Two dozen scholars join the faculty

More than two dozen new faculty members joined the university’s community of scholars at the start of the 2013-14 academic year. The new professors were officially introduced to the campus community at a reception sponsored by the Faculty and Staff of Color Network (FSCN) in early September in the Lehigh University Art Galleries in the Zoellner Arts Center.

“The faculty joining Lehigh are an exciting and diverse group of teachers and scholars,” said Provost Pat Farrell. “They come from all over the world and bring to Lehigh new knowledge and perspectives that will add to the vitality of the campus. We welcome these new colleagues with enthusiasm and look forward to their lasting contributions to their students and to Lehigh.”
Accompanied by music provided by harpist Victoria Liu ’17, new and established faculty and staff mingled against a backdrop of paintings and sculpture from the university’s special collections. In brief remarks, President Alice Gast and Jennifer Swann, professor of biological sciences and head of the Faculty and Staff of Color Network, encouraged the new professors to become engaged members of their new university community.
The new faculty members and their research interests are listed below. For full biographies, please click here.
Angela C. Brown, assistant professor of chemical engineering, studies pathogen-host interactions with the goal of developing alternative approaches to treating infectious disease.
Serge P. da Motta Veiga, assistant professor of management, has research interests ranging from job search, recruitment and emotions to motivation and humor at work.
Boris Defourny, assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering, conducts research into stochastic optimization, robust optimization, machine learning, modeling and approximation, energy systems analysis, electricity markets and operations planning.
Bridget V. Dever, assistant professor of education and human services, studies student behavioral and emotional risk, motivation among at-risk students, and educational measurement and assessment.
Panayiotis (Panos) Diplas, department chair and professor of civil and environmental engineering, studies environmental, fluvial and infrastructure hydraulics.
Craig Hochbein, assistant professor of education and human services, conducts research into the process of longitudinal school change and policies intended to improve school performance.
Heather M. Jaeger, assistant professor of chemistry, has research interests that include nonadiabatic dynamics, electronic decoherence and relaxation, intermolecular interactions, and charge-transfer mechanisms for solar energy conversion.
Justin W. Jaworski, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, conducts research into natural and aerospace phenomena that involve coupled fluid-structure interactions, ranging from the performance and stability of compliant wings to the silent flight of owls.
Susan Elizabeth Kart, assistant professor of art, architecture and design and also of Africana studies, studies African art history, found object art in post-colonial Senegal and the work of Moustapha Dimé.
Martin Kavka, associate professor of religion studies and director of the Berman Center for Jewish Studies, studies the philosophy of religion and modern Jewish philosophy.
Taewan Kim, assistant professor of marketing, conducts research in the empirical models of firm strategy, innovation, new product development, and dynamic models of competitive marketing strategy.
Brandon A. Krick, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, has research interests that lie at the intersection of mechanical engineering, materials science, and surface physics, including the fundamental origins of friction, wear, materials deformation and adhesion on complex surfaces that range from cells to nanocomposites in environments.
Tamara A. Lambert, assistant professor of accounting, studies judgment and decision making in auditing and accounting, audit review process, regulation, auditor-client negotiations, dysfunctional audit behaviors, financial reporting fraud, and the integrated audit.
Gregory Ian Lang, assistant professor of biological sciences, studies the molecular basis and general principles of evolution, such as the nature of beneficial and deleterious mutations and how parameters such as mutation rate, the distribution of mutational effects on fitness, and epistasis set the rate of adaptation.
Jayeon “Janey” Lee, assistant professor of journalism and communication, conducts research into social media, journalism, visual communication, political communication and persuasion.
Ju-Yeon Lee, assistant professor of marketing, has research interests that include the role of organizational design elements, especially organizational structure, to achieve marketing and financial outcomes.
Monica R. Miller, assistant professor of religion studies and also of Africana studies religion in culture, youth cultures and new black religious movements.
Keith W. Moored III, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, conducts research into fluid-structure interaction, biological flying and swimming, bio-inspired engineering, unsteady fluid mechanics, fluid instability, multiple-body fluid interactions, morphing structures, cell motility and cellular mechanics.
Irina B. Panovska, assistant professor of economics, studies empirical macroeconomics and time series econometrics.
Joshua Pepper, assistant professor of physics, has research interests that focus on the search for and characterization of planets outside the solar system.
 
Spencer E. Quiel, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, conducts research into structural resistance to fire, blast, and progressive collapse.
Kelly M. Schultz, assistant professor of chemical engineering, studies the characterization of biocompatible, synthetic hydrogelators using multiple particle tracking microrheology.
Charles E. Stevens, assistant professor of management, focuses his research on understanding how political and cultural environments affect the strategy and performance of multinational enterprises.
Tara J. Troy, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, seeks to gain a better understanding of the relationships among climate, water resources, and agriculture, and the relationship between climate and large-scale flooding.
Natasha Vermaak, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics, conducts research related to the thermomechanical and failure analysis on microstructural and structural scales.
Darius Omar Williams, assistant professor of theatre and also of Africana studies, studies indigenous African ritual performance traditions, black southern queer culture and the intersection of Yoruba and Mississippi Delta Blues traditions.
Maria Barbara Zepeda Cortes, assistant professor of history, studies politics in Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and the early modern Atlantic world, with a particular emphasis on political culture, corruption, state reform, political social networks, nationalism and identity formation and U.S.-Caribbean relations.