Faculty News: Six Women in New College and University Teaching Posts

Jill McDonald was named to the Stan Fulton Endowed Chair in Health Disparities Research at New Mexico State University. She will also serve as the director of the Southwest Center for Health Disparities Research. She is a former official of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Dr. McDonald holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Washington.

Debra Haire-Joshu was named the first Joyce Wood Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. It is the first endowed chair in public health at the university. Dr. Haire-Joshu is the director of the university’s Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research and director of the university’s Center for Diabetes Translation Research.

Professor Haire-Joshu holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Southern Illinois University. She holds a second master’s degree in medical-surgical nursing and a doctorate in educational psychology from Saint Louis University.

Stacey Finley was named the Gabilan Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. She has spent the last four years conducting postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Finley is a graduate of Florida A&M University, where she majored in chemical engineering. She earned a Ph.D. at Northwestern University.

Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian woman who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, was named the inaugural Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College in New York City. She will also serve as a Transnational Fellow of the Barnard Center for Research on Women and a fellow in residence at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies. Gbowee will also teach and lecture in Barnard’s Africana studies program.

Gbowee holds a master’s degree in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is the author of the memoir Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War (Beast Books, 2011).

Jane Alison was hired as a professor of English in the creative writing program at the University of Virginia. She is the author of several novels and works of nonfiction including the memoir The Sisters Antipodes.

Professor Alison is a native of Australia and came to the United States at the age of 4. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in the classics. She earned a master of fine arts degree in creative writing at Columbia University.

Cynthia Orona is a new assistant professor of childhood education at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She previously taught reading, mathematics, and science to elementary and middle school students. She has led several grant programs seeking to increase the number of American Indian students in STEM fields.

Dr. Orona holds a doctorate in professional education studies from Oklahoma State University.