Kudos April 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. 

Alexandra Barancikova, A26, Saskia Solotko, A26, Kyle Wigdor, E27, and Kevin Yu, A26, have been recognized by the Computing Research Association in its 2025–2026 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards program.  

Elias Bilal, E26, was selected as a 2026 Patti Grace Smith Fellow. The fellowship program connects leading aerospace companies with high-achieving students who participate in a paid summer internship.  

Doug Blackiston, assistant professor of biology and principal investigator with the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts, and Benjamin Wolfe, associate professor and associate chair of the Department of Biology, were selected as 2026 National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science Fellows. They both presented in early March at the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science Symposium.

Chandi White Edmonds, assistant professor at the School of Medicine and a member of the Department of Physical Therapy-Seattle program, was recognized with the Feitelberg Founder’s Award from the American Physical Therapy Association Education Academy, which honors the top journal article by a first-time author published in the Journal of Physical Therapy Education. The award recognized her manuscript, “Challenging Anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Stand for Moral Courage.”  

Sanjana Gopalakrishnan, a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Engineering, was awarded an American Chemical Society Sustainable Futures Initiative Grant.  

Kelly Greenhill, associate professor of political science, will be a Derek Brewer Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in the fall of 2026. The fellowships are named in honor of Professor Derek Brewer, renowned medieval scholar and master of Emmanuel College from 1977 to 1990. Derek Brewer Fellowship recipients are nominated and competitively selected with the expectation that they will “carry out work of a high intellectual standard” and become fellows of and reside within Emmanuel College during their terms at the University of Cambridge.    

Scott Gyimesi, A26, was named NESCAC Player of the Year for basketball, becoming just the second Jumbo in program history to win the award.  

Meredith Hyde, director of Tufts in London and Tufts in Oxford, received the Loren Ringer Award for On-Site International Educators from the Forum on Education Abroad. The award recognizes on-site educators who go above and beyond in serving students, their institutions, and the global education community. Hyde “is a consensus builder who leads with empathy, fairness, and integrity, creating strong bridges between students, faculty, administrators, and partner institutions across the study abroad community,” said Vanessa Nichol-Peters, Forum Council chair. “At the heart of her work is an unwavering, deeply personal commitment to students. She brings empathy, insight, and tireless advocacy to every interaction, and students consistently describe her as life-changing, indispensable, and fiercely supportive.”   

David Kaplan, Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering, Olivia Foster, EG25, and Michael Lovett, EG09, deputy director of the Initiative for Neural Science, Disease and Engineering at Tufts, won a Complement Animal Research in Experimentation prize. The competition offered $1,000,000 in total prize money to diverse teams with ideas for new ways of using New Approach Methodologies to conduct basic research, uncover disease mechanisms, and translate knowledge into products and practice.   

Caroline Kelly, E26, was awarded the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Each year, the NCAA awards this scholarship to student-athletes who demonstrate excellence in academics, athletics, and leadership. Kelly was one of just 42 recipients nationwide.   

David Kent, professor at the School of Medicine, was elected to the Association of American Physicians, honoring his leadership in advancing personalized, evidence-based care.  

Bruce Kristal, senior scientist at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Simin Nikbin Meydani, senior scientist and team leader of the nutrition immunology team at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, and Athena Papas, Dr. Erling Johansen, D49, Endowed Professor in Dental Research and Distinguished Professor at the School of Dental Medicine, were named as senior members of the National Academy of Inventors, an honor for academic inventors who are rising leaders in their respective fields and who have produced technologies that seek to make a positive impact on society.   

Richard Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts, will serve as the 2026 Kohlberg Memorial Lecturer at the Association for Moral Education annual conference.  

Jamie Maguire, professor of neuroscience and Kenneth and JoAnn G. Wellner Professor at the School of Medicine, received a 2026 Distinguished Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. Her research targets treatment-resistant depression by exploring a novel biology-driven approach with potential to impact multiple psychiatric disorders.   

Aseema Mohanty, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, won a National Science Foundation Career Award for her work improving photonic integrated circuits.   

Rick Moody, professor of the practice in the Department of English and at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Founded in 1898, the American Academy of Arts and Letters represents the highest standards of artistic achievement in this country, and members are among the leading contemporary architects, visual artists, writers, and composers.   

Kristen Morwick, track and field head coach, was selected USTFCCCA indoor track and field region coach of the year.  

