The cupola of Nassau Hall showing its clock and an American flag

Board approves 21 faculty appointments

The Princeton University Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of 21 faculty members, including three full professors and 18 assistant professors.

Professor

Emily Carter, in mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, specializes in quantum and computational chemistry and materials science.

She rejoins the Princeton faculty this winter from her roles as executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Carter previously taught at Princeton from 2004 to 2019. From 2016-19, she served as the dean of engineering and was the founding director of Princeton's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

She holds a B.S. from the University of California-Berkeley and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

Felix Parra Diaz, in astrophysical sciences, specializes in fusion plasmas. He joins the Princeton faculty this fall from the University of Oxford, where he served on the faculty since 2013, most recently as a professor of physics at the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics. Diaz previously taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an assistant professor.

He earned a Ph.D. and an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S.E. from the Polytechnic University of Madrid.

Gene Andrew Jarrett, in English, specializes in African American literary history. Jarrett, who joined Princeton’s faculty this summer, was appointed dean of the faculty on Aug. 1, 2021. He has an A.B. from Princeton and a Ph.D. and master’s degree from Brown University.

Jarrett comes to Princeton from New York University, where he has taught since 2018. He previously taught at Boston University and the University of Maryland-College Park.

Assistant professor

Christine Allen-Blanchette, in mechanical and aerospace engineering, specializes in deep learning for robotics. They join the Princeton faculty next summer. They hold a Ph.D. and an M.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from San Jose State University.

Maria Apostolaki, in electrical and computer engineering, joins the faculty in fall 2022. A specialist in cybersecurity, she holds a Ph.D. from ETH Zürich and a M.Eng. from the National Technical University of Athens.

Ryne Beeson, in mechanical and aerospace engineering, joins the faculty this fall from CU Aerospace LLC, where he worked as a staff scientist. He specializes in astronautics and earned a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

John Francis Brooks II, in molecular biology, joins the faculty this winter. He studies the influence of the circadian clock on gut microbiota and has a Ph.D. from Northwestern University and a B.S. from the University of Michigan.

Shane Campbell-Stanton, in ecology and evolutionary biology, joined the faculty this summer from the University of California-Los Angeles, where he has been an assistant professor since 2018. Campbell-Stanton, who studies evolutionary biology, has a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.S. from the University of Rochester.

Catherine Clune-Taylor, in gender and sexuality studies, joins the faculty this fall from San Diego State University, where she has been an assistant professor since 2019. Clune-Taylor, who specializes in feminist science studies and bioethics, holds two bachelor’s degrees and a master’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, and a Ph.D. from the University of Alberta.

Ellora Derenoncourt, in economics, joined the Princeton faculty this summer from the University of California-Berkeley, where she has been an assistant professor since 2020. Derenoncourt is a specialist in labor economics. She holds a Ph.D. and B.A. from Harvard University, and a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Tianming Fu, in electrical and computer engineering, joins the faculty next summer. Fu studies bioimaging and holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.S. from Tsinghua University.

John Jimah, in molecular biology, joins the faculty this winter. He studies the structural basis of dynamin-mediated membrane fission. Jimah holds a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.A. from Colgate University.

Casey Kelleher, in mathematics, joined Princeton’s faculty this summer. Kelleher, who studies geometric analysis, has a Ph.D. from the University of California-Irvine and an M.S. and B.S. from California Polytechnic State University.

Lue Pan, in mathematics, joins the faculty this fall. He specializes in algebraic number theory. Pan, who has been an instructor at the University of Chicago since 2018, holds a Ph.D. from Princeton and a B.S. from Peking University.

John Robinson III, in sociology, joined Princeton’s faculty this summer from Washington University in St. Louis, where he has been an assistant professor since 2018. Robinson studies economic sociology. He holds a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, an M.A. from George Mason University and a B.A. from Hampton University.

Kristopher Velasco, in sociology, studies political sociology. He joined the faculty this summer. Velasco has a Ph.D. and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. from the University of Kansas. 

Rhaisa Williams, in theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts, joins the faculty from Washington University in St. Louis, where she has been an assistant professor since 2018. Williams, who joins Princeton’s faculty this fall, specializes in performance studies. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Northwestern University and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Aimy Wissa, in mechanical and aerospace engineering, joins the faculty this winter from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she has been as assistant professor since 2015. Wissa specializes in mechanical science and engineering. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and an M.S. from Pennsylvania State University.

Saien Xie, in electrical and computer engineering, studies electronic materials and devices. He joins Princeton’s faculty this winter. Xie holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. from Cornell University and a B.S. from Tsinghua University.

Huacheng Yu, in computer science, joins the faculty this fall. He specializes in theoretical computer science. Yu holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and a B.Eng. degree from Tsinghua University.

Boyu Zhang, in mathematics, joined the faculty this summer. Currently, Zhang, who studies differential geometry, is an instructor in the mathematics department at Princeton. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and a B.S. from Peking University.