SAS Welcomes 17 New Faculty Members

The School of Arts and Sciences has appointed 17 new members to its standing faculty for the 2009-10 academic year. This year’s new appointments are:

Daud Ali, Associate Professor of South Asia Studies: Pre-Sultanate India, with special interests in Sanskrit studies, early medieval courtly culture, and the history of secular ethics. Comes to Penn from the University of London.  Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Shelley Berger, Daniel S. Och University Professor (joint appointment in the Department of Biology in SAS and the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in the School of Medicine): Epigenetics, in particular the role of chromatin structure in regulating aging, gametogenesis, viral infection, cancer, and animal behavior. Comes to Penn from the Wistar Institute.  Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Anthea Butler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies: History of American religion, with an emphasis on African American religion and Pentacostalism. Comes to Penn from the University of Rochester.  Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University.

Hanming Fang, Associate Professor of Economics: Applied microeconomics and public economics, with a current focus on the economics of discrimination and insurance markets.  Comes to Penn from Duke University.  Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Ana Cecilia Fieler, Assistant Professor of Economics: International trade, development economics, and microeconomic theory.  Ph.D. from New York University.

Daniel Gillion, Assistant Professor of Political Science: American politics, with an emphasis on racial and ethnic politics and political participation.  Ph.D. from the University of Rochester.

Michel Guillot, Associate Professor of Sociology: Formal demography, health and mortality in the Central Asia region, and the demography of aging. Comes to Penn from the University of Wisconsin.  Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Tsitsi Jaji, Assistant Professor of English: African, African American, and Caribbean literatures, with a special interest in the relationship between music and literature. Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Adam Lidz, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy: Theoretical cosmology and structure formation and a focus on the intergalactic medium and the Epoch of Reionization.  Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Justin McDaniel, Associate Professor of Religious Studies: Southeast Asian religion and history, with an emphasis on Buddhism.  Comes to Penn from the University of California, Riverside.  Ph.D. from Harvard University. 

Marc Meredith, Assistant Professor of Political Science: American politics, with special interests in national and local voting behavior and quantitative methods.  Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Jairo Moreno, Associate Professor of Music: History of tonal theory and analysis; Latin-America and Latino music in the U.S.  Comes to Penn from New York University. Ph.D. from Yale University.

Eugene Park, Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History: Korean and East Asian history, in particular the social and cultural history of late Chos?n Korea. Comes to Penn from the University of California, Irvine.  Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Nicole Rust, Assistant Professor of Psychology: Perception, with a focus on the neural basis of object recognition.  Ph.D. from New York University.

Eric Schelter, Assistant Professor of Chemistry: Inorganic chemistry, specializing in the chemistry of metals and their application as magnetic and electronic materials.  Ph.D. from Texas A & M University.

Xun Tang, Assistant Professor of Economics: Econometrics and industrial organization. Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Tamara Walker, Assistant Professor of History: Colonial Latin American history, with special interests in race, slavery, and material culture.  Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.