Honors & Awards

Grants, fellowships, awards and other honors that recognize and support innovative research and world-class teaching.

Title

Topic

  • Army Research Office provides additional funding for deep neural network research

    “Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Yanzhi Wang has received $450,000 in additional funding for his Young Investigator Award from the Army Research Office. The project title is ‘Generalized Optimization Engine (GOE) for Deep Neural Networks.'”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Major prize for mRNA vaccine potency research awarded to Northeastern professor Wei Xie

    “Wei Xie, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, has received an award with a total value of $851,000 from the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, for the project ‘Advanced FISH Assay and Mechanism Hybrid Surrogate to Improve mRNA Vaccine Potency Assessment and Prediction.'”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Kane recieves US Department of Energy award for vocational high school programs

    “Michael Kane, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, received a $750,000 award from the US Department of Energy to develop a training program for vocational technology high schools and community colleges that improves entry-level building operators’ literacy in grid-interactive efficient buildings.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Patent awarded for ‘beam management’ system in RF transmissions

    , ,

    “Electrical and computer engineering principal research scientist Michele Polese, assistant professor Francesco Restuccia, and professor Tommaso Melodia were awarded a patent for ‘Coordination-free mmWave beam management with deep waveform learning.'”

    Learn more

    ,
  • How to say ‘Homosaurus’ in Spanish: A renowned LGBTQ+ resource gets another edition

    Professor K.J. Rawson poses for a portrait.

    The Homosaurus: An International LGBTQ+ Linked Data Vocabulary recently received a three-year grant to fund the development of a Spanish-language version of this valuable research resource.

    Learn more

    ,
  • Jornet receives best demo for ‘Adversarial Aerial Metasurfaces’ at ACM HotMobile 2023

    “Electrical and computer engineering associate professor Josep Jornet received the Best Demo Award at the 24th International Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (HotMobile) for the work titled ‘Adversarial Aerial Metasurfaces,’ with electrical engineering student Sherif Badran, PhD’26, and collaborators at Rice and Brown Universities.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Landherr receives American Institute of Chemical Engineers grant to create instructional comic for high schoolers

    “Chemical engineering distinguished teaching professor Lucas Landherr has received a $3,500 grant from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Foundation to create a comic that details the work of chemical engineering for high school seniors and first-year college engineering students.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Tadigadapa joins 2023 National Academy of Inventors as Senior Member

    Professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering Srinivas Tadigadapa has been named as a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors. The National Academy of Inventors “was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate, and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society,” they write in their mission statement.

    Learn more

  • Hofmann wins Outstanding Dissertation Award for work in disability studies and human-computer interaction

    Megan “Hofmann, a senior research fellow at Khoury College who will begin as an assistant professor this fall,” Matty Wasserman writes for the Khoury College of Computer Science, had been awarded with the SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award for her work “within the fields of human–computer interaction (HCI) and digital fabrication.”

    Learn more

    , ,
  • Riley receives Black Heritage Award for ‘dedicated service to Northeastern’

    “Civil and environmental engineering lecturer and operations manager Rozanna Riley was selected to receive the Black Heritage Award, which is given to those Northeastern staff and administrators in recognition of their dedicated service to Northeastern, to the students, and/or to the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute.”

    Learn more

  • Hajjar receives $3.1 million grant for carbon-neutral construction research

    “In a new $3.1 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), Northeastern department of civil and environmental engineering chair and CDM Smith Professor Jerome Hajjar will lead a multi-institution team of researchers developing a new carbon sequestration technique using cross-laminated timber composite floor systems in bolted steel construction for building structures. The new structural method aims to decrease the use of steel while increasing the use of carbon-storing timber and design for deconstruction methods.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Byron Wallace named Sy and Laurie Sternberg Interdisciplinary Associate Professor for work on machine learning

    “Professor Byron Wallace ‘has been awarded Northeastern’s Sy and Laurie Sternberg Interdisciplinary Associate Professorship for his work’ on applying machine learning and natural language processing to healthcare.” In an interview, Wallace gave one example of these applications: “the evolution of NLP systems [means they] can now spit out very plausible text, which medical practitioners can use to synthesize medical evidence and make better decisions for patient treatment.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • DeSteno podcast ‘How God Works’ is Ambie finalist

    Professor of psychology David DeSteno’s podcast “How God Works” was a finalist for “Best Personal Growth/Spirituality Podcast” in the Ambies, the top awards show in the podcast industry. “How God Works” interrogates why, despite the fact that “religion and science often seem at odds, there’s one thing they can agree on: people who take part in spiritual practices tend to live longer, healthier, and happier lives.” The Ambies award show took place on March 7.

    Learn more

    ,
  • Northeastern professors win 2023 Acorn Innovation Awards, helping bring research to market

    , ,

    “Electrical and computer engineering assistant professor Sarah Ostadabbas, professor Deniz Erdogmus and mechanical and industrial engineering associate professor Yi Zheng received MassVentures Acorn Innovation Awards to assist them in testing the viability of their technologies and potentially bringing their research to market.”

    Learn more

  • Sharifkhani receives Riesman Professorship to study ‘macroeconomic risks’ on local labor markets

    Assistant professor of finance Ali Sharifkhani has received the Riesman Professorship in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business. Sharifkhani will use the professorship to “study the effects of a firm’s local labor market on its exposure to macroeconomic risks and the expected return on its equity.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Liu receives Walsh Professorship to study ‘diversity faultlines’ in business leadership

    Associate professor of accounting Kelvin Liu has received the Walsh Professorship from the D’Amore-McKim School of Business. He will use the professorship to “study the effect of diversity faultlines among senior executives on internal governance and corporate destabilization,” the school of business wrote.

  • Morales is Rising Star in Association for Psychological Science, for innovations while ‘in the earliest stages’ of career

    According to the Association for Psychological Science, “The APS Rising Star designation is presented to outstanding APS Members in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD…. this designation recognizes researchers whose innovative work has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions.” Professor of psychology and philosophy Jorge Morales was named an APS Rising Star in February, 2023.

    Learn more

    ,
  • Bart receives 2022 Amazon Research Award for video advertising research

    Yakov Bart, associate professor of marketing and Joseph G. Riesman Research Professor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, has received a 2022 Amazon Research Award for a project titled “Using video summarization for generating effective short video ads.” This award “provides unrestricted funds and AWS Promotional Credits to academic researchers investigating various research topics in multiple disciplines,” according to Amazon Science.

    Learn more

  • Saksono and Hoffman win Google Health Equity Research Initiative award

    ,

    Assistant professor of health sciences Herman Saksono and professor of applied psychology Jessica Hoffman have won a Google Health Equity Research Initiative award. Their proposal, “Augmenting fitness tracking data with community storytelling to advance the impact of wearables in promoting health equity,” hopes to interrogate “how to amplify social support in marginalized communities by augmenting fitness data with first-person storytelling,” they wrote. They plan to leverage fitness tracking devices to “facilitate social support within marginalized communities.” Crucially, this study is a product of a close community partnership with the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition, which was established in 2017.

    Learn more

  • Ocean Genome Legacy Center partners with 1% for the Planet

    ,
    A researcher works at the Ocean Genome Legacy Center.

    Northeastern’s Ocean Genome Legacy Center has become an Environmental Partner with 1% for the Planet, which brings together companies and individuals to support environmental nonprofits.

    Learn more

    ,
  • SMART Center receives $4 million DARPA grant for thermal imaging program

    , , , , ,

    The SMART Center at Northeastern University, whose mission statement “aims to conceive and pilot disruptive technological innovation in smart devices and systems,” has received a $4 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), under their Optomechanical Thermal Imaging program. The SMART Center proposed the development of “Nano-opto-mechanical Piezoelectric Resonant Infrared-sensitive Metamaterials for Quantum-Limited Photodetection,” which would work to develop an exceptionally small detector of infrared light.

    Learn more

    ,
  • Lehman elected President of IEEE Power Electronics Society

    Professor of electrical and computer engineering Bradley Lehman has been elected president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. The Power Electronics Society studies “technology [that] encompasses the effective use of electronic components, the application of circuit theory and design techniques, and the development of analytical tools for efficient conversion, control, and condition of electric power,” they write on their website.

    Learn more

    ,
  • Fu named ACM Fellow for contributions to computer security

    “Professor Kevin Fu was named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery for contributions to computer security, and especially to the secure engineering of medical devices.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Zhang-Wu wins Research Impact Award for multilingual research

    “Qianqian Zhang-Wu, assistant professor of English and director of multilingual writing, has won the 2023 CCCC Research Impact Award for ‘Languaging Myths and Realities: Journeys of Chinese International Students.’ The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) is a constituent organization within the National Council of Teachers of English.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Spring 2023 Spark Fund awardees announced for Northeastern innovators

    , , , , ,

    Professors Ryan Koppes, Yaning Li, Diomedes Logothetis, Carolyn Lee-Parsons, Edmund Yeh and Ke Zhang have all received Spark Funds from the Center for Research Innovation for Spring 2023. “The Spark Fund supports commercially valuable inventions (from any field) from university researchers in earlier stages of development. The goal of the award is to advance a technology or suite of technologies from academia towards commercialization.”

    Learn more

    , ,
  • Li receives NSF CAREER Grant for pathogen work

    “Assistant professor Jiahe Li was awarded a $636,000 National Science Foundation CAREER award for a project titled ‘Understanding and Harnessing Host-derived Small RNAs Against Opportunistic Pathogens.’”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Patent for a ‘Zero Power Plasmonic Microelectromechanical Device’

    ,

    “Professor Matteo Rinaldi and research assistant professor Zhenyun Qian were awarded a patent for designing a ‘Zero Power Plasmonic Microelectromechanical Device.’ According to the abstract, the ‘device is capable of specifically sensing electromagnetic radiation and performing signal processing operations. … The devices can continuously monitor an environment and wake up an electronic circuit upon detection of a specific trigger signature of electromagnetic radiation.'”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Jaeger-Helton selected as Panel Fellow for NSF CMMI Game Changer Academies

    “Teaching Professor Beverly Kris Jaeger-Helton was selected as a panel fellow for the 2023 National Science Foundation (NSF) CMMI Game Changer Academies for Advancing Research Innovation Program. The NSF Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) created the Game Changer Academies for Advancing Research Innovation to improve group dynamics during panel discussions, increase awareness of bias and identity, and enhance understanding of high-risk, high-reward ideas. Once trained, ‘Panel Fellows’ will bring enhanced skills and awareness when they participate in panel discussions during NSF merit review.”

    Learn more

    ,
  • Zheng receives Early Career Researcher Award from ASTFE

    “Associate Professor Yi Zheng was awarded the inaugural American Society of Thermal and Fluids Engineers (ASTFE) Early Career Researcher Award for his significant contributions to the field of Thermal and Fluids Engineering.”

    Learn more

    , ,
  • Top 10 in Annals of Internal Medicine: Miller featured with two papers

    Matthew Miller, professor of health sciences and epidemiology, was featured in the Annals of Internal Medicine’s “Best of 2022” list with two articles on firearms research, “Homicide Deaths Among Adult Cohabitants of Handgun Owners in California, 2004 to 2016” and the “Firearm Purchasing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results From the 2021 National Firearms Survey.” Find his papers with their full list of authors, and the full best-of list, at Annals of Internal Medicine.

    Learn more