Ten Women Faculty Members Taking on New Roles in Higher Education

Sara Sievers was appointed an associate professor of practice in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She will also serve as associate dean for policy and practice at the school. Sievers was the founding executive director of Columbia University’s Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development and Harvard University’s Center for International Development.

Sievers is a graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in government. She earned an MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Carrie Ruiz was promoted to associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. She was also granted tenure. Dr. Ruiz joined the faculty at Colorado College in 2010 after teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She has served as co-editor of Transitions: Journal of Franco-Iberian Studies.

Dr. Ruiz is a graduate of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, where she majored in Spanish literature. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in pre-modern Spanish literature from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Stephanie Jones was named a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia, the university’s highest honor for excellence in instruction. She is a professor of educational theory and practice in the university’s College of Education. Professor Jones joined the faculty at the university in 2007.

Dr. Jones is the author of Girls, Social Class and Literacy: What Teachers Can Do to Make a Difference (Heinemann, 2006). She holds a doctorate in literacy education from the University of Cincinnati.

Melanie Prusakowski, an associate professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, has been given the additional duties as assistant dean of admissions at the medical school.

Dr. Prusakowski earned her medical degree at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Amy Williamson, the Ramona Ware Emmons Paul Professor in Early Childhood in the College of Human Sciences at Oklahoma State University, has been named director of the new Institute for Building Early Relationships in the department of human development and family science at the university.

Dr. Williamson holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education from the University of Oklahoma. She earned a Ph.D. in human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Katy Ryan was appointed Eberly Distinguished Professor of Teaching at West Virginia University. She joined the English department faculty at the university in 2000. She is the editor of the book Demands of the Dead: Executions, Storytelling, and Activism in the United States (University of Iowa Press, 2012).

Dr. Ryan is a graduate of Boston College and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Martha Thomas was appointed to the Despy Karlas Professorship in Piano in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia. Professor Thomas has taught music at the University of Georgia since 1986.

Professor Thomas holds bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in music from the University of Texas. She also earned a master’s degree in music at the University of Wisconsin.

Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the Malcolm Gillis University Professor, professor of bioengineering, and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice University in Houston, is taking on additional duties as special adviser to the provost on health-related research and educational initiatives. She has been on the Rice University faculty since 2005.

Professor Richards-Kortum is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in medical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Lesley Curtis, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Pragmatic Health Systems Research at the Duke University School of Medicine, has been named the director of the new Center for Population Health Sciences at the university.

Dr. Curtis was appointed associate professor of medicine at Duke in 2007. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in New York.

Nicole Taylor, a clinical assistant professor in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology at the University of Denver, has been given the added duties as director of the new Center for Oncology Psychology Excellence.

Dr. Taylor has been a member of the faculty at the Graduate School of Professional Psychology since 2012. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland at College Park.