A Quartet of Women Faculty Members Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Chairs

Isabela Mares was recently named as the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Professor Mares focuses her research on a range of topics in comparative politics and political economy, including democratization, clientelism and corruption, taxation and fiscal capacity development, and social policy reforms in both developed and developing countries. She is the author of several books including The Politics of Social Risk: Business and Welfare State Development (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Prior to coming to Yale, Dr. Mares served on the faculties of Stanford University and Columbia University. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

Camellia Okpodu, a professor of biology, has been appointed to the Xavier University of Louisiana /State of Louisiana Endowed Chair in Science. This is the sixth endowed chair at the university. Dr. Okpodu has served as dean of arts and sciences at Xavier since July 2018. Previously she had been a professor of biology, director of the Group for Microgravity and Environmental Biology, and director of a Designated IC Center of Academic Excellence at Norfolk State University in Virginia.

Dr. Okpodu earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a Ph.D. degree in plant physiology/ biochemistry at North Carolina State University.

Victoria Niederhauser has been named to the Sara Rosenbalm Croley Endowed Dean’s Chair at the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing. This is the first endowed dean’s chair for the college and the third for the university. She has served as dean since 2011.

Dr. Niederhauser earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, She holds a master’s degree in nursing from Boston College, and a doctorate in public health from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Ellen Pawlikowski, a nationally recognized as a leader in science and engineering, has joined the Viterbi School of Engineering faculty at the Univerity of Southern California as the Judge Widney Professor. Dr. Pawlikowski, who has been serving as a member of the Raytheon Company board of directors, served for over 40 years in the military, reaching the rank of four-star general. She is only the third woman to achieve the highest rank in the Air Force.

Professor Pawlikowski has a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.