New Assignments in Higher Education for 11 Women Faculty Members

Carmen Solorzano was appointed chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology and Endocrine Surgery at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is a professor of surgery at the medical school and director of the Endocrine Surgery Center. Dr. Solorzano has been on the faculty at Vanderbilt since 2010.

A native of Nicaragua, Dr. Solorzano is a graduate of the University of Florida, where she also completed her medical training. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Martha Desmond was named to a Regents Professorship at New Mexico State University. She is a professor in the department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Ecology in the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences. Dr. Desmond is a leading expert on burrowing owls.

Dr. Desmond is a graduate of Wells College in Aurora, New York, where she majored in environmental studies. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

Alicia C. Dowd was appointed professor of education and a research associate at the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. She has been serving as an associate professor of education and the associate director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She joined the faculty at USC in 2006. Earlier she taught at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Professor Dowd holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature, a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in education, all from Cornell University.

Susan S. Fiorito, chair of the department of entrepreneurship, strategy, and information systems in the College of Business at Florida State University, was named the inaugural director of the Jim Moran School of Entrepreneurship at the university. She joined the university’s faculty in 1990.

Professor Fiorito is a graduate of Florida State University, where she majored in home economics education. She holds a master’s degree from Barry University in Miami and a Ph.D. in merchandising from Oklahoma State University.

Angela Belcher, the James Mason Crafts professor in the department of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been given the added responsibility of chairing a new faculty advisory committee that will oversee all efforts at MIT to enhance STEM education in K-12 education.

Professor Belcher holds a bachelor’s degree in creative studies and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Julia Bekman Chadaga, associate professor of Russian studies at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, was granted tenure. She specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature. Dr. Chadaga is the author of Optical Play: Glass, Vision, and Spectacle in Russian Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2014).

Dr. Chadaga is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Heather Roller was promoted to associate professor of history and granted tenure at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. She is the author of Amazonian Routes: Indigenous Mobility and Colonial Communities in Northern Brazil (Stanford University Press, 2014).

Dr. Roller is a graduate of Yale University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Debra J. Barksdale was appointed professor of nursing and associate dean of academic programs for the School of Nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She was a professor and director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Dr. Barksdale is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where she majored in nursing. She holds a master’s degree in nursing from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Michigan.

Katharine M. Donato, professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, is taking a one-year sabbatical to serve as a visiting scholar with the Russell Sage Foundation in New York. She will conduct research on how race and gender affect how immigrants find their place in the United States. Professor Donato has taught at Vanderbilt since 2006.

Professor Donato is a graduate of the New York Institute of Technology. She holds a master of social work degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology from Stony Brook University of the State University of New York System.

Hayley Mark was named chair of the department of nursing in the College of Health Professions at Towson University in Maryland. She was an associate professor in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Dr. Mark holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania.

Natalie Eppelsheimer was promoted to associate professor of German and granted tenure at Middlebury College in Vermont. She joined the faculty at Middlebury College in 2008.

Dr. Eppelsheimer is a graduate of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität in Bonn, Germany. She holds a master’s degree in German studies from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine.