Kudos December 2022
Celebrating Tufts Faculty and Staff
by: Sara Norberg
Kudos is a monthly submissions-based roundup celebrating university faculty and staff -- awards, honors, thought leadership, new arrivals, and more. Share your own great news or recognize a colleague at go.tufts.edu/kudos.
AS&E Shared: Kathleen Spillane, Asst Dir Career Services, Career Services
AS&E Shared: Brenda Torres, Student Services Rep, Student Services Center - A&S
AS&E Shared: Samantha Snair, Asst Librarian Res & Instruct, Tisch Library
AS&E Shared: Amanda Morse, Senior Library Assistant, Tisch Library
Advancement: Caroline Van Ummersen, Asst Dir Dig Fund & Mktg, UA - Tufts Annual Giving
Advancement: Lyn Lundrigan, Administrative Assistant, UA-Fletcher Dev & Alumni Rel
Arts and Sciences: Benjamin Quinn, Administrative Coordinator, Graduate Arts & Sciences
Arts and Sciences: Edward Perkins, Administrative Coordinator, Office Dean Arts & Sciences
Auxiliary Services: Nicholas Piscitello, Sr Director, Auxiliary Svcs, Auxiliary Services
Cummings: Kaustubh Dongaonkar, Clinical Asst Professor, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Denise Elwart, Department Manager, Comparative Pathobiology
Cummings: Arianna Peluffo, Client Services Assistant, Foster Hosp - Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Kate Aub, Client Services Assistant, Foster Hosp - Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Ryan Snow, Veterinary Technician I, Large Animal Hosp-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Elizabeth Opalka, Veterinary Technician III, Large Animal Hosp-Cummings-Vet
Dental: David Raymond, Dental Operations Manager, Administration - Dental
Dental: Dawn Sydney, Patient Financial Manager, Clinic Billing Operations
Dental: Romeo Margariti, Central Sterilization Asst, Clinic Materials-Dental
Dental: Ilda Miranda, Radiology Dent Asst II, Diagnostic Sciences-Radiology
Dental: Dimitris Margaritis, Dental Assistant III, Orthodontics - Dental
Dental: Paige Quinno, Practice Manager, Periodontology - Dental
Dining: Mona Afifi, Second Cook, Dewick Dining
Dining: Peter Mitsakis, Chef Manager, Hodgdon Dining
Dining: Joseph Leblanc, Second Cook, SMFA Dining
Engineering: Michaela Bruno, Research Tech, Biomedical Engineering
Engineering: Clint Cheng, Postdoctoral Scholar, Chemical & Biological Engineer
Fletcher: Chantal Abou Chacra, Assistant Director, Academic Support-Fletcher
Fletcher: Stephanie Depauw, Asst Dir Global MasterArt Prog, Academic Support-Fletcher
Friedman: Francisco Javier Guardado, Web Developer, Communications
HNRCA: Audrey Opoku-Acheampong, Research Coordinator, Vitamin K Lab-HNRC
Medical: Elizabeth Evans, Lab Instructor, DPT Boston Program
Medical: Christina Kiefer, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Matthew Spilsbury, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Shannon Jameson, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Tanya Lee, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Cynthia Jarzabek, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Jamie Kuettal, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Lynnette Gilmore, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Ariana Seif-Naraghi, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Kyle Christakos, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Kevin Hall, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Alicia Dulaney, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Nancy Malay, Lab Instructor, DPT Phoenix Program
Medical: Kathryn Sawyer, Assistant Professor, DPT Seattle Program
Medical: Jeff Brisbin, Administrative Coordinator, Educational Affairs - Medical
Medical: Halle Clark, Administrative Coordinator, Educational Affairs - Medical
Medical: Isatta Coomber, Communications Specialist, Public Health & Community Med
Medical: Cameron CAS&Ella, Research Asst, Public Health & Community Med
Operations: Nathan Scott, Assoc Director Capital Progrms, Facilities Services - Constr.
Operations: Amadu Mohamomed, Campus Security Officer I, Public Safety - Boston
Operations: Christopher Stevens, Campus Security Officer I, Public Safety - Fenway
Operations: David Sousa, Police Officer, Public Safety - Medford
Operations: Joel Smith, Senior Campus Planner, VP Operations Administration
Provost: Jake Ashton, Lab Animal Caretaker, CMS
Provost: Valencia Johnson, Lab Animal Caretaker, CMS
Provost: Jennifer Akeley, Knowledge Management Specialist, Office of the Vice Provost
Provost: Jacob Blevins, Research Compliance Specialist, Office of the Vice Provost
Tufts Technology Services: Jonathan Zepeda, IT Client Support Specialist, Tufts Technology Services
Tufts Technology Services: Jeffrey Soutter, Manager Endpoint Engineering, Tufts Technology Services
University Relations: Richard Subrizio, Director Engagement Mktg, Univ Rel - Comms & Marketing
Kerri Greenidge, Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, had her book The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family named a 2022 top 10 history book by Smithsonian Magazine.
Peter Gwynne, postdoctoral scholar at the School of Medicine, and his Tufts colleagues were one of 10 Phase 1 winners of the LymeX Diagnostics Prize competition for their project "Antiphospholipid Antibodies for Tracking Lyme Disease After Treatment," a project for which Gwynne was the lead researcher. The LymeX Diagnostics Prize competition aims to accelerate the development of Lyme disease diagnostics. The news was announced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, who will award $100,000 to the 10 winners as well as an invitation to participate in a second phase of the competition, subject to the availability of future funding.
