USC Dornsife News Briefs highlight faculty research studies, newly published books, awards, grants and other news showcasing faculty members’ work at USC Dornsife. All USC Dornsife faculty are eligible to submit content.
(The diverse opinions expressed in News Briefs do not necessarily represent the views of USC Dornsife administration or USC.)
Vera Gluscevic, associate professor of physics and astronomy, is among 20 early career scientists selected for a Scialog Collaborative Innovation Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The award is one of eight projects funded in the inaugural year of Scialog: Early Science with the LSST, a three-year initiative supporting foundational research for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Gluscevic will receive a $60,000 award to support her work on “A Unified Model of Stellar Systems in LSST-Y1 for Dark Matter Inference” with Alexander Ji of the University of Chicago.
Percival Everett, Distinguished Professor of English, was awarded the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for his novel James. Awarded by the American Library Association, the medal and accompanying $5,000 prize honors the best books for adult readers published in the United States. James has already received the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and is a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award.
Peyman Nojoumian, professor (teaching) of Persian, has been elected president of the American Association of Teachers of Persian (AATP) for a two-year term beginning February. The AATP is a nonprofit professional organization focused on advancing and improving the study and teaching of Persian language and culture. It promotes research in Persian language, linguistics and literature while fostering communication and professional collaboration among its members. USC Dornsife is the association’s eighth institutional member.
Dorinne Kondo, professor of American studies and ethnicity and anthropology, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) fellowship supporting her book project The Art of Vulnerability: Sexual and Racial Violence, Disability, and Asian/American Performance. The highly competitive fellowship — NEH funded just 7% of the applications it received — supports Kondo’s exploration of pressing social issues through the book, which will examine the intersections of race, disability and performance, advancing conversations on vulnerability and justice.
A USC team has won the 2024 Quantum Computing Challenge. The winners were announced recently at the Q2B conference in California’s Silicon Valley.
Santiago Morales, assistant professor of psychology and pediatrics, has received the 2024 Kucharski Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology. This award recognizes early-career researchers making significant contributions to the field. Morales’ research explores how early differences in emotion regulation and temperament shape socioemotional development and risk for psychopathology. Honoring the memory of David Kucharski, the award includes a cash prize, an engraved plaque and an invitation to present at the society’s annual meeting, highlighting Morales’s innovative work and its impact on advancing developmental psychobiology.
Morteza Dehghani, professor of psychology and computer science, has been named a 2024 Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. This honor recognizes his outstanding contributions to personality and social psychology, including his leadership, research, pedagogy and advocacy for the field. Dehghani’s work combines machine learning and natural language processing to uncover cognitive and psychological patterns in social discourse, offering new insights into moral cognition. The fellowship celebrates his dedication to advancing understanding in the discipline and his role in shaping its future through innovation and influence.
