Lafayette College, the selective liberal arts educational institution in Easton, Pennsylvania, has announced that nine faculty members have been promoted to the rank of associate professor and granted tenure.
“We are especially thrilled to celebrate this group of esteemed scholars and teachers who augur a bright future for Lafayette as we mark 200 years of academic excellence,” says Provost Laura McGrane. “Published novelists and researchers, established scientists and social scientists engaging questions and problems with impacts on public policy, health, and culture, each of these faculty members is also an engaged and collaborative advisor who regularly brings their students into their areas of expertise.”
Six of these promotions went to women.
Lindsay Ceballos was promoted to associate professor of Russian and East European studies. Her research is focused on Russian literary history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She is the author of Reading Faithfully: Russian Modernist Criticism and the Making of Dostoevsky (Cornell University Press, 2025). Dr. Ceballos is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where she majored in Russian and history. She earned a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and literatures at Princeton University.
Dana Cuomo was named an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She calls herself a feminist geographer who is interested in the relationship between space, scale, and power. She is the co-director of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Research Lab at the college. Dr. Cuomo joined the faculty in 2019 after teaching at Western Kentucky University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in geography and women’s studies, all from Pennsylvania State University.
Jennifer Gilmore was appointed an associate professor of English. She studies fiction and is the author of five novels and two novels for teenagers. Her first novel, Golden Country (Scribner, 2006), was a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, an Amazon Top Ten for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Gilmore received a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, and a master of fine arts degree in fiction from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Heidi Hendrickson is an associate professor of chemistry. She focuses on physical and computational chemistry. Her research group concentrates on developing models of and explanations for the structure, properties, and dynamics of molecular systems. Dr. Hendrickson is a graduate of Hillsdale College in Michigan, where she majored in chemistry. She holds a master’s degree in postsecondary science education and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Michigan.
Caroline Séquin was promoted to associate professor of history. Her research focuses on the ways ideas and policies pertaining to gender, race, and sexuality shape France and the French Empire in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She is the author of Desiring Whiteness: A Racial History of Prostitution in France and Colonial Senegal, 1848-1950 (Cornell University Press, 2024). Dr. Séquin holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and American studies from Université Nancy in France. She earned a master’s degree in women’s and gender studies from the University of Paris and a Ph.D. in modern European history from the University of Chicago.
Tamara Stawicki was appointed associate professor of neuroscience. She studies the sensory hair cells deep inside our ears that we use for hearing and balance. These are not traditional ‘hairs’ but rather sensory cells with small hair-like projections, known as stereocilia. Dr. Stawicki joined the faculty at the college in 2017 after serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. She is a graduate of Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she majored in cell biology and neuroscience. She earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego.