News

The following members of the College of the Holy Cross faculty have been promoted to the rank of associate professor with tenure.

Alo C. Basu, of the psychology department, earned B.S. degrees in brain and cognitive sciences and in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Harvard University. Her research in the field of behavioral neuroscience focuses on genetic and environmental risk factors for neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly effects on the neurobiology of learning and memory. Her recent work has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals including Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, Behavioural Brain Research, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U.S.A. She was named a Faculty Marshal by the Classes of 2014 and 2016, and has received Hewlett-Mellon funding for curriculum development in neuroscience. She has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2011.

Stephenie R. Chaudoir, of the psychology department, earned her B.A. in psychology from Butler University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. Her research examines the disclosure of concealable stigmatized identities, the effect of stigma-related stressors on psychological and physical health and health disparities, and the conceptualization and measurement of stigma. Her work has been published in “The Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health” (Oxford University Press, 2017) and in many peer reviewed publications including Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Self and Identity. Her research has received external funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. In 2014, Chaudoir was awarded the Michele Alexander Early Career Award for Scholarship and Service by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. She has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2012.

Bridget V. Franco, of the Spanish department, earned her B.A. in Spanish and philosophy and her M.A. in Spanish from the University of Notre Dame, followed by her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on Latin American film studies, Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile and Uruguay) memory studies, and engaged pedagogy in the Spanish-language curriculum. Her work has been published in journals including Hispania, Revista Iberoamericana, and Chasqui: Revista de literatura latinoamericana. She is the creator of the award-winning digital humanities project Cineglos and recently launched Cinegogía, a bilingual web portal for pedagogical resources related to Latin American film studies. Franco has been a faculty member at the College since 2009.

Peter Fritz, of the religious studies department, earned his B.A. in fine arts studio and theology at Loyola University Chicago, his M.A. in theology from Boston College, and his Ph.D. in systematic theology from the University of Notre Dame. His fields of interest include modern Catholic and Protestant theologies, theological aesthetics, theology of contemporary art, and discourses critical of capitalism. He is author of the book “Karl Rahner’s Theological Aesthetics” (Catholic University of America Press, 2014) and over a dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2011.

Amber M. Hupp, of the chemistry department, earned her B.A. in chemistry from Kalamazoo College, and her Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Michigan State University. Her research mainly focuses on analyzing biodiesel fuels and biodiesel-diesel blended fuels using gas chromatography and chemometrics. Her work has been published in a variety of places, including the Journal of Chemometrics, the Journal of the American Oil Chemists Society, and Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. She has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2009.

Scott Malia, of the theatre department, earned his B.A. in theatre from Florida State University, his M.A. in theatre education from Emerson College, and his Ph.D. in drama from Tufts University. Malia’s scholarship includes his book “Giorgio Strehler Directs Carlo Goldoni” (Lexington Press, 2013) and articles published in Theatre Journal and New England Theatre Journal. His artistic scholarship includes directing the following productions at Holy Cross: “Cloud 9” (2014), “The London Merchant” (2013), “Hay Fever” (2010), and “The Servant of Two Masters” (2009). He has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2011 and served as a postdoctoral teaching fellow and visiting professor from 2008 to 2011.

Michelle A. Mondoux, of the biology department, earned her A.B. in biological sciences from Smith College, and her Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University. Her research uses Caenorhabditis elegans as a model to understand the effects of a high-glucose diet, and currently focuses on the sex-specific effects of a high-glucose diet on C. elegans lifespan, healthspan, and fertility, and the regulation of the C. elegans insulin-signaling system in response to a high glucose diet. Her work has been published in academic journals including Current Signal Transduction Therapy, Genetics, and AGING. She has given lectures and research talks all over the country and has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2010.

Olga S. Partan, of the modern languages and literatures department, earned her B.A. in dramatic arts from the Moscow Shchukin Theater Institute in Russia, her M.A. in foreign literature from the Harvard University Extension School and her Ph.D. from the Department of Slavic Languages at Brown University. Her fields of interest include Russian and comparative literature, performing arts and language pedagogy. She is the author of two books, “You Were Right, Filumena! Vakhtangov’s Followers Behind the Stage” (PROZAiK, 2012), a Russian-language book on theater and family history; and “Vagabonding Masks: The Italian Commedia dell’arte in the Russian Artistic Imagination” (Academic Studies Press, 2017). Her articles have been published in journals such as the Slavic and East European Journal and the Russian Review. At the College, she is the cofounder and codirector of the study abroad program at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) in Moscow and coordinates the Studies in World Literature program. She has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2012.

Julia Paxson, of the biology department, earned B.A. degrees in biochemistry and in mathematics from Swarthmore College, her Ph.D. in developmental biology at Yale University, and her D.V.M. from the Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. She is board certified in veterinary large animal internal medicine and her research focuses on how aging affects the cellular response to injury by cigarette smoke, using both mammalian stem cells in culture and the nematode worm C. elegans. Her work has been published in journals including Stem Cells and Development, Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Development and PLoS ONE. She has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2012.

Juan G. Ramos, of the Spanish department, earned his B.A. in English and secondary education from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey at Newark and his M.A. and Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has published articles and book chapters on the decolonial aesthetics in Latin American poetry, cinema and music, representations of migration in contemporary Latina/o American cinema, and modernism in the Andes. He is co-editor of “Decolonial Approaches to Latin American Literatures and Cultures” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Recently, he was awarded Hewlett-Mellon funding for a two-day workshop titled “Reflections on History and Decolonial Pedagogies: Interdisciplinary Dialogues.” He has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2011.

Eric R. Ruggieri, of the mathematics and computer science department, earned his in B.A in mathematics/computer science from Providence College, and his Sc.M. and Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University. His research interests include Bayesian and computational statistics, with applications in climate. His work has been published in PRIMUS, the International Journal of Climatology, and Computational Statistics and Data Analysis. He has also built software including an interactive central limit theorem simulator, “CLT_Simulation” (2016), and Bayesian change point algorithms “Bayes_Sequential_Chgpt” (2016) and “Bayes_Chgpt” (2014). He has been a member of the Holy Cross faculty since 2013.