Faculty

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Jivko Sinapov

Assistant Professor
Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence, Developmental Robotics, Computational Perception, Robotic Manipulation, Machine Learning, Human-Robot and Human-Computer Interaction
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Sarah Skeels

Lecturer
Occupational Therapy
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Kristin Skrabut

Assistant Professor
Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning
Urban Anthropology and Ethnography; Global Poverty and Development; Housing and Infrastructure; Gender and Kinship; Latin American Studies; Political and Legal Anthropology
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Krzysztof Sliwa

Professor
Physics & Astronomy
Physics of elementary particles The Standard Model, gauge theories; also topology, differential geometry and other branches of modern mathematics to better understand quantum gauge theories, the origin of mass and the structure of space-time, matter and all interactions, including gravity. I am a member of the ATLAS collaboration at the LHC. Studies of Higgs boson and top quarks. The main objective is to find out whether the new particle discovered in 2012 is a minimal Standard Model Higgs, or some other kind. Studies of top quarks are very interesting on their own. Because of very large mass of the top quark, its lifetime is very short, ~ 5x10^{-25} seconds, much shorter that the characteristic time of the strong interactions. As a consequence, top quark decays before any strong interaction effects may take place. This allows a direct access to the information about the quark spin, which is very difficult, if not impossible, for any other quark. Studies of top quarks are very important for other searches, as top quarks will constitute the most important background for almost any final states due to "new physics" and have to be understood very well. We are using very advanced multidimensional analysis techniques, developed by our group (Ben Whitehouse and I). Topology and geometry of the Universe In the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM), the starting point is an interpretation of the observed redshift of spectral lines from distant galaxies as a Doppler shift in the frequency of light waves as they travel through an expanding Universe. Acceptance of this hypothesis led to the ideas of the Big Bang and the LambdaCDM, the Standard Model of cosmology. Remarkably, there exist another explanation of the cosmological redshift. As shown by Irving Ezra Segal, a mathematician and a mathematical physicist, the same axioms of global isotropy and homogeneity of space and time, and its causality properties, are satisfied not only by the Minkowski spacetime R x R^3, but also by a Universe whose geometry is R X S^3. In Segal's model, the geometry of the spatial part of the Universe is that of a three-dimensional hypersurface of a four-dimensional sphere. Locally, it is indistinguishable from the flat Minkowski spacetime. It is the geometry of the Einstein static Universe, which he abandoned when the interpretation of the increase of redshift with distance was universally accepted as evidence for expanding Universe. The redshift in Segal's model arises in a geometric way analogously to distortions which appear when making maps using stereographic projection from S^2, a two-dimensional curved surface of a sphere in three dimensions, onto a flat surface of a map, R^2. Segal's theory makes a verifiable prediction for the redshift as a function of distance. The comparison, although in principle very simple, is non-trivial. For more distant objects, one can only estimate the distance using various proxies, for example the magnitude, if one assumes that the chosen sources have the same absolute luminosity. Surprisingly, Segal's model cannot be falsified with the currently available data. The magnitude-redshift data for supernovae agree very well with SCM, but it also agrees with Segal's model. There exist another independent observable, the number of observed galaxies as a function of redshift z, N(< z). Assuming that galaxies are uniformly distributed in the Universe, their number is proportional to the volume enclosed in a given fixed angular field of view, and the dependence of this volume on the manifold distance is sensitive to the geometry of the Universe. Two Tufts undergraduate students, Maxwell Kaye and Nathan Burwig, joined me in this analysis. We examined the data from several Hubble Deep Fields, and found that the number of observed galaxies as a function of redshift is also in very good agreement with Segal's model. We are continuing with a study of these fundamental questions about the topology and geometry of our Universe. Interestingly, I have also shown recently that one can explain the observed value of the CMB temperature, following Segal's original idea that the CMB appears unavoidably as a result of light traveling many times around a closed spatial part of the R X S^3 Universe. Magnetic monopoles I am also a member of MoEDAL, a small collaboration looking for magnetic monopoles at the LHC.
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Donna Slonim

Professor
Computer Science
data science, algorithms for analysis of biological networks, gene and pathway regulation in human development, algorithms for precision medicine, computational approaches to pharmacogenomics and drug discovery or repositioning
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Adam Smith

Lecturer
Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies
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David Smyth

Associate Professor
Mathematics
Algebraic Geometry
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Igor Sokolov

