Kudos September 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. 

Jeffrey Foster, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science, was named a member of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Software Engineering Software Engineering Academy.  

Laura Gee, associate professor of economics, received a 2026–2027 fellowship to the Harvard Kennedy School Women and Public Policy Program.  

Sarah Hengel, assistant professor of biology, has been selected to serve as a term member of the PF-Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Peer Review Committee of the American Cancer Society until May 2029. The committee selects the postdoctoral fellows who receive funding in this field. Hengel herself had a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society.  

Demond Hill, assistant professor in health equity at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, was recently awarded a $260,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support his research on advancing health equity and youth well-being. The foundation is one of the country’s most prestigious national research programs supporting scholars whose work advances health equity. He was selected as one of 15 scholars across the country. The award will support his research over the next two years as he examines how experiences of awe and belonging can promote health and well-being among Black and Brown adolescents through community-engaged and participatory research.  

Ayesha Jalal, Mary Richardson Professor at The Fletcher School, delivered the keynote address on history, diplomacy, and regional affairs at Quaid-e-Azam House Museum in Pakistan.  

Soubhik Kumar, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to support his project titled “Probing Physics Beyond the Standard Model with Particle Cosmology.”  

Srivalleesha Mallidi, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the School of Engineering, and ClAIrVuE, a startup that is founded on research Mallidi leads, received the Audience Choice Award at the 19th annual Massachusetts Life Sciences Innovation Day, the state’s premier showcase for emerging life sciences ventures. Read more about this recognition on Tufts Now.    

Elizabeth Newman, assistant professor of mathematics, was awarded a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER grant for the project “TenAI: Tensorizing Machine Learning to Leverage Multiway Structure.”   

Rebecca Perkins, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center, was awarded with the Cervical Cancer Champion Award on behalf of the American Cancer Society National Roundtable on Cervical Cancer. This award honors a leader whose advocacy, collaboration, and impact have advanced cervical cancer prevention. She is an internationally acclaimed expert in the prevention of cervical cancer and is the leading author of the 2019 national cervical cancer screening guidelines. She holds expert leadership roles on numerous panels and committees. Her current research focuses on novel approaches to cervical cancer screening and guidelines for screening and management of abnormal test results. She currently co-chairs the Enduring Consensus Cervical Cancer Screening and Management Guidelines and serves as a steering committee member on two American Cancer Society Roundtables related to cervical cancer prevention.  

Scott Rosario, director of campus business services, earned a Certified Auxiliary Services Professional certification. This four-year certification for aspiring auxiliary services professionals is the only certification that demonstrates recipients have met a high standard of excellence, as defined by experts in the industry, and that they have the skills necessary to be a director of auxiliary services.  

Alice Sullivan, associate professor of medieval art and architecture and director of graduate studies in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, has been appointed to the Editorial Advisory Committee of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. Her appointment runs from September 2026 until May 2030. 

Tufts Institute for Artificial Intelligence has been accepted as a member of the Coalition for Sustainable AI, a global community of stakeholders dedicated to using AI to help combat environmental degradation and climate change.  

Tufts University was ranked in the top 20 of the 2026 LinkedIn best colleges for long-term career success in the United States.   

Tufts University has launched the Innovation Hub for Food and Materials, a shared research and development center intended to advance both development of production and ideas. The space provides innovators in industry and academia with access to the infrastructure, expertise, and testing capabilities needed to accelerate the development of new food technologies, biomaterials, and more. Read more about the center on Tufts Now.  

Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at The Fletcher School, co-authored the book, The Sudans: Africa's Search for Peace, Democracy, and Two Viable States.   

David Kaplan, Stern Family Distinguished Professor at the School of Engineering, is exploring how artificial intelligence could improve food development with a focus on human health and sustainability. Learn more about the research on the School of Engineering website.   

Valencia Koomson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, and her colleagues in her lab have created a device that can measure blood oxygen saturation, heart rate, and respiration rate across a broad range of skin tones. Read more about the device on Tufts Now.   

Megan Mueller, A08, AG10, AG13, associate professor in the Department of Comparative Pathobiology at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, is senior author of a study published in the Journal of Adolescence that links certain teen–dog relationship qualities to healthier coping strategies among adolescents with social anxiety. Read more about the study on Tufts Now.   

José Ordovás, senior scientist and leader of the Precision Nutrition and Healthy Aging directive at the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, is an author on “Sustained Fish Intake and 21-Year Alzheimer’s Disease Risk: A Target Trial Emulation,” published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The study determined there was no clear evidence that simply increasing fish intake on its own meaningfully lowers long-term Alzheimer’s risk. Read more about the study on Tufts Now. 

Markus Nemitz, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has been named the inaugural Jon Levy Faculty Fellow. The five-year fellowship is supported by the Jon Levy Faculty Fellowship Fund, an endowed fund established in 2023 by Jon A. Levy, E83. A member of the School of Engineering Board of Advisors. Levy established the fund to support mid-career faculty as they balance teaching and advising with research programs and scholarly work. Nemitz designs robots that cost less than the landmines they are sent to find and detonate, each robot trading itself for the mine it removes.