Promotions to Full Professor on the Charles River Campus
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
President Brown and I are delighted to announce the promotion of 13 members of our Charles River Campus faculty to Full Professor at Boston University.
Through seminal scholarship, eye-opening exploration, and a passion for the transmission of knowledge, these exceptional faculty members have emerged as leaders, both in their respective fields of research and in their classrooms. They are merging disciplines to discover solutions to some of our most pressing challenges, producing foundational writings that help to evolve our understanding of the world, and working to inspire a new generation of young scholars and professionals. In doing so, they help to demonstrate each day the true depth of Boston University’s talented academic community. We are proud to count them as members of our faculty and pleased that their careers will be spent here at BU:
Bruce Anderson, CAS, Earth & Environment, specializes in climate variability and climate change, combining multiple disciplines to study the role of humans in climate change and its effects on physical and human systems. Recognized for numerous novel discoveries through climate simulation and modeling, he is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, and has authored a book, six book chapters and dozens of articles in leading climate journals.
Paul Barbone, ENG, Mechanical Engineering, specializes in theoretical mechanics, using tools from applied mathematics to study forward and inverse problems in biomechanics, bioacoustics, medical imaging, and other areas. He has been a frequent collaborator on federally funded projects at the intersection of acoustics and medicine and has authored eight book chapters and dozens of refereed journal and proceedings articles.
John Byers, CAS, Computer Science, specializes in algorithmic and economic aspects of computer networking, electronic commerce and large-scale data analysis. A winner of the Test of Time award from ACM SIGCOMM (the premier conference in computer networks), his research into e-commerce frameworks, online advertising and product reviews has been widely cited in the scholarly literature and covered prominently in the national media.
Julian Go, CAS, Sociology, specializes in comparative-historical sociology and social theory, focusing his scholarship on the study of empires, colonial encounters, and postcolonial global formations. The author of two award-winning books and numerous scholarly articles on British and American colonialism, he is the Department of Sociology’s Director of Graduate Studies and a previous winner of CAS’s Wisneski Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Glen Hall, CAS, Mathematics, specializes in the study of celestial mechanics and dynamical systems, investigating the orbital structures and patterns of moons and the dynamics of circle, annulus and twist maps. He is a past Sloan Research Fellow and recipient of both CAS’s Wisneski Award for Excellence in Teaching and its Honors Program Distinguished Teaching Award, and has authored two textbooks and dozens of widely cited journal articles exploring dynamical systems.
Deborah Kelemen, CAS, Psychological & Brain Sciences, specializes in cognitive development, focusing on children’s developing conceptions of the living and non-living natural world, as well as man-made artifacts. A frequent invited speaker, she has published numerous book chapters and journal articles and received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation to support research on children’s approaches to tool use, evolution and religion.
Swathi Kiran, SAR, Language and Hearing Sciences, specializes in the research and treatment of aphasia, combining neuroimaging with computational models to develop new therapies for speech loss. A Fellow of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association, she is Chief Scientific Officer for Constant Therapy (a healthcare IT start-up) and Research Director for BU’s Aphasia Resource Center, and has written extensively on rehabilitation for stroke-caused and bilingual aphasia. Her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Coulter Foundation.
George Kollios, CAS, Computer Science, specializes in database management and data mining, with particular emphasis on spatial-temporal databases, data integration and mobile and sensor data management. Recognized for recent research in information security for outsourced databases, his work is supported by the National Science Foundation. He holds a patent, has authored numerous journal articles, papers and book chapters, and serves as Departmental Director of Graduate Admissions.
Maurice Lee, CAS, English, specializes in 19th century American literature and the intersections within that genre of culture, politics, philosophy and science. He has published two highly regarded books examining both slavery and scientific skepticism in American literature, iseditor of The Cambridge Companion to Frederick Douglass (2009) and is a past recipient of CAS’s Neu Teaching Award.
Christopher Martin, CAS, English, specializes in 16th and 17th century English literature, focusing additionally on Renaissance lyric and prose fiction, early modern gender studies and Age Studies. He has published three widely praised books, including, most recently, Constituting Old Age in Early Modern English Literature from Queen Elizabeth to King Lear (2012), authored numerous essays in top scholarly journals and been named a NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor.
Jianjun Miao, CAS, Economics, specializes in theoretical macroeconomics and finance, devoting his research to multiple areas, including asset pricing, dynamic corporate finance, financial crises and tax policy. The author of a forthcoming textbook, he has published extensively in top economics and finance journals, and is a regularly invited speaker at international finance conferences and seminars in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Michele Rucci, CAS, Psychological &Brain Sciences, specializes in cognitive and neural systems, merging computational and engineering analysis with experimental psychology to study the role of eye movements in perception. He has been recognized for numerous breakthroughs in visual neurophysiology, securing substantial support from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, and publishing extensively on the links between visual perception and action.
Joshua Semeter, ENG, Electrical & Computer Engineering, specializes in the study of space physics phenomena, developing novel instrumentation and processes to better understand the interaction of the Earth’s ionosphere and the space environment. A past recipient of ENG’s Faculty Teaching Award, he is Associate Director of BU’s Center for Space Physics, holds numerous active federal grants, and chairs the NSF’s Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions program.
Please join me in congratulating these wonderfully talented colleagues on their recent promotions and in wishing them the best of luck in their new positions. It is thanks in large part to their hard work and to yours that Boston University upholds its tradition of excellence and is on track to remain a research and teaching leader for many years to come.
Promotions to Full Professor on the Charles River Campus – 3.17.14