“We are excited to welcome a wide array of new faculty and staff to the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences,” said Dean David Edelstein. “Each of them will contribute to our core research and teaching missions and strengthen our community in the process.”

Read more below about each new 海角论坛 faculty and staff member, their areas of expertise and journeys to Georgetown.

New Faculty and Staff

??Leah Baetcke, Dean’s Office

Leah Baetcke joined the Dean’s Office in October 2024 as a shared services administrator. She is from northern Virginia and returned to the DC area after completing her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and mathematics at the University of Virginia in 2023. In her free time, Baetcke enjoys attending concerts and watching DC and UVA sports teams.

??Derek Baron, Performing Arts

Derek Baron has joined the Department of Performing Arts as an assistant teaching professor. He received his Ph.D. in historical musicology from New York University in 2023. He has previously held postdoctoral positions at the Rutgers University’s Center for Cultural Analysis and the Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies. Baron’s work focuses on music, sound and law in Native American history.

??Alex Brostoff, English

Alex Brostoff has joined the Department of English as an assistant professor of English and women’s and gender studies. An interdisciplinary scholar and translator, they study how trans and queer cultural production recasts the relationship between self-figuration and decolonial critique.

??Danny Cackley, Mathematics

Danny Cackley has joined the Department of Mathematics as a department administrator. He is excited to join the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences full-time after working part-time in the School of Medicine as a physical exam teaching associate and standardized patient. Outside of Georgetown, Cackley is the associate artistic director for Faction of Fools Theater Company, DC’s commedia dell’arte theater. He’s a fan of chess, books and bagels from Call Your Mother Deli.

??Jinaeng Choi, East Asian Languages and Cultures

Jinaeng Choi has joined the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures as an assistant professor. She is a literary scholar whose work examines how border-crossing narratives – tied to migration and translation – challenge monolingual and national confines, fostering a more inclusive and diverse literary landscape. Choi is completing her first monograph on the literature of Korean Latin American communities from the late 19th to the 20th century, tracing linguistic negotiations and the politics of cultural exchange to uncover alternative genealogies of world literature. Choi holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and M.A. and B.A. degrees from Stony Brook University and Korea University.

??Lydia Davis, Government

Lydia Davis joined the Department of Government in March 2025 as the new assistant director for the Master of Arts in American Government and Democracy & Governance programs. She came from a career in the arts with experience in museums, galleries and private events.

??Richard Desinord, Performing Arts

Richard Desinord has joined the Department of Performing Arts as an assistant professor of music. His research focuses on gospel and R&B, pedagogy and the visualization of music theory. Desinord is working on a monograph that examines the rhetorical functions of harmonic progressions in gospel music. He holds a Ph.D. in music theory from the Eastman School of Music.

??Francesca Di Silvio, Linguistics

Francesca Di Silvio joined the Department of Linguistics as a department administrator in March 2025. Previously she served as the director of world languages for the Center for Applied Linguistics and as an independent researcher focused on language assessment development and professional development for educators.

??Richard Elliott, Government

Richard Elliott has joined the Department of Government as an assistant teaching professor. He grew up in the beautiful Cotswold town of Chipping Norton. After studying history at Cambridge and political theory at Oxford, he completed a postdoc at ETH Zurich before moving to DC in 2020. His work focuses on the intersection of political theory and mass political culture post-1600.

??Daniel Gostin-Yong, Dean’s Office

Daniel Gostin-Yong has joined the Dean’s Office as the associate director for finance and operations. Originally from New England and steeped in the Jesuit tradition (a soon-to-be triple Boston 海角论坛 Eagle), Gostin-Yong lives with his husband and dog in Capitol Hill and manages to keep up his origins as a classical musician aside from managing finances at the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences.

??Laurel Iber, French and Francophone Studies

Laurel Iber has joined the Department of French and Francophone Studies as an assistant teaching professor. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Iber was a visiting assistant professor at UC Irvine and Oberlin 海角论坛 and received her Ph.D. from Duke University. Besides French language acquisition, Iber specializes in 19th- and 20th-century French literature and culture, art history, cinema, gender and sexuality studies, medical humanities and critical theory.

??Ay?e Candan Kiri?ci, Turkish

Ay?e Candan Kiri?ci first joined the Turkish Program in 2019; since January 2025, she has been teaching in a full-time position as an assistant teaching professor, conducting classes at all levels, developing new courses, and organizing speakers’ events for the Turkish Program. Kiri?ci holds a Ph.D. degree in literature from Bo?azi?i University in Istanbul. 

??Ariel Kline, Art and Art History

Ariel Kline has joined the Department of Art and Art History as an assistant professor. She specializes in modern art in Britain and the United States. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2024. Her book manuscript is titled Of Monsters and Mirrors: Art and Empire in Nineteenth-Century Britain.

??Yoshi Kohno, Computer Science

Yoshi Kohno is the McDevitt Chair in Computer Science, Ethics, and Society and professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Digital Ethics. His research focuses on helping protect the security, privacy and safety of users of current and future technologies.

??Marisa Koulen, English/Writing Program

Marisa Koulen has joined the Department of English as an assistant teaching professor. She earned her Ph.D. in rhetoric, composition and pedagogy from the University of Houston in 2025. Her research examines antiracist writing ecologies, multimodal composing and social media and web writing for social justice.

??LaiYee Leong, Government

LaiYee Leong has joined the Department of Government as an assistant teaching professor and associate director of undergraduate studies. She earned her B.A. in English and Ph.D. in political science at Yale. Leong’s teaching focuses on democracy and movements in Southeast Asia and the politics of the Asian diaspora. She is the lead scholar of oral history projects centered on aspects of U.S. foreign policy during the George W. Bush presidency.

??Glory Liu, Government

Glory Liu has joined the Department of Government as an assistant professor. She is a political theorist whose research and teaching focuses on the history of political and economic thought and American intellectual history. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was the assistant director for the Center for Economy and Society at Johns Hopkins.

??Assaf Moghadam, Government

Assaf Moghadam is the Aaron and Cecile Goldman visiting Israeli professor in the Department of Government. He is a professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University, where he served as dean from 2019 to 2024. He previously taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point and Columbia University. His research interests are terrorism, insurgency and proxy wars.

??Spencer Alexandria Nabors, Philosophy

Spencer Alexandria Nabors is an assistant professor of philosophy and Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow. Her research interests include philosophy of race, critical phenomenology and social epistemology.

??Liza Offreda, Disability Studies

Liza Offreda has joined the disability studies program as an assistant teaching professor. She teaches Introduction to Disability Studies, Deaf Culture and Literature and Disability and Sports, focusing on how disability and Deaf experiences are represented in literature, culture and sport. She is also a decorated Deaf athlete and sports advocate.

??Danielle Purifoy, Black Studies

Danielle Purifoy (they/she) is a Royden B. Davis, S.J. visiting professor in the Department of Black Studies. Purifoy is a professor and scholar whose interests intersect geography, law, environmental studies and Black studies to learn about Black placemaking practices from town formation to ecological stewardship. Beyond Purifoy’s visiting position at Georgetown, they are an assistant professor of geography and environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they also serve as a faculty project lead for the Environmental Justice Action Research Clinic.

??Atif Qarni, Education, Inquiry and Justice

Atif Qarni has joined the Program on Education, Inquiry, and Justice as an assistant professor. He is an educator and U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served as Virginia’s Secretary of Education from 2018 to 2021. He led efforts on tuition-free community college, expanded early childhood programs, workforce training and advanced inclusive history and culturally relevant pedagogy.

??Mary Roberts, Georgetown Humanities Initiative and Art and Art History

Mary Roberts is a Royden B. Davis, S.J. visiting professor for the Georgetown Humanities Initiative and the Department of Art and Art History. She specializes in modern Ottoman art and European Orientalism. At Georgetown, she is teaching Ottomans and Orientalists: 1798-1910 and commencing her next book on Constantin Guys’ Crimean War drawings for the Illustrated London News, which considers the ways in which these drawings mediated the representation of conflict, diplomacy and Istanbul’s urban modernity.

??Marjorie Sheiman, English

Marjorie Sheiman has joined the Department of English as a business administrator. She grew up in Oregon but moved to the east coast for graduate school in 2022. Before coming to Georgetown, she was the business manager and marketing coordinator of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Performing Arts at the Catholic University of America. In addition to her administrative duties, Sheiman is also a classical singer and recently graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University with a Master of Music in voice performance. She works with organizations around the DMV region and beyond, including the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Cathedral and Opera Baltimore.

??Kelyn Soong, Dean’s Office

Kelyn Soong joined the Dean’s Office in April 2025 as the content specialist on the communications team, where he is responsible for writing stories on the 海角论坛’s faculty, staff, students and alumni. Soong is a passionate storyteller, writer, editor and communications expert who previously worked as a journalist for more than a decade at The Washington Post and Washington City Paper.

??Jessica Tamayo, Kalmanovitz Initiative

Jessica Tamayo has joined the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor as a training specialist in occupational health and safety. She is a prominent activist and defender of labor rights for immigrants and minorities in the DC area. Originally from El Salvador, since her arrival to the region, Tamayo has demonstrated a commitment unwavering with the Latin community. She currently serves as acting chapter president for the Labor Council for Latin America Advancement (LCLAA-Chapter DC). She plays a crucial role as an organizer at 32 BJ SEIU, where she is dedicated to educating workers about their labor rights and the regulations that guarantee their safety in the workplace. Her influence extends to the board of the Metropolitan Washington Council AFL-CIO, where she contributes as an active member. Tamayo was also a student at North Virginia Community 海角论坛.

??Allan Tulchin, History

Allan Tulchin has joined the Department of History as a teaching professor. He is from New York City and is married to Judith Miller, a Georgetown professor of math. They have two teenage kids. Tulchin was educated at Yale, Cambridge and Chicago, and taught for 19 years at Shippensburg University. His field is French history between the Renaissance and the French Revolution.

??Danielle Wiggins, History

Danielle Wiggins has joined the Department of History as an assistant professor. She received her Ph.D. in history from Emory University in 2018. Her first book, Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Black Liberalism, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in September 2025.

Three professors received Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching: , , and . Two staff members received the Distinguished Service Staff Award: Karen Lautman and Leslie Byers. received the Stevens Award and received the Tosetti Award. received the Condé Nast Award and received the Farr Faculty Excellence Award.

“We are thrilled to celebrate the work and achievements of our esteemed faculty and staff,” said Interim Dean Andrew Sobanet. “The honorees for this year’s convocation are proof that the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences’ dedication to teaching, discovery, and service is thriving.”

Jo Ann Moran Cruz

Jo Ann Moran Cruz, the co-founder of the and a professor in the , received the Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching. 

Cruz has held key administrative roles, including Dean of Humanities and Natural Sciences at Loyola University, New Orleans, and former chair of the department at Georgetown. A leading scholar in late medieval education and literacy, she authored The Growth of English Schooling, 1340-1530, co-authored Medieval Worlds, and has published extensively on education, literacy, and religious history. 

Her recent work includes studies on Dante, E.M. Forster, and Elizabethan family history, as well as an edited volume, The Cultural History of Education in the Middle Ages. She is currently working on her new book Gender and Power in Europe, 800-1600, for Routledge Press.

Christine So

Christine So, an associate professor in the , received the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

Professor So, who joined Georgetown in 1998, is a specialist in Asian American Studies, Critical Race Studies, and literatures of the US empire. She authors the book Economic Citizens: A Narrative of Asian American Visibility, where she traces the logic of race, capital, and commensurate value in Asian American literature. She is currently at work on her book project, Unrecognizable Subjects: Reinventing Legal and Literary Epistemologies of Asian America, where she unpacks the law’s rigid and forceful ordering of what begins as a vague and indeterminate moment of Asian American emergence.

At Georgetown, she created and taught courses such as “Introduction to Asian American Studies,” “Introduction to Race and Ethnic Studies,” “Race, Law, and Literature,” and “Afterlives of US Empire.”

Clay Shields

Clay Shields, a professor in the , received a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

Shields, who has taught on the Hilltop for some 25 years, teaches programming, security, and computer systems while continuing to research in computer and network security. He was born in Washington, D.C, and spent much of his childhood living overseas as required by the career of his stepfather, who was a covert agent for the CIA. 

Upon earning his undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia, Shields served as an infantry officer. He later attended the University of California at Santa Cruz and for his PHD dissertation in Computer Engineering. Before coming to Georgetown in 2001, he worked as an assistant professor at Purdue University. 

Karen Lautman

Karen Lautman, who serves as the Department Administrator in the received the Distinguished Service Staff Award. 

This award is given to staff who have a record of extraordinary service within a department or program, and who have demonstrated selflessness as people for others, cura personalis, commitment to community in diversity, and creative leadership and service in support of academic excellence.

“Georgetown is a wonderful community. There are some very decent people on campus, and I am privileged to know many of them.”

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Lautman came to Georgetown in 1990 as part of the Lauinger Library administration team. After 4 years in the library, Lautman was offered a position in the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Office, where she remained for 6 years. In 2000 she was invited to become the Administrator of the English Department, where she has happily stayed for 24 years. 

Before moving to Washington, Lautman was a professional singer and has sung with numerous ensembles in the area in a range of musical styles. She was the house soloist at St. Patrick’s Church in downtown Washington for 19 years. 

Leslie Byers

Leslie Byers, a program coordinator in the , received a Distinguished Service Staff Award. 

Byers, born in Germany, has lived and traveled worldwide. She studied physiological psychology at the University of Utah and holds a certificate in social work. Before Georgetown, she worked as a social worker, au pair coordinator, master gardener, and TV producer. After 32 years at Georgetown, she retires in June 2025, continuing her gardening and community work. 

Reflecting on her time, Byers says, “I am very humbled to receive this award–I literally know a dozen other staff members who deserve it as much or more than I. It’s been a huge pleasure to work at Georgetown and serve so many fantastic and smart faculty, staff, and students over the years. I will miss it terribly.”

Rebecca Ryan

Rebecca Ryan, a professor in the , received the Stevens Award. 

??The Stevens Faculty Excellence Award award honors excellent research, effective mentoring of student research, and innovation in a social sciences field.

Ryan researches how low income impacts parenting and child development. She focuses on parent-child interactions, resource investment, and interventions to enhance parental engagement. Her recent work includes a randomized trial using video chat to improve parenting and a field study on meal programs for low-income Latinx families. Her research has been continuously funded by both federal and private institutions, including the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the WT Grant Foundation.

Patrick O’Malley

Patrick O’Malley, a professor in the , received the Tosetti Award. 

The Tosetti Faculty Award honors excellent research, effective mentoring of student research, and innovation in the humanities.

O’Malley has taught in the English Department at Georgetown for 25 years, with a focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British and Irish literature, gothic novels, gender and sexuality studies, and critical theory. He has served as both Director of Undergraduate Studies and Director of Graduate Studies for the English Department. He’s the author of three award-winning books on Victorian and Irish literature. 

A highlight of his teaching has been interdisciplinary co-teaching first-year undergraduate seminars with faculty from the History Department in the Liberal Arts Seminar and, more recently, in the “Ways of Knowing” seminars offered by the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences.

Alison Mackey

Alison Mackey, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and Chair of the , received the Condé Nast Award. 

First awarded in 1966 by the 海角论坛 Student Council to honor the memory of the first President of the Yard, the Condé Nast Award is awarded annually by the 海角论坛 of Arts & Sciences to a faculty member who has served the 海角论坛 with distinguished teaching, research and service or leadership.

Mackey, a leading expert in second language learning and research methodology, is among the world’s top ten most-cited scholars in her field. She has published 100+ journal articles, 19 books, and received numerous awards, including the 2023 International TBLT Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award. 

A Georgetown professor for 27 years, Mackey has served on key university committees and was Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. She finds great joy in mentoring Ph.D. students and co-creating the Linguistics Department’s RULE class, which pairs undergraduates with advanced graduate researchers.

Micah Sherr

Micah Sherr, the Callahan Family Professor of Computer Science in the , received the Farr Faculty Excellence Award.

The Farr Faculty Excellence Award honors excellent faculty research, effective mentoring of student research and/or innovative dissemination of scientific knowledge in the natural sciences, computer science, mathematics and statistics and psychology. 

Sherr’s academic interests include censorship and censorship-resistance, electronic voting, wiretap systems, and more broadly, privacy-preserving technologies. He participated in two large-scale studies of electronic voting machine systems, and helped to disclose architectural vulnerabilities in deployed U.S. election systems. His current research examines the methods used by many nation-states to restrict access to information online, and investigates new censorship-resistance technologies aimed at evading them. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, and served as co-editor-in-chief of the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies and associate chair of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

“Accessibility.georgetown.edu is a remarkable resource created by University Information Services (UIS) that forms the basis for our efforts to create lasting change in our accessibility practices,” says Rifkin. “It includes not just our policy on electronic accessibility, but tons of guidelines, fact sheets and webinars that provide information about how to build an accessible website, course materials and social media presence, among other things.”

