Five Women Scholars Appointed to Endowed Professorships

Haiyan Wang was appointed the Basil S. Turner Professor of Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Since 2006, she has served on the electrical and computer engineering faculty at Texas A&M University. Earlier, Dr. Wang served on the staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Dr. Wang is a graduate of Nanchang University in China. She holds a master’s degree from the Institute of Metal Research in Shenyang, China, and a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.

Nancy Rabalis was named to the Shell Oil Endowed Chair in Oceanography and Wetland Studies in the College of the Coast & Environment at Louisiana State University. She is an expert in ocean “dead zones.”

Dr. Rabalais holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas A&M University in Kingsville. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Texas.

Lesley Jill Gordon is the new holder of the Charles Grayson Summersell Endowed Chair of Southern History at the University of Alabama. She was a professor of history at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Professor Gordon has published five books on Civil War history including A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut’s Civil War (Louisiana State University Press, 2014). She holds master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Georgia.

Darlene Clark Hine was named the Visiting Hannah Distinguished Professor for the 2016-17 academic year at Michigan State University. From 2004 to 2016, Dr. Hine served on the faculty at Northwestern University. Earlier, she held an endowed chair at Michigan State University, where she established the Ph.D. program in comparative Black history.

Dr. Hine is the coauthor of the textbook African Americans: A Concise History (Pearson), which is now in its sixth edition. Professor Hine is a graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Kent State University in Ohio.

Hillary Anger Elfenbein, a professor of organizational behavior in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis was appointed the John K. and Ellen A. Wallace Distinguished Professor. She joined the faculty at the business school in 2008.

Professor Elfenbein holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and Sanskrit language, a master’s degree in statistics, and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior, all from Harvard University.