New Faculty Assignments at Colleges and Universities for Five Black Scholars

Michael Carbin, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was granted tenure. He investigates the design, semantics, and implementation of language-driven systems. Dr. Carbin joined the MIT faculty in 2016.

Dr. Carbin is a graduate of Stanford University. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Judith Casselberry has been named to the Geoffrey Canada Chair in Africana Studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.  A scholar in African American religious and cultural studies, with particular attention to gender, Dr. Casselberry came to Bowdoin College in 2009 from Princeton University, where she was an inaugural postdoctoral fellow at the Center for African American Studies. Dr. Cassleberry is the author of The Labor of Faith: Gender and Power in Black Apostolic Pentecostalism (Duke University Press, 2017).

Professor Casselberry earned her bachelor’s degree in music production and engineering from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and a Ph.D. in African American studies and anthropology from Yale University.

Yvonne Chireau was named the Peggy Chan Professor of Black Studies at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Dr. Chireau is the author of Black Magic: African American Religion and the Conjuring Tradition (University of California Press, 2003).

Professor Chireau is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She earned a master’s degree at Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Tesfaye Mengiste was named head of the department of botany and plant pathology at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. His research focuses on molecular mechanisms of plant resistance to important fungal pathogens which reduce crop productivity.

Dr. Mengiste holds a bachelor’s degree in plant sciences from Haramaya University in Ethiopia, a master’s degree in plant biotechnology from the University of London, and a Ph.D. in plant molecular biology from the University of Basel in Switzerland.

Rae Shaw is a new assistant professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University. Shaw is an interdisciplinary media artist and educator creating innovative and provocative narratives across multiple disciplines of visual media, fiction/non-fiction, performance, and poetry.

Shaw earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and language from the University of Chicago. She holds a master of fine arts degree in motion picture production and writing from the University of Miami.

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