Women Who Are New Members of the Faculty at Brandeis University

Karen Desmond, Laura Jockusch and Amy Si-Ying Lee

Karen Desmond was hired as an assistant professor of music. Her research is focused on the music of the 13th and 14th centuries. Dr. Desmond is a graduate of University College Cork in Ireland. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from New York University.

Laura Jockusch was appointed the Albert Abramson Assistant Professor of Holocaust Studies. She is the author of Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early Postwar Europe (Oxford University Press, 2012). Dr. Jockusch is a graduate of the Free University in Berlin, Germany. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from New York University.

Amy Si-Ying Lee is a new assistant professor of biology. Dr. Lee is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, where she majored in biology. She earned a Ph.D. in virology from the Division of Medical Sciences at Harvard University. Dr. Lee conducted postdoctoral research at the American Cancer Society and the University of California, Berkeley.

Carina E. Ray, Andrea Segar and Hannah Snyder

Carina E. Ray was appointed associate professor of African and Afro-American studies. She was an associate professor at Fordham University in New York. Dr. Ray is the author of Crossing the Color Line: Race, Sex, and the Contested Politics of Colonialism in Ghana (Ohio University Press, 2015). Dr. Ray is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Cornell University.

Andrea Segar was named associate professor of the practice in the department of music and first violinist of the Lydian Strong Quartet. Dr. Segar holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and a doctorate in musical arts from Stony Brook University of the State University of New York System.

Hannah Snyder was hired as an assistant professor of psychology. She has been serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Denver. Dr. Snyder is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Yang Sun, Jacqueline Vayntrub and Gowri Vijayakumar

Yang Sun was named an assistant professor of finance at Brandeis University. For the past two years, she was an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong. Dr. Sun is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jacqueline Vayntrub is a new assistant professor of Biblical studies. She has been serving as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Dr. Vyantrub is the author of Beyond Orality: Performance and the Composition of Biblical Poetry, which will be published by Routledge in 2017. She holds a master’s degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a second master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Gowri Vijayakumar was appointed an assistant professor of sociology. She recently completed her doctoral dissertation – entitled “Viral Politics: Sex Worker Activism and HIV/AIDS Programs from Bangalore to Nairobi” – at the University of California, Berkeley. A graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, Dr. Vijayakumar holds master’s degrees from Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley.