Rebecca Sánchez has been named senior vice provost at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Sánchez, a professor of elementary education, has been a faculty member at the university since 2005. Throughout the past two decades, she has served in several leadership roles, including interim associate vice provost for academic personnel; associate dean for equity, inclusion, and faculty affairs in the College of Education and Human Sciences; and coordinator of the elementary education program. Her scholarship spans curriculum for K-8 students, bilingual and multicultural education, and place-based learning.
Dr. Sánchez earned her bachelor’s degree in government and master’s and doctoral degrees in education from New Mexico State University. She holds a master of fine arts degree in dramatic writing from the University of New Mexico.
Amy Huber is chair of the newly launched School of Design at Florida State University. A full professor of design, Dr. Huber is known for her scholarship that sits at the intersection of design, communication, and care, particularly in healthcare environments and professional practice. She is the author of Telling the Design Story: Effective and Engaging Communication (Routledge, 2017).
Dr. Huber is a graduate of Kansas State Unviersity, where she majored in interior architecture and product design. She holds a master’s degree in design and merchandising from Colorado State University and a Ph.D. in communication from Florida State University.
Kara Harris McAlister is a new clinical assistant professor of accounting in the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business at Clemson University in South Carolina. Her teaching and research interests include accounting information systems, artificial intelligence in accounting education, professional judgment, entrepreneurship, and experiential learning.
Dr. McAlister is a graduate of Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She holds an MBA and a Ph.D. in business administration from Clemson University.
Katrina Smith is the interim associate dean of clinical legal education and experiential learning at the School of Law at North Carolina Central University. A faculty member since 2022, Smith is an assistant clinical professor of law who teaches courses on family law, evidence, appellate advocacy pleadings, and practice. She also serves as director of the university’s Family Law Clinic and coordinator for the law school’s competition teams. Her legal expertise includes family law, landlord-tenant law, intellectual property, and business law.
A three-time NCCU alumna, Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, a second bachelor’s degree in family and consumer sciences, and a juris doctorate.
Trena Warren has joined the faculty of Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi, as an assistant professor of education and coordinator of data collection, analysis, and reporting in the Graduate School of Education. Dr. Warren comes to the university with more than 30 years of experience in K-12 education. Her areas of expertise include educational leadership, strategic planning, federal programs compliance, curriculum and instruction, professional development, and student support systems.
Dr. Warren earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Alcorn State University in Mississippi. She holds an educational specialist degree from the University of Mississippi and an educational doctorate from Belhaven University.
Rania Lachhab is a new assistant professor of economics at Iowa State University. Her scholarly expertise is in energy and water quality. For the past two years, Dr. Lachhab has been a postdoctoral scholar in the department of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and an affiliate with the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Dr. Lachhab is a graduate of the Institut Agronomique et Veterinaire Hassan II in Morocco, where she received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering and a master’s degree in agricultural economics. She holds a second master’s degree in agricultural management from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier in France and a doctorate in agricultural, food, and resource economics from Michigan State University.
Victoria Almansa-Villatoro is a new assistant professor of Egyptology at Yale University. Before joining the Yale faculty, Dr. Almansa-Villatoro was a junior research fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Her main research interests include ancient Egyptian language and writing in context, social relationships and interaction, and the intersection between religious and official structures of knowledge and discourse.
Dr. Almansa-Villatoro earned her bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Seville in Spain and her master’s degree in Egyptology and Near Eastern studies from the University of Pisa in Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Egyptology from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Kristy Laue has joined the South Dakota State University faculty as an associate professor of practice in advertising. Laue has been teaching as an adjunct professor at the university for the past two years. Her background includes nearly 20 years of marketing expertise, including prior service as chief creative officer for Lawrence & Schiller.
Laue is an alumna of South Dakota State University, where she earned degrees in advertising and journalism.
Tiffani Chidume is the inaugural associate dean for simulation and experiential learning for the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Chidume comes to her new role from the Auburn University College of Nursing in Alabama, where she has been serving as an associate clinical professor and simulation center coordinator. Her expertise spans critical care nursing, healthcare simulation and innovative educational technologies, with a particular focus on integrating virtual reality into nursing education.
Dr. Chidume earned both her bachelor’s degree in nursing and her doctor of nursing practice degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Prior to receiving her doctorate, she earned her master’s degree in nursing from Troy University in Alabama.
Kathryn “Katie” Darr has joined the faculty of the School of Veterinary Medicine at Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas, as an assistant professor of shelter medicine and animal welfare. Dr. Darr most recently taught as a clinical instructor in the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine’s shelter medicine program, where she combined hands-on clinical instruction with partnerships benefiting animal shelters and the communities they serve.
An alumna of the University of Arkansas, Dr. Darr holds a master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology with a focus on workplace well-being, leadership, and organizational development and a doctor of veterinary medicine degree.
Alisabeth Ayars is a new assistant professor in the department of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Before her new appointment, Dr. Ayars was an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on moral psychology — how we evaluate morality and the norms surrounding it — as well as ethics and metaethics.
Dr. Ayars earned her bachelor’s degree from New College of Florida, her master’s degree from the University of Arizona, and her doctorate from Princeton University.
Julie Brigham-Grette has been named a Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she has taught since 1987. Dr. Brigham-Grette currently serves as professor and head of the department of earth, geographic, and climate science in the College of Natural Sciences. A past chair of the Polar Research Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, she has been conducting research in the Arctic for four decades. Her research centers on the stratigraphy, sedimentology, and chronology of geologic systems that record the climate evolution and sea level history of the Arctic since the mid-Pliocene.
Dr. Brigham-Grette is a graduate of Albion College in Michigan, where she majored in geology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado.