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2025𱹱ԳٲRecent faculty, student, and alumni accomplishments
April
Valentina Aquila (Environmental Science) received supplemental funding of $96,585 (new total: $388,755) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Estimating the impacts of volcanic aerosol and pyroCb smoke on model forecasts and data assimilation using the GEOS Analysis Increments.”
Laura Beers (History) and . Additionally, her book (WW Norton 2025), has been chosen as the and as a . She was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship intended to support her work on her next book project, a comparative history of the politics surrounding IVF and surrogacy.
Michael Brenner (History, Center for Israel Studies) wrote an opinion article for about the Trump administration’s use of antisemitism as a wedge issue in a broader assault on higher education and academic freedom.
Rachelle Burks (Chemistry) was awarded the ֱ Provost Associate Professor title and inducted into this year’s cohort of new Provost Associate Professors.
Thomas Costello (Psychology) was interviewed on about his study on AI chatbots.
Zoltan Gluck (Anthropology) has been awarded a prestigious . The fellowship will support a year of leave for the completion of his book, The Long War on Terror: Decolonization and Recolonization in Kenya.
Philip Johnson (Physics) received supplemental funding of $150,047.64 (new total: $1,599,868) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Remote Sensing of Planetary Atmospheres in the Solar System and Beyond.” He also received supplemental funding of $32,439 (new total: $369,990.68) from NASA for the project “Spectroscopic Investigations of Processed Planetary and Astrophysical Ices with the Sublimation Laboratory Ice Millimeter/submillimeter Experiment.”
Pankaj Kumar (Physics) received a $36,280 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Understanding Particle Acceleration in Coronal Jets.”
Peter Kuznick (History) spoke with HJ News, Goshen News, Viory Video News Agency, Kyodo News, TASS, WION News, Izvestia, Iran Daily, Asahi Newspaper, Russia24, Deep Focus with John Kiriakou, CGTN, and NTV about a variety of topics ranging from US foreign policy to the ongoing conflicts in the world.
Nabina Liebow (Philosophy and Religion) was awarded the 2025 ֱ Faculty Award for Inclusive Excellence.
MFA Literature alums published an impressive array of new work:
- Patricia Coral’s ('22) thesis collection Women Surrounded by Water was longlisted for the .
- Moa Short’s haunting and powerful story “Deficiency” is out now in .
- Jamie Hennick ('24) reviewed Women Surrounded by Water in .
- Nico Penaranda ('22) published four poems in .
- Caroline Hockenbury ('23) will be featured in , an upcoming ecopoetry anthology (Trinity University Press), alongside major voices like Ada Limón and Natasha Trethewey.
- Bailey Blumenstock ('20) published her debut poetry chapbook with Cathexis Northwest Press.
Kara Reynolds (Economics) was featured in a about the economics of Trump’s trade war. She also spoke with about how automation may affect US manufacturing under the Trump Administration’s new tariffs, and with about the impact of the Trump Administration’s new tariffs in general.
Nathaniel Roth (Physics) received supplemental funding of $86,948 (new total: $163,524) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Comet Chemistry Beyond the H2O Sublimation Zone: Interferometric Imaging and Spectroscopy of Distant Comets.”
Rebecca Rudolph (undergraduate student, Environmental Science) participated at the Closing Plenary of the in Washington, DC.
Molly Springfield(Studio Art) has been named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts and will pursueher ongoing project, Holograph Draft, inspired by Virginia Woolf's life and work.
Lauren Strauss (History) spoke with about the fear of Jewish people as President Trump invokes antisemitism to justify crackdowns.
Hasset Tibebe (undergraduate student, Chemistry) was awarded the 2025 Scott A. Bass Outstanding Scholarship at the Undergraduate Level Award.
March
Dan Arbell (History, Center for Israel Studies) spoke with CGTN about .
Barbara Balestra (Environmental Science) received a $15,000 grant from the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) for the project “Spatial distribution and chemical characterization of microplastic and microbeads in river sediments in the DC area.”
Christine Van Berten (World Languages and Cultures) received a $2,000 grant from the Albertine Foundation for the project “Francophone Job Fair.”
Boncho Bonev (Physics) received supplemental funding of $58,886 (new total: $116,710) from Johns Hopkins University for the project “Disentangling natal and post-formation processing in comets through high-resolution infrared observations.”
Frederick Bruhweiler (Physics) received supplemental funding of $50,000 (new total: $367,869) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Continued Development of IR & Visible Spectrometer and Imaging Arrays for Ground-based & Space-borne Planetary Observations.”
Raychelle Burks (Chemistry) published "" in the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry.
Orisanmi Burton (Anthropology) published "" on Inquest.org.
Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies) spoke with The National News Desk about . He also co-wrote a piece with Anthony Fontes and Melissa Vásquez for La Opinion .
Luis Cerezo Ceballos (World Languages and Cultures) published (Channel View Publications, 2025).
Bernhard Gunter (Economics) published"" in the International Journal of Interdisciplinary Global Studies.
Taisuke Izumi (Biology) has published "Targeting Latent HIV Reservoirs: Effectiveness of Combination Therapy with HDAC and PARP Inhibitors," which appeared on the cover of issue 3, volume 17 of Viruses. His students Hasset Tibebe, Dacia Marquez, and Grace Hillmer are co-authors.
Philip Johnson (Physics) received supplemental funding of $42,902 (new total: $337,551) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Spectroscopic Investigations of Processed Planetary and Astrophysical Ices with the Sublimation Laboratory Ice Millimeter/submillimeter Experiment.”
Chelsea Koch (Environmental Science) published a study in Frontiers in Marine Science on . She also received a $24,599 grant from the World Wildlife Fund to conduct biogeochemical analysis on Pacific walrus tissues harvest by subsistence hunters on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait as indicators of ecosystem changes underway.
Peter Kuznick (History) spoke with CGTN, RTVI, WION News, Channel One Russia, Izvestia, PBS, NTV, TVC, Kyodo News, Republic TV, Times Now, TASS, Press TV, and Okinawa TV about a variety of topics ranging from US foreign policy to the ongoing conflicts in the world.
Dennis Lucarelli (Physics) received supplemental funding of $7,000 (new total: $103,291) from Dartmouth College for the project “Quantum Characterization and Model Reduction for Fault-Tolerant Qubit Networks.”
Steven MacAvoy (Environmental Science) received a $15,000 grant from the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) for the project “Investigation into the concentration and distribution of bisphenol A (BPA) in Anacostia and Potomac River sediments.”
Naomi Skiles (undergraduate student in Anthropology and Creative Writing) wrote for about the Native American Women Warriors (NAWW).
Nancy Snider (Performing Arts) received a $10,000 grant from the Koster Foundation for the project “Koster Foundation Summer Study Grant.”
Ricardo Torres (Economics) spoke with Reuters about .
Jonathan Tubman (Psychology) published "" in the Child and Adolsescent Social Work Journal.
Brian T. Yates (Psychology) and Lilian Baeza-Mendoza (World Languages and Cultures) were selected as the winners of AU’s Green Teacher of the Year award by a committee of the Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning and the AU Office of Sustainability.
February
Nicole Angotti (Sociology) received an $8,458 grant from the George Washington University for the project “District of Columbia Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR).”
Barbara Balestra (Environmental Science) published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
Madeleine Bartin, Evelyn Bristol, and Ally Friedman (Physics students) won first place for their presentation at the 10th annual Optical Sciences Winter School & Workshop at the University of Arizona.
Laura Beers’ (History) Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century (W. W. Norton & Company) is a finalist in the .
Barbara Bernstein (Health Studies) published a guidebook on Latin dancing, .
Kim Blankenship (Sociology) received supplemental funding of $6,864 (new total: $191,624) from Yale University for the project “The effects of rental assistance on type 2 diabetes self-management and control.”
E Dale Broder (Biology) published in Current Biology. Also summarized in .
Orisanmi Burton (Anthropology) appeared on to speak about the New York prison guard strike.
Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology) was featured in WalletHub’s article about the .
Frederick Bruhweiler (Physics) received supplemental funding of $30,725 (new total: $210,725) for the project “Development of the MeDDEA Instrument for the PADRE CubeSat Mission to Observe the Sun in High-Energy X-rays.”
