School Notes: Faculty of Arts & Sciences
September/October 2024

Welcome, new faculty!

Fifty-one new ladder faculty members join the FAS for the 2024–25 academic year, with 36 joining Yale at the assistant professor level. Fifteen faculty arrive with tenure, bringing their experience as accomplished scholars to the FAS. Twenty new members of the instructional faculty are also joining us on full-time, multi-year appointments. 

This cohort of new faculty work in disciplines ranging from classics, linguistics, and music; to molecular biology, physics, and ecology; to economics and data science; and beyond.

Faculty honored for scholarship

Hi’ilei Hobart, assistant professor of ethnicity, race, and migration, was awarded the Samuel ’60 and Ronnie ’72 Heyman Prize to recognize the outstanding scholarship in her new book, Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment, which explores the history and politics of ice and cooling technologies in Hawai‘i. 

Three FAS faculty were awarded the Arthur Greer Memorial Prize, which honors research achievements in the social and natural sciences: Eduardo Dávila, assistant professor of economics, for his research on the impact of financial and macroeconomic policies on individuals; Brandon Ogbunu, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, for his research in computational biology and evolutionary genetics; and Lidya Tarhan, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences, for her groundbreaking research on the sedimentary record and the role of animals as ecosystem engineers.

Dean’s award honors inclusivity efforts

Nine FAS faculty received the FAS Dean’s Award for Inclusion and Belonging in recognition of their efforts to create and sustain an inclusive climate within the FAS. Six recipients were recognized as a group for making Yale more accessible by teaching students the language and culture of the Deaf community: Bellamie Bachleda, Frances Conlin, Andrew Fisher, Zen Mompremier, Leslie Rubin, and Julia Silvestri, all lectors in American Sign Language in the Department of Linguistics.

Three individual faculty were also recognized for their efforts to support belonging in the FAS: Melissa Ferguson, professor of psychology; Shiri Goren, a senior lector II in Near Eastern languages and civilizations and the program in Jewish studies; and Thomas Near, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.