New Faculty Roles for Seven Women at American Universities

Emma Teng was appointed head of the global studies and languages program in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Teng is the T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations in the department of history and was serving as director of the Women’s and Gender Studies program at MIT. Her latest book is Eurasian: Mixed Identities in the United States, China and Hong Kong, 1842-1943 (University of California Press, 2013).

Professor Teng holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, all from Harvard University.

Leslie Beck was named an assistant professor in the departments of entomology, plant pathology, and weed science and extension plant sciences at New Mexico State University. She has been conducting postdoctoral research on weeds and weed management at Purdue University in Indiana.

Dr. Beck holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. She earned a Ph.D. in turfgrass management at Texas Tech University.

Marcia DiStaso, an associate professor in the department of advertising and public relations at Pennsylvania State University, will be taking on the additional responsibility of director of the Social Media Research Center at the Institute for Public Relations. Dr. DiStaso joined the Penn State faculty in 2007.

Dr. DiStaso holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of South Florida in Tampa. She earned a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Miami.

Julie L. Ozanne was named professor of marketing at the University of Melbourne in Australia. She was a professor of marketing in the College of Business at Virginia Tech. Dr. Ozanne has taught at Virginia Tech since 1985 and now has been granted emerita status.

Dr. Ozanne is a graduate of Florida State University. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Iris Mack is a new lecturer at the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University in New Orleans. A former astronaut candidate and investment banker, Dr. Mack is the author of Mama Says, ”Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees!’‘ (CreateSpace, 2011) and Energy Trading and Risk Management: A Practical Approach to Hedging, Trading and Portfolio Diversification (John Wiley & Sons, 2014).

Dr. Mack is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She holds a master’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Mack was the second African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University.

Dena Register will be joining the faculty at the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University this fall. She will be the coordinator of the new music therapy program in music education. She was an associate professor of music therapy and music education at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Register holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in music therapy, all from Florida State University.

Lisa S. Scott was named an associate professor of psychology at the University of Florida. She was an associate professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She joined the UMass faculty in 2006.

Dr. Scott holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in child psychology from the University of Minnesota.