Outstanding Postdoc and Faculty Excellence in Mentoring Awards

Professional Development and 博士后事务 (PDPA) strives to promote postdocs’ professional and career development and recognize them for their contributions to research, university service and our community. We want to congratulate all nominees, and especially our two finalists and inaugural recipient.

Outstanding Postdoc Award

Outstanding Postdoc Award Winner: Dr. Tatiana Padilla

Tatiana Padilla is a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Innovation in Social Science at Boston University. Her research explores the intersections of inequality, immigration and public policy, with a focus on the impacts of the criminal legal system on marginalized communities. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Cornell University and has been recognized for her scholarship by the Population Association of America. Tatiana leads the RAIDS Project, a large-scale initiative documenting immigration enforcement in the U.S., and is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of researchers. She is also a passionate educator, having taught courses on U.S. immigration and policy analysis at Boston University.

Dr. Maria Victoria Moya

Maria Victoria Moya completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at The Rockefeller University in New York, NY. There, she worked to uncover the molecular underpinnings of neuronal vulnerability in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. For her postdoctoral training, she joined the lab of Dr. Michael Economo in the Biomedical Engineering department at Boston University. Here, she is developing new experimental approaches to map brain circuits at high-scale by applying cutting edge imaging and molecular profiling techniques. She has received numerous awards, including a Henry Grass Rising Stars in Neuroscience award, a Leading Edge Fellowship, and most recently, an Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award (K99/R00) from the BRAIN Initiative. In her independent lab, she plans to apply her diverse skillset to understand how precise neural connectivity is established during development, and how it can change in response to disease.

Dr. Najwa Mayer

Najwa Mayer is an Assistant Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyola Marymount University and a member of the inaugural postdoctoral cohort of the Society of Fellows at Boston University. She is an interdisciplinary cultural scholar of race, gender, sexuality, and Islam in the US, working at the intersections of politics, aesthetics, and critical theory. Her first book manuscript examines the invention and conventions of “Muslim American” popular cultures through the interrelations between racial, sexual, and secular politics, genre forms, and global markets. Her research has received support from the Social Science Research Council, Andrew Mellon Foundation, and Henry Luce Foundation, among others. She holds a PhD in American Studies from Yale University.

---

Excellence in Mentoring Postdocs Award

The purpose of the award for Excellence in Mentoring Postdocs is to recognize and honor a BU faculty member for their significant contributions to mentoring postdocs, positively impacting their training and career trajectory at BU and beyond. The need to train and mentor the next generation of scholars, scientists, teachers, faculty and professionals and the important role of faculty members in this endeavor will be highlighted through this award. The award also shines light on the unique position of postdocs in BU’s research enterprise and higher education mission.

Excellence in Mentoring Postdocs Award Winner: Dr. Mary Dunlop.

妈

Finalists

Dr. Kimberly Bertrand

Kimberly Bertrand, ScD, Associate Professor of Medicine, is an epidemiologist focusing primarily on cancer risk and outcomes in Black women, who suffer a disproportionate burden of cancer in the U.S. She is currently Multiple Principal Investigator of the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS), a prospective cohort study of over 59,000 Black women begun in 1995. Within the BWHS and other large cohorts, she has led studies of breast cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other cancers. In addition to her research efforts, Dr. Bertrand is deeply committed to teaching and mentoring the next generation of research scientists and is dedicated to promoting an inclusive and supportive scientific and academic environment where trainees from all backgrounds can thrive.

Dr. Naomi Caselli

Naomi Caselli is an Assistant Professor of Deaf Education, co-director of the Deaf Center, and the director of the AI and Education initiative at Boston University. She is hearing, and her first languages are American Sign Language (ASL) and English. She leads a research team that works to make research on language—across education, computer science, linguistics, psychology, and medicine—inclusive of sign languages, and to ensure all deaf children have access to language.