Fall 2020 New Faculty

New Assistant Professor of Pharmacology Rick Sando is interested in how neural circuits carry out specific functions when activated—and why these processes sometimes go awry. Read More

New Professor of Law Brian Broughman studies the legal and financial dynamics of startup firms, from their inception through their acquisition or initial public offering. Read More

Senior Lecturer in Physics and Astronomy Savanna Starko originally intended to become a high school math teacher. But when a battle with thyroid cancer disrupted her first year of college, a professor helped her see how physics might be a better fit. Read More

New Vanderbilt Peabody College Associate Professor Felipe Barrera-Osorio has dedicated his research to understanding how education policies can increase human capital—the knowledge, skills and other intangible assets that add value to an organization. Read More

Maizie Zhou, a new assistant professor of biomedical engineering, blends bioinformatics, computational genomics, neuroscience and machine-learning techniques to understand how the brain enables us to behave intelligently and how specific genomic mutations can alter that process. Read More

Julie Barroso, a new professor at the School of Nursing, has made the care of people living with HIV the focus of her research career. Read More

New Peabody College assistant professor Kelly Slay's experiences as a college readiness coach for Chicago public high school students serve as the foundation for her scholarship focused on issues of race, access, diversity and equity in higher education. Read More

Raheleh Filsoofi, a new assistant professor in the Department of Art, draws on her childhood in Iran and the U.S. immigration experience as themes in her work. Read More

Michael Eric Dyson, a globally renowned scholar of race, religion and contemporary culture, will join Vanderbilt as Centennial Chair and University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Science and University Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Divinity School on Jan. 1, 2021. Read More

Shatema Threadcraft, whose scholarship focuses on the intersection of race and gender, will join the departments of Gender and Sexuality and Political Science in the College of Arts and Science as associate professor in January 2021. Read More

Major Jackson, an accomplished poet and essayist, will join the Vanderbilt faculty as Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English in January 2021 after 18 years in the Department of English at the University of Vermont. Read More