Kudos July 2024
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.
AS&E Shared Division: Sarah Reinbrecht, Asst Dir Employer Relations, Career Services
Advancement: Ben White, Asst Dir Special Events, UA-Special Events
Arts and Sciences: Kun Yue, Postdoctoral Scholar, Chemistry - A&S
Arts and Sciences: Solene Bechelli, Postdoctoral Scholar, Chemistry - A&S
Arts and Sciences: Duncan Wheeler, Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Climate Sciences
Arts and Sciences: Earl Clark, Program Administrator, Experimental College
Arts and Sciences: Abigail Sullivan, Lab Coordinator, Psychology - A&S
Arts and Sciences: Aditya Jayashankar, Postdoctoral Scholar, Psychology - A&S
Arts and Sciences: Philleshia Pershay, Research Coordinator, Psychology - A&S
Central Administration: Patricia Wood, Exec Dir Audit Mgmt & Adv Svcs, Audit & Mgmt Advisory Services
Central Administration: Virginia Ndoro, Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, Health Science Health Services
Cummings: Elizabeth Dennis, Lab Animal Technician, Animal Resources
Cummings: Madison Janzen, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Elena Mahmoudi, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Magnus Yoshimura, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Cameron Stewart, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Ines Ladjel, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Yassmina Habib, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Kirsten Rico, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Cassandra Munroe, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Natassja Boham, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Sarah Danelius, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Sophia Buoniconti, Intern, Clinical Sciences-Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Kelsey Durant, Veterinary Technician I, Foster Hosp - Cummings-Vet
Cummings: Sydney Lewis, Intern, Infec Disease&Global Hlth-Vet
Cummings: Connor Mckaig, Research Tech, Infec Disease&Global Hlth-Vet
Cummings: Tomohi Takeuchi, Sr Research Technician, Infec Disease&Global Hlth-Vet
Dental: Mckeisha Chiverton, Call Center Coordinator, Clinical Operations
Dental: Juanpablo Vasquez, Dental Practice Assistant, Clinical Operations
Dental: Erica Setow, Dental Practice Assistant, Clinical Operations
Dental: Heather Brager, Program Manager, Continuing Education - Dental
Dental: Mokshita Gohil, Practice Administrator, Diagnostic Sciences-Oral Path
Dental: Erin Swihart, Billing Coordinator, Revenue Cycle Operations
Engineering: Mariah Arral, Postdoctoral Scholar, Biomedical Engineering
Engineering: Ashley Zhang, Research Tech, Biomedical Engineering
Engineering: Madelyn Sandone, Sr Research Coordinator, CABCS
Engineering: Shiying Nie, Postdoctoral Scholar, Civil & Envir Engineering
Engineering: Kaitlin Gili, Postdoctoral Scholar, Computer Science
Fletcher: Amelia Sakai, Content & Communications Spec, Academic Support-Fletcher
Friedman: Teresa Schwendler, Assistant Researcher, Jennifer Coates Research
HNRCA: Chloe Rosenthal-Kay, Research Nutrition Tech, Metabolic Research Unit-HNRC
Medical: Ari Kaplan, Lab Instructor, DPT Lab Instructors
Medical: Samantha Marconi, Lab Instructor, DPT Lab Instructors
Medical: Ryan Niedzielko, Lab Instructor, DPT Lab Instructors
Medical: Rebecca Andrews, Lab Instructor, DPT Lab Instructors
Medical: Kate Eastwood, Program Coordinator, Educational Affairs - Medical
Medical: Grace Hochstetler, Staff Assistant, Graduate Student Services
Medical: Clara Fritz, Research Tech, Microbiology-Basic Sci/Medical
Medical: Emma Hayes, Research Tech, Microbiology-Basic Sci/Medical
Medical: Liang Wu, Postdoctoral Scholar, Neuroscience-BasicSci/Medical
Medical: Rebecca Suthard, Postdoctoral Scholar, Neuroscience-BasicSci/Medical
Medical: Htet Htet Aung, Research Tech, Neuroscience-BasicSci/Medical
Operations: Brandon Kindle, Police Officer, Public Safety
Operations: John Malley, Police Officer, Public Safety - Medford
Operations: Laura Ehlers, Public Safety Dispatcher I, Public Safety - Medford
Provost: Alexandra Deshommes, Lab Animal Caretaker, CMS
Provost: Devyn Forcina, Communications Coord, Provost's Office
Provost: Naomi Boase, Inclus&Restore Dlgue Prog Dir, Provost's Office
Tisch: Tania Mireles, Program Director, Tisch, Tisch College
Tufts Technology Services: Miguel Correa, Manager Endpoint Engineering, Tufts Technology Services
Maggie Adomako, FG28, Richard Geegbae, F25, and Gabriel Waithaka, F24, won this year’s Fletcher D-Prize for their efforts to stimulate sustainable smallholder farming through nutritious, climate-smart, and high-value legumes in Kenya’s Kilifi County. Open to all Fletcher students, alumni, and Tufts undergraduates, the Fletcher D-Prize is organized around 18 challenges in agriculture, clean water, energy, health access, livelihoods, and public service.
Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, the Julia A. Okoro Professor of Black Maternal Health in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, has been appointed to serve a four-year term on the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Advisory Committee on Infant and Maternal Mortality for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Additionally, Amutah-Onukagha was a panelist at a maternal health event sponsored by GBH News and CommonWealth Beacon, where she commented on structural racism in the medical field.
Kaylee Gladu, V27, placed fifth overall in the veterinary division of this year’s Virtual Animal Welfare Assessment Contest. Five Cummings School V27 D.V.M. students from the Animal Welfare Elective participated in the contest.
Trevion Henderson, assistant professor the Department of Mechanical Engineering, received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work iterating and improving on engineering design education. Read more about this award on the School of Engineering website.
Matthew McMasters, assistant director of athletics business operations, is one of 21 administrators selected by the NCAA across all three divisions as its cohort for the 2024-25 Pathway Program, a yearlong initiative designed to prepare senior-level athletics administrators for their next career step as directors of athletics or conference commissioners.
Karen Panetta, professor and dean of graduate education in the School of Engineering and Distinguished Professor, has been named to LDV Capital’s 120+ Women Spearheading Advances in Visual Tech and AI. The list features experts in machine vision, pattern recognition, and generative models for digitizing the real world. Read more on Tufts Now.
Mary Ellen Strom, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, received a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation to be in residence in Laguria, Italy, where she is working on her project SINK OR SING about coastal flooding.
Chris Swan, professor and dean of undergraduate education in the School of Engineering, received the Tufts Community Grants (TCG) Sustaining Partner Award. Swan was recognized for his outstanding and longstanding support of the TCG program, which provides grant funding to local nonprofits. Having served on the TCG board for 28 years, Swan has been instrumental in the tremendous growth and impact of the program.
Graduates of the Class of 2024 who were inducted into the Honos Civicus Society for their service and civic leadership on campus and beyond during their time at Tufts are celebrated on the Tisch College website.
Tufts University generated a $2.1 billion economic impact in Massachusetts and $3.1 billion nationwide, according to a new Economic and Community Impact Report measuring Tufts’ FY23 economic impacts at the state, local, regional, and national levels. Tufts is also included in the top 100 U.S. universities granted utility patents in 2023 for scientific innovations with a potential to fuel technological breakthroughs that directly benefit society and human health, according to a list by the National Academy of Inventors. Read more about Tufts’ economic impact and achievement in obtaining utility patents on Tufts Now.
Zviad Adzinbaia, an international relations Ph.D. student at The Fletcher School, was quoted in the CNN article “Opinion: Georgia’s government turns to Moscow. Its Gen Z protesters aren’t having it.”
Jenny Aker, professor at The Fletcher School, is quoted in the AP article “Companies are trying to attract more smartphone users across Africa. But there are risks.”
Kwasi Ampene, professor and department chair of music, delivered the inaugural lecture, entitled “Performing Petition: Kete Songs, Lineage, and Kingship in Akan,” at the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Helen Boucher, dean of the School of Medicine, discussed the overuse of antibiotics during the COVID-19 pandemic on the NPR segment Goats and Soda.
Alvin Camba, faculty affiliate at The Fletcher School, wrote the Foreign Policy opinion piece “The Philippines Needs Butter, Not Just Guns.”
