Thirteen Faculty Members Promoted at Holy Cross

Thirteen faculty members at the College of the Holy Cross have been promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure.

Andrea Borghini, of the philosophy department, earned his Ph.D. in 2007 from Columbia University, and his Laurea in 2000 from the University of Florence. His research focuses on metaphysics, the philosophy of biology, and the philosophy of food. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Gastronomic Sciences (Pollenzo, Italy) and has been a visiting professor at the University of Turin and an associate member of the seminar on comparative philosophy at Columbia University. Borghini authored more than 30 scholarly articles and two books with Carocci Editore, Rome, respectively on theories of possibility and on the philosophy of Saul Kripke; a third book, “Philosophy of Biology” (with Elena Casetta), is forthcoming with Carocci Editore in late summer, while a fourth on the philosophy of David K. Lewis is under contract. He serves also as the “guide to philosophy” for About.com. He is currently at work on a book-length manuscript on the philosophy of food. Next year, he will be directing the Global Society cluster of the Montserrat program. He resides in Worcester, Mass., and can often be found in Viareggio, Italy, too.

Jeffrey C. Dixon, of the sociology and anthropology department, received his Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from Indiana University and his B.S. in secondary education from Wright State University. Prior to Holy Cross, he taught at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey and at Indiana University. His research includes public opinion toward European Union (EU) enlargement, job insecurity, and liberal-democratic values in the EU and in Turkey. He has published his work in numerous journals including Social Forces, Public Opinion Quarterly, British Journal of Sociology, International Migration Review, Social Science Quarterly, The Journal of Political and Military Sociology and Teaching Sociology; and recently co-edited a collection of methods readings titled “Reading Social Research: Studies in Inequalities and Deviance” (Sage, 2013). He lives in Worcester, Mass.

Debra Gettelman, of the English department, earned her Ph.D., Ed.M., and A.B. from Harvard University. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2006, she is the recipient of the Howard Mumford Jones Prize from Harvard University in 2005. The author of numerous articles and reviews about authors such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot, she is an expert in 19th-century British literature. She is the director of the English Honors Program and has served on numerous campus-wide committees including the Committee on Faculty Scholarship and the Committee on Faculty Affairs.  She lives in Cambridge, Mass.

Jumi Hayaki, of the psychology department, earned her Ph.D. in psychology from Rutgers University and her B.A. from Yale University. Prior to Holy Cross, she taught at Macalester College and St. Olaf College. Since coming to Holy Cross, she served as a research associate at Brown University during her Junior Research Leave in 2009-10. Interested in the emotional processes associated with adult psychopathology, her research focuses on eating disorders and substance use disorders. She has published work in the International Journal of Eating Disorders, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, and the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. She lives in Acton, Mass.

Cynthia V. Hooper, of the history department, has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2005. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in history from Princeton University, and her B.A. from Harvard University. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at NYU and Columbia University, and junior faculty fellowships at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian Studies in 2007-08 and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. from 2008-09. She is currently a completing a book titled “Terror From Within” about the practices of Stalin-era repression and the way those practices have been remembered over time.

Timothy A. Joseph, of the classics department, earned his Ph.D. in classical philology from Harvard University in 2007 and his B.A. in classics from the College of the Holy Cross in 1998. The recipient of a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship in 2009, his research interests include Latin historiography and epic poetry. He is the author of “Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories” (Brill, 2012) and has been published in numerous journals, including the New England Classical Journal and Classical Quarterly. He lives in Framingham, Mass., with his wife Kelly (Gillespie '99) and their daughter Anna.

David Karmon, of the visual arts department, earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University, his M.Arch. from the Yale School of Architecture, and his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley. Prior to his arrival at Holy Cross in 2007, he was a visiting professor at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of “The Ruin of the Eternal City: Antiquity and Preservation in Renaissance Rome” (Oxford University Press, 2011) and has published numerous essays in books as well as journals such as The American Journal of Archaeology and Annali di architettura. He lives in Cambridge, Mass.

Sara Gran Mitchell, of the biology department, is a geologist who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Washington, her M.Sc. from the University of Vermont, and her B.A. from Carleton College.  A member of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society for America, her current research interests include the role of climate, tectonics, and erosion in the topographic development of mountain ranges. Her work has been published in numerous journals including Geology, Quaternary Research, and The American Journal of Science, among others. Sara lives in Worcester with her husband and two young daughters.

Jennie Germann Molz, of the sociology and anthropology department, earned her Ph.D. in sociology from Lancaster University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Centre for Mobilities Research in Lancaster, England. She earned her M.A. from Bowling Green University and her B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. Her latest research project, “Travel Connections: Tourism, Technology and Togetherness in a Mobile World” (Routledge, 2012), examines the emerging trend of interactive travel. In 2013, she received a Fulbright CORE Scholar Grant to teach and conduct research on tourism, hospitality exchange networks and mobile citizenship at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. She resides in Douglas, Mass.

Stephanie J. Reents, of the English department, earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Arizona, her second B.A. in English Literature from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and a B.A. in English from Amherst College. Her recent book of fiction, “The Kissing List” (Hogarth/Crown, 2012), was nominated for the Story Prize, and was selected for Editor’s Choice in The New York Times Book Reviews. The recipient of a Stegner Fellowship in creative writing from Stanford University from 2002-04 and, most recently, a 2012 MacColl Johnson Fellowship, her short stories have been included in the O. Henry Prize Stories, noted in the Best American Short Stories, and appeared in numerous journals including Five Chapters, Epoch, StoryQuarterly, and Denver Quarterly.

Thibaut Schilt, of the modern languages and literatures department, earned his Ph.D. in French studies from Ohio State University. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2007, he has also taught at Bucknell University. He published a monograph on French film director François Ozon (University of Illinois Press, 2011) and recently co-edited “Open Roads, Closed Borders: The Contemporary French-Language and Road Movie” (Intellect/University of Chicago Press, 2013). He has also published various scholarly articles in The French Review, Senses of Cinema and Contemporary French and Francophone Studies. He lives in Providence, R.I.

Bianca R. Sculimbrene, of the chemistry department, earned her Ph.D. in chemistry from Boston College and her B.S. from Xavier University. She then received an NIH postdoctoral fellowship to conduct research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before arriving at Holy Cross. Her research interests include the chemical processes of phosphorylation and peptide isoteres.  She currently teaches organic chemistry and has been published in numerous scholarly journals including the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Tetrahedron. She lives in Fitchburg, Mass. with her husband, Tony, and son, Isaac.

Susan Crawford Sullivan, of the sociology and anthropology department, received her Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from Harvard University and her B.A. from Duke University. She also received her M.P.A. from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Her book, “Living Faith: Everyday Religion and Mothers in Poverty” (University of Chicago, 2011), was awarded the 2012 Distinguished Book Award by the American Sociology Association and the 2012 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Interested in research topics including religion, poverty and public policy, and family, her work has also appeared in Sociology of Religion, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of Catholic Higher Education, and Review of Religious Research. She is currently co-editing a forthcoming book titled “A Vision of Justice:  Engaging Catholic Social Teaching on the College Campus.” She resides in Shrewsbury, Mass., with her husband and four children.