Seven Women Appointed to New Faculty Posts

Phaedra Corso was named the inaugural UGA Foundation Professor of Human Health at the University of Georgia. She has held the title of professor of health policy and management at the university’s School of Public Health. She has been on the faculty at the university since 2006. Previously, she worked for 15 years as an economic and policy analyst at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Professor Corso holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Georgia and a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University.

Gloria Choi is a new assistant professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was conducting postdoctoral research at Columbia University. Her research is focused on how the brain learns to recognize olfactory stimuli and how the sense of smell differs from our other senses neurologically.

Dr. Choi is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. She holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

Jessica Stockholder was appointed Distinguished Service Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. She was the director of the sculpture department at the Yale School of Art for 12 years before joining the faculty at the University of Chicago in 2011.

Professor Stockholder is a graduate of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Yale University.

Tamara Laninga, an assistant research professor in the College of Art and Architecture and the College of Natural Resources Conservation at the University of Idaho, was appointed director of the bioregional planning and community design program at the university.

Dr. Laninga is a graduate of Western Washington University in Bellingham. She holds a master’s degree in geography and a Ph.D. in design and planning from the University of Colorado.

Mellonee V. Burnim, a professor of folklore and ethnomusicology at Indiana University in Bloomington, was named director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture at the university.

Dr. Burnim is a graduate of the University of North Texas in Denton. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Indiana University.

Creola Johnson was named the President’s Club Professor in Law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. Before joining the faculty at Ohio State University, she taught at the University of Iowa College of Law.

Professor Johnson is a graduate of Louisiana State University and the law school at West Virginia University.

Leila Ladani is a new associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Connecticut. She previously taught at the University of Alabama where she helped develop materials and parts for use at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Dr. Landani holds a master’s degree from the Isfahan University of Technology in Iran and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. in solid mechanics from the University of Maryland.