Our heartiest welcome goes to our 2024-25 new faculty! It is our great pleasure to be able to welcome them to our community. We look forward to their contributions and getting to know them. 

William (Will) Andrews (Psychology)

My name is William Andrews, and my specialty is in I/O Psychology with a focus on institutional innovation and leadership processes. I’ve worked with the Faith Development Project for a number of years researching the psychology of religion and mechanisms of deconversion. I’m currently a PhD candidate at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and I hold a master’s in business administration and bachelor’s in supply chain management, anthropology, and English literature.

 

Autumn Averitt (Philosophy)

Autumn Averitt received her B.A. in Philosophy from Baylor University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy (specializing in Metaphysics and Epistemology) at Indiana University, Bloomington.  Her research focuses on the reliability of introspection and its use in phenomenal contrast arguments, which are designed to highlight the relationship between conscious experience and mental content.  Her teaching interests lie in sharing the tools philosophy can offer to everyone, from critical thinking to a reflective engagement with one’s ethical framework.  When not musing over philosophical conundrums, she enjoys cooking, hiking with her cattle dog Chester, and playing board games.

Sue Buckingham (Biology)

Dr. Sue Buckingham grew up in New England and earned her B.A. in English at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio. She worked as a veterinary technician and both a field and a surgical lab technician at the University of Vermont before graduate school. After completing her M.S. in Plant & Soil Science, she did her Ph.D. in Anatomy & Neurobiology, both at the University of Vermont. This was followed by a post-doc in Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, studying the mechanisms of primary brain tumor-induced seizures. When this ended, she decided to take a break from bench research and try out teaching and advising “for a year” at Birmingham-Southern College. Ten years later, she, her husband, and 2 dogs are excited to have new opportunities at Sewanee with the bonus of fantastic birding and miles of running trails.

Jamie Capuzza (Rhetoric/WGS/AMST)

Dr. Jamie Capuzza (she/hers) is a Visiting Full Professor in Rhetoric, Women’s and Gender Studies, and American Studies.  She holds a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.  While at the University of Mount Union, Capuzza served as chair of the Department of Communication and as director of both the Gender Studies program and the university Honors program. She also has taught abroad many times, including in Cuba, India, China, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Spain. She received both the University of Mount Union’s Distinguished Research Award and its Great Teacher Award. Capuzza’s scholarship focuses on rhetoric, communication, and media, exploring questions about power in relationship to genders and sexualities.  In 2023, she published The Fifth Star: Ohio’s Fight for Women’s Right to Vote with Kent State University Press which won the Ohio Academy of History Book Award and was the Gold Winner in Women’s Studies in the Foreward Indies Award. Her previous book, co-edited with Dr. Leland Spencer, Transgender Communication Studies: Histories, Trends, and Trajectories, won three national awards. Her work appears in a variety of journals including Women & Language; Journal of Children and Media; Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Communication Education, and the International Journal of Transgenderism.

Cecilia Cerja (Politics/Women's and Gender Studies)

Professor Cecilia Cerja is from Pinehurst, North Carolina, but has also lived in Georgia and Virginia. She is a proud alum of James Madison University (B.A. in International Relations), the University of Northern Iowa (M.A. in Communication Studies), and the University of Georgia (Ph.D. in Communication Studies). Cecilia is incredibly excited to be donning the purple and gold for the third time (JMU and UNI share Sewanee's colors). Prof. Cerja’s primary research agenda focuses on examining the representations of Black women in the public sphere, political sphere, and media. She has also published research on feminist pedagogy and alt-right diet culture. Prof. Cerja specializes in teaching courses about Black women's politics, social movements, public address, and popular culture. She recently just finished working as Spring Book Distribution Coordinator for her favorite local non-profit Books for Keeps, which focuses on improving literacy in Athens, Georgia. Please ask her about what she is currently reading, what new recipe she tried, or what movie she is about to go see!

Erica Hussey (English)

E.E. Hussey was born in the Philippines, raised in Japan and Italy, and has lived in several US cities. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Johns Hopkins science writing program, and the University of Alabama’s MFA program. She has received support from Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, Tin House, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia G. Piper Center. Her work has been recognized as Notable in Best American Essays. She’s delighted to be teaching at Sewanee this academic year and will also be working on her novels-in-progress. You can read selected work online at eehussey.com.

Samuel (Sam) Johnson (Spanish)

Samuel Johnson is a PhD candidate in the Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic Studies program in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Miami. He has taught Spanish and Portuguese language courses for over decade to second language learners and is currently a faculty member at St. Andrew’s Sewanee School. Beyond second language teaching, his research interests include ecocriticism, climate change, Indigenous peoples, multispecies justice, coloniality, and the intersections of these themes in literature, film, and new media in Latin America. His dissertation, "Amazonian Transmedia: Seeking Epistemic and Ecological Justice in the Anthropocene" traces the role of literary, film, and media production emerging from the transnational, intercultural space of the Amazon that preserves, shares, and uplifts of Indigenous ways of knowing and being while seeking justice for the multispecies communities of the Americas.