Easwaran Narassimhan, assistant professor of climate and energy policy at The Fletcher School, received a $350,000 grant from the Stichting SED Fund that will allow him to lead a two-year project, addressing green industrial policy and climate-positive development in India.   

Joshua Nguyen, lecturer in the Department of English, was awarded the 2026 Four Lakes Prize in Poetry for the poetry collection, RIPPED, which will be published by the University of Wisconsin Press in spring 2027.  

Sarah Pinto, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology, was a visiting distinguished professor in women’s and gender studies at Johns Hopkins University last month.  

Rati Thanawala, leader of University College’s STEM Career Advantage Academy, was named to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Network of Scholars.   

Rene Zhang, A27 (BFA), was named an Emerging Boston Art Writing Fellow at Boston Art Review.  

Tufts University women’s squash team coaching staff, led by head coach Joe Raho, was named the 2026 NESCAC Coaching Staff of the Year.   

The following students at the School of Dental Medicine won the Bates-Andrews Day Awards:  

• Best Postgraduate Poster Presentation: Julia Clapis and Tae Ho Kong 
• Best Scientific Research Presentation by a Senior (Andrews Society Award): Anna Lubitz  
• AADOCR/Dentsply Sirona SCADA Award: Isha Singh 
• First Place for the Hinman Research Symposium Award: Dana Moskowitz 
• Second Place Award for Predoctoral Table Clinic: Kayvon Rahimi and Rachel Van 
• Third Place Award for Predoctoral Table Clinic: Vivek Patel, Timothy Rey, William Wallace, Katlyn Klinske, Ariana Margolis, Julian Eftimovski, Michelle Simonds, Jeeyeon Ma, Nariman Abunijmeh, Kaelyn Milan Williams 
• DoubleMint Dentistry Travel Fellowship Award: Yash Brahmbhatt and Sarah Flanagan 
• Research Committee Award for Basic Science Research: Shae Valko 
• Massachusetts Dental Society and ASDA Public Health Award: Michael Song 
• Scientific Merit Award for First-Time Presenters: Matthew Chen 
• Bates Student Research Group “Peer-reviewed” Award: Isha Singh 
• ADEA Student Group Educational Research Award: Eunbi Son, Lamaan Buisir, Karessa Lewis 

• Research Recap Video Challenge Award: Matthew Chen  

   

Amy De’Ath, assistant professor of English, authored Behind Our Backs: Feminized Poetry and Capitalist Abstraction.         

Susan Landau, professor and director of the Cybersecurity Center at Tufts, won a best paper award for her work, Insights from the Github Community on the Matter Standard at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium. Landau also delivered a keynote at the event, titled “How to Talk So Policymakers Will Listen.”  

Jennie Jieun Lee, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, was featured in the New York Times Style Magazine, describing an event she held to mark the opening of her first solo museum show at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum.  

Patte Loper, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, has a collaborative project with Andrew Kemp, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences on exhibit through May 7 at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Titled “Laboratory for Other Worlds,” the project aims to use contemporary art practices to expand the framework through which climate science knowledges are understood.  

Isabelle Louge, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and clinician at Tufts Veterinary Field Service in Woodstock, CT, is first author on a paper titled, “Faffa Malan Chart score is a poor single indicator for gastrointestinal parasitic burden of small ruminants in New York State,” recently published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.    

Adam Lowenstein and Carlos Mourão, both assistant professors in basic and clinical translations at the School of Dental Medicine, authored the following study in the Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry: “Comparative evaluation of enamel microhardness between silver diamine fluoride and fluoride varnish on artificially induced caries in primary teeth: an in vitro study.”  

Alice Isabella Sullivan, assistant professor of medieval art and architecture, authored the book Artificial Light in Medieval Churches. It is coedited with Vladimir Ivanovici (University of Vienna) as part of the series East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, vol. 98., and designed to complement a volume Sullivan and Ivanovici coedited entitled Natural Light in Medieval Churches (Brill 2023). These projects sit at the foundation of a coauthored book, currently in progress, on the Church of the Holy Cross at Patrauti Monastery in modern Romania.  

Fahad Dogar, promoted to professor in the Department of Computer Science 

Valencia Koomson, promoted to professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 

Nik Nair, promoted to professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering 

Elena Naumova, professor at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, was appointed the Barry J. Rosenbaum Professor of Data Science 

Kristen Wendell, promoted to professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering 

Robert White, promoted to professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering