Our Community 2023-2024

We are a diverse, inclusive, interdisciplinary, and innovative community committed to and actively engaged in advancing new knowledge and understanding. Our faculty are leaders in their respective fields, our students are exceptional scholars and engaged community members, our staff are deeply committed, and our alumni are agile, creative, thoughtful leaders and citizens.

Our Students

In Fall 2023, we welcomed 1,603 first-year students, 577 transfer students, 339 new MA and MS students, 226 new PhD students, and 23 new MFA students from around the country and the world. They are a diverse community of anthropologists, astronomers, biologists, chemists, classicists, computer scientists, economists, historians, humanists, linguists, mathematicians, philosophers, physics, poets, political scientists, sociologists, statisticians, writers, and so much more, and bring a wealth of backgrounds, experiences, passions, and new ideas to our diverse Arts & Sciences community.

Learn about our newest community members, the entering Class of 2027, as well as our graduating students.

View reflections from the Class of 2024

Meet some of our students

Political Science Major Michael Arellano (CAS’24, GRS’24)

Philosophy and Psychology Major Vanessa Hanger (CAS’24)

PhD Candidate in Archaeology Trevor Lamb (GRS’25)

Economics Major Hanna Dworkin (CAS’24)

Astronomy and Physics Major Nico McMahon (CAS’24)

Computer Science Major Kavya Subramanian (CAS’27)

Psychology Major Brendon Jones (CAS’24)

Computer Science Major Favor Wariboku (CAS’24)

Gabriella Rice (CAS’24), Zoe Rice (CGS’22, CAS’24), and Maya Rice (CAS’24)

Our Faculty

Each year, CAS recruits several leading researchers and scholars to join our faculty, bringing new voices to the classroom and advancing our contributions to the greater world. In the 2023/24 academic year, we welcomed more than 70 new researchers, lecturers, instructors, and visiting professors. We also celebrated faculty promotions, including 11 to full professor, 16 to associate professor, and 9 to the rank of master lecturer, senior lecturer, research professor, or research associate professor, as well as the publications of numerous books and articles.

New Faculty

Faculty Members Promoted to Associate Professor

Elizabeth Coppock, Linguistics, specializes in formal semantics. She has made foundational contributions in relation to phenomena including reference, subjectivity, and measurement. Languages she has worked on include Hungarian, Swedish, Elfdalian, Kathmandu Newari, Turoyo, and Mandinka; she also led a 100-language fieldwork project funded by the Swedish Research Council. She has published 19 articles in top-tier journals, including Language, Natural Language Semantics, Journal of Semantics, Linguistics and Philosophy, Semantics and Pragmatics, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and Glossa, and has made 42 contributions to edited volumes. She also served for eight years as Associate Editor for Semantics and Pragmatics.

Sarah W. Davies, Biology, is an integrative biologist. Supported by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, her lab focuses on understanding the mechanisms underlying symbiosis establishment, maintenance and loss in reef-building corals and how coral genetic diversity is shaped by climate change. Her research aims to provide real-world solutions to the grand challenges of the coral reef crisis. She is a past National Academies of Sciences Early Career Fellow and was recently awarded both the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS) Early Career Award and became an ICRS Fellow. She has published 66 articles in scientific journals, including articles related to equity and mentorship.

Zeynep Demiragli, Physics, is an experimental particle physicist working at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the Large Hadron Collider located at CERN, Switzerland. Her recent work focuses on searching for dark matter particles at the particle colliders at the forefront of a newly emerging synthesis of Cosmology and Particle Physics. A winner of the CMS Young Researcher Prize, her research is supported by grants from the DOE and NSF, including a CAREER award. Additionally, she chairs multiple international and national commissions on searching for beyond the standard model physics and advancing detector development in high-energy particle physics experiments. She is an editor the Particle Physics Data Book and has well over a dozen publications in top-tier journals, including Nature.

Cédric Fichot, Earth & Environment, is an aquatic biogeochemist and remote sensing specialist who seeks to understand the impacts of human- and climate-driven change on aquatic environments. His research blends field work, laboratory analyses, remote sensing, and modeling to address fundamental questions about carbon cycling, coastal resilience, and water quality. His work has been supported by multiple grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). He recently published a review in Earth Sciences Reviews and has dozens of publications in top-tier environmental-science journals, such as Remote Sensing of Environment, Environmental Science and Technology, and Geophysical Research Letters.

