Smith College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in Northampton, Massachusetts, has 12 new tenured or tenure-track faculty on campus this year. Here are brief biographies of seven women who have joined the Smith College facuty.
Ethel Barja is an assistant professor of Spanish. Her research and teaching areas include transnational and cross-disciplinary approaches to 20th- and 21st-century Latin American and Caribbean literature, poetry, and poetics, intertwining critical Indigenous studies, Afro-poetics, feminist theory, gender studies, decolonial studies, and posthuman studies. She joined Smith after holding a tenure-track appointment at Salisbury University in Maryland. Dr. Barja is a graduate of Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She holds a master’s degree in Hispanic literary and cultural studies from the University of Illinois Chicago and a doctorate in Hispanic studies from Brown University.
Gillian Beltz-Mohrmann is an assistant professor of physics and statistical and data sciences. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Cosmological Physics and Advanced Computing group at Argonne National Laboratory. Her research lies at the intersection of galaxy formation and cosmology. Dr. Beltz-Mohrmann received a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from Wellesley College in Massachuaetts and earned a doctorate in astrophysics from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Jocelyn Breton is an assistant professor of neuroscience. Dr. Breton is interested in understanding how experiencing stress during key developmental periods affects the brain and ultimately alters motivated behavior. Dr. Breton is a gradauate of Middlebury College in Vermont, where she majored in neuroscience. She earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Columbia University and Northeastern University.
Cagney Coomer is an assistant professor of neuroscience. Dr. Coomer is a neuroscientist interested in understanding brain regeneration following spinal cord injury. Dr. Coomer is a graduate of Virginia State University, where she majored in biology. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Kentucky and completed postdoctoral training at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College and at the University of Michigan.
Rebecca Deitsch is an assistant professor of classical languages and literatures. She previously held teaching positions at Kenyon College in Ohio and Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her current book project examines how epic poetry interacts with and shapes Roman imperial ideology in the late first century. Dr. Deitsch is a graduate of the University of Dallas, where she majored in classical philology. She received a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in classical philology from Harvard University.
Meredith Pecukonis is an assistant professor of psychology. Her research focuses on exploring how both neurobiology and sociocultural aspects of the environment impact language development in autism. Dr. Pecukonis is a graduate of the University of Maryland, whre she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Boston University.
Isabel Strauss is an assistant professor of art. Her current research commingles architectural history and African American cultural history, specifically on the South Side of Chicago. She received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was awarded the 2021 Clifford Wong Prize in Housing Design.