Tulane School of Science and Engineering Welcomes New Faculty for 2026-2027
The Tulane School of Science and Engineering is pleased to welcome a new group of faculty members for the 2026-2027 academic year. Representing disciplines from chemistry and psychology to seismology and electrical engineering, these scholars bring fresh research, teaching experience, and perspective to SSE's departments. The school is excited for them to join the community and begin their work with students and colleagues.
Anika Auni joins the Department of Chemistry as a Visiting Assistant Professor. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Washington State University, where her dissertation examined the role of zinc-zirconium mixed oxides as supports for single-atom catalysis. Her research spans the synthesis and characterization of advanced materials, including nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots used for heavy metal detection and atomically dispersed catalysts for organic transformations such as Heck and Click reactions. Auni has taught at several institutions, including Troy University in Alabama, Washington State University, and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and she has presented her work at numerous national and international conferences. Her honors include the Frank A. Fowler Endowed Graduate Fellowship and the National Science and Technology Fellowship. She is also active in science outreach, mentoring students through programs such as W.I.S.E. Women NOLA and K-12 STEM demonstrations, and volunteering with Chemistry Olympiads and academic competitions. At Tulane, she will teach General Chemistry I and II and Forensic Chemistry.
Jaymes Awbrey joins the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as a Professor of Practice. He earned his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2024, his M.S. in Biology from California State University, and his B.A. in Biology from Carleton College. His path to biology began with a childhood fascination with animal diversity and the water, which led him to an off-campus study semester with the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, including a month at sea sailing from Hawaii to Palmyra Atoll and back. During his master's work in the lab of Dr. Patrick Krug, he helped delimit cryptic species of Oxynoe and Lobiger sea slugs, expanding the known diversity of both genera. His doctoral research in the lab of Dr. Scott France turned to octocorals of the family Acanthogorgiidae, where genetic, genomic, and morphological evidence supported a taxonomic revision of a group long treated as a catch-all for unusual morphologies. More recently, working with Dr. Melissa Toups, Awbrey has studied the evolution of a new sex chromosome in the Holarctic dragonfly species Aeshna juncea, sampling larvae across Finland, Austria, and France. His research centers on taxonomy and systematics, using tools such as scanning electron microscopy, DNA barcoding, and ultra-conserved elements to identify species and better understand global biodiversity, particularly in marine and understudied systems.
Esther Calzada joins the Department of Psychology as Professor and Chair. A clinical child psychologist, she earned her B.A. from Duke University and her Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Her research focuses on parenting and early childhood development in Latinx and other minoritized families, with a strong commitment to scientific equity that works to counter systemic injustices affecting healthy development while also recognizing the factors, such as ethnic identity, that support the well-being of young children. Her program of research ultimately aims to reduce disparities in academic achievement and in behavioral and socio-emotional outcomes through family- and school-based interventions. Calzada serves on the Governing Council for the Society for Research in Child Development and is currently accepting graduate students.
Laura Harrison joins the Department of Neuroscience as a Professor of Practice. She earned her Ph.D. from Tulane University in 1998. Her research interests focus on the regulation of intracellular signaling pathways of membrane receptors, with particular emphasis on novel GTP-binding proteins. Her work aims to identify mechanisms for targeting drugs to specific cellular signaling pathways relevant to therapeutic effects, while avoiding pathways that contribute to drug side effects.
Ilianna Kwaske joins SSE as Senior Professor of Practice and Associate Dean for MS and Professional Education. She holds a B.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago and both an M.S. and Ph.D. from the Illinois Institute of Technology. An industrial and organizational psychologist with more than twenty years of experience across higher education and business consulting, Kwaske has a strong record of leading high-performing teams to develop and launch academic programs and of guiding organizations through complex change. As a consultant to private and public sector organizations, she has conducted psychological assessments for executive searches and employee selection, provided leadership coaching, and partnered with leaders navigating organizational change. At Tulane, she will teach Psychology Applied to Work.
Aaron Leininger joins the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering as an Assistant Professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University, along with an M.S. and B.S. in Environmental and Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. He previously conducted research at EPFL, Eawag, and DC Water. Leininger studies microbial communities and their interactions within engineered water systems, combining microbial physiology, ecology, and electrochemistry to understand and control microbial behavior in water treatment processes, biorefineries, and, most recently, the Mississippi River Delta. At Tulane, he will teach Environmental Engineering I.
Tianze Liu joins the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences as an Assistant Professor. He earned his Ph.D. in geophysics from Stanford University and his B.S. in geophysics from Peking University. Before coming to Tulane, he was a Research Associate at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a Green Postdoctoral Scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Liu uses seismic data, recordings of waves traveling through Earth's interior, to study the structure and evolution of the solid Earth. His research focuses on how fluids and melts move through the deep Earth and interact with surrounding rocks, processes central to understanding subsurface energy systems such as geologic hydrogen and geothermal reservoirs, as well as the evolution of tectonic plates over hundreds of millions of years.
Taylor Marcus joins the Department of Psychology as a Professor of Practice. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Tulane University in 2025, where she researched the roles of reward and familiarity in the self-face bias using behavioral, eye tracking, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy methods in the Learning and Brain Development Lab. She went on to complete postdoctoral research in Tulane's Social Memory Lab, investigating the roles of reward and familiarity in familiar identity representations using behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Marcus remains affiliated with the Social Memory Lab, led by Dr. Benjamin Deen, where her projects examine how reward, familiarity, and social network structure influence familiar identity representations. At Tulane, she will teach Brain and Behavior.
Lianjie Miao joins the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology as an Assistant Professor. He earned his Ph.D. from Nanchang University in 2018. Miao investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern cardiac morphogenesis and maturation, and how disruptions to these processes contribute to congenital heart disease and impaired cardiac repair. His laboratory focuses on intercellular communication, cardiomyocyte behavior, cell-extracellular matrix interactions, and cardiac progenitor fate specification during heart development, postnatal maturation, and regeneration. His work has identified tunneling nanotube-like structures that bridge myocardial and endocardial cells to support long-range signaling during heart formation, and he has shown that beta-1 integrin-mediated adhesion to the extracellular matrix maintains cardiomyocyte shape and organization. Miao is a recipient of the American Heart Association's Second Century Early Faculty Independence Award.
Kelly Subramanian joins the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology as a Professor of Practice. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, her M.S. from the College of William and Mary, and her B.S. and B.A. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her research spans mitochondrial biology, cellular signaling, and science education, and she has taught a wide range of courses at institutions including UC Davis, California State University-Sacramento, and Cosumnes River College. Subramanian is passionate about student success and inclusive learning, and she is dedicated to expanding student access to research opportunities through course-based undergraduate research experiences. Her mentoring has been recognized with awards for excellence in undergraduate research mentorship at both UC Davis and the College of William and Mary. At Tulane, she will teach Genetics, Physiology Lab, and the Master's Seminar in Cell and Molecular Biology.
Kalani Thalagoda joins the Department of Mathematics as a Visiting Assistant Professor. A computational number theorist, she earned her Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2023, her M.S. in Applied and Computational Mathematics from the University of Minnesota Duluth, and her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. She joined Tulane as a postdoctoral researcher working with Dr. Olivia Beckwith before stepping into her current role. Thalagoda grew up in Sri Lanka, a tropical island in the Indian Ocean with a climate similar to New Orleans. She teaches Calculus I and Calculus II.
Rath Vannithamby joins the Department of Electrical Engineering as a Senior Professor of Practice. He earned his B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Before coming to Tulane, he was a Senior Scientist and Director of Wireless Systems Research at Intel Labs, and earlier in his career he was a researcher at Ericsson. Over the past three decades, Vannithamby has made significant contributions to the development of 3G, 4G, 5G, and emerging 6G wireless systems. He is a three-time recipient of the Intel Top Inventor Award and an IEEE Fellow, served as an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer from 2014 to 2017, and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Internet of Things Magazine. He has authored more than 75 journal and conference publications and holds over 300 granted or pending patents. At Tulane, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in communication systems, computer and communication networks, and Internet of Things systems, and contributes to the growth of the Electrical Engineering program through curriculum development and industry collaboration.
Michael VanValkenburgh joins the Department of Mathematics. He earned his B.A. and M.A. in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, followed by his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA in 2009. His research specializes in partial differential equations. Before coming to Tulane, VanValkenburgh held an NSF Postdoctoral Research Instructorship at the University of California, Berkeley, served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Grinnell College, and most recently was an Associate Professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at California State University, Sacramento.
Building on a Strong Foundation
Together, these new faculty members reflect the breadth of the Tulane School of Science and Engineering, spanning chemistry, psychology, neuroscience, mathematics, engineering, earth sciences, and biology. They arrive from institutions across the country and around the world, bringing research programs that range from cardiac development and wireless communication systems to seismology and marine biodiversity, along with a shared commitment to teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers. SSE looks forward to the contributions each of them will make to the school's classrooms, laboratories, and research community in the years ahead.