New Responsibilities in Higher Education for Eleven Women Faculty Members

Diana Marculescu was appointed chair of the department of electrical and computer engineering at the Univerity of Texas at Austin. When she assumes her new duties on December 1, she will be the first woman to hold the position. Dr. Marculescu is currently a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where she has served as a faculty member for nearly two decades.

Professor Marculescu holds a master’s degree in computer science from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in Romania. She earned a Ph.D. in computer engineering at the University of Southern California.

Jeanne Willcoxon is a new tenure-track faculty member in theater at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Prior to coming to Hamilton, she taught and directed productions at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Her research focuses on feminist performance, performance phenomenology, and theatre for social change.

Willcoxon received her bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, and graduated from the acting program at the American Repertory Theatre Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

Melissa Bondy has been appointed chair of the department of epidemiology and population health at Stanford Medical School. She will also serve as associate director for population sciences at the Stanford Cancer Institute. She has spent nearly the past two decades on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Dr. Bondy holds a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Texas School of Public Health.

Janet McCabe, professor of practice at the Indiana University School of Law, was named director of the Environmental Resilience Institute. She has been serving as the assistant director for policy and implementation. McCabe is a former official of the Environmental Protection Agency.

McCabe is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

Berneece Herbert has been named the new chair for the department of urban and regional planning at Jackson State University in Mississippi. She previously served on the faculty at Alabama A&M University for 13 years.

Dr. Herbert holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning and a Ph.D. in natural resources management from Alabama A&M University.

Eleanor Pepi Downey has been named director of the University of Wyoming College of Health Sciences’ Division of Social Work. She was a professor of social work at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, Idaho.

Dr. Downey earned a bachelor’s degree at Queens College in Charlotte, North Carolina. She holds a master of social work degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Denver.

Broadway actor Jennifer Hemphill has joined the faculty at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, as an assistant professor of musical theatre and coordinator of musical theatre.

Hemphill holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and a master of fine arts degree from Kent State University in Ohio.

Amanda Johnsen is a new assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at Pennsylvania State University. From 2017 to 2019, she was an assistant research professor at Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center.

Dr. Johnsen earned a bachelor’s degree in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ethlyn McQueen-Gibson has been appointed associate professor at the Hampton University’s School of Nursing in Virginia. For the past two years, she served as an advanced practice nurse and clinical researcher for the Richmond Health & Wellness Program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr. McQueen-Gibson holds a bachelor’s degree and a doctor of nursing practice degree from Ursuline College in Ohio. She also earned a master’s degree in nursing at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

Ann Hutcheson Price, a professor in the department of medical education and administration and associate dean for alumni affairs in the School of Medicine has been appointed to a one-year term as faculty athletics representative for Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Price holds a bachelor’s degree and a medical doctorate from Vanderbilt University. As an undergraduate student, Dr. Price won three Tennessee intercollegiate tennis titles.

Angela T. Dearinger, assistant dean of accreditation with the Graduate Medical Education office and an associate professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, has been appointed by Governor Matt Bevin as Kentucky’s Public Health Commissioner. She will remain a member of the university faculty during her service to the state.

Dearinger is a graduate of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, and the College of Medicine at the University of Kentucky.