Sweet Briar College Names Directors for Its New Centers of Excellence

Sweet Briar College, the liberal arts educational institution for women in Virginia, has appointed women to direct the college’s three new Centers of Excellence.

Raina Robeva, a professor of mathematical sciences at the college, was named director of the Center for Excellence in Science and Technology in Society. She is the author or editor of three books on biomathematics and is the holder of three patents. Dr. Robeva is the founding chief editor of the journal Frontiers in Systems Biology. Professor Robeva holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in probability and statistics from the University of Sofia in Bulgaria. She earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Virginia.

The center for Creativity, Design and the Arts will be led by Carrie Brown. The author of seven novels including The Stargazer’s Sister (Pantheon, 2016) and a collection of short stories, Brown has been serving since 2012 as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. Earlier, she was an associate professor of English at Sweet Briar College. Professor Brown holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Virginia.

The new Center for Excellence in Human and Environmental Sustainability will have two co-directors. Bethany Brinkman is an associate professor of engineering at Sweet Briar. Prior to starting her career in academia. Dr. Brinkman worked as a consulting engineer working on the implementation of ultrafiltration membranes for water utilities. Dr. Brinkman is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Minnesota.

Sharing leadership duties for the center on Human and Environmental Sustainability will be Linda Fink, the Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Ecology and director of the environmental science program at the college. She first joined the faculty at Sweet Briar in 1990. Her research focuses on arthropod behavior and ecology, and she has published articles on caterpillars, butterflies and spiders. Professor Fink is a summa cum laude graduate of Amherst College in Massachusetts, where she majored in biology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Florida.

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