Connecting the Community of Tufts Scholars (CCTS)

Announcing CCTS Cluster 3 Theme

The "Ethical AI" theme will focus on using ethics -centered approaches to examining AI’s effects on our society. This cluster will bring together faculty from diverse disciplines to develop a critical understanding of AI’s potential and uses for the collective good. This includes research, for example, on how AI can address and eliminate biases in guidelines and policies to support ethical applications and usage. This initiative will position Tufts globally at the forefront of ethical AI research and responsible AI practices.

Currently Hiring

The CCTS Health Equity Cluster will foster collaborative and interdisciplinary research, scholarship, teaching, and community engagement efforts centering on health outcomes for racially and/or ethnically marginalized groups, both locally and globally. We are committed to supporting faculty who use 1) innovative approaches and interventions to address health disparities and various factors that impact health, such as structural drivers (e.g., economic, environmental), community context, healthcare, and other social determinants of health; and 2) using frameworks that center on fairness, community strengths, opportunity, and social justice.

School of Arts & Sciences

Child Study & Human Development:

Assistant/Associate Professor in Applied Developmental Science

Community Health:

Assistant Professor in Community Health

Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA)

Assistant Professor/Scientist in Women's Health Disparities and AI-Enabled Precision Health

Tufts Medical Center’s Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies (ICRHPS)

Faculty Researcher- Pharmacoequity 

Bringing together Tufts' unique strengths in engineering, humanities, nutrition, and policy to address equity and racial justice through the lens of Climate.

School of Arts & Sciences

Classics: Brandon McDonald

Climate Change in Classical Antiquity

English: Emily Strasser

Creative Non-Fiction and Journalism

School of Engineering

Life Cycle Analysis: Lauryn Spearing

CEE/ChBE departments

The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy

Agriculture and Climate: Khristopher Nicholas

Connecting the Community of Tufts Scholars (CCTS) is a new cluster hiring program designed to attract and support faculty whose work centers on race, equity, and disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and around the world.

• Tufts will hire three clusters of up to five faculty over the next 3-5 years, adding a total of up to fifteen new faculty to join our strong interdisciplinary research community.  The Office of the Provost will be jointly funding these positions with participating schools 
• Faculty clusters receive mentoring and professional development to foster community and provide opportunities to use their research, scholarship, and teaching to shape important dialogues
• The first CCTS cluster is focused on climate
• The second CCTS cluster is focused on health equity, with recruitment underway

Increase: Increase number and impact of faculty whose work across the University whose work centers race, equity, and disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and globally.

Nurture: Nurture the conditions for our faculty to address difficult contemporary problems as they arise around the intersection of race, racism, racial equity, and justice.

Build: Build a critical mass of interdisciplinary faculty whose work centers race, racism, racial equity and justice.

Encourage & Foster: Encourage and foster cooperation among an already strong faculty and staff research body.

Create: Create innovative educational and research opportunities for our students and trainees.

Target: Target broader arrays of research funding streams as well as other forms of recognition and support. 

Expand: Expand our racial equity efforts beyond Tufts.