Four Women Scholars Who Have Been Appointed to Endowed Chairs at Major Universities

Nancy Landgraff was named to the President James P. Tressel Endowed Chair in Leadership at Youngstown State University in Ohio. She joined the faculty in 1997 and in 2012 became chair of the physical therapy department.

Dr. Landgraff holds a bachelor’s degree in physical therapy and a Ph.D. in rehabilitation sciences from the University of Pittsburgh. She also earned a master’s degree in health science from the Univerity of Florida.

Nancy G. McGehee was recently named the Robert B. Pamplin Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. A member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 2001, Dr. McGehee’s scholarship spans the field of tourism with recent emphasis in the areas of tourism advocacy and sustainable and transformative tourism. She is co-editor of the Journal of Travel Research.

Professor McGehee earned her bachelor’s degree from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. She holds a master’s degree from North Carolina State University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.

Erin Silva is the inaugural holder of the Clif Bar Endowed Chair in Organic Agriculture and Outreach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a faculty member in the department of plant pathology at the university. Dr. Silva co-founded and directs the university’s Organic Grain Resource and Information Network.

Dr. Silva holds a Ph.D. in horticulture from Washington State University.

Tracy Dennison, professor of social science history at the California Institute of Technology, has been named to the Ronald and Maxine Linde Leadership Chair of the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. She joined the Caltech faculty in 2006. Professor Dennison is the author of the award-winning book The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Professor Dennison earned her bachelor’s degree at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in economic and social history from the University of Oxford and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge.