Eight Women Scholars Taking on New Assignments at Major Universities

Kristel Smentek was promoted to associate professor of history, theory, and criticism of architecture and art at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was also granted tenure. Dr. Smentek is the author of Mariette and the Science of the Connoisseur in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Ashgate Publishing, 2014).

Dr. Smentek joined the faculty at MIT in 2008. She is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Delaware.

Beronda Montgomery was named a Foundation Professor at Michigan State University. The honor is given to faculty members who “demonstrate excellence in research and teaching while enhancing the prominence of the institution.”

Dr. Montgomery is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the university. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis.

Xialing Lin was hired as an assistant professor of corporate communication at the Worthington campus of Pennsylvania State University in Scranton. Her research is focused on crisis communication and risk as well as on health communication.

Dr. Lin holds a master’s degree from Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.

Heather L. Petcovic, an associate professor of geosciences at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, has been given the added duties of interim associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Petcovic has been on the faculty at the university since 2004 and holds a joint appointment in the university’s Mallinson Institute for Science Education. She is an associate editor for research for the Journal of Geoscience Education.

Dr. Petcovic is a 1995 alumna of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Oregon State University.

Renata Forste, a professor of sociology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, was appointed director of the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at the university. She will also hold the title of associate international vice president. Dr. Forste is the former chair of the department of sociology at the university and also served as associate dean in the College of Family, Home, and Social Studies.

Professor Forste holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University. She earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Susan Whitehead is a new assistant professor in the department of biological sciences at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. She has been serving as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University.

Dr. Whitehead is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, where she majored in biology. She holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Colorado.

Frances Contreras, an associate professor in the department of education studies at the University of California, San Diego, was named associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, diversity and inclusion at the university. Dr. Contreras is the former director of the higher education program for the College of Education at the University of Washington. She is the author or co-author of several books including Achieving Equity for Latino Students (Teachers College Press, 2011).

Dr. Contreras is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in history and mass communication. She holds a master’s degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in education from Stanford University.

Carolina Salvador, an assistant professor of hematology and oncology at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine, has been given the added duties as director of the university’s Integrative Medicine Clinic.

Dr. Salvador earned her medical degree and completed her internship, residency and a research fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.