Eight Women Faculty Members Who Are Taking on New Duties in Higher Education

Maggie He is a new assistant professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Arkansas. She was a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. He is a graduate of City College of New York and holds a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. She earned a Ph.D. at ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

Noreen Houck has joined the School of Health Sciences faculty at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, as the founding director of nursing. She was an associate professor and chair of the nursing department at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Dr. Houck is a graduate of Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where she majored in nursing. She holds a master’s degree in nursing from Syracuse Univerity in New York and a Ph.D. from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

This January, Carla Jackson Bell will begin serving as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs at Tuskegee Univerity in Alabama. Dr. Bell is dean of the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Sciences at the university.

Dr. Bell holds a bachelor’s degree in architectural science from Tuskegee University. She earned a master of fine arts degree from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia and a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary arts and sciences with a specialization in architecture education from The Union Institute and University in Cincinnati.

Janet Woodruff-Borden, dean of the Graduate School at the University of Oregon, was appointed executive vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Oregon. Before coming to the University of Oregon in 2018, Dr. Woodruff-Borden was a professor of psychological and brain sciences and associate dean of graduate education at the University of Louisville.

Dr. Woodruff-Borden earned a doctorate in clinical psychology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Renita W. Marshall, professor of animal science and chair of the department of agriculture sciences at Southern Univerity in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has been given the added duties of vice-chancellor for academic and student services at the university’s Ag Center and associate dean of the College of Agricultural, Family and Consumer Sciences.

Dr. Marshall earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science from Southern University. She holds a master’s degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Missouri–Columbia and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Tuskegee University in Alabama.

K. Birgitta Whaley, a professor of chemistry and co-director of the Quantum Information and Computation Center at the University of California, Berkeley, has been appointed to the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Dr. Whaley earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Oxford in England and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.

Catherine Todero, professor and dean of the College of Nursing since 2015, has been named vice provost of Health Sciences Campuses for Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Dr. Todero will continue as dean of nursing while taking on her new duties.

Professor Todero earned a bachelor’s degree from Creighton University in 1972. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Nursing and a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Tammy Barry, a professor of psychology and director of the clinical psychology doctoral program at Washington State University, has been given the added responsibilities of associate dean in the Graduate School. Professor Barry joined the Washington State University faculty in 2015 after teaching at Texas A&M University and the University of Southern Mississippi.

Dr. Barry has a bachelor’s degree in communication and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.