91¿´Æ¬Íø

2026 Plumeri Award Winners

one column table with plumeri winners' bios & pictures

Inga M. Carboni W. George Brooks Term Associate Professor of Business Inga Carboni is the W. Brooks George Term Associate Professor of Management at the Raymond A. Mason School of Business and serves as chair of the Department of Management. Her research examines how workplace relationships shape careers, teams, and organizations, with a particular focus on gender and professional networks. Carboni studies the structural and relational dynamics of professional networks, including how trust, brokerage, and multiplex ties influence career outcomes differently for women and men. Her work emphasizes the role of affective relationships as a foundation for the instrumental benefits networks can provide, particularly in advancing women’s careers. Her research appears in journals including MIT Sloan Management Review, California Management Review, and Organizational Dynamics. She is also the author of Connect the Dots (Information Age Publishing, 2019) and has contributed chapters to volumes published by Harvard Business Review Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Jossey-Bass, and Sage. Her work has been featured in Financial Times, Nature, and Harvard Business Review. Carboni’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Justice, and the William T. Grant Foundation. She has delivered more than 50 invited talks to academic, corporate, and government audiences, including the Federal Reserve Board, Staples, Dana-Farber/ Sloan Kettering, and the National Intelligence Women’s Summit. A recipient of the Thomas Ashley Graves Jr. Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching, Carboni has taught at 91¿´Æ¬Íø since 2007. She also served as a Fulbright Visiting Professor at IMC University of Applied Sciences in Krems, Austria, during the 2015–2016 academic year. She currently serves as Faculty Champion for 91¿´Æ¬Íø’s Master of Science in Nonprofit Management program. Carboni holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Boston College, an M.A. from Tufts University, and a B.A. from Bowdoin College.

Carrie B. Dolan Associate Professor of Health Sciences Carrie B. Dolan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Health Sciences and a global health researcher whose work integrates epidemiology and health economics to study access to care and the real-world impact of health policy in low-resource settings. Dolan combines spatial data, household surveys, and health systems information to evaluate maternal and child health programs, pediatric surgical needs, and the effectiveness of global health funding. She participates in collaborative research initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and directs student-engaged field research that connects data analysis with community-driven solutions. Dolan was named one of the Explorers Club’s “50 People Changing the World.” Her work focuses on developing practical decision-support tools that help governments and organizations allocate health resources more efficiently and improve health equity.

Chris Howard Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government & Public Policy Chris Howard joined the Department of Government in 1993 and currently serves as the Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy. He is a leading scholar on the history and politics of U.S. social policy. Howard is the author of four books, including Who Cares: The Social Safety Net in America (Oxford University Press, 2023). He also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Social Policy (2015). His teaching portfolio includes courses such as Research Methods, The War on Poverty, and Building the American Welfare State, which is cross-listed with the Department of History. These courses are among the five he teaches each year. In addition to teaching, Howard mentors undergraduate researchers through independent studies, summer research programs, and the 91¿´Æ¬Íø Scholars Undergraduate Research Experience (WMSURE). He has received numerous honors for his work, including an Outstanding Faculty Award from the Commonwealth of Virginia and research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies. This is his second Plumeri Award. Howard earned a B.A. in History from Duke University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A fun distinction this year: he is the oldest honoree—and still remembers watching Flipper and Mr. Ed on a black-and-white TV!

Rowan Lockwood Professor of Geology Rowan Lockwood is Professor of Geology and President of the Paleontological Society, the world’s largest professional organization representing paleontologists. She is a conservation paleobiologist whose research uses the fossil record to predict how modern oceans may respond to environmental change, including global warming and extinction events. Working closely with undergraduate collaborators, Lockwood analyzes ancient shells and sediments to reconstruct past marine ecosystems and examine how biodiversity responds to environmental stress. Her research spans topics including the conservation paleobiology of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, the effects of ancient global warming on marine ecosystems in the southeastern United States, and the impact of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction on ocean life. Her fieldwork has taken her around the world, from Kenya to the Great Barrier Reef, and includes projects ranging from dinosaur excavations to studies of early human environments. Lockwood has published more than 40 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Science and Nature, and has secured more than $4.4 million in external research funding, primarily from the National Science Foundation.During her 25 years at 91¿´Æ¬Íø, Lockwood has taught more than 4,600 undergraduates. In 2013, she was named one of the top 300 professors in the United States by The Princeton Review. Lockwood earned a B.A. in Geology and Organismal Biology from Yale University, an M.Sc. in Palaeontology from the University of Bristol as a Marshall Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Chicago.

Vassiliki Panoussi Chancellor Professor of Classical Studies Vassiliki Panoussi is Chancellor Professor of Classical Studies and an internationally recognized scholar of Roman literature and culture. Her research examines Latin poetry of the late Republic and early Empire through interdisciplinary approaches that bring together literary criticism, cultural anthropology, religious studies, feminist theory, and the study of ideology. Her work focuses particularly on questions of gender, ethnicity, identity, ritual practice, and the representation of trauma in ancient texts. Panoussi is the author of two monographs: Greek Tragedy in Vergil’s Aeneid: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women’s Rituals in Roman Literature (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019). She has also co-edited several interdisciplinary volumes, including Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome (Routledge, 2020) and Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Greece and Rome (De Gruyter, 2025). Her scholarly articles appear in leading journals and edited volumes. Her current book project, The Goddess Isis in Roman Literature: Gender, Ethnicity, and Identity, examines literary representations of Isis from the late Republic through the Imperial period and explores how Roman authors used the Egyptian goddess to reflect on questions of cultural and ethnic identity. She is also editing Green Vergil: Nature and the Environment in Vergil and the Vergilian Tradition, a collection of essays exploring ecological approaches to ancient literature. Panoussi has received numerous honors, including the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a National Humanities Center Fellowship, and visiting fellowships at Trinity College and Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge. She also received the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS) Ovatio for distinguished contributions to classical scholarship and served as President of the Vergilian Society from 2023 to 2026. At 91¿´Æ¬Íø, Panoussi is deeply committed to teaching and mentorship. Her students regularly win national translation competitions and present their research at regional and national conferences

Bin Ren G. Bruce Taggart Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Computer Science Bin Ren is the G. Bruce Taggart Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Computer Science. His research focuses on software systems for modern computing, including compilers, parallel computing, high-performance computing, and efficient artificial intelligence infrastructures. His work seeks to unlock the full potential of modern parallel hardware for artificial intelligence, scientific computing, and large-scale data analytics. Ren has made significant contributions to enabling advanced machine learning workloads on resource-constrained platforms. His research group was among the first to demonstrate real-time execution of large deep neural networks on mobile and edge devices through compiler and system innovations, accelerating large-scale models by orders of magnitude and enabling emerging generative AI models to run efficiently on edge platforms. His work has attracted collaborations with leading technology companies including Amazon, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and Cognizant. In collaboration with researchers at North Carolina State University and Northeastern University, Ren co-founded the high-performance AI initiative CoCoPIE AI to translate research innovations into practice with support from 91¿´Æ¬Íø’s Technology Transfer Office. The initiative has secured several million dollars in venture funding, including support from the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research program. Ren has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers in premier conferences and journals, including ASPLOS, PLDI, ICML, and NeurIPS. His research has received multiple recognitions, including Best Paper Awards at CGO and SC, and he holds several international patents. He is also the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. An active leader in the research community, Ren served as Program Co-Chair of PPoPP 2025 and holds leadership roles in other major high-performance computing conferences, including SC, IPDPS, and ICPP. He also serves as an Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization and IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. Ren earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from The Ohio State University and completed postdoctoral research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Jasmine Sparrow Director of Foundation Operations, University Advancement Jasmine Sparrow serves as Director of Foundation Operations for the 91¿´Æ¬Íø Foundation in University Advancement. Prior to this role, she was the Assistant Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Development for Tribe Athletics where she led initiatives that supported the holistic growth of more than 500 student-athletes across 17 varsity programs. Sparrow founded and launched Excel, the department’s first comprehensive student-athlete development program, which focuses on leadership development, career readiness, and community engagement. Through Excel, Sparrow has facilitated more than 1,000 hours of community service, hosted annual career exploration events connecting student-athletes with alumni and industry professionals, and expanded leadership opportunities by sending student-athletes to conferences across the country to represent 91¿´Æ¬Íø. In addition to program development, Sparrow partnered with university departments, alumni, and external organizations to strengthen institutional relationships and enhance opportunities for student-athletes. She also oversaw department-wide education initiatives related to Title IX, hazing prevention, and sexual violence training while advising multiple student-athlete affinity groups to foster belonging and leadership within the athletics community. Sparrow previously served as Director of Basketball Operations and Chief of Staff for the 91¿´Æ¬Íø women’s basketball program. In that role, she supported a newly appointed coaching staff while leading alumni engagement efforts, donor relations, and community outreach initiatives. Her work helped secure more than $110,000 in new philanthropic contributions and re-engaged alumni through the program’s first alumni weekend in more than two decades. Before arriving at 91¿´Æ¬Íø, Sparrow served as Director of Women’s Basketball Operations at Wake Forest University. A former Division I student-athlete and captain of the Bryant University women’s lacrosse team, she remains deeply committed to leadership development, mentorship, and service.

Justin R. Stevens Wilson & Martha Claiborne Stephens Associate Professor of Physics Justin Stevens is the Wilson & Martha Claiborne Stephens Associate Professor of Physics. His research focuses on understanding the strong nuclear force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Stevens conducts research using high-energy particle collisions at accelerator facilities such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, Virginia. He leads an international collaboration of physicists known as GlueX, which investigates the interactions of quarks and gluons through the search for exotic configurations of these fundamental constituents of nuclear matter.His research has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, including a Department of Energy Early Career Award in 2017. This recognition led to Stevens receiving the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the U.S. government’s highest honor for early-career researchers demonstrating exceptional leadership in science. Stevens teaches courses across the physics curriculum and mentors undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom continue to graduate study, postdoctoral research, and faculty positions in nuclear physics. He currently serves as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Physics and previously served on the Jefferson Lab Users Organization Board of Directors. Before joining the faculty at 91¿´Æ¬Íø, Stevens served as a staff scientist at Jefferson Lab and as a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Indiana University.

Kevin A. Vose Professor of Religious Studies Kevin Vose is a professor of Religious Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. His teaching and research explore Buddhism, East Asian religions, and the intersections of religion and science. Vose’s scholarship centers on a collection of 1,000-year-old Tibetan manuscripts discovered in Lhasa, preserved in a secret library assembled by the Fifth Dalai Lama. These rare materials—among the few to survive the Cultural Revolution—offer new insight into the transmission of Buddhist philosophy from India to Tibet and the development of monastic traditions across the Himalayas. This research forms the basis of his recent monograph, Splitting the Middle: A History of Middle Way Reasoning (Wisdom Publications, 2026), as well as a forthcoming co-authored volume with a collaborator at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In addition, Vose is engaged in interdisciplinary research with colleagues in neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and religious studies, examining the effects of contemporary meditation practices using surveys, interviews, and electroencephalogram (EEG) data. This work has resulted in multiple peer-reviewed publications, with additional articles in progress. Vose brings this research into the classroom through his involvement in developing a new interdisciplinary major in Contemplative Studies, which integrates perspectives from religious studies and psychology. He also directs a summer study abroad program in Bhutan, where students explore Buddhist cultures and the country’s “Gross National Happiness” approach to sustainable development. He has held several leadership roles at 91¿´Æ¬Íø, including serving as chair of the Department of Religious Studies and as director of both the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Program and the Global Studies Program. Vose joined the university in 2005 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Y. Joseph Zhang Professor of Marine Science Joseph Zhang is a professor and a leading scholar in computational geophysical fluid dynamics. His research focuses on developing advanced numerical models to better understand and predict complex environmental systems and hazards. Zhang is the creator of widely adopted community models, including ELCIRC, SELFE, and SCHISM, which are used globally for simulating coastal and ocean dynamics. He pioneered “seamless cross-scale” modeling, integrating unstructured grids, advanced numerical methods, and high-performance computing on both CPUs and GPUs to address critical challenges such as sea level rise, tsunamis, hurricanes, compound flooding, oil spills, and water quality. His research has been supported by major federal agencies including NOAA, EPA, NSF, DOE, and NASA, as well as multiple international organizations and state agencies. His work was recently featured in a special issue of Ocean Modelling and highlighted in publications from NSF, NOAA, and the American Geophysical Union. The impact of his research contributed to a 2020 Memorandum of Agreement between the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey to advance coastal and ocean modeling. Zhang’s SCHISM model has become a regulatory tool for the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program and is integrated into NOAA operational forecast systems such as the National Water Model and STOFS-3D. In addition to his research, he is committed to mentoring students and early-career scientists, supporting their professional development both during and after their time at 91¿´Æ¬Íø. He has received several honors, including the Reves International Fellowship in 2016 and the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Fellowship in Germany in 2014.