A Dozen Women Join the Faculty at Wesleyan University in Connecticut as Assistant Professors

Wesleyan University, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution in Middletown Connecticut, has announced that there are 16 new tenure or tenure-track faculty on campus this fall. Of these, there are 12 new women assistant professors.

Katherine Brunson was hired as an assistant professor of archaeology. She had been teaching in the department of archaeology and computational molecular biology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Brunson is a zooarchaeologist with a focus on ancient China. She holds a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Saida Daukeyeva, a new assistant professor of music, is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the music of Central Asia and Arabic music theory. Her research has focused on Kazakh music and expressive culture in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and the musical writings of medieval polymath al-Farabi. She earned doctoral degrees at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Lindsay Dolan was appointed an assistant professor of government. She specializes in international political economy. The focus of her work is to understand how changes in the global economy affect governments and individuals, particularly in the developing world. Dr. Dolan was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University.

Kaisha Esty is a new assistant professor of African American studies. Her current manuscript project, A Crusade Against the Despoiler of Virtue: Black Women and the Struggle for Sexual Sovereignty, 1840-1920, examines “feminine virtue” in African American women’s meanings of freedom. A native of London, Dr. Esty earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in American studies from the University of Nottingham. She holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Nina Hagel was appointed an assistant professor of government. Before coming to Wesleyan, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Bates Collegein Lewiston, Maine. Her research examines questions of freedom, recognition, and resistance, with a focus on democratic belonging. Dr. Hagel received a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Anuja Jain was named an assistant professor of film studies. She came to Wesleyan from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she was an assistant professor of film and media studies. Dr. Jain earned a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees from the University of Delhi in India. She holds a doctoral degree in cinema studies from New York University.

Alyx Mark was named an assistant professor of government She studies how institutions empower and constrain legal elites, such as lawyers, judges, and lawmakers, along with members of the mass public. Before coming to Wesleyan, she taught in the political science department at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Dr. Mark holds a Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Laverne Melón was hired as an assistant professor of biology. Her research has focused on women and binge drinking, the effects of stress on female infertility, and neurophysiological mechanisms linking postpartum depression and adaptation in stress signaling during peripartum periods. Dr. Melón is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont, where she majored in neuroscience. She holds a master’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Binghamton University in New York, and a Ph.D. in addiction neuroscience from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Maria-Christina Oliveras was appointed an assistant professor of theater. She has performed extensively on and off Broadway, regionally, internationally, and in film and television. Oliveras holds a bachelor’s degree in theater from Yale University and a master of fine arts degree in acting from the National Theatre Conservatory. She has served on the faculty at Fordham University and Yale University.

Katie Pearl was hired as assistant professor of theater at Wesleyan. Prior to joining Wesleyan’s faculty, Pearl served as the Quinn Martin Guest Chair of Directing at the University of California, San Diego. She holds a master of fine arts degree in writing for performance from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Pearl is the co-artistic director of the Obie Award-winning theater company PearlDamour

Chinwe Ezinna Oriji joined the faculty as an assistant professor of sociology. Her research is focused on race, racialization, Nigerian studies, Western imperialism and immigration, Black feminism and anti-Black capitalism. Her book manuscript tentatively titled Black African Flight charts how colonial capitalism and oil imperialism impact internal migratory flight in Nigeria and to the U.S. Dr. Oriji is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Cambridge in England and a Ph.D. in African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jennifer Raynor is a new assistant professor of economics. Before moving to academia, Dr. Raynor worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She is a summa cum laude graduate of Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where she majored in economics. She earned a master’s degree in environment and resources and a Ph.D. in agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.