Professor
Mechanical Engineering
Engineering for Health -> Physics of cancer and aging -> Mechanics of biomaterials at the nanoscale, Synthesis and study of functionals nanomaterials for biomedical imaging and drug delivery, Advanced imaging for medical diagnostics, Novel processes and materials for dentistry: nano-polishing and self-healing materials
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Sam Sommers

Professor and Department Chair of Psychology
Psychology
social perception and judgment; psychology of racial equity and group diversity.
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Sameer Sonkusale

Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Bioelectronics, Biomedical microdevices, Wearables, Ingestibles, Biomedical circuits and systems, micro and nano fabrication, lab-on-chip microsystems, global health and precision medicine, CMOS image sensors for scientific imaging, analog to information converters, analog computing, brain inspired machine learning, active metamaterial devices, circuits, and systems, terahertz devices and circuits
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Diane Souvaine

Professor
Computer Science
computational geometry, design and analysis of algorithms, computational complexity
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Lauryn Spearing

Visiting Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
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Enrico Spolaore

Seth Merrin Professor
Economics
Political Economy, International Economics, Economic Growth and Development
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Sumeeta Srinivasan

Senior Lecturer
Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning
Transportation; Health; Spatial models; Geographic Information Systems
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Cristian Staii

Associate Professor
Physics & Astronomy
Biological Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Quantum Mechanics My research interests cover a broad array of topics in biological physics, condensed matter physics and quantum mechanics. In biological physics our group is performing both experimental and theoretical work to uncover fundamental physical principles that underlie the formation of functional neuronal networks among neurons in the brain. One of the primary challenges in science today is to figure out how as many as 100 billion neurons are produced, grow, and organize themselves into the truly wonderful information-processing machine which is the brain. We combine high-resolution imaging techniques such as atomic force, traction force and fluorescence microscopy to measure mechanical properties of neurons and to correlate these properties with internal components of the cell. Our group is also using mathematical modeling based on stochastic differential equations and the theory of dynamical systems to predict axonal growth and the formation of neuronal networks. The aim of this work is twofold. On the one hand we are using tools and concepts from experimental and theoretical physics to understand biological processes. On the other hand, active biological processes in neuronal cells exhibit a wealth of fascinating phenomena such as feedback control, pattern formation, collective behavior, and non equilibrium dynamics, and thus the insights learned from studying these biological systems broaden the intellectual range of physics. I am also interested in the foundations of quantum mechanics, particularly in decoherence phenomena and in applying the theory of stochastic processes to open quantum systems. My interests in condensed matter physics include quantum transport in nanoscale systems (carbon nanotubes, graphene, polymer composites, hybrid nanostructures), as well as scanning probe microscopy investigations of novel biomaterials.
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Aleksandar Stankovic

Alvin H. Howell Endowed Professor in Electrical Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
modeling, control, and estimation in electric energy processing, power electronics, power systems, and electric drives
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Cathy Stanton

Distinguished Senior Lecturer
Anthropology
Tourism, museums, myth and ritual, cultural performance, culture-led redevelopment, mobilities, farm history/heritage I am an interdisciplinary scholar and practitioner working at the intersection of cultural anthropology and public history. My published work focuses largely on the uses of history, heritage, and culture in redevelopment projects, particularly in former industrial settings. I am particularly interested in foregrounding the presence and contributions of knowledge producers and cultural workers within processes of postindustrial transformation. My 2006 book The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City explores the role of those who helped to reframe a New England textile city for the "new economy" of the late 20th century. My current research and writing asks about the potential for workers in these settings to engage productively with the realms of advocacy and activism, particularly around issues of energy use and food production. A book project in progress, co-authored with Michelle Moon and subtitled How History Can Help Reinvent the Food System, sets out a rationale and methodology for nudging historic sites and practice into closer dialogue with the contemporary "food movement," with the goal of bringing greater historical nuance and critical complexity to present-day understandings of the dominant industrial food system and other possible models. As an engaged scholar, I have served as a consultant to the U.S. National Park Service's Ethnography Program for more than 15 years, producing a number of peer-reviewed, publicly-accessible book-length studies of military reenactments, farming, and ethnic, avocational, and seasonal communities associated with national parks. I also have an interest in digital scholarship and publication, mostly through my involvement with the National Council on Public History and its evolving digital publications (particularly its History@Work blog, of which I was the founding editor).
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Philip Starks

Associate Professor
Biology
Animal Behavior: Recognition systems, evolution of sociality, parasite and host relationships, behavioral & chemical communication, invasion genetics
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Jacob Stewart-Halevy

Associate Professor
History of Art and Architecture
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Saskia Stoessel-Deschner

Distinguished Senior Lecturer
International Literary and Cultural Studies
German language and culture teaching as a vehicle to intercultural citizenship, second language acquisition, and teacher language education.
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Thomas Stopka

Professor
Public Health and Community Medicine
Dr. Stopka's current research focuses on the intersection of opioid use disorder, overdose, and infectious diseases (HCV, HIV, STIs, COVID-19). He employs GIS, spatial epidemiological, qualitative, biostatistical, and laboratory approaches in multi-site, interdisciplinary studies and public health interventions. He currently leads and contributes to clinical trials and observational studies funded by the NIH, CDC, and SAMHSA to assess the effectiveness of a mobile, telemedicine-based HCV treatment and harm reduction model for rural opioid users in Northern New England, to reduce opioid overdose deaths by 40% in Massachusetts, and to evaluate the overdose prevention impacts of administration of medication for opioid use disorder in houses of correction. Dr. Stopka is also Co-PI of the Tufts research priority group focused on equity in health, wealth, and civic engagement. He teaches courses in GIS and spatial epidemiology, research methods for public health, and epidemiology. He enjoys mentoring research assistants, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty in ongoing research studies and collaborative publications.
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Adam Storeygard

Associate Professor
Economics
Development and Growth, Urban Economics
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Riccardo Strobino

Associate Professor
Classical Studies
Medieval Latin Philosophy; Classical Arabic Philosophy; History and Philosophy of Logic; Aristotle; Avicenna
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Helen Suh

Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Environmental health, environmental epidemiology, air pollution, exposure science, data analytics
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Alice Sullivan

Assistant Professor
History of Art and Architecture
Medieval art, architecture, and visual culture in Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres; image theory; historiography; patronage; monasticism; cross-cultural interactions
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Jeffrey Summit

Research Professor
Music
Music and identity, music and spiritual experience, music and advocacy, and the impact of technology on the transmission of tradition.
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Hari Sundar

Visiting Associate Professor
Computer Science
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Deborah Sunter

Assistant Professor
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Science focused on energy, development and environmental management. Computational modeling of electrical grid integration of renewable energy and storage. Interaction of science and policy in academia, industry and government
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Sigrun Svavarsdottir

Associate Professor
Philosophy
Moral philosophy, practical rationality, moral psychology, action theory
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Chris Swan

Professor and Dean of Undergraduate Education
Civil and Environmental Engineering
engineering education, geoenvironmental and geotechnical engineering
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E. Charles Sykes

John Wade Professor
Chemistry
Physical Chemistry, Surface Science, and Nanoscience. The Sykes group utilizes state of the art scanning probes and surface science instrumentation to study technologically important systems. For example, scanning tunneling microscopy enables visualization of geometric and electronic properties of catalytically relevant metal alloy surfaces at the nanoscale. Using temperature programmed reaction studies of well defined model catalyst surfaces structure-property-activity relationships are drawn. Of particular interest is the addition of individual atoms of a reactive metal to a relatively inert host. In this way reactivity can be tuned, and provided the energetic landscapes are understood, novel bifunctional catalytic systems can be designed with unique properties that include low temperature activation and highly selective chemistry. Newly developed curved single crystal surface are also being used to open up previously inaccessible areas of structure sensitive surface chemistry and chiral surface geometries. In a different thrust, the group has developed various molecular motor systems that are enabling us to study many important fundamental aspects of molecular rotation and translation with unprecedented resolution.
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Anne Taieb

Senior Lecturer
Romance Studies
French Language; Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition; Integration of Technology into Second Language Acquisition; Hybrid Courses (face-to-face and online learning)
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Ichiro Takayoshi

Associate Professor
English
Modern Literature (American, British), Modern Intellectual History (American, British), Aesthetics, Literary Theory
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Cigdem Talgar

Vice Provost for Education
Provost's Office
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Abiy Tasissa

Assistant Professor
Mathematics
Matrix completion, compressive sensing, distance geometry
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Holly Taylor

Professor
Psychology
Spatial Cognition, Language, Memory
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Montserrat Teixidor I Bigas

Professor
Mathematics
To each point on a curve, one can often associate in a natural way a line or plane (or higher dimensional linear variety) that moves with the point in the curve. This set of linear spaces is called a vector bundle. Vector bundles appear in a variety of questions in Physics (like the computation of Gromov-Witten invariants) . Moreover, they provide new insights into old mathematical problems and have been used to give beautiful proofs to long standing conjectures as well as striking counterexamples to some others.
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Ayanna Thomas

Professor and Dean of Research for Arts and Sciences
The School of Arts and Sciences
Memory and Aging
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Greg Thomas

Associate Professor
English
American Literatures in English; African, African-American & African Diaspora Studies; Colonial & Post-Colonial Discourse/ Race & Empire/ Black Radical Traditions; Cultural Studies; Body Politics / Gender & Sexuality Studies; Philosophy and Critical Theory
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Samuel Thomas

Professor and Dean of Academic Affairs
The School of Arts and Sciences
Organic Materials Chemistry Our group applies the philosophy of physical organic chemistry to organic materials, in the forms of polymers, crystals and surfaces. Specifically, we investigate new materials that show macroscopic changes in properties upon exposure to external stimuli. Our main focus has been new materials that respond to light, which has a unique combination of characteristics: i) easy control over where light goes and when it goes there (spatiotemporal control), ii) easy control over intensity and energy, and iii) the ability to pass through many solid materials that traditional chemical reagents cannot. Our research has focused in three separate areas. 1. Photochemical control of charge. As interactions between charges dictate much of molecular behavior, controlling charge can yield control over matter. We have developed a series of materials in which light switches the charge-based interactions between polymer chains from attractive. By combining this top-down fabrication approach of with the bottom-up fabrication method of layer-by-layer assembly, we have developed thin films in which photochemical lability is confined to individual nanoscale compartments, yielding photo-delaminated free-standing films and multi-height photolithography. 2. Using functional side chains to control conjugated materials. Conjugated materials hold great promise for applications including solar cells and displays. We have focused on expanding the role of the side-chains of these materials, which occupy up to half of their mass but are typically reserved only for solubility. Early work in our group focused on integrating photolabile side chains for negative conjugated photoresists. This has evolved to using the non-covalent interactions of aromatic side-chains for controlling interactions between molecules, and therefore their material properties, including the use of mechanical force to control luminescence—mechanofluorochromism. 3. Singlet-oxygen responsive materials. Singlet oxygen (1O2) is a critical reactive oxygen species in photodynamic therapy for cancer as well as in damage to plants upon overexposure to light. Its photochemical production is also chemically amplified through a photochemical reaction, which is the lynchpin of several commercial bioanalytical technologies. Through a combination of fundamental physical organic chemistry and materials chemistry, we have luminescent conjugated polymer nanoparticles as probes for 1O2 in water that shows improved limit of detection over the commercially available luminescent probe for 1O2.
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Brian Timko

Assistant Professor
Biomedical Engineering
nanoelectronics, biosensing, biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug delivery
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Jonathan Tirrell

Research Associate Professor
Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study & Human Development
I am a developmental scientist and Research Associate Professor at Tufts University in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. With the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development (IARYD), I study positive youth development (PYD), seeking to understand what goes "right" in the lives of youth, by engaging in researcher-practitioner partnerships with youth-serving organizations around the world (currently Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, and El Salvador). My research is broadly focused on character development--I am interested in how people become good people. With a focus on person-context relations across development, I also explore how good people shape, and are shaped by, good communities and cultures. Specifically, my work has focused on the potential role of forgiveness as a character strength and civic virtue. This interest has steered me toward working with individuals and organizations interested in peacebuilding and restorative justice, for instance, in Rwanda as well as the Boston area. Lessons learned from this work are timely and important for civil society and human flourishing, perhaps especially in an era of increasingly polarized social and political climates. Forgiveness, restorative justice, and peacebuilding seem to be linked by common threads of empathy, curiosity, generosity, listening, and dialogue, as well as critical thinking, personal responsibility, community action, and civic engagement. Please find my CV in LinkedIn for more information on my professional experiences, research grants, editorial and consulting activities, teaching experience, and publications.
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Roger Tobin

Professor
Physics & Astronomy
Experimental condensed matter physics; physics education My primary physics research is in experimental surface science. In my lab at 574 Boston Ave., my students and I study what happens when foreign atoms and molecules form chemical bonds with metal surfaces. We examine how the interaction between the foreign molecule and the metal modify properties of both of them. In recent years a particular focus has been on how the attachment of the foreign molecule changes the electrical resistivity of the metal substrate. This area of research has relevance to a range of potential applications including catalysis, chemical sensing, and the growth of thin films and nanoparticles on surfaces. A second area of activity is physics education, particularly at the elementary school level. Together with collaborators at a local nonprofit organization and at other universities, I am working to develop and study curriculum materials and professional development strategies for teachers to improve instruction in science in grades 3-5.