Meet Our Team

Sara Zakaria is an undergraduate assistant for The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Her responsibilities consist of providing research support, performing administrative tasks, and offering student insight for developing projects.

As a member of the Boston College Class of 2024, Sara is currently pursuing a Bachelor of the Arts in Communication. She attended the University of Massachusetts Boston for two years before transferring to BC. Outside her academics, she serves as a council member for The Laughing Medusa, BC’s literary magazine featuring works from female-identifying and nonbinary artists. She is also a member of the Quiz Bowl competition team.  

Kimberly Black is an undergraduate assistant for The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Her responsibilities consist of creating graphics and marketing materials, performing administrative tasks, and offering student insight for developing projects. 

As a member of the Boston College Class of 2024, Kim is currently pursuing a Bachelor of the Arts in Communications and Film Studies. Her other campus involvements include producing content as Co-President of Boston College Television, creating graphics for the progressive student newspaper; The Gavel, and singing with the Boston College University Chorale.

Grace Dennis is an undergraduate assistant for The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Her responsibilities consist of providing research support, performing administrative tasks, and offering student insight for developing projects.

As a member of the Boston College Class of 2023, Grace is currently pursuing a Bachelor of the Arts in History and Journalism. Grace spent  her sophomore year involved in the Boston College PULSE program, writing obituaries with a publication in New York City to honor those who lost their lives during the Coronavirus pandemic, which was awarded the Punch Sulzberger Innovator of the Year Award from the News Leaders Association. She is a member of Boston College's Women in Business chapter and history club.  

Stylianos (Stelios) Syropoulos is a postdoctoral researcher working for the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. He also works for the Morality Lab and the Social Influence and Social Change. His research focuses on the individual differences and social influences that drive intergenerational, environmental, prosocial and moral decision-making. He conducts research on how perceptions of past and future generations influence can motivate us to engage in prosociality or proenvironmentalism, even when that action comes at a personal cost. Other research interests include how people think about and try to construct their personal legacy, how climate change influences people's mental health, as well as what gives rise to different forms of national identification and what its consequences are. Stelios has considerable expertise in quantitative methodologies, having worked as a methodology consultant for two years. He is skilled in and frequently employs multilevel/hierarchical linear modelling, longitudinal, dyadic (APIM) designs, and structural equation modelling. Stelios received his BA in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College in 2018 and received his PhD in Social Psychology with a concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Fall 2022.

Jesse Julian is the poet laureate for the Schiller Institute for Integrated  Science and Society. In her role, she composes poetry, covering topics relevant to Schiller’s research and focus.

As a 2026 member of Boston College, Jesse plans to pursue an English major with a Chemistry minor. She received the Schiller Prize for the top submission on energy, environment, & health, responding to “What the Constitution Means to Me.” Prior to Boston College, she graduated from Trabuco Hills High in California with an International Baccalaureate Diploma. She enjoys listening to music, playing the ukulele, and spending time with friends.

Yi Ming is the Institute Professor of Climate Science and Society and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Ming uses climate models, observations and theories to elucidate the physical mechanisms governing Earth’s climate system and applies the fundamental understanding to practical issues of societal and policy importance. A current focus is on how climate change may affect precipitation patterns (e.g. droughts and floods) and extreme events (e.g. hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms). He has authored more than one hundred peer-reviewed papers, and mentored a number of Ph.D. students and postdocs. His honors include the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Henry G. Houghton Award and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Ascent Award. Previously, Dr. Ming was a Senior Scientist and Divisional Leader at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). He was also a faculty member of the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) at Princeton University. 

Dr. Ming holds a B.E. in Chemical Engineering (with a second B.E. in Environmental Engineering) from Tsinghua University and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University.   

Jier Huang is the Institute Professor of Renewable Energy and Sustainability and Associate Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Huang’s research focuses on developing cutting edge materials with atomic/molecular precision to address fundamental challenges in sustainable energy and climate change. She is particularly interested in using advanced physical methods to understand how solar energy is captured by the materials, how it travels through the materials, and how it can be directed to perform solar energy conversion. She has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed journal papers and is a recipient of NSF CAREER and DOE career research award. Dr. Huang has served as Chair of Energy Subdivision in ACS Physical Chemistry, Executive Committee Member At-Large in ACS Physical Chemistry Division, Advanced Photon Source Users Organization Steering Committee, etc. Previously, Dr. Huang was a Wehr Distinguished Professor and Associate Professor of Chemistry at Marquette University.

Dr. Huang holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Lanzhou University (China) and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Emory University.

Hanqin Tian is the Institute Professor of Global Sustainability and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Tian’s research and teaching concentrate on the broad area of climate and sustainability sciences. He has been pursuing a data-driven systems approach to understanding, quantifying, and predicting drivers and effects of global-scale changes in the biosphere, climate, and human activity. He has worked across the disciplinary lines of ecology, biogeochemistry, hydrology, economics, earth system modeling and data science. His research covers a wide range of topics, including studies of climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation at multiple scales from local to global.Through the integration and communication of knowledge across the physical, ecological, and human systems, Dr. Tian intends to advance scientific understanding of complex interactions among climate, ecosystems, and humans for providing science-based solutions to climate change and sustainability challenges. His research has resulted in over 300 peer-reviewed journal papers, including 30 papers published in Nature/Science/PNAS and their sister journals, with over 35,000 citations and an H-index of 91 (Google Scholar)

.Dr. Tian is a coordinating lead author for the International Nitrogen Assessment and a contributing author for IPCC AR6. He has served on the Steering Scientific Committee of Global Carbon Project (GCP) and as Co Chair for the international consortium of Global Nitrous Oxide Budget Assessment  supported by GCP and the International Nitrogen Initiative (INI). Dr. Tian is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the Ecological Society of America (ESA). He was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (Brainy Award) in 2019.

Previously, Hanqin Tian held the Solon and Martha Dixon Endowed Professorship and Alumni Professorship at Auburn University. He also held several leadership roles at Auburn, including serving as Director of the International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, and Leader for the interdisciplinary cluster of the Climate, Human and Earth System Science (CHESS), which consists of over 40 faculty members from five Colleges at Auburn University.