Inaugural Recipients of the Shibulal Family Career Development Professorship and the Virginia Wetherill Career Development Professorship in the Humanities
From Dr. Jean Morrison, University Provost and Chief Academic Officer
This past September, as you may remember, we had the pleasure of recognizing a handful of talented junior faculty emerging as future leaders within their respective fields through the award of Career Development Professorships.
This winter, we are delighted to announce the establishment of two new Career Development Professorships in the areas of data science and the humanities. Made possible through the generous backing of BU Trustee S.D. Shibulal (MET ’88) and his family, the Shibulal Family Career Development Professorship supports the research of rising faculty within the newly created Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences. The Virginia Wetherill Career Development Professorship in the Humanities, meanwhile, is endowed by the estate of distinguished BU alumna Virginia Wetherill (CAS ’52) and recognizes excellence in humanities scholarship within the College of Arts & Sciences.
As with other Career Development Professorships, each appointment provides an annual research fund for the faculty member. Two Shibulal Family Career Development Professorships will be awarded over the coming year – the first appointment begins in January, while a second awardee will be named in fall 2021. One Virginia Wetherill Career Development Professorship will be awarded this year, with that appointment beginning in January. In both instances, new appointments are expected to be announced every three years. Nominations are submitted by academic deans, and awardees are selected by the Office of the Provost.
This year’s inaugural Shibulal and Wetherill Career Development Professors have been cited for their extraordinary accomplishments in their areas of study, for their innovative approaches to research and teaching, and for high-impact, original scholarship that has potential to redefine their respective disciplines. Through their hard work and forward-focused exploration, they are demonstrating firsthand BU’s continued and growing commitment as a global research university. I am pleased to announce this year’s Shibulal Family and Virginia Wetherill Career Development Professors:
Shibulal Family Career Development Professorship
Krzysztof Onak
Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences, Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences
Krzysztof Onak’s expertise lies in the field of algorithms for big data and their applications to AI and machine learning. His main research interests concern big data computation with limited resources, including algorithms for modern parallel and distributed systems, sublinear-time algorithms, and streaming. He joins BU in January 2021 from IBM, where he has been a researcher in the mathematics of AI at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. He holds a doctorate in computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s in computer science and bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from University of Warsaw (Poland). He completed his postdoctoral work as a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University.
Virginia Wetherill Career Development Professorship in the Humanities
Kate Lindsey
Assistant Professor of Linguistics, College of Arts & Sciences
Kate Lindsey is an expert in phonology, whose research analyzes sound patterns and variations across underdocumented/understudied languages and cultures. Her current research and fieldwork examine the Ende language of Papua New Guinea: specifically the interaction of so-called ‘ghost elements’ pervasive in Ende phonology, as well as supporting the first reference grammar of Ende and theoretical analyses of vowel harmony and phonological reduplication. She received her doctorate in linguistics from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree in world languages and cultures from American University.
Please join me in congratulating these talented educators for these achievements, and in wishing them the best of luck with their teaching and research in the years ahead.