M. Soledad Peresin has been named director of the Wood Utilization + Design Institute at Clemson University in South Carolina. She will also hold faculty appointments in the department of forestry and environmental conservation and the department of materials science and engineering. Prior to her new role, she was a professor in the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment at Auburn University in Alabama.
Peresin is a graduate of Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Argentina and earned her Ph.D. in forest biomaterials from North Carolina State University.
Marina Zaloznaya has joined the faculty of Arizona State University’s Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions as an associate professor in School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She comes to her new role from the University of Iowa, where she was director of the European studies group in international programs.
Dr. Zaloznaya received her bachelor’s degree in sociology and Italian from Middlebury College in Vermont, a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Tiffany A. Sippial has been named associate provost for undergraduate education at the University of Alabama. Alongside her new responsibilities, she will continue to serve in her current role as a professor of history and dean of the university’s Honors College. As a scholar, she studies the operation of power in Cuban and Latin American history. Her research has led to multiple publications, including her most recent book, Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of a Cuban Revolutionary (University of North Carolina Press, 2020).
Dr. Sippial is a graduate of Southwestern University in Texas, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and art history. She holds a master’s degree in Latin American studies and a Ph.D in Latin American history from the University of New Mexico.
Kristen Gibson has been appointed co-director of the online master’s degree program in food safety at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She currently holds the Donald “Buddy” Wray Endowed Chair in Food Safety and is director of the university’s Center for Food Safety. In her research, she studies the fate and transport of pathogens within food systems with a focus on human noroviruses and fresh produce as well as food safety.
Dr. Gibson holds a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Central Florida and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Amber Stephenson has been appointed director of the School of Business Administration at Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg. She comes to Penn State Harrisburg from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, where she was a tenured professor of management and director of the healthcare management program in the David D. Reh School of Business.
A graduate of Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, Dr. Stephenson holds a master’s degree in public health from West Chester University and a doctorate in leadership studies from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Jessica West has joined the Mitchell Hamline School of Law faculty as an assistant professor. Most recently, she taught at the University of Washington Law School, where she was associate dean for academic success programs from 2019 to 2022. Earlier, she was an assistant professor with the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
A graduate of Brown University, Professor West earned her juris doctorate from the University of Connecticut.
Cathy Yang Liu has been appointed associate dean for strategic initiatives for the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. Currently holding the rank of distinguished university professor and serving as the Michael and Enid Mescon Endowed Chair, she recently concluded a six-year stint as chair of the department of public management and policy. Her scholarship focuses on community and economic development, urban labor market and policy, migration and entrepreneurship, and international urban development.
Dr. Liu received a master of public policy degree from the Harris School at the University of Chicago. and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
Sinéad Ní Chadhain has been named chair of the department of biology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She comes to Little Rock from the University of South Alabama, where she was an associate professor of biology. Earlier, she conducted research with the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Dr. Chadhain holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in marine studies from the University of Delaware.