Yoonjung Kang (Anthropology)

Yoonjung Kang is a medical anthropologist. She earned a B.A. degree in sociology and French language and literature, as well as an M.A. degree in sociology from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. She further pursued her academic journey and obtained her PhD in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before joining Sewanee, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the James Joo-Jin Kim Center for Korean Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on various aspects of health, care, medicine, childbirth, and reproduction, with a particular emphasis on gender, class, and ethnic/racial dynamics in South Korea and Korean diaspora communities. Currently, she is in the process of completing her first book manuscript, tentatively titled “A Plurality of Care: Women, Childbirth, and Health in Contemporary South Korea.”

Jisoo Kim (EES/Geology)

Jisoo Kim (she/her) is a volcanologist and igneous petrologist who earned her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2024. She uses field observations, petrography, microanalytical methods, and numerical methods to explore pre-eruptive processes in post-caldera volcanic settings and the development of distributed volcanic fields. She received an M.S. in Geological Sciences from ASU in 2020 and a B.A. in Earth Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. Jisoo looks forward to teaching mineralogy and field geology and living in Tennessee for the first time!

 

 

Charlie Kirchen (Music)

Charlie Kirchen is a theorist and maker of music, with roots in Chicago and New York. As a theorist, he will soon be awarded a PhD from Columbia University where, in his dissertation, he developed the concept of generic mobility in the context of the compositional process of the renowned hip-hop producer, Madlib. As a music maker he is active as a composer, improviser, and bassist in the realm of creative music. In this capacity, he leads an NYC-based sextet and a Chicago-based quartet, in addition to participating in a number of collectively led free-improvising units. At Sewanee, he looks forward to teaching courses on popular music and digital production as well as applied bass lessons.

 

Kevin Liu (Math/Computer Science)

Kevin (he/him) received his Ph.D. in Mathematics and M.S. in Statistics at the University of Washington. Prior to graduate school, he completed a B.S. in Secondary Education and Mathematics at Vanderbilt University and then taught high school mathematics at the University School of Nashville. His research interests are in discrete mathematics, including topics in graph theory, optimization, enumeration, and discrete probability. Outside of teaching and mathematics, Kevin enjoys staying active by going to the gym, climbing, running, hiking, and biking, as well as less-active hobbies such as board games, video games, and cooking.

Brian McCray (Earth and Environmental Systems)

Brian McCray is an anthropological archaeologist whose research focuses on social dynamics at ecological interfaces. He is especially interested in how researchers use models to integrate environmental data with human-scale analysis, and how archaeologists can engage a broader public. Brian received his PhD in anthropology from Vanderbilt University, where his dissertation work examined the way communal gatherings articulated Andean and Amazonian interaction between 1000-1500 CE. His research has been published in Boletín de Arqueología PUCP and Rethinking the Andes-Amazonia Divide. In his free time, he enjoys playing basketball and walking the dog.

Patten Priestley Mahler (Economics)

Patten, a native of Sewanee (SAS ‘99), holds a B.S. in physics from Davidson College, an M.A. in economics from Duke University, an M.S. in strategic management from Indiana University, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor at Centre College in Danville, KY, where she received the Kirk Award for Teaching Excellence. She has taught a variety of core and elective courses at all levels and introduced several new courses for majors and non-majors. Her research focuses on education policy, including identifying strategies for retaining effective teachers in high-need schools and addressing the root problems of “childcare deserts.” She also researches methods to enhance her teaching, such as exploring how individuals with diverse identities or values may struggle to relate to basic economic models. Patten involves students in her research, inviting them to give conference presentations and co-author articles. At Centre, she was involved in many service roles, including chairing the College Council, department chair, and leading strategic initiatives. She was active in the Danville community, engaging students in projects through community-based learning courses, serving on local and state boards, facilitating leadership and strategic planning workshops, and securing substantial funding to support early childhood care and education. Her husband, Joe, will teach physics and coach cross-country and track at SAS. They have two young children.

Caroline Minchew (Art)

Caroline Minchew is a lens-based artist and educator. She received her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA from Sewanee. Her work has been exhibited at various galleries, most recently at Candela Gallery (Richmond) and The Anderson (Richmond). She has attended residencies at NARS Foundation, Chashama, Penland School of Arts and Crafts, and Burren College of Art. She has photographic works housed in the permanent collections of the National Museum of American History and the National Gallery of Art Photograph Study Collection in Washington, D.C.

Claire Panetta (International and Global Studies)

Claire Panetta is an urban anthropologist who studies the contemporary MENA region.  Her research explores how urban development and architectural heritage are used to advance sociopolitical projects in Cairo, Egypt.  Her work has been published in the International Journal of Heritage Studies, City & Society, the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, and Teaching and Learning Anthropology.  She is co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (Terreform, 2016) and is currently working on a book that analyzes urban transformations in Cairo after the January 25th Revolution of 2011.  She completed her PhD in anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center, and she holds an MA in anthropology from Columbia University and a BA in anthropology from Haverford College.  She was previously Term Assistant Professor of Urban Studies at Barnard College, where she received the 2023 Emily Gregory Award for excellence in teaching. At Sewanee, Professor Panetta looks forward to offering courses on the MENA region, cities and urban life, and cultural heritage.

