New Administrative Roles for 11 Women in Higher Education

Wanda K. Brown was appointed director of library services at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. She was associate dean of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. She joined the staff at Wake Forest in 1977.

Brown is a graduate of Winston-Salem State University and holds a master of library and information science degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Nina Maung-Gaona was named associate vice president for research at Stony Brook University in New York. She has been serving as an assistant dean in the Graduate School and as director of the Center for Inclusive Education at the university. Maung-Gaona joined the staff at Stony Brook in 2000.

Maung-Gaona holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University at Albany of the State University of New York System.

Cherisna Jean-Marie was named chaplain at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas. She is the former associate minister at the New Covenant Christian Church in Nashville, Tennessee.

Jean-Marie is a graduate of Kean University in Union, New Jersey, where she majored in public communications. She holds a master’s degree from Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville.

Paula Byron was appointed director of marketing and communications for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. She has been serving as director of communications for the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke.

Byron is a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, where she majored in English. She earned a master’s degree in Asian studies from the University of Michigan.

Melanie Overton was named vice president for advancement at Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina, effective March 1. For the past four years, Dr. Overton has served as the assistant general secretary for schools, colleges, and universities on the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s Division of Higher Education of the United Methodist Church.

Dr. Overton is a summa cum laude graduate of Lambuth University in Jackson, Tennessee, which is now a campus of the University of Memphis. She holds a master’s degree in higher education administration from Dallas Baptist University and a doctorate in higher education leadership and policy from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Kirsi Aulin was named campus omsbud at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 2012, Aulin has served as director of the Office of Ombuds at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Aulin holds a bachelor’s degree in French literature from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in counseling psychology from California State University, Northridge.

Diane Barrett is the new director of the Office of Sponsored Research Programs at Colorado State University. She was the assistant director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Barrett is a graduate of Western State Colorado University in Gunnison, where she majored in music and literature. She holds a master’s degree in literature from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Joelle Ziemian was named director of media, marketing, and communications at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. She has been employed by the consulting firm Burson-Marsteller.

Ziemian is a graduate of Goucher College in Baltimore. She holds a master of fine arts degree from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier.

Karen L. Miller was appointed vice president for human resources at Middlebury College in Vermont. She has been serving as a special adviser to the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. She is the former academic dean at the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta.

Miller is a graduate of Emory University and Harvard Law School. She is currently completing a doctorate in education at the University of Georgia.

Monica J. Allen was promoted to vice chancellor and general counsel at Washington University in St. Louis, effective July 1. Currently, she serves as associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel, and chief litigation counsel at the university. She joined the university’s legal staff in 2006.

Allen holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in comparative literature and a law degree, all from Washington University.

Cathy Hasenpflug is the new chief human resources officer at Montana State University in Bozeman. She joined the staff at the university in 2013 and was serving as associate chief human resources officer.

Before joining the staff at Montana State University, Hasenpflug held senior human resource management positions at high technology and investment management companies.