BUILDING ON SUCCESS

Exceptional faculty welcomes new members

Lafayette has 195 full-time, tenure-track and tenured faculty members, all holding the highest degree in their field. This fall the College welcomed seven new tenure-track faculty and one librarian, completing year two of a four-year faculty staffing plan adopted in 2003 in accordance with Lafayette’s strategic plan Beyond Threshold 2000: Building on Success.
Joining Lafayette as assistant professor of chemical engineering is Patricia A. Darcy, who comes from University of Missouri, Columbia, where she was assistant professor of chemical engineering since 1998. Her research interests include protein stability and purification. She holds a Ph.D. in chemical and biochemical engineering from University of Iowa, an M.S. from Rutgers University, and a B.S. from Johns Hopkins University. Michael Kelly, assistant professor of economics and business, brings two decades of experience at J. P. Morgan & Co. and Onyx Capital Management, LLC, New York City. He cofounded Onyx, a $500 million hedge fund, in 1998. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and an A.B. in economics from Harvard University. He was visiting assistant professor in spring 2005.
Digital initiatives librarian Eric S. Luhrs comes from Rutgers University, where he earned a master’s degree in library and information science last year. He held a variety of positions at Rutgers, including, most recently, computing help desk manager. He earned an M.A. in Shakespeare Studies at The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, and a B.A. in English language and literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Joining the faculty as assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering is Anne Marie Raich, who was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University since 2001, following two years as NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering. She also holds an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. from West Virginia University, in civil engineering.
Jenn Stroud Rossmann, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, comes to Lafayette from Harvey Mudd College, where she was assistant professor since 2001. She was instructor of mechanical engineering at University of California, Berkeley, where she earned a Ph.D. in applied physics and a B.S. in mechanical engineering. Joining the history department as assistant professor is Shobana Shankar, who received her Ph.D. in history from University of California, Los Angeles, in 2003. She served as visiting assistant professor of history at University of Connecticut and adjunct professor in social sciences at New School University. She also holds an M.A. in history from UCLA and a B.A. in history from Wesleyan University.
Julie K. Smith, assistant professor of economics and business, comes to the College from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, where she was assistant professor since 2001. In fall 2004 she was visiting assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics. She also holds a B.A. in economics from Smith College. Coming to the computer science department is assistant professor Ge (Frank) Xia, who completed a Ph.D. in computer science this year at Texas A&M University. His research interests include algorithms and their applications, graph theory and algorithms, and computational complexity theory. He holds an M.S. in architecture from Texas A&M and a bachelor’s degree in architecture from China’s Tongji University.