Meet the new faculty of 2025

Research and teaching interests: Early modern drama and poetry, Shakespeare, Spenser, premodern critical race theory, premodern disability studies, gender studies, history of science, history of medicine

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

Education and training:

• PhD, English, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
• MA, English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
• BA, English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

Awards, honors and achievements:

• Arts & Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship from the University of Toronto (2024–5)
• “‘What’s with him?’: Reading Hamlet and Haider through the Lens of Disability-Craft,” in Disability Performance and Global Shakespeare, ed. Katherine Schaap Williams, Shakespeare International Yearbook (New York: Routledge, 2024)
• “Black, Wicked, and Unnatural’: Locating the Monstrous ‘Other’ in Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy,” in The Theatrical Legacy of Thomas Middleton, ed. William Green, Anna Hegland, and Sam Jermy, Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2024)

Outside of work, I enjoy listening to music, reading fiction (especially science fiction!), hiking, watching k-dramas, spending time with family, and recreating recipes that remind me of my mother’s kitchen.

Email: deyasini.dasgupta@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: My work explores contemporary craft, digital design, and material culture. I’m interested in how media and materials shape identity and creative practice.

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

Education and training:

• MFA, University of Georgia
• BFA, Arizona State University

Email: vivienne.varay@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: The geology of ore deposits; fingerprinting the magmatic sources of economic deposits of critical minerals; fluid processes that mobilize and concentrate critical minerals; distribution of environmentally harmful elements in mine waste

Name of most recent institution or company/industry: U.S. Geological Survey

Education and training:

• PhD, Duke University; MS, Indiana University at Bloomington
• BS/BA, Western Washington University

Outside of work, I enjoy skiing, reading (particularly sci-fi and fantasy), playing console video games, and travel.

Email: erin.benson@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: Host–microbe interactions, plant immunity, extracellular RNAs and RNA application

Name of most recent institution or company/industry: Pfizer

Education and training:

• PhD, Genome, Cell, and Developmental Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington
• MS, Plant Science, University of Tehran
• BS, Plant Science, Hormozgan University

Awards, honors and achievements:

• Zand Karimi H, Chen KE, Karinshak M, Gu X, Sello JK, Vierstra RD. Proteasomes accumulate in the plant apoplast where they participate in microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP)-triggered pathogen defense. Nature Commun. 2025
• Zand Karimi H, Baldrich P, Rutter BD, Borniego L, Zajt KK, Meyers BC, Innes RW. Arabidopsis apoplastic fluid contains sRNA- and circular RNA-protein complexes that are located outside extracellular vesicles. Plant Cell. 2022

Outside of work, I enjoy hiking and baking

Email: hana.karimi@wsu.edu

Email: david.nichols@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests:

I am primarily interested in teaching foundational mathematics and statistics courses, focusing on helping students build numerical and statistical literacy skills.

I am not currently engaged in any active research projects but historically, I enjoy building machine learning models to provide insight on classification problems in a variety of fields.

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

Education and training:

• MS, Mathematics: California State University, Fresno
• BS, Mathematics and BA, Physics, The Evergreen State College

Awards, honors and achievements:

• E. Sawyer, E. Laroche-Pinel, M. Flasco, M.L. Cooper,
  B. Corrales, M. Fuchs, and L. Brillante (2023), Phenotyping Grapevine Red Blotch Virus And Leafroll-associated Viruses Before And After Symptom Expression Through Machine-learning Analysis Of Hyperspectral Images,
  Frontiers in Plant Science.
• E. Sawyer, M. Banuelos, R. Marcia, and S. Sindi (2020), A Neural Network Approach For Anomaly Detection In Genomic Signals, Proceedings of the Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association (APSIPA) Conference 2020.

Outside of work, I enjoy cooking, crocheting, woodworking, reading, swing dancing, watching movies (mostly horror or comedy), and walking my dog, Sasha!

Email: erica.sawyer@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: I am an animal physiologist whose primary focus is on acid-base physiology to understand the adaptations that enable fish to tolerate environmental changes. Broadly, this work aims to understand how acid-base regulation has shaped the evolution of air breathing and terrestrialization in vertebrates.

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

Education and training:

• PhD Zoology, University of British Columbia
• MSc Biology, University of Calgary
• BSc Zoology, University of Calgary

Awards, honors and achievements:

• Shartau RB et al. 2020. Preferential Intracellular Ph Regulation Is A Common Trait Amongst Fish Exposed To High Co2. J. Exp. Biol. 223(7). Profiled in ‘Inside JEB’
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Postdoctoral Fellowship

Outside of work, I enjoy being outdoors with my wife and dogs, hiking, traveling, and fly fishing.

