Six Women Faculty Members Who Will Be Taking on New Assignments

Dava Newman, the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been named the new director of the MIT Media Lab, effective July 1, 2021. Founded in 1985, the MIT Media Lab aims to create technologies and experiences that enable people to understand and transform their lives, communities, and environments.

Professor Newman is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she majored in aerospace engineering. She holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering, a master’s degree in technology and policy, and a Ph.D. in aerospace biomedical engineering from MIT.

Aria S. Halliday is a new assistant professor in the department of gender and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky. She specializes in cultural constructions of Black girlhood and womanhood in material, visual, and digital culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. She is the editor of The Black Girlhood Studies Collection (Women’s Press, 2019).

Dr. Halliday is a graduate of Davidson College in North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in American studies from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Tiffany Murphy, associate professor of law and director of the Criminal Practice Clinic at the University of Arkansas School of Law, has been given the added duties as associate dean for academic affairs. She joined the University of Arkansas faculty in 2014 after teaching at the Oklahoma City University School of Law.

Professor Murphy holds a bachelor’s degree and a juris doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Beth Montelone, a professor of biology and senior associate vice president for research at Kansas State University, has been promoted to the post of interim vice president for research. Earlier, Dr. Montelone served as associate dean for research for the College of Arts and Sciences from 2004 to 2016 and was interim research director at the Biosecurity Research Institute from 2008-2011. She joined the faculty in 1988.

Professor Montelone received a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. She earned a  Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Rochester in New York.

Jennifer Duckworth is a new assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. Her research has concentrated on childhood weight status and risk behaviors such as substance abuse and sexual behaviors and on physical and mental health issues faced by community college students.

Dr. Duckworth is a graduate of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in learning and development sciences from Indiana University.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Distinguished Professor of Practice and a senior research fellow in the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society at the University of California, Berkeley, has been nominated to serve as secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy. Professor Granholm served two terms as governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011.

Professor Granholm is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School.