Katherine Macfarlane, professor and director of the disability law and policy program in the College of Law at Syracuse University in New York, was elected chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) section on Women in Legal Education. She previously served as the section’s chair-elect and treasurer, and has also chaired the AALS section on disability law. A senior fellow at Syracuse’s Burton Blatt Institute, Professor Macfarlane focuses her scholarship on students, lawyers, and professors with disabilities, and the challenges they face in obtaining reasonable accommodations.
Professor Macfarlane holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a juris doctorate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Karen Thole has been named the inaugural director of the National Security Institute at Pennsylvania State University. Her appointment marks a return to Penn State, where she previously served as a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering, department head of mechanical engineering, director of the Engineering Ambassador Network, and director of the Steady Thermal Aero Research Turbine Lab. Since August 2024, Dr. Thole has been the Robert J. Vlasic Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Before her initial tenure with Penn State, she was the William Cross Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Dr. Thole earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois. She holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Tahira M. Probst was granted the title of Regents Professor at Washington State University. Dr. Probst, a professor of psychology, serves as director of the university’s Coalition for Healthy and Equitable Workplaces lab. As a scholar of occupational health psychology, she centers her work on job insecurity, workplace safety, and worker well-being.
Dr. Probst is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where she majored in psychology and German. She earned a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology at the University of Illinois.
Judy Schaechter was appointed chair of the department of pediatrics at the Robert Larner, M.D. College of Medicine at the University of Vermont and UVM Health. She will also serve as chief of pediatrics at Golisano Children’s Hospital. A professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Schaechter has been serving as director of the division of violence prevention for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. During her tenure with Miami, she held the George E. Batchelor Endowed Chair in Child Health and served as chair of the department of pediatrics for eight years.
Dr. Schaechter is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in religious studies and ethics. She holds an MBA from the University of Miami and a medical doctorate from the Stanford University School of Medicine.