Seven Women Scholars in New Faculty Roles

Genevieve Robert is a new assistant professor of geology at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. her research focuses in how molten rock flows.

Dr. Robert is a native of Granby, Quebec, and earned her bachelor’s degree at McGill University in Montreal. She holds a master’s degree from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

Lora G. Weiss was named Regents Researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. She is the principal research engineer and chief scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Dr. Weiss is a graduate of Boston University. She holds a master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University.

Nimmi Ramanujam is the inaugural Robert W. Carr Jr. Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. She has served on the faculty at Duke since 2005 after previously teaching at the University of Wisconsin.

Professor Ramanujam earned a Ph.D. in bioengineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Kristen D. Seay is a new assistant professor in the College of Social Work at the University of South Carolina. She was a child abuse investigator before joining the academic community.

Dr. Seay is a graduate of the University of Georgia. She holds a master of social work degree from Florida State University and a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Lisa Park Boush is a new professor of geography and director of the Center for Integrative Geosciences at the University of Connecticut. Since 1995, she has been a professor of geosciences at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Professor Boush is a graduate of the College of Wooster in Ohio. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Arizona.

Ann Marie Kinnell was named chair of the department of anthropology and sociology at the University of Southern Mississippi. She has been on the faculty at the university since 1997. Since 2005, Dr. Kinnell has been director of the university’s nonprofit studies program.

Dr. Kinnell earned a master’s degree in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University in Bloomington.

Smita Bhatia will be joining the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in January as a professor of pediatrics and director of the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship. She has been conducting research on chronic health issues facing cancer survivors at the City of Hope National Cancer Center in Duarte, California.

Dr. Bhatia is a graduate of the All India Institute for Medical Science in New Delhi.