Five Women Join the Faculty at Lafayette College

There are 12 new faculty members this fall on the campus of Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Five of the 12 new faculty members are women. Women make up 47 percent of the 2,500-member student body at the high-ranking liberal arts college.

Zoe Boekelheide is a new assistant professor of physics. She was conducting postdoctoral research at the Materials Measurement Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Dr. Boekelheide is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, and holds a Ph.D. in nanoscience and engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Olena Ogrokhina was hired as an assistant professor of economics. This past spring she completed her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Houston. While completing her doctorate, she taught courses at the university on microeconomics and macroeconomics. She received a fellowship from the National Bureau of Economics Research to study wage inequality.

Brittany Perry was appointed an assistant professor of government and law. Dr. Perry is a graduate of the University of Colorado in Boulder and earned a Ph.D. this past spring at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Her research focuses on American racial and ethnic political issues.

Jodi Szarko joined the Lafayette College faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at Northwestern University where she was involved in the establishment of a new laser spectroscopy and mircoscopy laboratory. Dr. Szarko is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lindsay Soh is a new instructor in chemical and biomolecular engineering. Dr. Soh is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Her doctoral research involved a study of the sustainability of using algae for use as biodiesel fuel.