Ten Women Faculty Members Taking on New Roles in Higher Education

Nefertiti Walker, an assistant professor of sport management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has been given added duties as director of diversity and inclusion for the Isenberg School of Management at the university. Dr. Walker joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 2011.

Dr. Walker holds a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Florida.

Stephanie Etheridge Woodson, an associate professor in the School of Film, Dance, and Theatre at Arizona State University, was given the added duties as director of the Design and Arts Corps at the university’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.

Dr. Woodson joined the faculty at Arizona State in 2000. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degree in theatre from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in theatre from Arizona State University.

Mary Stromberger, a professor of soil science at Colorado State University, is being given the added duties as associate dean of the Graduate School. Professor Stromberger joined the faculty at the university in 2001.

Dr. Stromberger is a graduate of West Chester University in Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in soil science from Oregon State University.

Michele R. Foreman is a new professor and chair of the department of nutritional science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. She was the David Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor in Nutrition at the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Foreman holds a master of public health degree, a master’s degree in nutritional anthropology, and a Ph.D. in nutritional epidemiology, all from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ida Washington was named director of the Office of Laboratory Animal Resources at West Virginia University. She will also be attending veterinarian at the office.

Dr. Washington holds a master’s degree in neuroanatomy from Duke University. She earned a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jane Parish, a research/extension professor at Mississippi State University, was named director of the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center. Dr. Parish has been on the faculty at Mississippi State since 2003.

Professor Parish is a graduate of Texas A&M University. She holds a master’s degree from Texas Tech University in Lubbock and a Ph.D. in animal and dairy science from the University of Georgia.

Brenda Marie Osbey was named a Distinguished Visiting Professor in English and world languages and cultures at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. She is the former Distinguished Visiting Professor of Africana studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Professor Osbey is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans. She earned a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky.

Joan Rubin was named a lecturer and executive director of the System Design and Management program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Rubin joined the staff at the System Design and Management program in 2010.

Rubin is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in mechanical engineering. She holds a master’s degree in management and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT.

Linda J. Sealy, an associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, cell and developmental biology and cancer biology, was given the added duties as associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion for basic sciences at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Dr. Sealy is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Iowa.

Moira Rynn was appointed chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, effective July 1. Currently, she is a professor of psychiatry at the Columbia University of College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Dr. Rynn earned her medical degree from Rutgers University and completed her internship and residency in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.