Summer 2026 Faculty Tenure and Promotions Announced

It is with great pleasure that Wesleyan announces the tenure and promotions of 15 faculty members. Additional announcements may be coming later this summer.

The following faculty were conferred tenure effective July 1, 2026, by the Board of Trustees at its most recent meeting:

• Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Associate Professor of Art History
• Martin Baeumel, Associate Professor of German Studies
• Ryuichiro Izumi, Associate Professor of Economics
• Okechukwu Nwafor, Associate Professor of Art History
• Maria-Christina Oliveras, Associate Professor of Theater
• Teresita Padilla-Benavides, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
• Mitali Thakor, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies
• Elizabeth Coggeshall, incoming Associate Professor of Italian

• Cori Ann Anderson, Professor of the Practice in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
• Pedro Bermúdez, Associate Professor of the Practice in Video and Audio Production
• Joseph Fitzpatrick, Professor of the Practice in Letters
• Courtney Fullilove, Professor of History (as of July 1, 2025)
• Maryam Gooyabadi, Associate Professor of the Practice in Quantitative Analysis
• A. Meredith Hughes, Professor of Astronomy
• Nataliya Karageorgos, Associate Professor of the Practice in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
• Chelsie McPhilimy, Associate Professor of the Practice in Dance
• Daniel W. Moller, Professor of the Practice in Design and Engineering
• Jesse Nasta, Associate Professor of the Practice in African American Studies
• George M. Paily, Professor of the Practice in Physics
• Lauren Silber, Professor of the Practice in Academic Writing
• Victoria Smolkin, Professor of History
• Min-Feng Tu, Professor of the Practice in Physics
• Courtney Weiss Smith, Professor of English

Please join us in congratulating these colleagues on their significant accomplishments. Brief descriptions of their areas of research and teaching appear below.

Joseph Salvatore Ackley, Associate Professor of Art History
Professor Ackley is a scholar of the art and architecture of medieval Europe, with a particular focus on gold and precious metalwork, including liturgical objects, jewelry, and coinage. His book manuscript, Medieval Gold: The Radiant Medium, offers the first comprehensive examination of gold, as both a physical substance and a metalworking medium, in the Latin West. He is co-editor, with Shannon L. Wearing, of Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), a 15-essay volume exploring metallic media in manuscript decoration, and he has authored multiple scholarly essays, book chapters, and book and exhibition reviews. Professor Ackley offers courses on early medieval art, Romanesque and Gothic art, Northern Renaissance art, and medieval manuscripts, as well as the introductory survey of ancient and medieval art in the Western tradition.

Cori Ann Anderson, Professor of the Practice in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry  
Professor Anderson’s teaching is centered on fostering enthusiasm and curiosity for science, challenging students to grow beyond their comfort zones, and imparting skills for lifelong learning. At Wesleyan, Professor Anderson offers courses across the MB&B curriculum in introductory biology, molecular biology, medical biochemistry, the molecular basis of cancer, and genetics and genomics. She also co-teaches a Success in STEM seminar designed to support first-year students as they transition to college-level academics. In addition to her teaching, she has been actively involved in faculty governance, serving on several key faculty committees, including the Compensation and Benefits Committee, the Faculty Executive Committee, and as the faculty representative to the Board of Trustees Finance Committee.

Martin Baeumel, Associate Professor of German Studies
Professor Baeumel is a scholar of 17th- through 19th-century literature, aesthetics, and history with a particular focus on German poetry of the early German Enlightenment. In his forthcoming book, Gesellschaft und Gedicht: Die Entwicklung der Lyrik 1700–1750 (Society and Poem: Development of Lyric Poetry ,1700 to 1750), he analyzes the works of three poets: Friedrich Rudolph Ludwig von Canitz (1654–1699), Friedrich von Hagedorn (1708–1754), and Friedrich Ludwig Klopstock (1724–1803), and explores the restructuring of the field of literary production. He offers courses on German language, as well as German literature, fairy tales, and culture.

