Faculty Excellence






Inspired, distinguished faculty are productive agents of change and drivers of innovation.
As a world-class university with a distinctive approach to discovery and learning, Northeastern competes fiercely to attract and retain both seasoned scholars and gifted junior faculty. This is exactly where we want to be: striving to power the work of best-in-class intellectual and practice leaders.
Faculty develop and deliver to students the definitive learning experiences that can shape the course a life will take. The caliber of our faculty is powerfully compelling both for prospective students and prospective new hires. And because this is Northeastern, faculty are encouraged to constantly reinvent and adapt their work in keeping with the opportunities they see on the horizon—or the frontiers they themselves are moving.
Philanthropic funding is the fuel that drives faculty excellence, in every discipline and at every stage of a faculty member’s career. And faculty excellence, of course, is central to Northeastern’s global reputation for rigor and significance.
FUNDABLE INITIATIVES INCLUDE:
- Endowments for faculty chairs
- Endowed professorships
- Early career faculty support
- Visiting professorships

“Endowed chairs are very special things. They are with us forever. And they’re very important to us at Northeastern in terms of attracting great scholars to come and be amongst us.”
David Madigan
Provost
Experience more

A Global Take on Family Business
It’s about helping students explore, says Michael Enright, the inaugural Pierre Choueiri Family Professor of Global Business at Northeastern. He might be meeting heads of state in the morning but when he turns to teaching in the afternoon, he’s all about advancing his students’ experiences.

Philanthropy That Fights Climate Change
“Rather than just sitting around wringing our hands about climate change impacting plants and animals and humans around the world, what can we do about it?” That’s what Brian Helmuth, professor of marine and environmental sciences, is doing, thanks to a gift from Ellen DeSanctis, PNT.

Infusing the Humanities Into STEM and Business
The inaugural Ronald L. and Linda A. Rossetti Professor for the Humanities wants students majoring in science, engineering, and business to explore the liberal arts. Associate Professor of Philosophy Rory Smead leads a program dedicated to this precise kind of interdisciplinary thinking.

Knighted for Predicting the Pandemic
Endowed positions like the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professorship draw great minds to universities. The professorship’s holder, Alessandro Vespignani, played a major part in tracking and predicting COVID-19 around the world—and was knighted by the Italian government.