Seven Women Scholars Who Are Taking on New Roles at Universities

Keiki Kawaiʻaeʻa, an associate professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo, was given the added duties of interim vice chancellor for academic affairs at the university. Since 2013, she has served as director of the Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language. Dr. Kawaiʻaeʻa joined the university in 1992 as an educational specialist.

Dr. Kawaiʻaeʻa holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in education from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. She earned a Ph.D. in indigenous education from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati.

Maureen Edobor was named an assistant professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. She will also be a core faculty member of the Delaney Center, an interdisciplinary academic hub that promotes teaching and research on race and Southern identity. Most recently, she was the policy director and counsel for the Congressional Black Caucus.

Professor Edobor is a graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington. She earned a juris doctorate at Washington and Lee University in 2017.

Joanna Bosse was named interim head of the College of Fine Arts and visiting professor of music at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She has been serving as associate dean for administrative affairs and strategic initiatives in the College of Music at Michigan State University. Earlier, she taught at Bowdoin College, Millikin University, and Illinois State University. Dr. Boose is the author of Becoming Beautiful: Ballroom Dance in the American Heartland (University of Illinois Press 2015).

Dr. Bosse is a graduate of what is now Houghton University in New York. She holds a master’s degree in music from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Chileatha Wynn was named director of clinical education for the physician assistant program at North Carolina A&T State University. She most recently served as director of clinical education for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s physician assistant studies program. Earlier, she was an assistant professor at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina.

Dr. Wynn earned a doctorate in medical clinical sciences from A.T. Still University of Health Sciences in Kirksville, Missouri.

Kimberly Juanita Brown, an associate professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, was given the added duties as the inaugural director of the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life.  Dr. Brown, who specializes in African American and African diasporic literature and visual culture studies, joined the Dartmouth faculty in 2020. She is the author of The Repeating Body: Slavery’s Visual Resonance in the Contemporary (Duke University Press, 2015).

A graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York, Dr. Brown earned a Ph.D. in African American studies and American studies from Yale University.

Kelly Darnell was appointed director of the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs. She has been serving as an associate research professor in the School of Ocean Science and Engineering at the university. Dr. Darnell, who has been at the university since 2017, focuses her research on coastal habitats, specifically seagrass ecosystems, and their conservation and restoration.

A native of Buffalo, New York, Dr. Darnell is a graduate of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. She earned a master’s degree at the University of South Alabama and a Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin.

Joli Livaudais, a professor of photography at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been named the interim director of the School of Art and Design at the university. She joined the university in 2014 as an assistant professor of photography. Since 2017, she has also served as the graduate program coordinator for the School of Art and Design.

Professor Livaudais holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington. She earned a master of fine arts degree from Louisiana Tech University in 2013.