Hamilton College Hires Four Women to Assistant Professor Posts

Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, recently announced the hiring of six new tenure-track faculty members. Four of the six new hires are women.

Erica De Bruin is a new assistant professor of government. Earlier this year, she received a Ph.D. in political science at Yale University. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Columbia University in New York City. Dr. De Bruin has worked as a research associate in U.S. foreign policy and international law at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Kate Jones-Smith was appointed an assistant professor of physics. Her research focuses on cosmology, fundamental physics, and interdisciplinary science. She was a visiting assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Oberlin College in Ohio. Dr. Jones-Smith is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and holds a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Alexandra Plakias was hired as an assistant professor of philosophy. She is a 2002 summa cum laude graduate of Hamilton College and went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. She then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

Andrea Townsend is a new assistant professor of biology.  She was an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Townsend is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine. She earned Ph.D. in ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Smithsonian Institution.