Six Women Scholars Who Are Taking on New Faculty Assignments

Veronica Terriquez has been appointed director of the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The center is home to one of the most robust archives of Latino and Chicano materials in the country. Dr. Terriquez will become the tenth director in the center’s 51-year history and its first woman leader. She was an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dr. Terriquez is a graduate of Harvard University. She earned a master’s degree in education from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in sociology at UCLA.

Dana Yang will join the department of statistics and data sciences at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She has been conducting postdoctoral research at the School of Business at Duke University. Her research is focused on high-dimensional statistics and machine learning.

Dr. Yang is a graduate of Tsinghua University in China. She holds a master’s degree in statistics and a Ph.D. in statistics and data science from Yale University.

Julea Vlassakis was hired as an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Her research has focused on developing novel methods to detect protein complexes from single cells using precision microfluidic devices.

Dr. Vlassakis is a graduate of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she double majored in chemistry and physics. She holds a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Diane Thiel was named a Regents Professor at the University of New Mexico. She is a professor of English and creative writing and the associate chair for Undergraduate Studies. Professor Thiel is a widely published translator, fluent in Spanish, German, French, and nearly fluent in Greek.

Professor Thiel holds a bachelor’s degree and a master of fine arts degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Alena Allen was appointed associate dean for research and faculty development and professor of law at the University of Arkansas. For the last decade, Professor Allen taught at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis.

Professor Allen is a graduate of Loyola University, where she majored in psychology. She earned a juris doctorate at Yale Law School.

Barbara MacKenzie-Wood was appointed a University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She joined the faculty in 1986 and has been serving as the Raymond W. Smith Professor of Drama in the College of Fine Arts.

Professor MacKenzie-Wood holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in acting from Boston University and a master of fine arts degree in directing from Carnegie Mellon University.