Valerie A. Thomas has been named the Thomas M. Brooks Forestry Professor at Virginia Tech. A faculty member since 2007, she currently teaches as a professor of forest remote sensing in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment. In her scholarly work, Dr. Thomas focuses on forest ecosystems, forest cover and condition, and forest change. Through remote sensor technologies and novel algorithms, her research has advanced the understanding and management of forested landscapes.
Dr. Thomas received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Guelph in Canada. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Canada.
Shaily Mahendra has been appointed to the Richard G. Newman AECOM Endowed Chair in Civil Engineering in the Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. She first joined the UCLA faculty in 2009 and currently serves as a professor of civil and environmental engineering. She is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute, the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and the Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Interdepartmental Program. Her research centers on incorporating advanced molecular, synthetic, and systems biology applications in the monitoring and control of natural and built environments.
A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, Dr. Mahenda received her master’s degree from Syracuse University in New York and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Esther Freeman, associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, is the inaugural L’Oréal Dermatological Beauty/CeraVe Endowed Chair in Global Health Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Freeman performs epidemiological research in the area of HIV dermatology and global health, particularly relating to HIV-associated malignancies, such as Kaposi’s sarcoma. Since 2020, Professor Freeman has also conducted extensive research on the effects of COVID-19 on the skin.
Dr. Freeman is a summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She received her master’s degree and a Ph.D. in infectious disease epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and her medical degree from Harvard Medical School.
Laura Marcu has been named the Endowed Professor of Neurosurgical Research at the University of California, Davis, where she serves as founding director of the National Center for Interventional Biophotonic Technologies. In this role, Dr. Marcu works to develop medical applications of light-based technologies, including Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging (FLIm), a pen-like device that surgeons can use to scan and highlight unhealthy tissues in real-time. Currently, Dr. Marcu is focusing on advancing the FLIm tool for applications in surgical oncology, cardiovascular diagnostics, and regenerative medicine.
A graduate of the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in Romania, Dr. Marcu earned her master’s degree and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Southern California.