A Trio of Women Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Positions in Higher Education

Stella Xu has been named the John R. Turbyfill Professor of History at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. She has taught at the college since 2006. She is the author of Reconstructing Ancient Korean History: The Formation of Korean-ness in the Shadow of History (Lexington Books, 2016).

Dr. Xu was born in China and went to school in Korea. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ellen Avril, the chief curator at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was named the inaugural Judith H. Stoikov Curator of Asian Art at the museum. She has curated or co-curated more than 40 exhibitions on a broad range of topics in traditional and contemporary Asian art at Cornell. Earlier in her career, Avril was associate curator of East Asian art at the Cincinnati Art Museum.

Avril holds a master’s degree in art history from the University of Kansas.

Yolanda Cooper was named the Lindseth Family University Librarian at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. When she takes office on January 1, Cooper will also hold the title of vice provost. She has been serving as dean and University Librarian at Emory University in Atlanta. Earlier in her career, she held senior library posts at the University of Miami and the University of Virginia.

Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree and a master of library and information science degree from Indiana University, where she also served as assistant dean for library human resources from 1999 to 2003.