Faculty & Staff News

December 2025

The Council of the City of Pittsburgh recently declared Nov. 3, 2025 to be “Dr. Joseph E. Devine Day” in honor of Devine’s “tireless efforts [to] enrich the lives of others and strengthen the community he serves”. Joseph “Jay” Devine (DC 1984) is currently the associate dean for undergraduate studies at Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Danny Oppenheimer, professor of Social and Decision Sciences, published an op-ed titled “The Prompt Engineer Is the Artist of Our Age” at The MIT Press Reader.

November 2025

Anne Lambright, head of the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics, has published a two-volume collection on Peru’s celebrated theater collective, Grupo Cultural Yuyachkani: "Yuyachkani y el teatro de los derechos humanos: Cinco obras" (MLA Text and Translation Series, 2025) and "Yuyachkani's Human Rights Theater: Five Plays" (MLA Text and Translation Series, 2025). Lambright's anthology highlights the group’s activist roots, its focus on human rights and social justice and its efforts to amplify Indigenous and marginalized voices in Peru.

Kathy Newman, associate professor in the Department of English, has authored a piece for The Conversation titled, “Jane Fonda, other stars, revive the Committee for the First Amendment – a group that emerged when the anti-communist panic came for Hollywood”.

John Joseph Chin, assistant teaching professor at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology, has authored a piece for The Conversation titled, “Madagascar’s military power grab shows Africa’s coup problem isn’t restricted to the Sahel region”.

Tatyana Gershkovich, associate professor of Russian studies in the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics, is teaching a course for Roundtable by the 92nd Street Y based on Vladimir Nabokov's Russian novel “The Gift”. Enter THEGIFT50 to access a 50% discount for CMU community members.

Baruch Fischhoff, Howard Heinz University Professor with the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology, coauthored an op-ed for The Washington Post titled, “‘Dancing patients’ aren’t the biggest problem with drug ads”.

Ralph Vituccio, teaching professor in the Department of English and the Entertainment Technology Center, and Reem Alghazzi, a former Artist and Scholar at Risk Fellow and alumna of Dietrich College, will premiere their documentary “In Exile” at 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 7, at Harris Theatre. Tickets are available for purchase through the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. “In Exile” brings to life the powerful stories of artists, writers, musicians and political activists forced to flee their homelands.

October 2025

J. David Creswell, the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience, published a new column in Psychology Today, “Have You Stopped Using Your Meditation App?”

In November, Kathy Newman, associate professor of English and director of graduate studies, will be a Campus Free Expression Project session lead on teaching her banned books course.

Also in November, Gretchen Chapman, head of the Social and Decision Sciences Department, will be giving a talk on behavioral drivers of vaccine decision-making at the 20th Annual Allegheny County Immunization Coalition Conference.

September 2025

David Creswell, the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience, recently published a new review paper on meditation apps in the journal American Psychologist.

Brad Mahon, professor in the Department of Psychology, recently published a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the kinematic alphabet used by the brain to build complex hand motions.

Mathieu Berbiguier, visiting assistant professor of Korean Studies, was interviewed by the BBC about the success of the music from the 2025 Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters. 

Tatyana Gershkovich, associate professor of Russian Studies, was awarded the Jane Grayson Prize for Best First Book by the International Vladimir Nabokov Society for "Art is Doubt: Tolstoy, Nabokov, and the Problem of Other Minds" (Northwestern University Press, 2022). 

Kevin Jarbo (DC 2018), assistant professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, was named to the New Pittsburgh Courier Men of Excellence Class of 2025.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences welcomes 25 new faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, research associates and special lecturers to the campus community. These scholars bring a wealth of knowledge, expertise and innovative thinking to various areas of study across the college.

August 2025

Anne Lambright, head of CMU's Department of Languages, Cultures and Applied Linguistics, was featured as the Modern Language Association's (MLA) Member Spotlight in July.

