Seven Women Named to New Faculty Posts at Major Universities

Huyla Eraslan was named professor of economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She was an associate professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Dr. Eraslan is a graduate of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. She earned a master’s degree at the University at Buffalo of the State University of New York and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota.

Wendy Freeman was appointed University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She has been serving as the Crawford H. Greenewait Director of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, California.

Dr. Freeman holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Toronto.

Carolyn Cannon was joined the faculty at the Texas A&M Health Science Center in Bryan, Texas. She was the director of the Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis Center at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Dr. Cannon is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where she majored in bioengineering. She earned her medical degree at the University of Texas, and a Ph.D. in physiology and cell biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

Susan Kern, an associate professor of history at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been given the additional responsibility as executive director of William and Mary’s Historic Campus. She is the author of The Jeffersons of Shadwell (Yale University Press, 2010).

Dr. Kern is a graduate of West Chester University in Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in history from the College of William and Mary.

Naminata Diabate has joined the department of comparative literature at Cornell University. She is currently completing a book entitled Naked Agencies: Novel Histories of Genital Power in West African Literature and Film.

Dr. Diabate holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Cocody in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Texas at Austin.

Geraldine Knatz was named professor of the practice of policy and engineering at the Price School of Public Policy and the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She recently retired as executive director of the Port of Los Angeles.

Dr. Knatz is a graduate of Rutgers University. She holds a master’s degree in environmental engineering and a Ph.D. in biological science from the University of Southern California.

Nancy McGehee was appointed chair of the department of hospitality and tourism management in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. She has been on the faculty at Virginia Tech since 2001.

Dr. McGehee is a graduate of Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. She holds a master’s degree from North Carolina State University in Raleigh and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.