New Faculty Hires – September 2008

Margo Natalie Crawford Ph.D. is joining the W.E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies this fall as an Associate Professor.  She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in American Studies, both from Yale University and her B.A. with High Honors from Swarthmore College.  Previously she worked as an Assistant Professor of English at Indiana University-Bloomington.  Margo’s research and teaching interests include twentieth century African American literature and cultural movements, intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, theories of the Black Diaspora, and African American visual culture. She is the author of Dilution Anxiety and the Black Phallus (2008) and the coeditor, with Lisa Gail Collins, of New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (2006).

Karen (Kym) Morrison Ph.D. is also joining the W.E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies this fall, as an Assistant Professor of African Diaspora and Pan-African Studies.  Kym received her Ph.D. in Latin American History and her M.A in History with a minor in African History, both from the University of Florida.  She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University.  She comes to us from Moravian College, PA where she was an Assistant Professor of Latin American History. 

Trea Andrea Russworm Ph.D. recently received her Ph.D. from the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago where she also earned her M.A.  She joins the English Department this fall as an Assistant Professor of African-American Literature.  TreaAndrea received her B.A. at Brown University in English and American Literature, graduating Magna Cum Laude.  Her areas of interest are Psychoanalysis, 20th Century American Literature, African-American Literature and Culture, Cinema Studies, Television Studies, and Composition and Writing.

Barbara Krauthamer Ph.D. will be joining the History Department as an Assistant Professor this fall.  She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University in US History, and an additional M.A. in US History from Washington University in St. Louis.  Barbara received her B.A. from Dartmouth College.  Prior to coming to UMass, Barbara was an Assistant Professor in the History Department at New York University.  She is currently completing a book on the history of African American slavery and emancipation in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations and looks forward to joining the scholars at UMass whose work also examines African American/Native American intersections. Barbara is excited about returning to New England and, as a longtime runner, is looking forward to tackling the hilly roads around Amherst.

Jon Berndt Olsen Ph.D. also joins the History Department this fall as an Assistant Professor.  Jon received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in History with a focus on public history and ‘memory culture’ in Modern Europe, especially Germany.  He earned his M.A. in German and European Studies at Georgetown University, and his B.A. in Russian Studies and German, both with Departmental Distinction at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.  Jon comes to us from George Mason University where he has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Dept. of History and Art History, and the editor of “Making the History of 1989,” an important online web project at the Center for History and New Media.

 Luiz A. Amaral Ph.D. joins the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department this fall as an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition.  Luiz obtained his doctoral degree in Linguistics from The Ohio State University, and his Masters in Linguistics from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio).  Prior to coming to UMass, Luiz was an Assistant Professor of Hispanic Linguistics at the University of Victoria - British Columbia, Canada.  His research interests include intelligent language tutoring systems, second language acquisition, natural language processing, and foreign language teaching and learning.

Elena Suet-Ying Chiu Ph.D. will also be joining the Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department this fall as an Assistant Professor of the Late Imperial Period of China.  Elena received her Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Culture from U.C.L.A followed by a post doctoral fellowship at Stanford University at the Center for East Asian Studies.  She received her M.A. from California State University, Long Beach and a B.A from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.   Her research and teaching interests include Ming-Qing vernacular and classical language literature, Early Republican Chinese literature, Manchu language, literature and culture, ethnicity and gender issues in Qing Dynasty literature, and Ming-Qing oral and performing literature.

Kathryn Lachman Ph.D. joins the Languages, Literatures, & Cultures Department as an Assistant Professor in the French and Comparative Literature Programs.  She recently received her Ph.D. in French from Princeton University; her M.A. and B.A. degrees were awarded in French from Yale University.  While at the Conservatoire National de Région in France she was awarded Premier Prix in violin performance and Premier Prix á l’unanimité for chamber music and history of music.  She is interested in the intersections between music, literature, theory and ideology, which has led to her new project on postcolonial opera.

Zhijun Wang Ph.D. comes this fall to join the Languages, Literatures and Cultures Department as an Assistant Professor of Chinese Pedagogy.  Zhijun received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; his doctoral work focused on Chinese linguistics and psycholinguistics.  He holds two M.A.’s, one in Modern Chinese Language from the Beijing Language and Culture University and another in Linguistics from the University of Iowa.  Zhijun earned his B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from the Inner Mongolia Nationality University.  He has extensive experience teaching Chinese languages to non-native speakers, including Mandarin Chinese. 

Seth Cable Ph.D.  joins the Department of Linguistics this year as an Assistant Professor, arriving from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Linguistics and Philosophy.  His M.S. in Logic is from the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.  As an undergraduate at Rutgers University, Seth was a double major in Linguistics and Philosophy with a minor in Cognitive Science.  He has taught at MIT and the Linguistic Society of America Summer Institute at MIT and Harvard, as well as Skidmore College and the John Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.  He has engaged in fieldwork in Tlingit (Alaska), Tibetan, Yiddish, Yoruba, and Hungarian.   

Lisa J. Lehmberg Ph.D. joins the Music and Dance Department as an Assistant Professor in Music Education.  She has a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Piano Performance from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of South Florida, Tampa.  Lisa joins us from the University of South Florida where she received the Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Assistant.   Her areas of specialty include general music education, world music education, and music education technology.  Lisa also has extended experience as a public school general music specialist and is a National Board Certified Teacher in Early and Middle Childhood Music. 

Hazel Sabas-Gower is a new faculty member in the Music and Dance Department this fall.  She joins the Dance program as an Assistant Professor of Ballet.  Hazel received her M.F.A. in Performance and Choreography from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and her Diploma in the Creative and Performing Musical Arts (DCPMA) from the University of the Philippines.  Previously she taught at the University of North Texas, in the Department of Dance & Theatre.  As a dancer, teacher and choreographer, she has worked in both national and international venues, including the Ballet Ciutat de Barcelona, Ballet Manila, Ballet Philippines, Ballet Memphis, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder Ballet, Dance West, and Texas Tech University. 

Ernesto Garcia Ph.D. is a new Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department coming to UMass from Syracuse University where he was a Distinguished Faculty Fellow. Ernesto received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, graduating with Distinction.  At Harvard Divinity School he earned an M.T.S. in Christianity and Culture, and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor he received his B.A. with honors in Philosophy and English.  His areas of specialty include Moral and Political Philosophy, History of Modern Philosophy and 19th Century Philosophy.   His scholarship has appeared in several prestigious philosophy journals and he has presented his work nationally and internationally. 

Marcus Gardley is joining the Theater Department as an Assistant Professor specializing in African-American Theater and Playwriting.   He received his MFA in Playwriting from the Yale School of Drama, and his B.A. in English/Creative Writing and Theater Arts from San Francisco State University.  Previously he was a Scriptwriting Instructor at the University of San Francisco, and a Creative Writing Instructor at Columbia University in New York City.  He is a multiple award-winning poet-playwright who recently won the prestigious 2008 Helen Merrill Award. His most recently produced play, Love is a Dream House in Lorin received outstanding critical acclaim and was nominated for the National Critics Steinberg New Play Award. Marcus, a native of West Oakland, was recently chosen as one of 50 writers to watch by Dramatists Magazine.

New Staff Hires

Suzanne Bell                   History Department

Megan Fish                     Languages, Literatures, and Cultures  

                                         French and Italian Program

Cathleen Hutchinson       Music and Dance Department

Lynne Latham                 Development, Dean’s Office

Mary Lysakowski           Judaic and Near Eastern Studies

Steven Rigler                  Dean’s Office

Dana Ritter                     Dean’s Office

Lijing Zhang                    Dean’s Office