A Quartet of Women Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Professorships

Mei R. Fu has been named to the Barry Family/Goldman Sachs Endowed Chair in Nursing in the Connell School of Nursing at Boston College. She is the nursing school’s second endowed professor. Dr. Fu’s research is focused on cancer-related symptoms and management of chronic illnesses. Dr. Fu earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing, a master’s degree, and a doctorate in nursing science, all from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She has taught at the nursing schools of Rutgers University in New Jersey and New York University.

Marianthi Ierapetritou now holds the Bob and Jane Gore Centennial Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. Previously, she was a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She joined the faculty at Rutgers in 1998 as an assistant professor. Dr. Ierapetritou is an expert in process control and process systems engineering. Professor Ierapetritou received her doctoral degree in 1995 from the Imperial College, London, and completed postdoctoral research at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Melissa Rolls, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been named the Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry at Pennsylvania State University. At Penn State, Dr. Rolls is co-director of the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Center for Cellular Dynamics, chair of the Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Biosciences Graduate Program, and associate director of the College of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program. She joined the faculty in 2007 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. Dr. Rolls is a graduate of Yale University, where she majored in biology. She earned a doctoral degree in biological and biomedical sciences at Harvard University.

Constance Hunter Walker was named the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Professor Walker joined the English department at Carleton in 1982. She teaches courses on rhetoric, British Romantic poetry and prose, Jane Austen and Irish literature. Dr. Walker received a bachelor’s degree in English and drama from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. She earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in British literature at the University of Pennsylvania.