Northeastern welcomes new faculty

Four of Northeastern's newest faculty members.

Northeastern welcomes an impressive group of new faculty across many disciplines for the 2017-18 academic year. Here, we profile some of these professors and highlight their research, teaching, and journeys to Northeastern.

Christoffer Holmgård

Bots for play: Professor uses AI to design video games
Assistant professor Christoffer Holmgård, who joined Northeastern’s faculty this semester, is using artificial intelligence to study and improve how video games are designed and played.

Aron Stubbins

Carbon expert studies Earth’s coldest rivers to understand a warming globe
New faculty member Aron Stubbins studies how carbon moves off the land into rivers, where it eventually gets converted into carbon dioxide-a greenhouse gas that’s causing global warming.

When comparing chefs to scientists, most people associate the former with being “creative” and the latter with being “rigorous.” But Samuel Scarpino doesn’t buy it. He’s a scientist with a passion for cooking, and he sees parallels between the two occupations. The fall, he joined the faculty in the College of Science. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University

Samuel Scarpino

Professor puts research into action to stop spread of disease
When comparing chefs to scientists, most people associate the former with being “creative” and the latter with being “rigorous.” But Samuel Scarpino doesn’t buy it. He’s a scientist with a passion for cooking, and he sees parallels between the two occupations. The fall, he joined the faculty in the College of Science.”

Joshua Gallaway

The battery whisperer
Joshua Gallaway, an electrochemist who joined the faculty this fall. Understanding how batteries work—and what will make them run better and longer—is the crux of his research.

Shalanda Baker

Professor finds passion in energy justice law
In 2009, Shalanda Baker left her job as a project finance lawyer at a big global law firm and booked a one-way ticket to Latin America. If not for this bold move, she might not have been named professor of law, public policy, and urban affairs at Northeastern this fall.

Ang Li

Architecture professor explores ‘alternate endings’ for buildings, materials
In a world that can be messy and chaotic, new faculty member Ang Li looks for loops and loopholes. That is, loops in the life cycle of buildings and building materials, and loopholes where architects like her can intervene to make the process more sustainable, equitable, and community-centric.

Samuel Chung

Professor seeks ‘flashes of insight’ in regeneration research, innovative optics
Samuel Chung, a newly appointed assistant professor of bioengineering, will pursue two research tracks in his ISEC lab: neurogeneration and optics. “The long-term goal of my research,” he says, “is to look for ways to stimulate central nervous system regeneration in people with spinal cord injuries.”

Benita Bamgbade

Removing stigma from the patient-pharmacist relationship
Benita Bamgbade knew what the medical literature said. Pharmacists don’t counsel patients with mental illness as often as they counsel others. But Bamgbade, an assistant professor who joined Northeastern’s faculty this fall, says the problem can be overcome.

Meg Heckman

Journalism grad returns to Northeastern to train next generation of digital storytellers
Meg Heckman spent more than 10 years working at a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in New Hampshire. But her drive to train the next generation of journalists to excel in the digital age compelled her to seek out a career in higher education. She landed at Northeastern this fall, when she joined the faculty in the School of Journalism’s Media Innovation program.

Ted Landsmark

For public policy leader, ‘caring about other people is intrinsic to the work we’re doing’
Ted Landsmark joined Northeastern this year as Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the new director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. His diverse career has included everything from blacksmithing to lawyering. The guiding principle over the years, though, has been his passion for social justice and equality.

Woodrow Hartzog

The evolving laws and rules around privacy, data security, and robots
Woodrow Hartzog, who joined Northeastern’s faculty this fall, studies the problems that arise when personal information is collected using new technologies. “Information is power, and when other people collect it they have power over us and that leaves us vulnerable,” he says.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But what role does the brain play in shaping subjective experience? Ajay Satpute, assistant professor in the College of Science, explores this puzzle through the interplay of psychology and neuroscience. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University

Ajay Satpute

Exploring emotion in the brain
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But what role does the brain play in shaping subjective experience? Ajay Satpute, assistant professor in the College of Science, explores this puzzle through the interplay of psychology and neuroscience.

Lichuan Ye

Trailblazing the way to a better night’s sleep
Most guidelines suggest adults get six to eight hours of sleep each night. Lichuan Ye, associate professor in the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, thinks about sleep for much longer than that each day. Indeed, her research focuses on promoting better sleep, and managing sleep disorders.

Charn McAllister

From the Army to academia: One professor’s journey
Charn McAllister enrolled at West Point in July 2001, just two months before 9/11. During a tour of duty in Iraq, a phone call from his wife changed his professional ambitions. Now, nearly a decade after that call, he’s a newly appointed faculty member in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business.