Anna Kijas, AG05, head of Lilly Music Library, was honored with a Council Resolution from the Society of American Archivists for founding the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online initiative and for her ongoing work to safeguard digital cultural heritage in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Noe Montez, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, had a book of plays he co-edited and co-translated, Nothing to Do with Love and Other Plays (Seagull Books, 2021), win honorable mention in the American Society for Theatre Research’s (ASTR) 2022 Translation Prize. Nothing to Do with Love and Other Plays brings together, for the first time in English, several of Argentine playwright Santiago Loza’s major works, along with visual documentation of the playwright’s many productions and their historical and thematic contexts. The 2022 ASTR committee was impressed by Montez and his colleagues’ linguistic and theatrical expertise intrinsic to the translation of Loza’s plays.
Allen Taylor, senior scientist and director of the Nutrition and Vision Research Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts and professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, was one of the City College of New York’s Alumni Association’s 2022 Townsend Harris Medalists. Taylor received the award for his scientific and humanitarian work, including for his role as founding director of Scientific Training Encouraging Peace-Graduate Training Program, a graduate program that fosters peace and collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian students.
David Valdes, lecturer in English in the School of Arts and Sciences, saw his young adult novel Spin Me Right Round, which came out in January, named a New York Public Library Best Book for Teens and an Indie Next and School Library Journal pick. He also has two books coming out next year: Brighter Than the Moon from Bloomsbury and Finding Me Elf from Harper Collins. Also, in early September he was on a panel at the Library of Congress National Book Festival.
Alex Blanchette, associate professor of anthropology and interim director of the Environmental Studies Program, provided much of the background information in Civil Eats’ five-part series on worker injustice and abuse in meat industries and was quoted in the lead story in the series, “Animal Agriculture Is Dangerous Work. The People Who Do It Have Few Protections.”
Dana Cairns, GBS12, research associate in the Kaplan Lab at the School of Engineering, published “Screening neuroprotective compounds in herpes-induced Alzheimer's disease cell and 3D tissue models” in Free Radical Biology and Medicine. Carins led the research, and co-authors of the journal article include Isabella A. Silveira, E21, Adam Mullis, a postdoctoral scholar at Tufts, along with David Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Engineering and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The research found that green tea and resveratrol reduce the brain plaques associated the Alzheimer's, a disease that affects more than 6 million Americans and their families, with no side effects. Read more on Tufts Now.
Eileen Crehan, assistant professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, received funding from the Deborah Noonan Foundation to research educational inequities for autistic students in Massachusetts. Along with collaborators at Boston Children’s Hospital, Crehan also received an R34 grant through the National Institute of Mental Health to develop an eye tracking and behavioral paradigm to study relationships and sexuality in autistic adults.
Kendra Field, associate professor of history, and Khary Jones, professor of the practice in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, were among the 35 grantees of the 2022 Sundance Institute Documentary Fund for their documentary project Night Fight, which is currently in the production stage. Night Fight is a hybrid documentary—nonfiction wrapped in fiction—which charts a week in the life of a Black man attempting to step out of the long shadow cast by an act of racial violence perpetrated against him, as a nation seizes and convulses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, counts down to a presidential election, and bears witness to the police killing of George Floyd.
Hannah Gavin, lecturer in the Department of Biology, alongside Tufts undergraduate students Carina Carlos, Helen Cedzidlo, Xingfeiyang Liu, Massimo Modica, Izaiah Rhodes, Leah Truskinovsky, Ethan VanGosen, and J. J. Wheeler, published the paper “Complete Genome Sequence of Arthrobacter Phage GantcherGoblin Exhibits Both Conservation with Subcluster AU6 Phages and Genetic Novelty” in Microbiology Resource Announcements. Additionally, Gavin, alongside Tufts undergraduate students Maxwell Allison, Daniel Barszczak, Yaqi Cai, Lily Forman, Joshua Goldstein, Sarrah Hakimjee, Matthew Scapicchio, and Ruben Torres, also published “Complete Genome Sequence of Gordonia rubripertincta Bacteriophage Hexbug Suggests Potential for a New CT Subcluster” in Microbiology Resource Announcements. The research in both publications took place in an innovative laboratory course that Gavin offered through the Tufts Experimental College and will continue to offer through the Department of Biology.
Andrew McClellan, professor in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, received the 2022-2023 Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Fellowship at the National Humanities Center for his project titled “Rivals on the Fenway: Isabella Stewart Gardner, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Destiny of the American Art Museum.”
Kelli Morgan, professor of the practice and the inaugural director of the Curatorial Studies Program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, has been named a recipient of the 2022-2023 Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators. As part of the fellowship, Morgan and her fellow recipients will be collaborating with Hyperallergic, an online publication focused on contemporary perspectives on art, culture, and more, to share insights and behind-the-scenes updates on their curatorial processes. As part of this effort, Morgan will publish two articles, design an email exhibition for Hyperallergic subscribers, and discuss her work in an open online event. Her curatorial project is titled Art, Whiteness, and Empire: A History of the Art Museum. Read more about Morgan on Tufts Now.
Susan Napier, Goldthwaite professor of rhetoric and Japanese, wrote a book review for The New York Times about the first English translation of Japanese author Hayao Miyazaki's book Shuna’s Journey.
Find past Kudos (formerly known as People Notes). Submit your own great news or recognize a colleague at go.tufts.edu/kudos.