Four Women Scholars Elected to Leadership Positions at National Organizations

Cynthia Struthers, associate professor in the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University in Macomb, was named executive director of the Rural Sociological Society. She will serve a three-year term beginning on July 1. The society’s offices will move from Brigham Young Univerity in Provo, Utah, to Western Illinois University.

Dr. Struther joined the faculty at Western Illinois University in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. at Michigan State University.

Pamela Barber-Freeman, a professor in the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, has been chosen as president-elect of the Research Association of Minority Professors.

Dr. Barber-Freeman has been on the faculty at Prairie View A&M since 2000. She is a graduate of Langston University in Oklahoma and holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in higher education administration from the University of Oklahoma.

Anna M. Allen, an assistant professor in the department of emergency medicine at the West Virginia University School of Medicine, was named president of the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics. The nonprofit organization aims to improve the practice of occupational and environmental health.

Dr. Allen holds a master’s degree in engineering, a master of public health degree and a medical degree, all from West Virginia University.

Joanne Kurtzberg, professor of pediatrics and professor of pathology at the Duke University School of Medicine, was appointed president of the Cord Blood Association. The new organization promotes the banking of an use of umbilical coard blood and related tissues for disease treatment and regenerative therapies.

Dr. Kurtzberg is a graduate of New York Medical College. She completed her residency at the Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York.