Kudos January 2026

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. 

Vishal Ahuja, Ph.D. student at the School of Engineering, won a best poster presentation award at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual meeting in the Division 15 Graduate Student Presentations. His poster, titled, “Evaluation of the Transduction of Murine Endocrine Pancreatic Cells with Different Serotypes of Adeno-Associated Virus” was one of five posters to receive the award. Ahuja is in Professor Emmanuel Tzanakakis’ lab group.   

Hannah Biccard, A26, earned the National Field Hockey Coaches Association Regional Player of the Year Honor.   

Carie Cardamone and Heather Dwyer, both senior associate directors at the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) at Tufts, along with Nessren Ourdyl, A25, received an honorable mention for the Menges Award for their research on how pedagogical partnership can help students develop critical career readiness skills and apply them after graduation, with particular significance for students from marginalized backgrounds who may not otherwise access the information. The research modeled partnership principles: A student partner led the study and conducted data collection and analysis with CELT staff mentorship.   

Madison Giles, E27, recently received a U.S. patent for her unique hummingbird feeder design. Read more about the feeder on the School of Engineering’s website.  

Angelina Gualdoni, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, was a visiting artist in residence at the American Academy in Rome for the month of December. Gualdoni conducted research on multispecies relationships in contemporary painting and produced work while at the American Academy.  

Juetzinia Kazmer-Murillo, academic coordinator for the Tufts in London and Tufts in Oxford programs, was named a Non-Voting Observer for the 2025–2026 Board of Directors of The Association of American Study Abroad Programmes United Kingdom (AASAP/UK). Kazmer-Murillo will be supporting and strengthening the work of the board in the coming year. Observers provide active insight, collaboration, and perspective to help make the board and the association as a whole stronger and more responsive to the AASAP/UK community.  

Ryan Kilpatrick, assistant professor at the School of Medicine and neonatologist at Tufts Medicine, earned the Neonatal Update Young Investigator Award. He presented in London on how real-world data and external controls support clinical trials.  

Neda Moridpour, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, was awarded the Onassis ONX Fellowship, an international program supporting innovative artists working at the intersection of immersive media, social justice, and emerging technologies. This fellowship recognizes Moridpour’s groundbreaking work in community-engaged artistic research and her commitment to reimagining archives of resistance through XR (extended reality) and participatory storytelling.  

Paul Simmonds, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, spearheaded the effort to secure a grant from the Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition SCALE Capital Grant Program for Tufts to purchase a high-resolution X-ray diffraction system for the Tufts Epitaxial Core Facility. Tufts was one of 10 institutions selected for a grant through the SCALE Capital Grant Program.   

Saskia Solotko, A26, is the first Tufts student to win the Alice T. Schafer Prize, the only national undergraduate research award for women in mathematics. Read more on Tufts Now.   

Sameer Sonkusale, professor of electrical and computer engineering, won the Distinguished Innovator Award and Nik Nair, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, received the Rising Innovator of the Year Award at Tufts’ 2025 Inventor Recognition event. This year’s celebration recognized 18 newly issued U.S. patents across 20 faculty members and acknowledged 15 faculty for securing 13 commercial options or licenses for disclosed inventions—milestones that reflect Tufts’ growing innovation footprint. Read more about the event on Tufts Now.   

Monica Duffy Toft, professor of international politics at The Fletcher School, is included in Foreign Policy’s short list of writers and thinkers to be thankful for in 2025.    

Gregory Wolfus, V98, Tufts at Tech Community Veterinary Clinic director, received the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association’s 2025 Distinguished Service Award at the annual conference. Jennifer Grady, V12, assistant clinical professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and Lori Kreidberg, V88, nominated Wolfus for the honor.  

Megan Wong, a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and trainee in the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) Metabolism and Basic Biology of Aging directive, received Honorable Mention in the School of Medicine Charlton Poster Competition. Wong presented one version of her work as a talk at the HNRCA’s Gerontological Society of America Share and Learn prep session for the GSA Annual Scientific Meeting and another version as a poster in the Charlton Poster Competition, requiring her to speak to two different data sets on the same project and move from one presentation to the other in back-to-back sessions.   

The field hockey team took home an NCAA Division III National championship. Read more on Tufts Now.  

The men’s soccer team took home an NCAA Division III National championship. Read more on Tufts Now. In addition, the men’s soccer coaches received the USC Division III Region I Coaching Staff of the Year award.   

The women’s soccer coaching staff received the USC Division III Region I Coaching Staff of the Year award.  

Tufts University is ranked as one of Forbes’ New Ivies (“20 Great Colleges Employers Love”). The article notes Tufts is educating “the country’s brightest students and graduating the talent employers seek.”   

Tufts University was ranked one of LinkedIn’s top colleges. LinkedIn noted that Tufts “best sets up its graduates for long-term career success.”  

MyDzung Chu, assistant professor, and Elizabeth Yen, associate professor, both at the School of Medicine, authored commentary titled “Meconium’s promise as a window of prenatal heavy metal exposure: What we still need to know” in the Journal of Perinatology.   

Danilo dos Santos, research assistant professor, Jihyun Kim, Ph.D. student, Surya Varchasvi Devaraj, researcher, Palak Bhandari, researcher, and Sameer Sonkusale, professor, all at the School of Engineering, authored “Wearable Hollow-Groove Microneedle Array for Wirelessly Controlled, on-Demand Tunable Transdermal Drug Delivery” in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.    

Maya Erdelyi, part-time lecturer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University has an animated documentary, “Anyuka,” on exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City as part of their new acquisitions show, Identity, Culture, and Community: Stories from the Collection of the Jewish Museum and Pruzan Family Center for Learning. “Anyuka” was recently acquired into the museum’s permanent collection.  

Katherine Hollander, lecturer of history and English, authored a new book entitled Artistic Collaboration, Exile, and Brecht: A New Intellectual History, 1900–1950. It provides an illuminating history of the intimate group surrounding Bertolt Brecht, a group whose members produced some of the most important works of 20th-century drama, literature, and theory while in exile from Nazi Germany.  

Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis (cSPA) at Tisch College, spoke about findings from a new research report on which cSPA and the Boston Foundation partnered. The report, titled “A Massachusetts Model for Medicaid Work Requirements,” examines how Massachusetts can respond to Medicaid cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act with careful administrative choices, creative data sharing, and deliberate outreach to build a Massachusetts model that protects tens of thousands of residents and helps the state retain more of its federal Medicaid dollars.  

Shafiqul Islam, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Kevin Smith, Ph.D. student, both at the School of Engineering, are co-editors on the recently published Routledge Handbook of Water Diplomacy. The volume offers a framework for building relationships, negotiating shared interests, and managing complex water challenges across physical, political, and societal boundaries. With guiding principles, practical tools, and real-world cases to support water solutions, the open access book was also co-edited by collaborators from the Stockholm International Water Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   

Ryan Kane, assistant professor at the Food is Medicine Institute at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, contributed to the AgFunderNews webinar “Tufts M.D. on GLP-1 and the protein obsession: ‘I worry we might be missing the mark.’”    

David Kaplan, Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering, alongside other panelists, contributed to the Frontiers in Science webinar “Hybrid alternative protein-based foods.”   

Jennie Jieun Lee, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, will have a solo museum debut, Luteal Elements and Grooves, on display from January 25 through May 25, 2026, at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Connecticut.  

William Masters, professor of food policy and economics at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, and Elena Martinez, N15, MG15, NG24, were lead authors on a new global study that challenges a persistent myth: that healthy climate-friendly diets are more expensive. Published in Nature Food, the study shows that in most countries, the lowest-cost foods within each food group also produce the lowest greenhouse gas emissions. Healthy diets designed to minimize climate impact often cost less than what people currently spend. Read more about the study on Tufts Now.   

Chris Miller, professor of international history at The Fletcher School, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about China’s strategic position in the race to develop advanced AI (starting at 29:50).  

Megan Mueller, A08, G10, VG13, director of the PAW Lab at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and associate professor at Cummings School, was lead author on a paper that examines the impact of pet dogs on teens with social anxiety, published in PLOS One. Read more about the study on the Cummings School website.  

Karen Panetta, distinguished professor and graduate dean of the school of engineering, presented at CommHIT’s 2025 conference at the Kennedy Space Center. Her talk, “Visibility Everywhere: Adaptive AI Imaging to Enhance Human Capability,” explored exciting possibilities in artificial intelligence.   

Pamela Pecchio, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, had work in Horizontal Vertical at ArtBuilt inside the Brooklyn Army Terminal.   

Deborah Schildkraut, professor of political science, Jeffrey Berry, professor emeritus of political science, and James Glaser, dean emeritus and political science affiliate, all at the School of Arts and Sciences, authored a book entitled Everyday Democracy: Liberals, Conservatives & Their Routine Political Lives. The book explores Americans’ views of several manifestations of “everyday democracy,” which the authors define as the attitudes, behaviors, and processes that people experience in daily life and their routine considerations of politics and community.  

Jennifer Schmidt, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, will present a paper titled, “Performance in Print: The File as Prompt” at the International Printmaking Conference 2026, Print Media in Contemporary Art: Between Materiality and Immateriality at Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw, Poland.   

Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and dean emeritus at the Friedman School, and Emily Callahan, director of policy strategy at the Food is Medicine Institute, alongside William Frist from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, authored the perspective article titled “Food and Nutrition in the MAHA Strategy—Promise and Peril” in JAMA.  

Liana Woskie, assistant professor of community health, and Nora Brower, A25, along with a colleague from the University of Vermont, published their research titled “Obstetric-Related Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act Violations and No Health Exception Bans” in JAMA. Read more about the research on Tufts Now.  

The Feed the Future Food Systems for Nutrition Innovation Lab at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, alongside sustainability consultancy Thriving Solutions, published two reports: “Best Practices for Food Loss and Waste Regulatory Enabling Environment—A Guideline for Government” and “Assessment Framework of the Regulatory Enabling Environment for Food Loss and Waste Prevention.”   

A team of researchers from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, working with Euromonitor International and funded by the Gates Foundation, has launched Data Analytics for Food Markets in Africa (DAFMA). This new initiative uses data analytics to support food enterprises across Africa. DAFMA is building open-source tools that help companies strengthen supply chains, understand consumer needs, and expand access to healthier diets. With more than 90 members across 13 countries, the consortium is growing quickly. Read more about the initiative on Tufts Now.