Meng Zhu has been promoted from interim department head to permanent head of the department of marketing in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. A faculty member since 2023, she has served as a professor of marketing and a senior fellow in the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. Her scholarship centers on behavioral economics, human judgement, health and medical decision-making, and collaborations between humans and artificial intelligence.
A graduate of Nanjing University in China, Dr. Zhu received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in marketing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Sara Roccabianca is the new director of the Center for Women’s Health Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She has taught at the school as an associate professor for the past year. Earlier, she was a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering at Michigan State University. In her research, she explores urinary tract and cardiovascular biomechanics, focusing on tissue adaptation and maladaptation in response to various stimuli.
Dr. Roccabianca received her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. all from the University of Trento in Italy.
Ayako Kano has been named director of the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where she has taught as a professor of East Asian languages and civilizations for the past 30 years. As a historian, she specializes in the history of gender and performance in Japan. She is the author of several books, including Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor (University of Hawaii Press, 2016).
A graduate of Keio University in Japan, Dr. Kano holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Vicky Lai has been selected to serve as interim director of the cognitive science program at the University of Arizona. She first joined the university in 2016 and currently holds the title of associate professor of psychology and cognitive science. As director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory, she examines how the brain processes figurative language, how language and emotion interact across the lifespan, and how bilingualism shapes perception and action.
Dr. Lai earned her Ph.D. in linguistics and cognitive science from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Jennifer Hunter has been named associate dean for extension and director of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service for the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment. She has over two decades of service as a county agent, specialist, educator, and administrator. At the University of Kentucky, she has served as a professor and director of the School of Human Environmental Sciences, as well as assistant extension director for family and consumer sciences.
Dr. Hunter received her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. all from the University of Kentucky.
Laura Machia has been selected to serve as interim director of the Renée Crown University Honors Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in New York. She currently serves the college as a professor of psychology and the associate dean for academic initiatives and curriculum. As a social psychologist, she seeks to understand why some relationships succeed, while others fail. She is the co-editor of Interdependence, Interaction, and Close Relationships (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Dr. Machia is a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, where she double-majored in psychology and sociology. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. in social psychology from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Allison Koenecke has joined the faculty at Cornell Tech and the Cornell University Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science as an assistant professor. Her research on algorithmic fairness applies machine learning and causal inference to study societal inequities in various domains.
Dr. Koenecke earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford University’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering.
Tamara Caspary has been appointed associate dean for strategic projects for the James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She currently serves as a professor of human genetics in the university’s School of Medicine and director of the genetics predoctoral training program. Her work centers around the role of the primary cilium, the slender protrusion found on virtually all eukaryotic cells, including neurons and glia.
Dr. Caspary is a grduate of the University of North Carolina. She received a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Princeton University.
Nukhet Sandal has been named interim associate vice president for community impact at Ohio University. Currently, she is a professor of political science and associate dean for student success and strategic partnerships in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences. Her research and teaching interests include human security, religion and global politics, conflict management, and politics of divided societies.
Dr. Sandal is a graduate of Bilkent University in Ankara, Türkiye, where she majored in international relations. She holds a Ph.D. in politics and international relations from the University of Southern California.
Following service as an adjunct professor, Debbie Fleming has joined the Central Baptist College faculty full-time as a professor of education and chair of the education department. With nearly four decades of experience in education, she most recently served as director of the Arkansas Co-Teaching Project with the Arkansas Department of Education.
Dr. Fleming holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Texas Christian University, a master’s degree in education from Henderson State University in Arkansas, and a doctorate in education from Arkansas State University.