Seven Women Faculty Members Who Have Been Given New Roles or Duties

Lin Xie has been named the acting chair of the department of aquaculture and fisheries at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. Dr. Xie joined the university’s faculty as an assistant professor of aquaculture and fisheries in 2009 and became an associate professor in 2016. She teaches courses in statistics, data analysis, and experimental design.

Dr. Xie holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Qingdao Institute of Chemical Technology in China. She earned graduate degrees in statistics and food science from the University of Arkansas, and a doctoral degree in statistics from Kansas State University.

Double bassist Patricia Weitzel has been appointed assistant teaching professor in the College of Arts and Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. She was previously a lecturer of double bass at Columbus State University in Georgia and has served on the faculties of Augustana College, Central College, Grinnell College, St. Ambrose University, and Drake University.

Dr. Weitzel holds a master’s degree in music performance from the University of Southern Mississippi. She earned s doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Iowa.

Emily Conover was promoted to full professor of economics at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. Her research interests include health policy, political economy, and labor markets in developing countries, among other topics in applied microeconomics.

Dr. Conover, who joined the Hamilton faculty in 2008, grew up in Colombia and came to the United States for her undergraduate studies at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She then studied economics at the Sorbonne in Paris and went on to earn her doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kristine Hankins, the William E. Seale Professor of Finance in the Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky, has been named a University Research Professor. Her research focuses on corporate finance and risk management. Dr. Hankins is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Corporate Finance.

Professor Hankins holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in statistics from Rutgers University in New Jersey, and a doctoral degree in finance from the University of Florida.

Melayne Price, Endowed Professor of Political Science at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, has been given the added duties of special assistant to the president. Before joining the faculty at the university in 2019, she was an associate professor of Africana studies and political science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Dr. Price is the author of The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race (New York University Press, 2016).

Dr. Price is a magna cum laude graduate of Prairie View A&M University, where she majored in geography. Professor Price earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science at Ohio State University.

Lauren Falcao Bergquist was named assistant professor of economics and global affairs at Yale University. She was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. Dr. Bergquist is a development economist who examines interventions to reduce poverty and support agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Bergquist is a graduate of Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lynne Parker was appointed associate vice chancellor and director of the new AI Tennessee Initiative at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. For the past four years, she was deputy United States chief technology officer and director of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office within the White House. She initially joined the faculty at the university in 2002.

Dr. Parker earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Tennessee. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.