New Faculty Spotlight: Faculty Listing by Research Area

This webpage provides a listing of new faculty participating in the New Faculty Spotlight. Our Spotlight feature highlights faculty working in selected research areas that cut across multiple departments.

Faculty List by Research Area

Neuroscience (January)

Name	Title	Department	Research Description
Sama Ahmed Ahmed Lab	Weill Neurohub Term Assistant Professor	Psychology	Neural circuit interactions for generating complex behaviors.
Michele A Basso Basso Faculty page	Professor	Biological Structure and Physiology and Biophysics	The work performed in Dr. Basso’s laboratory is aimed at unraveling the neuronal circuits of decision-making in health and disease. Her work spans multiple species and employs multiple technologies designed to understand how memory and sensory information are combined to give rise to our decisions and choices of action.
Tim Brown Brown Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Bioethics & Humanities	Interpersonal and societal impact of neuroengineering.
Gabriel Cler Cler Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Speech & Hearing Sciences	How does the brain support speech and language? What brain differences do we see when someone has difficulty learning their first language?
Donald L. Elbert Elbert Lab	Associate Professor	Neurology	Mechanistic mathematical models of neurodegenerative diseases.
Matthew Golub Golub Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering	Machine learning for systems neuroscience and neuroengineering; computation through neural population dynamics; brain-computer interfaces.
Kim Ingraham Ingraham Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Electrical & Computer Engineering	Advancing human mobility using personalized assistive robots.
Amber Nolan Nolan Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Laboratory Medicine and Pathology	The neuroscience and neuropathology of traumatic brain injury.
Marco Pravetoni Pravetoni Faculty page	Rick L. Seaver Endowed Professor for Brain Wellness, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Lead Scientist, Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions	Psychiatry	Immunotherapeutics and Pharmaceutics for Substance Use Disorder and Overdose.
Alec Smith Smith Faculty page	Research Assistant Professor	Physiology and Biophysics / The Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM)	Stem cell-based models of neuromuscular disease.
Oscar Vivas Pharmacology Faculty pagePhysiology and Biophysics Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Pharmacology, Physiology and Biophysics	Our research seeks to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind the deterioration of the autonomic nervous system.
Z Yan Wang Wang Lab	Assistant Professor, Weill Neurohub Term Professor	Psychology, Biology	Neurobiology of aging, senescence, and death

Race and Social Justice (March)

