Four Women Scholars Promoted and Granted Tenure at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine

Bowdoin College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution in Brunswick, Maine, has announced the promotion of six faculty members to the rank of associate professor, effective July 1. They were also granted tenure. Four of the six promotions went to women.

Barbara Elias was promoted to associate professor of government. She specializes in international relations, insurgency warfare, U.S. foreign policy, national security, and Islam and politics. Dr. Elias is the author of Why Allies Rebel: Defiant Local Partners in Counterinsurgency Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Dr. Elias is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Erika Nyhus will be an associate professor of neuroscience and psychology. Her research focuses on the brain’s electrical activity to study processes in the brain that underlie attention and memory. Dr. Nyhus is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she double majored in psychology and anthropology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Kristi A. Olson was named an associate professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College. Dr. Olson’s most recent book is The Solidarity Solution: Principles for a Fair Income Distribution (Oxford University Press, 2020). Dr. Olson is a graduate of Indiana Univerity. She earned a law degree at Dule University and a master’s degree in health policy and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University.

Hannah E. Reese is a licensed clinical psychologist who joined the Bowdoin faculty in 2014. She explores the cognitive and emotional processes that contribute to obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders and the development and testing of targeted, novel interventions. Dr. Reese is a summa cum laude graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University.