Four Woman Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Chairs

Mapuana Antonio, an associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, was appointed to the Queen Liliʻuokalani Distinguished Professorship in Native Hawaiian Culture. The endowed professorship from the Queen Liliʻuokalani Trust honors the life and legacy of the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. It will create programs anchored in Native Hawaiian cultural knowledge, practices, and values that will strengthen the training of social work and other allied health professionals working with Native Hawaiian children, families, and communities.

A native Hawaiian, Dr. Antonio earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling psychology at Washington State University. She holds a doctorate in public health from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Sandra Kingery, a professor of Spanish at Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was named the inaugural holder of the W. Gibbs McKenney Chair in International Studies at the college. Her research interests focus primarily on translation and on contemporary women writers from Spain.

Professor Kingery is a graduate of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lorrie Frasure, professor of political science and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the inaugural Ralph J. Bunche Endowed Chair. She is also the new director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the university. Dr. Frasure joined the faculty in 2007. She was the first woman of color and the first Black woman to earn tenure and promotion to full professor in the political science department at the university. Professor Frasure is the author of Racial and Ethnic Politics in American Suburbs (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Professor Frasure holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Illinois. She earned a master of public policy degree from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in government and politics from the University of Maryland.

Rebecca L. Aft has been named the inaugural Jeffrey F. Moley Professor of Endocrine and Oncologic Surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Aft, who joined the Washington University faculty in 1997, specializes in innovative, minimally invasive breast cancer surgery.

Professor Aft earned a doctoral degree in oncology from the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a medical doctorate from Washington University.