June 2025 SPH Faculty Appointments & Promotions
Congratulations to the following BU School of Public Health faculty on their June promotion.
Associate Professor
Matthew Motta, PhD, Health Law, Policy & Management, focuses on using a pluralistic set of observational and experimental methods to quantify the prevalence of Americans’ opposition to evidence-based health policy, explore the social, psychological and political determinants of those views, and assess the health policy consequences of opposition to scientific evidence. Dr. Motta has played a substantial role in both classroom instruction and mentoring while at BUSPH. He has taught 15 sections across four different courses. He regularly advises and mentors master’s and doctoral-level students and is currently serving on four PhD committees. Dr. Motta recently co-founded and co-directs the Politics and Health Lab with another department faculty member. He also serves on the governing council for the Association for Politics & the Life Sciences, as a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Health Politics, Policy & Law, and the Journal of Health & Social Behavior.
Marcia Pescador Jiménez, PhD, Epidemiology, specializes in the social and environmental influences on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) risk. Her research focuses on identifying modifiable environmental determinants of CVD and ADRD, strengthening causal inference in environmental health research, and evaluating environmental impacts in understudied and minoritized populations. Dr. Pescador Jiménez serves as a PI for over $8M of extramural grants and is a co-investigator on additional grants totaling over $28M. She leads the school’s SPHERE lab, where she is mentoring several graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. She also is part of the leadership group growing the Society for Epidemiologic Research in Mexico to provide a richer community of epidemiologic scientists based in Mexico and strengthen the network of international researchers evaluating the determinants of health in middle income countries.
Eric Rubenstein, PhD, Epidemiology, uses big data and inclusive research methods to understand and improve health in people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. He has researched specific intellectual and developmental disability populations (e.g. Down syndrome, autism) and the community using a model of disability and health he developed that accounts for the phenotype of the specific condition and the societal barriers placed on disabled people. He serves as PI on two NIH grants totaling $7.25M and co-PI on a $1.6M CDC award. Dr Rubenstein received the 2024 BUSPH Research Innovation Award. He is currently a member of the Special Olympics Scientific Community Advisory Board and serves as a panelist on the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Technical Expert Panel to Develop Operational Definition for Intellectual and Developmental Disability. Additionally, he serves as an ad-hoc grant reviewer for five NIH study sections.