This semester, Arts & Sciences welcomed 43 tenure-track and teaching-track faculty to departments and programs across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Meet the newest members of our faculty community.
Natural Sciences and Mathematics
Department of Biology
Toby Pennington joins the Department of Biology as the inaugural David and Dorothy Kemper Professor, a joint appointment with WashU and the Missouri Botanical Garden. Previously a professor of tropical plant diversity and biogeography at the University of Exeter and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in the U.K., Pennington is a leading expert in the identification, classification, and conservation of plants in dry tropical regions, particularly in Central and South America. Pennington earned both his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Oxford.
Department of Chemistry
Matthew Kummer joins the Department of Chemistry as a lecturer and general chemistry lab director. He previously served as the academic learning program manager for the general chemistry lecture sequence at WashU. His areas of expertise include electrochemistry, biocatalysis, and computational chemistry. He is committed to chemistry education, particularly peer mentorship training and program management. He earned his bachelor's degree at Truman State University and his doctorate at the University of Utah.
Yan Yu joins the Department of Chemistry as the Art Krieg Professor, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Previously a professor at Indiana University-Bloomington, Yu develops tools based on nanotechnology and advanced imaging to study, detect, and engineer the immune system cells that fight disease. She is especially interested in cell communication, including how cell membranes interact with the extracellular environment to determine cell function. Yu received her bachelor’s degree from Peking University in China and her doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Zhiling “Zach” Zheng joins the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor. Formerly a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, Zheng is working to develop autonomous AI agents powered by large language models (LLMs) to accelerate the discovery and synthesis of new materials, particularly metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with energy, environmental, and therapeutic applications. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences
Dougal Hansen joins the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences as an assistant professor and the head of the new WUSTL Glaciology group. He was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Hansen’s research interests include glaciology and cold-climate geomorphology. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Portland State University and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Scott VanBommel joins the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences as a research assistant professor. He was previously a senior research scientist in the department. A member of the Earth and Planetary Remote Sensing Laboratory and fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, VanBommel operates and analyzes data acquired by X-ray spectrometers on Mars and is working to develop the next generation of interplanetary X-ray science instruments. He received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Guelph in Canada.
Program in Environmental Studies
Katherine Bowman joins the Program in Environmental Studies as a lecturer. Trained as a wildlife biologist, public health practitioner, and epidemiologist, Bowman researches mosquito-borne disease modeling, connecting public health to environmental health. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri, her master’s degree from Saint Louis University, and her doctorate from The Ohio State University.
Department of Mathematics
Carl Lian joins the Department of Mathematics as an assistant professor. His research in algebraic geometry focuses on algebraic curves, how they vary in families, and related counting questions. He was previously a Norbert Wiener Fellow at Tufts University and an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin. He earned his bachelor’s degree from MIT and his doctorate from Columbia University.
Department of Physics
Trevor GrandPre joins the Department of Physics as an assistant professor. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and a Schmidt Science Fellow. GrandPre’s research focuses on biophysics, exploring how physical principles shape complex biological systems. His work ranges from protein condensation, where proteins form liquid-like compartments inside cells, to eco-evolutionary systems, where ecological and evolutionary dynamics unfold on similar timescales and influence one another. He earned his bachelor’s degree from DePaul University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Berkeley.
Department of Statistics and Data Science
Chao Cheng joins the Department of Statistics and Data Science as an assistant professor. He applies innovative statistical tools to health science challenges, with current research focusing on causal mediation analysis, quantile causal inference, and measurement error correction. Cheng earned his bachelor’s degree from Donghua University in China, his master’s degree from Tsinghua University in China, and his doctoral degree from Yale University.
Joe Feldman joins the Department of Statistics and Data Science as an assistant professor. He was previously a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University. Feldman focuses on Bayesian statistics, including data privacy, missing data, causal inference, and variable selection in quantile regression. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Amherst College and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Rice University.
Mengxin “Maxine” Yu joins the Department of Statistics and Data Science as an assistant professor. Previously a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, Yu studies human preference learning, AI safety, causal inference, and robust statistical inference. Her research has real-world applications in social science, machine learning, operations research, and public health. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Science and Technology of China and her doctoral degree from Princeton University.
Humanities
Department of Art History and Archaeology
Esther Gabel, who has been at WashU since 2015, will begin a new full-time position in the Department of Art History and Archaeology as a lecturer. She teaches a range of courses, from Renaissance architecture to 19th-century material culture. She is a specialist in the art and architecture of Venice, with particular emphasis on the 18th century. Her current book project, “Venice in the Age of Tiepolo,” addresses marriage, merchants, and material culture in early modern Venice. Gabel earned her doctorate from the University of Cambridge.
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Kunihiko Homma joins the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures as a lecturer. His research in Japanese sociolinguistics focuses on the ideology of Japanese society and how individuals actually use language. Beginning his educational career as a high school teacher in Japan, Homma has since taught at institutions such as the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and the University of California, San Diego. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Keio University in Japan and his master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Motoki Long-Nozawa joins the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures as a lecturer in Japanese language. Long-Nozawa earned his master’s degree in language education from the University of British Columbia, where he taught Japanese courses. His research interests include gender and sexual identity construction, inclusive language pedagogy and policy analysis, and queer theory.
Department of English
Hester Blum joins WashU as the Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English. She teaches 19th-century U.S. literature and the environmental humanities. Her research centers on polar and oceanic studies, book history, and Herman Melville. Blum is a former Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and the author of several books. She previously worked at Pennsylvania State University, where she founded the international organization C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists and directed various academic centers. Blum earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Eburne joins the Department of English as the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities. His work explores experimental artistic groups and movements in 20th- and 21st-century literature, transnational intellectual networks, and literary and cultural theory. He is a founding co-editor and former editor-in-chief of the award-winning ASAP/Journal. Previously, he was a professor of comparative literature, English, and French and Francophone studies at Pennsylvania State University. Eburne earned bachelor’s degrees in English and French from Dartmouth College and his doctoral degree in comparative literature and literary theory at the University of Pennsylvania.
Christopher Schaberg joins the Department of English as a professor of practice. He will continue as director of the Office of Public Scholarship, mentoring students and faculty on translating academic research into work that engages broad public audiences. The author of 10 books, Schaberg is a scholar of contemporary literature, environmental thought, and the culture of air travel. Schaberg is also a founding co-editor of “Object Lessons,” a project dedicated to exploring the hidden lives of everyday things. Before coming to WashU, he was the Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English and director of the Center for Editing & Publishing at Loyola University New Orleans. Schaberg earned his bachelor’s degree from Hillsdale College, his master’s from Montana State University-Bozeman, and his doctoral degree from the University of California, Davis.
Program in Film & Media Studies
Oscar Moralde joins the Program in Film & Media Studies as a visiting lecturer. He studies embodied aesthetics and ideology in video games and other media. His writing has appeared in Well Played Journal, Latin American Perspectives, Media Fields Journal, and the Criterion Collection. Moralde earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern California, his master’s degree from the California Institute of the Arts, and his doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Department of History
Nataliia Laas joins the Department of History as an assistant professor. She specializes in environmental history, the history of energy, political economies of socialism and capitalism, consumer society and discard studies, and the history of the social sciences in Eurasia, with a particular focus on the Soviet Union. Laas is currently working on a book that explores overproduction and waste in the late Soviet economy – challenging the conventional view that this period was defined by shortages of goods. Prior to joining WashU, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University, as well as the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale University. Laas earned her doctorate from Brandeis University.
Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies
Judah Isseroff joins the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies as a visiting lecturer. Previously a postdoctoral research associate at WashU’s Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Isseroff is a scholar of modern Jewish thought and politics. His courses will include "Zionism and its Critics" and "Jewish Theology After the Holocaust." He earned his bachelor’s degree from Bowdoin College and his doctorate from Princeton University.
