Michael Baker
Department of Mathematics
I am an incoming Lecturer in the Mathematics department. My teaching philosophy involves being a coach to my students, where I help them achieve personal growth while making sure that they stay healthy. My research interests lie in the area of pure mathematics, namely representation theory of Lie algebras.
Amber Billingsley
Department of Psychology
I am an incoming assistant professor in the department of psychology. I will serve as the director of the Jesse G. Harris Jr. Psychological Services Center, which is the training clinic for our clinical psychology doctoral students. My interests lie primarily in teaching and supervision, particularly as it pertains to clinical practice.
Jessica R. Bray
Department of Psychology
I classify myself as a social cognitive psychologist who studies intergroup relations at the cognitive level. Through my research I aim to explain how social categories (e.g., race/ethnicity, occupation) impact initial impressions of others, the longevity of those impressions, and how stereotypic impressions feed into prejudices and discrimination.
Ruth Brown
Department of Hispanic Studies
My research explores personal narratives about migration throughout the Spanish-speaking world, with an emphasis on migrant experiences in the US and Mexico. Presently this work centers on developing the Kentucky Hispanic Heritage Project website as a digital space to collect, preserve, and share existing written, visual, and audio sources that document and celebrate the history, culture, achievements, and contemporary experience of people of Hispanic origin living in Kentucky.
James Donovan
Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literature & Cultures
My interests lie in the area of second language acquisition and pedagogy. More specifically, looking into high leverage teaching practices that facilitate learning a second language in a communicative approach. This looks beyond the creation of classroom activities instead looking towards how to build the classroom as a community or encourage students to interpret authentic texts.
Juan Fernandez Cantero
Department of Hispanic Studies
My main scholarly interests center on coloniality and cultural exchanges between Spain and the Americas in the Early Modern period. My research is interdisciplinary and concerns the intersection of Historic Preservation, Cultural Studies, Social Theory, and the History of Education in Spain and Latin America.
Fabiola Fernandez-Doig
Department of Hispanic Studies
I am passionate about various research interests, which include Latinx studies, Latin American studies, sociolinguistics studies, narrative analysis, coloniality of power, and Spanish and Quechua as heritage languages. My current research is centered on the social implications of voicing in personal narratives and I use mixed methods to explore the sense of power and subjectivity in personal stories.
Yoko Horikawa
Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literature & Cultures
I am a Lecturer of Japan Studies, mainly teaching the elementary and intermediate language courses. My current interest is the effective implementation of the flipped classroom method into the language classes and how to modify it to better fit to the students’ needs and their learning styles.
Jaclyn Johnson
Department of Political Science
As a scholar of International Relations, my research focuses on issues of military loyalty. Specifically, my work explores the determinants of military coups and military mutinies. I have collected the first, global dataset of military mutinies which is featured in The Journal of Peace Research. I have ongoing work to understand the causes and consequences of military mutinies.
Bridgett A. King
Department of Political Science
My research examines the relationship between individuals and institutions. More specifically, I investigate the consequences of formal institutional arrangements and administrative decision-making on political participation, voter disenfranchisement, and citizen perceptions and experiences within the electoral system.
Maggie Macdonald
Department of Political Science
I am an incoming Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department. My research interests are in American politics, with a focus on the public and strategic behavior of political elites. Most of my research focuses on congressional campaigns and how they use social media to achieve their political goals.
Laura Manning
Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literature & Cultures
I study active methods of learning and teaching the Latin language, employed by Humanists during the Renaissance and up until the 1800s, and the resurgence of these methods in the past 50 years. I investigate inclusive, democratic, and active teaching practices and how Latin teachers employ these in their work.
Mario Midence Ordonez
Department of Mathematics
I am an incoming lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. At the core of my teaching philosophy is fostering a learning environment that is engaging, fulfilling, and comfortable for students of all backgrounds. Learning is a bilateral process, and thus participation and active engagement is key. I have found that students participate more when they feel seen and heard, and that is what I strive for.
Shahnawaz Rather
Department of Chemistry
My research interests lie at the frontier of exploring light-matter interactions in complex energy-conversion systems in chemistry on femtosecond (10-15 sec) timescales. The overarching aim is to inform the quantum-inspired design of next-generation energy-conversion molecules and materials for a broad range of applications in solar energy conversion, photocatalysis, light-emitting diodes, high-density magnetic data storage, molecular electronics, and quantum information.
Praneel Samanta
Department of Mathematics
I am an incoming Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. Teaching mathematics, especially in ways that would be beneficial to a diverse population of students is what I feel the most passionate about. In my experience, the integration of content and pedagogy in classroom is essential to promote a rich and engaging learning environment.
Ryan Sanders
Department of Physics and Astronomy
I am an observational astronomer interested in the formation and evolution of galaxies across cosmic history. I use imaging and spectroscopy from the most advanced telescopes in the world, including the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), to understand how the first galaxies formed and what physical mechanisms control galaxy growth over time.
Zeya Wang
Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics
My research interests encompass methodological studies for machine learning, statistical computing, graphical models, and Bayesian inference, with a specific focus on biomarker detection in imaging genomics, machine intelligence, and precision medicine. I aim to push the boundaries of applied machine learning and establish a strong connection between genomic studies and medical imaging, employing statistical modeling techniques to enhance biomarker detection.
Cara Worick
Department of Psychology
My research broadly focuses on human motivation as it applies to learning, self-regulation, and optimal development within postsecondary educational settings. An important question I’ve attempted to answer is whether particular motivations are more likely to be associated with positive academic and developmental outcomes for college students.
Jiawei Zhang
Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics
I am an incoming Assistant Professor in the Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics. I have been working on model diagnostics, model improvement, and model selection, which are three important and interconnected aspects of machine learning. For model diagnostics, I have developed a goodness-of-fit assessment tool to check whether a classifier has systematic defects.