Five Women Appointed Assistant Professors at Princeton University

Princeton University in New Jersey has announced the appointment of nine scholars as assistant professors. Five of the new faculty members are women.

Beatrice Adams will join the history department faculty in September. Dr. Adams specializes in African American history and comes to Princeton from the College of Wooster in Ohio, where she has been an assistant professor since 2021. She is a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville and holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Dagmara Kraus-Cavaillès will become an assistant professor of German this fall. Dr. Kraus-Cavaillès specializes in postwar and contemporary literature and culture and comes to Princeton from the Universität Hildesheim, where she has been an assistant professor since 2021. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig, a master’s degree from Université Paris, and a Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin.

Laura Kathryn Nelson was named to the faculty of the English department. She will begin her new post in July. Dr. Nelson specializes in media studies. She was a lecturer at Harvard University from 2021 to 2022 and later conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California. Dr. Nelson is a graduate of the University of Virginia. She holds two master’s degrees from the University of Oxford in England and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Madeline Woker was appointed an assistant professor of history. Dr. Woker specializes in modern European history. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Cambridge in England, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Sciences Po Paris. She earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Xiaoyu Xia joins the East Asian studies faculty in July. She has been a lecturer at Princeton since 2023. Dr. Xia, who specializes in modern Chinese film and media, holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Fudan University in Shanghai and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.