Category: Leaders
Melissa L. Gilliam, Boston University’s Eleventh President
Dr. Melissa L. Gilliam, a distinguished educator, scholar, research scientist, and physician, took office on July 1, 2024, as Boston University’s eleventh president. A national leader in faculty recruitment and student success and a champion of diversity and inclusion, Dr. Gilliam is also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of pediatrics.
Ethicist and Theologian Named MLK Professor of Religion & Black Studies
Emilie Townes, dean emerita of Vanderbilt’s Divinity School, will become STH’s new Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Religion & Black Studies effective July 1. According to STH, the professorship honors King (GRS’55, Hon.59) “by modeling the moral authority, prophetic vision of justice, peace, and love, ethical leadership, and global consciousness that he advocated for and embodied.” Townes’ scholarship delves into womanist and Black theology, as well as racial health disparities and environmental racism.
The Winners of the 2024 Metcalf Awards, BU’s Top Teaching Honors
Yuri Corrigan, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of Russian and comparative literature, has earned this year’s Metcalf Cup and Prize, the University’s highest teaching award. He was honored at the 2024 Commencement ceremony on May 19 alongside two other faculty members—Veronika Wirtz, a School of Public Health professor of global health, and Alexis Peri, a CAS associate professor of history—the recipients of this year’s Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching.
Created in 1973, the Metcalf Cup and Prize and the Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching are a gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), a BU Board of Trustees chair emeritus and a former professor. The program gives $10,000 to the Cup and Prize winner and $5,000 each to the Metcalf Award winners. A University committee selects winners based on statements of the nominees’ teaching philosophy, supporting letters from colleagues and students, and classroom observations of the nominees.
BU Innovator Pioneers Devices in Astronomy, Microscopy
The director of the University’s cross-disciplinary Photonics Center, Thomas Bifano, is the 14th winner of the Innovator of the Year award, given to an “outstanding faculty member who has translated world-class research into an invention or innovation that benefits humankind.” A holder of 10 patents, Bifano is also chief technology officer of Boston Micromachines Corporation, a company he cofounded to develop and market deformable mirrors and other optics products.
As head of the Photonics Center—which is a hub for the study of light and development of technologies utilizing it—Bifano has helped many others nurture their own innovations. The center is home to 70 faculty research labs and the Business Innovation Center, which hosts tech, biotech, manufacturing, and medical devices start-ups and corporations.
Two BU Faculty Honored with Outstanding Teaching Awards
Professors Bobak Nazer and Fallou Ngom have each been honored with outstanding teaching awards.
Bobak Nazer, a College of Engineering associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate department chair for undergraduate programs, is being honored with the 2024 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. The award recognizes the faculty member or team that best exemplifies innovation in teaching by use, development, or adaptation of technology. It celebrates innovation that results in positive learning outcomes for undergraduate students and that is recognized or adopted by faculty colleagues within or outside BU. The award comes with a $10,000 stipend. Nazer was mainly recognized for transforming a course into 50 short videos containing animations with narrated explanations, which the student would watch before a lecture. This enabled lectures to guide further discussion and leave time for activities and games.
Fallou Ngom, a College of Arts & Sciences anthropology professor, won the Provost’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award—an honor that recognizes scholars who excel as teachers inside and outside the classroom and who contribute to the art and science of teaching and learning. Ngom’s research has helped to uncover an ancient writing system used by communities in West Africa. One of Ngom’s achievements was altering his sociolinguistics class, which relied heavily upon European languages (Dutch, French, Portuguese), to address a class who studied and spoke various African languages. This enabled the students to apply the complex sociolinguistic theories to languages that were familiar to them.
Three BU Researchers Elected AAAS Fellows
Being named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow puts scholars in distinguished company—and a trio of Boston University researchers have just been selected for the honor.
Electrical and computer engineer Siddharth Ramachandran, physicist Bradley Lee Roberts, and biologist Daniel Segrè have been named AAAS Fellows for extraordinary contributions to their respective fields; they’ll be recognized at a special event later this year. The world’s largest scientific society, AAAS has elected fellows since 1874; this year marks the program’s 150th anniversary. During that time, more than 110 BU scholars have been selected for the award.
BU Electrical Engineer Vivek Goyal Named 2024 Guggenheim Fellow
Prediction-making algorithms play a critical role in College of Engineering Professor and Associate Chair of doctoral programs for electrical and computer engineering Vivek Goyal’s burgeoning research on improving microscope imaging. That research is in part what earned Goyal a Guggenheim Fellowship, a prestigious grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. His groundbreaking work in electron imaging has significant potential implications for biomedicine and manufacturing, among myriad other applications.
Each year, the foundation awards approximately 180 fellowship grants to individuals making significant contributions in the natural sciences, the social sciences, the creative arts, and the humanities.
Five Faculty Receive Edward Avedisian Professorships
Five faculty at the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have been named as the newest recipients of Edward Avedisian Professorships, which are funded out of the transformational $100 million gift from the late Edward Avedisian (CFA’59,’61, Hon.’22) and his wife Pamela (Hon.’23) in 2022 that also resulted in the renaming of the school. From the $100 million gift, $25 million was specifically designated to fund professorships. The ceremony to honor the second round of professorships was held on March 12.
Maria Elizabeth Grabe is inaugural Dalton Family Professor at COM
Working for South Africa’s state-controlled TV under apartheid, documentarian Maria Elizabeth Grabe faced unrelenting censorship. On January 1, Grabe joined the College of Communication as its inaugural Dalton Family Professor and second-ever director of Emerging Media Studies. “The [Dalton Family] Professorship,” says COM Dean Mariette DiChristina (COM’86), “aims to focus on the use of emerging communication platforms and research to engage communities around addressing societal challenges—building understanding while building bridges.”
Kenneth W. Freeman, President Ad Interim
2023–Present Kenneth W. Freeman, dean emeritus and professor of the practice at Questrom School of Business, and University vice president and associate provost, has been appointed as interim president starting August 1, 2023. In his 13 years at Boston University, Freeman has filled a number of roles: respected professor, transformative dean, valued mentor, forward-thinking academic innovator, and a skilled and rock-steady vice president during a period of crisis. As BU’s acting leader, Freeman will hold all the powers of the president’s office, and be entrusted to provide leadership to deans, faculty, students, and all key stakeholders, while continuing the initiatives already in process that are core to BU’s 2030 Strategic Plan.
