Six Women Appointed to Named Professorships at the California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena has announced that 25 faculty members have been appointed to named professorships. Six of these appointments went to women.

Azita Emami was named the Andrew and Peggy Cherng Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering. She has taught at CalTech since 2007 and was promoted to full professor in 2013. Professor Emami is a graduate of the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in California.

Linda Hsieh-Wilson was appointed the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry. A member of the faculty since 2000, Professor Hsieh-Wilson’s research focuses on understanding the molecular basis of fundamental brain processes. She is a graduate of Yale University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of California.

Beverly McKeon is the Theodore von Karman Professor of Aeronautics at CalTech. Her research concerns improving airflow and the reduction of drag. Professor McKeon joined the faculty at CalTech in 2006. Dr. McKeon is a graduate of the University of Cambridge in England. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.

Dianne Newman was named the Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology. She explores the relationship between microorganisms and geologic processes. Professor Newman has taught at CalTech since 2000 and was promoted to full professor in 2006. She is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Maria Spiropulu is the Shang-Yi Ch’en Professor of Physics. A faculty member since 2008, Professor Spiropulu is an experimental particle physicist. A native of Greece, Professor Spiropulu received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2000 and spent the next three years as an Enrico Fermi Fellow at the University of Chicago. She then joined CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, as a staff physicist to work on the Large Hadron Collider.

Cindy Weinstein joined the faculty at CalTech in 1989. She has been appointed the Eli and Edythe Broad Professor of English. She is an expert on nineteenth=century American literature. Professor Weinstein is the author, co-author or editor of several books including Family, Kinship and Sympathy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2004). She is a summa cum laude graduate of Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.