This semester, the university welcomed 30 “new full-time and visiting faculty members and postdoctoral faculty fellows” to its ranks. According to an article on Brandeis’ website, these faculty members cover 19 different areas of study. Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Carol Fierke hopes that their addition to the university’s faculty will “strengthen Brandeis for years to come.”
In the School of Arts and Sciences, Camila Maroja and Andie Berry joined the Creative Arts team. Maroja is an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts, and her “teaching and research are focused on Latin American modern and contemporary art and visual studies.” Berry is an Instructor in Theater Arts and “her research interests are in contemporary African American theater with a focus on women’s writing and performance.”
Catherine Bloomer, Jeffrey Shoulson, Howie Tam, Mariam Sheibani, Gustavo Herrera Diaz, Matthew Paskell and Sophia Richardson joined the Humanities team. Bloomer is the Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Premodern Disability Studies and “Her research focuses on the historical conception, reception and performance of disability and gender across Europe and in the works of Dante Alighieri.” Shoulson is Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of English and “served as Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Connecticut. Before moving into the Provost’s Office at UConn, he was director of the university’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life and held the Doris and Simon Konover Chair in Jewish Studies.” He also has leadership experience from his time at the University of Miami. Tam is an Assistant Professor of English and “spent the last two years at Brandeis as the Florence Levy Kay Fellow in the Anglophone Literature and Film of the East Asian Diaspora.” Sheibani is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Thought in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and “her research explores the ways in which Islamic thought has evolved to reflect changing socio-cultural realities in late antique and medieval Muslim societies.” Diaz is an Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies and his research “examines cases of creative interactions between Classic and Afro-Atlantic cosmogonies and systems of mediation in Brazilian and Cuban cultures.” Paskell is a Lecturer in University Writing and “has previously held visiting lecturer positions at Ithaca College and Cornell University.” Richardson is a Lecturer in University Writing and published a dissertation titled “Reading the Surface in Early Modern English Literature.”
Jo-Ann Jee, Katherine Shulenberger, Dylan Cashman, Antonella Di Lillo, Subhadeep Sarkar, Theo Douvropolous, Promit Ghosal, Thomas Ng, Yangyang Wang and Emily Tiberi joined the Sciences team. Jee is an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry and “has since held various faculty positions including teaching positions at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Northeastern University.” Shulenberger is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and her “research interests focus on spectroscopic studies of semiconductor nanomaterials with unique optical and electronic properties.” Cashman is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and previously held a position as “Senior Expert, Data Science and Advanced Visual Analytics at Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation, Cambridge.” Antonella Di Lillo is a Professor of Computer Science who has worked at Brandeis before, and her “research interests include visual pattern recognition, texture analysis, content-based image retrieval, image and video processing, and data compression.” Sarkar is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and his “research interests focus on designing privacy-aware data systems, working at the intersection of designing data layouts and access methods for storage engines and developing systems-level solutions for privacy protection in modern data systems.” Douvropolous is an Instructor in Mathematics and was a “Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst” prior to joining Brandeis. Promit Ghosal is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and his “research explores probability theory, especially its applications in integrable systems, statistical mechanics, quantum field theory, optimal transport and machine learning.” Ng is an Instructor in Mathematics and “was a postdoctoral fellow at the Israel Institute of Technology” before coming to Brandeis. Wang is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and “her research interests include dynamical systems, mathematical neuroscience (multiple timescale neural dynamics and motor control), differential equations, geometric singular perturbation theory, bi-furcation theory and network dynamics.” Tiberi is a Senior Lecturer in Physics who “served as both an instructor and teaching assistant” before accepting a position at Brandeis.
Margarite Blignaut, Sanaullah Khan, Jiwon Choi, Ryan Westphal, Tanishia Williams, Claudia Horn, A.J. Murphy, Rachel McKane and Carmel Ohman joined the Social Sciences team. Blignaut is a Lecturer in Anthropology and “her research and teaching interests include semiotics and linguistic pragmatics, anthropology of knowledge, anthropology of the body, the politics of recognition, nationalisms and belonging, race and social justice, heritage regimes, historical memory and mobility and belonging.” Khan is a Lecturer in Anthropology and has had articles published in places like “Medical History, Asian Anthropology, Critical Military Studies and Journal of South Asian Studies.” Choi is an Assistant Professor of Economics whose “research fields include labor economics, urban economics, economic history and international trade.” Westphal is an Assistant Professor of Economics whose “research interests include industrial organization, behavioral economics and household finance.” Williams is the Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Racial Justice, Education, and the Carceral State who wrote a dissertation called “Lessons and Losses: An examination of effective implementation of culturally responsive curriculum in New York City’s Segregated Schools via a CRT Lens.” Horn is the Madeleine Haas Russell Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate Crisis, Risks, and Responses and examines “the emergence of environmental aid from industrialized countries to conserve forests in Latin America at the end of the 1980s and its redefinition and integration into climate finance in the 21st century.” Murphy is an Assistant Professor of History whose “work examines the Pentagon’s application of a business management model in the Cold War period and the impact this had on the U.S. military.” McKane is the Jack Meyerhoff Chair of American Environmental Studies and Assistant Professor of Sociology and their “areas of research include environmental justice, urban political economy, housing inequality and mutual aid.” Ohman is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow and is “currently working on a book project entitled ‘Looking Together: On the Politics of Black Feminist Spectatorship.’”
Lastly, Shubhranshu Shekhar and JC Makolo joined the Brandeis International Business School team. Shekhar is an Assistant Professor of Data Science whose “research interests lie in unsupervised and explainable machine learning, particularly in the context of healthcare and finance.” Makolo is a Senior Lecturer in Finance whose “research interests include Entrepreneurial Finance & Innovation.”
New Faculty Orientation was held this summer, and new faculty members attended workshops focusing on “frameworks for teaching and learning,” “Brandeis-specific curricular structures and resources,” “Equitable and inclusive teaching” and more.
