Holy Cross Announces New Tenure-Track Faculty Hires for 2008-09 Academic Year

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Office of the Dean at the College of the Holy Cross announces the hiring of 10 new faculty members in tenure-track positions for the 2008-09 academic year. They are:

Chris Arrell (assistant professor, music), comes to Holy Cross from Clayton University in Atlanta, Ga., where he was an associate professor of music and director of theory and composition. He earned his B.M. at the University of Oregon, his M.M. from the University of Texas, and his D.M.A. from Cornell University. His teaching interests include French spectral music (the subject of his dissertation), as well as music history, theory, composition, and technology.  A graduate teaching fellow at Cornell University and the University of Texas, Arrell’s accomplishments include awards from the International Society for Contemporary Music and the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Prize Committee, commissions from the Fromm Foundation of Harvard University and Music at the Anthology (New York), and a Fulbright-Hays grant to Argentina and Chile.

Renée Lynn Beard (assistant professor, sociology and anthropology) received her B.A. in sociology from Boston College and her Ph.D. in medical sociology from the University of California, San Francisco. Before coming to Holy Cross, she was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago and taught at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, and the College of Marin. Beard’s research interests include the sociology of health and aging, illness narratives, and social policy. An expert in Alzheimer’s disease, her empirical work has been published in numerous journals including Social Science & Medicine, Sociology of Health & Illness, Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry, and the Journal of Aging Studies.

Louis A. Beaubien (James N. and Eva Barrett Fellow in Ethics and the Liberal Arts, instructor, economics), earned his B.Sc. and B.A. from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, his M.B.A. from Sobey School of Business at St. Mary’s University in Halifax Nova Scotia, and will complete his Ph.D. from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in August, 2008. A Certified Management Accountant (CMA), Beaubien previously taught at Providence College, University of Western Ontario and at universities in France and Switzerland. Prior to teaching, he worked as a business process technology integration consultant for Realityclick and worked in corporate banking at the Bank of Nova Scotia.

Caner Dagli (assistant professor, religious studies) received his B.A. from Cornell University in Near Eastern studies, his M.A. from George Washington University in religion with a specialization in Islam, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in Near Eastern studies. An assistant professor at Roanoke College in Virginia since 2005, he took a sabbatical from June 2006-07 to be an interfaith affairs consultant at the Royal Hashemite Court of Jordan. While in Jordan, he provided consultative support to HM King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and his special advisor HRH Ghazi bin Muhammad and performed tasks related to interfaith and Islamic affairs for Jordan’s vision of interfaith understanding and cooperation. Recipient of a Fulbright Grant to study in Turkey and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities, his publications include The Ringstones of Wisdom (Kazi Publications/ABC International Group, 2004) and a forthcoming book titled The Study of Qur’an.

Bryan Engelhardt (assistant professor, economics), earned his B.A. from Oberlin College and his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. Before coming to Holy Cross, he taught at the University of Iowa and Cornell College. His research interests include labor economics, macroeconomics and the economics of crime.  Recent research includes a study on how long it takes released inmates to find a job, and when they find a job, how their incarceration rate changes; and a study on the effects of various labor market and crime policies.

Raphael Falk Jones (assistant professor, mathematics and computer science) received his B.A. from Amherst College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics from Brown University. Before coming to Holy Cross, Jones was the Vigre Van Vleck Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin and a teaching fellow at Brown University. While at Brown, he received the Mathematics Department Outstanding Teaching Award and was awarded the Allendoerfer Prize for mathematical exposition by the Mathematical Association of America. He was recently selected as a Fellow for Project NExT, a nationally renowned professional development program in the mathematical sciences.

Brian R. Linton (assistant professor, chemistry), earned his B.A. from Allegheny College and his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously held positions at Yale University and Bowdoin College, and was a visiting scholar at Boston College. He has been published in numerous journals including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Chemical Reviews and the Journal of Chemical Education.  Linton’s research, focused on the role of hydrogen bonding in protein structure and function, has resulted in numerous presentations throughout the U.S., and has involved over 25 students through independent studies and summer research projects. Munya Bryn Munochiveyi (instructor, history), received his B.A. (honors) from the University of Zimbabwe in economic history and his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in history. Having taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Zimbabwe his research and teaching interests include the history of liberation struggles in Sub-Saharan Africa, African social and environmental history, precolonial and modern African history, world/global history, and comparative colonial history. At the University of Minnesota he was the recipient of the Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, Compton Fellow Dissertation/Research Grant, and the MacArthur Fellow Pre-dissertation Field Research Grant.

Anil Sathia Nathan (assistant professor, economics) earned his B.S in economics and mathematics and his Ph.D. in economics from Duke University. He previously taught at Duke University, Elon University and was an instructor at Kaplan, Inc., where he taught GRE and GMAT test preparation. He specializes in applied microeconomics (research and labor, demography, and health) and econometrics. At Duke, he was named a Preparing Future Faculty Fellow, a National Institute of Health (NIH) Pre-Doctoral Fellow, and the Economics Department Tuition Scholarship. Justin D. Poché (Alexander F. Carson Faculty Fellow in the History of the United States, assistant professor, history), received his B.A. from Louisiana State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. Before coming to Holy Cross he taught at Valparaiso University in Indiana, Tulane University, the University of Notre Dame, and Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans, La. A recipient of a Post-Doctoral Fellowship from the Lilly Fellows Program, a dissertation-year fellowship from the Louisville Institute, and the Vincent P. DeSantis Prize for best unpublished paper by a graduate student at Notre Dame, his research interests include American religion and 20th-century U.S. intellectual and social history.