Pedro Bermúdez, Associate Professor of the Practice in Video and Audio Production
Professor Bermúdez is a highly acclaimed artist whose work explores the intersection of cinema, theater, and immersive media. He received a New England Regional Emmy in 2020 for his film Collision Course, and his virtual production of Adam Rapp’s The Sound Inside was named a New York Times Critics’ Pick in 2021. Through his production company, Revisionist, he collaborates with various artists and cultural institutions, including recently completing a series of video installations for the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art’s Styling Identities exhibit. Professor Bermúdez offers courses on documentary filmmaking, virtual production, 3D design, and motion capture.

Elizabeth Coggeshall, Associate Professor of Italian
Professor Coggeshall is a scholar of the literature and culture of medieval Italy, with a particular focus on Dante. Her book, On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2023), which explores the differing ways the concept of friendship evolves across the works of Dante Alighieri, won the Southeastern Medieval Association’s Best First Book Award. In addition to numerous publications, she is editor of Dante Today, a digital archive that collects and categorizes references to Dante’s works across contemporary global cultures. When she arrives at Wesleyan in the fall of 2027, Professor Coggeshall will teach courses on Italian language; Italian literature, culture, and civilization in the Trecento; and Dante’s transmedia reception.

Joseph Fitzpatrick, Professor of the Practice in Letters
Professor Fitzpatrick’s teaching focuses on the close reading and careful analysis of primary texts, primarily in the fields of literature, literary theory, translation studies, linguistics, and the philosophy of language. His upper-level seminars include What is (a) Language?, Theories of Translation, and Utter Nonsense: Modernist Experiments with Meaning. He has also taught various first-year seminars and COL colloquia and co-taught courses on ancient and modern allegory and on the semiotics and psychology of masculinity.

Courtney Fullilove, Professor of History
Professor Fullilove is a historian whose scholarship focuses on agricultural history, global environmental history, and the history of science and technology. In her book, The Profit of the Earth: The Global Seeds of American Agriculture (University of Chicago Press, 2017), she explores the collection, circulation, and preservation of seeds to argue that American agriculture’s global dominance was built on a foundation of exchange rather than isolated innovation, and that understanding this history is crucial for shaping a more sustainable and equitable future. She pursues paths to such futures in recent writings on biodiversity, plant genetics, and post-industrial environments. Her courses include Food Security: History of an Idea, Cold War Environmental History, The Long 19th Century in the U.S., and History of the End.

Maryam Gooyabadi, Associate Professor of the Practice in Quantitative
Analysis Professor Gooyabadi is a methodologist and social scientist whose training spans computer science, psychology, philosophy, political science, economics, and mathematical behavioral sciences. Drawing on computational methods in data science and complex systems, her work bridges digital humanities and qualitative traditions with quantitative modeling to examine technological innovation, religious belief systems, political extremism, gender dynamics, and cultural change across time. She directs the RAD Lab at Wesleyan University, collaborates with historians, religion scholars, and political scientists, and teaches courses in applied data analysis, statistical foundation of data science, time series analysis, Bayesian inference, and AI ethics.

A. Meredith Hughes, Professor of Astronomy Professor
Hughes is a radio astronomer whose research focuses on planet formation. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), she investigates circumstellar disks around young stars—collections of dust and gas that form planetesimals and eventually planets. Her research has provided fundamental insights into the structure and evolution of planet-forming disks, as well as the surprising persistence of gas in debris disks and its role in planet formation. Professor Hughes, who received the Binswanger Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2023, teaches Introductory Astrophysics, Exploring the Cosmos, Radio Astronomy, Observational Astronomy, Astronomical Pedagogy, and Planetary Science.

Ryuichiro Izumi, Associate Professor of Economics
Professor Izumi is a financial economist whose research examines the stability of financial systems and banks. He studies how future banking crises might be prevented or mitigated through the design of financial systems. His recent work explores the future of money and banking in the digital age. Professor Izumi’s published papers have appeared in The Journal of Economic Theory, The Review of Finance, The Review of Economic Dynamics, and The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking. At Wesleyan, he regularly teaches the core macroeconomics course, electives such as Investment Finance and Banking and Financial Fragility, and a newly created research lab in financial economics.

