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Meet Some of Our New Faculty 2009-10
Kevin Armitage
Western Program
For the past five years, Dr. Armitage (PhD, University of Kansas) taught for the American Studies Program and Department of History. He now joins the Western Program as an assistant professor. His areas of expertise are environmental history and the Progressive Era.
Tammy Brown
Black World Studies Program
Dr. Brown (PhD, Princeton University) joins the faculty after a one-year appointment as a Heanon Wilkins Fellow at Miami. Her research interests are modern America, cultural history of the US, art and politics, African-disporic studies, African-American history, American religious history, immigration, and transnational history.
Iddo Friedberg
Department of Microbiology
Dr. Friedberg (PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) held a postdoctoral associate position at Burnham Institute and a research associate position at the Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology at UC-San Diego. His areas of expertise are computational metagenomics, computational protein function prediction and protein structure-function relationships.
Adrian Gaskins
Black World Studies,
American Studies
Mr. Gaskins (PhD (ABD), University of Minnesota) has a joint appointment in Black World Studies and American Studies. He has taught at the University of Colorado and Xavier University. Last year he was a Heanon Wilkins Fellow in BWS. His research interests are African American studies, 20th century American history and critical race theory, with specialties in imperialism, comparative diasporas, labor, and blacks in the military.
Anita Mannur
Department of English
Before joining the Department of English, Dr. Mannur (PhD, University of Massachusetts) held several post doctoral fellowships and taught at Denison University. Her area of expertise is Asian/Asian American Studies.
James Porter
Department of English
Dr. Porter (PhD, University of Detroit) previously taught at Michigan State University and joins Miami as Professor of English and Director of College Composition. His area of expertise is composition and rhetoric.
Haifei Shi
Department of Zoology
Dr. Shi (PhD, Georgia State University) held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cincinnati. Her research focuses on the sex differences in central and peripheral mechanisms that regulate energy balance, glucose homeostasis and related metabolic disorders.
David Tierney
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Dr. Tierney (PhD, University of Michigan) held an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at Northwestern University and later taught at the University of New Mexico. His major research interests are biophysical and bioinorganic chemistry.
Geralyn Timler
Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology
Dr. Timler (PhD, University of Washington) joins Miami from SUNY-Buffalo where her teaching focused on child language development and disorders. Her research focuses on issues relating to child language.
Blanton Tolbert
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Before joining Miami's faculty, Dr. Tolbert (PhD, University of Rochester Medical Center) was a research associate at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His major area of research is biophysical chemistry.
Jiexia (Elisa) Zhai
Department of Sociology & Gerontology
Dr. Zhai (PhD, University of Texas) held a postdoctoral fellowship at Baylor University. Her research focuses on comparative studies of religious beliefs and practices in Chinese societies and in the US, on the influence of religion on marriage, family and gender issues, and on Asian American immigrants' religiosity and wellbeing in the US.