Executive, Awards, & Diversity Awards Election Supplemental Information

Executive Committee Candidates

Arts and Humanities

Nick Huggett
Professor, Philosophy
https://phil.uic.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/huggett

Nick Huggett is a Professor of Philosophy, having joined UIC in 1996. He specializes in the philosophy of science, and has won the Graduate Mentoring Award for his work with graduate students. Since 2013 he has been the Director of Graduate Studies; in the Spring 2018 semester he is on leave from that position as he is serving as Visiting Associate Dean of LAS. He has served previously on the Executive Committee (2013-17).

Steven (Walter) Marsh
Associate Professor, Hispanic and Italian Studies
https://lcsl.uic.edu/hispanic-italian/faculty-instructors/latin-american-and-peninsular-studies/steven-marsh

Steven Marsh is an Associate Professor of Spanish. He is currently the Director of Graduate Studies in the Dept. of Hispanic & Italian Studies, having previously also served as DGS from 2012-2015. He has served on many committees both at departmental and college level. He is a member of the editorial collective of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies and a founder editor of the journal Studies in Hispanic Cinemas. He is the author of three books. His research focuses on the cinema of Spain, critical theory, and contemporary politics.

Behavioral and Social Sciences

Alexander Filindra
Associate Professor, Political Science
https://pols.uic.edu/political-science/people/faculty/alexandra-filindra

Alexandra Filindra is Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois, Chicago.  She has been with the University since 2012. She specializes in American immigration policy, immigration decisions, racial prejudice and its effects on policy preferences, public opinion, political psychology and survey research.  Her research has been supported by grants from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Pew Center for the States, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Rhode Island Foundation. She is the recipient of three best paper awards from the American Political Science Association and the Lucius Barker Award from the Midwest Political Science Association.  She served as Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science during which she initiated a review and revamping of the PhD program. She has also served on various departmental and college committees.

Sultan Tepe
Associate Professor, Political Science
https://pols.uic.edu/political-science/people/faculty/stepe

Sultan Tepe is an associate professor of Political Science. She has served as the associate director of graduate studies. The dissertations of her students which she chaired were later published as books and articles. Her mentoring commitments and accomplishments were recognized by UIC’s mentoring award and the International Studies Association Mentoring Initiatives.

Her research on neoliberal policies, state control of religion and women theologians is the recipient of the 2017 American Political Science Association Weber Best Research Award and her reviews of research projects earned her an APSA Distinguished Reviewer Award. She has served as reviewer to many organizations including the National Endowment for Humanity, the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright.

Her past research on religion and politics has been published in several languages and her new research projects offers one of the first analyses of the politics of religion in a global context by crossing conventional religious, class, racial and ethnic lines.

Jennifer Wiley
Professor, Psychology
http://jwiley.people.uic.edu/index.html

Jennifer Wiley is a Professor in the Department of Psychology. At UIC since 2000, she has received research awards including an NSF Career award and a Humboldt Fellowship, and teaching awards including Council of Excellence in Teaching and Learning Teaching Recognition Program Awards and the Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has served previously on this committee, on her department’s Committee on Graduate Studies, and mentored over a dozen graduate students to the completion of their PhDs.

Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences

David P. Nicholls
Professor, Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~nicholls/

Dave Nicholls is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (MSCS). He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in differential equations, numerical analysis, and scientific computing to students in liberal arts and sciences, engineering, and business. He has mentored doctoral students and post-graduate scholars, with eight receiving their Ph.D.’s under his supervision to date.  He has worked on many problems in applied mathematics including free boundary and boundary value problems. For the former he has studied models of surface ocean waves, and for the latter the interaction of acoustic and electromagnetic waves with layered media (e.g., the earth’s crust and nanophotonic grating structures).  Professor Nicholls was Director of Undergraduate Studies in MSCS from 2011-2013, and has served on his departmental Advisory Committee for most of his thirteen years since coming to UIC.

Michael J. Scott
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
https://mie.uic.edu/k-teacher/michael-j-scott-phd/

Michael J. Scott is Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Director of Graduate Studies for MIE, and Director of the Interdisciplinary Product Development Program. He completed elementary and high school in the Chicago Public Schools, a Bachelor’s in Philosophy at Harvard University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He has received numerous teaching awards including the UIC Award for Excellence in Teaching. He served on the Graduate College Executive Committee in 2015-17. He bikes to work year-round.

Arts and Humanities

Mahrad Almotahari
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
https://phil.uic.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/mahrad-almotahari/

Statement not received.

Ömür Harmanşah
Associate Professor, Art History
https://lcsl.uic.edu/classics-mediterranean/people/faculty/%C3%B6m%C3%BCr-harman%C5%9Fah

Ömür Harmanşah is Associate Professor of Art History and is a specialist in Ancient Near Eastern art, architectural history, archaeology, and material culture. He came to UIC in 2014, having previously taught at Reed College (Portland OR) and Brown University (Providence RI). He is also an affiliated faculty (0% appointment as Associate Professor) at the Department of Classics and Mediterranean Studies. He is currently the main PI for the Humanities Without Walls funded two-year interdisciplinary project “Political Ecology as Practice: A Regional Approach to the Anthropocene” in collaboration with University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he has been directing an archaeological survey and landscape history project in Turkey since 2010. He has served on UIC’s Graduate Awards committee as an appointed member since 2017. He has also taken part twice as a committee member on the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT)’s NEH-funded sabbatical and dissertation fellowships committee, reviewing 80+ applications on each round. He is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Art History Department.   

Silvia Malagrino
Professor, Art
http://artandarthistory.uic.edu/profile/silvia-malagrino

I have served as a juror for the National Fulbright fellowships, The Cleveland and Maryland Arts Councils, The Community Assistance Grant of the Chicago Cultural Affairs and the McKnight Foundation Fellowships.

 I am an international artist and filmmaker and Professor at the School of Art and Art History. In 2010 I received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2012 I was awarded with the State of Illinois Distinguished Artist award for my contributions to Art and Society.

 Over the years at UIC, I received several Campus Research Board Grants (1994, 1996, 1997, 1999), the Silver Circle Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996, the Council of Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award (CETL) in 1998, the Great Cities Institute Scholars’ Fellowship in 2000 and in 2012 I received a Council of Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award (CETL) in the Teaching Recognition Program. I have served in the University P&T Committee, and the University Graduate College Executive committee.

 I feel I can bring my experience to the fellowships committee and contribute to it.

Dianna Niebylski
Professor, Hispanic and Italian Studies
https://lcsl.uic.edu/hispanic-italian/faculty-instructors/latin-american-and-peninsular-studies/dianna-niebylski

Dianna Niebylski is Professor of Latin American Literature and Cultural Studies in the Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Her research centers on three areas: gendered humor in contemporary Latin American literature, poverty in Latin American literature and film, and music and social class in contemporary Latin American film. She is currently general editor of Revista de Estudios de Género y Sexualidades [A Journal of Gender and Sexuality Studies (in Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian and Latino/a literature and film)]. Recent publications include Pobreza y precariedad en el imaginario latinoamericano actual, Latin American Icons: Fame Across Borders, and Sergio Chejfec: Trayectorias de una escritura. She is also the author Humoring Resistance: Laughter and the Excessive Body in Latin American Women’s Fiction; Rosario Ferré: Maldito Amor y otros cuentos and The Poem on the Edge of the Word: Mallarmé, Rilke and Vallejo.

Sharon Oiga
Associate Professor, Graphic Design
http://design.uic.edu/people/sharon-oiga

Sharon Oiga is a graphic designer whose work questions and investigates the process of design—the ways in which ideas are expressed and disseminated, ranging from the micro level of experimental typographic form to the macro level of self-authoring and publishing. In her role at UIC, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in design, typography and thesis. Previously, Oiga has partnered with multidisciplinary design firms where she specialized in identity, branding, and publication design with collaborators in the science, health, education, arts, and business sectors. Oiga’s work—and her students’ coursework—is consistently recognized through awards, publications, exhibitions, and funding. She also received the Silver Circle Teaching Award. 

Oiga has been serving on numerous committees that review faculty, students, and curriculum, including the School of Design Executive Committee, Personnel Committee, and Commencement Awards Committee; the CADA Executive Committee, Distinguished Faculty Award Committee, and Director Review Committee; the Senate Committee on Educational Policy and the Senate External Relations & Public Service Committee (charged with reviewing Honorary Degree nominations); the Researcher of the Year Review Committee and the Campus Promotion & Tenure Recommendations Committee. External to UIC, she serves on boards that review creative works and conference programming, including the Chicago Design Archive and the international Society of Typographic Aficionados.

