Six Women Appointed to Tenure-Track Faculty Posts at Macalester College in Minnesota

Macalester College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution in St. Paul, Minnesota, has announced that there are six new tenure-track faculty on campus this fall. All six are women.

Tia-Simone Gardner is a practicing visual artist who works primarily with photography and video. Originally from Alabama, Dr. Gardner earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She holds a master of fine arts degree from University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in feminist studies from the University of Minnesota.

Kelsey Grinde is a biostatistician whose work focuses on data applications related to public health, biology, and medicine. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the college in the prior academic year. Dr. Grinde is a graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She earned a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of Washington.

Mina Kinukawa is a practicing theater designer with expertise in scenography who has been active in the theater community in the Twin Cities for the past decade. She was a visiting professor at the college. Kinukawa earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and a master of fine arts degree in scenic design from the University of California, San Diego.

Ahoo Najafian is an assistant professor of Islamic studies. She studies Persianate Islam and religion and literature in contemporary Iran. From 2018 to 2020, she taught at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Born and raised in Tehran, Dr.. Najafian earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature from Tehran University. She holds a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University.

Megan Vossler is an assistant professor of art. She has been teaching drawing and illustration at Macalester College since 2009, and previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Originally from southern California, Vossler received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a master of fine arts degree in visual studies at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Pamela Klasova‘s research focuses on how public speech and oratory traditions helped shape the Islamic empire and its relationships with other cultures, including Judaic, Christian, and pagan. She was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Arabic at Bowdoin College from 2018-2020. Born in Bolivia and raised in Prague, Dr. Klasova earned two degrees from Charles University in Prague. She holds a master’s degree in Arabic studies from Leiden University in The Netherlands, and a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.