Smith Welcomes New Faculty Members

Sixteen new tenure-track and tenured professors will be teaching at Smith this year in a range of fields, including biophysics, education and child study, and philosophy—among others.

“We’re thrilled that you are here,” Smith President Sarah Willie-LeBreton said at a welcome reception for new faculty. “Smithies really do want to change the world, and your work as faculty carries tremendous weight and meaning. The scholarship you create, the knowledge you share, the way you teach, the mentoring and service you do for each other and for the good of the whole, advances not only Smith College, but also our students’ ability to lead the change we need.”

Here are brief biographies of the new faculty members:

Şebnem Baran, assistant professor of film and media studies, received her doctorate in cinema and media studies from the University of Southern California. Her dissertation, “Whose Quality Is It?: Transnational TV Flows and Power in the Global TV Market,” explores how Anglo-American quality programming standards are claiming more importance in the post-streaming era. With her research on the narrative and aesthetic analysis of traveling content, Baran explores the power dynamics in the global television market.

Candice M. Etson, assistant professor of physics, earned her Ph.D. in biophysics at Harvard University, and completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University. She is a molecular biophysicist specializing in single-molecule techniques that provide access to detailed information about the behavior and properties of biological molecules. Etson uses Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, single-molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (smFRET), single particle tracking, and fluorescence colocalization to observe and characterize interactions between proteins and DNA, as well as the dynamics of DNA structures. Her physics education research program investigates how spatial reasoning skills impact student learning in introductory physics courses, and she is active in the diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM research community. Before coming to Smith, Etson was an assistant professor at Wesleyan University, where she taught a wide variety of courses in physics and biophysics.

Sarah Fay, assistant professor of engineering, received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research brings together a deep understanding of biomechanics with data science to create innovative designs through additive manufacturing that make sports more inclusive and increase athletic performance. Fay’s teaching interests include solid and fluid mechanics, strength of materials, and the design of sports equipment. She is committed to advancing women and gender diversity in engineering.

Olivia Fiebig, assistant professor of chemistry, is interested in how the lipids and proteins in cell membranes impact biological processes. She earned her Ph.D. in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and physics from Rowan University. Her graduate research used ultrafast spectroscopy to study the impact of the photosynthetic membrane on light harvesting in purple bacteria. As an Eberly postdoctoral research fellow at Penn State, she studied the biophysics of model cell membranes, exploring the role of metal ions in the oxidation of phospholipid bilayers. At Smith, Feibig will teach courses in chemistry and biochemistry. Her lab will apply both spectroscopic and biochemical techniques to study lipid bilayer nanodiscs that will serve as model systems for understanding the physical chemistry of lipids and their interactions with membrane proteins.

Rachel Fish, associate professor of education and child study, received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research examines the intersections of ableism and racism in schools, and how these systems of inequality shape, and are shaped by, organizational structures of schooling, as well as micro-level interactions between students, teachers, administration, and families. Her primary line of research focuses on racialized and gendered constructions of disability and giftedness, and how students are inequitably sorted into special and gifted education. Her research has received support from the Spencer Foundation, the National Academy of Education, the William T. Grant Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Fish's scholarship is rooted in questions that arose during her time teaching special and gifted education in a rural New Mexico elementary school. Before coming to Smith, she was an associate professor of special education at New York University.

Crystal Fleming, professor of Africana studies, earned her Ph.D. and a master’s degree in sociology from Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude as a double major in French and sociology with honors from Wellesley College. At Wellesley, Fleming was a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and served as editor in chief of Ethos Woman Magazine. At Harvard, she was elected president of the Graduate Student Council for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Fleming has published four books, including the critically acclaimed How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide (Beacon Press, 2018) and Beyond White Mindfulness: Critical Perspectives on Racism, Wellbeing and Liberation (2022 Routledge). Before coming to Smith, she was professor of sociology and Africana studies at SUNY Stony Brook. She is currently completing a book on social justice for Beacon Press and undertaking a qualitative study of Black (queer) life, leisure, and placemaking in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Ingo Helmich, assistant professor of exercise and sport studies, received his M.S. (/Diplom) degree in exercise science from Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, and his Ph.D. from the German Sport University Cologne, Germany. At the German Sport University, Helmich was an assistant professor for motor behavior in sports, studying the effects of sport-related concussions on brain health. He also worked as a substitute professor at the University of Goettingen, in the Department of Training and Movement Science, Institute of Sport Sciences. His scientific work focuses on human movement neuroscience through the combination of neuropsychology, motor cognition, and neuroimaging.

Pepper Yitong Huang, assistant professor of mathematical sciences, received her Ph.D. in mathematics from Dartmouth College and a bachelor’s degree from Franklin and Marshall College. She is an applied mathematician who conducts interdisciplinary research at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, and the life sciences. Her research focuses on developing mathematical models and computational methods to investigate complex dynamics from high-dimensional and time-series data, aiming to track and steer sleep and circadian rhythms under real-world conditions. Her work has been translated into mobile apps, helping travelers and shift workers worldwide combat fatigue and jet lag. Since 2022, she has also developed an interest in computational social sciences. Huang completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University at the NSF-Simons Center for Quantitative Biology. She will begin teaching at Smith in January 2025.

Allegra Hyde, assistant professor of English language and literature, earned an M.F.A. in creative writing at Arizona State University and a B.A. in American studies at Williams College. Hyde specializes in speculative fiction, with additional expertise in multigenre forms. She is the author of the novel Eleutheria (2022) and the short story collections The Last Catastrophe (2023) and Of This New World (2016). Her current literary project is a multigenre reimagining of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. The recipient of numerous writing awards, fellowships, and residencies, Hyde comes to Smith from Oberlin College, where she was an assistant professor of creative writing. She teaches a range of creative writing courses, and is interested in opportunities for pedagogical collaborations with faculty across disciplines.

Malcolm Keating, associate professor of philosophy, received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. Keating’s research focuses on the philosophy of language, especially the boundary between semantics and pragmatics. His work is cross-cultural, making connections between premodern Sanskrit-language philosophers in the Indian subcontinent and modern, analytic, mostly Anglophone philosophers. In the domain of Indian philosophy, he investigates Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā traditions, with particular attention to their theories of meaning and language use. Keating is also interested in how philosophy of language intersects with aesthetics, poetics, and epistemology. He has a particular interest in the philosophy of the seventh-century Indian polymath Kumārila Bhaṭṭa. Prior to joining the faculty at Smith, Keating was an associate professor at Yale-NUS College, Singapore.

Jinwon Kim, assistant professor of sociology, earned a Ph.D. in sociology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York; an M.A. in sociology at Seoul National University, South Korea; and a B.A. in urban sociology at the University of Seoul. Before joining the Smith faculty, she was an assistant professor of sociology at New York City College of Technology, City University of New York. Her research explores themes of urban sociology, race and ethnicity, Asian and Asian American studies, transnational and global sociology, migration, and consumption. She investigates how the global political economy and popular/consumer culture interact with national/ethnic identities, urban changes, and the creative economy in an era of global competition. She is currently working on three book projects: two focus on Asian communities in New York, while the third examines anti-Blackness in the Korean media and entertainment industry. Her first monograph on Koreatown in Manhattan as a transclave will be published by NYU Press in 2025.

Colin MacCormack, assistant professor of classical languages and literatures, received his Ph.D. in classics from the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses broadly on ancient Greek and Latin literature, with a special interest in the intersection of intellectual traditions concerning animals in ancient thought and writing. Covering a range of authors, genres and periods, his work integrates close philological readings of ancient texts with recent scholarship in animal studies, ecocriticism, and posthumanist theory. Alongside his interests in literature and language, much of his teaching and research approaches the ancient Mediterranean through its reception in modern culture and he co-hosts a podcast, Movies We Dig, discussing the reception of classical history, myth, and culture in popular media. Before coming to Smith, MacCormack taught in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics at the University of Alabama.

Richa Nagar, the inaugural Gloria Steinem ’56 Endowed Chair in Women and Gender Studies, received her Ph.D. in geography from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her multilingual and multigenre work in transnational feminism and praxis and poetics of collaboration and co-authorship has evolved across the borders of India, Tanzania, and the United States. This work agitates stabilized ways of knowing and telling through collective creativity to build enduring alliances with people’s struggles for justice. Nagar has published nine books and dozens of essays, articles, plays, as well as poems in English and Hindi. She has worked closely with the Sangtin Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, a movement of farmers and laborers in India’s Sitapur District, and has co-created a multisited community theater project, Parakh, and the online journal, Agitate. Her many awards and honors include the International Studies Association’s Global Development Studies Book Award, the American Association of Geographers’ James Blaut Award for Socialist and Critical Geography, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Prize, and the Russell M. and Elizabeth M. Bennett Chair in Excellence and the Beverly and Richard Fink Professorship in Liberal Arts Before coming to Smith, Nagar taught for 27 years at the University of Minnesota.

Kathleen Pierce, assistant professor of art, received her Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers University. Pierce's research engages histories of art, visual culture, science, and medicine to explore intersections of gender, race, animality, health, and power in the 19th- and 20th-century French empire. She is especially interested in understanding how visual representations shape conceptions of health and disease, and the role of visuality within scientific and medical knowledge production. She is also committed to imagining the role that humanistic inquiry might play in transforming contemporary medical systems, many of which have their roots in the 19th-century histories she studies.

Preston Thakral, assistant professor of psychology, earned his Ph.D. in psychology and neuroscience at Boston College. He is a cognitive neuroscientist who aims to understand how the brain supports episodic memory—memory for unique events from our personal past. His research program aims to identify the brain processes that support successful episodic memory, and understand how those processes play a broader role in supporting other cognitive functions that might also rely on episodic memory. His research program has indicated that episodic memory—and the cognitive and neural processes supporting it—are engaged during tasks that extend beyond simple remembering, such as the imagination of novel future episodes, creative thinking, and open-ended problem-solving. Before coming to Smith, Thakral was the director of the Human Neuroscience Laboratory at Boston College. He completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Texas at Dallas and Harvard University. At Smith, Thakral teaches courses in memory, cognitive neuroscience, and research methods in psychology.

Cheng Xu, assistant professor of government, is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto. His research interests are insurgency, civil war, and mass political violence, with a particular focus on the Southeast Asia region. Using the Philippines as a case study, Xu examines how civilian communities leverage social relations and norms to bargain and assert their interests against armed groups. His teaching interests include qualitative research methods, conflict and security studies, genocide and mass atrocities, as well as Southeast Asian politics. Before coming to Smith, Xu worked as a research fellow and senior policy analyst with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, working to advance Canada’s feminist foreign policy, an effort launched by a working group of peace and human rights organizations. He is also a veteran of the Canadian Army, serving for nearly a decade as an infantry officer and paratrooper.