As the 2014 fall quarter commences, OMA&D is pleased to recognize the latest group of faculty engaged in diversity-related research, teaching or service who are recently tenured or new to the UW.
Recently Tenured Faculty:
Susan Harewood is an associate professor in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell. Her research focuses on the intersections of media, popular music and power, especially on the roles that Caribbean media play in facilitating and impeding community formation. Harewood was a member of the Simpson Center for the Humanities Society of Scholars in 2013-14. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, her M.A. in mass communication from Howard University and a B.A. in history and English from the University of the West Indies.
Suhanthie Motha, an associate professor in the English Department, has been at the UW since 2008. Her work explores the ways in which the processes of English language teaching produce notions of race and empire, and the material and political consequences of these processes in shaping social hierarchies and economic opportunities. She is the author of “Race, Empire, and English Language Teaching: Creating Responsible and Ethnical Anti-Racist Practice” (Teachers College Press, 2014) and has published in numerous journals and collected volumes. Motha received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland after receiving her B.A. from University of Toronto.
Hedy Lee is an associate professor of sociology and has been at the UW since 2009. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Center for Research on Demography and Ecology and the Center for Statistics and Social Sciences. Before coming to the UW, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar and a Population Students Center Postdoctoral Affiliate at the University of Michigan. Lee’s research interests focus on population health and health disparities, race and ethnicity, poverty, demography and social stratification. She has published and worked with scholars across a wide range of fields including sociology, demography, psychology, political science, public health and medicine. She received her B.S. in policy analysis from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
New Faculty:
Megan Francis joins the Department of Political Science as an assistant professor. Prior to coming to the UW she was a faculty member at Pepperdine University for four years. Her research centers on American politics, race, constitutional law and history, with a special interest in the construction of rights and citizenship, black political activism and the politics of capitalism. Francis authored the book “Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State,” and is currently working on a second project that examines the role of the criminal justice system in the rebuilding of southern political and economic power after the Civil War. She received her Ph.D. in politics from Princeton.
Stephanie Fryberg, a member of the Tulalip Tribes, accepted a joint appointment as associate professor in American Indian Studies and Psychology. Fryberg previously served as an associate professor of psychology and affiliate faculty member in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona, and as the director of Cultural Competency, Learning Improvement and Tulalip Community Development for the Marysville School District in Marysville, Wash. Her primary research interests focus on how social representation of race, culture and social class influence the development of self, psychological well-being, and educational attainment. In 2011, Fryberg testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on the topic of “Stole Identities: The impact of racist stereotypes on Indigenous people.” She received her masters and doctorate degrees in social psychology from Stanford University, where in 2011 she was inducted into its Multicultural Hall of Fame.
Danica Miller joins the UW Tacoma Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences as an assistant professor of Indigenous Studies. She previously served as an instructor-in-residence at the University of Connecticut and was a teaching fellow at Fordham University. Miller’s research analyzes how various works by Native American writers engage in the ways in which federal laws attempt to limit Native American tribal sovereignty. After receiving a B.A. in English literature from Western Washington University, she went on to receive three more English degrees from Fordham University including a Ph.D. in 2013. Miller is a member of the Puyallup nation and grew up on the Puyallup reservation.
Michelle Montgomery joins the UW Tacoma School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, American Indian Studies, as an assistant professor. She previously worked as the Native American Educator for the UW Tacoma Office of Equity and Diversity. Her research focuses on critical race theory, responsive justice, Indigenous cultural autonomy, identity politics, and bioethics related to sociocultural and environmental health disparities within American Indian/Alaska Native/First Nations communities. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, a master’s degree in plant pathology from North Carolina State University, a master of arts in bioethics from the UW and a Ph.D. in language, literacy and sociological studies from the University of New Mexico.
Chris Teuton, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, joins the UW as a professor and chair of the Department of American Indian Studies. Prior to coming to Seattle, he taught Indigenous textural and cultural studies and Indigenous literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the University of Denver and Appalachian State University. Teuton’s research focuses on developing Indigenous research methodologies within the study of Indigenous literature. He has lectured nationally and internationally, and served as a consultant with the Cherokee Nation to create their K-12 educational curriculum. Teuton has authored several books including “Reasoning Together: the Native Critics Collective,” which was voted one of the 10 most influential books of the first 10 years of the 21st century in Native American and Indigenous Studies by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
Megan Ybarra, joins the Department of Geography as an assistant professor. Prior to coming to the UW, she was an assistant professor of politics and a contributing faculty member in Latin American studies and American Ethnic studies programs at Willamette University. Ybarra’s research interests include conservation politics and drug wars in Latin America, as well as transnational migrations and unrecognized refugees. She has published white papers in Guatemala and testified in U.S. immigration courts. Ybarra completed her B.A. in Latin American studies at New York University and a Ph.D. in society & environment in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management at UC Berkeley.