Jim Daniels, Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English Emeritus, has just published his first book of nonfiction, "The Ignorance of Trees" (Cornerstone Press). Since his retirement in 2021, Daniels has published four collections of poetry: "Comment Card" (Carnegie Mellon University Press), "The Human Engine at Dawn" (Wolfson Press), "Ars Poetica Chamistrica" (WPA Press), and "Gun/Shy" (Wayne State University Press), along with a work of fiction, "The Luck of the Fall" (Michigan State University Press).

July 2025

Lynn Sotillo has been appointed associate dean for finance and chief business officer for Carnegie Mellon University’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Daniel Nagin, Lester Hamburg University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics, was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences. The 120 members and 30 international members in the 2025 NAS cohort will be inducted in a ceremony at NAS’s annual meeting next April. 

Two Dietrich College faculty members are guests on season two of the CMU podcast “Where What If Becomes What’s Next.” Kevin Zollman, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and director of the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics, is featured in Episode 5: Game Theory Decoded - Part 1 and Episode 6: Game Theory Decoded - Part 2. David Creswell, William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience and co-founder of Equa Health, is featured in Episode 7: The Science of Coping With Stress.

June 2025

Tatyana Gershkovich, William S. Dietrich Associate Professor of Russian Studies in the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics, has published a book of translations: “Silhouettes of Russian Writers, Literary and Philosophical Essays by Yuli Aikhenvald” (2025, Academic Studies Press).

Timothy Verstynen, interim director of the Neuroscience Institute and professor in the Department of Psychology, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship which he plans to use to conduct an “exploration of exploration."

Aaditya Ramdas, associate professor in the Department of Statistics and Data Science and the Machine Learning Department, has been named Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). The IMS cited Ramdas’ accomplishments, including pioneering the new subfield of game-theoretic statistics based on e-values, confidence sequences and betting, and for fundamental contributions to post-selection inference and multiple testing, conformal prediction and statistical machine learning.

Vicki Helgeson, professor in the Psychology Department, has published the 7th edition of her textbook, "Psychology of Gender/Sex." The new edition also brings on two new editors, Krystle Balhan and Erin Winterrowd. 

Danny Oppenheimer, professor in the Psychology Department, and Mark Patterson, director of the Quantitative Social Science Scholars Program, have published a new study, entitled, “Thinking outside the box means thinking outside the search engine,” in the journal Memory and Cognition.

May 2025

Ralph Vituccio’s latest film, “Sisyphus Beach,” opened the Ethnographic Film Festival in Paris on April 18 with a screening and Q&A. An associate teaching professor in the Department of English, Vituccio said the film “is a meditation on endurance, struggle and the human condition — told without a single word of dialogue.” Learn more about “Sisyphus Beach.”

Adam Causgrove, director of corporate and government relations for Dietrich College and winner of the 2012 Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year award, will emcee the 2025 World Beard and Mustache Championships this July at Heinz Hall.

Stephan Caspar, an associate teaching professor in media creation and multicultural studies, was featured in an Instructor Spotlight in by the Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) network at Carnegie Mellon.

Alex John London co-chaired a workshop for The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Navigating the Benefits and Risks of Publishing Studies of In Silico Modeling and Computational Approaches of Biological Agents and Organisms. This hybrid workshop took place in Washington D.C., and online on April 3-4.

Gordon Weinberg, lecturer and special faculty in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, has won the Dietrich College Elliott Dunlap Smith Award for Distinguished Teaching and Educational Service.

Kim Piatt, director of experiential learning at Dietrich College, has won the Carnegie Mellon Gelfand Service Award for Educational Outreach.

Larry Heimann, teaching professor in the Information Systems program, has won the Carnegie Mellon Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching.

Cleotilde (Coty) Gonzalez, research professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Lauren Banko, instructor and Wellcome Trust Researcher in Humanities and Social Sciences in the Department of History, is co-author of the recently published book “Refugee Voices in Modern Global History: Reckoning with Refugeedom” (Oxford University Press). Additional co-authors include Peter Gatrell, Katarzyna Nowak and Anindita Ghoshal.

April 2025

Carl Olson, a professor at the Neuroscience Institute, died Nov. 23, 2024. Matt Smith with the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) and a former student wrote an obituary for Olson in the journal Neuron.

Nicholas DiBella, a postdoc in the Philosophy Department, joined Simon Cullen, Dietrich AI and Education Fellow and assistant teaching professor in the Philosophy Department, on an episode of the podcast Teaching in Higher Ed to discuss their AI project, Sway. DiBella and Cullen are also finalists in the 2025 Tools Competition.

Daniel Silverman, assistant professor at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST), has published the book “Seeing is Disbelieving: Why People Believe Misinformation in War, and When They Know Better” (Cambridge University Press).

Children's School educator Jean Bird was recently honored with a Lifetime Membership and the Mary Jane Taylor Distinguished Service Award at the International Association of Laboratory Schools (IALS) Conference. Bird has dedicated her entire career to early childhood laboratory schools and has served on the IALS Board for multiple terms, currently as the board secretary.

Sarah Hae-In Idzik, assistant professor of Rhetoric in the Department of English, has published an article titled "Saving Asian orphans: colonialism, conditional belonging, and logics of charity in transnational adoption rhetoric" in Quarterly Journal of Speech.

March 2025

Zach Branson, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, will serve as the new assistant director for the undergraduate statistics program starting this spring.

Aidan Beatty, graduate advisor and lecturer in the Department of History, has published a book titled "The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism" (Pluto Press, 2024).

Andrew Ramey (DC 2015), director of advising for Dietrich College, has published a book titled "Saving the Chesapeake: The History of a Movement" (University of Virginia Press, 2025).

Vince Sha, Dietrich College’s associate dean for IT and operations, joined Michael Skirpan, an assistant teaching professor in the Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D), and Sayeed Choudhury, associate dean for digital infrastructure at Carnegie Mellon Libraries, in delivering “Insights Surrounding the Future Use and Consequence of AI in Practice," an official side event of the Paris AI Action Summit. The workshop, a collaboration between CMU’s Open Forum for AI and the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, focused on the practical applications of AI in higher education, adolescent development, civil society, medicine, the workforce and research.

February 2025

Adam Bjorndahl, associate professor in the Philosophy Department, has published a textbook titled “An Introduction to Classical and Modal Logics: The Outlines of Knowledge” (University of Cambridge Press, 2024).

Vini Singh, assistant professor in CMU’s Department of Social and Decision Sciences, participated in a Q&A with Katy Milkman, James G. Dinan Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and host of the Choiceology podcast, titled “What is recency bias and why should you care?”

Edith Balas, emeritus professor in the Department of History, passed away on Saturday, Nov. 16 at the age of 95. A holocaust survivor and accomplished art historian, Balas led a remarkable life. The Department of History will celebrate her legacy with a lecture series, to commence in fall 2025.

January 2025

Aaditya Ramdas has been named a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Sciences. Ramdas is among the 162 of the nation’s brightest young scientists from industry, academia and government to take part in the National Academy of Sciences’ U.S. and international Kavli Frontiers of Science symposia for 2024.  

Sara Moussawi led a team of CMU researchers on a recent article published in the journal Communications of the Association for Information Systems. Moussawi was joined by Joe Mertz, Jeria Quesenberry, Xiaoying Tu, Julia Poepping, Larry Heimann, Raja Sooriamurthi, Divakaran Liginlal, Christopher Kowalsky, Martin Barrett, Gabriela Gongora-Svartzman, Laura Pottmeyer and Michael Melville in Informations Systems, Heinz College and Eberly College on the article titled, “Building Future Information Systems Leaders: The Crucial Role of Problem Scoping in Service-Learning Experiences."

Chad Schafer, professor in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, has been named one of the top 20 professors whose work made a difference this year in the world of financial engineering by Rebellion Research AI Asset Management.

December 2024

Carnegie Mellon University thrives as a global research leader due in part to the university’s talented staff. To maintain this momentum, the university has committed to professional growth through the CMULead program, which empowers staff to gain the knowledge and experience to become a future leader. Members of the newly graduated 2024 CMULead cohort from Dietrich College include Andrew Ramey, Correy Dandoy, Amanda Mitchell and Patrick Doyle.

In addition to her role as head of the Department of Statistics & Data Science, which houses the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, Rebecca Nugent serves as CMU’s NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative. Part of this role is helping student-athletes get connected to scholarship opportunities. This fall, Robert Coury (ENG 2025) was selected as one of 16 finalists for the 2024 William V. Campbell Trophy from the National Football Foundation (NFF). He will receive a postgraduate scholarship of $18,000, and the NCAA will donate $5,000 to CMU’s Athletics Department to support academics in recognition of Nugent’s service.

November 2024

Kelli Maxwell, associate dean of Student Success, Dietrich College Dean’s Office, received the Innovative and Creative Contributions Andy Award, which honors staff members who have developed new approaches, methods and processes to improve organizational effectiveness.

Correy Dandoy, a senior academic advisor and communications manager for the Information System Program, is the recipient of the 2024 Dietrich College Staff Community Excellence Award.

October 2024

David Creswell, the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience, discussed how affirmations can activate the brain's reward system with host Cristina Quinn on the Washington Post podcast Try This.

Robert Kass, the Maurice Falk University Professor of Statistics & Computational Neuroscience, has been named the 2024 Myles Hollander Distinguished Lecturer by the American Statistical Association. He will deliver “Reasoning from Data in Science” on Oct. 4 at Florida State University.

Chris Phillips, professor and head of the Department of History, delivered the second annual Victoria A. Harden Lecture in National Institutes of Health History. Phillips’ Sept. 25 talk focused on the History of NIH Biostatistics.

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham has been named Carnegie Mellon University’s Glen de Vries Dean of the Mellon College of Science, effective Jan. 1, 2025. Shinn-Cunningham, who will be the eighth dean to lead MCS, joined Carnegie Mellon in 2018 as the founding director of the Neuroscience Institute and the George A. and Helen Dunham Cowan Professor of Auditory Neuroscience.

Six Dietrich College staff have been nominated for Andy Awards. Jessica Lutz, academic advisor, Information Systems Program, and Daniel Kasper, business manager, Neuroscience Institute, have been nominated for the Commitment to Excellence (Rookie) award. Jeanne Crichlow, administrative assistant II, Dietrich College Dean’s Office, and Amy Stoebe, assistant director of writing & communication, Department of English, have been nominated for the Commitment to Excellence (Veteran) award. Melissa Stupka, senior academic program manager, Neuroscience Institute, has been nominated for the Commitment to Students award. Kelli Maxwell, associate dean of student success, Dietrich College Dean’s Office, has been nominated for the Innovative and Creative Contributions award.

September 2024

Steve Awodey, professor in the Department of Philosophy, has published his book “Rudolf Carnap: Studies in Semantics: The Collected Works of Rudolf Carnap, Volume 7.” The 14-volume collection focuses on the work of Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970), a central figure of twentieth-century philosophy and the leading philosopher of the Vienna Circle. It has been published by Oxford University Press.

Adam Bjorndahl, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Philosophy, has published “An Introduction to Classical and Modal Logics: The Outlines of Knowledge” with Cambridge University Press. The book provides a comprehensive and unified introduction to classical and modal logic. 

Ed Simon, adjunct professor in the Department of English, has published his latest book, “Devil's Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain.”  Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from the Bible to blues, and illustrates how the impulse fto sacrifice our principles in exchange for power is present in all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, from social media to climate change to AI, and beyond.

Manasvini Singh, assistant professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, had her recently published work in the journal Science cited in a White House briefing about racial differences in health care, specifically noting “…even after accounting for socio-economic factors, Black women have a higher risk of maternal mortality than white women, life expectancy is shorter for Black Americans, and there is evidence that differential treatment by race plays a role."

