The University of Rochester Appoints Four Women to Named Professorships

Stefanie K. Dunning was appointed the Susan B. Anthony Professor. She retains her joint appointments as professor of English and director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute. She joined the faculty in 2001. Her scholarship explores race, gender, and sexuality in literature and culture. Her research focuses on African American literature, speculative fiction, Black ecologies, queer theory, film and visual culture, and Black feminist theory. Her lastest book is Black to Nature: Pastoral Return and African American Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2021).

Professor Dunning is a graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta, where she majored in English. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Riverside.

Susan Groth, a professor of nursing, has been appointed the Ruth Miller Brody and Bernard Brody Professor. She began teaching at the university in 1994. Professor Groth’s research focuses on obesity, particularly weight gain during pregnancy, and its long-term effects on mothers and their children. Her work examines the behavioral, genetic, and environmental factors contributing to obesity, aiming to improve women’s health by understanding the development of cardiometabolic risk in the years following pregnancy.

Dr. Groth is a graduate of Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, where she majored in nursing. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Rochester.

Suzannah Iadarola has been appointed as the Haggerty-Friedman Professor in Developmental/Behavioral Pediatric Research. Dr. Iadarola’s research focuses on supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families through community-based interventions, advocacy, and caregiver support programs.

Dr. Iadarola is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College in California, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Bette London has been appointed as the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English. She joined the faculty at the university in 1984 and was promoted to full professor in 2000. Dr. London’s research interests include twentieth-century British literature, Victorian literature and culture, feminist theory, women’s writing, and authorship studies. Her latest book is Posthumous Lives: World War I and the Culture of Memory (Cornell University Press, 2022).

Professor London is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.