Angi Bourgeois has been selected to serve as interim vice provost at Mississippi State University. A faculty member since 2002, she has served as dean of the university’s College of Architecture, Art, and Design since 2018. Earlier, she was head of the department of art. She is the author of Reconstructing the Lost Frescoes of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome From the Meditationes of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada: A Case Study in the History of Art (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).
Dr. Bourgeois holds a bachelor’s degree in art history from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance and medieval art history from Emory University in Atlanta.
Elaine Liu is a new faculty director at the Georgia Policy Labs in Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. In this role, she will lead the labs’ early childhood and whole child focus area. Currently, she serves as a professor and the Bernard B. and Eugenia A. Ramsey Chair in the department of economics. Her research in applied microeconomics explores topics at the intersection of health, behavioral, and development economics.
Dr. Lui is a graduate of Wellesley College, a women’s liberal arts institution in Massachusetts. She earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
Natasha Johnson is the new chief human resources officer at Tennessee State University. Her background includes two decades of human resources leadership experience. While overseeing her own consulting firm, she has been teaching at Tennessee State as an assistant professor of human resources management.
Dr. Johnson is an alumna of Tennessee State University, where she double-majored in business administration and foreign languages. She earned her MBA from Lipscomb University in Nashville and her doctor of business administration degree from Jacksonville University in Florida.
Laura R. Peck has joined the Rutgers University faculty as an associate professor in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. She will also serve as a principal faculty fellow in the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Most recently, she was a principal scientist at MEF Associates, a social policy research firm. Previously, she taught as an associate professor of public affairs at Arizona State University.
Dr. Peck holds two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Melissa Nicolas has been appointed director of the women’s, gender, and sexuality studies program at Washington State University. A faculty member in the university’s department of English since 2019, she focuses her work on the rhetoric of health and medicine, disability studies, composition studies, and feminist theory. Her most recent book is Institutional Ethnography as a Writing Studies Practice (WAC Clearinghouse, 2024).
Dr. Nicolas is a graduate of the University of Delaware, where she double-majored in philosophy and English. She holds a master’s degree in adult education from Widener University in Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in English from Ohio State University.
Stacy Hill was recently promoted from associate provost to vice provost of academic affairs at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. She first joined the faculty in 1998 and currently holds the rank of associate professor of English. She previously served as registrar and as director of the teacher certification program.
Dr. Hill earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and government from Western Washington University, a master’s degree in secondary education and teaching from Whitworth University, and a doctorate in teaching and learning from Washington State University.
Grishma Shah is the new associate dean of the O’Malley School of Business at Manhattan University in New York. A faculty member since 2008, she currently serves as a full professor and director of global business studies. Her scholarship focuses on globalization, gender equity, and cultural change. She also recently published her debut novel Anagram Destiny (SparkPress, 2024).
Dr. Shah holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a Ph.D. in global affairs and international business, all from Rutgers University.
Jannette Berkley-Patton has been named a Curators’ Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The title is the University of Missouri System’s most prestigious faculty honor. She currently teaches as an associate professor of biomedical and health informatics and directs the UMKC Health Equity Institute. Her research focuses on health inequities, education, prevention, and screening in underserved communities.
A three-time graduate of the University of Kansas, Dr. Berkley-Patton holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering, a master’s degree in human development and family life, and a Ph.D. in child and developmental psychology.
Elizabeth Karcher has been appointed associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. She comes to her new role from Purdue University’s College of Agriculture, where she was an undergraduate program coordinator and professor in the department of animal sciences. Currently, she is president of the North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture organization.
Dr. Karcher earned her bachelor’s degree in animal biosciences from Penn State, a master’s degree in animal science from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in nutritional sciences and immunobiology from Iowa State University.
Rebecca Giorno-McConnell has been promoted to associate dean for research and graduate studies in Louisiana Tech University’s College of Applied and Natural Sciences, where she teaches as a professor of biological sciences. Her past research projects include work in bioterrorism preparedness, microbial survival, antibiotic discovery and resistance, and space biology.
Dr. Giorno-McConnell is a graduate of Eureka College in Illinois, where she majored in biology and chemistry. She holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Northwestern University in Illinois.
Patricia Wittkopp is the inaugural associate dean for research in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan. Before her new appointment, she was the college’s associate dean for natural sciences. A faculty member since 2005, she currently holds the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology.
Dr. Wittkopp is an alumna of the University of Michigan. She earned her Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Michele Elam is a new senior associate vice provost in the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at Stanford University in California. She currently serves as the William Robertson Coe Professor of English, director of undergraduate curriculum for the School of Humanities and Sciences, and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Her interdisciplinary research connects literature, social sciences, and STEM to examine changing cultural interpretations of gender and race. Dr. Elam is the author of several books including The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium (Stanford University Press, 2011)
Dr. Elam received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington.