Kudos December 2023
Celebrating Tufts Faculty and Staff
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.
Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, the Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health, received the 2023 Franklin Delano Roosevelt Humanitarian Award from March of Dimes honoring her outstanding commitment to maternal and infant health.
Ayse Asatekin, associate professor at the School of Engineering, recently received a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science to advance more efficient and effective separation methods through improving membrane filtration that will support biorefineries as they pursue more sustainable fuel production.
Thomas Fitzgerald, Charlotte Lammel, Yada Sotangkur, Anthony Vu, and Desmond Wong, all students at The Fletcher School, placed second at the Cornell EMI Corning Case Competition.
Kenneth Getz, executive director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development and research professor at the School of Medicine, received a Red Jacket award from PharmaVoice.
Sunah Hyun, senior researcher for the Tisch College student programs team, was named the Campus Compact Student Engagement Research Fellow for the 2023–2024 academic year. Hyun’s work at Tisch College focuses on creating new evaluation strategies and effective assessment systems. As the Student Engagement Research Fellow, she will advance Campus Compact in deepening civic and community student engagement with member campuses.
David Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Engineering, Renata Micha, adjunct associate professor at the Friedman School, Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Food Is Medicine and dean emeritus at the Friedman School, and John Wong, professor at the School of Medicine, have been named to the Highly Cited Researchers 2023 list by Clarivate. The researchers on the list have a significant impact on the research community, judging by the rate their work is cited by their peers, according to Clarivate, an information and analytics firm focused on research. Read more about the Tufts researchers’ accomplishments on Tufts Now.
Valencia Koomson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, was on the research team that won first prize in the “Innovation Generation Towards Entrepreneurship” competition hosted at the 2023 IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference. The project was titled “ChromaSense-Empowering Health, Empowering You.” The team was led by Ravi Durbha, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of Koomson’s research lab, Advanced Integrated Circuits and Systems Lab at Tufts.
David Lee-Parritz, clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, was honored during the 2023 Biomedical Research Day celebration held by the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research.
Mary Y. Lee, professor of medicine, was awarded the Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advancing the Careers of Women in Medicine from the American College of Physicians.
Veronica Lima Gonsalez, doctoral candidate in the School of Engineering, won third place in a student paper competition hosted by Geosyntec. Her work focused on improving groundwater remediation with denitrification.
Brandon Linton, men’s basketball coach, was named to Silver Waves Media’s 2023 Most Impactful Division III Head Coaches list.
Jennifer Mandelbaum, lecturer in the Department of Community Health, received the Early Career Award from the American Public Health Association’s Public Health Education and Health Promotion.
Madeleine Mathias, F24, has been named one of the 2023 Security Industry Association Women in Security Forum Scholarship recipients.
Kasso Okoudjou, professor of mathematics, and Todd Quinto, Robinson Professor of Mathematics, have been named 2024 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Fellows. AMS members designated as Fellows of the AMS have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics.
Photini Pazartzis, Constantine G. Karamanlis Chair of Hellenic and European Studies at The Fletcher School, was named one of the award recipients at the American Community Schools of Athens Alumni Achievement Awards Gala last month.
Liza Perry, deputy director of government and community relations, was awarded the Humble Dragon award at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School 176th Anniversary Celebration in Boston, The Humble Dragon award recognizes selfless individuals who have devoted time and effort to strengthen and enrich the school community without seeking the limelight.
Sushant Swami, F24, and Nikita Vardiparti, F24, as members of The Fletcher School Team Raitagyana won “Audience Favorite” in a pitch competition at the 70th annual Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) convention, along with $5,000 and a year of executive coaching. Raitagyana’s mission is to empower smallholder farmers in southwestern India. Raitagyana won the Fletcher D-Prize in 2023 and was part of the 2023 Tufts Venture Accelerator, sponsored by the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
Farshid Vahedifard, professor and Louis Berger Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering, received an NSF grant to develop levee adaptation strategies while promoting equity and environmental justice.
Kate Zukowski, veterinary technician at the Cummings School of Veterinary of Medicine, was nationally recognized by the Academy of Veterinary Dental Technicians with the Excellence in Dentistry Education award. The award honors contributions to professional development and continuing education, mentorship, and volunteering.
The winners of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center’s 2023 Ideas Competition live finals were announced.
