Seven Women Faculty Members Who Are Taking on New Roles or Duties

Laura McCabe, a Foundation Professor in the department of physiology at Michigan State University, is the new assistant vice president for regulatory affairs at the university. Dr. McCabe has been serving as director for special projects in regulatory affairs for the past year. Dr. McCabe’s research program has focused on preventing osteoporosis and identifying ways to regulate bone mass.

Professor McCabe holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Chicago.

Phillis Isabella Sheppard, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at the Vanderbilt University School of Theology, was appointed the inaugural director of the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at the university.

Dr. Sheppard earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in theology from Colgate Rochester Divinity School and a Ph.D. in theology, ethics, and the human sciences from the Chicago Theological Seminary.

Rebecca Saxe, the John W. Jarve (1978) Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the associate head of the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been appointed associate dean of the School of Science at MIT. She is best known for her work on brain regions specialized for abstract concepts, such as “theory of mind” tasks that involve understanding the mental states of other people.

Professor Saxe is a graduate of the University of Oxford in England. She earned a Ph.D. in cognitive science at MIT.

Kirsten T. Edwards was appointed associate professor of educational policy studies at Florida International University. She was an assistant professor of educational leadership & policy studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on the ways global racial asymmetries, context, and sociocultural identity intersect to influence teaching and learning in postsecondary education.

Dr. Edwards holds a master of public administration degree from Southern University in Baton Rouge. She received a Ph.D. in higher education administration with a specialization in curriculum theory at Louisiana State University.

Mari Borr, a professor in the School of Education at North Dakota State University in Fargo, has been selected as the new editor of the Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal, a publication of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. Dr. Borr has been a family and consumer sciences educator at North Dakota State University since 2005.

Professor Borr earned her bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in family and consumer sciences education from North Dakota State. She earned her doctorate in teaching and learning at the University of North Dakota.

Pamela M. Norris, executive dean of the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Frederick Tracy Morse Professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia, has been named vice provost of research at George Washington University, effective November 1. She has been on the faculty at the University of Virginia since 1994.

Professor Norris is a graduate of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Tekla Ali Johnson has been appointed an assistant professor of African-American studies at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. She is the author of Free Radical: Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race (Texas Tech University Press, 2014).

Dr. Johnson earned a Ph.D. in history with an emphasis in African American studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2005.