Marcus L. Johnson has joined the Virginia Tech School of Education as a professor of educational psychology and as associate director of the school’s Office of Educational Research and Outreach. For the past 11 years, Dr. Johnson was a member of the School of Education faculty at the University of Cincinnati, where he was recently promoted to full professor.
Dr. Johnson is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, where he majored in human development. He earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
Tracey Conti has been appointed as the new chair of the department of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She has been on the medical school faculty since 2005. Her research interests include health disparities and healthcare delivery to underserved communities, medical education, and women’s health issues.
Dr. Conti is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University in Texas, where she majored in biology. She earned her medical degree at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Anthea Butler, professor of religious studies in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought. Dr. Butler is a historian of American religion and an expert on African American religion, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism. Her research combines the archive-driven historical study of evangelical Christianity with the study of race and religion, gender and religion, and religion, media, and politics. Dr. Butler’s latest book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America (University of North Carolina Press, 2021). She is president-elect of the American Society for Church History.
Professor Butler is a graduate of the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in religious studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Michael Javen Fortner is a new associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. He had taught at the City University of New York. His work focuses on the intersection of American political development and political philosophy — particularly in the areas of race, ethnicity, and class. Dr. Fortner is the author of Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment (Harvard University Press, 2015).
Dr. Fortner received a bachelor’s degree in political science and African American studies from Emory University in Atlanta. He holds a Ph.D. in government and social policy from Harvard University.
