USC Dornsife News Briefs

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.

Richard Brutchey, professor of chemistry, has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), a United Kingdom-based professional society boasting more than 50,000 members globally. Fellowship represents the most senior category of membership and recognizes an influential position in the chemistry community, impact on scientific advancement, and a commitment to raising wider awareness of the value and contributions of the chemical sciences through public service, outreach and policy development.

Sarah Gualtieri, professor of American studies and ethnicity, history and Middle East studies, has received the Mary C. Turpie Prize from the American Studies Association. The award recognizes her exceptional contributions to teaching, advising and program development in American studies at the local and regional levels. The association honored Gualtieri for her impactful work on U.S. imperial interests in Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) and their domestic consequences, particularly the rise of anti-Arab racism in the U.S. domestic sphere.

Remo Rohs, founding chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology and professor of quantitative and computational biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy and computer science, has been elected a fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA). Rohs is one of four fellows from the quantitative and computational biology department to receive this honor. Fengzhu Sun, professor of quantitative and computational biology and mathematics, was also elected this year, and Nobel laureate Arieh Warshel, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Quantitative and Computational Biology and Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry as well as University Professor Michael Waterman were previously elected. AAIA is a global, academic, nonprofit organization formed by scholars who share a focus on advancing artificial intelligence.

Fengzhu Sun, professor of quantitative and computational biology and mathematics, has been elected a fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association. The association is a global, academic, nonprofit organization formed by scholars who share a focus on advancing AI. Sun is one of four fellows from the quantitative and computational biology department to have received this honor, joining Remo Rohs, founding chair of the Department of Quantitative and Computational Biology and professor of quantitative and computational biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy and computer science, who was also elected this year, as well as Nobel laureate Arieh Warshel, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Quantitative and Computational Biology and Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry, and University Professor Emeritus Michael Waterman, who were previously elected.