Rachel Sagner Buurma was promoted to associate professor of English at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She was also granted tenure. She concentrates her work on 18th- and 19th-century English literature and the history of the novel.
Dr. Buurma is a 1999 graduate of Swarthmore College and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.
Fran Mainella, who since 2006 has been a visiting scholar in the department of parks, recreation, and tourism management at Clemson University in South Carolina, was named chair of the board of directors of the Children & Nature Network. The organization was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working nationally and internationally to reconnect children with nature.
Mainella is the former director of the National Park Service. She is a graduate of the University of Connecticut and holds a master’s degree from Central Connecticut State University in New Britain.
Sandra James-Yi has been hired as a clinical assistant professor of toxicology at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine in Blacksburg, Virginia. She was a postdoctoral associate in pathology at the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota.
Dr. James-Yi holds a bachelor’s degree, a doctorate of veterinary medicine, and a Ph.D. in natural resources and environmental sciences, all from the University of Illinois.
Susan Anderson was appointed chair of the department of family medicine at the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota. She has been serving as the director of the Farm and Rural Medicine program at the university.
Dr. Anderson is a graduate of South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota School of Medicine.
Pamela Diggle has joined the faculty at the University of Connecticut as a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. She held a similar title at the University of Colorado.
In 2015, Dr. Diggle will become editor of the American Journal of Botany. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.