Five Women Scholars Appointed to New Faculty Positions

Jing Kong was promoted to full professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the synthesis of low-dimensionality materials using chemical vapor deposition. Dr. Kong joined the faculty at MIT in 2004.

Professor Kong is a graduate of Peking University in China. She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.

Annemarie Gockel was promoted to associate professor in the School for Social Work at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She was also granted tenure.

Dr. Gockel is a graduate of Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. She holds a master of social work degree from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of British Columbia.

Amber Chelette was appointed assistant professor of kinesiology and leisure students in the School of Education at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Since 2010, she has been an instructional assistant at the University of Houston while completing her doctorate in motor behavior.

Chelette is a graduate of East Texas Baptist University in Marshall and holds a master’s degree in movement science from Columbia University.

Andrea Deciu Ritivoi was named chair of the department of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Professor Ritivoi joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon in 2001. She is the author of Paul Ricoeur: Tradition and Innovation in Rhetorical Theory (State University of New York Press, 2006).

Professor Ritivoi holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Bucharest. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota.

Linda M. Abriola, dean of the School of Engineering at Tufts University in Massachusetts, will step down as dean at the end of the academic year and return to a full-time faculty position as a University Professor. There are only four other University Professors on the Tufts’ faculty.

Dr. Abriola is a graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from Princeton University.