Meet the
New Faculty!

Julianne Chung
Associate Professor 
Mathematics 

Julianne Chung completed her PhD in Computational Mathematics at Emory University (2009). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Chung held positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Texas at Arlington, and the University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Chung’s research interests include numerical linear algebra and optimization, data science and machine learning, and computational image processing. Her articles have been published in SIAM Journal of Scientific Computing and IOP Inverse Problems. She was also the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the NSF CAREER Award and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship. 

Matthias Chung
Associate Professor
Mathematics 

Matthias Chung completed his PhD in Computational Mathematics at the University of Lübeck, Germany (2006). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Chung held positions at Virginia Tech, the Texas State University - San Marcos, and Emory University. Dr. Chung’s research interests include systems biology, imaging problems, and dynamical systems. His articles have been published in Inverse Problems, SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and Mathematical Bioscience. He was also the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center Grant, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship. 

Julie Clennon 
Senior Lecturer 
Environmental Sciences 

Julie Clennon completed her PhD in Veterinary Pathobiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2006). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Clennon completed postdoctoral research at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute and the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) at Emory University. She previously held a teaching position at RSPH, and has been a consultant for the Pan American Health Organization. Dr. Clennon’s research interests focus on applications of remote sensing and spatial analysis to understand transmission of environmental pathogens. Her articles have been published in JAMA, Malaria Journal, and American Journal of Public Health. 

Alexandra Cohen 
Assistant Professor
Psychology

Alexandra Cohen completed her PhD in Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Cohen completed postdoctoral training at New York University. Dr. Clennon’s research focuses on how emotion and motivation influence learning, memory, and brain function from childhood to adulthood. Her articles have been published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Psychological Science, and Journal of Neuroscience. She was the recipient of numerous awards and grants including the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship and a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) K01 Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award. 

Heather "Skye" Comstra
Lecturer 
Biology

Skye Comstra completed her PhD in Biology at Emory University (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Comstra held a position at Oxford College of Emory University. Dr. Comstra’s research focuses on how nuclear organization is established and maintained in the early embryo of Drosophila melanogaster. Her articles have been published in Science Signaling eLife Human Molecular Genetics. She has been the recipient the NIH IRACDA Postdoctoral Fellowship. 

Petra Creamer
Assistant Professor 
Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies 

Petra Creamer completed her PhD in Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World at the University of Pennsylvania (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Creamer held a position at Dartmouth College. Dr. Creamer’s research focus is ancient near eastern archaeology. Her articles have been published in World Archaeology, Iraq, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies. She was also the recipient the Fulbright Research Fellowship and ASOR Mesopotamian Fellowship. 

Mingji Dai 
Professor 
Chemistry

Mingji Dai completed his PhD in Chemistry at Columbia University (2009). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Dai held a position at Purdue University. Dr. Dai’s research focuses on innovating the strategy and methodology of organic synthesis to solve problems of biological and medicinal importance. His articles have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, and Nature Communications. He was the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research. 

Kyrah Malika Daniels 
Assistant Professor 
African American Studies 

Kyrah Malika Daniels completed her PhD in Africana Studies and Religion at Harvard University (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Daniels held a position at Boston College. Dr. Daniels’ research focuses on Africana religions, sacred arts and material culture, race, religion and visual culture, and ritual healing traditions in the Black Atlantic. Her articles have been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Journal of Haitian Studies, and Journal of Africana Religions. She is the recipient of the Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellowship in the History of Art and Fulbright IIE Fellow for the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Emma Davenport 
Assistant Professor
English 

Emma Davenport completed her PhD in English at Duke University (2022). Dr. Davenport’s research focuses on the intersection of the Victorian novel with legal theories of contract. Her articles have been published in Victorian Studies. She is the recipient of the 2022 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching at Duke University. 

Erica Kanesaka
Assistant Professor 
English 

Erica Kanesaka completed her PhD in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Kanesaka held a postdoctoral fellowship with the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. Dr. Kanesaka’s research interests are Asian American literary and cultural studies, with a focus on the racial and sexual politics of kawaii and cuteness. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Asian American Studies and Positions: Asia Critique. She was also the recipient of the Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. 

Emil’ Keme
Professor 
English 

Emil’ Keme completed his PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pittsburgh (2004). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Keme held a position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Keme’s research foci are contemporary Indigenous literatures and social movements, Central American-American literatures and cultures, and postcolonial and subaltern studies theory. He is a 2022-2023 recipient of the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard, and in 2020, he received Cuba’s Casa de las Americas Literary Criticism Prize for his book, Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word. Poetics of Resistance in Guatemala (2021). 

