Ten Women Faculty Members in New Positions or Taking on New Duties

Tiffany Tung, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Social and Natural Sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, will take on the added responsibilities of vice provost for undergraduate education. Professor Tung will step down as chair of the department of anthropology and associate provost for doctoral programs. Dr. Tung is the author of Violence, Ritual, and the Wari Empire: A Social Bioarchaeology of Imperialism in the Ancient Andes (University Press of Florida, 2012).

Dr. Tung earned a Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Nontsikelelo Mutiti was appointed director of graduate studies in graphic design at the Yale School of Art. She has held assistant professorships at Virginia Commonwealth University and Purchase College of the State University of New York.

Mutiti holds a diploma in multimedia from the Zimbabwe Institute of Vigital Arts and a master of fine arts degree in graphic design from the Yale School of Art.

Ana de Bettencourt-Dias, the Susan Magee and Gary Clemons Professor of Chemistry at the University of Nevada, was named a Foundation Professor. The eligibility requirements for nomination to the Foundation Professor award include a record of excellence in their discipline as a teacher and scholar, national prominence in their field, a demonstrated record of service to the university, and a record of sustained achievement.

Professor de Bettencourt-Dias is a graduate of the University of Lisbon in Portugal. She holds a doctorate in inorganic chemistry from the University of Cologne in Germany.

Shola K. Roberts will be joining the dance faculty in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre at Arizona State University. Her research interests include developing pedagogy and curriculum rooted in African diasporic dances — specifically dances indigenous to her native Grenada.

Roberts is a graduate of Howard Univerity in Washington D.C., where she majored in dance and Caribbean studies. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Hunter College of the City University of New York and is currently completing a doctorate in dance education from Columbia University.

Jing Zhou, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University in Houston, Texas, has been appointed deputy dean of academic affairs for the business school. She joined the faculty in 2003 after teaching at Texas A&M University.

Professor Zhou holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.

Natalie Stingelin has been selected as the next chair of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Dr. Stingelin has been a faculty member in the College of Engineering since 2016. Her research focuses on polymer physics, functional soft matter, organic electronics and photonics, and bioelectronics.

Dr. Stingelin holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Malinda Wilson-Swoope was appointed associate provost for academic affairs at Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida. She was an associate professor of chemistry and special assistant to the president for strategic planning and initiatives at Alabama A&M University.

Dr. Wilson-Swoope earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in mathematics from Texas Southern University in Houston. She holds a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental chemistry from the University of California, Davis.

Victoria Plaut, the Claire Sanders Clements Dean’s Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, will serve as the new vice provost for the faculty beginning August 15. Prior to joining the Berkeley Law faculty in 2010, Dr. Plaut taught at the University of Georgia and at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Dr. Plaut earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard University, a master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a doctoral degree in social psychology from Stanford University.

Mary Savin, a professor of microbial ecology and soil biology in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, was given the added duties of assistant director of the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. Dr. Savn joined the faculty in 2002 and was promoted to full professor in 2011.

Professor Savin is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she majored in biology. She earned a master’s degree in natural resources and a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Rhode Island.

Judith Hamera, a professor of dance at Princeton University in New Jersey, was given the added duties as chair of the Lews Center for the Arts at the university. Her most recent book is Unfinished Business: Michael Jackson, Detroit, and the Figural Economy of American Deindustrialization (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Dr. Hamera received her bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Wayne State University in Detroit. She earned a master’s degree in interpretation and a Ph.D. in performance studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.