Three Women Have Been Appointed Harvard College Professors

Harvard University has announced the appointment of five scholars as Harvard College Professors. Launched in 1997 through a gift from John and Frances Loeb, the Harvard College Professorships are five-year appointments recognizing the scholars’ contributions to undergraduate teaching. The designation includes support for research or scholarly activities and a semester of paid leave or a summer salary. Three of the five appointments went to women.

Katia Bertoldi is the William and Ami Kuan Danoff Professor of Applied Mechanics. Dr. Bertoldi planned to be an architect when she was growing up in Italy but ended up pursuing structural engineering. Dr. Bertoldi holds a master’s degree from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mechanics of materials and structures from Trento University in Italy. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2010, Dr. Bertoldi taught at the University of Twente in The Netherlands.

Glenda Carpio is a professor of English and of African and African American studies. Her research covers themes of migration, performance, and humor in literature, and she is currently working on a book about the aesthetics of migration. She is the author of Laughing Fit to Kill; Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2008). Professor Carpio is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She earned a Ph.D. in English at the University of California, Berkeley. She joined the Harvard faculty in 2002.

Cassandra Extavour is a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and of molecular and cellular biology. As a scholar of evolutionary developmental and molecular genetics, Dr. Extavour studies the ways genes operate and evolve in embryonic reproductive systems. She joined the Harvard faculty in 2007 and was promoted to full professor in 2014. Dr. Extavour is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where she majored in molecular biology and genetics. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in Spain.