New Roles for a Dozen Women Faculty Members

Shennette Garrett-Scott, an assistant professor of history and African American studies at the University of Mississippi, has been selected for a Shelby Cullon Davis Center for Historical Studies Fellowship. Professor Garrett-Scott will spend the next two academic years at Princeton University working on a book about African American women in banking and finance.

Dr. Garrett-Scott joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in 2013. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin.

Ella Gant was promoted to full professor of art at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She has been a member of the Hamilton College faculty since 1991.

Professor Gant hold a master of fine arts degree with a specialization in transmedia from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jessica Davis was named chair of the department of horticulture and landscape architecture at Colorado State University.  She has been on the Colorado State faculty since 1989. Dr. Davis is the president-elect of the American Society of Agronomy.

Professor Davis holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in soil science from Texas A&M University. She earned a Ph.D. in agronomy and international agriculture from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

Alisa Smith was appointed associate professor and chair of the department of legal studies at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. For the past 12 years, she has served on the faculty at the University of Tampa.

Dr. Smith is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. She earned a law degree and a Ph.D. in criminology at Florida State University.

Patricia Hibberd was appointed chair of the department of global health in the School of Public Health at Boston University. She was a professor of global health at the School of Public Health at Harvard University.

A native of Liverpool, England, Dr. Hibberd holds a Ph.D. from the University of Leicester in England and earned a medical doctorate at Harvard University.

Susan Capalbo, chair of the department of applied economics at Oregon State University in Corvalis, has been given the added role of senior vice provost for academic affairs. Professor Capalbo joined the faculty at Oregon State in 2008 after teaching at Montana State University and the University of Maryland.

Dr. Capalbo holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics from the University of Rhode Island. She earned a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of California, Davis.

Clara Small was named professor and interim chair of the department of social sciences at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. She has served on the history department faculty at Salisbury University in Maryland for the past 36 years.

Professor Small officially retired from teaching at Salisbury University in 2013 but continues to conduct research and work on book projects.

Carole Stabile, a professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Oregon, was named associate dean of social sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences at the university. She is the former director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the university.

Professor Stabile is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Charity Accurso was appointed chair of the new department of clinical and health information sciences at the University of Cincinnati. She was director of the medical laboratory science program in the College of Allied Health Sciences at the university.

Dr. Accurso holds a bachelor’s degree in biology and a Ph.D. in pathobiology and molecular science from the University of Cincinnati.

Kay Halasek, associate professor of English at Ohio State University, was named the inaugural director of the Institute for Teaching and Learning at the university. Dr. Halasek is the author of A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies (Southern Illinois University, 1999).

Dr. Halasek is a graduate of Georgetown College in Kentucky. She holds a master’s degree from Northern Arizona University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.

Maria Dixon Hall, associate professor of organizational communication at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, will now serve as the provost’s senior advisor for campus cultural intelligence initiatives. Dr. Hall joined the faculty at the university in 2004.

Dr. Hall is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She holds a master of divinity degree and a master’s degree in theology from Emory University in Atlanta and a Ph.D. in organizational communication and religion from the University of Missouri.

Sarah Church, professor of physics at Stanford University in California, is being given the added duties of senior associate vice provost for undergraduate education. Professor Church joined the Stanford faculty in 1999. Her research focuses on galaxy and star formation.

Professor Church holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England.