Eleven Women Scholars Appointed to New Faculty Roles

Miho Mazereeuw has been named director of the empowering frontline communities mission at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The initiative focuses on developing new climate solutions to support the world’s most vulnerable populations. Dr. Mazereeuw currently serves MIT as an associate professor of architecture and urbanism and director of the Urban Risk Lab.

Mazereeuw is a high honors graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where she majored in sculpture and environmental science. She holds a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard University.

Susan Thrasher has been named the inaugural director of the medical assistant program at Gadsden State Community College in Alabama. With a more than four-decades-long career in healthcare and education, she most recently served as a health sciences instructor at the Etowah County Career Technical Center in Alabama.

Dr. Thrasher is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she majored in nursing. She holds a master’s degree in nursing and a doctorate from the University of Alabama.

Berrin Tansel has been named a distinguished university professor at Florida International University. A faculty member with the university since 1990, she currently serves as a professor of environmental engineering and the undergraduate program director for the department of civil and environmental engineering.

Dr. Tansel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Katherine Alexander has been named the associate dean for academics at Seton College, the new two-year school of the University of Mount Saint Vincent in New York. She has been a faculty member at the university for the past 11 years, most recently serving as an associate professor of psychology and assistant dean for pathway programs. She has also served as chair of the university’s department of psychology.

Dr. Alexander earned her bachelor’s degree from Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Deborah Hokien has been appointed associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. She comes to her new role from Palm Beach State College in Florida, where she served as associate dean of the division of mathematics and sciences. Earlier in her career, she spent 25 years as a chemistry professor at Marywood University in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Hokien holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Scranton and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Jie Chen has been promoted from interim associate dean to permanent associate dean for academic and student affairs in the School of Public Health at Augusta University in Georgia. She currently serves as a professor in the department of biostatistics, data science, and epidemiology and as director of the population health science, biostats, and data science program.

Dr. Chen holds a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Akron in Ohio and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Aziza Suleymanzade has been appointed to University of California, Berkeley faculty as an assistant professor of physics. She will assume her new role in July 2025 upon completion of her postdoctoral fellowship with Harvard University. Her research interests focus on using photons of light to interconnect quantum computers.

Dr. Suleymanzade holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Amy Kahrmann Huseby has been named publisher and executive editor of Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, an academic journal housed at Rice University in Houston. She is a senior lecturer whose work centers around 19th-century poetry, prosody, and poetics. Earlier in her career, she served as an associate teaching professor in the English department and the gender and women’s studies program at Florida International University.

Dr. Huseby is a graduate of Washington State University, where she majored in English literature. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in English language and literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Kathy Bieschke has been promoted to senior vice provost at Pennsylvania State University. A full professor of education, she has held several academic and administrative roles with Penn State since joining the faculty in 1991. Most recently, she served as vice provost for faculty affairs.

Dr. Bieschke earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s degree in clinical psychology from Illinois State University. She received her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Michigan State University.

Shalina Nair has been appointed chair of the department of family medicine in the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and UVM Health Network. She comes to her new role from Ohio State University, where she has been serving as the executive vice chair of clinical services and innovation in the College of Medicine and as the medical director for population health outreach for the OSU Wexner Medical Center.

Dr. Nair holds an MBA from Ohio State University and a medical doctorate from Northeast Ohio Medical University.

Cathy Felmlee Shanholtz has been named the inaugural director of the master’s degree in occupational therapy program at McDaniel College in Maryland. She most recently held the same position at Shenandoah University in Virginia, were she also served as an associate professor, academic fieldwork coordinator, and director of the division of occupational therapy.

Dr. Shanholtz is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy and her master of education degree. She received her doctor of occupational therapy degree from George Washington University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in organizational leadership from Shenandoah University.