5 promising professors named Outstanding Junior Faculty (2024)

Assistant professors in the fields of history and philosophy science, management and entrepreneurship, psychological and brain sciences, East Asian languages and cultures and computer science will receive the 2024 Indiana University Bloomington Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.

“IU Bloomington is fortunate to have many outstanding faculty at all career levels,” said Carrie Docherty, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs. “Each year we have an opportunity to shine a spotlight on a few of our early career faculty who continually illustrate a high standard for excellence in teaching, research and service.”

The award identifies promising faculty who have not yet been awarded tenure and provides resources to further develop their research programs or creative activities. It is sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

The recipients are:

Ann-Sophie Barwich

A.S. Barwich is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine with a joint appointment in the Cognitive Science Program. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter, UK. She was a Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University and a postdoctoral fellow at the KLI Institute, Austria.

Barwich specializes in olfaction to rethink the mind and brain by connecting scientific with philosophical research. Her research is driven by the question “what makes our perception of the world real if our individual experience of it so often differs?”

Juan Bu

Juan Bu joined the Kelley School of Business as an assistant professor of international business in the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship in 2018 after earning her Ph.D. from the University of Miami. She studies how multinational enterprises employ effective strategies to navigate uncertainty and complexity in the global context to achieve superior performance.

Bu’s research centers on three pivotal strategies: cross-border acquisition, innovation and sustainability, with a strong emphasis on emerging markets. Her current work on climate innovation and carbon disclosure explores how multinational enterprises can help build a more sustainable world.

Dorainne Green

Dorainne Green received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Northwestern University in 2016. She joined the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU as an assistant professor in 2020 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at IU’s Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society.

Green’s research interests center on understanding and addressing the factors that contribute to social inequality by focusing on social identity threat—instances where individuals feel like one or more of their social identities may be devalued or disrespected. Her work investigates how threats to social identity shape psychological and physiological outcomes. A primary interest of her research is the identification of strategies to help people manage the challenges of navigating diverse spaces, including those most likely to trigger social identity threat.

Wendy Leutert

Wendy Leutert is an assistant professor and GLP-Ming Z. Mei Chair of Chinese Economics and Trade in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. She has a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, a master’s degree in international relations from Tsinghua University and a bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from Wellesley College.

Leutert’s research and teaching interests include political economy, comparative politics and international relations, with a focus on China and East Asia. Her work investigates state-business relations in China.

Luyi Xing

Luyi Xing joined the Department of Computer Science in 2018 as an assistant professor after completing his Ph.D. in security informatics at IU Bloomington. His research focuses on establishing theoretical models and practical foundations for computer systems security.

Xing established the System Security Foundation Lab to pioneer the fusion of mathematical logic and cybersecurity, using computer-aided logic reasoning to uncover design vulnerabilities in computer systems. His efforts have preemptively identified over 200 vulnerabilities, leading to widespread adoption of his security technologies by over 200 IT companies. These innovations have changed security design in everyday systems, including iOS, Android, Chrome, Facebook, Google Home, Apple Home and the “Internet-of-Things” standards.