Laura E. Lyons is vice provost for academic excellence at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She has held the role on an interim basis since August 2021. A faculty member with the university since 1993, Dr. Lyons currently teaches as a professor of English. She has held a variety of roles throughout her long tenure, including interim associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and interim dean of the College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature. Her scholarly interests include post-colonial literatures and theory, cultural studies, life writing, corporations, and Irish literature and culture.
Dr. Lyons is a graduate of what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin
Mila Getmansky Sherman has been named director of the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Getmansky Sherman, the Fuller and Meehan Endowed Professor of Finance, previously served as the center’s associate director. Her research specializes in empirical asset pricing, hedge funds, performance of investment trading strategies, financial institutions, systemic risk, ecological finance, ESG, gender in finance, and system dynamics.
Dr. Sherman earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering with a minor in economics and her Ph.D. in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sheryl Oring is the inaugural chair of the department of fine arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Professor Oring comes to her new role from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, where she was a professor and chair of the department of applied design. She has previously held faculty and leadership roles with the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Wayne State University in Detroit, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. As an artist, writer, and scholar, she examines critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media to tell stories, examine public opinion, and foster open exchange.
Professor Oring holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder and a master of fine arts degree in visual art from the University of California, San Diego.
Maria Victoria Murillo was appointed chair of the department of political science at Columbia University. Dr. Murrillo holds a joint appointment with Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and directs the Institute for Latin American Studies. Her research on distributive politics in Latin America has covered labor politics and labor regulations, public utility reform, education reform, agricultural policies, and economic policy. More recently, Dr. Murrillo has focused on electoral behavior, contentious dynamics, and the analysis of institutional weakness.
Dr. Murillo is a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. She earned her master’s degree and her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Madhusmita Misra has been named chair of the Edward Mallinckrodt Department of Pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and pediatrician-in-chief at BJC HealthCare’s St. Louis Children’s Hospital. An expert in pediatric endocrinology, Dr. Misra most recently served as the Benjamin Armistead Shepherd Chair of the department of pediatrics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and physician-in-chief at UVA Health Children’s Hospital. Her research examines hormonal changes and bone loss tied to anorexia nervosa and exercise-induced amenorrhea, the loss of menstrual periods caused by intense training paired with inadequate nutrition.
Misra holds a medical degree from S.C.B. Medical College at Utkal University in India and a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University. She completed a pediatrics residency at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and a fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Ashley E. Nickels has been named the inaugural campus director for the Rutgers Democracy Lab at Rutgers University-Camden. Dr. Nickels comes to her new role from Kent State University in Ohio, where she was a professor in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies and co-founder and co-director of the Growing Democracy Project. Her interdisciplinary research centers on civic power and democratic participation, with a particular interest in how urban communities navigate and transform conflict and inequity.
Dr. Nickels is a graduate of Grand Valley State University in Michigan, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology and gender studies and her master of public administration degree with a concentration in nonprofit leadership. She holds a master’s degree in community development and a Ph.D. in public affairs from Rutgers University.