Promotions of Lecturers and Faculty with Modified Titles on the Charles River Campus
From Dr. Kenneth Lutchen, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer ad interim
President ad interim Freeman and I are delighted to announce the promotion of 14 faculty members on the Charles River Campus to the rank of master lecturer, 22 to senior lecturer, four to clinical associate professor, and one each to research associate professor and professor of the practice.
Each year, as you know, we have the pleasure of recognizing the promotions of talented faculty on the Charles River Campus to the ranks of full and associate professor, as we did most recently on March 14 and June 15. Those promotions are all processed centrally according to a schedule set forth in the Faculty Handbook.
Other faculty colleagues, equally important to our teaching and research mission, have their promotions reviewed in the schools and colleges throughout the academic year. These accomplished educators are among our most devoted teachers, scholars, mentors, and contributors to their schools’ and students’ success. As we begin a new academic year, they are continuing to make important pedagogical advances across a range of diverse fields, from the arts and humanities to the sciences, law, health, business, and education.
We are delighted to announce the following promotions that took place during the 2022-23 academic year:
College of Arts & Sciences
Derek Anderson, Philosophy, teaches a range of courses, including Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Ethics, Reason and Argumentation, Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality, Puzzles & Paradoxes, and Metaphysics & Epistemology, working to incorporate issues of social justice and diversity into his curriculum. He regularly publishes papers in the areas of social epistemology and the philosophy of psychology, and his monograph, Metasemantics and Intersectionality in the Misinformation Age, appeared in 2021. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Kevin Barents, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars on a range of topics at the intersection of creativity, innovation, and collaboration, including Bob Dylan’s Lyrics, Boston Poetry Now, and Improvisation Now. He has been an active leader of curricular innovation in the Writing Program and is a nationally recognized expert on Bob Dylan, with chapters appearing in the books Dylan: Disc by Disc (2015) and Professing Dylan (2016), as well as interviews in outlets including National Public Radio, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Seth Blumenthal, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars inspired by his own scholarship, with topics including The Educated Electorate, Marijuana in American History, and High Stakes: Creating Social Equity in the Massachusetts Cannabis Industry. He has published numerous op-eds in The Washington Post and elsewhere, and his 2018 book, Children of the Silent Majority: Youth Politics and the Rise of the Republican Party, 1968-1980, won the James P. Hanlan Book Award. In 2020, he was recognized with BU’s Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Brett DiBenedictis, Psychological & Brain Sciences, teaches courses that cover the foundational links between brain and behavior. He teaches multiple sections of Physiological Psychology and Drugs and Behavior and has been recognized for his expertise on the role of drugs and hormones in modulating brain and behavior. He also supervises undergraduate directed study students and students undertaking honors projects. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Shutan Dong, World Languages & Literatures, teaches Chinese, with research interests in second language acquisition, language teaching pedagogy, literacy development, writing instruction, and teaching language through the lens of social justice. She is the Chinese program’s first year coordinator and helped revise and administer its language placement exam, with a special emphasis on improving placement for heritage speakers. She regularly organizes co-curricular activities, runs the annual Chinese translation competition, and has represented the program at the Language and Career Expo, Global House Information Sessions, Virtual Global Café, and various open houses. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Stacey Gelsheimer, Economics, specializes in teaching undergraduate empirical courses, often with students writing original econometric research papers. She has won the department teaching award, served as a Learn from Anywhere coach, helped develop new empirical courses, and led the department in several capacities on issues of teaching and writing. She also developed and teaches the online introductory macroeconomics course offered through the summer program. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Aleksandra Kasztalska, Writing Program, brings expertise in applied linguistics and innovative teaching techniques to the Writing Program’s courses for English language learners. Her research interests span second language acquisition, teaching English to speakers of other languages, and general pedagogy, including collaborations with the Center for Teaching & Learning. In 2022, she won the CAS Award for Distinction in First-Year Undergraduate Education. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Heeju Lee, World Languages & Literatures, teaches Korean language and content courses at all levels and specializes in discourse analysis, second/heritage language learning and pedagogy, corpus linguistics, and intonation/pronunciation. Recent courses she has developed include Korean for the Professions, Korean through Popular Music, and Korean Conversation and Discourse. As coordinator of the Korean program, she is actively involved in the advising of students who minor in Korean, administering language placement and proficiency exams, and mentoring faculty colleagues. Beyond teaching, she provides peer reviews for prestigious journals and is a regular presenter at annual professional conferences nationally and internationally. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Yair Lior, Religion, is a trained specialist in Chinese and Jewish mysticism and proficient in many languages. He is also a scholar of religion as an evolutionary product and recently coedited the Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion (2023). He is on the Core Curriculum program staff and teaches courses in the Introduction of Religion, Religion and Science, the Religions of Asia, and the Kabbalah. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Michele Martinez, Writing Program, teaches writing seminars on topics ranging from dystopian literature and film to family photographs and stories. She is an active leader in the Writing Program’s ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and part of the inaugural cohort in BU’s Inclusive Pedagogy Institute. Her publications and current research focus on the multimedial aspirations and effects of Victorian poetry, painting, and photography. Her 2018 article “Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Salutation of Beatrice’: Pictures as Victorian Comics” won a best essay prize from the Northeast Modern Language Studies Association. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Lionel Mathieu, Romance Studies, teaches French courses at all levels and specializes in phonetics and phonology, second language acquisition and teaching, psycholinguistics, contact linguistics, and French linguistics. Popular courses he has taught include French for International Relations and French for the Professions, the latter of which earned him the Diplôme de didactique du français sur objectifs spécifiques with honors from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris. He is additionally a certified Diplôme d’Études en Langue Française A1-B2 examiner. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Sarah Miller, Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, is a sociologist whose research focuses on gender, sexuality, education, and new media. Her current book project, The Tolerance Generation: Growing Up Online in an Anti-Bullying Era, explores how intersectional inequalities and digital cultures shape young people’s experiences with bullying. Her work has been published in Gender & Society, Sexualities, and the Journal of Youth and Adolescence and been funded by the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation among others. She is the director of undergraduate studies for the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Lucia Pastorino, Neuroscience, is a neurobiologist whose research explores the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, most notably Alzheimer’s disease. She teaches introductory and advanced courses on these topics including Translational Research in Alzheimer’s Disease and Introduction to Cell and Molecular Biology and recently designed Proteostasis in the Biology of Neurodegenerative Diseases, the Neuroscience major’s first upper-level, lab-only course. Her research has appeared in Nature and Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, among a host of top field publications. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Jaemin Roh, World Languages & Literatures, teaches Korean at all levels and specializes in acquisition of Korean as a second language, educating Korean heritage and non-heritage students, and the design and development of instructional materials focused on the inclusion of culture. She has co-authored two new internationally distributed textbooks, Anytime Korean 1 (2020) and Anytime Korean 2 (2021) and is a past coordinator of the Korean program, where she is credited with pioneering the development of the full 4-year college Korean language curriculum, adding 13 new courses. She is an active member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and American Association of Teachers of Korean. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Melanie Smith, Writing Program, brings extensive experience in public health to writing courses addressing research ethics and environmental issues, including Ethical Missteps in Public Health and The World’s Waters. She additionally teaches a course in memoir and personal essay, Every Life, A Story. Her essays have appeared in Ruminate, Birdcoat Quarterly, and The Common, and current research interests include the effect of fear of failure on student writing and how cultural diversity can enrich the writing classroom. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Robin Stevens, Core Curriculum, is assistant director of the Core Curriculum. She oversees the labs and much of the planning for Core natural science classes and lectures on many subjects in Natural Science I and Natural Science II. She is advisor to the Core peer tutors program and the Core community house and floor. She was accepted into the inaugural Inclusive Pedagogy Institute in June 2022 and is working on initiatives with faculty from biology and neuroscience on inclusive pedagogies for non-science majors. She also teaches Introduction to Neuroscience each spring. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Jason Tandon, Writing Program, teaches topics such as modern and contemporary American poetry and existential literature, philosophy, and film. He is the author of five books of poetry, including his most recent publication, This Far North (2023), and his work has appeared in numerous publications, including North American Review and Esquire. He brings expertise in language, genre, and craft to students through creative and academic assignments, as well as to Writing Program faculty as a resource on creative nonfiction. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Brian Walsh, Core Curriculum/Writing Program, served as the interim director of the Core Curriculum in spring 2023 and has a joint appointment with Core and the Writing Program. He has served as the coordinator for Antiquity to the Medieval World and will be assistant director of the program in 2024. He teaches multiple humanities courses, as well as Multi-media Approaches to Core Texts. He additionally teaches in the English department and is co-convener of “Black Classicism: Moving Forward,” a national lecture series organized by Core, the classics department, and African American Studies. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Masanao Yajima, Mathematics & Statistics, is currently director of consulting for the MS in Statistical Practice and a member of the Probability and Statistics Research Group. He works to answer data science questions in both academic and industry settings and his research interests include multivariate analysis, hierarchical models, statistical computing, missing data imputation, network modeling, metagenomics, bioinformatics, machine learning, and big data. He has been promoted to professor of the practice.
Emi Yamanaka, World Languages & Literatures, is a past coordinator of the Japanese program, whose research interests include pedagogy, interlanguage pragmatics, and second language acquisition. She has developed a host of technology-based language learning resources and authored several book chapters. This year, she received the College of Arts & Sciences’ Neu Family Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2018, she was an organizer of the Japanese program’s Japan Day event, which helped establish BU as a leading institution in Japanese language learning. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
College of Communication
Krystyn Wypasek, Mass Communication, Advertising & Public Relations, is an expert in graphic design and Adobe software, and teaches the College of Communication’s popular Design Strategy and Software courses. For BU’s first hybrid semester, she helped develop a combined in-person discussion opportunity for Design Strategy and Software and taught both sessions each week. Additionally, she creates fine art-design and professional projects, including work for HBO/MAX’s acclaimed Successionseries and Crime-Con. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
College of Engineering
Tali Moreshet, Electrical & Computer Engineering, conducts research in computer architecture, focusing on energy-efficient computing and hardware-software co-design, including concurrent near memory processing and persistent secure memory systems. She teaches key computer engineering courses to undergraduate and graduate students and is a past recipient of her department’s teaching excellence award. In her role as associate department chair for undergraduate studies, she advised many students, mentored instructors, guided curriculum updates to the electrical engineering and computer engineering degrees and oversaw the department accreditation process. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
College of Fine Arts
Andrius Žlabys, Piano Performance, is a Grammy-nominated pianist and has received international recognition for appearances with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Symphony, and Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires. He has additionally performed concerts at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Phillips Collection, Teatro Colón, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Suntory Hall. He has offered graduate-level piano instruction at BU for several years. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
College of General Studies
Shawn Lynch, Social Sciences, teaches 20th century US political history, modern British history, western history, the Reagan Revolution and the era of neo-liberalism, and constitutionalism, with research interests including free speech in times of crisis and the impact of the Cold War on US political institutions. He has been an active member of the Boston-London faculty and served as an advisor of the World Affairs Forum, BU Votes, and Better Elections Now. This past year, he published a social sciences textbook, The Last Days of the Enlightenment: Commentaries on the End of an Age, along with two volumes of science fiction. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Kate Nash, Rhetoric, teaches courses in composition and rhetoric, modern and contemporary British literature, and gender studies, with research interests that include modernism, writing pedagogy, and feminist theory. She has been an active member of the Boston-London program faculty and served as a Faculty Council representative for the College of General Studies. Her articles have appeared in Modern Literature and Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities and she has recently secured a book contract with the Ohio University Press. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Questrom School of Business
Rebecca (Becky) Nichols, Management & Organizations, teaches courses in business, society and ethics, organizational behavior, and career management. She serves as undergraduate advisor for the Management & Organizations concentration and course coordinator for Business, Ethics and the Creation of Value. She is also a faculty mentor for the Questrom Ascend Program and a two-time recipient of the James E. Freeman Leadership Development Award. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Gina Powers, Markets, Public Policy & Law, is a practicing attorney focusing on residential and commercial real estate transactions. She is often called upon as an expert witness in relevant trials and brings this legal and real estate experience with her to the classroom. She has received numerous Questrom awards, including the Beckwith Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Broderick Award for Student Learning & Experience. She has been promoted to master lecturer.
Ned Rimer, Management & Organizations, is founder and executive director of Chronic Care Community Corps, a healthcare reform initiative. He also co-founded and served as managing director of Citizen Schools, an organization that partners with public low-income middle schools to provide an expanded learning day. He has served as faculty director of the Health Sector Management Program at Questrom since 2014 and is a past recipient of the Questrom Award for Institutional Leadership. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Gregory Stoller, Strategy & Innovation, is actively involved in building entrepreneurship, experiential learning, and international business programs at Questrom and mentors student teams that participate in business plan and venture capital competitions. He is founder and president of Coolidge Plaza, LLC, a real estate holding company. He is a past recipient of BU’s Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching and of Questrom’s Broderick Award for Service to Graduate Programs and James E. Freeman Leadership Development Award. He has been promoted to master lecturer.
Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences
Lisa Brown, Physical Therapy, is an expert in neurorehabilitation with a specialization in vestibular disorders, traumatic brain injury, and concussion. A practicing clinician for more than two decades, she is a senior physical therapist at BU’s Physical Therapy Center. She has been instrumental in the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines for the use of ankle foot orthoses and functional electric stimulation to improve gait outcomes post stroke. She is a board-certified specialist in neurologic physical therapy and has a certificate of advanced study in neurologic practice. She has been promoted to clinical associate professor.
Shelley Brown, Health Sciences, is an expert in global mental health, maternal mental health, HIV/AIDS-related mental health, trauma, and the trans-disciplinary domain of global health policy and governance. As a social health scientist, she’s devoted her career to addressing the mental health challenges, human rights, and health/healthcare inequities facing marginalized, underserved, and vulnerable populations worldwide. She has presented her work nationally and internationally and published in prominent global public health journals. Since 2017, she has served as the inaugural director of Sargent College’s International Service Learning Program. She has been promoted to clinical associate professor.
Leanne Yinusa-Nyahkoon, Occupational Therapy, focuses her work on studying health inequities in urban communities of color. Her funded research projects include “Using Innovative Communication Technology to Improve the Health of Young African American and Black Women: The Gabby System,” which she and her interprofessional team are implementing at Healthy Start sites and community health centers across the United States. She was an inaugural recipient of the MACE Foundation Fellowship, which supports critically needed research opportunities for black, brown, and indigenous women’s physical and maternal health, maternal mortality, and the health of their babies. She has been promoted to clinical associate professor.
School of Law
Claire Abely is an expert in legal writing and specializes in public interest law. She is a faculty advisor to the Public Interest Law Journal and a regular speaker on topics related to the legal writing classroom experience at national legal writing conferences. She is a past recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award and has also secured a Provost’s Office assessment mini grant to help create an assessment instrument for establishing baseline writing skills of incoming law students. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Cecily Banks is a skilled corporate attorney and the director of the School of Law’s Corporate Counsel Externship Program, helping students train for academic credit in in-house corporate legal offices. She teaches a connected seminar on the modern role of in-house counsel and on professional development through practice. She frequently presents at regional and national conferences on corporate and transactional experiential education and has launched multiple speaking and networking events in Boston tailored to students, alumni, company partners, and corporate counsel attorneys. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Marni Goldstein Caputo is an authority on legal writing, advocacy, and instruction. She served as a faculty coach during BU’s Learn from Anywhere hybrid learning environment and has written and presented on her experience. She cohosted the popular series A Book Club with No Books, using podcasts, movies, and documentaries to build student-faculty connections and increase the transfer of learning of traditional and character-based legal skills during the pandemic. She is a past recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award and the Michael Melton Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Laura D’Amato is an expert in legal writing and currently serves as the director of the Lawyering Program. She teaches entry-level and advanced legal writing courses and regularly writes and presents on the incorporation of practice skills in the legal writing classroom. She is a past recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award and received the 2023 Michael Melton Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Naomi “Gigi” Walker is an expert in legal writing and teaching. She teaches a wide array of entry-level and advanced legal writing courses and is an active faculty participant in the Moot Court Program. She is a frequent presenter on topics related to student engagement in the classroom and is a past recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Kathleen Luz specializes in legal writing, with a focus on civil and criminal litigation. She lectures in the Lawyering Program and is a past recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award. She has written and presented on her experience teaching during COVID, cohosting the popular series A Book Club with No Books, which used podcasts, movies, and documentaries to build student-faculty connections and increase the transfer of learning of traditional and character-based legal skills during the pandemic. She has been promoted to senior lecturer.
School of Theology
Daryl Ireland, focuses his scholarship on Christianity in East Asia. He specializes in popular Christian movements in China and has published two award-winning books on the topic: John Song: Modern Chinese Christianity and the Making of a New Man (2020) and the edited volume, Visions of Salvation: Chinese Christian Posters in an Age of Revolution (2023). He has received multiple grants, including funding from the Association for Asian Studies, the Henry Luce Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities for his pioneering work on two digital humanities projects, “Chinese Christian Posters” and the “China Historical Christian Database.” He has been promoted to research associate professor.
Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
Andrew R. Bottoms, Deaf Studies, is the director of the Deaf Studies Program. He was born and raised in a Deaf family, and American Sign Language (ASL) is his native language. His specialization lies in the sphere of ASL Literature and in the sharing of the language and culture embodied by ASL. He received recognition within Wheelock for his work to modify and adapt the curricula to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Rob Martinelle, Curriculum & Teaching, focuses his research on reflective teaching, social studies education, and the self-study of teacher education practices. He is an active mentor to students on various research opportunities and regularly presents at scholarly conferences, including the American Education Research Association and the National Council for Social Studies. He is the current recipient of a Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education grant to evaluate the state’s new social studies curriculum. He has been promoted to senior lecturer.
Catherine Ritz, Curriculum & Teaching/World Language Education, directs the Curriculum & Teaching and World Language Education programs. She specializes in developing proficiency-based thematic curricula and performance assessments, effective world language methods and pedagogy, and world language teacher development. As an instructor, she works to provide relevant classroom examples to link theory-based material to pedagogical practice. Since joining BU, she has published two books, including 2021’s Leading Your World Language Program: Strategies for Design and Supervision, Even If You Don’t Speak the Language! and seven peer-reviewed publications placed in leading world language journals. She is a frequent presenter and a past president of the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association. She has been promoted to clinical associate professor.
Please join us in congratulating these talented faculty members on their promotions. Through their commitment to their work, their students, and their respective fields of study, they – and you – continue to exemplify the very best Boston University has to offer as a laboratory for discovery and training ground for future leaders.
Promotions of Lecturers and Faculty with Modified Titles on the Charles River Campus – 9.22.23