- Judges’ Choice Awards
- 1st Place: Moovu – Henry Scherb, MSIM 2023
- 2nd Place: Lynx – Madison Page, E27
- 3rd Place: Polar Privacy – Devon Minor, E24
- Most Promising Undergraduate Team Award
- Rent Right – Amelicha Trinidad Gonzalez, A26; Amos Trinidad Gonzalez, M.S. Data Analytics 2025
- Audience Favorite Award
- SkillBridge – Prudhvi Raj Dasari, MSIM 2024
Kwasi Ampene, professor and chair of the Department of Music, presented the keynote lecture for the African and African Diaspora Music Section at the 68th annual meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology in Ottawa-Canada. The title of his keynote was: “What is African Music? Reflections on decolonizing the study and performance of the musical arts of Africa in the Academy.”
Qais Assali, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, curated the exhibition Branding Conflict: Repositories of Memory at Shoe Bones last month.
Amahl Bishara, associate professor of anthropology, is quoted at length about the long history of conflict between Israel and Palestine in this feature on NPR station KUOW.
Alice Connors-Kellgren, assistant professor of psychiatry, appears on a WCVB segment discussing how the time change impacts mental health.
Tom Dannenbaum, associate professor of international law at The Fletcher School, is quoted in a New York Times article entitled “Israel, Gaza and the Laws of War” and was interviewed on NPR for the segment entitled “A look at the laws that govern urban warfare in Gaza and beyond.”
Leighla Dergham, M.P.H student, Rohan Iyer, M.P.H. student, Hannah Rieders, affiliate, Madeline Rieders, affiliate, Michael Siegel, professor, all at the School of Medicine, authored the study “Association Between Changes in Racial Residential Segregation and Trends in Racial Disparities in Early Mortality in 220 Metropolitan Areas, 2001–2018” in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
Michelle DiBlasi, assistant professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, spoke with Parade Magazine about the biggest early symptom of seasonal affective disorder that people usually miss—not having enough energy to do things they previously enjoyed.
Rose Facchini, lecturer in the department of romance studies, published a translation of “Vendetta” by Diego Lama in Wyldblood.
Kelly Sims Gallagher, dean ad interim and professor of energy and environmental policy at The Fletcher School, contributed to The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s latest report on decarbonizing the United States and how to equitably achieve net zero targets. Gallagher also shared her expertise on China’s transformation into a science and technology superpower in a PBS NOVA episode.
Shuliang Gao, postdoctoral scholar, Jennifer Khirallah, Ph.D. candidate, Donghui Song, postdoctoral scholar, Douglas Wich, Ph.D. candidate, Qiaobing Xu, professor, Zhongfeng Ye, postdoctoral scholar, Yu Zhao, postdoctoral scholar, all from the School of Engineering, outlined the use of novel nanomachines in a study published in Nature Communications. The paper was selected as a highlight for a “Biotechnology and Methods” feature page. Read more about the research on the School of Engineering’s website.
Grant Garven, professor emeritus in the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, co-authored the e-book Groundwater and Hydrothermal Ore Deposits, published by the Groundwater Project. The book covers the geology, physics, chemistry, and mathematical models for the formation of hydrothermal ore deposits, the principal source of the world’s most critical minerals.
Laura Gee, professor of economics, was quoted in The Globe and Mail about her research on primary family contacts at schools and who is called first regardless of who is listed.
Riccardo Giacconi, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, had his film Due screened at Fondazione Prada in Milan earlier this fall. His film Animal was screened last month in Kassel, Germany, as part of the Kasseler Dokfest Film Festival.
Sean Glover, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and alum Daniela Rivera, AG06 (MFA), are in a two-person exhibition entitled Deep Time: Frescos by N. Sean Glover and Daniela Rivera presented by Drive-by Projects.
Angelina Gualdoni, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, has her solo exhibition, entitled Verso della Terra, on display at Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York City. The show runs through December 22, 2023.
Peter Gwynne, research assistant professor, and Linden Hu, Paul and Elaine Chervinsky Professor in Immunology and vice dean for research, alongside Kee-Lee Stocks, a Ph.D. student, research assistant Aarya Pandit, E25, and former research assistant Elysse S. Karozichian, E23, all at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, authored “Metabolic modeling predicts unique drug targets in Borrelia burgdorferi” in the journal mSystems. Details about the research also appeared on the Office of the Vice Provost for Research website.
Justin Hollander, A96, professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, was interviewed for an article in WIRED Magazine, where his research with former Tufts students, Minyu Situ, AG19, and Alexander Seto, E22, on social bots was highlighted.
Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tisch College, discussed the state tax relief proposal being reviewed by Governor Healey and its impact for residents on WBUR. He also spoke with the Boston Globe about Healey’s proposal to add a tax on residential sales of more than $1 million, and spoke with Boston Business Journal about collaborative new research on college-educated immigrants.
Maulik Jagnani, assistant professor of environmental economics at The Fletcher School, co-wrote a blog post published on the IGC website in which he details his recent research. Jagnani also co-authored a blog post on the World Bank Blogs website. Additionally, Jagnani and Fletcher Junior Fellow in Climate Policy Kate Chi assess the “global stocktake,” what it means for COP28, and why there are signs of progress in a recent article for The Conversation.
Paul Jerem, a Marie Curie Global Fellow, and Michael Romero, professor of biology, published “It’s cool to be stressed: body surface temperatures track sympathetic nervous system activation during acute stress” in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Read more about it on Tufts Now.
Shan Jiang, assistant professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, recently presented her research on “Mining Small and Big Data for Smart, Equitable, and Resilient Urban Futures” at the 10th Urban China Forum, “Transformations and Opportunities of Urban Planning in China in Recent Decades.”
Navin Kapur, professor of medicine, is the senior author on a study that found women with heart failure-related cardiogenic shock have worse outcomes and more vascular complications than men. It was published in the journal JACC: Heart Failure. A Medscape article about the research—with quotes from Kapur—was also recently published.
Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Newhouse director of CIRCLE (Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), commented on why a lack of civics education is problematic on NPR’s Morning Edition. Kawashima-Ginsberg and Peter Levine, associate dean for academic affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tisch College, co-authored a Boston Globe article (along with Jessica Lieberman of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences) making the case for aligning local elections with even-year federal and state elections.
Jennifer Kim, research assistant professor at the School of Medicine and the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, co-authored “What Makes an Inclusive Leader?” in Harvard Business Review. In the article, Kim and colleagues interviewed diversity, equity, and inclusion leaders from various organizations and industries and identified five key behaviors that help leaders make their organizations more inclusive.
Michael Klein, William L. Clayton Professor of International at The Fletcher School, is quoted in the Investopedia article “Americans Are Wealthier Than Ever. Why Do They Feel Worse About Their Finances?”
Marvin Konstam, professor of medicine, and Daniel Weiner, associate professor of medicine, break down the details of the newly designated medical condition, cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome in a Health.com article.
Michele LaBotz, clinical assistant professor at the School of Medicine, was quoted in USA Today and MedPage after participating in the National Athletic Trainer’s Association media briefing on youth sports specialization.
Susan Landau, Bridge Professor in Cybersecurity and Policy at The Fletcher School and the School of Engineering, had a recent speech quoted in TechCrunch. She spoke during a seminar organized by the European Data Protection Supervisor on a controversial child sexual abuse material-scanning proposal that’s under discussion by lawmakers in Europe. She was also quoted in a PopSci article entitled “Can we find hackers by the clues they leave in their code?” Landeau was awarded the 2024 Bertrand Russell Prize of the American Mathematical Society for her leading scholarship in encryption policy and digital privacy, for her work writing technical research papers and op-eds, publishing public-facing work, briefing policymakers, and participating in national studies.
Sola Mahfouz, a research technician in the School of Arts and Sciences and author of Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for an Education, had an opinion piece, “In the Shadows of Silence: Unveiling Afghanistan in the Global Face of Patriarchy,” published in the Wilson Center’s blog Enheduanna. Sola Mahfouz is a pseudonym she uses to protect family members still in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Read more on Tufts Now.
Laurel McLaughlin, curator of the Tufts University Art Galleries and director of the Collective Futures Fund, organized an independent symposium, Magical Thinking, with artist manuel arturo abreu last month.
Chris Miller, associate professor of international history at The Fletcher School, is quoted in Wired and Axios articles. Miller was also interviewed for The Jordan Harbinger Show episode “Chip War: The Battle for Semiconductor Supremacy.”
Megan Mueller, associate professor of clinical sciences at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, along with researchers from other institutions, published “Longitudinal associations between pet relationship quality and socio-emotional functioning in early adolescence” in the journal Social Development.
Laurel Nakadate, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, is participating in the exhibition Cowboy at the MCA Denver through mid-February. Additionally, Nakadate’s solo exhibition, The Kingdom, was at the Roberts Gallery at Lesley University in Cambridge earlier this fall.
Neveda Naz, visiting scholar and recent postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemistry, with two recent undergraduates, Bijan Harandi (biology) and Jacob Newmark (chemistry), and Samuel Kounaves, professor of chemistry, authored a research article reporting on the first growth of bacteria in Martian soil in the form of a Mars meteorite in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.
Özgür Özkan, visiting scholar at The Fletcher School, authored an article about Turkey and pressures from Russia and the West in The Conversation.
Sreelakshmi Panginikkod, assistant professor of medicine, explained how to tell the difference between rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia, which share overlapping symptoms, in a HealthCentral article.
Sasha Smolgovsky, a Ph.D. student in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, has published her work on heart failure in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Heart failure is a leading cause of death worldwide. Therapeutic options that ameliorate symptoms work for only 50% of patients. The other 50% of patients, for whom these therapies do not work, have a type of heart failure called Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF), and the immune-pathophysiology is poorly understood. Smolgovsky worked with Pilar Alcaide, assistant dean of faculty development and Kenneth and JoAnn G. Wellner Professor and associate professor of immunology, on a pre-clinical model of HFpEF, which places T cells, a type of immune cell, at the forefront of cardiac pathology in HFpEF for the first time and identifies a molecular signature in T cells that distinguishes it from other types of heart failure, providing new options for potential therapeutics of this deadly condition.
James Smoliga, director of research and faculty development for the School of Medicine Seattle Program, and Eric Hegedus, professor of rehabilitation sciences at the School of Medicine, were quoted in a USA Today article titled “How many muscles are in the human body? The answer may surprise you.”
Natalie Somers, N23, and Patrick Webb, professor at the Friedman School, had their research on seaweed farming spotlighted in an AAU article.
Tara Sonenshine, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice in Public Diplomacy at The Fletcher School, examines how fuel has “emerged again as among the most contested issues in the war between Israel and Gaza” in a recent piece in The Hill.
Monica Duffy Toft, professor of international politics, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, and academic dean at The Fletcher School, and Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at The Fletcher School, are quoted in a Boston Globe article about Israel. Toft, along with Fletcher School affiliates Michael Cohen and Christopher Preble, are principal investigators on Tufts University’s Afghanistan Assumptions Project at the Center for Strategic Studies, and co-authored the article “The Lessons for Israel of America’s War in Afghanistan” in Foreign Affairs.
Joel Trachtman, professor of international law at The Fletcher School, co-authored a Reuters article entitled “Comment: The EU’s carbon border tax is a blow to climate justice. Here’s how to fix it.”
Chris Whittier, assistant teaching professor at the Cummings School, and Jacqueline Buckley, VG20, co-authored research entitled “High prevalence of anticoagulant rodenticide exposure in New England Fishers (Pekania pennanti)” in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at The Fletcher School, joined Spark on CBC Radio One to discuss how to combat the growing ransomware industry. (Catch the conversation starting at the 38-minute mark.)
Chantal Zakari, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, had her book, Pictures from the Outside, reviewed in Collector Daily’s Photobook.
The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts examined how to strengthen the connections between broadband and civic engagement. The research shows that broadband internet can serve as a tool for civic participation and democratic inclusion.
Researchers at the Center for Black Maternal Health and Reproductive Justice at the School of Medicine, along with colleagues at other institutions, published a study entitled “Prior Hospitalization, Severe Maternal Morbidity, and Pregnancy-Associated Deaths in Massachusetts From 2002 to 2019” that revealed pregnancy-associated deaths as an urgent public health concern deserving greater scrutiny by maternal mortality review committees and the clinical and public health community at large. The study was published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine researchers, along with researchers from other institutions, published a study titled “Cathepsin W, T-cell receptor-associated transmembrane adapter 1, lymphotactin and killer cell lectin like receptor K1 are sensitive and specific RNA biomarkers of canine epitheliotropic lymphoma” in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Tufts University was profiled in the Boston Globe about the uptick in interest for substance-free housing by students. Thanks to actor and alum Hank Azaria, A87, H16, the university’s Simpson House underwent renovations to help meet that interest.
Wendy Medeiros, senior department administrator in the Department of Mathematics, was promoted from department administrator.
Strategies to Prevent Spillover, or STOP Spillover, a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by Tufts University, has announced that the interim leadership team that was put in place in March 2023 will take on a permanent role for the next two years of the project. Hellen Amuguni, associate professor in the Department of Infectious Disease and Global Health at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, is the new project director. The co-deputy directors are Felicia Nutter, director of the International Veterinary Medicine Program at Cummings School, and Jonathon Gass, assistant professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the School of Medicine. Read more about the project and the team on Tufts Now.