Brandeis Magazine

Neuroscientist Christine Grienberger, assistant professor of biology, has earned the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, along with $1.5 million in research funding. The award, which comes from the National Institutes of Health, will support her study of the underlying processes in the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit, a network of brain regions that can be severely affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Grienberger has also been selected as a 2023 Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences and a 2023 Sloan Research Fellow in Neuroscience.

Jeffrey Shoulson, a scholar in English and Jewish literature, has joined Brandeis as dean of arts and sciences, succeeding Dorothy Hodgson. In this role, he serves as the chief academic and administrative officer at the School of Arts and Sciences. Most recently, he was senior vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Connecticut.

Carmen Aguilar has been named the vice president of the Rabb School of Continuing Studies. Previously, she was dean of continuing studies at Providence College, and dean of workforce and community education at Bristol Community College. Aguilar succeeds Lynne Rosansky at Rabb.

David Harris, P’05, H’22, has been elected to the university’s Board of Trustees. From 1990-2022, Harris served as CEO of the American Jewish Committee, building the organization’s influence by creating strong relationships with Jewish community organizations and more than 100 national governments worldwide.

Ilan Troen ’63, the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Professor of Israel Studies, Emeritus, is a co-recipient of the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Association for Israel Studies. The award recognizes a senior scholar in any field of Israel studies whose contributions have significantly shaped the field. Troen is the founding director of Brandeis’ Schusterman Center for Israel Studies.

Sabine von Mering, professor of German, and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, is one of the 2023 Public Voices Fellows on the Climate Crisis, convened by the OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The fellows are 20 climate-change thought leaders, many of whom are from backgrounds historically underrepresented in mainstream media. Von Mering has co-authored Brandeis’ three most-recent climate action plans.

Grace Han, assistant professor of chemistry and the Landsman Career Development Chair in the Sciences, is one of 18 recipients of the 2023 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, given to outstanding chemical-sciences faculty in the first five years of their academic careers. The award includes an unrestricted research grant of $100,000. Han’s lab at Brandeis focuses on light-matter interaction in a variety of material systems.

In its 2024 listing, the Princeton Review ranked Brandeis University No. 1 in its Students Most Engaged in Community Service category. The ranking is based on how strongly students agree that the students at their school are committed to community service.