Faculty Highlights & Distinctions

Todd Boyd

School of Cinematic Arts. Holding the Katherine and Frank Price Endowed Chair for the Study of Race and Popular Culture in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Todd Boyd is a leading expert on popular culture. He has written pioneering works on race, media, sports and hip hop culture, including Young, Black, Rich and Famous: The Rise of the NBA, the Hip Hop Invasion and the Transformation of American Culture (2003), and Am I Black Enough for You? Popular Culture from the ’Hood and Beyond (1997). Boyd is a frequent commentator on National Public Radio and national TV news programs.

Frank O. Gehry

School of Architecture. One of the world’s leading architects and a distinguished USC alumnus, Frank Gehry is best known for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain (1997), the Experience Music Project in Seattle (2000) and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003). Winner of the National Medal of Arts and the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, Gehry has developed a unique vocabulary of rolling metallic forms that treats buildings as sculptural objects. His firm, Gehry Partners LLP, is currently working on the $3 billion Grand Avenue Project in Downtown Los Angeles.

Midori Goto

Thornton School of Music. Chair of the Strings department at USC Thornton, and holder of the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Violin, Midori Goto is an internationally renowned violinist. Her dazzling technique, lustrous tone and authoritative interpretations are acclaimed by critics worldwide. At USC, she founded the Midori Center for Community Engagement, which trains music students to engage audiences beyond the concert hall. Her interdisciplinary approach combines instrumental instruction with an emphasis on students’ development as human beings and musicians.

Velina Hasu Houston

School of Dramatic Arts. Professor, director of dramatic writing and associate dean of faculty, internationally acclaimed playwright Velina Hasu Houston specializes in Pan-Asian American feminist dramatic literature. Her plays, including the critically acclaimed Tea, have been produced at leading theatres in the United States and Japan. Also a poet and essayist, she is the editor of two anthologies of plays by Asian Americans. Her awards include two Rockefeller Foundation Playwriting Fellowships and three James H. Zumberge Research and Innovation Fund grants.

Steven L. Lamy

Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Vice dean of Academic Programs and professor of international relations at Dornsife College, Lamy specializes in analysis of the foreign policies of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Western Europe, and the moral dimensions of international relations. A recipient of many teaching awards, he founded the Teaching International Relations Program, which provides opportunities for undergraduates to broaden the global awareness of local high school students. Lamy has served as a consultant to the National Security Education Program, U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Education.

Maja Matarić

Viterbi School of Engineering. Professor of computer science and neuroscience, Matarić is founding director of the Center for Robotics and Embedded Systems at USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Her current projects include robots that can assist elderly, convalescent and disabled individuals, and multi-robot systems that can provide emergency assistance. She is also developing robotics curricula for grades K–12. Recipient of many prestigious honors, including the National Science Foundation Career Award, Matarić is featured in Me & Isaac Newton, a documentary about seven of the world’s leading scientists.

Judy Muller

Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Associate professor of journalism Judy Muller offers students insights gleaned from more than two decades of radio and television reporting. As a member of ABC’s Nightline team, she won an Emmy Award for coverage of the O.J. Simpson case. In the 1980s, she was a CBS News correspondent and an anchor on CBS News Radio. A frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, she is the author of Now This: Radio, Television...and the Real World (2000) and Emus Loose in Egnar: Big Stories from Small Towns (2011).

Nandini Rajagopalan

Marshall School of Business. Professor of management and organization at USC Marshall, Rajagopalan holds the Capt. Henry W. Simonson Chair in Strategic Entrepreneurship. Her research focuses on CEO succession and compensation systems, strategic change and decision-making processes, and corporate governance in emerging economies. Winner of several Marshall School awards, Rajagopalan is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching. She is also director of research at the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

Solomon W. Golomb

Viterbi School of Engineering. Distinguished professor of electrical engineering and mathematics, Golomb holds the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair in Communications. His long and distinguished career began as a Fulbright fellow in Norway. As part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he designed deep-space communications for lunar and planetary explorations. His current research ranges from signal design for communications and radar, to cryptography and mathematical game theory. He has received numerous awards and medals, and currently holds a joint appointment in the Department of Mathematics at USC.

Frances Stark

Roski School of Art and Design. Associate professor Frances Stark’s work has been exhibited at prestigious venues worldwide—as well as collected by museums of the highest international reputation, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; and Tate Modern in London. Stark is also a writer and critic, and has published books including My Best Thing (2012). She has received a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.