A Trio of Women Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Positions

Malinda Maynor Lowery was named the Cahoon Family Professor in American History at Emory University in Atlanta. A member of the Lumbee Tribe, Dr. Lowery has focused much of her work on questions of Native culture, identity, and migration. She has been serving as a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also served as director of the university’s Center for the Study of the American South.

Dr. Lowery is a graduate of Harvard University and earned a master’s degree at Stanford University. She holds a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Maya Tolstoy has been named the Maggie Walker Dean of the College of the Environment at the University of Washington. Dr. Tolstoy is currently a professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Professor Tolstoy is a marine geophysicist specializing in seafloor earthquakes and volcanoes.

Born in New York, and growing up mostly in Scotland, Dr. Tolstoy earned her bachelor’s degree in geophysics from the University of Edinburgh and her doctorate from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego.

Ayoka Chenzira, a professor and division chair for the arts at Spelman College in Atlanta, was named a Diana King Endowed Professor in Film and Filmmaking, Television and Related Media at the college. She is an award-winning and pioneering filmmaker. Her distinctive work spans fiction, documentary, animation, performance, experimental, television, interactive films, and theater.

Dr. Chenzira is a graduate of New York University, where she majored in film. She earned a master’s degree in education at Columbia University. Professor Chenzira is also the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in digital media from the Georgia Institute of Technology.