Five Women Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Chairs

Bethany Rittle-Johnson has been named the Anita S. and Antonio M. Gotto Chair in Child Development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She is a professor of psychology and human development. Her research focuses on understanding how knowledge change occurs, specifically how children learn problem-solving procedures and key concepts in mathematics.

Dr. Rittle-Johnson is a graduate of the University of Virginia where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. both in developmental psychology from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Debra Fischer has been named the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy at Yale University. She has been a professor of astronomy with secondary appointments in the department of geology and geophysics, the department of physics, and the department of statistics and data science at Yale since 2009.

Dr. Fischer is a graduate of the University of Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Jane Aiken has been named the inaugural Blume Professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She has been a Georgetown Law School faculty member since 2007, currently serving as a professor, vice dean for experiential education and chair of the University Task Force on Gender Equity.

Professor Aiken is a graduate of Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She holds a juris doctorate from New York University and a master of laws degree from Georgetown University.

Pearl K. Dowe has been named the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Political Science and African American Studies with a joint appointment in the Oxford College and the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta. She currently serves as chair of the department of political science and as an affiliated faculty member in the African and African American Studies Program at the University of Arkansas. She is the co-author of Remaking the Democratic Party: Lyndon B. Johnson as Native-Son Presidential Candidate (University of Michigan Press, 2016).

Dr. Dowe is a graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia. She holds a master’s degree in political science from Georgia Southern University and a Ph.D. in political science from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Tami Bond has been named the Walter Scott Jr. Presidential Chair in Energy, Environment and Health at Colorado State University. She is currently the Nathan M. Newmark Distinguished Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Dr. Bond holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering from the University of Washington.