Douglas Fox (Chemistry) received a $10,611 grant from Vireo Advisors, LLC, for the project “Migration through Cellulose Crystal - Polymer Laminate Film.”
Kim Blankenship (Sociology), Robert Blecker (Economics), David Culver (Environmental Science),Gregg Harry (Physics), and Nathalie Japkowicz (Computer Science) were listed on the .
Peter Kuznick (History) spoke with TVC, Times Now India, WION News, Izvestia, CGTN, RT International, TASS, RTVI, CNN News18, Zvezda, Kyodo News, and NTV about a variety of topics ranging from nuclear weaposn history to the ongoing conflicts in the world.
Liana Petruzzi (Health Studies) published and in the Journal of Community Psychology, and in the Coalition for CHW-SW Collaboration.
Michael Robinson (Mathematics and Statistics) received supplemental funding of $22,000 (new total: $54,000) from Galois for the project “Emergent Risks.”
Eli Rockenbeck (student, Physics) won the “Piers J. Sellers Award for Interdisciplinary Science” from the organizers of a poster presentation event at NASA Goddard.
Nathaniel Roth (Physics) received supplemental funding of $14,514 from the Space Telescope Science Institute (TSCI) for the project “An Empirical Calibration of the NIRSpec IFU Point Spread Function to Enable High Contrast.”
Thurka Sangaramoorthy (Anthropology) spoke with the about the potential impact of increased immigration enforcement on workplace safety.
Richard C. Sha (Literature) has been asked to be one of three judges for the Marilyn Gaull Prize for the best book in Romanticism. He evaluated Franklin Grants for the American Philosophical Society last year.
Stacey Snelling (Health Studies) received a $45,000 grant from the DC Central Kitchen for the project “Healthy Corners Program Evaluation.”
Mike Treanor (Computer Science) and Nathan Harshman (Physics) were interviewed for Krzysztof Pietroszek’s (Film and Media Arts, SOC) .
January
Vladimir Airapetian (Physics) received a $53,737 grant from the University of Alabama at Huntsville for the project “Signatures of Coronal Mass Ejections and Energetic Particles and their Impact on Early Phases of Evolution of Low Mass Stars.”
Dan Arbell (History, Meltzer Schwartzberg Center for Israel Studies) appeared on a panel on to discuss the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies) spoke with about President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed deportation plan. He also co-authored an article for about the U.S. immigration process.
Thomas Fauchez (Physics) received supplemental funding of $112,865 (new total: $225,278) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the project “Detectability of water in the atmosphere of terrestrial habitable zone exoplanets due to exo-volcanism: a false positive for habitability.”
Jessica Gephart (Environmental Science) discussed the environmental impact of seafood with .
Peter Kuznick (History) spoke with NTV, WION News, WBAI, The Chugoku Shimbun, Eurasia Review, , CGTN, Zvezda, CNN News 18, The Times Now (India), CGTN’s The Point, , The Asahi Shimbun, RTVI, REN TV (Russia), Channel One Russia, CGTN World Insight, RT International, acTVism Munich, RiaNovosti, NDTV, Al-Sharq News, Republic World, and TVC about a variety of topics including the passing of President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. election, nuclear weapons history, and the ongoing conflicts in the world.
Allan Lichtman (History) spoke with about President Joe Biden’s peaceful handoff of power and the historical significance of this approach.
Pamela Nadell (History, Jewish Studies Program) spoke with about programs to fight antisemitism.
Nathaniel Roth (Physics) received an $18,430 grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) for the project “Testing Natal Heritage Among Comet Dynamical Families: A JWST Study of Parent Volatiles in Halley-Type Comets.”
Thurka Sangaramoorthy (Anthropology) authored an article for about Sudan’s climate issues and the failure of the country’s health systems. In an article for, Sangaramoorthy wrote about why Trump's withdrawal from WHO threatens global health security and equity.
Alanna Warner-Smith (Anthropology) published "" inThe Routledge Handbook of Feminist Anthropology,edited by Pamela Geller. The chapter examines domestic work, performed by women born in Ireland, as part of the urban labor regime in nineteenth-century New York City.
Alexander Zestos (Chemistry)received a grant and administrative supplement of $55,000 to participate in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to perform customer discovery for novel neural technology.