Kathleen Flake was named the inaugural Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies at the University of Virginia. She was a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of The Politics of Religious Identity: the Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
Dr. Flake is a graduate of Brigham Young University and the University of Utah School of Law. She holds a master’s degree from the Catholic University of America and a Ph.D. in the history of Christianity from the University of Chicago.
Sarah Banet-Weiser, a professor of American studies in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, was named the director of the university’s School of Communication. Professor Banet-Weiser has been on the USC faculty since 1999.
Professor Bant-Weiser, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego, is the author of many books including The Most Beautiful Girl in the World: Beauty Pageants and National Identity (University of California Press, 1999) and her most recent work Authentic: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture (New York University Press, 2012).
JoAnn M. Emmel was named associate professor emerita in the department of apparel, housing, and resource management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She has been on the faculty at the university since 1997.
Dr. Emmel holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Iowa State University and a doctorate from New Mexico State University.
Ingrid Nelson is a new assistant professor of geography at the University of Vermont. She was serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.
Dr. Nelson is a graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Oregon.
Agustina Giraudy is a new assistant professor in the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. She was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.
Dr. Giraudy is a graduate of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Argentina. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Virginia Zimmerman was named to the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in the Humanities at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She specializes in Victorian literature and culture.
Professor Zimmerman is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.
Kelly Lombardo was named an assistant professor of marine sciences at the Avery Point campus of the University of Connecticut. She was a postdoctoral research associate at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York.
Dr. Lombardo holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University at Albany of the State University of New York. She holds a Ph.D. in atmospheric science from Stony Brook University.
Nancy Everhart, associate professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at Florida State University, was elected as regional director for the United States of the International Association of School Librarianship. She is the former president of the American Association of School Librarians.
Dr. Everhart is a graduate of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Central Florida and a Ph.D. from Florida State University.