Nadia Ayoub
Assistant Professor of Biology
Professor Ayoub earned her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She joins us from the University of California, Riverside, where she was the NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow. Using spiders as her model system, Professor Ayoub integrates natural history, molecular evolution, and genomics to study the evolution and diversification of phenotypes.

Jasmin Darznik
Assistant Professor of English
Professor Darznik received her PhD in English Literature from Princeton University in 2007, and is currently a Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing. Her research interests are ethnic American autobiography and fiction, Iranian and Arab-American literature and postcolonial literatures in English. She is also the author of a forthcoming memoir. She will teach both contemporary American literature and fiction writing.

Jon Erickson
Assistant Professor of Engineering
Professor Erickson earned his PhD in Bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology. He joins us most recently from Vanderbilt University where he is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, and where he also serves as an instructor of Physics. He will teach a variety of engineering courses, including electrical. His own research focuses on the connectivity of organic, cultured neurons and computers.

Monica Gonzalez
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Professor Gonzalez earned her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Gonzalez is a native of Chile, and her research focuses on the early literature of globalization in the Americas, with a special focus on 19th and 20th century wars between the United States and Latin American nations. She will teach Spanish language and Latin American literature and culture.

Dan Johnson
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Professor Johnson earned his PhD in Social and Personality Psychology from the University of Oklahoma in January 2009. His research interests are in the area of personality and focused on the intersection of emotion and cognition. He will teach a variety of courses on cognition, emotion, and methods in the Psychology Department.

Shane Lynch
Director of Chorale Activities
Shane earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting from the University of Washington in 2008, and has led choral programs, prior to earning his terminal degree, at a number of large and small colleges. He will direct both the University Chorus and Chamber Singers, and will teach applied voice as well as other courses in the Music Department.

Joshua Stough
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Professor Stough earned his PhD in Computer Science at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2008. He comes to us most recently from Claremont McKenna College where he taught introductory and advanced programming. His research focuses on computational pattern recognition in medical imaging.

Angela Smith
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Professor Smith earned her PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University. She most recently was the Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Fellow in Society and the Professions at W&L for the fall term of 2008. She comes to us from the University of Washington, where she is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy. Her scholarship focuses on the area of ethics.

Yanhong Zhu
Assistant Professor of Chinese
Professor Zhu received her Ph.D. at the University of Southern California. She has served as an adjunct professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where she taught “Classical Chinese Literature in Translation.” She will teach Chinese language and modern Chinese literature and culture.