Jeffrey Geddes, Earth & Environment, is an atmospheric chemist who studies the role of the biosphere on atmospheric composition. His research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (including a CAREER award), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (including a New Investigator award), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, he explored climate- and land use-driven trends in atmospheric nitrogen cycling. He is also interested in satellite observations of air pollution, contributing algorithms and science related to new geostationary observations of air quality over North America. He has published numerous articles in leading atmospheric chemistry journals, and is an editor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics.

Neha Gondal, Sociology, is a mathematical sociologist researching the role of social networks and culture in the exacerbation of status-based inequalities. She is a founding member of BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences and Core Faculty at Pardee’s Human Capital Initiative. Funded by several NIH grants and other fellowships, she has published sixteen articles and three book chapters in leading journals including Social Forces, Social Networks, and Socio-Economic Review. She has been an elected representative at three American Sociological Association sections and served on the editorial board of five flagship sociology journals including American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and Social Forces. She is currently deputy editor of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Victor Kumar, Philosophy, specializes in ethics, cognitive science, and evolutionary theory. He has written about moral reasoning, moral learning, and moral disgust. His current work focuses on the psychological and cultural underpinnings of progressive and regressive social change. Victor’s 2022 book A Better Ape (Oxford University Press), co-authored with Richmond Campbell, is about the evolution of morality and moral progress. He is also Director of BU’s interdisciplinary Mind and Morality Lab.

Xi Ling, Chemistry, is an experimental physical and materials chemist whose research focuses on the synthesis science and physical properties of two-dimensional materials for electrical, optical and quantum devices. She is a lead or co-PI on multiple major grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and American Chemistry Society (ACS). Her contribution to the discovery and development of graphene enhanced Raman scattering (GERS) has been recognized through the prestigious NSF CAREER award. She is a past recipient of the University’s Provost Career Development award. She has published a book chapter and over 90 articles in top-tire scientific journals including Nature, Nature Materials, Journal of American Society of Chemistry (JACS), Science Advances and Advanced Materials.

Renato Mancuso, Computer Science, specializes in embedded and real-time systems, focusing on reconfigurable hardware platforms and multicore resource management for high-performance, safety-critical, and cyber-physical systems. Supported by industry leaders like Red Hat, Bosch, Cisco, and the NSF (including a CAREER award), his work enhances timeliness and safety in autonomous systems like unmanned aerial vehicles and driverless cars. He has published over 75 peer-reviewed papers, receiving several best paper awards at top conferences, and garnering over 2300 citations. Renato also received the Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology.

Michaela McSweeney, Philosophy, is an expert in metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. Many of her papers explore fundamental problems in the philosophy of logic and metaphysics. Her more recent work develops a systematic account of understanding and uses it to explore topics in epistemology, moral philosophy, the philosophy of mental illness, and social philosophy. She has published numerous articles in leading journals. She is currently working on a monograph about the metaphysics and epistemology of abstract reality, as well as several papers that expand upon her work on understanding.

Christoph Nolte, Earth & Environment, studies land conservation decisions and the effectiveness of environmental policies. His research draws on geography, economics, and data science to infer causal effects of land conservation, estimate conservation costs, and value environmental amenities and risks. He leads and co-leads several grants from NASA and NSF that combine satellite and social data to estimate effects of public conservation finance, develop cost-effective strategies for long-term conservation, and track changes to lake water quality amenities. He published over 50 articles in leading interdisciplinary journals, including PNAS, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Conservation Letters, and Land Economics.

Steve Ramirez, Psychological and Brain Sciences, is a systems neuroscientist studying the mechanisms of learning and memory. He received his B.A. in neuroscience from Boston University and began researching learning and memory in the laboratory of Howard Eichenbaum. Steve went on to receive his Ph.D. in neuroscience in the laboratory of Susumu Tonegawa at MIT, where his work focused on artificially modulating memories in the rodent brain, and continued this work at Harvard University as a Junior Fellow. His lab’s current work focuses on manipulating memories to understand their causal role in cognition and behavior, as well as to leverage this manipulations and alleviate symptoms associated with pathologies of the brain. Steve has received an NIH DP5 award and an NIH Transformative Award, the Smithsonian’s American Ingenuity award, National Geographic’s Breakthrough Explorer prize, Forbes and Technology Review’s Top 35 Innovators Under 35 award, the Chan-Zuckerberg Science Diversity Leadership award, a Pew Foundation award, and has given two TED talks.

Mickey Salins, Mathematics & Statistics, is a leading young mathematician working in probability, stochastic partial differential equations, and infinite dimensional stochastic dynamical systems. Stochastic analysis governs the evolution in time and space of a vast array of models that consider the presence of randomness, an inherent component in models throughout the physical and engineering sciences. In a series of single-authored papers in the very top journals of his field, Professor Salins has made deep and impactful contributions, several of which resolved longstanding open questions, thus deepening our understanding of the role of noise in the behavior of such systems.

Christopher Schmitt, Anthropology, is a biological anthropologist studying the evolutionary genomics of adaptations to ecological extremes in wild non-human primates. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, The Leakey Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. He was the 2023 recipient of the BU Undergraduate Academic Advising Award, and 2022 recipient of the CAS Susan K. Jackson Award for Excellence in Service to the College for his efforts at queer community-building in STEM fields, and just ended his term as President of the American Association for Anthropological Genetics. He has published 32 peer-reviewed articles, 15 non-peer reviewed articles or book chapters, and the book Savanna Monkeys: The Genus Chlorocebus, with Oxford University Press.

Jessica Simes, Sociology, studies the causes and consequences of mass incarceration in U.S. communities, with a focus on structural racism and health. Her more recent work examines exposure to policing and harsh prison conditions as drivers of social inequality. Supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Arnold Ventures, she is also a recipient of the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award. She is the author of Punishing Places: The Geography of Mass Imprisonment (University of California Press, 2021), winner of the Robert E. Park Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association. Her 19 peer-reviewed articles have appeared in a wide range of outlets, including Science Advances, Annual Review of Sociology, Criminology, JAMA Network Open, and PLoS ONE.

Indara Suarez, Physics, is an experimental particle physicist whose research focuses on searching for new phenomena to help us understand the characteristics of the Higgs boson and the nature of dark matter. To make this possible, she has developed novel computational tools using artificial intelligence for data analysis and next-generation detector electronics. Professor Suarez is an exemplary mentor who aims to increase the participation of traditionally under-represented groups and women in science. For her excellence in research, she has won a DOE CAREER award and is supported by several other NSF and DOE grants, establishing her as a leader in her field.

Faculty Members Promoted to Professor

Jonathan Barnes, Linguistics, is a phonologist specializing in both segmental and prosodic phonology. His theoretical and experimental contributions, funded by 6 NSF grants and published in leading journals, have led to new insights about the perceptual basis for processing prosody. His “Tonal Center-of-Gravity” theory, described in several widely cited journal articles, has gained international attention as a powerful tool for prosodic analysis. His second book, published in 2022 by MIT Press, brings together scholars from disparate frameworks with the aim of bridging divides in the field of prosody. Barnes also played a major role in the founding of the Department of Linguistics in 2018, serving as its chair since 2020.

Elizabeth Blanton, Astronomy, uses observations at multiple wavelengths, including radio, infrared, optical, and especially X-ray wavelengths, to study clusters of galaxies. Her results advance understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies, which are the basic building block of the universe. Her work has been supported by NSF and NASA, particularly the Chandra X-ray Observatory. She is a Fellow of the American Astronomical Society and recently served as the Director of BU’s Institute for Astrophysical Research. She has published numerous refereed articles in leading scientific journals, including Nature and the Astrophysical Journal.

Catherine Espaillat, Astronomy, studies the physical nature and evolution of disks of gas and dust that surround young stars as well as the protoplanets that form within those disks. Her work has been supported by NSF and NASA, including the high-profile James Webb Space Telescope. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She currently serves as her department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and is also the Director of BU’s Institute for Astrophysical Research. She has published numerous refereed articles in leading scientific journals, including Nature and Science.

David Glick, Political Science, studies American politics and researches the Supreme Court, local government, and public policy. He is a Fellow with the Federal Government’s Office of Evaluation Sciences, co-PI on the Menino Survey of Mayors, and was Faculty Director of BU’s MetroBridge program. He co-authored the book “Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America’s Housing Crisis” (Cambridge University Press) and other work on the local politics of housing with BU colleagues Katherine Levine Einstein and Maxwell Palmer. He has published 26 peer reviewed articles in journals including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Political Science, and Perspectives on Politics.

Deeana Klepper, Religion and History, is a historian of religion in medieval Europe whose research focuses on religious identities, cultures, and inter-religious encounters among Christians, Jews, and Muslims. She is the author of two books, including the 2022 Pastoral Care and Community in Late Medieval Germany: Albert of Diessen’s “Mirror of Priests” (Cornell University Press). She has also authored twelve book chapters and articles in major journals and has presented her work at universities and conferences in Religious Studies, Medieval Studies, Jewish Studies, and History in the US, Canada, and Europe. In 2024 she was elected to the Society of Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, an honor that recognizes major long-term scholarly achievement within Medieval Studies.

David Lagakos, Economics, is a macroeconomist who studies the determinants of economic growth in some of the world’s least developed regions. Much of his research is inspired by his experience working as the lead academic for the International Growth Centre in Ghana. He has served as an editor of the Review of Economic Dynamics and the Journal of Development Economics and is currently a research affiliate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Centre for Economic Policy Research. His papers have appeared in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and other prominent journals.

Judith Lok, Mathematics & Statistics, is a statistician specializing in the dynamic and fast-moving field of causal inference. Her research focuses on both theoretical aspects and applications of causal inference, spanning the full gamut from statistical theory to applications in medicine (e.g. HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, bacterial infections) and public health (e.g. maternal and child health). Funded by NIH and NSF, Professor Lok, with her collaborators, has proposed a new and innovative adaptive clinical trials design, “Learn-As-you-GO” (LAGO). She has published 37 articles in top-tier medical, epidemiology, and statistics journals, including 3 in the Annals of Statistics. Currently on sabbatical as a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard, Professor Lok is writing a textbook Causal Inference: a Statistics Playground.

Petrus Liu, World Languages & Literatures, is a scholar of Chinese literature and queer studies whose work brings together several related areas of studies, including feminist theory, queer theory, and Marxism. His works challenge the field of queer studies by showing how it unwittingly adopts the framework of liberal ideology, and by expanding its empirical boundaries to include East Asia. Through his numerous publications, he has helped generate a non-Eurocentric version of queer theory grounded in the historical experiences and collective insight of intellectuals outside the Global North. He is the recipient of a Harvard University Radcliffe Institute fellowship, as well as the Gitner Award for Distinguished Teaching in the College of Arts & Sciences, Boston University. Since arriving at BU in 2017, he has published one book, five book chapters, and three peer reviewed journal articles.

Natalia Ramondo, Economics, is an international trade economist with a focus on the effects of the activities of multinational corporations. In recent work, she studies the interaction between the activity of these global firms and carbon emissions worldwide. Her worked has been supported by two grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and published at top-tier economic journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a research fellow at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Monetary Economics, the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, and the Journal of International Economics.

Chen Yang, Chemistry, designs materials and devices for high precision neuromodulation. Her work enables technologies to understand how brain functions and to treat neurological disorders where drug treatments are not available. Supported by major federal, foundation and private industry grants, she is a past NSF CAREER award recipient and current AIMBE fellow. Her research has resulted in multiple granted patents, and she has published 63 articles in top science and engineering journals, including Nature and Science.

Michael Zell, History of Art & Architecture, is an internationally recognized specialist of 17th-century Baroque Art, with a particular focus on Dutch Art. He has published two books, including his most recent monograph, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and the Gift in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Amsterdam University Press, 2022), which looks at gift exchange and seventeenth-century Dutch artists, specifically Rembrandt and Vermeer. A dedicated teacher and mentor, Zell is an active member of the Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His numerous publications include the co-edited volume Ut pictural amor: The Reflective Imagery of Love in Artistic Theory and Practice, 1500-1700 (2017), six journal articles, six book chapters, and several museum exhibition catalogue essays and entries.

Faculty Members Promoted to Master Lecturers

James Baldwin, Earth & Environment, is the Director of Master’s programs in the Department of Earth and Environment. He oversees the promotion, development, and operation of the department’s three master’s programs. He teaches a range of topics in environmental science and sustainability such as Energy Sustainability, Environmental Modeling and Statistics, Geography, Geographic Information Systems, and International Economics. His current research interests include climate change impacts and adaptation, energy sustainability, and human-environment interaction.

