Saint Mary's College Introduces New Faculty Members for Fall 2018
Saint Mary's is proud to welcome several new faculty members for the fall term. These professors bring a wide range of experience in their fields that will help SMC expand its focus on students’ experiential learning, the liberal arts, social justice, and the environment.
Zahra Ahmed has joined the Politics Department as assistant professor. She has a broad base of expertise, including community partnership development, social policy analysis, critical pedagogy, grassroots organizing, and engaged qualitative research. Zahra’s research focuses on strategies that support and sustain political mobilization among people of color. She also studies how youth develop a sense of political efficacy and come to see themselves as leaders and political actors. Zahra received her master’s degree in social work from Georgia State University and her PhD in political science from the University of California, Irvine. She is committed to addressing sociopolitical issues through higher education as a means of creating more socially just communities.
Jessica Coyle, assistant professor in the Biology Department, is an ecologist who studies how multispecies communities vary across space and the ways in which this variation arises from the interaction of ecological processes, geography, and scale. She plans to build a student-centered research and teaching lab, utilizing lichens to learn how the environment, host traits, and symbionts determine where species live across spatial scales. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Jes graduated from Colorado College with a BA in biology and mathematics, and spent a year teaching in Malawi, southeast Africa, before pursuing her PhD in biology at UNC Chapel Hill. Jes enjoys scaling the cliffs and boulders at local Bay Area rock climbing crags.
Amissa Miller, assistant professor in the Performing Arts Department, received her MFA in dramaturgy and script development from Columbia University. She has worked as a new play dramaturg at The Huntington Theatre Company, The Women’s Project, and Ars Nova. Amissa’s writing has been read and produced at the BlackStar Film Festival, Fade to Black Festival, and 365 Women Festival. She has also worked as a teaching artist in various youth and community spaces. Amissa taught most recently at The University of Texas at Austin, where she also trained students to present workshops about interpersonal violence prevention. Her interests include black diasporic theater, theater for social justice, theater with and for young people, audience studies, and new play development.
Bonnie Tucker recently joined SMC as assistant professor of business communication in SEBA. She joins us from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where she completed her PhD in the joint program in English and education. Prior to completing her doctorate, Bonnie worked as a director of communications for a small college in Chicago, and she has over eight years of experience teaching writing and ESL. Bonnie’s research in professional writing studies is informed by an abiding concern for social justice and underserved students’ experiences in college writing classrooms.
Jan Warhuus joins the SEBA Department of Management and Entrepreneurship as an assistant professor, teaching entrepreneurship, innovation, and venture creation and growth. His research interests include entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship and gender, and entrepreneurial finance. Jan previously worked for five years at the department of management at Aarhus University, Denmark. He spent 12 years in private business, where he was involved with two Bay Area high-tech start-ups. Jan also worked for three years in investment banking. Born and raised in Denmark, Jan earned his PhD in entrepreneurship and finance from the University of Southern Denmark, and holds an MS in strategy and international business, and a BA in economics from the Aarhus School of Business.
Nekesha Williams is an assistant professor in the Environmental and Earth Science Department. Her research focuses on applying geospatial techniques to complex environmental issues at the land-sea interface. Nekesha’s specific research themes include: water resources, environmental change, and geographic information science. She completed her PhD in marine science at the University of South Florida–College of Marine Science and obtained an MS in watershed hydrology from North Carolina State University. Nekesha has served as a visiting assistant professor at City University of New York–Medgar Evers College, where she taught courses in environmental health issues, natural resource management, and conservation and groundwater hydrology. She’s interested in place-based research and experiential learning opportunities for students.
Yin Yuan is an assistant professor in the English Department. She specializes in Orientalism in 18th and 19th century British literature, and her research focuses on the intersection between literary representation and exotic ingestion. Yin has lived and worked in Beijing and Singapore, and hopes to develop Jan Term travel courses that will bring her back to those cities. Yin earned a BA in English and a BS in business administration from UC Berkeley, and received her PhD from Boston College.
Please join us in welcoming these outstanding scholars to SMC.