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University Communications

University of Richmond appoints new faculty members at its School of Arts and Sciences

September 11, 2009

[Editors, please note: Photographs of all new faculty mentioned in this release are available upon request from University of Richmond Communications. Please call or e-mail Brian Eckert at 804-287-6659 or beckert@richmond.edu.]

University of Richmond has appointed 19 people to the faculty of its School of Arts and Sciences:

  • Laine Briddell is assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice who earned her Ph.D. in sociology from The Pennsylvania State University.

  • Monti Narayan Datta is assistant professor of political science who earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Davis.

  • Patricia Herrera is assistant professor of theatre. She was previously a research assistant professor at Dartmouth College and received her Ph.D. in theatre from the City University of New York Graduate Center.

  • David Landy is assistant professor of psychology. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned a dual Ph.D. in computer science and cognitive science from Indiana University.

  • Chinyelu Lee is postdoctoral fellow in the political science department. He previously conducted AIDS policy research, capacity-building training and evaluations for programs active throughout Haiti, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.

  • Angela Leeper is director of the Curriculum Materials Center in the Department of Education. She was previously an educational consultant at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and earned her M.L.I.S. from the University of Rhode Island.

  • David Lefkowitz is associate professor of philosophy and coordinator of the newly created program in philosophy, politics, economics and law. He was previously an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Maryland.  

  • Stephen Long is assistant professor of political science. He was previously an assistant professor at Kansas State University and earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

  • Todd Lookingbill is assistant professor of geography and the environment. He was previously a research assistant professor with the University of Maryland Center and earned his Ph.D. from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

  • Manuella Meyer is assistant professor of Latin American history and was previously a visiting assistant professor of history and international studies at Trinity College. She earned her Ph.D. in history and African-American studies from Yale University.

  • Kristine Nolin is assistant professor of chemistry. She was previously a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

  • Kun Qian is assistant professor of Chinese literature and Asian studies and earned her Ph.D in East Asian literature from Cornell University.

  • Bedelia Richards is assistant professor of sociology. She was previously a visiting lecturer in the Department of Education at Wellesley College and served as a senior project manager at Jobs for the Future, a nonprofit organization in Boston, Mass. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology from The Johns Hopkins University.

  • Ajna Rivera is postdoctoral fellow in the biology department. She was previously a post-doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she taught Introduction to Genetics and earned her Ph.D in molecular and cell biology from University of California Berkeley.

  • Su-Lin Tai is director of the Chinese program. She was previously director of the Chinese program at Minnesota State University, Moorhead for three years and earned her Ph. D. in multilingual and multicultural education from Florida State University, specializing in second language acquisition and second language pedagogy.

  • Mari Boor Tonn is associate professor of rhetoric. She was previously on the faculty of the University of Maryland, where she served as director of graduate studies in the Department of Communication. She earned her Ph.D. in rhetoric and communication at the University of Kansas.

  • Maja E. White is assistant professor of theatre. Previously, she was lighting director/designer for the international dance tour of Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company. She holds an MFA in lighting and sound design from Wayne State University.

  • Carrie Wu is assistant professor of biology. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University and earned her Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of California, Irvine. Eugene Wu is assistant professor of biology and biochemistry. He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute and Duke University Medical Center and earned his Ph.D. in biological sciences from The Scripps Research Institute.