August 26, 2002

Eighty-five new professors have been brought on board at the University's Storrs-based programs, filling key research and teaching slots created by retirements or attrition, and ensuring that sufficient classes will be available for the University's nearly 14,000 undergraduate students.

Despite a stumbling state economy and legislative cuts to the University's operating budget, funding also has been reallocated among departments to, among other things, hire seven new academic advisors to decrease the student-advisor ratio, and hire 10 resident assistant professors to teach high-demand courses, often taken by freshmen, keeping class sizes constant.

"During the past seven years, partly as a result of UConn 2000 but more fundamentally due to the strength of our teaching, scholarship and service programs, we have attained extraordinary success in meeting our goals," President Philip E. Austin told the Board of Trustees in August. "Enrollment is up dramatically. The faculty's research attracts worldwide notice and contributes directly or indirectly to Connecticut's economic growth, health care, and quality of life. And UConn's national rankings continue to climb."

Budget reallocations also have enabled the hiring of faculty to bolster the Fuel Cell Research Center, located on the Depot Campus, and the Center for Regenerative Biology, located in the just-completed section of the agricultural biotechnology building, identified as centers of research excellence.

New faculty joining the Storrs-based programs and the Schools of Social Work and Law this fall are:

Jorgelina Abbate, asst. prof., curriculum & instruction; Ph.D., Boston College; specialty: school reform

V. Bede Agocha, asst. prof., psychology; Ph.D., Univ. of Missouri-Columbia; specialty: social psychology

Maria Armendariz, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., New York Univ.; specialty: probability

Sulin Ba, assoc. prof., operations & information management; Ph.D., Univ. of Texas; specialty: information systems

Amyrossios Bagtzoglou, assoc. prof., civil & environmental engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of California; specialty: water resources

Ted Baker, asst. prof., management; Ph.D., Univ. of North Carolina; specialty: entrepreneurship

Sherry Bassi, asst. prof., nursing; Ed.D, Univ. of Sarasota; specialty: community health/addictions

Robert Bifulco, asst. prof., political science; Ph.D., Syracuse Univ.; specialty: education policy, public finance

Jeffrey Brown, adjunct lecturer, art & art history; MA, Yale Univ.; specialty: architecture

Karen Bullock, asst. prof., social work; Ph.D., Boston Univ.; specialty: black experience in social work practice

Fabiana Cardetti, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Louisiana State Univ.; specialty: geometric control theory

John Chandy, asst. prof., electrical & computer engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois; specialty: computer engineering, architecture

Zhiziong Chen, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst; specialty: applied mathematics

Joanne Conover, asst. prof., physiology & neurobiology; Ph.D., Univ. of Bath, U.K.; specialty: Biochemistry

Michael Copenhaver, asst. research prof., psychology; Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic and State Univ.; specialty: clinical psychology

Karen Cornetto, asst. prof., communication sciences; Ph.D., Univ. of Texas; specialty: interpersonal communiation

David Crow, distinguished professor-in-residence, mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of Missouri; specialty: gas turbine engine technology

Devra Dang, asst. clinical prof., pharmacy practice; Pharm.D., Univ. of Maryland; specialty: primary care

Melinda Daniels, asst. prof., geography; Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois; specialty: fluvial geomorphology

Kelly Dennis, asst. prof., art & art history; Ph.D., UCLA; specialty: contemporary art

Dennis Lee, asst. prof.-in-residence, College of Continuing Studies; Ph.D., Bowling Green Univ.; specialty: human resources

James Dixon, asst. prof., psychology; Ph.D., Univ. of Wisconsin; specialty: psychology

William Fodor, assoc. prof., molecular & cell biology; Ph.D., Ohio State Univ.; specialty: molecular biology

Eric Gedajlovic, assoc. prof., management; Ph.D., Concordia Univ.; specialty: strategic management

Erasmo Giambona, instructor, finance; Ph.D., Catania; specialty: finance

Paul Gilson, instructor-in-residence, finance; B.Sc., Bristol Univ., U.K.; specialty: finance

Wendy Glenn, asst. prof., curriculum & instruction; Ph.D., Arizona State Univ.; specialty: English education

David Goldhamer, assoc. prof., molecular & cell biology; Ph.D., Ohio State Univ.; specialty: developmental biology

Jodi Goodman, asst. prof., management; Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology; specialty: organizational behavior & research methods

Lynne Goodstein, assoc. vice provost, and director, Honors Program; professor, sociology; Ph.D., City Univ. of New York; specialty: criminology, women's studies

Janet Greger, vice provost, research & graduate education and dean, Graduate School; professor, nutritional sciences; Ph.D., Cornell Univ.; specialty: human nutrition

Sean Griffith, assoc. prof., law; J.D., Harvard Univ.; specialty: corporate & securities law

Mukul Gupta, asst. prof., operations & information management; ABD, Purdue Univ.; specialty: information security

Randall Hoyt, asst. prof.-in-residence, art & art history; MFA, Yale Univ.; specialty: graphic/interactive design

Xinyu Huang, research asst. prof., mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Virginia Tech.; specialty: fuel cell technology

Sanja Hukovic, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Brown Univ.

Valerie Johnson, asst. prof., communication sciences; Ph.D., UMass-Amherst; specialty: child language disorders

Robert Johnston, assoc director, Conn. Sea Grant Program; asst. prof., agricultural & resource economics; Ph.D., Univ. of Rhode Island; specialty: coastal resource economics

Kyungseon Joo, asst. prof., physics; Ph.D., MIT; specialty: experimental nuclear physics

Seth Kalichman, prof., psychology; Ph.D., Univ. of South Carolina; specialty: clinical-community psychology

Bjorn Kjos-Hanssen, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Univ. of California-Berkeley; specialty: computability theory

Kyle Kneisl, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Univ. of North Carolina; specialty: complex dynamics

Sung Koo, dept. head & prof., nutritional sciences; Ph.D., Clemson Univ.; specialty: nutritional biochemistry

Jeffrey Ladewig, asst. prof., political science; Ph.D., Univ. of Texas; specialty: American politics

Hanho Lee, asst. prof., electrical & computer engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of Minnesota; specialty: computer engineering/VLSI design

Margo Machida, asst. prof., art & art history and Asian American studies; Ph.D., SUNY; specialty: Asian American contemporary art

Nora Madjar-Nanovska, asst. prof., management; ABD, Univ. of Illinois; specialty: organizational behavior

Kerry Marsh, assoc. prof., psychology; Ph.D., Ohio State Univ.; specialty: social psychology

Elizabeth Martinez, asst. prof., educational psychology; Ph.D., Univ. of Virginia; specialty: special education

Monika McDermott, asst. prof., political science; Ph.D., UCLA; specialty: voting behavior

Kevin McLaughlin, instructor-in-residence, finance; ABD, Univ. of Connecticut; specialty: finance, corporate governance

Laurent Michel, asst. prof., computer science & engineering; Ph.D., Brown Univ.; specialty: computer science

Deborah Moncrieff, asst. prof., communication sciences; Ph.D., Univ. of Texas; specialty: pediatric audiology

Michael Morrell, visiting asst. prof., political science; Ph.D., Arizona State Univ.; specialty: political theory

Natalie Munro, asst. prof., anthropology; Ph.D., Univ. of Arizona; specialty: archaeology

Dani Or, professor, civil & environmental engineering; Ph.D., Utah State Univ.; specialty: environmental physics, hydrology

Adrian Pantoja, asst. prof., political science and Puerto Rican studies; Ph.D., Claremont Graduate Univ.; specialty: Latino political behavior

Vanessa Pelizzon, asst. prof., English; Ph.D., Univ. of Missouri

Robert Pomeroy, assoc. prof.-in-residence, agricultural & resource economics; Ph.D., Cornell Univ.; specialty: marine resource economics

Sanguthevar Rajasekaran, UTC Professor, computer science & engineering; Ph.D., Harvard Univ.

Theodore Rasmussen, asst. prof., animal science; Ph.D., Univ. of Wisconsin; specialty: genetics

Ken Reifsnider, professor, mechanical engineering; Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins Univ.; specialty: applied mechanics

Michael Renfro, asst. prof., mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Purdue Univ.; specialty: diagnostics of combustion systems

Nigel Sammes, professor, mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Imperial College, London, U.K.; specialty: materials engineering

Rexford Santerre, professor, finance; Ph.D., Univ. of Connecticut; specialty: economics

Sylvia Schafer, assoc. prof., history; Ph.D., Univ. of California; specialty: modern Europe/France

Freya Schiwy, asst. prof., modern & classical languages; ABD, Duke Univ.; specialty: contemporary Latin America

Juliette Shellman, visiting asst. prof., nursing; Ph.D., Univ. of Connecticut; specialty: community health

Ronald Squibbs, asst. prof., music; Ph.D., Yale Univ.; specialty: music theory

Ranjan Srivastava, asst. prof., chemical engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of Maryland; specialty: biochemical engineering

Janet Stallaert, assoc. prof., operations & information management; Ph.D., UCLA; specialty: information systems

Jiong Tang, asst. prof., mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Penn State Univ.; specialty: vibration

Xiuchun Tian, asst. prof., animal science; Ph.D., Cornell Univ.; specialty: physiology

Kimberli Treadwell, asst. prof., psychology; Ph.D., Temple Univ.; specialty: clinical child psychology

Alexander Vias, asst. prof., geography; Ph.D., Univ. of Arizona; specialty: regional population

Guiling Wang, asst. prof., civil & environmental engineering; Ph.D., MIT; specialty: hydroclimatology

Mei Wei, asst. prof., metallurgy and materials engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of New South Wales; specialty: biomaterials

Sarah Winter, assoc. prof., English; Ph.D., Yale Univ.; specialty: comparative literature

Robert Wyss, asst. prof., journalism; MA, Kansas State Univ.

Fang Yin, asst. prof., operations & information management; Ph.D., Univ. of Texas

Dahae You, postdoctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Purdue Univ.; specialty: probability

Zhenbu Zhang, post-doctoral fellow, mathematics; Ph.D., Tulane Univ.

Peng Zhang, asst. prof., mechanical engineering; Ph.D., Univ. of Illinois

Lei Zhu, asst. prof., chemical engineering/materials science; Ph.D., Univ. of Akron; specialty: polymer science

Mark Zurolo, asst. prof., art & art history; MFA, Yale Univ.

List supplied by the Department of Human Resources.