Xiumin Martin is the inaugural Margaret Oung Distinguished Professor in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. A professor of accounting, Dr. Martin has been a faculty member at the university for nearly two decades. Bridging accounting and emerging financial technologies, her scholarship examines how information, regulation, and institutional structures influence investor behavior, financial reporting, and capital-market outcomes.
A native of Harbin, China, Dr. Martin received her bachelor’s degree in regional economics from Nanjing University and her master’s degree from Hong Kong Baptist University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.
Suzanne Bart is the Edwin F. Peters, Class of 1942, Professor of Chemistry at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. A Purdue faculty member since 2008, Dr. Bart currently serves as director of graduate studies. Her research aims to advance the understanding of the fundamental chemistry of depleted uranium, thorium, and the transuranic elements.
A graduate of the University of Delaware, Dr. Bart earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.
Vida Praitis is the Rosenthal Professor of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Grinnell College in Iowa. Dr. Praitis, a full professor of biology, has taught at Grinnell College since 2001. Throughout her tenure, she has served as chair of both the department of biology and the department of biological chemistry. Her research focuses on understanding at a cellular and molecular level the mechanisms by which epithelial sheets change shape during their development.
Dr. Praitis received her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and her master’s degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She completed postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago.
Erica Edwards is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of English and Black Studies at Yale University. Dr. Edwards joined the Yale faculty in 2022 and currently serves as chair of the department of Black studies. She studies the intersection of African American literature, politics, social movements, and popular culture, exploring how Black feminism creates generative insights about connections between these fields. Her most recent book is The Other Side of Terror: Black Women and the Culture of the U.S. Empire (New York University Press, 2021)
Dr. Edwards received her bachelor’s degree in English and Spanish from Spelman College, a women’s liberal arts institution in Atlanta. She earned her Ph.D. in literature from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Christina Cipriano is the inaugural Joseph W. and Alma W. Keilty Endowed Chair and professor in education in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She comes to her new role from the Yale Child Study Center, where she currently serves as an associate professor and director of the Education Collaboratory. Dr. Cipriano’s scholarship centers on the science of learning, development, and open science practices. She is the author of Be Unapologetically Impatient: The Mindset Required to Change the Way We Do Things (Manuscripts LLC, 2025).
Dr. Cipriano holds a bachelor’s degree in political science and education from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She earned a master’s degree in education policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in applied developmental and educational psychology from Boston College.
Padma Gulur has been named head of the department of anesthesiology and the inaugural Alex S. Evers MD Distinguished Professor in Anesthesiology in the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. She comes to her new appointment from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she is interim chair of the department of anesthesiology and a professor of anesthesiology and population health sciences. She is also the director of pain management strategy and opioid surveillance for Duke University Health System.
Dr. Gulur is a graduate of Bangalore University in India. She completed an internship in internal medicine at Berkshire Medical Center in Massachusetts, a residency in anesthesiology from Boston University, and a fellowship in anesthesiology from Harvard Medical School.