New Appointments or Duties for 10 Women Faculty Members

Christine Kovach was named a Distinguished Professor of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is an expert in gerontological nursing and quantitative research methods. Dr. Kovach is editor of the journal Gerontological Nursing.

Professor Kovach joined the faculty at the university in 2001. She holds a doctorate from the University of Rochester.

Nadia Nurhussein, an associate professor of English at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been given the added duties as associate director and director of undergraduate studies at the university’s Center for Africana Studies. Before joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins this year, Dr. Nurhussein taught at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts.

Dr. Nurhussein is the author of Rhetorics of Literacy: The Cultivation of American Dialect Poetry (The Ohio State University Press, 2013). She is a graduate of Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Tomoko Kashiwagi was promoted to assistant professor of music at the University of Arkansas. Since 2012, she has been an instructor of piano and keyboard music.

Dr. Kashiwagi holds bachelor’s and master’s degree in piano performance from Indiana University. She earned a doctor of musical arts degree at the University of Texas at Austin.

Sonja S. Watson was promoted to associate dean of academic affairs in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington. Previously, she was director of Women’s & Gender Studies and is an associate professor of Spanish at the university.

Dr. Watson is a graduate of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She holds a master’s degree in Spanish and a doctoral degree in modern foreign languages with specialization in Hispanic literature/applied linguistics from the University of Tennessee.

Alison Peck, professor of law and director of international programs at the West Virginia University College of Law, has been given the added duties as director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the university.

Professor Peck holds a master’s degree in law from the University of Arkansas and a juris doctorate from Yale Law School.

Danielle Wood was named an assistant professor in the program in media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She currently serves as the applied sciences manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. She will begin work at MIT in January.

Dr. Wood holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, all from MIT.

Susanna Loeb was appointed the next director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, effective July 1, 2018. She is a professor of education at Stanford University.

Professor Loeb is a graduate of Stanford University, where she double majored in political science and civil engineering. She holds a master’s degree in public policy and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan.

Peggie R. Smith, the Charles F. Nagel Professor of Employment and Labor Law, was named omsbud for the Danforth campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Smith joined the faculty at the university in 2010 after teaching at the University of Iowa College of Law.

Professor Smith holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School.

Alexi Harrison was appointed an assistant professor and director of the Culinary Arts Institute at the Mississippi University for Women. Since 2011, she has been an instructor for the university’s bachelor’s degree program in culinary arts.

Harrison is a graduate of the Mississippi University for Women. She earned a master’s degree in hotel, restaurant and meeting management from the University of Alabama.

Lauren Bishop-Fitzpatrick was named an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was a postdoctoral trainee at the university’s Waisman Center.

Dr. Bishop-Fitzpatrick is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master of social work degree and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Pittsburgh.