Alexandra (Ali) Raeber (Chemistry)

Ali Raeber is theoretical chemist whose research focuses on using computational methods improve the speed and sustainability of designing new molecular catalysts for carbon dioxide reduction. Originally from St. Louis Missouri, Ali earned a BA in chemistry from Bryn Mawr College in 2013. She then completed a PhD in chemistry at the University of Chicago in 2020 before going on to do postdoctoral work at MIT. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting and spending time with her partner and her very chatty orange cat.

Emily Sharp (Anthropology)

Emily Sharp is an anthropological bioarchaeologist whose research addresses issues pertaining to health, identity, and social change within Indigenous communities in the past and present.  She earned her BA from Vanderbilt University and her MA and PhD from Arizona State University. Sharp has conducted extensive archaeological fieldwork in Peru, examining how ancient communities in the highland Andes experienced conflict during a period of state collapse and significant climate change. Some of this research has been published in the Journal of Field Archaeology and American Anthropologist. Recently, Sharp has focused on the ethical stewardship of cultural resources and engagement with descendant communities in the US. She has worked to return Native American ancestors and cultural items to Native Nations in the Southwest. Having grown up in Nashville, she looks forward to living in Tennessee again and getting to know the Sewanee community.

 

Sarah Rimkus (Music)

Sarah Rimkus is an award-winning American composer of choral, vocal and chamber works. Her work often explores issues such as communication, belonging, and relationship to the environment through musical layering and conflict. Her music has been described as  “always powerful and well-judged,” with a language that “ranges from uncluttered lyrical poignancy to denser textures that suggest a holy clamor.” Her choral and vocal works have been commissioned and performed extensively across the United States, the United Kingdom and beyond by ensembles such as The Crossing, Peabody Camerata, and The Gesualdo Six. Her works have been professionally recorded by ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic, featured on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM, and published by GIA Publications, Walton Music, and others. Prior to serving on the faculty at Sewanee, she served as a visiting assistant professor of music at Michigan Technological University. She is excited to be joining the Sewanee community along with her husband, fellow composer Thomas LaVoy, their daughter Marin, and their two cats Worf and Kira.  Areas of expertise: choral & vocal composition, instrumental composition 

 

Brittney (Britt) Threatt (English/African American Studies)

Dr. Brittney Threatt received her Ph.D in Africana Studies at Brown University. She specializes in Black Women’s Intellectual History, Black Literary Theory, and Black Performance. She also received her MA from Brown, and her BA, in English and Theatre, from Rhodes College. Her dissertation, “Monstrous Fugitivity: Reading Slave Legacies in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction,” explores the ways in which speculation, in both science fiction and literary fiction, produces arenas for emancipation amid the monstrous history of slavery. Dr. Threatt is a passionate teacher who advocates for students’ rights to their own languages and encourages them to bring the full spectrum of their experiences to the classroom.

Li-Chun (Richard) Tung (Physics)

Dr. Li-Chun “Richard” Tung earned his Bachelor degree from the National Central University and Master degree from National Hsin Hua University in Taiwan, and then a Ph.D. degree from the University of California-Riverside in US. Dr. Tung, have been doing research at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the University of North Dakota and Texas Tech University, and teaching college physics at the University of North Dakota and Nebraska Wesleyan University. Dr. Tung also have served as a technical staff at Penn State University and as a patent examiner for US Patent and Trademark Office. Dr. Tung has been a hands-on experimentalist in Condensed Matter Physics who is an expert of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy with more than 3000 citations over his 31 publications to date. Dr. Tung became very interested in educational research/programs recently with a vision to develop a teaching program in Virtual Reality environment (VR Teaching) or work with student on building projects (Workshop Physics), reproducing known patents or physical demos.

James (Jim) Whiteside (English and Creative Writing)

Jim Whiteside is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing. He is the author of a chapbook of poems, Writing Your Name on the Glass (Bull City Press, 2019), and was recently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. He is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, as well as residencies from the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His poems have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The American Poetry Review, POETRY, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and Boston Review. Originally from Cookeville, Tennessee, he most recently has lived in Brooklyn, New York. More at www.jimwhitesidepoetry.com

Zekun (Zac) Wu (Finance)

Zac Wu’s research focuses on stock options, insider trading, and corporate finance. He is especially interested in interdiscipline finance research topics and believes that will create meaningful insights for modern finance studies. Before joining Sewanee, he worked as a data scientist for Capital One. He received his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Connecticut. He likes tennis and swimming. He is also a movie fan and wants to have his own feature film one day.