Nine Women Faculty Members Who Are Taking on New Assignments in Higher Education

Lissette Aliaga-Linares, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, was given the added assignment of teaching n the master’s degree program in critical thinking at the university. Her research interests include residential segregation, informal economies, and urban poverty in major Latin American cities and Latino communities in the United States. She joined the faculty in 2015.

Dr. Aliaga-Linares is a graduate of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima-Peru, where she majored in social sciences She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology and demography from the University of Texas at Austin.

Rediet Abebe is a new assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is in artificial intelligence and algorithms, with a focus on equity and justice concerns.

Dr. Abebe holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from Harvard University. She earned a second master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Cambridge in England and a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Kelly Metcalf Pate is the new director of the Division of Comparative Medicine at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She will also serve as the Dorothy W. Poitras Associate Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Dr. Metcalf Pate was an assistant professor of veterinary medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Dr. Metcalf Pate earned a bachelor’s degree from Boston University in 2003. She holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Purdue University.

Kimberly Juanita Brown is a new associate professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She also serves as the co-director of the Dartmouth Consortium of Studies in Race, Migration, and Sexuality.

Dr. Brown is a graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York. She holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Barbara Milewski was promoted to full professor of music at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Professor Milewski specializes in Polish music and has lectured extensively on questions of national identity and memory in the music of Chopin and the music created in the Nazi concentration camps.

Dr. Milewski is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where she majored in political science and government. She holds a master’s degree in music history from Stony Brook University in New York and a Ph.D. in musicology from Princeton University in New Jersey.

Sonia Eden, a clinical assistant professor, has been named interim chair of the Wayne State University department of neurosurgery. Dr. Eden specializes in minimally-invasive spine surgery, complex spine and spinal cord surgery, sacroiliac joint surgery, endoscopic and minimally-invasive brain surgery, and peripheral nerve surgery. Dr. Eden was on the staff at Ascension Borgess Brain and Spine Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, from 2008 to 2020. She also served as a clinical assistant professor at the Western Michigan University School of Medicine from 2010-2020.

A native of Detroit, Dr. Eden is a graduate of Yale Univerity with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. She received her medical degree from the University of Michigan in 2000.

Michelle Personick was promoted to associate professor of chemistry and granted tenure at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Her research is focused on developing tailored metal nanoparticles that function as improved catalysts for energy- and resource-efficient chemical synthesis and the clean production of energy.

Dr. Personick is a graduate of Middlebury College in Vermont. She earned a Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Bercem Dutagaci is a new assistant professor of computational biology at the University of California, Merced. Her current research focuses on RNA polymerase dynamics, function, and spatial organizations.

Dr. Dutagaci holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from Bogazici University in  Istanbul, Turkey. She earned a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lillian Wichinsky was appointed associate dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Nevada Reno. She was the director of the Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships at the University of South Florida.

Dr. Wichinsky is a graduate of the University of Florida, where she majored in psychology. She earned a master of social work degree from California State University, Sacramento and a Ph.D. in social welfare from Florida International University in Miami.