Aoife Houlihan Wiberg was named professor of architecture at the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction and Planning. Since 2023, she has served as an associate professor of architecture and engineering at the University of Bath in England. Earlier, she was a professor of architecture, chair of research in architecture, and founding director of The Architectural Research Group at the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment at Ulster University in Northern Ireland.
Dr. Wiberg holds two bachelor’s degrees, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England.
Karen Cook Bell has been appointed chair of the department of history and government at Bowie State University in Maryland. Currently, she holds the title of Wilson H. Elkins Professor of History. She is the editor and author of several books, including Running From Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Dr. Cook Bell is a magna cum laude graduate of Savannah State University in Georgia, where she majored in history. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in U.S. history from Howard University in Washington, D.C.
Jennifer Hook, the Florence Everline Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California, has been named chair-elect of the Family Section of the American Sociological Association. Her research, which examines the intersection of gender, work and family, aligns closely with the section’s mission to support scholarship on how families are formed and function in broader social structures. She is the co-author of Gendered Tradeoffs: Family, Social Policy, and Economic Inequality in Twenty-One Countries (Russell Sage Foundation 2009).
Dr. Hook is a graduate of Western Michigan University, where she majored in sociology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Washington.
Eleanor Frisch has joined the Mitchell Hamline School of Law faculty as an assistant professor of law. With a decade of experience in litigation and legal writing, Professor Frisch most recently served as a counsel with Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. Earlier, they worked for Apollo Law, Wilson Law Group, and Nichols Kaster.
Professor Frisch holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a juris doctorate from the University of Minnesota Law School.
Sarah Koval has joined the University of Mississippi faculty as an assistant professor of music. She was a visiting assistant professor during the 2024-2025 academic year, teaching courses in music literature, music history, and music research. Her research focuses on the everyday musical practices in early modern Europe.
Dr. Koval received a bachelor’s degrees in English from Queen’s University and a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in musicology from the University of Toronto. She earned her Ph.D. in music from Harvard University.
Kris McAbee has been promoted to director of the School of Literary and Performing Arts at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. An associate professor of English, she has served as the school’s interim co-director since its inception in 2022. She also holds an affiliate appointment in the gender studies program. Her scholarly expertise centers on Renaissance literature, digital humanities, and feminist cultural studies.
An honors graduate of Vanderbilt University, Dr. McAbee holds a master’s degree from New York University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Pamela Abshire has been named chair of the department of engineering at Stony Brook University in New York. Since 2001, she has served on the faculty of the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Maryland. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the design of integrated circuits informed by biology.
Dr. Abshire is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, where she majored in physics. She holds a master’s degree and doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Katharine Baker has joined the University of Iowa College of Law faculty as a professor and the Aliber Family Chair in Law. She most recently served as an associate dean at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. Earlier, she held visiting teaching appointments at Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Northwestern University. An expert on family law, she studies how law structures family, sexuality, and power.
A Harvard graduate, Professor Baker holds a juris doctorate from the University of Chicago.
Jessika Trancik has been appointed director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. A professor in MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society, Dr. Trancik conducts research on technology innovation and energy systems. Professor Trancik’s scholarship has focused on the development of numerous applications, including solar photovoltaics, batteries, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and other low-carbon technologies.
Dr. Trancik received her bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and her Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Oxford in England.
Keena Arbuthnot has been named executive vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In addition to her leadership position, she will teach as a distinguished professor. Dr. Arbuthnot comes to Rutgers University from Louisiana State University, where she vice president and chief data officer, dean of the Pinkie Gordon Lane Graduate School, and the Joan Pender McManus Distinguished Professor of Education.
Dr. Arbuthnot is a graduate of the University of Central Missouri, where she majored in mathematics. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.