Career Development Professorships

Overview

Each year, Boston University recognizes a handful of talented junior educators emerging as future leaders within their respective fields through the award of Career Development Professorships. Made possible by the generous support of distinguished donors, alumni, and BU’s Office of Technology Development, these professorships highlight the caliber, potential, and continued vitality of Boston University’s diverse faculty.

Awards, nominating procedures, and selection vary based on the professorship and the unit administering the honor.  All awards are three years in length and include support for the recipients’ salaries and/or research and scholarly work.

Current Career Development Professors

2023-2026

Peter Paul Career Development Professor

Philipp Mews

Assistant Professor of Physiology & Biophysics, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Philipp Mews studies metabolic and epigenetic processes that underlie brain plasticity, working to develop novel therapeutic strategies for treating neuropsychiatric disorders, including PTSD and substance abuse. He received his PhD in cell and molecular biology and a BS in molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a BS in biology from Freie Universität in Berlin, Germany. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Reidy Family Career Development Professor

Leroy Gonsalves

Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations, Questrom School of Business

Leroy Gonsalves uses qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate how technological change affects the future of work – in particular, how management practices including remote work, activity-based offices, and algorithmic valuation change employees’ experience of autonomy and their meaning of work. He holds a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard Business School, AM and MA degrees in sociology from Harvard University and the University of Toronto, respectively, and a bachelor’s in business administration from York University in Toronto.

David R. Dalton Career Development Professor

Minjung Son

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences

Minjung Son is an expert in energy production and transfer and utilizes ultrafast optical spectroscopy and microscopy to better understand the photophysical mechanisms governing energy and charge flow in molecular, materials, and biological systems. She received her PhD in chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in chemistry from Yonsei University in South Korea. She completed her postdoctoral research at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Global Business Career Development Professorship

Luis Ballesteros

Assistant Professor of Strategy & Innovation, Questrom School of Business

Luis Ballesteros studies the impact of systemic shocks (social and environmental) on the decision making and corporate success of international businesses, and particularly the innovations and resulting efficiency gains and social value – including philanthropy – created in the aftermath of such disruptions. He holds a PhD in applied economics and management from The Wharton School, a master’s degree in international development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and bachelor’s degrees in business and economics from Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.

Innovation Career Development Professor

Sabrina Neuman

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, College of Arts & Sciences

Sabrina Neuman has helped pioneer the concept of “robomorphic computing,” designing special-purpose hardware and accelerators for robotic processing tasks to achieve far quicker performance than off-the-shelf solutions – technology with potential to improve human well-being, including in assisted living and elder care settings. She earned her PhD and master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she also received a bachelor’s degree in electrical science and engineering.

2022-2025

Peter Paul Career Development Professor

Jean-Pierre Roussarie

Assistant Professor of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Jean-Pierre Roussarie studies the molecular mechanisms that lead to early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease – specifically a vulnerable cell type in the entorhinal cortex – using cutting-edge genomics methods to identify novel therapeutic targets for disease-modifying drugs. He received his PhD and master’s in virology at the Pasteur Institute and his bachelor’s in engineering at École Polytechnique, both in Paris. He completed his postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University in New York.

Moorman-Simon Career Development Professors

Ngozi Okidegbe

Associate Professor of Law, School of Law
Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences

Ngozi Okidegbe’s research bridges legal scholarship and data science, examining how the use of predictive technologies (like algorithms) in the criminal justice system for pre-trial detention, bail, and sentencing determinations adversely impacts racially marginalized communities. She holds law degrees from Columbia Law School and McGill School of Law and a bachelor’s in history from Concordia University in Montreal.

Erica Pratt

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering

Erica Pratt combines engineering, chemical biology, and oncology with the emerging field of liquid biopsy to develop novel, minimally invasive methods for detecting, characterizing, and ultimately treating multiple forms of cancer. She earned her PhD and master’s in biomedical engineering from Cornell University and her bachelor’s in mechanical and biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. She completed her postdoctoral training at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Christine Slaughter

Assistant Professor of Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences

Christine Slaughter examines African American political participation in the United States utilizing approaches from political science, psychology, and public health to better understand how economic inequality, gender, and resilience influence the frequency and substance of black political engagement and behavior. She received her PhD and master’s in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles and her bachelor’s in political science and comparative women’s studies from Spelman College.

Cecile Kaplan Dalton Career Development Professor

Heidi Meyer

Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences

Heidi Meyer uses novel behavioral and neurobiological techniques to better understand the mechanisms underpinning the regulation of emotions – specifically, how early life experiences shape distinctive features of the adult brain and impact the expression of fear or safety-related behaviors. She holds a PhD in psychological and brain sciences from Dartmouth College and a bachelor’s in neuroscience from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She completed her postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.

Isabel Anderson Career Development Professor

Tesary Lin

Assistant Professor of Marketing, Questrom School of Business

Tesary Lin is a quantitative marketing scholar who uses data science and digital analytics tools to study how consumers value privacy and whether their valuation is affected by how firms may use the data they collect. She received her PhD in quantitative marketing from the University of Chicago and holds a master’s in economics from Tsinghua University and a bachelor’s in economics from Nankai University, both in China.

Ralph Edwards Career Development Professor

Daniel Dempsey

Assistant Professor of Dermatology, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Daniel Dempsey employs a variety of approaches (including chemical, semi-synthetic, biophysical, and cellular) to investigate the properties and regulation of proteins involved in cell signaling, epigenetics, and gene regulation – research with potential to produce new therapies for the treatment of cancer. He holds a PhD in chemistry/biochemistry from the University of South Florida, and a master’s and bachelor’s in chemistry from the State University of New York at Oswego. He completed his postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

East Asia Studies Career Development Professor

Rui Hua

Assistant Professor of History, College of Arts & Sciences

A historian of modern China and Japan, Rui Hua studies the origins of the modern legal system in 20^th century China, focusing on the role of peasants and migrants in the codification of rules, rights, and regulations, with particular emphasis on debates over land use and property rights. He holds a PhD and master’s in history and East Asian languages from Harvard University, a master’s in history from the University of British Columbia, and a bachelor’s in history from Peking University.

2021-2024

Peter Paul Career Development Professor

Michael Wallace

Assistant Professor of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Mike Wallace’s research uses new technologies and imaging techniques to better understand the synapses, cells, and circuits – particularly in the basal ganglia – that guide motivated behaviors, with the goal of developing new therapeutics to treat disorders, including depression, Parkinson’s disease, and drug addiction. He received his PhD in neurobiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and his bachelor’s degree in cell biology and neuroscience from Rutgers University. He completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

Reidy Family Career Development Professor

Abdoulaye Ndao

Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Abdoulaye Ndao focuses on light-matter interactions at the nanometer scale, known as nano-optics and nano-photonics, using topological light sources, metamaterials, and electro-optical sensors for applications with broad impact for society, from digital imaging to medical diagnostics. He received his PhD in physics from University of Franche-Comté in France, and his master’s degree in physics, lasers, and materials from University of Bourgogne in France. He performed his postdoctoral training at the University of California San Diego and the University of California, Berkeley.

Shibulal Family Career Development Professor

Kira Goldner

Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences

Kira Goldner uses techniques from game theory – primarily algorithmic mechanism design and approximation algorithms – to help address societal problems, including access to opportunity and healthcare for disadvantaged communities, challenges to privacy privacy protections, and climate change. She holds a PhD and master’s degree in computer science and engineering from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Oberlin College. She completed her postdoctoral training at Columbia University.

Peter J. Levine Career Development Professors

Ashok Cutkosky

Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Ashok Cutkosky’s research in hyperparameter tuning seeks to develop algorithms that remove the guesswork currently required in building and training machine learning models – work that involves retraining models on multiple datasets to find optimal settings for learning rates, regularization constants, and model architectures. He received his PhD and master’s degree in computer science, as well as a master’s in medicine from Stanford University, and his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Harvard University.

Eshed Ohn-Bar

Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Eshed Ohn-Bar’s work in machine intelligence focuses on improving the perception and decision-making of real-world assistive and autonomous systems – research critical to the development of safety applications for autonomous driving, as well as assisted navigation for people with visual impairments. He holds a PhD in electrical engineering from University of California San Diego and a master of education and bachelor’s degree in mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles.

East Asia Studies Career Development Professor

Christopher Chao Su

Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Studies, College of Communication

Chris Su uses computational methods to explore and compare how media audiences take shape in an increasingly fragmented digital media environment, particularly within the context of China, Hong Kong, and the Greater China region, including Taiwan and Macau. He received his PhD in communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, his master’s degree in educational communication technology from New York University, and his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Wuhan University in China.

Innovation Career Development Professor

Ana Fiszbein

Assistant Professor of Biology, College of Arts & Sciences

Ana Fiszbein uses systems biology and bioinformatics to study the mechanisms of mammalian gene regulation, with the goal of understanding how gene architecture determines the dynamic regulation of gene expression in normal cells and disease – translational research that is already being used to aid the development of targeted cancer therapies. She received her PhD and licenciado (equivalent to bachelor’s and master’s degrees) in biology from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Past Awardees