Jinsook Kim
Assistant Professor 
Film and Media

Jinsook Kim completed her PhD in Media Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Kim held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kim’s research foci are digital media, online hate culture, social and political activism, and globalization. Her articles have been published in Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and Communication, Culture & Critique. She was also the recipient of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ Dissertation Award, the Institute for Citizens & Scholars’ WW Dissertation Fellowship in Women’s Studies, and the Social Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship. 

Chinmay Kulkarni
Associate Professor 
Computer Science

Chinmay Kulkarni completed his PhD in Computer Science at Stanford University (2015). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Kulkarni held a position at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Kulkarni’s researche interests contribute to the scientific fields of human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, and human-centered AI. His articles have been published in Transactions of Computer-Human Interaction and Computer-supported Cooperative Work. He is also the recipient of grant funding from the Office of Naval Research Award and the National Science Foundation. 

Fei Liu
Associate Professor 
Computer Science 

Fei Liu completed her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas (2011). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Liu held a position at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Liu’s research focuses natural language processing, deep learning, automatic summarization, natural language generation, social media analytics, information extraction, reinforcement learning, and deep neural networks. Her articles have been published in Natural Language Engineering, AI Magazine, and Berkeley Law Technology Journal. She is also the recipient of NSF Grant and Amazon AWS Machine Learning Research Award. 

Wen Wei Loh
Assistant Professor 
Quantitative Theory and Methods

Wen Wei Loh completed his PhD in Statistics at the University of Washington (2016). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Loh held postdoctoral positions at Ghent University and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Dr. Loh’s research focuses on developing methods for improving causal inferences and applying these methods in collaboration with applied researchers in social and health sciences. His papers have been published in Biometrics, Epidemiology, Psychological Methods, Statistics in Medicine, and Statistical Science. 

Elizabeth Lonsdorf
Associate Professor
Anthropology 

Elizabeth Lonsdorf completed her PhD in Animal Behavior at the University of Minnesota (2003). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Lonsdorf held a position at Franklin and Marshall College. Dr. Lonsdorf’s research focuses on primate behavioral development. Her articles have been published in Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She was also the recipient of National Science Foundation Award and the National Institutes of Health Award. 

Eric Lonsdorf
Assistant Professor 
Environmental Sciences

Eric Lonsdorf completed his PhD in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Minnesota (2004). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Lonsdorf held positions at the University of Minnesota and Franklin and Marshall College. Dr. Lonsdorf’s research focuses on decision analysis and structured decision making to the management of agricultural and urban landscapes. His articles have been published in Ecological Applications, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, and the Landscape and Urban Planning. He was also the recipient of the US Dept of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Award. 

Bethany Mamola
Lecturer
Music

Bethany Mamola completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Music at the University of North Texas (2019). Prior to joining Emory in 2022, Dr. Mamola held positions at The College of Wooster and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Mamola’s research focuses on historically under-represented composers and artist collaboration. She has been a poster presenter for the National Opera Association convention. She was also the recipient of the Dewey and Mary Gilley Memorial Award in Vocal Excellence and the Stockton Opera Guild Competition. 

Emily Master
Senior Lecturer
Classics

Emily Master completed her PhD in Classics at Princeton University (2020). Prior to joining Emory in 2022 as a Senior Lecturer, Dr. Master held positions at Emory as a Visiting Assistant Professor and Instructor. Dr. Master’s research focuses on Roman history, Roman law, and Latin literature. Her professional presentations include “Lex or Leges?: Augustus’ Judiciary Law,” Society for Classical Studies Annual Meeting, “Roman Lawmaking: P. Valerius Publicola and Augustus,” Classical Association of the Midwest and South-Southern Section Bi-Annual Meeting, and “Writing the Unwritten: The lex Iulia de senatu habendo and the Codification of Senatorial Procedure,” American Philological Association Annual Meeting. She was the recipient of the ACLS Project Development Grant, Manson A. Stewart Travel Award, and J.P. Elder Award in Classics from the University of Virginia. 

Kevin McAlister
Lecturer 
Quantitative Theory and Methods

Kevin McAlister completed his PhD in Political Science at the University of Michigan (2020). Prior to joining Emory in 2022 as a Lecturer, Dr. McAlister held a position at Emory as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Dr. McAlister’s research focuses on Bayesian statistics, item response models, and semi-supervised clustering approaches. His articles have been published in Public Choice and Advances in Political Economy. He was also the recipient of the John T. Williams Dissertation Prize from the Society for Political Methodology. 

Donna McDermott
Lecturer 
English 

Donna McDermott completed her PhD in Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution at Emory University (2022). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022 as a Lecturer of science writing, Dr. McDermott held positions at Emory University as an Instructor and a Graduate Teaching Fellow. Dr. McDermott’s research interests include biology education research on interdisciplinary assessments and animal behavior research on social learning in bumble bees. Her articles have been published in Current Zoology, Ethology, and Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. She was a recipient of the Dobes Fellowship for Outstanding Graduate Teaching at Emory University, Dean’s Teaching Fellowship at Emory University, and the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship. 

Laura Nenzi
Professor
History

Laura Nenzi completed her PhD in History at University of California Santa Barbara (2004). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Nenzi held positions at Florida International University and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Nenzi’s research focuses on the social and cultural history of early modern Japan, with a focus on movement, space, gender, and identity. She is the author of Excursions in Identity: Travel and the Intersection of Place, Gender, and Status in Edo Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2008) and The Chaos and Cosmos of Kurosawa Tokiko: One Woman’s Transit from Tokugawa to Meiji Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015). She is the recipient of a residential fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and of a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Research Award. 

Elizabeth Newman
Assistant Professor 
Mathematics 

Elizabeth Newman completed her PhD in Mathematics at Tufts University (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Newman held a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University. Dr. Newman’s research focuses on numerical linear algebra, multilinear algebra, machine learning, and deep learning. Her articles have been published in PNAS, SIMODS, and SISC.

Hau Nguyen
Senior Lecturer 
Economics 

Hau Nguyen completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Notre Dame (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Nguyen held a position at Seattle Pacific University. Dr. Nguyen’s research focuses on labor economics and health economics. He also received the Teacher of the year award at Seattle Pacific University in 2019. 

Brendan Ozawa-de Silva
Senior Lecturer
Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics 

Brendan Ozawa-de Silva completed his doctorates in Modern History from Oxford University and Religion from Emory University. He joined Emory for the first time in 2003 as a postdoctoral fellow and then visiting professor and server as coordinator for H.H. the Dalai Lama’s visits to Emory in 2007 and 2010. His research focuses on the cognitive science of compassion, empathy and other prosocial emotions, and how to bring their cultivation into society and education.

Jack Paine
Associate Professor 
Political Science 

Jack Paine completed his PhD in Political Science at the UC Berkeley (2015). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Paine held a position at the University of Rochester. Dr. Paine’s research focuses on authoritarian politics, democratization, democratic backsliding, and civil wars. His articles have been published in American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics. 

Gregory Palermo
Lecturer
English

Gregory Palermo completed his PhD in English at Northeastern University (2022). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Palermo held positions at Brandeis University and Northeastern University. Dr. Palermo’s research focuses on digital humanities, academic citation, disciplinary rhetoric, data and quantitative methods, conceptual metaphor, and rhetorics of difference. His articles have been published in The Concord Saunterer: A Journal of Thoreau Studies, Journal of Writing Analytics, and Genders. He was the recipient of the NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant, Travel Grants, PhD Network from Northeastern University, and the HASTAC Scholar, Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory. 

Illiana Yamileth Rodriguez
Assistant Professor 
History 

Illiana Yamileth Rodriguez completed her PhD in American Studies at Yale University (2020). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Rodriguez held a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University. Dr. Rodriguez’s research interest is Latinx History with a regional focus on the US South, research that engages questions about race, ethnicity, labor, culture, and migration. Her articles have been published in Labor: Studies in Working-Class History and Oxford Research Encyclopedia in American History. 

Alejandro Sanchez-Becerra
Assistant Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods 

Alejandro Sanchez-Becerra completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Sanchez-Becerra held a postdoctoral fellow position at New York University, and a research assistant position at the Center for the Study of Economic Development, UniAndes. Dr. Sanchez-Becerra’s research focuses on econometrics, causal inference, machine learning, and network analysis. He was co-recipient of the Best Student Paper Award by the International Association for Applied Econometrics. 

Crystal R. Sanders
Associate Professor 
African American Studies 

Crystal R. Sanders completed her PhD in History at Northwestern University (2011). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Sanders held a position at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Sanders’ research interests include African American History, Black Women's History, and the History of Black Education. Her articles have been published in the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of African American History and she has written a book entitled A Chance For Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle that was published by UNC Press in 2016. She was also the recipient of the 2021 American Historical Association Equity Award and the Anthony Kaye Fellowship at the National Humanities Center. 

Heidi Senungetuk
Lecturer
Music

Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk completed her PhD in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Senungetuk held positions at McGill University and the University of Alaska. Dr. Senungetuk’s research interests include Indigenous music and musicology. Her article “Indigenous Musics of the Arctic” was published by Oxford Bibliographies in Music (2017), and her “Prologue: Pagmapak: In Modern Times” was included in the book Music and Modernity Among First Peoples of North America (2019, Wesleyan University Press). Her essay “Tavluġun atuutit: chin marking music” is included in For Zitkála-Šá (2022, Art Metropole). Dr. Senungetuk was a recipient of the American Graduate Center Fellowship. 

Shiv Subramaniam
Assistant Professor
Religion 

Shiv Subramaniam completed his PhD in Sanskrit and Comparative Literature at the Columbia University (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Subramaniam held a position at Columbia University. Dr. Subramaniam’s research focuses on Sanskrit literature, the south Indian religious tradition of Srivaishnavism, intersections between literature and philosophy, and premodern Tamil literature and culture. He has an article published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy with forthcoming publications in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and a translation of a Tamil poem, which will be published with Harvard University Press. Dr. Subramaniam is the recipient of the Fulbright Award. 

Nirmalya Thakur
Lecturer
Computer Science

Nirmalya Thakur completed his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Cincinnati (2022). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Thakur held positions at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Thakur’s research focuses on human-computer interaction, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, and natural language processing. His articles have been published in the Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks and the Journal of Big Data and Cognitive Computing. He is also the co-editor on 2 book publications: “Human-Computer Interaction and Beyond: Advances Towards Smart and Interconnected Environments (Part I and Part II)." He was also the recipient of the University of Cincinnati’s Distinguished Thesis Award for Master’s Thesis and a Grant in Aid of Research from the National Academy of Sciences, administered by Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society. 

Scott Tyson 
Associate Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods 

Scott Tyson completed his PhD in Politics at New York University (2015). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Tyson held positions at Princeton University, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. Dr. Tyson’s research focuses on formal political theory, political economy, conflict, authoritarian politics, and theoretical implications of empirical models. His articles have been published in The Journal of Politics and American Political Science Review. He was the recipient of the Best International Relations Paper Award, Center for Experimental Social Science Research Grant, and the Bradley Foundation Fellowship.  completed his PhD in Politics at New York University (2015). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Tyson held positions at Princeton University, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago. Dr. Tyson’s research focuses on formal political theory, political economy, conflict, authoritarian politics, and theoretical implications of empirical models. His articles have been published in The Journal of Politics and American Political Science Review. He was the recipient of the Best International Relations Paper Award, Center for Experimental Social Science Research Grant, and the Bradley Foundation Fellowship. 

Jing Wang
Assistant Professor 
Film and Media 

Jing Wang completed her PhD in Media Studies at University of Texas at Austin (2022). Dr. Wang will be joining Emory in Spring 2023. She held a position at the Communication University of China. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on media globalization, global media industry, Chinese independent cinema, and international film festivals. Her articles have been published in the Asian Journal of Communication, Contemporary Cinema, and The Velvet Light Trap. 

Lili Wang
Assistant Professor 
Chemistry 

Lili Wang completed her PhD in Chemistry at University of Chicago (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Wang held positions at the University of Chicago and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on understanding and manipulating excited-state photophysics of functional materials for energy applications and quantum information science. Her articles have been published in Nature Chemistry News & Views, Quantum coherences reveal excited-state dynamics in biophysical systems, and Interfacial Trap-Assisted Triplet Generation in Lead Halide Perovskite Sensitized Solid-State Upconversion. She was also the recipient of the Yang Cao-Lan-Xian Best Thesis Award in Physical Chemistry. 

Garrett Waters
Lecturer 
French and Italian 

Garrett Waters completed his PhD in Romance Languages at University of Georgia (2019). Prior to joining the permanent faculty, Dr. Waters held instructor and visiting positions Emory. Dr. Waters’ research focuses on early modern Italian literature with a focus on the poetics of tragedy, the querelle des femmes and the emergence of the queer subject. His translations and analyses of avant-garde Italian poetry have appeared most recently in both volumes of Those Who From Afar Look Like Flies. 

Kristin Williams
Assistant Professor 
Computer Science 

Kristin Williams completed her PhD in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (2022). Dr. Williams’ research focuses on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that fit with idiosyncratic contexts. Her work has been published in several venues including Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, and ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing. She was also the recipient of the Rising Stars in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Award and the National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes Fellowship. 

Brianna Yamasak
Assistant Professor 
Psychology 

Brianna Yamasaki completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Washington (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Yamasaki held a position at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Yamasaki’s research explores how language, literacy, and executive processes (attention and memory) interact to drive individual differences in linguistic development. Her articles have been published in Human Brain Mapping, Cognition, and Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. She was also the recipient of the Jason Albrecht Outstanding Young Scientist Award and the University of Washington Excellence in Teaching Award. 

Andreas Zufle
Associate Professor
Computer Science

Andreas Zufle completed his PhD in Computer Science at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany (2013). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2022, Dr. Zufle held positions at George Mason University and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Dr. Zufle’s research focus is data management. His papers have been in several conference proceedings including Proceedings of the ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems, Proceedings of the IEEE ICDE International Conference on Data Engineering, and Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment. He was also the recipient of the Principal Investigator in DARPA’s Ground Truth Program and the Co-PI in NSF's Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) Program.