Wednesday, September 22, 2021 

New Ladder Faculty 2021-2022

The Yale Faculty of Arts and Science is pleased to welcome 35 new full-time ladder faculty members who will join us during the 2021-2022 academic year. 

Of the 35 new ladder faculty and professors who have joined us in New Haven this year, 26 joined the ladder this July, 4 more join in January, and 5 will hold visting appointments for 2021-2022, before joining the ladder faculty. They span all four FAS academic divisions: Humanities, Social Science, Science, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). 

We invite you to read bios of our new ladder colleagues at the links below, and to join us in extending them a warm welcome to our community! 

New Humanities Faculty 

New Social Science Faculty 

New Science and School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) Faculty 


New Humanities Faculty

Alvita Akiboh 

Assistant Professor of History 

Fatima El-Tayeb 

Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration, and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

Hussein Fancy

Associate Professor of History 

Manon Garcia 

Assistant Professor of Philosophy 

Scott Herring 

Professor of American Studies and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

Jonathan-David MacKinley Howard 

Assistant Professor of African American Studies and of English 

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins 

Professor in the Practice, Theater and Performance Studies 

Elleza Kelley 

Assistant Professor of African American Studies and of English (Postdoctoral Associate for 2021-2022) 

Regina Grace Kunzel 

Professor of History and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

Ernest Julius Mitchell 

Assistant Professor of English and of Humanities 

Morgan Ng 

Assistant Professor of History of Art 

Claire Roosien 

Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures 

Braxton Deonte Shelley 

Associate Professor of Music, of Sacred Music, and of Divinity 

Hannah Shepherd 

Assistant Professor of History 

Dara Strolovitch 

Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 

Erika Valdivieso 

Assistant Professor of Classics 

Shane Patrick Vogel 

Professor of African American Studies and of English 

Lindsay Wright 

Assistant Professor of Music (Associate Research Scholar for 2021-2022) 

Kalindi Vora 

Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (Visiting Professor for 2021-2022) 

New Social Science Faculty

Julia Anne Leonard 

Assistant Professor of Psychology 

Salma Mousa 

Assistant Professor of Political Science 

Lucia Rubinelli 

Assistant Professor of Political Science 

 New Science and School of Engineering and Applied Science Faculty

Ian Abraham 

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science 

Yongshan Ding 

Assistant Professor of Computer Science 

Vanessa Ezenwa 

Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 

Dionysis Kalogerias 

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering 

Mengxia Liu 

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering 

Binyam Mogessie 

Assistant Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (Research Scientist for 2021-22) 

Ian Moult 

Assistant Professor of Physics 

Amir Pahlavan 

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science 

Charalampos Papamanthou 

Associate Professor of Computer Science 

Junliang Shen 

Assistant Professor of Mathematics (Research Scientist for 2021-2022) 

Charles Krug Smart 

Professor of Mathematics 

Lu Wang 

Professor of Mathematics 

Tianyu Zhu 

Assistant Professor of Chemistry