Seven Women Scholars Who Are Taking on New Faculty Roles

Esther Gomez has been promoted to associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering with tenure at Pennsylvania State University. She has served as an assistant professor in Penn State’s department of chemical engineering since 2011. She is also co-director of the Research Experience for Undergraduates program.

Dr. Gomez is a graduate of the University of Florida where she majored in chemical engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

January O’Neil has been named the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi for the 2019-2020 academic year. She is an acclaimed poet and author of Rewilding (CavanKerry Press, 2018), Misery Islands (CavanKerry Press, 2014), and Underlife (CavanKerry Press, 2009). She also served as director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival from 2012 to 2018.

O’Neil is a graduate of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She holds a master of fine arts degree from New York University.

Cynthia Haynes has been named director of the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design Ph.D. program at Clemson University in South Carolina. She is the outgoing director of first-year composition in Clemson’s department of English, where she has been a faculty member since 2006. She is the author of The Homesick Phone Book: Addressing Rhetorics in the Age of Perpetual Conflict (Southern Illinois University Press, 2016) and the forthcoming Unalienable Rites: The Architecture of Mass Rhetoric. 

Dr. Haynes holds a bachelor’s degree in German and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in humanities all from the University of Texas.

Katherine A. Magnuson has been named director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Social Work and previously served as the institute’s associate director of research and training.

Dr. Magnuson is a magna cum laude graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in history and political science. She holds a Ph.D. in human development and social policy from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Deborah VanOverbeke has been named assistant dean in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University. She is the George Chiga Endowed Professor in the university’s department of animal and food sciences. She joined the faculty at the university in 2005.

Dr. VanOverbeke is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she majored in animal science with a minor in agricultural leadership and communication. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. both in animal science from Colorado State University.

Stacy L. Leeds has been named the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Distinguished Visiting Indian Law Professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. She made history as the first Native American woman to serve as dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law in 2011. Currently, she serves as the vice chancellor for economic development, dean emeritus, and a professor at the University of Arkansas.

A citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Professor Leeds is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. She holds a master of laws degree from the University of Wisconsin, a juris doctorate from the University of Tulsa, and an MBA from the University of Kansas.

Yvette L. Rooks has been named director of sports medicine, lead team physician and assistant director of the University Health Center at the University of Maryland. She most recently served as the chief medical officer for athletics at Rutgers University.

Dr. Rooks is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany where she double-majored in biology and chemistry. She holds a medical doctorate from the SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York.