Faculty
Research Interests:
Analytical Chemistry, Separations, Mass Spectrometry, RNA Modifications, Neuro-analytical Chemistry. Our group is interested in the characterization of RNA modifications in the central nervous system and single cells. These naturally occurring modifications to RNA biopolymers play important roles in regulating protein translation, but little is known about their functions in the brain. We are focused on developing new approaches for chromatographic separations and mass spectrometry measurements of in small-volume samples such that they can be applied for the simultaneous profiling of multiple RNA modifications in single neurons. The Clark Lab is particularly interested in ionic liquid solvents and ion-tagged oligonucleotides as customizable materials for nucleic acid sample preparation that can be leveraged to improve the performance of downstream analysis methods. We combine our analytical methodologies with a powerful neurobiological model, the marine mollusk Aplysia californica, to investigate relationships between the dynamic landscape of RNA modifications and animal behavior, learning and memory, and function of the central nervous system in health and disease.
Research Interests:
Animal Cognition and Learning
Research Interests:
Enumerative and probabilistic combinatorics, graph theory, Markov chain Monte Carlo
Research Interests:
data science, software systems engineering, performance analysis, system, network, and data management
Research Interests:
data science, graph algorithms, distributed algorithms, approximate routing, classification and clustering for high-dimensional data, coloring and its generalizations, computational molecular biology
Research Interests:
Greek & Latin Language, Digital Humanities
Research Interests:
Neurodevelopmental disorders; autism spectrum disorder; sexuality education; social perception; eye tracking; dimensional measurement of psychological symptoms
Research Interests:
Population ecology and dynamics
Research Interests:
human-robot interaction with a focus on the educational applications of robotics and diversity in engineering education
Research Interests:
Global Christianity
American Religious History
Religion, Humanitarianism and Philanthropy
Religion, Health and Healing
Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity
Religion and Reform Movements
Gender and Women's Studies in Religion
Research Interests:
My research interest in epidemiology is the etiology of perinatal retina and brain disease. I am particularly interested in a scenario that postulates a major role for intrauterine infection as an initiator of maternal and fetal inflammatory responses that, in turn, contribute to the development of brain white matter damage and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) among preterm newborns. I have been R21 and R01-funded by the National Eye Institute to study inflammatory biomarkers and ROP.
In philosophy, my area of interest is causal inference and etiological explanation. My two books in this field are "Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Science" (Springer, 2019), co-authored with philosopher Ben Smart, and "Etiological Explanations" (CRC Press, 2020).
Research Interests:
design, implementation, and evaluation of different educational technologies
Research Interests:
Drug development strategy, policy, and economics.
Research Interests:
Coupled Human-Natural Systems, Computational Social Science, Human Mobility and Interaction, Climate Change Adaptation, Fire Ecology, Technological Organization, Serious Games
Research Interests:
Human dimensions of environmental change; socio-ecological system governance; equitable sustainability transformations; community resilience; coastal and marine systems
Research Interests:
I am interested in synthesis and characterization in inorganic and materials chemistry. I am especially interested in fundamental chemistry that has important societal implications.
My research laboratory currently works in several areas:
Earth-abundant molecular light absorbers and emitters.
Molecular light absorbers and emitters are used in photoredox catalysis, dye-sensitized solar cells, and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). We are exploring high-spin complexes of iron and manganese to prepare new molecules that absorb and emit light.
Volatile molecules carrying metal-atom equivalents for superconducting wires.
Cryogenic superconducting wires enable quantum bits based on Josephson junctions. We are developing new molecules and methods to deposit the electropositive metals that make up these wires from chemical vapors.
Thin-film photovoltaics with earth-abundant, sulfide-based absorber layers.
Thin-film photovoltaics (solar cells) provide electricity from sunlight with just a few hundred nm of light-absorbing material. We are exploring binary and ternary sulfides as new sources of earth-abundant photovoltaics.
I am developing new research programs in several areas:
Zero-emissions ironmaking.
The synthesis of iron metal from iron ore contributes ca. 4% of global carbon dioxide emissions. I am interested in alternative thermochemical methods of making iron from iron oxides.
New superconducting materials.
Near-room-temperature superconductors have recently been realized in compressed hydrides. I am interested in new hydride compounds that are stable at ambient pressure and might serve as ambient-pressure, ambient-temperature superconductors.
Research Interests:
Environmental health; occupational health; economic analysis
Research Interests:
Stress Physiology, Animal Behavior, Wildlife Endocrinology, Conservation Physiology, Active Learning Strategies, Evidence-Based Pedagogy & Best Practices
Research Interests:
Cognition and Psycholinguistics
Research Interests:
thermophotovoltaics, optoelectronics, energy harvesting, nanofabrication
Research Interests:
Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Ethics
Research Interests:
Marketing productivity, sales, business planning.
Research Interests:
Clean energy, fuels and chemicals, experimental and computational catalysis
Research Interests:
environmental health
Research Interests:
The Ding Group develops and uses computational approaches to solve problems in chemistry and biophysics. We currently focus on the following two areas.
1. Computational drug design. We aim to accelerate drug design by developing fast and accurate methods for computing protein-ligand binding free energy. To do that, we combine ideas and methods from molecular simulations, statistical mechanics and machine learning.
2. Force field development. We aim to develop a transferable and accurate coarse-grained force field for simulating large biophysical systems.
Research Interests:
causal cognition, philosophy of science, metascience, methods
Research Interests:
Physics Education Research: Scientists are professional learners who employ a range of skills and qualities to learn new things. This view has significant bearing on how students advance in their understanding of scientific concepts. For this reason, my current research focus is to investigate how learners come to engage in the practices of science. To make progress on the question, I have studied how learners' views of knowledge (personal epistemologies) impact their scientific engagement in the contexts of introductory physics, quantum mechanics, and science teacher education. I have also studied the interaction of personal epistemology with emotions that come up in the doing of science (epistemic affect). Most recently, I have looked at how personal epistemology interconnects with social caring and epistemic empathy. These studies help outline some paths to progress in equity and inclusion in STEM fields, and inform my approaches to teaching.
Research Interests:
Children and media; ethnicity/gender and media; adolescents and media use.
I am currently working on a three-tiered interdisciplinary research project along with Chip Gidney, Mary Casey, and Cynthia Smith at Eliot-Pearson, as well as faculty in several other departments at Tufts. The first piece of this project is a long-running content analysis of children's animated programming. We are updating prior work we've done that investigates images of race, ethnicity and gender in children's animated programming using both content and sociolinguistic analysis. The second part of this research is an exploration of why stereotyping persists in children's media. We are examining this through intensive interviews with content creators, writers, directors, vocal casting directors, and actors. The third part of the project is empirical research we're conducting with children, to see how children make sense of gender, race, and ethnicity in the animated programs they see.
My applied work includes doing many media literacy workshops for parents and for children and for children in a variety of settings, and consulting work with colleagues at WGBH, one of the leading creators of children's educational media. I have written about children and media issues in a variety of academic and popular venues.
My other research is historical in nature. I've written one biography of the relatively unknown mother/daughter team who made Emily Dickinson into one of the most-known women anywhere in the world, and am starting work on a couple of other biographical projects.
Research Interests:
I work primarily in harmonic analysis, matrix analysis, and frame theory, with applications to signal processing, compressed sensing, machine learning, and the measurement of quantum systems.
Research Interests:
Improving performance and reliability of networked systems, specifically cloud-based systems, mobile and wireless systems, and the Internet. Also, interested in designing technologies for developing regions.
Research Interests:
emerging technologies, non-volatile memories, SoC design, hardware for machine learning, noise modeling and reliability
Research Interests:
Evolution and Genetics of Natural Populations
Research Interests:
Mathematical models of material behavior; Nonlinear magneto- and electromechanical interactions; Biomechanics of soft materials; Rubber elasticity and inelasticity
Research Interests:
Development Economics, Agricultural Economics, Asset Ownership