Email: ryan.shartau@wsu.edu

Email: m.sivakumaran@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: My research and teaching is fundamentally concerned with power. As a researcher, my primary work examines the effects of power at the intersection of policing and medicine in law enforcement phlebotomy. Collaboratively, I also study gender and sexuality in topical contexts, like politics and the family. My teaching reflects these interests, and as a generalist, I can be found teaching a variety of criminological, sociological, and women’s and gender studies classes.

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

Education and training:

• PhD, Portland State University
• MA, English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• BA, Global Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Awards, honors and achievements:

• Johnson, A. K. (2025). “There’s Really No Risk Of Injury”: News Coverage Of Law Enforcement Phlebotomy And The Discursive Power Of The Police Perspective. Crime, Media, Culture. 17416590251344477.
• Shafer, E., England, P., & Johnson, A. K. (Forthcoming). Adolescent Sex And Parent Responsibility: Do Religiously Conservative Christians And Trump Voters Have A Distinct View? In Sooryamoorthy, R., & Blair, S. L. (Eds.). Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research: Sex and Sexuality within the Family Context.
• Shafer, E., Johnson, A. K., & Almousa, A. (2025). Addressing Advanced Degrees: The Educational Gradient In Time Spent In Childcare For Mothers And Fathers From 2012-2021. In Blair, S. L., & Madigan, T. (Eds.). Education and the Family: Examining their Interwoven Linkages.

Outside of work, I spend my time triathlon training, reading a lot, and making up parody pop songs about my pets.

Email: anne.k.johnson@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: State violence; impunity; human rights; critical humanitarianism; epistemologies of repair; death; politics of memory; dissent; sensemaking; visual and material culture, especially photographs and textiles; museums; ethnographic film; Colombia; Latin America

Name of most recent institution or company/industry: National Museum of Natural History

Education and training:

• PhD and MA, Anthropology, George Washington University
• MA Ed., Pacific Lutheran University
• BA, Middlebury College

Awards, honors and achievements:

• Lead editor of forthcoming Cambridge Handbook For The Anthropology Of Death, Cambridge University Press (with Sarah E. Wagner and Ruth E. Toulson);
• Co-author of “Life-Making Under Humanitarian Law,” Annual Review Of Law And Social Science (2025, with Ilana Feldman);
• Member of Core Team that developed the current exhibit “Cellphone: Unseen Connections” at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Outside of work, I enjoy the cinema; plants; cooking, especially with family and friends; games.

Email: sarah.l.richardson@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: I am an evolutionary anthropologist studying why and how people cooperate with one another. I work to apply this knowledge toward solving collective action problems such as natural resource management and climate change adaptation, with a focus on communities in East Africa.

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

Education and training:

• PhD, Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
• MA, Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
• BS, Psychology, Arizona State University

Awards, honors and achievements:

• WSU CAS Postdoctoral Researcher Achievement Award
• Human Behavioral and Evolution Society New Investigator Award
• NIAID – Centers for Research in Emerging Infectious Disease Grant: Adapting to Rift Valley fever: Identifying, assessing, and upscaling what works in diverse ecologies

Outside of work, I enjoy playing my guitars and synthesizers. I also like to spoil my three cats: Cocoa, Lucy, and Ozzy.

Email: kristopher.m.smith@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: Inclusive and experiential teaching; application-based learning; public health inequities; climate change and health; environmental justice; climate-related hazards; community-engaged research; and interdisciplinary approaches to public and planetary health

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

Education and training:

• PhD, Public Health, University of California, Irvine
• MPH, (Master of Public Health), University of California, Irvine
• BA, Anthropology, San Diego State University
• AA-T, Anthropology, Monterey Peninsula College

Outside of work, I enjoy all things outdoors (running, hiking, cycling, kayaking, camping/backpacking, fishing, gardening), reading (and listening) to books, road trips, trying new coffee shops and restaurants, and spending time with my dog.

Email: kameko.washburn@wsu.edu

Research and teaching interests: I specialize in international relations with a focus on elite psychology and emotions. My book project investigates how leaders’ expressions of anger during international crises shape bargaining dynamics, using both observational and experimental data. I am interested in teaching courses on international security and political psychology.

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

Education and training:

• PhD, Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Awards, honors and achievements:

• “Anger expressions and coercive credibility in international crises.” American Journal of Political Science.
• Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association
• Honorable mention for the Best Dissertation Award from the International Society of Political Psychology.

Outside of work, I enjoy brewing coffee.

Email: hohyun.yoon@wsu.edu