College Welcomes New Faculty Members

Thirteen new tenure-track faculty members will teach at Smith in subject areas ranging from anthropology to statistical and data sciences. The new faculty members are listed below by their respective disciplines.

Art

Alexis Callender, assistant professor, earned a master of fine arts degree from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her studio practice crosses the mediums of painting, drawing and installation works, and her work is part of the collections of the Art in Embassies Program, as well as the Times Institute and Museum of Art in Maine.

Elisa Kim Kulosman, assistant professor, earned a master of architecture degree from Washington University and an undergraduate degree in energy and environmental policy from Boston University. Her research interests combine environmental policy methodologies with the disciplinary tools of architecture. She will teach introductory and advanced level architecture studios at Smith.

Anthropology

Colin Hoag, assistant professor, earned a Ph.D. in biological sciences from Aarhus University in Denmark and a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research interests center on methodological tools needed to understand socio-ecological change. He will teach courses on the anthropology of landscape, human-environment relations at a time of ecological crisis, and Africa and the environment. 

Computer Science

Jordan Crouser ’08, who has served for two years as a visiting MassMutual Fellow in the Statistical and Data Sciences Department, is joining the Smith faculty as an assistant professor in computer science. Crouser, who majored in mathematics and computer science at Smith, earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in computer science from Tufts University. His research interests include human-computer interaction and visual analytics. Crouser will teach courses in advanced programming techniques, computation theory and machine learning.

Katie Kinnaird, Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Statistical and Data Sciences, holds a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Dartmouth College. Her research interests are in music information retrieval and building bridges between statistics, mathematics, machine learning and other fields. Kinnaird will join the Smith faculty in July 2018.

Economics

Yuanyuan Maggie Liu, assistant professor, holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics and economics from The College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in economics from Georgetown University. A native of Jiangsu Province, China, she has research interests in the labor market outcomes of globalization in developing countries, environmental migration and urbanization policies in China.

English Language and Literature

Jina B. Kim, assistant professor in English language and literature and the study of women and gender, earned a joint Ph.D. in English and women’s studies from the University of Michigan. She will teach courses for Smith’s English department and the Study of Women and Gender program on U.S. literatures of race, disability and illness, and on U.S. women of color feminisms. Kim will join the Smith faculty in July 2018.

Exercise and Sport Studies

Sarah Witkowski, associate professor, earned a Ph.D. in exercise physiology from the University of Maryland, where she also worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Molecular Systems and Functional Genomics Laboratories. A former coach and college field hockey and lacrosse player, she researches the cells and signals that promote cardiovascular health, repair and regeneration.

Government

Sara A. Newland, assistant professor, earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include local governance and ethnic representation in China and Taiwan and the relationship between civil society organizations and the local state in China. Newland, who is currently a fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, will join the Smith faculty in July 2018. 

Music

Andrea Moore, assistant professor, earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Rice University, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of California, Los Angeles, following a career in arts administration and new music performance. Her research and teaching interests include the sociology of music, music as memorial, Bach culture and 1980s pop.

Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

Thomas Roberts, assistant professor, earned an undergraduate degree in Russian and literary studies from Middlebury College and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Slavic languages and literatures from Stanford University. His teaching and research interests include 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature and culture, Russian and Soviet cinema, and post-Soviet Russian culture.

Statistical and Data Sciences

Albert Y. Kim, assistant professor, earned an undergraduate degree in computer science from McGill University and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Washington. His research interests include spatial epidemiology, forest ecology and statistics, and data science pedagogy. Kim will join the Smith faculty in July 2018.

Miles Ott ’01, assistant professor, graduated from Smith with a degree in mathematics. He holds an M.P.H. from the University of Minnesota, a master’s degree in statistics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in biostatistics from Brown University. His research focuses on statistical methods for sampling hard-to-reach populations, such as those with HIV or Hepatitis C, and on correcting bias in sampling methods.