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

Daphna Shohamy, the Kavli Professor of Brain Science at Columbia University in New York City, was given the added duties of director of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Her expertise is in the neuroscience of learning, memory, and decision-making.

Professor Daphna received a bachelor’s degree from Tel-Aviv University in Israel, double majoring in psychology and humanities. She then went on to receive a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Malinda Maynor Lowery, Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University in Atlanta, and a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, was appointed the inaugural director of the university’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies. She is the author of Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) and The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

Professor Lowery is a graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in history and literature. She holds a master’s degree in documentary film and video from Stanford University and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Bryana French has been appointed associate chair in the Graduate School of Professional Psychology of the College of Health at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. She joined the university’s faculty in 2014. Her interests focus on multicultural counseling, social justice advocacy, and sexual violence recovery.

Dr. French is a graduate of Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree in educational psychology and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Illinois.

Amy D’Olivio was named vice president for academic affairs at Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey. She joined the faculty at the college in 1998 as an assistant professor of sociology and later served as chair of the social and behavioral sciences department and associate provost.

Dr. D’Olivio holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in applied sociology from Clemson University in South Carolina. She earned a doctorate in religion and society at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.