College of the Holy Cross Has Promoted Four Women to Full Professor

The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, has announced the promotion of six faculty members to the rank of full professor. Four of these promotions went to women.

Constance S. Royden was named professor in the department of mathematics and computer science. Professor Royden joined the faculty at the college in 2000. Her research is focused on developing computer models of neural mechanisms for human motion perception. Dr. Royden is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, where she majored in biology and engineering. She earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco.

May Sim was promoted to professor of philosophy. She joined the faculty at the college in 2004. Dr. Sim is the author of Remastering Morals With Aristotle and Confucius (Cambridge University Press, 2007). She is a past president of the Southwestern Philosophical Society and Metaphysical Society of America. Professor Sim is a graduate of the University of Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney was appointed professor of English. She has served on the faculty at Holy Cross since 1986. Professor Sweeney is the co-editor of three books including Nabokov and the Question of Morality: Aesthetics, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Fiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She is also the author of the award-winning poetry collection, Hand Me Down (Finishing Line Press, 2013). Dr. Sweeney is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree in English, a master of fine arts degree in creative writing, and a Ph.D. in English from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Madeline Vargas was promoted to full professor of biology. Professor Vargas joined the faculty at the College of the Holy Cross in 1995. Her research has included the study of iron respiration in bacteria that grow in deep sea vents. Professor Vargas is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she majored in microbiology. She earned a Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Connecticut.