Visiting Faculty, Fellows Welcomed for 2009-10 Academic Year

Wesleyan welcomes 14 new visiting faculty members and fellows to campus for the 2009-10 academic year. They include:

Neil Canady joins the Economics Department as visiting assistant professor. His areas of interest include economic history, labor and public finance. Much of his research has examined discrimination in tax assessment policy and school resources during segregation, as well as black-white differences in property accumulation. He received a Bachelor of Science and Ph.D in economics from Clemson University.

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities. Chambers-Letson joins the Center’s yearlong study of “War,” arriving from New York University where he received a Ph.D. in the Department of Performance Studies where he also received a Master of Arts. He received a Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts with a concentration in theatre from the New School University.

Bill Craighead joins the Economics Department as visiting assistant professor. He is on leave this year from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he has taught since 2005. He has a Ph.D. and Master of Arts from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College.

Mari Dumett is the Luther Gregg Sullivan Visiting Fellow in Art History. Dumett received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Indiana University, a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. from Boston University.

Asya El-Meehy is an Andrew Mellon Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies. She is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics of the Middle East. She earned her Bachlor of Arts from the American University in Cairo, and her Master of Arts with honors from McGill University. She conducted two years of field research in Egypt and her doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto is on “Rewriting the Social Contract: the Social Fund and Egypt’s Politics of Retrenchment.”

Gary Germo joins the PsychologyDepartment as visiting assistant professor. He is interested in the beliefs and values that shape youths’ environment and individual characteristics and relationship quality that can promote youths’ development. In his research, he has examined parenting beliefs and practices in relation to children’s sleep arrangements and the role of coping behaviors and social support among youth in foster care. Germo received his Ph.D. and Bachelor of Science from the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine.

Erik Kubik joins the Physics Department as visiting assistant professor. He studies the effects of quantum field scattering from evaporating black holes to determine a possible quantum signature of a Hawking black hole. He has published work conducted in particle physics phenomenology, specifically the quark and gluon structure of the proton. Kubic completed his Masters of Science and Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut.

Libby Lewis joins the Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies and African American Studies Programs this year as visiting assistant professor. Lewis received her Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies with an emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality from the African American Studies and Women’s Studies departments at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008.

Lina Meruane joins the Romance Languages and Literature Department as visiting assistant processor. Her areas of interest include: 20th Century Latin American literature, representations of disease, gender studies and feminisms, women’s narrative and creative writing in fiction and non-fiction. She received her Ph.D. from New York University.

Michelle Murolo joins the Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Department as visiting assistant professor. Murolo’s work is focused on the cell and molecular biology of the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. She has a Bachelor of Science from Clarion College and a Ph.D. in microbiology from Yale University.

Loren Spielman joins the Department of Religion as visiting instructor. He specializes in rabbinic literature and culture; the political, social and economic history of ancient Palestine; and the history of the later Roman empire. Spielman is a Ph.D. candidate in ancient Judaism at Jewish Theological Seminary.

Katja Straub joins the Film Studies Department as visiting assistant professor in film production. She is an artist, writer, and filmmaker whose films have been screened in numerous festivals and museums around the world. Straub has a Master in Fine Arts in film production from the University of Texas, Austin.

Maurizio Vito joins the Romance Languages and Literature Department as visiting assistant processor. His research interests are political literature and theory. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published both in Italian and in English.

Yves Winter is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Humanities. Winter comes to Wesleyan from the University of California at Berkeley where he received a Ph.D. in rhetoric. He received a Bachelor of Science from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Philosophy from the Université Paris X Nanterre.