Nadya Mason was named vice president for research at the University of Chicago, where she has been serving as dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. Dr. Mason, the Robert J. Zimmer Professor of Molecular Engineering, was appointed to her deanship in 2023. Before joining the university’s faculty, she was the Rosalyn Sussman Yalow Professor of Physics, director of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and founding director of the Illinois Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Mason received her bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in California.
Leonard E. Egede, who holds the Charles and Mary Bauer Endowed Chair of Medicine in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, has been named a SUNY Distinguished Professor — the highest rank in the SUNY System. His research spans across five key domains: reducing health disparities; examining structural racism, social determinants of health, and social risk; advancing telehealth and telemedicine; applying behavioral economics to chronic disease; and addressing non-communicable diseases globally, including in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and the Middle East.
Dr. Egede earned his medical degree at the University of Benin in Africa. He later earned a master’s degree in clinical research from the Medical University of South Carolina.
Fayron Epps is the new associate dean for the School of Nursing in the Byrdine F. Lewis College of Nursing and Health Professions at Georgia State University. Her appointment marks a return to the university, where she previously served on the nursing faculty from 2016 to 2019. More recently, Dr. Epps was the Endowed Chair of the Center for Caregiving at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her work centers on dementia care, caregiving support, and health equity.
Dr. Epps earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Tuskegee University in Alabama. She holds a master’s degree in nursing and health care systems from Loyola University New Orleans and a Ph.D. in nursing from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Joshua Adewole Kerobo has joined the University of Cincinnati faculty as an assistant professor of musicology and ethnomusicology in the College-Conservatory of Music. His research in ethnomusicology focuses on African popular music and youth political engagement in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. Dr. Kerobo also studies Black music development in Cincinnati, music and Black/African religious subjectivities, and sonic affect and discursive citizenship in national sporting events.
Dr. Kerobo received two bachelor’s degrees in international studies and music from American University in Washington, D.C. He holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan.
