Women Faculty Named to Distinguished Chairs

This August Michelle Martin will join the faculty at the University of South Carolina as the inaugural holder of the Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy. Augusta Baker worked in the New York Public Library for 37 years and later founded the Augusta Baker Collection of African-American Children’s Literature at the special collections library at the University of South Carolina.

Professor Martin has been serving as a professor of English at Clemson University. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and holds a master’s degree from Northern Illinois University and a Ph.D. in English from Illinois State University.

Naomi Gerstel was named Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She joined the faculty at the university in 1978 and was named a full professor of sociology in 1990.

Professor Gerstel is a graduate of New York University and holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Margaret M. Mitchell was appointed the Shailer Mathews Professor at the University of Chicago. She is a literary historian of early Christianity. Professor Mitchell joined the university faculty in 1998 and became dean of the divinity school in 2010.

Dr. Mitchell holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago.

Cathryn R. Nagler, professor of pathology and medicine at the University of Chicago, was named the inaugural Bunning Food Allergy Professor. She joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2009 after teaching at Harvard Medical School.

Professor Nagler is a graduate of Barnard College. She earned a Ph.D. in immunology at the New York University School of Medicine.

Lee Fennell was named Max Pam Professor at the University of Chicago Law School. She joined the faculty in 2007 after teaching at the law schools at the University of Texas and the University of Illinois.

Professor Fennell earned her law degree at the Georgetown University Law Center.