Eleven Women Scholars Taking on New Academic Assignments

Flavia Bastos, professor in the College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, will be taking on the responsibilities of chair of the Council for Policy Studies in Art Education. The council consists of 60 elected art scholars from across the North America who study the process of art education.

Dr. Bastos is a graduate of the University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in art education from Indiana University.

Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the Malcolm Gillis University Professor and professor of bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering at Rice University, was named a science envoy by the U.S. Department of State. As a science envoy for health security, she will focus on expanding access to American engineering research and curriculum to build engineering capacity and opportunities for U.S. collaboration in Africa.

Professor Richards-Kortum is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where she majored in physics and mathematics. She holds a master’s degree in physics and a Ph.D. in medical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Crystal R. Sanders, an associate professor of history and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University, was named director of the Africana Research Center at the university. Dr. Sanders is the author of A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

Dr. Sanders is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she majored in history and public policy. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Dawn Garzon Maaks, clinical professor of nursing at the Vancouver campus of Washington State University, was elected president of National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. The organization, based in New York, has about 9,000 members.

Dr. Garzon Maaks is a graduate of the University of Miami in Florida. She holds a master’s degree in psychiatric epidemiology from Washington University in St. Louis, a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Yue Qi, a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at Michigan State University, was appointed the inaugural associate dean for inclusion and diversity in the university’s College of Engineering. Dr. Qi joined the faculty at Michigan State in 2003 after spending 12 years as a research scientist at General Motors.

Professor Qi earned a Ph.D. in materials science at the California Institute of Technology.

Nancy Freitag, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was appointed vice provost for faculty affairs at the university. She also serves as assistant dean of the M.D./Ph.D. program in the College of Medicine.

Dr. Freitag joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2006 after teaching at Wayne State University in Detroit and the University of Washington. She holds a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Michèle Lowrie has been named the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Service Professor in Classics at the University of Chicago. She joined the faculty at the University in 2009 after teaching at New York University.

Dr. Lowrie is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale University. She earned a Ph.D. in classical philology at Harvard University.

Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, the Fred and Claire Sauer Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, was given the added duties of vice provost for academic planning at the university.

Professor Alvarez-Cohen received her a bachelor’s degree in engineering and applied science from Harvard University and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and science from Stanford University.

Heather Ross was appointed chair of the department of physical therapy at Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia. She joined the faculty at the university in 2015 after teaching at the University of Florida.

Dr. Ross earned a Ph.D. in anatomy and neurobiology from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Kibibi Voloria Mack-Shelton was appointed professor and chair of Africana studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She was a professor of history at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Earlier, she taught at the University of Richmond. Dr. Mack-Shelton is the author or editor of several books including Parlor Ladies and Ebony Drudges: African American Women (University of Tennessee Press, 1999).

Professor Mack-Shelton is a graduate of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She holds a master’s degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a Ph.D. in history from Binghamton University in New York.

Gypsy Denzine, a professor of learning science and human development and dean of the College of Education and Human Services at West Virginia University, was appointed senior vice provost for faculty affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Dr. Denzine is a graduate of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree in educational leadership and counseling from the University of Texas at El Paso and a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Northern Colorado.