Eight Women Faculty Members Taking on New Roles and Responsibilities

Susan Piedmont-Palladino, professor of architecture at Virginia Tech, was appointed director of the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, the urban extension of the university’s School of Architecture + Design. Professor Piedmont-Palladino joined Virginia Tech in 1991 as an assistant professor.

Professor Piedmont-Palladino is a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she majored in the history of arts. She holds a master of architecture degree from Virginia Tech.

Kara M. Kelly was appointed a professor of pediatrics at the University of Buffalo of the State University of New York System. She was a professor of pediatrics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

Dr. Kelly is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in human biology. She earned her medical degree at the University of Buffalo.

Melanie J. Wadkins, an associate professor of psychology at the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University in New York, was granted tenure. She joined the faculty at the university in 2010.

Dr. Wadkins is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Fordham University in New York.

Wendy Grube, a practice associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has been given the additional duties as director of the Center for Global Women’s Health at the university.

Dr. Grube is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Beasley, an assistant professor of childhood education at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, has been given the additional duties as director of the Office of Teacher Education in the College of Education and Health Professions.

Dr. Beasley is a graduate of Kansas State University, where she majored in elementary education. She holds a master’s degree from Wichita State University in Kansas and a doctorate in gifted education from the University of Virginia.

Lori E. Baker, an associate professor of anthropology in the College of Arts & Sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has been given the added duties of vice provost for strategic initiatives, collaboration, and leadership development.

Dr. Baker is a graduate of Baylor University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Rhea Ballard-Thrower, an associate professor in the School of Law at Howard University in Washington, D.C., was named director of University Libraries. She is the former director of the School of Law Library at Howard.

Professor Ballard-Thrower is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and the law school at the University of Kentucky. She holds a master of library and information science degree from the University of Michigan.

Michelle McKinley, the Bernard B. Kliks Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oregon, has been given the added duties of director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the university. Professor McKinley joined the faculty at the University of Oregon in 2007.

Professor McKinley attended Harvard Law School, and did graduate study at Oxford University in England.