Six Women Scholars in New University Teaching Roles

Jane Smiley was named Distinguished Professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. Her appointment is effective on July 1. From 1981 to 1996, Dr. Smiley was a professor of English at Iowa State University. She is the author of two dozen novels and nonfiction works including the bestseller A Thousand Acres (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991), which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Dr. Smiley is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She holds a master’s degree, a master of fine arts degree, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa.

Susan Asselin was named professor emerita of special education in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. She has served on the faculty at the university since 1982.

Dr. Asselin holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University in Tallahassee. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska.

JeffriAnne Wilder was promoted to associate professor of sociology and granted tenure at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She has been on the faculty at the university since 2008.

Dr. Wilder is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and is a graduate of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s degree from Cleveland State University and a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Florida.

Sally Hodder was appointed professor in the section of infectious diseases at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. She also will serve as the director of the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She has been serving as a professor in the medical school of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Dr. Hodder received her medical degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and completed her internship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Sarah Bergbreiter was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure at the A. James Clark School of Engineering of the University of Maryland. She has been on the faculty at the university since 2008. Dr. Bergbreiter also is the director of the Microrobotics Laboratory at the university.

Dr. Bergbreiter is a graduate of Princeton University in New Jersey. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Gillian R. Hayes will be the inaugural holder of the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Chair in Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Hayes’ research involves healthcare and technology. She has been on the faculty at the university since 2007.

Dr. Hayes is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in computer science and mathematics. She earned a Ph.D. in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.