Jonathan Tsay, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, published an article titled “Fundamental processes in sensorimotor learning: Reasoning, refinement, and retrieval” in the journal eLife. His research explores the explicit strategies to sensorimotor learning tasks and developed a theoretical ‘3R’ framework to understand how complex movements are learned.

July 2024

Simon Cullen, assistant teaching professor in the Department of Philosophy, has received an Open Inquiry Award for teaching excellence. He was recognized for “most effectively integrated open inquiry, viewpoint diversity or constructive disagreement into the classroom and/or curriculum.” The Open Inquiry Awards honor exemplary individuals, groups and institutions who are leading the way in improving classrooms, campuses and scholarship by championing our values.

June 2024

Manasvini Singh, assistant professor in social and decision sciences, was featured in Science feature Protostar. She discussed her latest research study, published in Science titled “How power shapes behavior: Evidence from physicians.”

Xiaoying Tu, an assistant teaching professor at both the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy and Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, gave a heartfelt speech for 2024 commencement.

Sue-mei Wu, teaching professor of Chinese Studies, successfully organized the 2024 Asian Festival along with the Organization of Chinese Americans and Win-Win Kung Fu. The event was held on the CMU campus on May 19 and featured AAPI cultural performances and display tables. About 400 people were in attendance to celebrate AAPI culture, accomplishments and efforts to make connections across many communities in Pittsburgh and beyond. 

May 2024

Henry Posner III has been appointed to the Surface Transportation Board’s newly formed Passenger Rail Advisory Committee. Posner, an adjunct instructor in the Department of History and chairman of Iowa Interstate Railroad, will serve a two-year term advising the independent federal agency on issues impacting the development and operation of passenger rail services.  

Joshua Schwartz, assistant professor at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology, published his latest research in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. The study found that foreign peril can reduce domestic polarization under certain circumstances and demonstrates that elite reactions to foreign threats are highly important in shaping wider domestic effects.

April 2024

Nico Slate, professor and head of the Department of History, has published his new book, “Indian Lives Series Book 3 - Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay: The Art of Freedom.” The book chronicles Chattopadhyay’s life. A colleague of Mahatma Gandhi, Chattopadhyay fought against sexism, imperialism, and racism, and later became one of the most important patrons of the arts and handicrafts in independent India.

March 2024

Alex John London, the K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies in the Department of Philosophy, has joined the board of Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R). He will contribute his experience to help PRIM&R continue to build trust in scientific research and further advance PRIM&R’s mission of advancing the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research.

Aaditya Ramdas, assistant professor in the Statistics & Data Science and Machine Learning departments, has been named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Mathematics for 2024.

February 2024

Ralph Vituccio, associate teaching professor in the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU and the Department of English, has screened several films at festivals. “Haenyeo,” which explores women free divers on a tiny island of Marado, South Korea, will be screened at the Venice Grand Cine Film Celebration. In addition, “Sisyphus Beach,” an experimental piece about Indian workers who literally break apart by hand ocean-going super tankers in Alang, India, will be screened at the Paris Ethnographic Film Festival.

January 2024

The National Book Foundation, presenter of the National Book Awards, honored Rita Dove with the 2023 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In her remarks, Dove thanked Gerald P. Costanzo, professor of English, and the Carnegie Mellon University Press. The University Press, under Costanzo’s direction, published “Thomas and Beulah,” Dove's third collection of poetry and winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Dove later served as the first Black Poet Laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. Watch Dove’s acceptance speech. 

December 2023

Brooke Feeney, a professor of psychology, has received The Carol and Ed Diener Award in Social Psychology. This award recognizes a mid-career scholar for their theoretical and methodological advancements and scholarly leadership. In particular, the award honors a researcher who has added substantially to the body of knowledge of the social psychology field and/or brings together personality psychology and social psychology.

November 2023

Natalie Amgott, associate director of Online Language Learning, was granted an Early Career Award from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL), awarded each year to one early researcher in a field related to the teaching/learning of world languages. 

David Creswell, the William S. Dietrich II Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience, was featured on the podcast Behavioral Grooves. Creswell discussed his research that links academic success to sleep.

Edmund Russell, the David M. Roderick Professor of Technology and Social Change in the Department of History, received the 2023 Bernard S. Finn IEEE History Prize from the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) for “Capitalism Matters: How Financial and Technological Innovations Shaped U.S. Telegraphs, 1845-60,” which was published in the journal Technology and Culture. The prize is awarded annually to the best paper in the history of electrotechnology — power, electronics, telecommunications and computer science — published during the preceding year. This spring, Russell released “Uniting the States with Telegraphs from 1844-1862,” the first digital map of any telegraph system. 

October 2023

Sébastien Dubreil, teaching professor of French and Francophone Studies; Korryn Mozisek, special faculty in the Department of English; and Lauren Herckis, a faculty member in University Libraries and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, participated in the 2023 Play, Make, Learn Conference held at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. They presented a poster titled “First Year of College: It’s What You Make In/Of It” and a paper titled “Gaming Culture: Designing and Role-Playing Intercultural + Global Learning.”

Rebecca Nugent, the Fienberg Professor of Statistics & Data Science and head of the Department of Statistics & Data Science, discussed the university’s artificial intelligence (AI) breakthroughs during a Sept. 15 Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee public hearing on the Commonwealth’s role as an innovation leader. She also spoke at Digital Transformation Week on Sept. 25 in Dortmund, Germany, during a session titled “Innovations in AI: a Transatlantic Fireside Chat between Dortmund and Pittsburgh.” The City of Pittsburgh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City of Dortmund in 2022 focused on tech-driven innovations and the economy.

September 2023

Felipe Gomez, teaching professor of Hispanic Studies, and Gabriele Meier, teaching professor of German, use graphic novels to explore the concept of resilience and mental and physical health during their first-year Grand Challenge Seminar titled Becoming Resilient in Challenging Times. They have used the zine cart in Carnegie Mellon University Libraries to help their students build on their knowledge of local challenges.

Please join us in welcoming the new staff at Dietrich College: Aidan Beatty, Department of History; Corinne Branquet, Children's School; Patrick Carr, Department of English; Ryan Dibble, Department of Psychology; Mark Gardner, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology; Alexandra Garnhart-Bushakra, Department of History; Weizhe Guo, Neuroscience Institute; Jacquelyn Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology; Yuhang Li, Neuroscience Institute; Rafael Lopez, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology; Abigail Medvic, Department of Psychology; Clarice Meffert, Department of Psychology; Oscar Portis, Dietrich Commuting; Navjeet Randhawa, Children's School; Jess Regan, Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology; Zoe Schneider, Department of Psychology; Jessica Smith, Department of Psychology and Lisa Vento, Dietrich College Dean's Office.

July 2023

Ezelle Sanford III, assistant professor of history, has received the 2023–2024 Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellowship from HistoryMakers, the nation’s largest African American video oral history archive. This Fellowship aims to foster classroom innovation and teaching and to diversify curricula while furthering student learning and research skills during the upcoming academic year. Sanford shared this honor with 12 scholars across the country. Sanford was recognized for the course he developed, “Introduction to African American History: Black Americans and the World.” During the course, students use The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to review the history of Black Americans from a global perspective.

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, the director of CMU’s Neuroscience Institute and the George A. and Helen Dunham Cowan Professor of Auditory Neuroscience, has been named president-elect of the Acoustical Society of America, which promotes the knowledge and practical application of the field of acoustics.

Robert S. Simon has been named the new executive director of the Master of Science in Computational Finance Program at CMU. 

June 2023

Aaditya Ramdas has received the Peter Gavin Hall Institute for Mathematical Sciences (IMS) Early Career Prize "for significant contributions in the areas of reproducibility in science and technology; active, sequential decision-making; and assumption-light uncertainty quantification.” This award is bestowed to one researcher annually who is within the first eight years of completing their doctorate.

Michael Tarr, the Kavčić-Moura Professor of Cognitive and Brain Science, is one of five Carnegie Mellon University faculty members who have been elevated to the rank of University Professor, the highest distinction a faculty member can achieve at CMU.

On May 3, Brian MacWhinney, the Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology, was interviewed by IASCL media coordinator Katie Von Holzen about Geology, Emergentism, CHILDES and TalkBank. He also shared his favorite IASCL memories and what he is looking forward to during the 2024 Congress in Prague.

The Dietrich College Seed Grant program has announced the spring funding cycle for 2023. Seth Wiener, associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages, and Jocelyn Dueck, assistant professor in the School of Music, will examine the connection between musical voice training and structured language learning. Aaditya Ramdas, assistant professor in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, and John Chin, assistant teaching professor in the Institute for Politics and Strategy, have created the ColpusCast, a new near-real time forecast model of illegal seizures of power. Kevin Jarbo, assistant professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, and Roberto Vargas, a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Psychology, will explore how biases in attitudes and beliefs affect behavioral decisions that go on to perpetuate these biases. 

May 2023

Joel Greenhouse, professor of Statistics in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, co-chaired a virtual workshop, titled “Approaches to Improve the Measurement of Suicide in Law Enforcement in the United States,” on April 25 and 26. The workshop was a collaboration between the National Academies and the Committee on National Statistics.

Christian Lebiere, research psychologist in the Department of Psychology, will be featured in the American Psychological Association issue of “Science Spotlight,” for contributions made to the field.

Sue-mei Wu, a teaching professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and executive director of the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA), has organized and led the 2023 CLTA annual conference, held in Washington D.C. CLTA is the premier professional association for Chinese language teachers in the United States, with 17 regional affiliated associations and 13 special interest groups across the country. 

April 2023

Carnegie Mellon University has been awarded a Mellon Foundation grant to support a New Directions Fellowship for Uju Anya, associate professor of second language acquisition in the Department of Modern Languages. Through the fellowship, she will seek training in a new field — entertainment technology and game design — to create multilingual game-based experiences in online virtual reality platforms for Black youth from the U.S., Brazil, Colombia and across the Americas.

Doug Coulson, associate professor in the Department of English, has authored “Judicial Rhapsodies,” published by Amherst College Press. In the book, he examines the laudatory, even operatic, forms of writing Supreme Court justices have used to justify fundamental rights decisions.

Edda Fields-Black, associate professor in the Department of History, and composer John Wineglass presented a discussion and performance of “Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice” at the American Society of Environmental Historians Conference on March 24.

Joel Tarr, professor emeritus in the Department of History, has received the American Society for Environmental History Distinguished Scholar Award, which is given every year to an individual who has contributed significantly to environmental history scholarship.

March 2023

Cleotilde Gonzalez, research professor in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, has organized a special workshop on Human-AI with ELLIS-Alicante. The workshop will be held March 7-9, 2023 in Alicante, Spain, and Zoom options are available to attend virtually. Register to attend the sessions online.

Musicians from the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra will perform “Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice” at Lincoln Center on March 3. The piece features a libretto by Edda Fields-Black, associate professor of history, and an original score by composer John Wineglass. Read more about the upcoming performance. 

Jeria Quesenberry, teaching professor of information systems, and co-author Eileen M. Trauth, professor emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University, have published their book Handbook of Gender and Technology: Environment, Identity, Individual. The book is available from Edward Elgar Publishing and provides a foundation for examining gender equity in technology fields.

February 2023

Springer Link has published “Reflections on the Foundations of Probability and Statistics: Essays in Honor of Teddy Seidenfeld.” Seidenfeld is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Philosophy and Statistics. His work focuses on the foundations at the interface between philosophy and statistics that examines problems that involve multiple decision makers. The publication features a paper titled “On the Normative Status of Mixed Strategies,” by Kevin Zollman, professor of philosophy and social and decision sciences. 

Joe Trotter, the Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice, received the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the American Historical Association at its annual meeting held in Philadelphia, Jan. 5-8. He was recognized for how his work shaped historians’ views of Black urban life in all its complexity. 

January 2023

Nevine Abraham, assistant teaching professor of Arabic Studies, has received a sub-award from The Stevens Initiative's HIVER program, which helps connect students at American and Arab institutions, to continue her work bringing students in Pittsburgh together with their peers at the American University in Cairo during her course, “Minorities in the Middle East and North Africa.” The students engaged in virtual discussions with the Egyptian students on issues of racism and women's and minorities' rights.

Congratulations to Connie Angermeier in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Eyona Bivins in the Department of English, and Samantha Nielsen and Teraya White in the Department of Statistics & Data Science, who are graduates of the 2022 CMULead program.

“The No Club,” co-written by Linda Babcock, the James M. Walton University Professor of Economics, along with Brenda Peyser, Laurie Weingart of CMU and Lise Vesterlund of the University of Pittsburgh, was named among the top business books of 2022 by several publications.

Felipe Gómez, teaching professor of Hispanic studies in the Department of Modern Languages, has received the Martin Schüwer Prize in 2022 for outstanding comics research. In particular, his work, “Will it be possible? Apocalypse and Resistance in Latin American Graphic Novels,” was cited for the award. Gómez presented an honorary lecture for the annual conference of the Society for Comics Research (Dortmund) on Nov. 17.

CB Insights named MindTrace as one of the 150 companies in the “clinical intelligence” category for 2022. MindTrace was co-founded by Brad Mahon, associate professor of psychology. The company is focused on developing neurosurgery software tools to map a patient’s brain prior to surgery. The tools allow the surgeon to evaluate the patient’s behavioral performance, simulates surgical resection plans, and predicts cognitive outcomes – all before the first incision, or in real-time during surgery. 

Mame-Fatou Niang, associate professor of French and Francophone studies, has started an art residency at Ateliers Médicis in Paris. She will work on “Échoïques,” a sound project with residents of Clichy-sous-Bois, a poor and rapidly gentrifying suburb of Paris. “Échoïques,” is a large-scale tapestry obtained through the weaving of demolition materials and sound waves. These sounds from the past are collected or recreated to document the evolution of the neighborhood through the ears of its residents.

In October, Kristina Straub, English faculty emeritus; Kim Weild, area chair of the John Wells Directing Program; and Wendy Arons, area chair of Dramaturgy and director of the Center for the Arts in Society, contributed to the R/18 Collective’s “Re-Activating Restoration and 18th-Century Theatre for Today’s Stages” symposium in collaboration with the Newberry Library and Congo Square theatre company, both based in Chicago. Read more about the R/18 Collective’s work.

Raja Sooriamurthi, teaching professor of information systems, received the Instructional Innovation Award from the Decision Sciences Institute. The award recognizes the teaching and pedagogy in the decision sciences at the college or university-level teaching through quantitative systems, behavioral methodology or functional/disciplinary areas. 

Sue-mei Wu, a teaching professor of Chinese studies in the Department of Modern Languages, and the executive director of the national Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA), worked with her ACTFL/CLTA 2022 conference committee to run a successful ACTFL/CLTA 2022 annual convention program in Boston, November 18-21. During the conference, Wu presented her paper titled “Incorporating Outreach and Advocacy Activities into a DEI CFL Curriculum” at the ACTFL 2022 convention. Wu also delivered opening remarks at the first “National Chinese EXPO of Student Works” showcase that boasted more than 200 student works with more than 4,000 students from 47 states and Canada.

Wu also held the Chinese Culture Night Showcase along with students from her class “Topics in Chinese Language, Culture and Society” (82-139). During the event, participants took advantage of karaoke, Taichi and dances, puppetry, Chinese dress and photos, calligraphy and bookmarks, Chinese knotting and Chinese games. All proceeds from the event went to benefit Kesem-CMU, an organization dedicated to providing year-round support for children affected by a parental cancer.