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A dozen St. Lawrence University teaching faculty receive promotions

Posted 7/24/15

CANTON -- A dozen St. Lawrence University teaching faculty were recently granted promotions, which will take effect starting Sept. 1. Eight faculty members were promoted to associate professor, while …

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A dozen St. Lawrence University teaching faculty receive promotions

Posted

CANTON -- A dozen St. Lawrence University teaching faculty were recently granted promotions, which will take effect starting Sept. 1.

Eight faculty members were promoted to associate professor, while another four were promoted to full professor.

Cynthia Bansak was promoted to professor of economics. Bansak’s research and teaching interests fall broadly within the area of applied econometrics, with a particular focus in the fields of labor economics and monetary policy. Her current work explores aspects of poverty alleviation programs in the U.S. and the impact of remittances on educational attainment in Nepal.

Erika Barthelmess was promoted to professor of biology. Barthelmess, serves as co-chair of the department of biology and faculty coordinator for the conservation biology major directs the Nature Up North initiative, regularly teaches general biology, mammalogy, behavioral ecology, vertebrate natural history, and conservation biology. Her research interests include the biology of small, isolated populations, the intersection of behavioral ecology and conservation, road ecology and the ecology and natural history of porcupines.

Christopher Buck was promoted to associate professor of government. His interest in environmental politics began with his involvement in environmental organizations as a senior in high school and throughout his college career.

Howard Eissenstat was promoted to associate professor of history. Eissenstat teaches courses on Islamic civilization as well as subjects ranging from the Ottoman Empire, to Modern Iran, to Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

Wendi Haugh was promoted to associate professor of anthropology. A cultural and linguistic anthropologist with a joint appointment in African studies, she conducts research on the ways that people construct a sense of national identity in songs, speeches, talk radio programs, celebrations, and conversations. She is in the early stages of developing plans for research on the social and cultural dimensions of environmental conservation projects.

Karin Heckman was promoted to associate professor of biology. Heckman earned her Ph.D. in immunology at the Mayo Clinic and teaches courses in immunology, human nutrition, and biology of cancer as well as foundational courses in cell biology and general biology. Her research combines these interests by focusing on naturally occurring substances such as plant pigments that modulate the immune system.

Xiaoshuo Hou was promoted to associate professor of sociology. Hou’s research and teaching interests include the sociology of development, economic sociology, and the sociology of organizations, with a particular focus on China and Asia. She recently completed a book Community Capitalism in China: The State, the Market, and Collectivism.

Evelyn Jennings was promoted to professor of history. Since July 2012, Jennings has been the associate dean for Academic Advising Programs. She is also associate professor and the Margaret Vilas Chair of Latin American history. Jennings specialization is Spanish colonialism in Cuba with a focus on state enslavement and forced labor in Havana in the 18th- and 19th-centuries.

Juraj Kittler was promoted to associate professor of performance and communication arts and English. Kittler’s research focuses on a series of leading cities whose historical experience prepared the ground for our current global village. He studied public communication in classical Athens, republican Rome, Renaissance Venice, early modern London, republican Philadelphia and Paris.

Ivan Ramler was promoted to associate professor of statistics. Ramler’s dissertation at the Iowa State University involved improving cluster analysis methods for noisy data and for data constrained to lie on the surface of a multi-dimensional sphere. He teaches courses in statistics.

Michael Schuckers was promoted to professor of statistics. In addition to serving as the director of the Peterson Quantitative Resource Center, Schuckers is a biometric authentication statistician and author of the textbook Computational Methods in Biometric Authentication. Schuckers also researches sports statistics, regularly contributing his expertise to professional sports teams, including the National Hockey League, and often is contacted by sports media to for his statistical analysis.

Lisa Torrey was promoted to associate professor of computer science. Torrey’s primary research is in artificial intelligence, a field that seeks to re-create the intelligent abilities that humans have developed. She is also interested in the scientific study of education.