Sandra Daack-Hirsch has been appointed associate provost for faculty at the University of Iowa. Dr. Daack-Hirsch has served as the Dr. Rita and David Frantz Executive Associate Dean and dean of faculty in the university’s College of Nursing for the past five years. A full professor, she previously served as director of the college’s Ph.D. program and as interim associate dean for graduate practice programs. She is known for her expertise in clinical genetics and her efforts to promote the education and practice of nurses in genetics.
Dr. Daack-Hirsch holds a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in genetics and pediatrics, and Ph.D. in epidemiology, genetics, and family health, all from the University of Iowa College of Nursing.
Jennifer P. Nesbitt was named associate dean for faculty affairs in the University College at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Nesbitt, a professor of English, joined the Penn State faculty in 2003 and has spent much of her faculty career at Penn State York. She currently serves as chief academic officer at Penn State Brandywine.
Dr. Nesbitt is a graduate of Harvard University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in history and literature. She holds master’s and doctoral degrees in English from Emory University in Atlanta.
Miriam Johnson has been appointed interim director of the Technology Law and Policy Center at the North Carolina Central University School of Law. Johnson first joined the center in 2023 as a Technology Law Fellow. She currently teaches a course on video game law and conducts research on child and youth privacy, artificial intelligence governance, and emerging technology regulation.
Johnson is an alumna of North Carolina Central University.
Claudia Turro has been named a distinguished university professor at Ohio State University. The title is Ohio State’s highest faculty honor. Dr. Turro, the Dr. Melvin L. Morris Endowed Professor in Inorganic Chemistry, has been a faculty member with the university for three decades. Her research group is interested in understanding and utilizing reactions of metal complexes that can be initiated with light. The potential applications of these reactions span the areas of photo-chemotherapy for the treatment of various diseases, luminescent reporters and sensors, and solar energy conversion.
Dr. Turro received her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from Michigan State University. She then conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia Univrsity in New York City.
Samantha Swindell is vice provost for undergraduate education at Washington State University. Dr. Swindell has been with the university for nearly three decades and most recently served as associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. Earlier in her tenure, she was the undergraduate program director for the department of psychology. In addition to her primary administrative responsibilities, Dr. Swindell also teaches as a career-track professor in psychology.
Dr. Swindell received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Washington State University.
Tina Savla was appointed executive director of the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment at Virginia Tech. A full professor of human development and family science, Dr. Savla is a social gerontologist and quantitative methodologist whose work examines the intersection of life stressors, health, and well-being, particularly among middle-aged and older adults. She has been a Virginia Tech faculty member since 2007.
Dr. Savla earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in human development from the University of Bombay in India and her Ph.D. in child and family development from the University of Georgia.
Erin Hackett has been named interim associate dean of the Graduate School at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. Dr. Hackett is a professor of marine science whose research interests include coastal ocean physical processes, ocean surface waves, turbulent boundary layers, radar remote sensing, electromagnetic wave propagation in the marine environment, and the marine atmospheric boundary layer. She previously directed the marine science graduate programs at Coastal Carolina from 2021 to 2024.
Dr. Hackett is a graduate of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, where she majored in physics. She holds a master’s degree in civil engineering and a Ph.D in physical oceanography from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Ela Gezen has been named co-director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Gezen is a professor of German and graduate program director for German and Scandinavian studies at the university. Her research and teaching focus on twentieth- and twenty-first-century German literature and culture, with emphases on literatures of migration, minority discourses, historical and theoretical accounts of transnationalism, and literary and cultural theory. She is the author of Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature: Reception, Adaptation, and Innovation after 1960 (Camden House, 2018).
Dr. Gezen earned her undergraduate degree in American, French, and Turkish studies from Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. She holds a master’s degree in Central Eurasian studies and Turkish studies from Indiana University and a Ph.D. in Germanic languages and literature from the University of Michigan.