Jamie Chagnon, athletics communications director, has been named the recipient of the 2024 Bob Kenworthy Award by the Eastern Athletic Communications Association. The award is presented to an exceptional person who through their actions shows the same respect for the profession, sports information directors, the media, and community as Bob Kenworthy did during his long and successful career.
Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at The Fletcher School, is interviewed in the Handelsblatt article titled “Many Indian IT jobs will disappear.”
Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at The Fletcher School and Distinguished Professor, was interviewed by Michael Klein, William L. Clayton Professor of International Economic Affairs, on the EconoFact podcast episode titled “Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool.”
Justin Hollander, A96, professor of urban and environmental policy and planning, and Nicole Stephens, AG22, co-authored a book entitled Buildings for People: Responsible Real Estate Development and Planning. Read more about the book on Tufts Now.
Sulmaan Khan, associate professor of international history and Chinese foreign relations at The Fletcher School, discussed the history and political identity of Taiwan on the PBS News Hour segment “Taiwan’s president urges China to end threats as Beijing says independence is ‘dead end.’”
Elisabeth Leake, Lee E. Dirks Professorship in Diplomatic History at The Fletcher School, authored “The Construction of ‘Tribe’ as a Socio-Political Unit in Global History” for The Historical Journal.
Jennie Jieun Lee, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, took part in a three-person exhibition at Nicelle Beauchene in New York City titled Channeling.
Pavel Luzin, visiting scholar at The Fletcher School, is quoted in the Newsweek article “Russia Threatens to Open Another Ukraine Front in Strategic Gambit.”
Stav Marin and Neta Weiner, visiting artists in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, talked to CBS News about their hip-hop group and experience teaching at Tufts this past year.
Chris Miller, associate professor of international history at The Fletcher School, was interviewed for the Yahoo! Finance segment “Why investors need to take Taiwan chipmaker risk ‘seriously.’” Miller is also quoted in the New York Times article “The Business Ties That Bind the U.S. and China Are Strong but Fraying,” the Forbes article “Semiconductor Tycoons Get Richer On Rising Demand For Complex Chips Needed For AI,” and the Wall Street Journal article “The New CEO Trapped in the U.S.-China Chip Battle.”
Eric Miller, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and fellow experts released a new report about how to leverage AI for the betterment of society. Read more about this report on the School of Engineering website.
The work of Maureen Murray, associate clinical professor and Gabriel and Valerie Schmergel Term Director in Wildlife Medicine at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Wendy Puryear, scientist II at Cummings School, and Jonathan Runstadler, professor and chair of infectious disease and global health at Cummings School, is discussed in the Boston Globe article “’What’s going to happen? Tufts scientists race to stay ahead of H5N1 as officials announce third human US case this year.”
Karen Panetta, professor and dean of graduate education at the School of Engineering and Distinguished Professor, shared her expertise about the advantages and disadvantages of digital twin technology with TechTarget.
Ken Pucker, professor of the practice at The Fletcher School, is quoted in the Bloomberg article “Why It’s So Hard to Track the Fashion Industry’s Emissions.”
Aditya Sarkar, an international relations Ph.D. student at The Fletcher School, and Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School, co-authored The India Forum essay “Fragile Petrostates and the Green Transition.” de Waal was also quoted in the Al Jazeera article “More than 100 killed in two weeks of fighting in Sudan’s el-Fasher: MSF.”
Caleb Scoville, assistant professor of sociology, authored an article entitled “How to divide people with things: division entrepreneurs, wedges, and the Delta Smelt controversy” in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology.
Richard Siegel, associate professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, provides insight in a Reuters article addressing the use of Novo Nordisk’s long-acting weekly insulin.
Tara Sonenshine, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice in Public Diplomacy at The Fletcher School, wrote an op-ed for The Hill entitled “If you want to make the world a better place, focus on women.”
Vickie Sullivan, professor of political science, wrote The Conversation article “500 years ago, Machiavelli warned the public not to get complacent in the face of self-interested charismatic figures.”
Sam Telford, professor of infectious disease and global health at Cummings School, was interviewed by WGBH for their All Things Considered segment “It’s not just climate change driving ticks into your backyard.”
Josephine Wolff, associate professor of cybersecurity policy at The Fletcher School, is quoted in the CNBC article “Warren Buffett is worried about potential for ‘huge losses’ in booming, but still tiny insurance market.”