A Quartet of Women Named to New Faculty Positions

Esther Jones has been appointed the inaugural associate dean for faculty development in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She will also serve as associate professor of Africana Studies. Prior to joining the faculty at Brown University, Dr. Jones served as associate professor, E. Franklin Frazier Chair of African American Literature, Theory, and Culture, and associate provost for faculty affairs at Clark University in Massachusetts.

Dr. Jones graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee where she double majored in English and music. She received a master’s degree in African and African American Studies and a Ph.D. in English language and literature from Ohio State University.

Meike van der Heijden is a new assistant professor in the School of Neuroscience in the College of Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She also holds a joint appointment in the university’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.

Dr. van der Heijden received her bachelor’s degree in psychobiology from the University of Amsterdam and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

Sally Santen has been promoted to associate dean for medical education research and innovation in the College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati. She currently serves as a professor in the departments of emergency medicine and medical education.

Dr. Santen earned a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, an M.D. from George Washington University in the District of Columbia, and a Ph.D. in higher education leadership from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

Lynn Dobrunz has been appointed chair of the department of anatomy and neurobiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. She will also serve as the Simon R. Bruesch Professor and director of the university’s Neuroscience Institute. She most recently served as professor, director of the Consortium for Neuroengineering and Brain-Computer Interfaces, and co-director of the Ph.D. in neuroengineering program at the University of Alabama Birmingham.

Dr. Dobrunz received her bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.