Program in Latin American Studies
Martin Mejia joins the Program in Latin American Studies as a lecturer. Mejia was previously a lecturer at the University of Montevideo in Uruguay and the University of Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His studies encompass the intersections of political representation, democracy, and religion in Latin America with an emphasis on the region's contemporary thought and legacies of intellectual history. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Palermo, his master’s degree from the University of Essex in the U.K., and his doctorate from Tulane University.
Department of Music
Vicente Atria joins the Department of Music as an assistant professor. A Chilean composer and drummer, his eclectic music has earned rave reviews from The New York Times and The Guardian. Atria’s work has been commissioned or performed by the Sun Ra Arkestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, JACK Quartet, and Wet Ink Ensemble. He is a recipient of the 2025 Fondation des Treilles Musical Composition Prize and a 2023 Deutscher Jazzpreis, among other honors. He earned his doctoral degree from Columbia University.
Department of Philosophy
Alisabeth Ayars joins the Department of Philosophy as an assistant professor. Her research focuses on moral psychology – how we evaluate morality and the norms surrounding it – as well as ethics and metaethics. Her current work includes a project that examines the idea of people who treat moral deeds as a personal interest or hobby rather than as genuinely binding norms, as well as a project exploring how different kinds of desire contribute to the good life. Prior to joining WashU, Ayars served as an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. She earned her bachelor’s degree from New College of Florida, her master’s degree from the University of Arizona, and her doctorate from Princeton University.
John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics
Ryan Burge joins the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the Department of Political Science as a professor of practice. His research explores how religion shapes American life, especially politics. A prolific author and public scholar, Burge has written five books and publishes a popular twice-weekly newsletter, “Graphs about Religion,” with millions of annual reads. Before coming to WashU, he was an associate professor at Eastern Illinois University, a postdoctoral fellow at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, and served as an American Baptist pastor for more than 20 years. Burge earned his bachelor’s degree at Greenville University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Mark Oppenheimer joins the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics as a professor of practice. He came to WashU in 2024 as executive editor of the center’s online journal, “Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera.” His interests include the history of American religion, the practice of journalism and other nonfiction forms, and Anglophone fiction. Before coming to WashU, Oppenheimer taught at Stanford, Wesleyan, Wellesley, NYU, Boston College, and Yale, where he founded the Yale Journalism Initiative. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The Nation, GQ, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal and previously wrote the “Beliefs” column on religion for The New York Times. He created “Unorthodox,” a podcast on Jewish life and culture with more than 7 million downloads, as well as "Gatecrashers," a series exploring the history of Jews and antisemitism at Ivy League schools. Oppenheimer earned his doctorate in religious studies from Yale University.
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Yafrainy Familia joins the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures as an assistant professor. Her work draws on visual, literary, and spatial analysis, integrating traditional research methods with community-engaged, curatorial, and digital humanities practices. Her research interests include the arts and culture of Caribbean, Afro-diasporic, and Latinx communities. She earned her master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Virginia.
Jannia M. Gómez-González joins the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures as a visiting lecturer. Their prior research has explored the multifaceted history of Chambacú, a Colombian neighborhood that served as a hub of Black life, culture, and daily resistance. Gómez-González earned a master’s degree from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and an additional master’s and doctorate from Princeton University.
Maria Gloria Robalino joins the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures as an assistant professor. She is an architect and scholar who works at the intersections of environmental literature, visual culture, and gender studies. Before joining WashU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University’s Pembroke Center. Robalino earned her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College, her master’s degree from Harvard University, and her doctorate from Stanford University.
Social Sciences
Department of Economics
Julie Holland Mortimer joins the Department of Economics as the James Langenfeld Professor of Industrial Organization. She studies the delivery of goods to consumers, including manufacturer-retailer contracts, the effects of stock outages, and media content distribution. She was previously the Kenneth G. Elzinga Professor of Economics and the Law at the University of Virginia, and she continues to serve as a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Carleton College and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.
David Rivers joins the Department of Economics as an associate professor. He was previously an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario. His research interests include industrial organization, productivity, the economics of crime, applied econometrics, and applied microeconomics. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Productivity Analysis. Rivers earned his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University and his master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Emilie McHugh Rivers joins the Department of Economics as a senior lecturer. She was previously a lecturer at the University of Western Ontario. Her teaching interests include microeconomics, macroeconomics, and urban economics. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and her master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Guanyi Wang joins the Department of Economics as an assistant professor. Wang’s research focuses on econometrics, applied microeconomics, social networks, and statistical decision theory. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Liverpool and his master’s and doctoral degrees from University College London.
Department of Political Science
Juan Dodyk joins the Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. As a political economist, he specializes in climate policy and lobbying, using formal modeling, original data collection, and causal inference to advance understanding of these issues. His research examines how policymakers craft climate policies to counter industry opposition, how interest groups form coalitions for more effective lobbying, and how family firms gain political power in developing countries. He earned a mathematics degree from the University of Buenos Aires and a doctoral degree from Harvard University.
Shiran Victoria Shen joins the Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. She studies how institutions and incentives influence climate and environmental actions. Her work has been published by leading journals and university presses, and she has received awards from the American Political Science Association, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the International Public Policy Association. Before coming to WashU, she was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and led the China Energy Program at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Shen earned her bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College and a joint degree from Stanford University, where she was the first to earn a master’s in civil and environmental engineering alongside a doctorate in political science.
Ophelia Vedder joins the Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. Her work in political theory focuses on feminism and liberalism. Her research uses gender as a lens to explore political problems about liberal legitimacy, distributive justice, social equality, autonomy, and the nature of work. Vedder earned her bachelor’s degree from Reed College and her doctorate from Princeton University.
Elaine Yao joins the Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. She specializes in formal theory and comparative politics. Her research examines how group decision-making processes shape collective action, with applications to protest movements, intra-elite conflict, and legislative bargaining. She also has a regional focus on Chinese politics and authoritarian regimes. Yao earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and her doctoral degree from Princeton University.
Program in Public Health & Society
Chen Reis joins the Program in Public Health & Society as a professor of practice. A transdisciplinary practitioner, scholar, and teacher, she brings more than 20 years of experience at the intersection of public health, international human rights, and humanitarian studies. Her work on sexual violence in humanitarian settings has uniquely combined policy development, advocacy, and mixed methods research, influencing international and organizational policy and practice. Through her work with the World Health Organization, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Women’s Refugee Commission, Reis has been instrumental in developing guidance and designing international systems. She earned her master’s in public health degree from Johns Hopkins University, her law degree from Columbia University School of Law, and her doctorate from the University of New South Wales.
Rose Sommerhauser joins the Program in Public Health & Society as a visiting lecturer. Formerly a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at WashU, she studies the diversity and distribution patterns of primate communities inhabiting varying environments. Her research highlights the forces shaping these communities and informs conservation strategies. Additionally, her work illuminates social determinants of health and guides evidence-based public health interventions. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida Atlantic University and her doctorate from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Department of Sociology
Liz Chiarello joins the Department of Sociology as an associate professor. Her research bridges medical sociology, socio-legal scholarship, science and technology studies, and organizational theory. Her recent award-winning book, “Policing Patients: Treatment and Surveillance on the Frontlines of the Opioid Crisis” (Princeton University Press, 2024), examines how technology used to curb the opioid crisis blurs boundaries between healthcare and criminal justice. Chiarello earned her bachelor’s degree from Trinity University, her master’s degree from the University of Oregon, her doctorate from the University of California, Irvine, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University. She is a former Radcliffe Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Chaeyoon Lim joins the Department of Sociology as a professor. His research and teaching explore civic engagement, religion, social capital, social movements, and public opinion. His work has been published in leading journals, including American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Sociological Science. Before joining WashU, Lim was a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Seoul National University and a doctorate from Harvard University.
Mira Vale joins the Department of Sociology as an assistant professor. She examines how emerging technologies shape the practice and provision of health care, drawing on approaches from economic sociology, medical sociology, and science and technology studies. Her current research focuses on the ethics of digital health as AI and machine learning tools are adapted for clinical use. Vale earned her bachelor’s degree from Yale University and her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan.