Six Women Scholars Who Are Taking on New Assignments at Colleges and Universities

Amy Ralston, a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at Michigan State University was appointed associate dean for graduate studies for the College of Natural Sciences at the university. Dr. Ralston joined the faculty in 2014 as an assistant professor. She was subsequently promoted to associate professor in 2016 and to full professor in 2022. Her research is focused on discovering how genes regulate stem cell behavior in the mammalian embryo and during somatic cell reprogramming.

Professor Ralston is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, where she majored in biochemistry. She holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tomi Obe is a new assistant professor with the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science and the department of poultry science at the University of Arkansas. Her current research focuses on understanding salmonella and campylobacter persistence in poultry production and processing environments.

Dr. Obe received her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in poultry science, all from Mississippi State University.

Pardis Dabashi is a new assistant professor of literature and film in the department of literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. She is teaching courses in 20th-century literature, film studies, and theory. Before coming to Bryn Mawr, she spent three years as an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Dr. Dabashi is the author of Losing the Plot: Film and Feeling in the Modern Novel, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.

Dr. Dabashi is a graduate of Columbia University in New York and holds a Ph.D. from Boston University.

Sonya Donaldson is a new assistant professor of African American studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. She previously taught at New Jersey City University and Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Dr. Donaldson is a graduate of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She earned a Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Virginia.

Jennifer Russell has joined the department of leadership, policy, and organizations at Peabody College of education and human development at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She was department chair and professor of educational foundations, organizations, and policy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Professor Russell holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and urban studies from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. She holds a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of San Francisco and a Ph.D. in education: policy, organization, measurement, and evaluation from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mara Revkin is a new associate professor at Duke Law School. She was a fellow at the Center on National Security and the Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Her primary research and teaching interests are in armed conflict, peace-building, transitional justice, migration, policing, and property with a regional focus on the Middle East and particularly Iraq and Syria.

Professor Revkin holds a bachelor’s degree in political science with minors in Arabic and anthropology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She holds a juris doctorate and a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.