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 her class on Winston Churchill were featured on C-SPAN. Additionally, her book Orwell’s Ghosts: Wisdom and Warnings for the Twenty-First Century (WW Norton 2025), has been chosen as the recipient of the Shorenstein Center's 2025 Goldsmith Book Prize and as a New Yorker Best Book of 2024. 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 Inside Higher Ed 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 American University Provost Associate Professor title and inducted into this year’s cohort of new Provost Associate Professors.

Thomas Costello (Psychology) was interviewed on CNN’s Terms of Service with Clare Duffy about his study on AI chatbots.  

Zoltan Gluck (Anthropology) has been awarded a prestigious ACLS Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). 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 American University 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 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award.
• Moa Short’s haunting and powerful story “Deficiency” is out now in The Rumpus.  
• Jamie Hennick ('24) reviewed Women Surrounded by Water in The Colorado Review.
• Nico Penaranda ('22) published four poems in The Mid-Atlantic Review.  
• Caroline Hockenbury ('23) will be featured in Attached to the Living World, an upcoming ecopoetry anthology (Trinity University Press), alongside major voices like Ada Limón and Natasha Trethewey.
• Bailey Blumenstock ('20) published her debut poetry chapbook Leaving the Religion of Self-Harm with Cathexis Northwest Press.

Kara Reynolds (Economics) was featured in a Huffington Post article about the economics of Trump’s trade war. She also spoke with Marketplace about how automation may affect US manufacturing under the Trump Administration’s new tariffs, and with ABC News 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 Second Nature – 2025 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit in Washington, DC.

Molly Springfield (Studio Art) has been named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts and will pursue her ongoing project, Holograph Draft, inspired by Virginia Woolf's life and work. 

Lauren Strauss (History) spoke with Axios 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 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s incentives for resuming hostilities in Gaza.

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 "Forensic Analytical Chemistry for Minimizing Injustice: Advances and Challenges" in the Annual Review of Analytical Chemistry.

Orisanmi Burton (Anthropology) published "The Hidden War Fueling New York’s Prison Guard Strike" on Inquest.org.

Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies) spoke with The National News Desk about how the Trump Administration’s forthcoming travel ban may affect international athletes. He also co-wrote a piece with Anthony Fontes and Melissa Vásquez for La Opinion about the differences between transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and terrorist organizations.

Luis Cerezo Ceballos (World Languages and Cultures) published Technology-Mediated Language Teaching (Channel View Publications, 2025).

Bernhard Gunter (Economics) published "Income Inequality After Episodes of Globalization and Marginalization: Global Evidence from 1980 to 2018" 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 the use of DNA metabarcoding to investigate Arctic clam diets and harmful algal blooms. 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 Smithsonian Magazine 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 how reduced freight traffic may indicate an economic crisis in Cuba.

Jonathan Tubman (Psychology) published "Parent–Child Relationship Characteristics and Psychiatric Symptoms as Predictors of Passive Suicidal Ideation among Adolescents in Outpatient Substance Use Treatment" 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 Benthic foraminiferal Mg/Ca response across the Aptian-Albian Boundary Interval at DSDP Site 511 (Falkland Plateau) 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 LA Times 2024 Book Prize Awards.

Barbara Bernstein (Health Studies) published a guidebook on Latin dancing, Salsa Dancing & Rueda de Casino Guidebook for Beginner to Advanced Dancers. 

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 "Neural and behavioral evolution in an eavesdropper with a rapidly evolving host" in Current Biology. Also summarized in Atmos.

Orisanmi Burton (Anthropology) appeared on Democracy Now to speak about the New York prison guard strike.

Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology) was featured in WalletHub’s article about the Best Credit Cards without SSN Requirements.

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 2024 Stanford-Elsevier Top 2% Scientists List.

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 Addressing Health-Related Social Needs During COVID-19 Through a Hospital-Based, Community Health Worker Program: A Case Study and The Role of Perceived Neighborhood Factors and the Built Environment on Depression and Stress Among Latinas on US-Mexico Border in the Journal of Community Psychology, and Effective Integration and Collaboration of Community Health Workers and Social Workers: Essential Strategies for Health and Social Service Systems 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 LA Times 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) Unorthodox Views podcast. 

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 CGTN’s The Heat to discuss the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Ernesto Castañeda (Sociology, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies) spoke with Newsweek about President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed deportation plan. He also co-authored an article for The Conversation 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 BBC News.

Peter Kuznick (History) spoke with NTV, WION News, WBAI, The Chugoku Shimbun, Eurasia Review, Tucker Carlson Show, CGTN, Zvezda, CNN News 18, The Times Now (India), CGTN’s The Point, WUSA9, 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 ABC News about President Joe Biden’s peaceful handoff of power and the historical significance of this approach.

Pamela Nadell (History, Jewish Studies Program) spoke with The Forward 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 Newsweek about Sudan’s climate issues and the failure of the country’s health systems. In an article for LSE United States Centre, Sangaramoorthy wrote about why Trump's withdrawal from WHO threatens global health security and equity.

Alanna Warner-Smith (Anthropology) published "Global Mobilities, Intimate Movements: Embodying Nineteenth-Century Domestic Labor" in The 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) SEED I-Corps program to perform customer discovery for novel neural technology.