Three Women Scholars Named Harvard College Professors

Harvard University has announced the designation of five faculty members as Harvard College Professors. The professorships have a five-year term and provide faculty with extra research resources, a semester or paid leave, or summer salary. Three of the five appointments went to women.

Mahzarin R. Banaji is the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics. She has taught at Harvard since 2002 and previously was the Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is the co-author of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (Delacorte Press, 2013).

Dr. Banaji was born and raised in Secunderabad, India. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degree from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India, and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University.

Hopi Hoekstra is a professor of organismic and evolutionary biology and a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard. She also serves as curator of mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Dr. Hoekstra has been on the Harvard faculty since 2006. Previously, she was on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Hoekstra is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in integrative biology. She holds a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Washington.

Melissa McCormick is a professor of Japanese art and culture in the department of history of art and architecture. Before joining the Harvard faculty, from 2000 to 2005, Dr. McCormick was the Atsumi Assistant Professor of Japanese Art in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Columbia University. She is the author of Tosa Mitsunobu and the Small Scroll in Medieval Japan (University of Washington Press, 2009).

Dr. McCormick is a graduate of the University of Michigan and holds a Ph.D. in Japanese art history from Princeton University.