Kirby Chazal, Romance Studies, brings expertise in applied linguistics to the Department of Romance Studies, with research interests in second language acquisition and conversation analysis. Demonstrating a commitment to excellence, she teaches and designs both French language and Language Pedagogy courses. Her leadership roles in course coordination have significantly shaped the French language program, fostering innovative assessment strategies and empirically based, inclusive approaches to teaching. Her recent contributions to the profession include presentations at national conferences and a scholarly publication in applied linguistics. She is currently pursuing certification as an ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Oral Proficiency Interview examiner and has recently been awarded professional development leave on the basis of a program designed to promote students’ conversational skills and intercultural competency in French.

Viktoria Hackbarth, Romance Studies, (Ph.D., Indiana University), teaches Spanish at all levels, Spanish for heritage speakers, and beginner Hebrew. She has served as course coordinator for Third-, Fourth-, and Advanced Level Spanish courses, and designed and taught upper-level Spanish courses, including specialized subjects on the Spanish Civil War, and language through visual arts. She researches integrating arts and language education, diversity and inclusion, and heritage and native speakers’ education. She received the Boston University Excellence in Teaching Merit Award twice and a Core Faculty Fellowship. She regularly presents and leads workshops at professional organizations like ACTFL and NECTFL.

Jungsoo Kim, World Languages & Literatures, is a masterful language teacher who creates a supportive and welcoming learning environment for students. She uses effective pedagogical approaches and is continuously improving and updating her teaching. To meet the demands of today’s world, she has created multiple courses and thematic units to enrich the Korean language program. She has served as the coordinator of the Korean program for many terms. Together with her other colleagues, she helped build a thriving Korean language program at BU. She served as Program Director of the Boston University STARTALK Online Korean Teacher Training Program from (2017-2019).

Catherine Klancer, Core Curriculum, is interested in the intersection between religion, politics and ethics. Her first book, Engaging Our Complexity: Thomas Aquinas and Zhu Xi on Power and the Common Good (SUNY Press, 2015), explores these areas from the perspectives of medieval Christianity and Confucianism. She is currently at work on a project that explores what the Confucian virtue of intellectual humility has to offer in an era of religious pluralism. She teaches in Core’s humanities and social sciences courses as well as the new Core Public Speaking course. She currently serves as the advisor for the Core Minor.

Christopher McVey, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars on dystopian literature, post-apocalyptic fiction and film, creative nonfiction, the poetry of witness, and, most recently, the philosophy and ethics of artificial intelligence. He has been an active leader in developing writing portfolios for all WR students and in providing pedagogical guidance to the university on generative artificial intelligence. Dr. McVey has written, presented, and published essays on among other subjects, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and generative AI in higher education.

Mario Muscedere, Biology, is an integrative biologist with expertise in the physiology, neurobiology, and evolution of social behavior. He teaches courses in all of these areas, especially BI 315 Systems Physiology, taken by 700+ students each year. Dr. Muscedere serves as Director of the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, which administers the Neuroscience and Philosophy & Neuroscience degree programs and supports the 450+ students enrolled in these majors. Dr. Muscedere also collaborates with Dr. James Traniello’s lab on an NSF-funded project investigating how the metabolic costs of the brain may impact social organization and its evolution in ants.

Bjorn Persson, Economics, earned a PhD in Economics in 2001 from the Stockholm School of Economics. He served as a visiting scholar and lecturer in the Economics Department and then in the private sector before coming to the Department as a full-time lectuer in 2008. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019. Dr. Persson teaches introductory microeconomics and mathematical economics in the Master’s program where he has guided generations of students through their first steps in economics. He also teaches several advanced elective courses in the undergraduate curriculum, such as a course on risk and uncertainty, particularly in the context of financial markets, and a course in health economics, the subject of his dissertation. Dr. Persson is known for his humor, his ability to communicate complex ideas, and the way he engages students with connections between economic models and real-world phenomena. He has also served as an adviser to honor theses and is a long-time participant in administering the master’s program, working on both MA admissions and designing the comprehensive exam.

Thomas Oller, Writing Program, is a TESOL expert who teaches both classes for English language learners and writing seminars on topics including Jefferson & Hamilton and the local jazz scene. He has made curricular contributions to information literacy instruction and has partnered with the BU libraries to meet the information literacy needs of international students. Dr. Oller is a founding and board member of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society and presents frequently on Alexander Hamilton.

Borja Ruiz de Arbulo, Romance Studies, has taught all levels of Spanish in the Romance Studies Department and has served as a multi-section course coordinator during his time at BU. He has also been actively involved in various committees and has collaborated closely with the Geddes Language Center to enhance technology implementation in language classes. His areas of expertise include proficiency-based instruction and differentiated pedagogy, on which he regularly presents at conferences both nationally and internationally. Borja is also committed to fostering connections with our local community and is a co-creator of the Spanish for Educators course offered at Boston Public Schools.

Susanne Werk, World Languages & Literatures, is an outstanding German language educator. She teaches with passion, dedication and enjoys a wonderful rapport with students. She has served as the coordinator of the German program for multiple terms and helped in mentoring new incoming coordinators. Her service as the department’s lecturer coordinator was exemplary. To enhance the learning experience among the students studying German and to raise the visibility of the German language program, she helped organize for many years Kaffeestunde and Global House events. She has dedicated much effort to strengthen connections with community partners like the Goethe-Institute, initiating annual “German Day” for high school students at BU.

Faculty Members Promoted to Senior Lecturers

Brandy Barents, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars on poetry and film, primarily centering on Boston and New England themes with authors as varied as Emily Dickinson, Nick Flynn, and Dennis Lehane. She has been an active leader of the program’s curricular innovations, including those focused on place-based learning and creativity and innovation. She has also presented and published on the role of peer mentoring in academia, and co-leads the Writing Program’s Collaborative Mentoring Initiative.

Maria Bobroff, Romance Studies, teaches courses across the French curriculum, coordinates LF212 Fourth-Semester French, and serves as the advisor to the French cluster at Global House. In AY 2022-2023, she organized a working group to study non-binary language use in French with support from BU D&I’s Learn More Together Grant, and she participated in BU’s inaugural Inclusive Pedagogy Institute. She is currently a fellow in BU’s Designing Antiracism Curricula Program. In addition to presenting on best practices in language pedagogy, Dr. Bobroff has published on eighteenth-century French literature and Francophone African women authors.

Kristen Bushell, Neuroscience, received her PhD in Pharmacology in 2010 from BUSM and joined the BU faculty in 2019. She teaches NE 101 and designed NE/BI 556, her seminar course on neuroscience drug discovery. She also teaches and serves as Lab Director for the Integrated Science Experience sequence, offering Biology, Neuroscience, and Chemistry majors an introductory lab curriculum that integrates theory and techniques from all three disciplines, mimicking modern biomedical research. Outside the classroom she collaborated with colleagues to modernize the NE 203 and ISE lab curricula and develop the Neuroscience Writing Plan in collaboration with the CAS Writing Program, the first for any CAS unit.

Kyle Gobrogge, Neuroscience, received his PhD in Neuroscience in 2010 from Florida State University and joined the BU faculty in 2019. He teaches NE 101 and designed NE/WS 456, his seminar course on the behavioral neuroscience of sex and aggression. He also teaches laboratories for NE 102 and NE 203, serving as Lab Director for the latter course, where students use modern techniques such as optogenetics to investigate the neural basis of behavior in fruit flies. Outside the classroom he led the effort to modernize the NE 203 curriculum and collaborated on the development of the Neuroscience Writing Plan with the CAS Writing Program, the first for any CAS unit.

Elif Kafali, Economics, earned a PhD in Economics at Boston University in 2012 before receiving a BA in Economics from Cornell in 2007. She started her career as a health researcher at Harvard Medical School. She became a full-time lecturer in the Economics department in 2018 after serving as a part-time instructor. Dr. Kafali teaches critical intermediate courses, particularly Intermediate Microeconomics and Empirical Economic Analysis 1. She taught two new courses this year, Intermediate Microeconomics for our new quantitative track of classes and a new advanced course in econometric analysis focusing on cross-sectional techniques and causal inference with an emphasis on independent research. Students highlight Dr. Kafali’s clarity, organization and willingness to help students. Dr. Kafali is committed to engaging students of all skill levels. Dr. Kafali is also participating in a university initiative on transforming large courses. She is a leader in evaluating the teaching of other instructors and she served on the department committee to enhance education in empirical work throughout the curriculum.

John Tullai, Neuroscience, received his PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2001 from Mount Sinai School of Medicine NYU and joined the BU faculty in 2019. He teaches introductory and advanced courses in Biology and Neuroscience including NE/BI 589, his seminar course on the neural factors that influence cancer progression. He also teaches laboratories for NE 102 and NE 203, serving as Lab Director for the former course, where students learn core lab techniques through a semester-long project exploring the cellular/molecular basis of Alzheimer’s Disease. Outside the classroom he has secured funding to modernize the neuroscience teaching lab and collaborated on the development of the Neuroscience Writing Plan with the CAS Writing Program, the first for any CAS unit.

Lillie Webb, Romance Studies, teaches intermediate French courses on street art, public art, and cinema, as well as all levels of the French language sequence. She is the Director of Global House, BU’s living-learning community for language learning and cultural exchange. She also teaches a Hub co-curricular on intercultural communication and developing a global worldview. She has expertise in 19th century French literature and art, with a focus on women’s sexualization and embodiment. In 2023, she received a Fellowship in Developing Anti-Racist Curriculum.

New Chairs and Directors

Retiring Faculty

Our Staff

In 2023-2024, we welcomed 67 new staff members to Arts & Sciences, including lab managers and research technicians, administrative coordinators, program and department administrators, academic advisors, a new Director of Graduate Affairs, a new Director of Masters’ Marketing and Enrollment, a new Assistant Dean for Communications, amongst others.

New College Staff

Sanna Ahmed, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Jane Albinson, Physics
Mackenzie Arnolds, Anthropology
Brian Bates, Physics
Alice Barrett, History of Art & Architecture
Derek Briand, Computer Science
Madison Boschulte, Psychological & Brain Sciences
James Boyle, Computer Science
Michelle Buzharsky, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Kurt Cavender, Center for the Humanities
Siria Coello, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Emily Coombs, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Cassie Court, Philosophy
Mary Dangora, Computer Sciences
Bailey Ellis, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Andrew Engel, Physics
Caleb Fangmeier, Physics
G Forristall, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Mario Grasso, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Sam Greives, Physics
Emily Griffin, Graduate School
Patrick Guziewicz, Economics
Katie Hamel, Dean’s Office
Douglas Hazel, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Joe Hebert, Biology
Sarah Heghinian, Graduate School
Grace Hymel, Experiential Learning Connector
Brittany Jackson, Biology
Erin Keane, Chemistry
Morgan Kretschmer, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Audrey Kurtz, Writing Program
Rachel Lagasse, World Languages & Literatures
Amelia Layne, Earth & Environment
Sammi Lewis, Philosophy
Kathleen Liakos, Student Services
Veronica Lopez-Doherty, Biology
Josh Maldonado, Earth & Environment
Jeffrey Mallett, Chemistry
Mavis Manaloto, Economics
Emily Maness, Biology
Aryana Martin, African American and Black Diaspora Studies
Jennifer Martin, Biology
Tyler McFarland, Pre-Health
Joy McKee, Development and Alumni Relations
Kirstie Miller, Graduate School
Alix Molina, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Sebastian Moya, Physics
Erin Murphy, Office of Research
Daniel Nadeau, Physics
Dorree Ndooki, African American & Black Diaspora Studies
Jillian Nichols, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Meghan Nyhof, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Yeshim Onipede, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Natasha Patel, Computer Sciences
Abigail Robertson, Romance Studies
Gabriella Russo, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Joe Salzo, Chemistry
Kathleen Shannon, Research Administration
Anna Silver, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Lila Smith, Physics
Ronan Smith, Statistical Practice
Mara Stahl, Biology
Cady Steinberg, African American & Black Diaspora Studies Program
Kat Wright, Communications
Rebecca Wright, Anthropology
Siwon Yang, Psychological & Brain Sciences
Alexander Yung, Psychological & Brain Sciences

CAS Professional Development Committee

CAS Staff Appreciation

Our Alumni and Parents

In the College of Arts and Sciences, our Alumni and Parents play a vital role in our extended Arts & Sciences community. In 2023, our alumni returned to the Charles River Campus for Alumni Weekend (September 22-23), and Family and Friends Weekend (October 20-22).

The 2023 Alumni Weekend included various events across all programs.

BU’s 2023 Distinguished Alumni Awards recipients included Mitchell Garabedian (CGS’71, CAS’73) and Santiago Levy (CAS’77, GRS’78,’80).

CAS’s 2003 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients were :

Deirdre Giblin, Esq. (CAS’90)
Dr. Christine Kannler (CAS’96)
Prerna Mukharya (GRS’09)
Leslie Sills (CAS’69)

Undergraduate Admissions

Graduate Admissions

MA & MS Applicants

PhD & MFA Applicants