Name	Title	Department	Research Description
M. Aziz Azia Faculty page	Assistant Professor of African American Studies	American Ethnic Studies	Dr. Aziz’s research explores the role of safety and well-being in Black Power History. It uses unarmed self-defense and martial arts as a lens to understand not only history, but contemporary struggles for justice.
Nazry Bahrawi Bahrawi Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Asian Languages and Literature	I study the intersections between interracial and interspecies concepts in the animal narratives of maritime Southeast Asia as an underexplored literary tradition from the non-West. This indigenous tradition of racial formation is both distinguishable from and complementary to America’s critical race theory.
Theresa Rocha Beardall Beardall Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Sociology Faculty Affiliate: Law, Societies, and Justice; Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology; Center for Human Rights	Dr. Rocha Beardall’s sociolegal research examines how policing and the child welfare system shape social life, operate as systems of social control, and structure intergenerational disadvantage
Sebawit Bishu Bishu Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Evans School of Public Policy and Governance	Sebawit Bishu’s research is at the intersection of identity (gender and race) and organizational performance, focusing on how individual and organizational behavior can improve effectiveness in the public sector.
Tim Brown Brown Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Bioethics & Humanities	Interpersonal and societal impact of neuroengineering.
Aylin Caliskan Caliskan Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Information School, The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (Adjunct)	How do artificial intelligence (AI) models learn social bias from large scale sociocultural data? How do biased AI systems impact equity and society?
Joan Casey Casey Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences	Dr. Casey studies how climate-related exposures like wildfires and power outages affect health across the lifecourse through the lens of social determinants of health.
Jelani Ince Ince Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Sociology	My research employs the lens of cultural sociology to examine how racial diversity is managed in formal organizations through the ordinary procedures and the social interactions between actors, as well as how social movements shape the political process in response to racial injustice.
Debrielle Jacques Jacques Faculty page	Assistant Professor of Child Psychopathology and Development	Psychology	How parental drug and alcohol addiction impact parenting, family functioning, and young children’s mental health
Tyler Jimenez Jimenez Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Psychology	Tyler Jimenez researches social inequality from micro and macro level perspectives, focusing on topics such as racism, capitalism, settler colonialism, policing, and incarceration.
Patricia Louie Louie webpage	Assistant Professor	Sociology	My research focuses on the role of stress and coping resources in explaining Black-White differences in mental health and how different specifications of race (such as skin tone or disaggregated multiracial status) can influence how we understand health disparities.
Monica R. McLemore McLemore Faculty page	Professor, Interim Director, Adjunct Professor	Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing, Center for Anti-Racism in Nursing, Health Systems and Population Health	My work is grounded in reproductive health, rights, and justice.
José Jorge Mendoza Mendoza Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Philosophy	José Jorge Mendoza’s current research deals with issues in migration ethics (especially immigrant rights), Latinx identity, and racial justice.
Raphaëlle Rabanes Rabanes Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Anthropology (Sociocultural / Medical Anthropology)	Ethnographic focus: Community responses to health and racial inequities in the French Caribbean. Broader frameworks: Health, race, social movements, and the long shadow of history in the African Diaspora.
Oliver Rollins Rollins Faculty page	Assistant Professor	American Ethnic Studies	My research explores how the politics of race and the systemic practices of inequity are influenced and affected by the production, use, and anticipated social value of neuroscientific knowledges and technologies.
Mienah Z. Sharif Sharif Epidemiology Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Epidemiology and Health Systems, Population Health	Racism is a fundamental driver of health inequities, and to effectively address racism we, as a field, must actively challenge the many ways in which racism persists in our conventional public health methodologies, practices and norms.
Mike Teodorescu Teodorescu Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Information School	My passion is to do research that helps improve equality through empirically-tested policies – whether managerial or governmental. My research areas recently have been machine learning fairness and economics of innovation. The second research stream, in economics of innovation, focuses on testing innovation policies that may be used to help entrepreneurs get access to funding, obtain patents, and become serial innovators.
Christopher Tounsel Tounsel Faculty page	Associate Professor of History, Interim Director of the African Studies Program	History	I am an historian of modern Sudan, with particular interests in the use of race and religion as political technologies.
Timeka N. Tounsel Tounsel Faculty page	Assistant Professor of Black Studies in Communication	Communication	I am a critical-cultural studies scholar who focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in the media.
Ruoniu (Vince) Wang Wang Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Runstad Department of Real Estate	My research is focused on examining the causes, consequences, and solutions of housing unaffordability and residential segregation in the U.S. I study in what way and to what extent urban amenities and opportunities are disproportionately distributed in the built environments. My recent work centers on building nationwide datasets of inclusionary zoning policies and community land trusts.
Amelia M. Wirts Wirts Faculty page and Wirts webpage	Assistant Professor	Philosophy	My research explores how injustice affects the legitimacy of systems of criminal law, with a special focus on sexism, racism, and class-based injustice.

Data Science (April)

Name	Title	Department	Research Description
Mia Bennett Bennett Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Geography	Combining remote sensing and ethnographic fieldwork, my research explores the politics and cultures of frontier-making in the Arctic with respect to three global transformations: the space age, Indigenous empowerment, and the rise of Asia.
Aylin Caliskan Caliskan Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Information School, The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (Courtesy)	How do artificial intelligence (AI) models learn social bias from large scale sociocultural data? How do biased AI systems impact equity and society?
Carlos Cinelli Cinelli Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Statistics	Everyone knows correlation is not causation. What can we do then? Cinelli’s research focuses on developing new theory, methods, and software to help data scientists make reliable causal inferences under realistic settings.
Sayamindu Dasgupta Dasgupta Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Human Centered Design and Engineering	My research focuses on how young people can learn with and about data—especially in contexts of the communities that they live, learn, and play in.
Simon Shaolei Du Du Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering	Theoretical foundations of deep learning and reinforcement learning.
Bamdad Hosseini Hosseini Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Applied Mathematics	Prof. Hosseini works on the mathematical foundations of data science and machine learning by combining ideas from applied mathematics, statistics, and probability theory.
Anna Preus Preus Faculty page	Assistant Professor of Humanities Data Science	English	My research focuses on early 20th-century publishing history in England and considers how historical print cultures are being transferred online through large-scale text digitization efforts.
Oliver Rollins Rollins Faculty page	Assistant Professor	American Ethnic Studies	My research explores how the politics of race and the systemic practices of inequity are influenced and affected by the production, use, and anticipated social value of neuroscientific knowledges and technologies.
Armeen Taeb Taeb Faculty page	Assistant Professor	Statistics	My work focuses on developing efficient methods for graphical and latent-variable modeling, learning causal relations from data, and model selection in non-traditional settings.
Mike Teodorescu Teodorescu Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Information School	My passion is to do research that helps improve equality through empirically-tested policies – whether managerial or governmental. My research areas recently have been machine learning fairness and economics of innovation. The second research stream, in economics of innovation, focuses on testing innovation policies that may be used to help entrepreneurs get access to funding, obtain patents, and become serial innovators.
Lucy Lu Wang Wang Faculty page	Assistant Professor	The Information School	Investigating how AI and NLP technologies can help people make better health-related decisions

Climate Science and Sustainability (October)

Name	Title	Department	Research Description
Jungwon Choi	Assistant Professor	Electrical & Computer Engineering	Power Electronics, Renewable Energy, Wireless Power Transfer
Corey Garza	Professor	School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences	My research involves studying spatial and temporal variation in the distribution and composition of coastal ecosystems. I use autonomous technologies, such as drones, coupled with spatial statistics and image analysis to conduct my research.
Bethany Gordon	Assistant Professor	Civil & Environmental Engineering	Dr. Gordon specialises in applications of behavioral science and psychology to improve design processes for a more equitable built environment. For example, we are working with systemic equity objectives to address the Environmental Justice implications in the design of protective (hazard mitigation) capacities of urban stormwater management infrastructure systems.
Celina Balderas Guzmán	Assistant Professor	Landscape Architecture	Dr. Balderas Guzmán conducts applied environmental science research to inform environmental planning and landscape design on coastal adaptation to sea level rise and urban stormwater.
Christie Hegermiller	Assistant Professor	Civil & Environmental Engineering	Hydrodynamics and sediment transport in the coastal ocean
JeremVikram Iyery J. Hess	Professor	Emergency Medicine, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Global Health, Atmospheric Sciences	My research is focused on the health impacts of climate change and how to implement effective, equitable health protections at scale both domestically and globally. This involves interdisciplinary, implementation-oriented research with communities and practice partners in a wide range of settings
Vikram Iyer	Assistant Professor	Paul G. Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering	Bio-inspired systems, wireless technologies
June Lukuyu	Assistant Professor	Electrical & Computer Engineering	Sustainable, inclusive, and integrated energy development for improved livelihoods in underserved communities
Michelle Muth	Assistant Professor	Earth and Space Sciences	Dr. Muth studies the chemistry of magmas.
Julie Rorrer	Assistant Professor	Chemical Engineering	Sustainable chemical synthesis using heterogeneous catalysis
Sameer H. Shah	John C. Garcia Term Professor & Assistant Professor of Climate Adaptation	School of Environmental and Forest Sciences	Dr. Shah studies how climate change impacts are mediated by social, economic, and political inequalities.
Zachary Sherman	Assistant Professor	Chemical Engineering	Computational soft matter physics
Bhuvana Srinivasan	Associate Professor	Aeronautics & Astronautics	Plasma science and fusion energy research towards a clean, green, abundant energy future
Cory Struthers	Assistant Professor	Evans School of Public Policy and Governance	Dr. Struthers’ research asks how scientific information, special interests, and public opinion filter through institutions to shape policymakers’ decisions, especially on climate change and the environment.
Shijing Sun	Assistant Professor	Mechanical Engineering	Dr. Sun’s research is centered at design and engineering of materials & systems for energy harvesting, conversion, and storage applications, helping our society transition to a carbon-neutral future.
Kendall Valentine	Assistant Professor	School of Oceanography	Dr. Valentine’s work aims to understand coastal landscape change by examining the interplay between geology, physics, and biology.
Claire Willing	Assistant Professor	School of Environmental and Forest Sciences	Dr. Willing’s research program focuses on forest mycobiomes (the fungal component of the microbiome) and climate change. We investigate how fungal communities shift in response to factors associated with climate change and the functional consequences for plant responses to future climatic perturbations.
Lingzi Wu	Assistant Professor	Construction Management	Simulation-enabled Data-Driven Decision Support Systems