Office of the Provost names 2026-27 Academic Leadership Program Fellows

Northwestern’s Office of the Provost has named five Academic Leadership Program (ALP) Fellows for the 2026-27 academic year. ALP is an intensive year-long program that develops the leadership and managerial skills of faculty who have demonstrated exceptional ability and academic promise. Nominated by deans and selected by the provost, ALP Fellows attend in-person conferences at alternating Big Ten institutions and participate in on-campus activities at their home institution.

The 2026-27 ALP Fellows

Ian Horswill is an associate professor of Computer Science in the McCormick School of Engineering and president-elect of the Faculty Senate. His research involves using artificial intelligence to expand the expressive potential of computational media such as games and interactive narrative. His recent work has focused on building declarative programming systems that artists and designers can use to build generative systems. 

Ofer Malamud is a professor and former program chair of Human Development and Social Policy in the School of Education and Social Policy and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. Malamud is an economist focused on education policy from an international perspective. His research is concentrated on educational investments over the life course, the role of technology in the formation of human capital, and the effect of general and specific education on labor market outcomes.

Jonathan Rivnay is a professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering in McCormick and director of PhD Admissions for Biomedical Engineering. The Rivnay lab engineers organic and biohybrid bioelectronic materials, devices and systems for interfacing between the complex world of biology and traditional optoelectronics. The team aims to understand the unique active properties of organic (small molecule and polymeric) materials and utilizing their strengths for sensing/stimulation in biomedical settings.

Elizabeth Son is an associate professor of Theatre and head of the Theatre History/Literature/Criticism/Theory area in the School of Communication, as well as inaugural director of the Public Humanities Cluster. Utilizing archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, her scholarship explores how theatre, multidisciplinary art, and everyday practices illuminate the experiences of Korean, Korean diasporic, and Asian American women. Her interdisciplinary research and teaching sits at the intersection of theatre and performance studies, Asian American studies, Asian studies, and gender and sexuality studies.

Kelly Wisecup is the Arthur E. Andersen Teaching and Research Professor chair of English in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She is a literary and cultural historian whose work brings together early American studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and histories of books and archives.  Her research examines Indigenous books and archives from the eighteenth-century to the present, and their intersections with histories of sovereignty, race and Indigeneity, and histories of science. Wisecup’s scholarship has been supported by fellowships from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Newberry Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Antiquarian Society, and the American Philosophical Society. Photo: Kevin Grady/Harvard Radcliffe Institute