Kudos October 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. 

Leah Abrams, assistant professor of community health at the School of Arts and Sciences, was awarded a National Institutes of Health K01 Career Development Award entitled, “The changing landscape of work in the United States and stalling life expectancy improvements.”  

Riccardo Giacconi, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, is an associate fellow at the Film Study Center, Harvard University, for 2026–2027. In addition, Giacconi’s new film, Memoria del lampo (Memories of Lightning), had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the “Giornate degli Autori” section.  

Xiaozhe Hu, professor of mathematics, was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to support his Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (CDS&E) project, which addresses the growing need for computational methods capable of designing advanced manufacturing systems with spatially varying material properties. The CDS&E project will explore how emerging quantum computing technologies can transform computational engineering by accelerating multi-material topology optimization and enabling new approaches for engineering design.   

Khary Jones, professor of the practice in the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, joined the Fall 2026/Winter 2027 fellowship cohort at MacDowell, a leading American contemporary arts organization.  

Penn Loh, teaching professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, and the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora, has received a two-year grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support a Repairing and Empowering Policy and Planning program fellowship for aspiring community-based policymakers and planners.  

Danilo Marchesini, dean of research for the School of Arts and Sciences and professor of physics and astronomy, and Richard Pan, graduate student, are among the recipients of the American Astronomical Society 2027 Berkeley Prize.   

Neda Moridpour, associate professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, received a jury nomination for the 2026 Ars Electronica S+T+ARTS Prize for the recent collaborative research-based project, Body as Archive: Woman, Life, Freedom. Created by the Hamdel Futurist Collaborative (Neda Moridpour and Rashin Fahandej), the project reimagines archiving as an embodied, participatory practice, gathering more than 10,000 performances, rituals, and protest artworks in solidarity with the Iran feminist movement.   

Michael Paasche-Orlow, professor of medicine at the School of Medicine and director of the Center for Health Literacy Research and Practice at Tufts Medicine, was awarded a $44 million grant from the NIH to study advance care planning in a multisite clinical trial. Read more about the grant on Tufts Now.   

Marcus Matthias Weera, assistant professor of psychology, and his Addiction Neuroscience Lab were awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to support a project entitled “Behavioral Neurobiology of Stress, Alcohol Responsivity, and Alcohol Drinking.”  

Kit Ho Wong, senior lab animal caretaker, Jillian Onufrak, veterinary pathology technician, and Elisabeth Harper, veterinary services supervisor, all at Tufts Comparative Medicine Services, were awarded New England Branch of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science awards in recognition of their contributions to laboratory animal science and the work they do every day. Wong received the Assistant Lab Animal Technician/Cage Washer Award, which recognizes individuals who demonstrate a strong dedication to advancing laboratory animal science through teaching and training junior technicians and who are respected by their colleagues for their commitment to shared goals within the field. Onufrak received the Kate Sweeney Laboratory Animal Technologist Award, recognizing Laboratory Animal Technologist (LATG)-certified technicians in animal care positions who demonstrate excellence in their profession with minimal to moderate supervisory responsibility. Harper received the Laboratory Animal Supervisor/Manager Award, which recognizes facility supervisors or managers who are certified at the LATG level and have supervisory positions.    

Researchers from the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have been awarded funding for three new collaborative research projects addressing some of today’s most pressing food and nutrition challenges. Read more about the funding on Tufts Now.   

The rowing and lacrosse teams were recognized at a recent Red Sox game for their national championships and incredible seasons.

Qais Assali, assistant professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, presents Fall of the Roman Empire, a new multimedia exhibition at Distillery Gallery in Boston, on view through November 1.     

Allie Balter-Kennedy, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, is digging under the Greenland ice sheet for clues about past warming, with an eye to the future. Read more about her work on Tufts Now.    

Denise Bates, dean of University College and professor of history, had her book published, Interpreting the Indigenous South: Tribal Nations Confronting Race and Erasure in the U.S. Southeast. The book reframes public history as a space of Indigenous authority and self-representation, where communities define how their histories are told, their knowledge preserved, and their relationships to place understood.   

Dan Drezner, academic dean and distinguished professor of international politics at The Fletcher School, joined experts in a simulation, Five Powers, One Crisis: Unfolding the Challenge of Fighting ISIS Without the U.S.   

Jeremy Eichler, assistant professor of music, launched an event series titled “On Listening,” which explores how we hear music and the world. The inaugural event featured celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax in dialogue with Eichler.  

Jen Ferguson, assistant director of learning and engagement at Tisch Library, presented “From Tools to Transferable Skills: Reimagining Library Instruction for Today’s Students,” at Library Journal’s Sustaining the Future of Academic Libraries Online Conference this past summer.   

Kim Forero-Arnías, digital media specialist in the Digital Scholarship Department at Tisch Library, authored an essay, “‘…go and search…’ a ‘meandering reflection on forms of separation,” in a special issue on citation in the Journal for Radical Librarianship.    

Kelly Sims Gallagher, dean of The Fletcher School, was a member of the study committee for a report evaluating the Advanced Research Projects Agency?Energy, an agency that plays a critical role within the U.S. Department of Energy.  

Jaye Gardiner, assistant professor of biology, researches the microenvironment surrounding tumors—and brings her love of art into her science. Read more about her work on Tufts Now.   

Jakob Johnson, V28, a student in the Student Summer Research Program at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, designed a new training model for the Joseph Kelley, D.V.M. Simulation Laboratory.   

Anna Kijas, assistant director for digital scholarship at Tisch Library, co-edited a special issue, “Cultural Heritage in Crisis,” for the journal Library Trends.   

Blessing Kolawole, Ph.D. student, worked with Valencia Koomson, associate professor, Yingjie Lao, associate professor, and Sinuo Fan, Ph.D. student, all in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, to improve three models for blood pressure prediction based on PPG waveform analysis. Read more about the research on the School of Engineering website. Koomson also recently studied how patients with hypertension in Ghana understand their condition and self-monitor blood pressure using mobile health apps.   

Soubhik Kumar, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, wrote a paper finding a new mechanism for black hole formation in the early universe that was published in Physical Review Letters. He was also profiled in the New Scientist Magazine.  

Di Sheng Lee, postdoctoral scholar, David Kaplan, Stern Family Distinguished Professor, and fellow researchers in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Tufts Center for Cellular Agriculture recently took on the challenge of creating blue melanin using principles from protein design and advances in machine learning. Read more about this polymer on the School of Engineering website.   

Na Youn Lee, Ph.D. candidate at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, is lead author on a study that suggests a lesser-known compound in tomatoes may help protect against fatty liver disease, which affects more than one in three American adults. Xiang-Dong Wang, senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, was the study’s senior author. Read more about the study on Tufts Now.   

Frank Lehman, associate professor of music, had his book, The Skywalker Symphonies: John Williams and the Music of Star Wars, published in August, and within weeks it was already at the end of its first print run. The book is a first-of-its-kind study of these scores and argues that they are not just examples of consummate dramatic film scoring, but historically important works of symphonic scope, depth, and cultural impact.  

Jessina Leonard, part-time lecturer at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, has work featured in the show First Sweet Truth at Gravedigger’s Daughter in Waldoboro, Maine. The exhibition is on view through the closing reception on October 10 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.   

Richard Lerner, professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science, delivered the 2026 Lawrence Kohlberg Memorial Lecture at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education in Madrid. A published version of the talk is featured in the Journal of Moral Education.  

Ji Eun Lim, A27 (MFA), has a solo exhibition, Ascending Through Uncertainty, at Cambridge Foundry in Cambridge, Mass., from October 7 through October 29, with an opening reception on October 9 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.   

Patte Loper, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, has a collaborative exhibition Laboratory for Other Worlds on view at the NYU Gallatin Wetlab teaching gallery and living laboratory on Governors Island, New York. The project is in collaboration with Andrew Kemp, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Climate Sciences, and former SMFA faculty members Erin Genia and Tanya Crane. The exhibition is on view through October 15.   

Elizabeth McCall, research data librarian at Tisch Library, and Sean Corning, research librarian for the sciences at Tisch Library, presented a lightning talk called “Defining Liaison-Based Evidence Synthesis Services at a Non-Health Science Library” at the Library Evidence Synthesis Services Symposium this past summer.    

Megan McMillan, chair of the Studio Art Department and professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, has work included in the show Thin Places: Thresholds of Transmission. On view at the Media Art Gallery in Boston through December 12, the show explores matter as a dynamic process.

Karl Munger, Dorothy Todd Bishop Research Professor and chair of the Department of Developmental, Molecular and Chemical Biology at the School of Medicine, is helping to lead an effort at Tufts University and Tufts Medicine that brings research scientists together with clinicians to save lives through improved HPV care and research. Read more about this partnership on Tufts Now.

Kate Murphy, cardiology research intern at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, and Jessie King, V29, are key investigators on a study exploring potential treatments for hemangiosarcoma, one of the more commonly diagnosed tumors in dogs.

Ethan Murrow, professor of the practice at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, joined artists Patricia Brace and Joshua Reiman in conversation at the Portland Maine Museum of Art to discuss their work in context with the ongoing Winslow Homer exhibition.

Seth Owusu-Mante and Kate Hua-Ke Chi, both predoctoral research fellows at The Fletcher School, and Tarun Gopalakrishnan, Ph.D. candidate at Fletcher, examined whether Sovereign Green Bonds deliver meaningful climate finance in practice. Read the full study in Climate Policy.

Will Masters, professor at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, contributed to research that sheds light on the lasting consequences of iodine deficiency during pregnancy and infancy.

Elena Naumova, chair of the Division of Nutrition Data Science at Tufts University and Rosenbaum Professor of Data Science at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, and Paul Howe, director of the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, co-edited a special issue of the Journal of Public Health Policy.

Attah Emmanuel Poku, lecturer in music, recently performed at Howard University, the Akwasidae Festival at Bowie University, and the Millennium Excellence Awards in Washington D.C., where he performed for the Ashanti King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Marieke Rosenbaum, professor, and Fernando Vilchez-Delgado, Ph.D. student, both at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, provide new research that sheds light on herpes virus transmission among trafficked Peruvian primates.

Irwin Rosenberg, university professor and professor emeritus at Tufts, is featured in the inaugural “Profiles in Nutrition,” a new Journal of Nutrition series from the American Society for Nutrition highlighting influential leaders whose work has shaped the field and its future.

Matthias Scheutz, Karol Family Applied Technology Professor, is the co-PI on a National Science Foundation grant to establish the Center for Human and Robot Co-Adaptation at the University of Texas. The center will study how people and robots can adapt to one another.

Farshid Vahedifard, Louis Berger Chair and professor at the School of Engineering, is developing a framework to help engineers consider the impact of aging communities and water infrastructure in system upgrades and plans. Read more about this project on the School of Engineering website.

Researchers at Tufts University’s Center for Cellular Agriculture increased the yield and efficiency of animal proteins important to mimicking the taste and texture of real meat. Read more about this project on the School of Engineering website.

A team of scientists at the School of Medicine has developed a new open-source machine learning tool that opens avenues for neurological research. Read more about the tool on the School of Medicine website. 

Teresa Aloi was promoted to senior program administrator at Tufts Gordon Institute. 

Carol Denning was promoted to associate director of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts Gordon Institute. 

Morgan Dent was promoted to senior marketing and communications specialist at Tufts Gordon Institute. 

Melissa Mazan, V93, professor of large animal internal medicine, was named dean ad interim of Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.   

Debra McKnight was promoted to administrative coordinator in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.