Meet the new faculty of 2024

Research and teaching interests:
Contemporary Mexican and Latin American cultural productions with a focus on disability and gender studies. Exile and diasporic narratives in Latino/a/x/e literature and cinema; cultural representations of resistance and decolonization; transborder studies; gendered discourses and transgressions.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
MacEwan University (Edmonton, Canada)

Education and training:
PhD Spanish and Latin American Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; MA Spanish, North Carolina State University; MA English and British Studies, Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany; BA Media and Communication Studies, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family. My favorite hobbies are swimming, practicing yoga, and meditating. I like traveling and learning languages.

Email: etna.avalos@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
My main focus is in digital and extended reality (XR) performance with a concentration of how comedy translates in the virtual space using both stand-alone VR headsets and full body tracking for exploration and research.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
XR industry

Education and training:
BA Theatre, San Francisco State University; MA Public Administration, Seattle University

Awards, honors and achievements:
“Spirit of Raindance” award at the Raindance Immersive Festival for “Shadow Canyon: A Puppeteer’s Tale,” a live theater performance in virtual reality

Outside of work, I enjoy going to the theater, performing improv, and thrift store shopping.

Email: amanda.canales@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Archives, disability, business writing.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Midwestern State University

Education and training:
PhD Rhetoric & Composition, Texas A&M Commerce; BA and MA English, Northwestern State University

Awards, honors and achievements:
Awarded tenure (2022) at Midwestern State University

Email: geoffrey.clegg@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Drawing on ideas and concepts from diverse fields such as environmental humanities, women’s and gender studies, and monster theory. My current research focuses mostly on 20th- and 21st-century German literature and visual art, and how these works negotiate the material interconnectedness of human bodies and their environments. Other research and teaching interests include Austrian studies, sexuality studies, questions of Heimat in the German and Austrian imagination post WWII, translation theory, and linguistics.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Colorado College

Education and training:
PhD German, Certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Specialization in Translation Studies, University of Oregon; MA German Philology, University of Salzburg;

BA German Philology and English and American Studies, University of Salzburg

Awards, honors and achievements:
“Reading Matters—Materiality and (Il)legible Inscriptions in Yoko Tawada’s ‘Das Bad’,” in FOCUS ON GERMAN STUDIES, vol. 29, pp. 55–84. https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/fogs/issue/view/517

“Michael Endes „Momo“ (1973): Zeitkonzept als pädagogisches Potential im DaF-Unterricht,“ together with Joscha Klüppel, in Sebastian Bernhardt & Johanna Tönsing (eds). Zeitnutzung In Der Aktuellen Kinder-Und Jugendliteratur, pp. 203–226.

Outside of work, I enjoy taking my dog for long walks or hikes. I also enjoy reading (or listening to) good books, drawing and crafting, and sipping on mugs of steaming tea (or, during the heat of the summer, glasses of homemade iced tea).

Email: lisa.hoeller@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Race, gender, and sexuality in the American South, Black activism in education after desegregation, social studies education, and higher education pedagogy.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Arkansas State University

Education and training:
PhD History, University of Memphis; MA History, Arkansas State University; BS Interdisciplinary Studies with emphasis in History, Political Science, and Journalism, Arkansas State University

Awards, honors and achievements:
Author, “Of Incendiary Origin: Interracial, Interclass, and IntraClass Violence and Intimidation in Craighead County, Arkansas,” Arkansas Historical Quarterly

Program Director, Reflective Images: A Kaleidoscope of Change and Impact of LGBTQ Community in Arkansas

Outside of work, I enjoy reading, trivia, crossword puzzles, hiking, board games, road trips, and movie nights.

Email: heather.mcnamee@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Latinx studies; culture and communication; media representations; data analytics and veracity; mediated social constructs.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Alberta

Education and training:
PhD Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media, North Carolina State University; MA Digital Media, Hochschule für Künste, Bremen, Germany; BA Communication, National Autonomous University of Mexico

Awards, honors and achievements:
Fulbright Scholar; Latinx/Latin American Communication Division Research Award, AEJMC;

Notable Research Award, NC State University

Outside of work, I enjoy time with my wife and son, films, novels, food, and swimming.

Email: hector.rendon@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Clarinet performance and pedagogy; performing arts health; music history; music entrepreneurship; marginalized woodwind chamber music and its pedagogy.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Admissions—College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University

Education and training:
PhD Musical Arts, Clarinet Performance, University of North Texas; MA Music, Clarinet Performance, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; BA Music, Clarinet Performance—Wartburg College

Awards, honors and achievements:
NAMM Foundation/CMS GenNext Fellow grant; first prize, Nebraska Music Teachers National Association Chamber Music Competition

Outside of work, I enjoy knitting, sewing, disc golfing, cycling, kayak fishing, hiking/backpacking in nature, and I am a Lego enthusiast!

Email: kathryn.e.rice@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Mexican American history; environmental, labor, and social history; U.S.-Mexico borderlands; U.S. American West; relationships between labor, leisure, and built environments; publicly-accessible, community-engaged research in the form of comic books and graphic novels.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Lecturer at Humboldt from 2022–2024)

Education and training:
PhD, University of California Merced; MA, University of California Merced; BA, Humboldt State University; AA, Imperial Valley College

Awards, honors and achievements:
Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021–2024; California State University Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program Fellowship, 2023; Luce Foundation Fellowship in Community-Engaged Research, University of California, Merced, 2019

Outside of work, listening to music, jogging, drawing, reading graphic novels and science fiction, gardening, and spending time with my family—I especially enjoy guitar jam sessions with my son!

Email: ivangonzalez-soto@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
(Sub)urban history of the 20th Century American West; comparative racial geography; local geopolitics of global industries and markets; labor and social movement; public and local history through community-led research; digital humanities; and open access scholarship.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of California, Merced

Education and training:
PhD, University of California Merced; MA, University of California Merced; BA, Humboldt State University; AA, Coastline Community College

Awards, honors and achievements:
Summer Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Center for the Humanities, UC Merced (2024); Teaching Fellowship, Digital Ethnic Futures Consortium (2022); Community-Engaged Research Fellowship, Luce Foundation, Public Humanities Design Studio, & UC Merced Library, UC Merced (2020–21)

Outside of work, I enjoy being the very busy mom of a toddler, so my life mostly revolves around making snacks, drinking coffee, and trying to be patient as we wait for our garden to grow edible plants native to the PNW!

Email: shiloh.greensoto@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Music teacher education policy; preservice music teacher preparation; curriculum and assessment, student and teacher mental wellness, modern band pedagogy, and music education advocacy.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Southeast Missouri State University

Education and training:
PhD Music Education, University of Missouri-Columbia; MME, University of Northern Colorado; BME K–12 Music Education, University of Northern Colorado

Awards, honors and achievements:
Co-facilitator of the Society for Music Teacher Education’s (SMTE) Program Admission Assessment and Alignment Area of Strategic Interest; Modern Band Fellow; Country Music Award State Advocacy Grant writer, recipient Missouri Music Educators Association 2023

Outside of work, I enjoy all things Star Wars, Legos, hiking, running, reading, and drinking coffee.

Email: aaron.wacker@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
I am an evolutionary biologist, biomechanist, and ichthyologist. My work explores how the evolution of form and function contributes to the accumulation and maintenance of biodiversity over multi-million-year scales.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Education and training:
PhD, University of California, Davis; BSc, Cornell University; AA, Bard College at Simon’s Rock

Awards, honors and achievements:
Corn, K.A., S.T. Friedman, E.D. Burress, C.M. Martinez, O. Larouche, S.A. Price, P.C. Wainwright. 2022. “The Rise of Biting During the Cenozoic Fueled Reef Fish Body Shape Diversification.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119 (31) e2119828119; Martinez, C.M.*, K.A. Corn*, S. Williamson, D.R. Satterfield, A.S. Roberts-Hugghis, A.J. Barley, S.R. Borstein, M.D. McGee, P.C. Wainwright. “Replicated Functional Evolution in Cichlid Adaptive Radiations. in press at The American Naturalist.” *Authors contributed equally to this manuscript; David & Marvalee Wake Award—Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology–2020

Outside of work, I enjoy biking, reading, and baking pies.

Email: katherine.corn@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Materials under extreme compression; high-speed optical diagnostics (e.g., photography); scientific programming and instrumentation.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Sandia National Labs

Education and training:
PhD Physics, Washington State University; MS Physics, University of Utah; BS Physics, Weber State University

Awards, honors and achievements:Fellow of the American Physical Society; Sandia Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff; Defense Programs Award of Excellence for “Temperature of dynamically compressed actinides on the Z machine”

Outside of work, I enjoy reading, jogging, and MATLAB programming.

Research and teaching interests:
STEM outreach aimed at elementary and middle school students, women in STEM, diversity in STEM, teaching innovation in laboratory courses.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Tarleton State University

Education and training:
PhD Organic Chemistry, University of Nevada, Reno; BS Chemistry, University of Portland

Outside of work, I enjoy hiking, running, all things yarn, and spending time with my husband, dog, and baby boy.

Email: mary.fennimore@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
National and transboundary hydropolitics and sustainable water governance; political ecology; political economy; sustainable development; policy and institutional change; science-policy-practice nexus.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Millennium Challenge Corporation (Washington, D.C.)

Education and training:
MSc Innovation, Human Development, and Sustainability, University of Geneva, Switzerland; PhD Earth Science, James Cook University, QLD, Australia; BA Geology, Carleton College, MN, USA

Awards, honors and achievements:
American Association for the Advancement of Science “Science and Technology Policy Fellow” (2023–24); Delegate at COP 26 (2021) and the United Nations Water Conference (2023); International Water Resources Association Publication Mentoring Initiative (Award recipient 2020; Committee and Guest Editor 2023–25)

Outside of work, I enjoy playing soccer, being outside, experiencing different cultures and environments, and my dog.

Email: hannah.haemmerli@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: Chemical synthesis of fluorescent probes and theranostic agents; Organic chemistry with emphasis on supramolecular and physical organic chemistry

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Whitman College

Education and training:
PhD, The University of Texas at Austin; BS, University of California, Berkeley

Outside of work, I enjoy spending quality time with family and friends, traveling, eating good food, and skiing.

Email: hyunhwa.jo@wsu.edu  

Research and teaching interests:
I study the chemical processes involved with building nanoscale semiconductors from molecular precursors. Another main interest of my research is understanding the impact of targeted chemical impurities on the electronic and magnetic properties of nanoscale semiconductors in solution. I will teach inorganic and materials chemistry at WSU.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Education and training:
Postdoc, University of Geneva; PhD, University of Washington; BS, Gonzaga University

Awards, honors and achievements:
National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient; directed an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) while at UMass Amherst; and served as an elected Councilor for the American Chemical Society

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with family and friends, cheering on alma mater Gonzaga Bulldogs, and amateur woodworking.

Email: kevin.kittilstved@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Teaching core classes in chemistry to advance students’ scientific literacy and critical thinking skills and to make chemical concepts relevant to their daily lives and creating a general chemistry lab course pertaining to forensic science.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Massachusetts Amherst

Education and training:
MS Analytical Chemistry, University of Washington; BS Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Washington

Outside of work, I enjoy walking my dog, gardening, spending time outdoors, traveling, and movies.

Email: raina.kittilstved@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Computational chemistry—I investigate electronic structures, chemical bonding interactions, redox properties, reactivity, and spectroscopic signatures of lanthanide and actinide coordination compounds holding potential for nuclear separation chemistry.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Akron

Education and training:
Postdoc, Los Alamos National Laboratory; PhD Utah State University; BS and MS RUDN University, Moscow

Awards, honors and achievements:
Grant from National Nuclear Security Administration, Department of Energy; 2024 Johnny Award— Early Research & Creative Activity, University of Akron; J. Robert Oppenheimer Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Marjorie H. Gardner Teaching Award, Utah State University

Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my beautiful spouse and kids, playing the guitar, swimming, and skiing.

Email: ivan.popov@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Best practices for teaching undergraduate level chemistry classes and implementing active learning techniques.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
The University of Akron, OH

Education and training:
PhD Inorganic Chemistry, Utah State University, Utah; MS Chemistry, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia; BS Chemistry, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Moscow, Russia

Awards, honors and achievements:
Author: “A Visible Light-Activated Quinolone Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecule: Prodrug and Albumin-Assisted Delivery Enable Anti-Cancer and Potent Anti-Inflammatory Effects” in the Journal of American Chemical Society;
“CO Sense and Release Flavonols: Progress toward the Development of an Analyte Replacement PhotoCORM for Use in Living Cells” in the ACS Omega

Outside of work, I enjoy traveling, photography and spending time with my family.

Email: marina.popova@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Research in my lab is focused on the genomic basis of evolutionary innovation, which we study primarily in plants and algae. By integrating findings across diverse lineages of photosynthetic eukaryotes, my lab evaluates the timing, consequence, and generality of different genetic mechanisms underlying the evolution of novel traits in organisms.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Purdue University

Education and training:
PhD, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona; BS, Biology, Humboldt State University

Email: jennifer.wisecaver@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Monica’s research focuses on environmental justice in ecological intentional communities and cooperatives, with particular attention to race, class, and gender. Her interests include ethnography, feminist methods, intentional communities, environmental justice, and gendered & racialized organizations.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Texas at Austin

Education and training:
PhD Sociology, University of Texas, Austin; MA Sociology, University of Texas, Austin; BS Sociology with minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Northeastern University

Awards, honors and achievements:
Bhatia, Monica. 2023. “Work and Sustainability in Twin Oaks Intentional Community.” Research in the Sociology of Work, Special Issue: Ethnographies of Work; Bhatia, Monica. 2021. “Gender and Sustainability in Ecological Intentional Communities.” Environmental Sociology; 2023 Center for Communal Studies Graduate Paper Award

Outside of work, I enjoy being a proud dog mom of a Brittany puppy named Tofu and a senior hound mixed named Cass. I moved to Pullman with my partner Nick. I enjoy reading, hiking, walking the dogs, eating and cooking vegetarian food, watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Email: monica.bhatia@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
The role gender attitudes, nationalism, and xenophobia play in shaping public opinion and political behavior, with regional focuses in Europe and the United States.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Florida Atlantic University

Education and training:
PhD/MA/BA, University of Virginia

Awards, honors and achievements:
Author, “Traditional Gender Attitudes, Nativism, and Support for the Radical Right” in Politics & Gender.

Outside of work, I enjoy traveling to concerts around the world; watching and attending tennis matches; road and indoor cycling; listening to Taylor Swift’s discography and expanding my vinyl collection; reading on an overcast day.

Email: olyvia.christley@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
I currently conduct research and teach on AI and moral responsibility. In the past, I worked on questions relating to the metaphysics of moral justification.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Georgia Institute of Technology

Education and training:
PhD/MPhil/MA, Philosophy, University of California Santa Barbara; MSc by Research, Philosophy, University of Edinburgh; BA, Philosophy/Psychology, Wheaton College (MA)

Awards, honors and achievements:
Postdoctoral Research & Teaching Fellowships on Ethics and Technology, ETHICx (Ethics, Technology & Human Interaction Center), Georgia Institute of Technology; Hassoun, N., Conklin, S., Nekrasov, M., & J. West, (2022). “The Past 110 Years: Historical Data on the Underrepresentation of Women in Philosophy Journals.” Ethics, 132(3); Co-Founder & CEO, AviAI Inc. (Now Mithrl, Inc.)

Outside of work, I enjoy having a good philosophical conversation rather than doing just about anything else. But I also play D&D, MTG, and big box board games. When I’m not in a dungeon, I garden, hike, and travel with my family.

Email: sherri.conklin@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
My research focuses on violence against women, gender and justice, and the criminal justice response to gender-based violence with an emphasis on trauma-informed and survivor-centered police interventions. My teaching expertise includes criminal justice systems/administration, violence against women, victimology, and gender and crime.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
University of Idaho

Education and training:
PhD Criminal Justice, Washington State University; MA Criminal Justice, Washington State University; BA Political Science, Gonzaga University

Awards, honors and achievements:
Externally funded grant portfolio totals $3.2 million in state contracts and federal grants, including awards from the Office on Violence Against Women and the National Institute of Justice. Published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in scholarly outlets.

Outside of work, I enjoy reading non-fiction, finding authentic Turkish and Greek food, traveling, and all things winter. I love spending time with my family. My husband and I have a seven-year-old daughter and two miniature wiener dogs.

Email: c.franklin@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Mechanisms of trauma-related sleep disturbances, sleep disturbance as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology, neurobiology of sleep, and sleep health disparities.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Corporal Michael J Crescenz VA Medical Center

Education and training:
PhD and MA, clinical psychology, University of Houston; MA, biological/experimental psychology, American University; BA, psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Awards, honors and achievements:
Recipient of VISN 4 MIRECC Pilot Grant; funded participant of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigators Research Forum; peer-reviewed publications in the fields of sleep and mental health

Outside of work, I enjoy hiking, baking, admiring flowers, and playing piano.

Email: christine.so@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
My research interests are in studying cannabis use and cognition. My teaching interests are in research methods and cognition.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:
Washington State University

Education and training:
PhD experimental psychology, WSU; MA psychology, WSU; BA psychology, WSU

Outside of work, I enjoy pottery and camping/hiking.

Email: Amanda.stueber@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:
Research Interests: ASD and Developmental Disabilities, Equivalence Based Instruction and Music, Telehealth and ABA, Social skills for individuals with ASD. Teaching Interests: Behavior Modification, Applied Behavior Analysis and Psychological Disorders.

Name of most recent institution or company/industry:|
Baylor University

Education and training:
PhD Philosophy, Baylor University; MA, Baylor University; BS, Texas Christian University

Awards, honors and achievements:
Swensson, R.M., Akers, J.S., Austin, M., Liu, R., Swafford, L.B. & Gerow, S. (2024) “Teaching Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Mand for Answers to Questions Via Telehealth: A Caregiver Implementation.” Behavioral Interventions. https://doi.org/10.1002/bin.2015

Gerow, S., Radhakrishnan, S., Akers, J. S., McGinnis, K., & Swensson, R. (2021). “Telehealth Parent Coaching to Improve Daily Living Skills for Children with ASD.” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.813

Swafford, L., Akers, J.S., Swensson, R., Carlson, J. (2023). “A Systematic Review of Caregiver-Mediated Interventions for Autistic Adolescents: Implication for Social Validity.” Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-024-00432-7

Outside of work, I enjoy running and hiking with my dog, fly fishing, cooking and baking, reading a good book on the porch and spending time with family and friends.

Email: remington.swensson@wsu.edu