Meet our new faculty members! For the 2020-21 academic year, Amherst will welcome 25 researchers, musicians, artists, writers and lecturers across 17 different departments and programs. One of them is an Amherst alum; another is a Hampshire College graduate; and still others hold degrees from institutions as far away as Alaska, Russia and Australia.
 
Among the 10 new tenure-line assistant professors, topics of inquiry and teaching range from the regulation of emotions, to the melting of glaciers, to the religious groups of the ancient Roman world.  
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10 new faculty members at Amherst College 2020
(top row: l to r) Brittney Bailey, Rebecca Falcasantos, Rebecca Hewitt, Nicholas Holschuh, Sally Kim; (bottom row: Elizabeth Kneeland, Shayla Lawson, Jacob Olshansky, Mona Wu Orr, Will Rosenbaum

Brittney E. Bailey, assistant professor of statistics.  B.A. (2010) Messiah College; M.S. (2012), Ph.D. (2018) Ohio State University.

Polina Barskova, visiting associate professor of Russian.  B.A. (1998) St. Petersburg State University; M.A. (2003), Ph.D. (2006) University of California at Berkeley.

Stephen F. Cartier, lecturer in Chemistry.  B.S. (1985) Boston College; Ph.D. (1995) Pennsylvania State University.

Fiona Dixon, visiting instructor in Spanish.  B.A. (2011) Wayne State University; M.A. (2013), Ph.D. (expected 2020) University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Odette England, artist-in-residence in art and the history of art.  B.A. (1995), M.A. (2002) University of South Australia at Adelaide; M.A. (2012) Rhode Island School of Design; Ph.D. (2018) The Australian National University.

Ndifreke Ette, visiting assistant professor of political science and consortium for faculty diversity post-doctoral fellow.  M.A. (2012) Louisiana State University; Ph.D. (2018) University of Houston.

Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos, assistant professor of religion.  B.A. (2002) Creighton University; M.A. (2005) University of Notre Dame; Ph.D. (2015) Brown University.

Rebecca E. Hewitt,* assistant professor of environmental studies.  B.A. (2005) Middlebury College; Ph.D. (2014) University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

Nicholas D. Holschuh, assistant professor of geology.  B.A. (2011) Carleton College; Ph.D. (2016) Pennsylvania State University.

Noah Horn, visiting director of the choral music program.  B.A. (2007) Oberlin College; M.M. (2010), M.M. (2012), M.MAR (2013), D.MAR. (2017) Yale University.

Jallicia A. Jolly,  postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor of American Studies and Black Studies.  B.A. (2014) Williams College; M.A. (2016), Ph.D. (2020) University of Michigan.

Kirun Kapur, visiting writer in English.  A.B. (1997) Amherst College; M.A. (2000) Boston University.

Sally A. Kim, assistant professor of biology.  B.A. (1993) Haverford College; Ph.D. (2005) University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. 

Elizabeth Tepe Kneeland, assistant professor of psychology.  A.B. (2010) Amherst College; M.S. (2015), M.Phil. (2016), Ph.D. (2018) Yale University.

Shayla I. Lawson, assistant professor of English.  B.A. (2006) University of Kentucky at Lexington; M.F.A. (2015) Indiana University at Bloomington.

Jacob Olshansky, assistant professor of chemistry.  B.S. (2012) Haverford College; Ph.D. (2017) University of California at Berkeley.

Sarah Piazza, lecturer in Spanish.  B.A. (2006) University of Oregon; M.A. (2008) Pacific University; MA. (2011), M.Phil. (2013), M.Phil. (2014), Ph.D. (2016) Yale University.

Phoebe Ann Porter,* visiting lecturer in Spanish.  B.A. (1975) Bryn Mawr College; M.A. (1980), Ph.D. (1985) Brown University.

Katherine A. Pukinskis, Joseph E. and Grace W. Valentine visiting assistant professor of music.  B.A. (2008), M.M. (2010) Carnegie Mellon University; Ph.D. (2016) University of Chicago.

Connor Robinson, Five College astronomy department education research fellow.  B.A. (2014) University of Montana; M.A. (2016), Ph.D. (expected 2020) Boston University.

William Rosenbaum, assistant professor of computer science.  B.A. (2009) Reed College; M.A. (2011), Ph.D. (2016) University of California at Los Angeles.

Lise Shapiro Sanders, visiting professor of English.  B.A. (1992) Hampshire College; M.A. (1994), Ph.D. (1999) University of Chicago.

Ashley Sandoval, center for humanistic inquiry fellow and visiting lecturer in American studies.  B.A. (2008) San Francisco State University; M.A. (2013) University of Cincinnati; Ph.D. (2019) Northwestern University.

Rachel Tapley, visiting lecturer in French.  B.A. (2007) Centre College; M.A. (2010), Ph.D. (2016) University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Rebecca R. Totton, visiting assistant professor of psychology.  B.S. (2012) University of Evansville; M.A. (2013) University of Chicago; Ph.D. (2020) Ohio University at Athens.

Mona Wu Orr, assistant professor of biology.  B.A. (2007) Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D. (2016) University of Maryland at College Park.


*Starting in January 2021