Stephen Best is the new director of the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Best is a professor in the department of English and holds a courtesy appointment in the department of film and media. He is the author of None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life (Duke University Press, 2018).
Professor Best is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He did his graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania.
Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, was named interim co-director of the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni at Georgia State University. She has been serving as the pre-Ph.D. faculty associate for the center. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey is an associate professor and the graduate director in the department of Africana studies. She is the author of Pulse of the People: Rap Music and Black Political Attitudes (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey is a graduate of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where she majored in history and political science. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in political science from Ohio State University.
Desmond Upton Patton has been named the University of Pennsylvania’s 31st Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor. Dr. Patton, a pioneer in the interdisciplinary fusion of social work, communications, and data science, will be the Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor, with joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication along with a secondary appointment in the department of psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine. He was a professor of social work and sociology at Columbia University.
Dr. Patton is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he majored in anthropology and political science. He holds a master of social work degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Chicago.