Behavioral and Social Sciences

Chang-ming Hsieh
Associate Professor, Social Work
https://socialwork.uic.edu/facultyandstaff/chang-ming-hsieh/

Chang-ming Hsieh is an Associate Professor in the Jane Addams College of Social Work where he also serves as Director of Graduate Studies. He received his M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University and Ph.D. in Social Welfare from The University of Pennsylvania. His research areas include quality of life and quality of care issues among older adults. Specifically, he is interested in the measurement of subjective well-being and the use of client satisfaction surveys to improve social services for older adults. He teaches Social Work Research, Program Evaluation and Social Welfare Policy and Services in the College of Social Work.

Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences

Thomas Driver
Professor, Chemistry
http://www2.chem.uic.edu/driver/page3/page3.html

Tom G. Driver is a Professor of Chemistry, a member of UICentre for Drug Discovery, and an associate member of the Translational Oncology Program in the University of Illinois Cancer Center.  His research program is funded by both NSF- and NIH funding agencies, and its goal is to develop new catalytic transformations that unlock and harness the reactivity embedded in azides and nitro-groups to enable the synthesis of challenging N-heterocycles.  Because N-heterocycles are ubiquitous in bioactive molecules, simplifying access to them is essential for the advancement of biological and medicinal studies.  As a participant in the UICentre for Drug Discovery, a collaborative effort with the Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, and the Cancer Center, the molecules synthesized in the Driver laboratory are translated into projects aimed at identifying, synthesizing and optimizing novel small molecule therapeutics.  The projects in his research program inspire, teach and mentor students in their professional development in chemistry, and is a proven fertile training ground: nine students have received their PhDs, one of whom is an Assistant Professor at the University of California Merced.  In addition to PhD students, seven undergraduates were co-authors on publications from the Driver laboratory, and five are currently pursuing or have completed their PhDs in chemistry at R1 universities.  Of these, three are women, and two were NSF- or NIH pre-doctoral fellows.  The accomplishments of his co-workers illustrate that his research program is not only producing high impact papers, but it is also training students who are successfully advancing in their scientific careers.

Fatemeh Khalili-Araghi
Assistant Professor, Physics
https://phys.uic.edu/physics/people/faculty-and-instructors/fatemeh-khalili-araghi

Fatemeh Khalili-Araghi is an assistant professor of Physics. She is a computational biophysicist by training. Her research is focused on two areas: (1) molecular dynamics simulations of membrane transport processes and (2) computational modeling of materials. Her research group uses state of the art technologies, i.e., supercomputers to model physical properties of bio- or nano-materials at the atomic level. She has developed new courses incorporating computational techniques into undergraduate curriculum.

Lin Li
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
https://mie.uic.edu/k-teacher/lin-li-phd/

Lin Li is an Associate Professor and founding Director of Sustainable Manufacturing Systems Research Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also serving as the Director of U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Assessment Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research interests are in sustainable manufacturing systems focusing on system-level energy efficiency management, electricity demand response, joint production and energy modeling and control, cost-effective cellulosic biofuel manufacturing systems, environmental sustainability of additive manufacturing processes, and electric vehicle battery remanufacturing. He has published 62 journal papers, 35 conference papers and 1 book chapter with h-index 23 and i10-index 42. As the Principal Investigator, he has received over three million external research funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and industry.  Lin Li is the recipient of 2012, 2013 and 2017 UIC College of Engineering Faculty Advising Award, 2013 UIC College of Engineering Faculty Research Award, 2014 UIC College of Engineering Faculty Teaching Award, 2016 UIC Teaching Recognition Program Award, and 2016 UIC College of Engineering Harold A. Simon Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is the member of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), IISE (Institute of Industrial and System Engineers), SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers) and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). He also serves as faculty advisor of IISE Chapter 895 in UIC. Under his leadership, the IISE UIC chapter has been elected as national Chapter Recognition Gold Award for continuous six years. Outside of UIC, he also serve as Founding Member, technical committee of Sustainable Production and Service Automation in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and Vice-Chair and Chair, Quality and Reliability Technical Committee, ASME Manufacturing Engineering Division (MED).

Life Sciences

Maria Barbolina
Associate Professor, Biopharmaceutical Sciences
https://pharmacy.uic.edu/people-resources/directory/mvb

Maria Barbolina is an Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy. Her main research focus is on understanding biological mechanisms of organ-specific metastases from ovarian carcinoma and therapy resistance. She also conducts collaborations on ovarian carcinoma with several investigators at UIC and universities in Chicagoland area (Northwestern University, University of Chicago), as well as at other universities in the Midwest. She also collaborates on an NIH-funded study on the mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disorders with Northwestern University. Her research has been continuously funded by the federal and private agencies and resulted in numerous publications. She has mentored several students in completing their PhD and MS theses. She actively contributes to coordinating and teaching of several courses in both PhD and PharmD curricula in the College of Pharmacy. She is also serving on several committees at the University, College, and Department levels. She had served on the Awards Committee (Life Sciences Division) in the past and found this opportunity to be very rewarding, as it allowed actively engaging in student-related activities and being able to support deserving students in their research endeavors.

Judith Behnsen
Assistant Professor, Microbiology and Immunology
https://medicine.uic.edu/directory/name/judith-behnsen/

I joined the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the College of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in 2016. My research focuses on the role of the microbiota during Salmonella infection. I am currently co-director of a graduate course, thesis committee member of two graduate students, mentor of a grant-writing course, have actively contributed to GEMS recruitment and have evaluated abstracts for the GEMS research day at UIC. I am deeply interested in fostering student development at all education levels. I am therefore looking forward to help support research activities of deserving graduate students through service on the Awards Committee.

Tanvi S. Bhatt
Associate Professor, Physical Therapy
https://ahs.uic.edu/physical-therapy/directory/bhatt-tanvi/

Dr. Bhatt is an Associate Professor with the Physical Therapy in the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Bhatt is the director of the Cognitive, Motor and Balance Rehabilitation Laboratory and co-director of the Clinical Gait and Motion Analysis laboratory. Dr. Bhatt’s research interest and expertise is in field of adaptive perturbation training for fall prevention. Her research involves investigating neuromechanical basis of balance recovery from external perturbations such as slips and trips and subsequently designing intervention paradigms for reducing fall-risk in healthy and pathological populations. Dr. Bhatt has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and has been extramurally funded since 2011. Currently she is the principle investigator of two NIH R01 grants pertaining to perturbation training for fall-risk prevention and recipient of the UIC’s Rising Star Researcher of the Year.  Dr. Bhatt’s currently coordinates the Adult Neuromuscular Dysfunction course within the DPT program and teaches in areas related to biomechanics, motor control and rehabilitation sciences within the MS program. Dr. Bhatt is very passionate about graduate mentoring and is currently mentoring 5 MS students and 5 PhD students. Her students have presented their research at several national and international conferences and won prestigious awards for the same

Alessandra S. Eustaquio
Assistant Professor, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy
https://eustaquio.lab.uic.edu/

Alessandra S. Eustaquio is an Assistant Professor holding appointment with the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy and the Center for Biomolecular Sciences. She joined UIC in August 2015, after being a Principal Scientist involved in drug discovery and development at Pfizer Inc. The Eustaquio laboratory aims to contribute to drug discovery and development from natural sources. Bacterial metabolites account for the majority of antibiotics in use in the clinic today. The Eustaquio lab uses state-of-the-art technology to predict the biosynthetic potential of bacteria based on their genome sequences and to obtain the encoded antibiotics. We are also interested in understanding how antibiotics are biosynthesized and how their production is regulated.

Alessandra teaches in the PhD and PharmD programs of the College of Pharmacy. She is passionate about mentoring students and postdocs and strongly supports UIC’s commitment to diversity and excellence.

Roberta Mason-Gamer
Professor, Biological Sciences
https://bios.uic.edu/bios/people/faculty/roberta-j-mason-gamer

I am an evolutionary biologist, and a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. I apply genetic methods to the study of plant diversification, and I am especially interested in processes that lead to genetic exchange among distinct species in the grass family. I currently have four PhD students in my lab, and I have mentored nine students through completion of their degrees (eight PhD and one MS). As a former Director of Graduate Studies in Biological Sciences (2007–2015), I oversaw many applications for Graduate College awards, so I am keenly aware of their importance for maintaining the high standards of the graduate programs in the Life Sciences. I am currently on the Awards Committee for a one-year appointment, and I have especially appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the research interests of students from other graduate programs.

Diversity Awards Committee Candidates

Arts and Humanities

Cynthia Blair
Associate Professor, History
https://hist.uic.edu/history/people/faculty/cynthia-blair

Cynthia Blair is an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of History.  Her research program interrogates the intersection of race and sexuality in American culture, focusing on the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and includes the study of black women’s sex work, race in U.S. popular culture, and the historical criminalization of black sexuality.  Cynthia currently serves on the Diversity Awards Committee and the LAS Executive Committee and has twice served on the Educational Policy Committee.  She hopes to continue as an elected member of the Diversity Awards Committee to support the important work of promoting diversity and inclusion in graduate education.

Sharon Oiga
Associate Professor, Graphic Design
http://design.uic.edu/people/sharon-oiga

Sharon Oiga is a graphic designer whose work questions and investigates the process of design—the ways in which ideas are expressed and disseminated, ranging from the micro level of experimental typographic form to the macro level of self-authoring and publishing. In her role at UIC, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in design, typography and thesis. Previously, Oiga has partnered with multidisciplinary design firms where she specialized in identity, branding, and publication design with collaborators in the science, health, education, arts, and business sectors. Oiga’s work—and her students’ coursework—is consistently recognized through awards, publications, exhibitions, and funding. She also received the Silver Circle Teaching Award. 

Oiga has been serving on numerous committees that review faculty, students, and curriculum, including the School of Design Executive Committee, Personnel Committee, and Commencement Awards Committee; the CADA Executive Committee, Distinguished Faculty Award Committee, and Director Review Committee; the Senate Committee on Educational Policy and the Senate External Relations & Public Service Committee (charged with reviewing Honorary Degree nominations); the Researcher of the Year Review Committee and the Campus Promotion & Tenure Recommendations Committee. External to UIC, she serves on boards that review creative works and conference programming, including the Chicago Design Archive and the international Society of Typographic Aficionados.

Daniel L. Sutherland
Associate Professor, Philosophy
https://phil.uic.edu/philosophy/people/faculty/sutherla

Daniel L. Sutherland is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy.  His work focuses on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of mathematics and science and the history and philosophy of mathematics.  He has been at UIC for 18 years.  As Director of Graduate Admissions for the Philosophy Department, he has been actively promoting diversity in philosophy.  He is currently serving on the Diversity Council and has been a mentor for the Summer Research Opportunities Program for undergraduates (SROP), and has also served on the SROP Executive Committee.  In addition, he has served multiple times on the LAS Education Policy Committee, which he is chairing in 2017-18, and on the Humanities Institute Fellowship Committee.   He believes that diversity in higher education is an important priority.

Behavioral and Social Sciences

Sharon Meraz
Associate Professor, Communication
https://comm.uic.edu/comm/people/faculty/sharon-meraz

I am an associate professor UIC’s Department of Communication, where I also serve as the Director of Graduate Studies.  My academic work in the intersection of technology and political engagement includes work on social movements, protests, social justice uprisings, and electoral politics (with recent developments in the study of hate speech online as it relates to minorities, immigrants, and muslim publics). I also explore how mass media’s ecology has been altered due to social media, and I work theoretically in new domains as it pertains to the growth of networks online, and its impact on the changed nature of public participation and involvement in news creation and political governance. As the Director of Graduate Studies, I am passionate about ensuring a diverse graduate student population, and would be excited to serve in university committees that steer efforts towards a furthered diverse campus. I currently also serve on UIC’s SROP committee.

Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences

Laura L. Anderson
Associate Professor, Chemistry
http://chem.uic.edu/profiles/laura-anderson/

Laura Anderson is an Associate Professor of Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from UC Berkeley in 2005, completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at UC Irvine, and has been at UIC since 2008. Her research interests focus on the development of new reactivity modes to access stereodefined heteroatom-enriched synthons and she has graduated 5 Ph.D. students. She is currently serving on the LAS Executive Committee, has previously been a WISEST facilitator, and is interested in the opportunity to serve the Graduate College in their efforts to continue to attract and support talented graduate students.

Life Sciences

William Walden
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology
https://chicago.medicine.uic.edu/education/masters-and-doctorate-programs/office-of-graduate-diversity-programs-ogdp/people/name/william-walden/

Statement not received.