Faculty and Staff
Core Faculty
Sarah Horowitz
Professor of History
- Newcomb Hall 306
- Email: horowitzs@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8773
Horowitz teaches courses on modern European history and specializes in French history and the history of gender in Europe. She is writing a book on the politics of gender and sexuality in the Steinheil Affair of 1908-1909.
Melina Bell
she/her
Professor of Philosophy and Law
- Washington Hall 312
- Email: bellm@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8899
Bell is a part of the faculty in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability, and the Law, Justice, and Society Program. She also teaches at the Law School. Professor Bell’s primary research interests are in political philosophy, philosophy of law, and feminist philosophy.
Lubabah Chowdhury
Assistant Professor of English
- Washington Hall 111
- Email: lchowdhury@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8755
Jenefer M. Davies
Department Head, Theater, Dance and Film Studies; Professor of Dance and Theater
- 109 S. Jefferson Street Dance Studio
- Email: daviesj@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8281
Davies teaches courses on contemporary European dance, dance composition, movement for actors and aerial dance techniques. Her research focuses on modern dance composition and the feminine aesthetic.
Megan Fulcher
Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science
- Parmly Hall 232
- Email: fulcherm@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8107
Dr. Fulcher teaches courses on child development, the development of gender roles, and socioemotional development. Her research focuses on children’s gender role development, toy play and their visions of their future selves.
Genelle Gertz
Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives and Thomas H. Broadus Professor of English
- Payne Hall 108
- Email: gertzg@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8763
Gertz teaches courses on Milton, the Tudors and the Bible. She is currently working on methods of social network analysis as they apply to our understanding of the rise and fall of women mystics in English literary history.
Sascha L. Goluboff
Professor of Cultural Anthropology
- Newcomb Hall 208
- Email: goluboffs@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8807
Goluboff teaches courses such as Food, Culture, and Society, and Gender and Sexuality. Her research focuses on the anthropology of emotion in a variety of geographic and historic contexts.
Kate Grover
Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Wan-Chuan Kao
Associate Professor of English; Head of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program
- Payne Hall 214
- Email: kaow@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8345
Professor Kao’s teaching and research interests include medieval literature, especially Chaucer; whiteness studies; critical theory; race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality; queer studies; hotel theory; affect; and cute studies.
Robin LeBlanc
Professor of Politics
- Holekamp Hall 107
- Email: leblancr@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8305
LeBlanc is a political anthropologist focused on the civic engagement of non-elites in rich democracies. She teaches classes on global politics, urban politics, gender and politics, and political theory.
Ellen Mayock
Ernest Williams II Professor of Spanish
- Tucker Hall 305
- Email: mayocke@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8816
At Washington and Lee, Mayock has taught courses in Spanish, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on gender and its intersections in literature and film, feminist theories and practice, and representations of conflict and violence. Mayock also writes poetry and creative nonfiction.
Domnica Radulescu
Edwin A. Morris Professor of Comparative Literature
- Newcomb Hall 313
- Email: radulescud@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8030
Radulescu teaches upper-level French and Francophone literature, theater, and the representations of women, gender, and sexuality in literature. She researches feminist theater and is an award-winning novelist/playwright.
Katharine L. Shester
Professor of Economics
- Hopkins House 102
- Email: shesterk@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8607
Shester teaches courses on urban economics, women in the economy and U.S. economic history. Her research interests include American economic history, urban and labor economics, demography and education.
Lesley Wheeler
Henry S. Fox Professor of English
- Payne Hall 308
- Email: wheelerlm@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8758
Wheeler teaches courses in poetry, creative writing and speculative fiction. Her research interests include 20th- and 21st-century poetry in English, especially as it involves sound, gender, politics and world-building.
Julie Woodzicka
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Science and Department Head
- Parmly Hall 240
- Email: woodzickaj@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8834
Woodzicka’s courses include Stereotyping, Prejudice, and Discrimination, Social Psychology, Psychology of Humor, and Research Design and Analysis. She studies the effects of disparagement humor (specifically sexist and racist humor) and subtle strategies to confront discrimination.
Affiliated Faculty
Kameliya N. Atanasova
Assistant Professor of Religion
- Tucker Hall 207
- Email: atanasovak@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8797
Atanasova researches the intersection of religion, law and politics by studying the social role of Sufism in the early-modern Ottoman Empire. She teaches Islamic Civilization, Sufism, Islam in America, and Muslims in the Movies.
Henryatta Ballah
Assistant Professor of History
- Newcomb Hall 218
- Email: hballah@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8456
Ballah’s teaching and research focus on 19th and 20th century Africa. Her book project explores the political activism of Liberian youth from 1950 to 2010.
David Bello
Director of East Asian Studies; Professor of History
Sabbatical for the 2024-2025 Academic Year
- Newcomb Hall 206
- Email: bellod@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8770
Bello teaches courses in Chinese and Japanese history. His research focuses on Qing China and borderland environmental history. He has published a number of notable scholarly works on the subject.
Rebecca Benefiel
Abigail Grigsby Urquhart Professor of Classics
- Tucker Hall 105
- Email: benefielr@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8082
Benefiel teaches classics and Latin courses such as Pompeii, Classics in a Digital Age, Roman Religion, and The Poetry of Ovid. Her research focuses on Pompeii, Latin epigraphy, and Roman social and cultural history.
Michelle D. (Mikki) Brock
Professor of History
- Newcomb Hall 219
- Email: brockm@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8780
Brock teaches courses on British and Atlantic history, the Reformation, witchcraft and the devil, and the history of poverty. Her research focuses on the supernatural and religious beliefs and identities in early modern Scotland.
Alexandra R. Brown
Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor in Bible
On Sabbatical 2024-2025
- Tucker Hall 206
- Email: browna@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8789
Brown teaches courses on the New Testament and other ancient Christian texts, Bible and film, gender and religion, Christian mysticism, and theory and method in the study of religion. Her primary research is in New Testament, particularly the Pauline letters.
Nneka Dennie
Assistant Professor of History
- Newcomb Hall 221
- Email: ndennie@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8963
Professor Dennie is a Black feminist scholar specializing in African American intellectual history. Her courses examine race and gender in the United States and the Caribbean. She is currently writing two books about 19th century Black women thinkers.
Emily Filler
Assistant Professor of Religion
- Tucker Hall 208
- Email: efiller@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8788
Filler teaches The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and Topics in American Judaism. Her research focuses on modern Jewish and continental philosophy, political and ethical theory, and classical Jewish texts.
Romina Green
Assistant Professor of History
- Newcomb Hall 205
- Email: rgreen@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8094
Professor Green Rioja’s research interests include examining structural racism in modern Chilean history and identifying settler-colonial policies that displaced the Indigenous Mapuche.
Mohamed Kamara
Department Head and Professor of Romance Languages; Campus Muslim Student Advisor
- Tucker Hall 306
- Email: kamaram@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8475
Professor Kamara holds degrees in French, English and Secondary Education. He teaches French courses in the Department of Romance Languages and also teaches in the university’s Africana Studies Program. As faculty advisor to campus Muslim students and the W&L African Society, he is a member of the Religious Staff in the Office of Inclusion and Engagement.
Stephanie Sandberg
Associate Professor of Theater/Film
- Lenfest Center B09
- Email: sandbergs@wlu.edu
- Phone: 540-458-8004
Sandberg teaches courses on screenwriting, documentary filmmaking and an ethnographic study of modern-day slavery in Ghana. Her current research focuses on theater for social justice.
Administrative Staff
Program Info
- P: 540-458-8771
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Newcomb Hall
204 West Washington Street
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia 24450