Five Women Scholars Who Are Taking on New Assignments at Major Universities

Elizabeth Meadows has been named faculty head at East House on The Martha Ingram Commons at Vanderbilt University. She is a senior lecturer in English and the assistant director of Vanderbilt’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy.

Dr. Meadows is graduate of Columbia University. She holds a Ph.D from Vanderbilt University.

Filiz Garip has been named director of the Center for the Study of Economy & Society at Cornell University. She is a professor of sociology and has been a Cornell faculty member since 2016.

Dr. Garip is a graduate of Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey where she majored in industrial engineering. She holds a master’s degree in operations research and financial engineering and a doctorate in sociology both from Princeton University.

Kathryn McKee has been named director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. She has been involved with the center since 1997, currently serving as the McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies and an associate professor of English.

Dr. McKee is a graduate of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree in English and a Ph.D. in American literature both from the University of North Carolina.

Colleen Johnson has received over $21 million to establish a Center of Excellence for Encephalitic Alphavirus Therapeutics program at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. Dr. Johnson, a professor who holds the endowed Van Vleet Chair of Excellence in Virology, has been named director of the new center. The new center will focus on advancing the discovery and development of potent antiviral drug candidates targeting several harmful viruses spread to people by infected mosquitoes.

Dr. Johnson is a graduate of the University of Missouri where she earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and biology. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University.

Katherine Lewis has been named a 2019-22 Laura J. and Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence at Syracuse University in New York. She is a professor of biology, director of the Integrated Learning Major in Neuroscience, and faculty co-director of the Women in Science and Engineering program. She has been a Syracuse faculty member since 2010.

Dr. Lewis is an honors graduate of Cambridge University in England. She holds a Ph.D. from University College London.