Nataliya Karageorgos, Associate Professor of the Practice in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Professor Karageorgos is a scholar of comparative literature with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century Russophone literature and the ethnic minorities of Ukraine and Siberia. At Wesleyan, Professor Karageorgos teaches the Russian language sequence that anchors the major and minor in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She also teaches upper-level courses on Russian and Russophone literature and culture. Her pedagogical interests include community-based language learning.

Chelsie McPhilimy, Associate Professor of the Practice in Dance
Professor McPhilimy is a lighting and media designer for the stage. She received the prestigious Wilde Award for Best Lighting Design for her work on Spring Awakening at the Flint Repertory Theatre in 2024 and has served as a master artist and lighting designer for multiple works, including Too Hot to Handel (Detroit Opera, 2024), Deathtrap (Constellation Stage & Screen, 2023), and the national and international tour of Cartography (2018–2021). At Wesleyan, Professor McPhilimy serves as the Dance Department lighting and media designer and teaches courses on theatrical lighting, sound, projection, stage management, costumes, and stagecraft.

Daniel W. Moller, Professor of the Practice in Design and Engineering
Professor Moller has been instrumental in the establishment of the IDEAS Lab makerspace at Wesleyan, as well as the creation of a design and engineering curriculum tailored to Wesleyan’s liberal arts ethos. He has developed introductory engineering courses with a hands-on, learning-by-doing approach that often involves a personalized experience for each student. Professor Moller offers courses on mechanical design and engineering; electrical design and engineering; and sensors, measurement, and data analysis; as well as project labs and independent tutorials.

Jesse Nasta, Associate Professor of the Practice in African American Studies
Professor Nasta is a cultural, public, and community historian whose work focuses on the history of slavery, emancipation, and their aftermaths—with a particular focus on New England. At Wesleyan, he directs the High School Humanities Program and teaches courses on carcerality, LGBTQ+ history, and African American history in Middletown, Connecticut. Professor Nasta also serves as executive director of the Middlesex County Historical Society in Middletown.

Okechukwu Nwafor, Associate Professor of Art History
Professor Nwafor is an art historian who specializes in African art and visual culture. His recent book, Exit of a Hero: Photography and the Visual Culture of Commemoration in Southern Nigeria (University of Michigan Press, 2026), explores how commemorative practices reconstituted the Southern Nigerian public sphere from the 1880s to the present to align with citizens’ aspirations for visibility and heroic accomplishments. He is also the author of Aso Ebi: Dress, Fashion, Visual Culture and Urban Cosmopolitanism in West Africa (University of Michigan Press, 2021), which received an Honorable Mention in the 2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, as well as the author of 13 scholarly articles and three reviews. Professor Nwafor teaches the history of African art and material culture, contemporary African art, and the history of African photography.

Maria-Christina Oliveras, Associate Professor of Theater
Professor Oliveras is an actor who has performed extensively on and off Broadway, regionally, internationally, and in film and television, with a particular focus on new work and re-exploring the classics through a contemporary lens. She is currently on Broadway in the Tony-nominated world premiere of The Balusters, for which she received a Drama Desk nomination, and will be seen in the upcoming feature film, Vivien and the Florist. Other recent productions include Between Riverside and Crazy (Broadway, 2023), Cymbeline (Off-Broadway, 2024–25), Hadestown (National Tour, 2022–23), A Woman Among Women (Off-Broadway, 2024), and Kiss My Aztec! by John Leguizamo (Regional, 2019, 2022). Professor Oliveras teaches courses on acting and musical theater and was an Embodying Anti-Racism Fellow.

Teresita Padilla-Benavides, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Professor Padilla-Benavides is a metalloprotein molecular and cell biologist who examines how transition metals, such as copper and zinc, regulate cell fate and differentiation by modulating gene expression in mammals. Funded by a prestigious National Institutes of Health R01 Research Project grant, her research investigates the molecular and cellular roles transition metals play in muscle development and repair as well as in cancer biology. At Wesleyan, Professor Padilla-Benavides teaches courses on molecular biology; metals, metalloenzymes and disease; and cellular mechanisms of gene regulation and gene editing tools.

George M. Paily, Professor of the Practice in Physics
Professor Paily is responsible for developing and maintaining the general physics curriculum for pre-major and pre-engineering students and for training and managing the graduate teaching assistants and undergraduate course assistants who support these courses and laboratories. The courses he teaches include the full introductory physics sequence of General Physics I and II and General Physics Laboratories I and II, as well as upper-level courses such as Introduction to Tensors and General Relativity, Quantum Physics, Classical Dynamics, and Electronics Lab.

Lauren Silber, Professor of the Practice in Academic Writing
Professor Silber supports faculty and student writing as assistant director of academic writing and manager of the Writers Room. She has developed several programs to ensure that students receive the support they need, including Wesleyan’s First-Things-First mentor program pairing first-generation/low-income students with first-generation/low-income writing mentors for a semester, and a collaboration with the Center for Prison Education where campus writing tutors support CPE students. Her courses include Writing in the Age of GenAI; Why You Can’t Write; Writing Theory and Practice; A Nation of Immigrants?; Post-Cold War Narratives; and All the Feels. She recently started the “Writers Room Lab” with undergraduate students from the Writers Room. Their current research examines how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI tools are reshaping academic writing practices, ethics of decision-making, and institutional policy and curricular design.

Victoria Smolkin, Professor of History
Professor Smolkin is a historian of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe whose scholarship examines atheism, religion, and ideology, as well as the politics of memory and commemoration. Her work has reshaped scholarly understanding of Soviet secularism while also contributing to the histories of death and cosmic utopianism. In addition to academic publications, her writing has appeared in Politico Magazine, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books blog, and she frequently shares her research with public audiences through lectures and media engagement. Professor Smolkin is currently co-curating an exhibition on Soviet Jewish emigration for the Jewish Museum of Maryland. A recipient of Wesleyan’s Binswanger Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2022, she teaches courses on Russian, Soviet, and Ukrainian history, historical theory and methodology, and the global communist experience.

Courtney Weiss Smith, Professor of English
Professor Weiss Smith is a scholar working at the intersection of poetics and intellectual history, with expertise in late 17th- and 18th-century British literature. She has published numerous essays and served as co-editor of the 11th edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature. She is also associate editor for the journal History & Theory. Her monograph, Sound Stuff: Words in Enlightenment Philosophy and Poetics, explores a historical understanding of words as sensory things that were made by, and acted on, human bodies; it is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2027. She offers courses that range from introductory to advanced research courses on British literature and on poetics.

Mitali Thakor, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Professor Thakor is an anthropologist and scholar of science and technology studies who works at the interstices of technology, sexuality, and labor. Her first book, Facing the Child: Surveillance, Care, and the Policing of Violent Images (MIT Press, 2026), examines the rise of technocratic expertise in the policing of child sexual abuse images, expanding surveillance apparatuses in the name of child protection and rescue. She also has a book in progress that analyzes the phenomena of robotic and animate companions in eldercare, childcare, and intimate spaces. Professor Thakor teaches courses on the anthropology of science, the cultural history of AI and algorithms, feminist science studies and care ethics, and queer and critical race studies of robotics in speculative fiction. She is the co-director of Black Box Labs, an interdisciplinary undergraduate research lab of science studies and social justice.

Min-Feng Tu, Professor of the Practice in Physics
Professor Tu is responsible for developing and maintaining the introductory physics curriculum for life-science and health-care preprofessional students, and for training and managing the graduate teaching assistants and undergraduate course assistants who support these courses and laboratories. Professor Tu offers the full introductory physics sequence, Introductory Physics I and II and Introductory Physics Laboratories I and II, as well as upper-level courses such as Classical Dynamic, Quantum Mechanics, and group tutorials on advanced topics.