Five Women Scholars Appointed to Endowed Professorships

Rachel Fearns has been appointed the Ernest Barsamian, MD, Professor in the Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine at Boston University. She currently serves the medical school as the chair of virology, immunology, and microbiology and has been a faculty member with the university since 2007.

Dr. Fearns received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Leeds in England and her Ph.D. in virology from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

Ada Ferrer has been named the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University. She currently serves as the Julius, Roslyn, and Enid Silver Professor of History and Latin American Studies at New York University where she has taught since 1995. Her book, Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021), won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History.

Dr. Ferrer holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She earned a master’s degree in history from the University of at Texas Austin and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan.

Nora Peterson has been appointed the Susan J. Rosowski associate professor of French at the University of Nebraska. She has been a faculty member with the university since 2012 and currently serves as chair of the department of modern languages and literatures.

Dr. Peterson is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she majored in comparative literature. She received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Helen Caines has been appointed the Horace D. Taft Professor of Physics at Yale University. She has been with Yale since 2001, currently holding appointments in the department of physics and the Yale Wright Laboratory.

Dr. Caines holds a bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Birmingham in England.

Sarah Light has been named the inaugural Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a professor of legal studies and business ethnics and has taught at the university since 2013. Additionally, she serves as the faculty co-director of the school’s Climate Center.

Dr. Light is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University where she majored in social studies. She received her master’s degree in politics from Oxford University in England and her juris doctorate from Yale University.