Meet the
New Faculty!
Emory College of Arts & Sciences
New Appointments and Promotions
Fall 2023 and Spring 2024
Emory College of Arts and Sciences welcomes an extraordinary group of 64 new faculty members to campus this year. They reflect ambitious recruitment and hiring over the last year.
Our newest faculty continue to enhance the diversity of the Emory community. Their contributions will push the boundaries of research and discovery, scholarly impact, and pedagogy in the liberal arts and sciences.
The College also celebrates several faculty who have been promoted to associate and full professors with tenure, and teaching professors.
Introducing the
New Faculty
Laura Ackerman-Biegasiewicz
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Laura K. G. Ackerman-Biegasiewicz completed her PhD in Chemistry at the University of Rochester (2016). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Ackerman-Biegasiewicz held positions at Princeton University and Arizona State University. Dr. Ackerman-Biegasiewicz's research focuses on developing technology for accelerating reaction discovery in sustainable chemistry. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Nature and the Journal of American Chemical Society. She was also the recipient of an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, an NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Sustainable Chemistry Grant, and the Distinction of Merit and Scholastic Occupation teaching award from the Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society.
Jola Ajibade
Acting Associate Professor/Associate Professor
Environmental Sciences
Jola Ajibade completed her PhD in Geography and Environmental Sustainability at Western University, Canada (2013). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Ajibade held positions at Portland State University and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California. Dr Ajibade’s research focuses on climate resilience planning, just adaptations, disaster risk reduction, and energy transitions. Dr Ajibade’s articles have been published in Nature, Global Environmental Change, and Annals of American Geographers. She co-edited a book, “Global Views on Climate Relocation and Social Justice, published by Routledge. She has won numerous awards including, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) Researcher of the Year Award at Portland State University (2021), the Outstanding Researcher Award for the Earth Sciences, Columbia-Willamette Chapter of Sigma Xi, and the NSF-Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards and Disaster Researchers Fellowship.
Matthew Baker
Assistant Teaching Professor
Political Science
Matthew Baker completed his Juris Doctor at the University of Florida (2013). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Mr. Baker taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Central Florida. Mr. Baker’s research focuses on American politics, particularly on judicial behavior and legal process. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Law and Courts, and The University of Florida’s Journal of Law and Public Policy. Mr. Baker was also the recipient of the Law and Science Dissertation grant from Arizona State University in 2022.
Eric Battaglioli
Assistant Teaching Professor
Biology
Eric Battaglioli completed his PhD in Microbiology at University of Wisconsin-Madison (2013). Prior to joining Emory in Spring 2023, Dr. Battaglioli held positions at Kennesaw State University and Georgetown College. Dr. Battaglioli’s research focuses on microbiome, gnotobiotic animal models, metabolomics, transcriptomics, genomics, microbiology, molecular biology, physiology and bacterial genome manipulation. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Science Translational Medicine, Cell Host & Microbe, and Physiology of the Gastrointestinal Tract (6th Edition).
Kyle Biegasiewicz
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Kyle F. Biegasiewicz completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Rochester (2016). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Biegasiewicz held positions at Princeton University as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Arizona State University (ASU) as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Dr. Biegasiewicz's research focuses on the discovery and application of enzymes for use in selective chemical synthesis. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Nature Chemistry and Science. He was also the recipient of a Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) grant by the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society in 2022.
Ernesto Blanes-Martinez
Assistant Professor
Philosophy
Ernesto Blanes-Martinez completed his PhD in Philosophy at Stony Brook University (2022), He also holds an MA in Philosophy from the University of Paris VIII, and a J.D. from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Blanes-Martinez held a position at Montclair State University. Dr. Blanes-Martinez’s research focuses on the connections between phenomenology and political philosophy, especially from an anticolonial perspective. He has forthcoming articles in a number of leading journals including the Journal of Speculative Philosophy and Small Axe. He was also the recipient of a Max Kade Fellowship and a W. Burghardt Turner Fellowship.
Erica Britt
Associate Teaching Professor
Linguistics
Erica Britt completed her PhD in Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011. Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Britt held the position of Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Department of Language and Communication at the University of Michigan-Flint. Dr. Britt is a sociolinguist and discourse analyst and her work focuses on the use of African American Language in public and political life. Her work has been published in a number of leading journals and scholarly volumes including Language in Society, The Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, and The Oxford Handbook of African American Language. She has also developed an oral history project, the Vehicle City Voices Project, that explores the intersections of language, history, and everyday life in Flint, Michigan.
Kristen Broehl
Assistant Teaching Professor
Anthropology
Kristen Broehl completed her PhD in Anthropology at University of Nevada, Reno (2023). Dr. Broehl's research focuses on bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. She has published articles in Forensic Science International and was the recipient of a Bilinski Dissertation Fellowship.
Yana Bromberg
Professor
Biology and Computer Science
Yana Bromberg completed her PhD in Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University (2007). Prior to joining Emory in Spring 2023, Dr. Bromberg held positions at Rutgers University and Columbia University. Dr. Bromberg’s research focuses on bioinformatics approaches to protein function prediction and genome variation analysis. Her articles have been published in Science Advances, Nature Communications, and Nucleic Acids Research. She was recently named as one of Stony Brook University's 40 under Forty and is the recipient of the Hans Fischer Fellowship from the Institute of Advanced Studies at Technical University of Munich, a Research Excellence Award from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers, and an NSF CAREER Award.
Vanessa Brown
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Vanessa Brown completed her PhD in Psychology at Virginia Tech (2018). Dr. Brown will join the faculty at Emory in Spring 2024 and has held positions at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Brown’s research focuses on understanding disrupted learning processes in anxiety, depression, and trauma-related disorders using neurocomputational modeling. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals, including JAMA Psychiatry, eLife, and Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science. She was recently named an APS Rising Star.
Krista Clark
Assistant Professor
Film and Media
Krista Clark completed her MFA in Drawing and Painting at Georgia State University in 2016. Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Professor Clark held a position at Morehouse College. Professor Clark’s research focuses on the commodification of space and the standardization of building aesthetics. Her work has been exhibited at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York and the New Museum in New York. She was the recipient of the Artadia Award in 2018 and the Working Artist Project Award in 2018.
Aaron Colton
Associate Teaching Professor, Director of First-Year Writing
Writing Program
Aaron Colton completed his PhD in English at the University of Virginia (2018). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Colton held positions at Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Colton’s research focuses on composition pedagogy, writer’s block, and representations of blocked writers in American literature. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including College Literature, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, and Arizona Quarterly.
Kiela Crabtree
Assistant Professor
Political Science
Kiela Crabtree completed her PhD in Political Science at the University of Michigan (2022). Prior to joining the Emory College faculty in 2023, Dr. Crabtree was an early faculty postdoctoral fellow at Emory's James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference. Dr. Crabtree’s research focuses on the implications that racial violence has for political participation and public opinion in the United States. Her research has been published in Political Behavior. She was also the recipient of an American Political Science Association Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant.
Allison Cuttner
Assistant Teaching Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods
Allison Cuttner completed her PhD in Political Science at Emory University (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Cuttner held a position at the University of Toronto. Dr. Cuttner’s research focuses on distributive politics, governance, and personnel in non-democracies and developing countries. She was also the recipient of a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant for increasing survey accessibility.
Rose Deighton-Mohammed
Assistant Teaching Professor
Institute for the Liberal Arts
Rose Deighton-Mohammed completed her PhD in West and South Asian Religions at Emory University (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Deighton-Mohammed held positions in Emory’s Institute for the Liberal Arts, the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, and Laney Graduate School. Dr Deighton-Mohammed’s research focuses on contemporary and historical gender ethics in Islam, especially feminist and trauma-informed Sufi pedagogies and survivor-centered approaches to religious abuse. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the Journal of Islamic Ethics, Religion Compass, and Body and Religion. She was also the recipient of a Mellon Interventions Public Scholarship Teaching Fellowship.
Christine Dunham
Professor
Chemistry
Christine Dunham completed her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California Santa-Cruz. Prior to joining Emory College in Spring 2023, Dr. Dunham held a position as an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Emory University. Dr. Dunham’s research focuses on identifying the mechanistic basis of bacterial translation and regulation through a combination of biochemical, structural, and molecular biology techniques. Her articles have published in a number of articles including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Nucleic Acids Research, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Daniel Fershtman
Assistant Professor
Economics
Daniel Fershtman completed his PhD in Economics at Northwestern University (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Fershtman held positions at Tel Aviv University and the University of Bonn. Dr. Fershtman's research interests include microeconomic theory and information economics. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the American Economic Review: Insights, Theoretical Economics, and the RAND Journal of Economics. He was also the recipient of an Israel Science Foundation research grant.
Andrea Fitzroy
Assistant Teaching Professor
Human Health
Andrea Fitzroy completed her PhD in Sociology in 2020 at Georgia State University. Prior to joining the Emory College faculty in 2023, Dr. Fitzroy held a position at Oxford College of Emory University. Dr.Fitzroy’s research focuses on how social relationships, care, and health influence older adults. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals, including Gender & Society, The Gerontologist, and Qualitative Health Research.
Chandra Ford
Professor
African American Studies and Behavioral, Social,
and Health Educations Sciences
Chandra Ford completed her PhD in Public Health from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2005). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in Spring 2023, Dr. Ford held positions at the University of California at Los Angeles. Dr. Ford’s research focuses on the persistent and pernicious impacts of racism on individual and population health. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Ethnicity & Disease, American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology 2017, and Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. She was also the recipient of the 2020 Wade Hampton Frost Award from the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Black Women Physicians, and a TrueHero Award from TruEvolution.
Manuela Girotti
Assistant Professor
Mathematics
Manuela Girotti completed her PhD in Mathematics at Concordia University (2014). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Girotti held positions at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), Colorado State University, Université de Montréal/Mila Institute (Montréal, QC), and Saint Mary's University (Halifax, NS). Dr. Girotti's research focuses on integrable systems, random matrices and theoretical deep learning. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including International Mathematics Research Notices, Communications in Mathematical Physics, and Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics. She was also the recipient of a CIFAR AI Catalyst grant and a NSERC Discovery Grant (National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada).
Jo Guldi
Acting Professor/Full Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods
Jo Guldi completed her PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley (2008). Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Guldi held positions at the University of Chicago, the Harvard Society of Fellows, Brown University, and Southern Methodist University. Dr. Guldi's research into quantitative methods focuses on improving AI approaches to understanding our past. Her historical research concerns the history of property rights, the origins of eminent domain, and the story of rent control. Her articles have been published in the American Historical Review, Journal of Modern History, and Annales. From 2015-2021 she was PI of a $1 million NSF grant entitled "The Unaffordable World." Her-award winning books have been covered in The Atlantic Monthly, Wall Street Journal, Boston Review, and Guardian.
Christopher Hansman
Assistant Professor
Economics
Christopher Hansman completed his PhD in Economics at Columbia University in 2017. Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Hansman was an assistant professor at Imperial College London. Dr. Hansman’s research focuses on household finance and public economics. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Political Economy.
Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola
Paul & Phyllis Fireman Professor of Spanish and Portuguese
Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola completed his PhD in Spanish at the University of Southern California (1994). He will be joining the faculty at Emory in January 2024, and is currently Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research examines the dynamic interplay between market forces and the production and distribution of contemporary literature and culture across Spanish-speaking countries. He is the author of The Censorship Files: Latin American Writers and Franco’s Spain (2007), Commodifying Violence in Literature and On Screen: The Colombian Condition (2022), and has co-authored Teaching the Latin American Boom (2015) and Territories of Conflict: Traversing Colombia Through Cultural Studies (2017). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Revista de Estudios Colombianos. His research has received recognition and funding from the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH), American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and Fulbright Foundation.
Peter Hitchcock
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Peter Hitchcock completed his PhD in Psychology at Drexel University (2019). Prior to joining Emory, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. Dr. Hitchcock's research examining how decision-making goes awry in depression and anxiety disorders has been published in Clinical Psychological Science, CABN, and Annual Review of Psychology. He was the recipient of an F32 postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Xiao Huang
Assistant Professor
Environmental Sciences
Xiao Huang completed his PhD in Geography at the University of South Carolina (2022). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Huang held positions at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Huang's research focuses on Geo-artificial intelligence, disaster mitigation, human mobility, and urban informatics. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals, including Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Global Change Biology, and Sustainable Cities and Society. He was also the recipient of NASA and NSA grants.
Wei Jin
Assistant Professor
Computer Science
Wei Jin completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University (2023). Dr. Jin's research focuses on Data-Centric AI and Trustworthy AI with a focus on graph data. His articles have been published in a number of top-tier venues including International Conference on Learning Representations, ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, and International Conference on Machine Learning. He also has notable accomplishments such as the Snap Research Fellowship, Most Influential Papers in KDD and WWW, and top finishes in three NeurIPS competitions.
Elaine (Elle) Johnson
Assistant Teaching Professor
Psychology
Elaine Johnson completed her Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology at Emory University (2020). Prior to joining the faculty in 2023 as an Assistant Teaching Professor, she held positions at The City College of New York and as an Instructor at Emory University. Professor Johnson’s research focuses on infant and child development, theories of personality, and child psychopathology. Her article on Paternal Borderline Symptoms and Offspring Outcomes in Young Adulthood has been published in the Journal of Personality Disorders.
Vani Kannan
Associate Teaching Professor, Director of Writing Across Emory
Emory Writing Program
Vani Kannan completed her PhD in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric with a certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University (2018). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Kannan served as Assistant Professor of English and director of Writing across the Curriculum at Lehman College, CUNY. Dr. Kannan’s research focuses on Asian/American rhetorics, community literacies, social-justice-oriented writing pedagogies, and multimodal/multigenre composition. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Women’s Studies Quarterly, Enculturation, and Writers: Craft & Context. She received an ACLS Project Development Grant during the 2022-23 school year and served as scholar-in-residence at the Georgia State University Humanities Research Center.
Jieun Lee
Assistant Professor
Theater Studies
Jieun Lee completed her PhD in Theater and Performance Studies from The University of Georgia (2018). Prior to joining Emory, she held positions at Wake Forest University and the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on transnational adoption in drama and media, Asian and Asian American theater, feminist theory and art, Korean folklore and popular cultures, and interdisciplinary diaspora studies. Her articles have been published in a number leading journals including the Journal of Learner-Centered Curriculum and Instruction, Korea Journal, and Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
Jinyu Liu
Acting Professor/Professor
History
Jinyu Liu completed her PhD in Roman History at Columbia University in 2004. Prior to joining Emory in 2023, she held the position of Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University. Her research focuses on Ancient Social and Economic History, History from the Roman Empire, Latin Epigraphy, Translation of Latin Literature into Chinese, and the Reception of (Western) Classical Antiquity in China. Her articles have been published in important journals such as Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik and Ancient History Bulletin. She is the author of the monograph Collgia Centonariorum: The Guilds of Textile Dealers in the Roman West (Brill, 2009), An Introductory Research Guide to Roman History (in Chinese, published by Peking University in 2014), and edited New Frontiers of Research on Ovid in a Global Context (in Chinese; Peking University Press, 2021). She is the recipient of a number of grants, including an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s New Directions Fellowship and a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship.
Marina Magloire
Assistant Professor
English
Marina Magloire completed her PhD in English at Duke University (2017). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Magloire worked at University of Miami. Dr. Magloire's research focuses on African American and Caribbean literature and Black feminism. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including African American Review, Small Axe: A Journal of Caribbean Criticism, and Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. She was also the recipient of an ACLS Sustaining Public Engagement Grant and the Darwin C. Turner Award for best essay published in 2022 in African American Review.
Mara Mandradjieff
Assistant Teaching Professor
Dance and Movement Studies Program
Mara Mandradjieff completed her PhD in Dance Studies at Texas Woman’s University (2020). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory as an Assistant Teaching Professor in 2023, Dr. Mandradjieff held positions at Emory as a part-time instructor, the University of Pittsburgh, and Kennesaw State University. Dr. Mandradjieff’s research focuses on ballet and performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, body studies, film and media studies, and posthumanism. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, Feminist Media Studies, and Text & Performance Quarterly. She serves as an Associate Editor for the academic journal Dance Chronicle and in 2021 received the American Society for Theatre Research’s Jessica Berson Dance Research Grant in support of her work on racialization embodiment practices in classical ballet.
Stefano Maranzana
Assistant Teaching Professor
French & Italian
Stefano Maranzana completed his PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Maranzana held positions at Duke University and Southern Methodist University (SMU). Dr. Maranzana’s research focuses on technology for Italian and French language pedagogy and Italian immigration in the United States. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including South Atlantic Review, Italica, International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, as well as several book chapters. He was also nominated twice for SMU’s HOPE Professor of the Year Award (2021-2023).
Megan G. Massa
Assistant Teaching Professor
Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology
Megan G. Massa completed their PhD in Neuroscience with a Graduate Certificate in Writing Pedagogy at UCLA (2022). Prior to joining Emory, Dr. Massa held a position at Haverford College. Dr. Massa’s research focuses on metabolism, neuroendocrinology, queer and feminist approaches to sex, and innovative pedagogies. Her articles have been published in leading journals including BBA Molecular Basis of Disease, American Journal of Pathology, and PLOS One. Dr. Massa was also a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the AAC&U Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the UCLA Academic Senate.
Tamara Nicol Medina
Associate Teaching Professor
Psychology
Tamara Medina completed her PhD in Cognitive Science at The Johns Hopkins University (2007). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Medina held positions at the University of Delaware and Drexel University. Dr. Medina’s research focuses on how children learn the meanings of words without ever having been taught them directly. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Cognitive Psychology.
Omar Jared Medina
Acting Associate Professor/Associate Professor
Psychology
Jared Medina completed his PhD in Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins University (2006). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Medina held a position at the University of Delaware. Dr. Medina's research focuses on how the brain represents the body, using evidence from perceptual illusions, human neuroimaging and individuals with brain damage. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Current Biology, Cognition and Neuropsychologia. He was the recipient of National Science Foundation grants to examine the links between perception and stored knowledge, and to establish a post-baccalaureate bridge program in data science and psychology for underrepresented students.
Tamar Menashe
Jay and Leslie Cohen Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies
History
Tamar Menashe completed her PhD in History at Columbia University (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Menashe held a position at the University of Pennsylvania. Some of Dr. Menashe’s research interests include legal theory, deep histories of human rights, and minorities and early modern Empire. Her articles have been published in Chidushim, Journal for German-Jewish History and Dine Israel. She is also the recipient of the American Society for Legal History Student Award (2021-2022), the DAAD Short-Term Research Grant, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen (2019), and the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies Excellence Award, Columbia University (2019).
Levon Nurbekyan
Assistant Professor
Mathematics
Levon Nurbekyan completed his PhD in Mathematics at the Technical University of Lisbon in the framework of UT Austin - Portugal CoLab (2012). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Nurbekyan held positions at UCLA, McGill, KAUST, the Institute of Mathematics of NAS RA, and the Technical University of Lisbon. Dr. Nurbekyan’s research focuses on computational and analytic aspects of partial differential equations, control theory, and machine learning. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, and Advances in Mathematics.
Tanju Ozdemir
Assistant Professor
Film and Media
Tanju Ozdemir completed his MFA in Film and Media Art at Emerson College (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Professor Ozdemir held positions at the University of Connecticut, the University of Tennessee, Emerson College, and the Five College Language Center. Professor Ozdemir’s research focuses on narrative filmmaking: scriptwriting, directing, producing, and cinematography. Some of his filmography includes, Niyetler – Intentions (2021), Alexander at the End of the World (2018), A House by the Waterfall (2016), and Secret (2015). He is the recipient of the Office of the Vice President for Research SCHARP Grant, University of Connecticut (2022), the Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Connecticut (2021), and the School of Fine Arts Research Grant (2020).
Ju Hyun Park
Assistant Teaching Professor
Sociology
Ju Hyun Park completed her PhD in Sociology at Emory University (2020). Before joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Park lectured in the Department of Sociology at Emory University. Dr. Park’s teaching and research interests include the sociology of work, culture, and creative careers. Her research focuses on how social characteristics, such as gender, race/ethnicity, and social class, shape work- and career-related opportunities and outcomes available to individuals. She recently published a co-authored article in Work & Occupations, which examines the gender pay gap among composers.
Linette Park
Assistant Professor
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Linette Park completed her Ph.D. in the Culture and Theory Program at the University of California, Irvine (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory as an Assistant Professor in 2023, Dr. Park held positions at Emory as an Instructor, Pennsylvania State University and Dartmouth College. Dr. Park's research engages with black critical theories, critical theory, gender and sexuality studies, philosophies of law and race, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Diacritics, Theory & Event, and The Black Scholar. She was also the recipient of the Thurgood Marshall Fellowship (Dartmouth College) and the University of California- New Center for Psychoanalysis Interdisciplinary Fellowship.
James Pellerito
Assistant Teaching Professor
Film and Media
James Pellerito completed his MFA in Directing and Screenwriting from Columbia University School of the Arts (2005). His work has screened at over 200 festivals worldwide, won over thirty awards, aired on HBO Latino, Sundance TV, Logo TV, PBS America, Biography Australia, NTV Japan and QTV Korea, and been reviewed in Variety, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter. His feature documentaries include Pop Star On Ice (2009, IFC Center), American Cheerleader (2014, Fathom Events) and Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer (2018, Film Forum), all produced with David Barba. Pellerito served as co-creator, director and executive producer on two seasons of his series Be Good Johnny Weir (2010, 2012). He is the co-founder and director of the New York City Short Film Festival (NYC Shorts) and a graduate of the 2-year Meisner acting program at The Neighborhood Playhouse.
Cosmin Pohoata
Assistant Professor
Mathematics
Cosmin Pohoata completed his PhD in Mathematics at California Institute of Technology (2020). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Pohoata held a position at Yale University. Dr. Pohoata’s research focuses on extremal combinatorics, additive number theory, and discrete geometry. His articles have been published in Combinatorica, Annals of Probability, and Discrete Analysis. He was also the recipient of the AMS-Simons Travel Grant (2021-2023), the Scott Russell Johnson Graduate Dissertation Prize (2020), and the Apostol Award for Excellence in Teaching (2019).
Alexander Polyanskii
Assistant Professor
Mathematics
Alexander Polyanskii completed his PhD in Mathematics at Lomonosov Moscow State University (2013). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Polyanskii held positions at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and Institute of Mathematics and Informatics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Polyanskii's research lies at the interface between combinatorics and linear algebra, with a focus on discrete geometry. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Geometric and Functional Analysis and International Mathematics Research Notices. He was also the recipient of a Young Russian Mathematics award in 2020.
Aaron Putt
Assistant Teaching Professor
Film and Media
Aaron Kagan Putt completed his MFA in Painting (2018) and an MA in Art History (2019) from Georgia State University. Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Putt held a position at Oglethorpe University. Putt’s research and art practice explores utopian fantasy and the aesthetics of abstraction. His artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia in Atlanta (MOCA GA), the National Centre for Contemporary Arts in Minsk, Belarus, and the Kokoka International House Gallery in Kyoto, Japan. He has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and has been an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center.
Kevin Quinn
Professor/Acting Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods
Kevin Quinn completed his PhD in Political Science at Washington University (1999). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Quinn held positions at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and the University of Washington. Dr. Quinn’s research focuses on voting, judicial behavior, empirical legal studies, and statistical methodology. His articles have been published in in a number of leading journals including Journal of Politics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, and Southern California Law Review.
Yolanda Rankin
Acting Associate Professor
Computer Science
Yolanda Rankin completed her PhD in Computer Science at Northwestern University (2008). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Rankin held positions at Florida State University and Spelman College. Dr. Rankin’s research focuses on designing, developing and evaluating video games to promote learning across various domains, engaging underserved populations in the participatory design of information-based technologies, and developing effective learning environments to promote Computer Science education for K-18 student populations. Her articles have been published in ACM Interactions.
Megan Reed
Assistant Professor
Sociology
Megan Reed completed her PhD in Sociology and Demography at the University of Pennsylvania (2022). Prior to starting her current position, Dr. Reed was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Emory. Dr. Reed’s research focuses on family, gender, and the life course, primarily in the Indian context. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Journal of Marriage and Family, Population Studies, and Social Science Research. She was also the recipient of a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship and the Van de Walle prize for the best paper in demography at the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrea Roeser
Assistant Teaching Professor
Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology
Andrea Roeser completed her PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University (2023). Dr. Roeser’s research focuses on the neural mechanisms of vocal communication and social interactions, specifically in songbirds. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Journal of Neurophysiology, Neuron, and Nature.
Julia Ruck
Assistant Teaching Professor
German Studies
Julia Ruck completed her PhD in German Applied Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Ruck held positions at Webster Vienna Private University (Austria) and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Dr. Ruck's research focuses on sociocultural, sociolinguistic, multimodal, and critical approaches to collegiate German language education. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Critical Multilingualism Studies, The Language Learning Journal, and Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German. She was also the recipient of the Webster Vienna Private University Senate Excellence in Teaching Award and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's University Housing Honored Instructor Award.
Sarah Salter
Teaching Professor, Director of Writing Program
Writing Program
Sarah H. Salter completed her PhD in U.S. Literature at Penn State University (2014). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Salter held positions at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and in the Penn State Graduate Writing Center. Dr. Salter's research focuses on histories of editorship and collaboration in multiethnic, multilingual US periodicals. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including American Literature, Criticism, and MELUS: Multiethnic Literature of the United States. In addition to research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dr. Salter has received multiple fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society and is a 2022-2024 Visiting Scholar at the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans. In 2022, Dr. Salter won the College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Research Activity Award at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
Pedro Sant’Anna
Acting Associate Professor/Associate Professor
Economics
Pedro H. C. Sant’Anna completed his PhD in Economics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain (2015). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Sant’Anna held positions at Vanderbilt University, Microsoft Research, and Amazon. Dr. Sant’Anna research focuses on Causal Inference using Data-Adaptive (Machine Learning) Methods. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Econometrica, Journal of Econometrics, and Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics. He was also the recipient of the 2023 Dennis J. Aigner Award for best empirical paper published in the Journal of Econometrics, and of the 2016 Zellner Thesis Award awarded by the American Statistical Association.
Kashika Singh
Teaching Professor
Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies
Kashika Singh completed her MS in Curriculum and Instruction Design from The University of Wisconsin-Madison (2012). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Professor Singh held positions at Indiana University, Bloomington, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Professor Singh’s teaching philosophy fosters an inclusive learning environment, encouraging exploration of cultures and linguistic diversity.
Sandeep Soni
Assistant Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods
Sandeep Soni completed his PhD in Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology (2021). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Sandeep was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Soni’s research interests lie in the areas of natural language processing, computational social science, and cultural analytics. His articles have been published in a number of journals including the Journal of Cultural Analytics and the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.
Allison Stashko
Assistant Professor
Quantitative Theory and Methods
Allison Stashko completed her PhD in Economics at Georgetown University (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Stashko held a position at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah. Dr. Stashko’s research focuses on political economy and law and economics. Her articles have been published the Journal of the European Economic Association.
Julia Tulke
Assistant Teaching Professor
Institute for the Liberal Arts
Julia Tulke (she/they) completed her PhD in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester (2023). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Tulke held positions at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the University of Rochester. Dr. Tulke’s research focuses on the visual and spatial politics of crisis. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including City: Analysis of Urban Change, Theory, Action. She was also the recipient of the Prosser Award for Outstanding Work by a Beginning Scholar in Visual Methodologies from the International Visual Sociological Association in 2022.
David van Schoor
Assistant Professor
Classics
David van Schoor completed his PhD in Ancient Greek Philology at the University of Zurich (2018). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. van Schoor was senior lecturer in Classics at Rhodes University, and a fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC. Dr. van Schoor’s research interests are in Classical Greek literature, African interpretations of Greek and Roman works, Latin poetry, and Classics and colonialism. His work has been published in a number of leading journals including The Johannesburg Review of Books, The Bulletin of the Institute for Classical Studies and Acta Classica.
Leonardo Velloso-Lyons
Instructor/Assistant Professor
Spanish and Portuguese
Leonardo Velloso-Lyons completed his PhD in Comparative Literature, focusing on early modern Spanish and Portuguese literatures, at Stanford University (2015). Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Velloso-Lyons was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Romance Studies at Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities. Dr. Velloso-Lyons’s research interests include the relation between literary, historical, and geographic discourses, the writing of global and local histories, and the interaction between cartographic objects and literature. He has published a peer-reviewed essay on Abraham Ortelius and Luis de Camões with DeGruyter. He has been awarded the Stanford Humanities Center’s Dissertation Prize, the Mabelle McLeod Lewis Prize, and the Bradley Rubidge Memorial Dissertation Award.
