Dean’s Newsletter: Spring 2026

Dear Faculty, Staff, Students, and Friends of CSSH:

As we reach the end of another academic year in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities, I remain inspired by the resilience and endurance of our community. This year has asked a great deal of us. The political climate surrounding higher education grew more fraught, and we have not been immune to the financial constraints facing other institutions of higher education in the US. Yet we have persevered in advancing CSSH’s mission.

Faculty continued to pursue rigorous, meaningful scholarship even as the ground shifted beneath them. Students brought curiosity and dedication to their studies, and in many cases found new vitality from the very challenges that surrounded them. Our staff have more than risen to the occasion, providing the much-needed support to keep our community of learners and faculty running despite real constraints.

The achievements you’ll read about in this newsletter did not happen in a vacuum. They happened amidst real challenges, which makes them even more worth celebrating.

Below, you’ll learn about some of our events and accomplishments from the past academic year—starting at the end, with the CSSH Commencement Celebration, where we celebrated the graduate and undergraduate students who have allowed us to help them prepare for lives as change agents and empathetic leaders.

2026 College Celebration at Leader Bank Pavilion

For the first time, our college graduation ceremony was held at the Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston’s Seaport neighborhood, and the change of setting matched the spirit of a class that has navigated so much that was new and unfamiliar. More than 800 students crossed the stage, each one representing years of effort, sacrifice, and growth. Watching everyone gather — families and friends filling seats in the audience, our proud faculty in their regalia, and the unmistakably joyful energy — reminded me of why our work matters.

Northeastern Global News shared a story highlighting the CSSH Celebration, calling out our wonderful and inspiring student speakers, Liza Sheehy and Bella Wood. Liza graduated with a BA in History, Culture, and Law, and leaves a digital legacy at Northeastern through her work on the Jewish Migration Project. Bella Wood received her Master’s in Public Administration from the college’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and will bring her CSSH experience to her role as the founder of Ranch Lab, which promotes conservation models in agricultural settings across the American West.

Congratulations to the entire class of 2026!

Student Honors

I am continually inspired by the dedication, creativity, and excellence our students bring to everything they pursue. From groundbreaking research and artistic achievements to community leadership, our students’ accomplishments reflect not only their own hard work but the vibrant, supportive community we have built together.

Several students received national scholarship awards. Recent CSSH grad Debbie Madueke, BS Economics and Business Administration ’19, was named a 2026 Schwarzman Scholar and will take up a fellowship at one of China’s elite research institutions, Tsinghua University. Sophie Schmults, BA English and Criminal Justice ’26, received a Harry. S. Truman Scholarship in support of her current and future leadership, public service, and academic achievement. Segenet Andulem Mulaw, BS Sociology ’26, and Brittani Westberry, BA Political Science ’27, have received U.S. Department of State Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study abroad. And Madeline Roma, BS International Affairs and Criminal Justice ’26, has received the Gilman-McCain Scholarship for study at the University of Oxford.

Our undergraduates demonstrate excellence not only as individuals but also through teamwork. The Fiscal Challenge Team in the Economics Department placed third in the country at the finals in Washington, DC. In the spring, CSSH (with support from Worcester State University) hosted an Open Bioethics Bowl tournament, with 10 teams from across the country participating. One of our two teams achieved first place and the other placed third. Northeastern’s International Relations Council was awarded first place at this year’s Model NATO and Arab League conferences. Congratulations to all the students and faculty involved in these competitions!

You can read more of our students’ accomplishments in the Endnotes.

Faculty Accomplishments

Like our incredible students, the faculty at CSSH continued to make an impact with their achievements. Below are some of the highlights from the past year. A comprehensive list of faculty accomplishments can be found on our site.

Several of our faculty received prestigious national fellowships and professional recognition. Ineke Marshall, Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Criminal Justice, has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Criminology. Kris Manjapra, Stearns Trustee Professor of History and Global Studies, was recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Intellectual and Cultural History, to work on a book about death under colonialist regimes. Philip Thai, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship to complete his book, Front Companies and Red Capitalists: How China Circumvented Economic Containment in the Cold War. The book chronicles a hidden but critical history of how American and international sanctions against China were enforced, sidestepped, and challenged during the Cold War. Finally, on the Oakland campus, Juliana Spahr, Professor of English, Mills College and CSSH Faculty Affiliate, has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her collection, Ars Poeticas, a politically charged meditation on poetry’s role in what she describes as “dark times.”

A number of faculty received 2026 CSSH Research Development Initiative (RDI) awards. These faculty members will receive seed funding to help them develop proposals for significant external research support. They include Kim Lucas, Professor of the Practice in Public Policy and Economic Justice, to host a Massachusetts Early Childhood Policy Research Summit; Shuo Zhang, Assistant Professor of Economics and Computer Science, to conduct “The Unintended Consequences of AI Review Summaries” research project; Xiaoxiao Shen, Assistant Research Professor of Political Science, for “Virtual Soft Power: Can VR Experiences Shift Attitudes Toward China?;” Liz Bucar, Professor of Religion and Dean’s Leadership Fellow, to research a new book, Beyond Mortality: Religious Frameworks for Dying Well; and Qianqian Zhang-Wu, Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator of Multilingual Writing, for “Humanizing AI Through Translingual Writing Research.”

Faculty continue to explore appropriate ways of working with AI to enhance teaching and learning. For example, Yanet Canavan, Principal Lecturer in Spanish, created a Spanish chatbot to help students practice and refine their language skills. Faculty have demonstrated innovative applications of AI tools in several Pedagogy in Progress workshops as well at the university’s AI Showcase in February. Qianqian Zhang-Wu, Associate Professor in English and Coordinator of Multi-Lingual Writing, published an article on multi-lingual writers use of Generative AI in professional settings.

Faculty and Staff Retirements

We are happy for our colleagues who are opening new chapters after decades of devoted service. Among those retiring are Christopher Bosso, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science; Margaret Burnham, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of Africana Studies; Neal Lerner, Professor of English; Alan West-Duran, Professor of Cultures, Societies and Global Studies; and Sally Solomon, Associate Director of Undergraduate Student Support. They have shaped the intellectual lives of thousands of students, built programs from the ground up, mentored junior colleagues, and set the standards by which we measure excellence in teaching, scholarship, and student support. Collectively, they represent decades of commitment to CSSH and Northeastern and to the students whose lives they touched, often in ways those students are still discovering. We wish them rest, adventure, and the satisfaction of knowing that what they built here will endure long after they’ve moved on. See the full list of retirees in the Endnotes.

Notable Events from the Spring Semester

Across our units, faculty and invited speakers gathered to wrestle with the questions that matter most: how we understand the past to help shape the future, how we share our cultures and stories, and what it means to live in a thoughtful society.

The English Department hosted “American Indian Sovereignty, Law, Writing, and Self-Determination: A Northeastern University Colloquium,” a one-day hybrid event consisting of two panels on American Indian law, writing, sovereignty and self-determination. Attendees heard from the Wampanoag communities at Mashpee and Aquinnah in Massachusetts and discussions and interpretations of literary works, archival documents and legal philosophical texts in the context of Federal Indian Law. The department also featured Professor Annette Vee at the annual Hanson Lecture. Professor Vee, a leading voice in humanities and AI, gave a spirited keynote exploring the long history of writing automation and what it means to be human.

The School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs celebrated their 20^th anniversary this year with a series of events entitled “The Future We Design.” One event focused on the iconic “Soiling of Old Glory” photograph, featuring Ted Landsmark, Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, to explore how cultural expression documents injustice, preserves collective memory, and catalyzes policy transformation. Another session, “Leadership in Sustainability,” asked what it means to lead in a way that serves future generations though a panel discussion of policy innovation happens at every scale.

The Center for International Affairs and World Cultures (CIAWC) hosted “Dominating the Domains: Great Power Competition in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction” with guest speakers Esther D. Brimmer, Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, and James H. Binger, Senior Fellow in Global Governance at the Council of Foreign Relations. The discussion addressed intensifying great power competition in global domains.

Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week (HAGAW) annually honors Holocaust and genocide victims, survivors, and resistance. This year, Northwestern University Professor Emeritus Peter Hayes delivered the 33^rd Annual Robert Salomon Morton Lecture. Professor Peter Hayes traced the ways Germany’s leaders became deeply implicated in—and, in many respects, indispensable to—“the normalization of barbarism.” This sobering discussion was followed by the Philip N. Backstrom Jr. Holocaust Survivor Lecture featuring Suzanne Resnick, who was born in Paris and experienced the German occupation of France, the arrest and deportation of her father, and the mass roundup of Jews. She spoke of her personal experience surviving the war in hiding with her mother. Melina Coy, BS Business and Political Science ’26, the 2026 Gideon Klein Holocaust Legacy Foundation Scholarship recipient, shared stories from her grandfather’s life through the Holocaust.

“A Litany for Survival: Black Studies, Black Scholars, and Black Students Today” was hosted by our Africana Studies Program, bringing together a panel to discuss the state of Black Studies with Kabria Baumgartner, Dean’s Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies; Caleb Gayle, Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Africana Studies; and Régine Jean-Charles, Chair of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies, Director of Africana Studies, and Dean’s Professor of Culture and Social Justice and Africana Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and panelist Richard Harris, Director of Northeastern’s Program in Multicultural Engineering, College of Engineering, and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Africana Studies.

Last but not least, “We Count & Contest: A Symposium Honoring Margaret Burnham” was held in April to honor Margaret Burnham, University Distinguished Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of Africana Studies, as she retires from teaching. Professor Burnham has been a force of nature in the area of restorative justice—a collaborative approach to crime that repairs harm by bringing victims, offenders, and community members together, rather than focusing solely on punishment.