Swarthmore College, the highly selective liberal arts educational institution in suburban Philadelphia, has nine new tenured or tenure-track faculty on campus this fall. Four of the new faculty members are women.
Cathy Chen is an assistant professor of psychology. Her research combines behavioral experiments, computational modeling, neuroimaging, and neurophysiology to understand individual differences in value-based decision-making. Dr. Chen is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Minnesota.
Haemin Jee is an assistant professor of political science. She was an assistant professor of international affairs in the department of social sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Her research bridges the political economy of China with the international and domestic implications of great power competition. Dr. Jee is a graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in government. She earned a Ph.D. in political science at Stanford University.
Sierra Palumbos is an assistant professor of biology. Since 2025, she had been serving as a visiting assistant professor at Swarthmore. She specializes in neurobiology, cell biology, and neurodegeneration. Dr. Palumbos is a graduate of Cornell University, where she majored in biological sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Dr. Palumbos completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Qiaomei Tang is an associate professor of Chinese. Dr. Tang first taught at Swarthmore nine years ago as a visiting assistant professor. She then taught at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her research centers on medieval Chinese literature and culture, with an emphasis on women’s roles and gender dynamics. Dr. Tang holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Chinese language and literature from Beijing Normal University in China. She earned a Ph.D. in East Asian languages and civilizations at Harvard University.