New Duties for Five Women Faculty Members at State Universities

Elizabeth Jakob, a professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is taking on the additional responsibility as associate dean for student success at the university’s Graduate School. Dr. Jakob is an animal behaviorist who studies spiders. She is the co-director of the university’s Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning.

Professor Jakob holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis.

Hilkka Kenttamaa was named a Distinguish Professor of chemistry at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She has been on the faculty at Purdue since 1983 and was promoted to full professor in 1999. Earlier in her career, Professor Kenttamaa was a research scientist at the Academy of Finland and Helsinki University.

Professor Kenttamaa holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from Helsinki University.

Karen J.L. Burg was appointed to the Harbor Lights Chair in Small Animal Studies at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Georgia. She was a professor of chemical engineering and vice president for research at Kansas State University. Dr. Burg is the former dean of the Graduate School and a holder of an endowed chair at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Professor Burg is a graduate of North Carolina State University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from Clemson University.

Amy Rupiper Taggart, a professor of English at North Dakota State University in Fargo, has been given the added duty of associate director of the Office of Teaching and Learning at the university.

Dr. Taggart has been on the faculty at North Dakota State University since 2002. She is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she double majored in English and German. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

Sarah Bergbreiter, an associate professor in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, has been given the additional responsibility as director of the Maryland Robotics Center. Dr. Bergbreiter joined the faculty at the university in 2008 and was promoted and awarded tenure in 2014.

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