Eleven Women Scholars Taking on New Faculty Assignments

Pearl Dowe, an associate professor of political science at the University of Arkansas was given the additional duty of interim director of the African and African American studies program at the university.

Dr. Dowe is a graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia and holds a Ph.D. in political science from Howard University.

Shannon Manning was appointed a MSU Foundation Professor at Michigan State University. A member of the faculty of the department of microbiology and molecular genetics since 2004, Dr. Manning’s research focuses on bacterial infections.

Dr. Manning holds a master of public health degree and a Ph.D. in molecular epidemiology from the University of Michigan.

Heidi Fisher is a new assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Maryland at College Park. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Dr. Fisher holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California, San Diego, and Ph.D. in biology from Boston University.

Laura Kurgan, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, has been given the additional responsibilities of director of the new Center for Spatial Research at the school.

Professor Kurgan joined the Columbia faculty in 2004 after teaching at Princeton University for six years. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a master of architecture degree from Columbia University.

Anne Castle was named a senior fellow at the University of Colorado law school’s Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy and Environment. From 2009 to 2014, Castle was assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior for water and science.

A graduate of the University of Colorado, Castle spent the spring 2015 semester as the Landreth Visiting Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.

Alysia Cox is a new assistant professor of chemistry and geochemistry at Montana Tech in Butte. Her research focuses on the interactions of heavy metals with marine cyanobacteria.

Dr. Cox is a graduate of Arizona State University, where he majored in geological sciences. She received her Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Pamela M. Berkeley has joined the faculty at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. She will teach engineering studies and provide tutoring support to deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

Dr. Berkeley is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kisha Lashley is a new assistant professor in the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. She recently completed her Ph.D. in management at Pennsylvania State University.

A native of the Caribbean nation of Dominica, Dr. Lashley is a graduate of Berea College in Kentucky and holds a master’s degree in the management of technology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Carolyn J. Heinrich was appointed a professor of public policy and education in the department of leadership, policy, and organizations of Peabody College at Vanderbilt University. She was director of the Center for Health and Social Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Heinrich is a graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Vanessa Tyson was named assistant professor of politics and international relations at Scripps College in Claremont, California. She is the author of Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the U.S. House, which is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

Dr. Tyson is a graduate of Princeton University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Chicago.

Angela Neal is a new assistant professor of psychology at the Lancaster campus of the University of South Carolina. She was an instructor in psychology at Granite State College in Rochester, New Hampshire.

Dr. Neal is a graduate of Elmira College in New York. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of New Hampshire.