New Assignments for 10 Women Faculty Members

Michelle Van Whye was promoted to associate professor of nursing at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. She joined the faculty in 2007 and also serves as a nurse practitioner at the college’s Wellness Center.

Dr. Van Whye is a graduate of Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. She earned a master’s degree in nursing and a doctor of nursing practice degree from South Dakota State University.

Nicola Melville was promoted to full professor of music at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She has taught at Carleton College since 2004. She oversees the piano studies curriculum and is the director of the chamber music program.

Dr. Melville is a graduate of Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. She holds a master’s degree and doctorate in music performance from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in New York.

Alice Bean was named a Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. Over the past five years, she has been the principal investigator of grants that have brought in $10 million to the university. She has taught at the University of Kansas since 1993.

Professor Bean is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine, where she majored in physics and computer science. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in physics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Tina M. Henkin was named a Distinguished University Professor at Ohio State University. She is the Robert W. and Estelle S. Bingham Professor of Biological Sciences in the department of microbiology at the university.

Professor Henkin is the editor of the Journal of Bacteriology. She holds a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin.

Angi Elsea Bourgeois was appointed chair of the art department in the College of Architecture, Art, and Design at Mississippi State University. She has held the post on an interim basis since 2014. She joined the faculty at the university in 2002. Dr. Bourgeois is the author of Reconstructing the Lost Frescoes of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome from the ‘Meditationes’ of Cardinal Juan de Torquemada: A Case Study in the History of Art (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).

Professor Bourgeois is a graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, where she majored in art history. She holds a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance and medieval art history from Emory University in Atlanta.

Talitha LeFlouria is joining the faculty at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for American American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She was an associate professor of history at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

Dr. LeFlouria holds a Ph.D. from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is the author of Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

Paula D. Kohler was appointed a professor of exceptional education and director of the Florida Center for Students With Unique Abilities at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. She has been serving as a professor of special education and associate vice president for research at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

Dr. Kohler is a graduate of the University of Florida, where she majored in business administration. She holds a master’s degree in educational leadership from the University of Central Florida and a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Illinois.

Li Zhao was appointed assistant professor of evolutionary biology at Rockefeller University in New York City. She will take on this new assignment in March 2017, after completing work on a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Zhao holds a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and evolutionary genomics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Jennifer Hamer, professor of American studies and professor of African and African American studies at the University of Kansas, has been given the added duties of associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion in College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Professor Hamer came to the University of Kansas in 2011. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio. She earned a master’s degree at Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Texas.

Jane Cox, a senior lecturer in the program in theater at Princeton University in New Jersey was named director of the Program in Theater at the university’s Lewis Center for the Arts. She is an award-winning lighting designer with credits on Broadway and across the world.

Cox has previously taught at New York University, Vassar College, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Massachusetts.