Tucker James Marion, Assistant Professor of Technological Entrepreneurship
New Faculty, Fall 2008
For more detail, please visit our New Faculty Web site
College of Arts and Sciences
Karin Velez, Assistant Professor of Department of History