She currently serves as the first Special Advisor for Disability to the Vice President of Rosemary Kilkenny, a role that expands Georgetown’s commitment to valuing disability as an identity and dimension of diversity.

Accessibility for All

This work is a continuation of Georgetown’s past efforts to improve electronic and information technology accessibility. Rifkin and her collaborators wanted to find a way to disseminate best accessibility practices to those responsible for creating communications materials such as electronic documents or social media graphics, many of whom are student workers. 

Kevin Andrews, the electronic information technology accessibility coordinator for UIS, says that “assessing and ensuring the accessibility of public and student-facing websites, systems, and applications is a priority.” 

“The policy seeks to promote and achieve digital equity through the university’s websites, documents, multimedia, software/hardware and procurement processes,” Andrews explains. “We are extremely grateful for the work Professor Rifkin has done to advance digital inclusion through her engagement with various stakeholders around the university, and we look forward to continued collaboration.”

Rifkin says that this is important, as good communication, at its core, is about reaching the widest audience.  

“It is crucial that we include people who use screen readers, or need captions for videos, or those who may benefit from plain language, like people with intellectual disabilities, ” says Rifkin. “It’s about putting our audience’s diverse ways of receiving and processing information at the center of our communication process and doing this not just because we want to comply with the law, but because we want to make everyone feel welcome, like they belong.“

When learning these best practices, the professor says that she went through a learning curve herself, but she was grateful to university colleagues who held her accountable. 

“In the beginning, with the Disability Studies Program, I repeatedly approved flyers and event emails that were not accessible to people with visual impairments,” says Rifkin. “But colleagues like Lynn Delles, director of communications for Georgetown 海角论坛, taught me the basics of accessible design and we have worked together with other partners to make this platform available to everyone. I believe we need to take a proactive approach to promoting accessible communications as part of a truly inclusive culture.”

. Work will be done over the summer with departments and units to help educate communicators on best practices.

In this newly created position, Gregory will help students explore the ties between their studies and the marketplace, connect them with alumni and experiences to enhance those ties, and ultimately head out from the Hilltop prepared to pursue fulfilling careers and meaningful lives. 

Chris Celenza, dean of Georgetown 海角论坛, and , director of the Cawley Career Center saw the need for a career counselor solely dedicated to helping students in the 海角论坛. Celenza says that Gregory will be a “great addition to Georgetown, and the help she can provide our students will be invaluable.”

“The 26 academic departments and 12 interdisciplinary programs in the 海角论坛 of Arts and Sciences offers students a wealth of options in their education and beyond,” says Celenza. “Maddie will be able to help students take all they have learned and apply it to life after graduation. And I am especially excited that we have partnered with our friends in the Cawley Center, whose mission is so crucial for our students.”

Due to the variety of options and possible career paths that become available to those with a degree from the 海角论坛, students often benefit from career guidance throughout their time at the university.

“Integrating career development with academics ultimately helps students pursue fulfilling careers and lead meaningful lives,” says Campbell. “We are excited to collaborate with the 海角论坛 students, deans, faculty, and alumni to help students explore the connections between their studies and their post-graduation pursuits. I am thrilled to welcome Maddie to our team and look forward to sharing our progress in the coming months.”

Gregory will spend the first few months on a “listening tour” where she will meet with various campus partners and groups at Georgetown in order to create the best opportunities for our students. She has a master’s degree in counseling and recently worked in academic advising at George Washington University.

She is eager to put her experience mentoring young adults to use and “to dive into the student experience and help students in the 海角论坛 to identify, pursue and achieve their goals.”

Gregory is also looking forward to partnering with various groups across campus to enhance the resources that Cawley offers.

“This is an amazing opportunity to help students recognize and articulate the experiences and skills developed in the classroom,” says Gregory. ?“I am excited to begin working with students to translate these experiences into research, graduate school, service, the world of work, or overall life after Georgetown.”