Chen Wang
Assistant Teaching Professor of Chinese
Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures
Chen Wang completed her PhD in East Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (2019). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Wang held positions at Williams College and Brigham Young University. Dr. Wang’s research focuses on modern Chinese-language literature, bilingualism, and Chinese language pedagogy. Her articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Translation Spaces, Comparative Literature Studies, and The Routledge Companion to Yan Lianke.
Jing Wang
Assistant Professor
Film and Media
Jing Wang completed her PhD in Media Studies at University of Texas at Austin (2022). Prior to joining Emory in Spring 2023, Dr. Wang 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.
Yao Wang
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Yao Wang completed his PhD in Applied Physics at Stanford University (2017). Prior to joining the faculty at Emory in 2023, Dr. Wang held a COS Dean's assistant professorship position at Clemson University. Dr. Wangs research focuses on quantum materials, spectroscopy, high-performance and quantum computing. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including Nature, Science, and Nature Communications. He was also the recipient of the DOE Early Career Award and AFOSR Young Investigator Award.
Feng Zhai
Assistant Professor
Chemistry
Feng Zhai completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of Chicago (2017). Prior to joining the faculty of Emory in 2023, Dr. Zhai held postdoctoral appointments at MIT and Emory. Dr. Zhai’s research focuses on synthetic inorganic and organometallic chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and sustainability. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, and ACS Central Science.
Gregory Zinman
Acting Associate Professor/Associate Professor
Film and Media
Gregory Zinman completed his PhD in Cinema Studies at New York University in 2012. Prior to joining Emory in 2023, Dr. Zinman held positions at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Dr. Zinman’s research and curatorial work bridges the fields of film studies, media studies, and art history, with a particular emphasis on contemporary global media art, experimental film and media, public art, and digital culture. His articles have been published in a number of leading journals and publications including the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, October, and The New Yorker. He was also the recipient of NEH Summer Stipend and an ACLS New Faculty fellowship.
Faculty Transitions
New Named Chair Appointments
Mariana Candido, Winship Distinguished Research Professor of History
Robert Hampton, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology
Doug Mulford, Nat C. Robertson Teaching Professor of Science and Society
Devaka Premawardhana, Winship Distinguished Research Associate Professor of Religion
Lars Ruthotto, Winship Distinguished Research Associate Professor of Mathematics
Pamela Scully, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies
Devin Stewart, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies
Promotion to Full Professor
Mariana Candido, History
Todd Cronan, Art History
Francesco Evangelista, Chemistry
Thomas Rogers, History
Eri Saikawa, Environmental Sciences
Tiphanie Yanique, Creative Writing & English
Yanna Yannakakis, History
Promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure
Christoph Breunig, Economics
Adriana Chira, History
Hwisang Cho, Russian and East Asian Languages and Cultures
David Civitello, Biology
Xochitl Marsilli-Vargis, Spanish and Portuguese
Rune Nyord, Art History
Kristin Phillips, Anthropology
Cassidy Puckett, Sociology
Meredith Schweig, Music
Carl Suddler, History
Daniel Weissman, Physics
Liang Zhao, Computer Science
Promotion to Teaching Professor
Amanda Freeman, Human Health
Linda Merrill, Art History
Brajesh Samarth, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies
Robert Wyttenbach, Neuroscience & Behavioral Biology
Promotion to Associate Teaching Professor
Michael Carr, Mathematics
Elena Cholakova, Music
Zhiyun Gong, Quantitative Theory and Methods
Dana Haugaard, Art History (moving to Film and Media)
Manuela Manetta, Mathematics
Marília Ribeiro, Spanish and Portuguese
Gehane Shehata, Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies
Juan Villeta-García, Mathematics
Appointment to Full Professor with Tenure
Yana Bromberg, Biology and Computer Science
Mingji Dai, Chemistry
Emil' Keme, English
Elizabeth Lonsdorf, Anthropology
Laura Nenzi, History
Appointment to Associate Professor with Tenure
Julianne Chung, Mathematics
Matthias Chung, Mathematics
Zheng Fang, Economics
Chinmay Kulkarni, Computer Science
Fei Liu, Computer Science
Jack Paine, Political Science
Crystal Sanders, African American Studies
Andreas Züfle, Computer Science
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