A Dozen Women Faculty Members Taking on New Assignments in Higher Education

Tehseen Thaver was appointed assistant professor of religion at Princeton University in New Jersey. Since 2014, she has been an assistant professor of religion at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Dr. Thaver is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Catharine Dumas is joining the faculty of the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston. She will teach the course “Introduction to Programming” this fall.

Dr. Dumas is a graduate of the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York, where she majored in English. She earned a master’s degree in information science and a Ph.D. in informatics from the University at Albany of the State University of New York System.

Tara Affolter was promoted to associate professor of education studies at Middlebury College in Vermont. She was also granted tenure. Dr. Affolter joined the faculty at Middlebury in 2009 after teaching high school English and theater for 15 years.

Dr. Affolter is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in education policy studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Penny A. Asbell was appointed professor and chair of the department of Ophthalmology and director of the Hamilton Eye Institute at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. She was a professor of ophthalmology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Dr. Asbell is a graduate of the University of Chicago and earned an MBA at Baruch College of the City University of New York. She earned her medical degree at the State University of New York.

Gina McCarthy, professor of practice of public health at Harvard University, was given the added duties as director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at the university’s School of Public Health. McCarthy previously served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration.

Professor McCarthy is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where she majored in social anthropology. She holds a master’s degree in environmental health engineering from Tufts University.

Nelleke C. van Wouwe was named an assistant professor in the department of neurological surgery at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Kentucky. Since 2012, she has been conducting postdoctoral research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Dr. van Wouwe holds a Ph.D. from the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition in The Netherlands.

Sandy Banisky was promoted to senior lecturer in the College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Before joining the faculty, Banisky was deputy managing editor for news at The Baltimore Sun.

Professor Banisky is a graduate of Boston University. She earned a juris doctorate at the University of Baltimore.

Lori L. Taylor, who holds the Verlin and Howard Krue ’52 Founders Professorship, was appointed chair of the department of public service and administration at Texas A&M University. She joined the faculty at the university in 2003.

Professor Taylor is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where she double majored in economics and business administration. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Rochester.

Jennifer Kerpelman, a professor in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn University in Alabama, has been given the added duties as interim vice president for research. She has been serving as associate dean for research.

Dr. Kerpelman has been on the faculty at Auburn since 1999. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in psychology from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, and a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Auburn University.

Elizabeth Oliver, the Lewis Whitaker Adams Professor of Accounting at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, was given the added duties as associate dean of the university’s School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics. She has been on the faculty at the university since 1991.

Dr. Oliver is a graduate of what is now Mary Baldwin University in Staunton, Virginia. She holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Kansas, a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Virginia, and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.

Lynne Steuerie Schofield, an associate professor of statistics at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, was appointed associate provost of faculty diversity and development at the college. She has served on the Swarthmore faculty since 2009.

Dr. Schofield is a 1999 graduate of Swarthmore College, where she majored in mathematics. She holds a Ph.D. in statistics and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Anna Frebel was promoted to associate professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was also granted tenure. Dr. Frebel joined the faculty at MIT in 2009.

After studying physics in Germany, Dr. Frebel earned a PhD. in astronomy and astrophysics at the Australian National University. She came to the United States as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas.