A Trio of Women in New Teaching Roles

Mary Murphy was named a Letters and Science Distinguished Professor at Montana State University. She has taught in the department of history and philosophy at Montana State University since 1990. She is the author of Mining Cultures: Men, Women, and Leisure in Butte, 1914-41 (University of Illinois Press, 1997) and Hope in Hard Times: New Deal Photographs of Montana, 1936-1942 (Montana Historical Society Press, 2003).

Dr. Murphy is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Alice White was named professor and chair of the department of mechanical engineering at Boston University. She is the first women to chair the department. Dr. White has had a 30-year career at Bell Labs, most recently serving as chief scientist. Her research focuses on photonic device technology and she holds five patents. At one point, she was the only woman among 1,000 staff scientists at Bell Labs.

Dr. White holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.

Christyne J. Vachon was appointed assistant professor of law at the University of North Dakota School of Law. She spent the 2012-13 academic year as a visiting professor at the University of North Dakota law school.

Vachon originally planned to be an orthopedic surgeon. She followed a pre-med curriculum at Wellesley College but decided to enroll at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver. There she was editor of the University of Denver Law Review and the Journal of International Law and Policy. For seven years she was an enforcement officer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and then served as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching securities law and business communication in Mongolia.