Six Women Faculty Members Who Have Been Assigned New Roles or Duties

Ajla Aksamija, associate professor in the department of architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been elected as the vice president of the Facade Tectonics Institute, a non-profit member organization for the architectural, engineering, and construction industry. She is the author of Integrating Innovation in Architecture, Design, Methods and Technology for Progressive Practice and Research (Wiley, 2016).

Dr. Aksamija holds a Ph.D. in architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with an emphasis on technology and the environment.

Anna Huff Mercovich is a new assistant professor of digital arts at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. She has been a visiting lecturer at Cornell University since 2017 and previously served on the faculty at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, California.

Mercovich is a graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She holds a master of fine arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts.

Diane Ryan was named vice president of academic affairs at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. She has been serving as vice president of strategic initiatives and interim vice president of instruction at the college. She has served in the past as a professor of English and a professor of communication.

Dr. Ryan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in communication from Western Illinois University. She earned a Ph.D. in community college leadership from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Cathy Creighton is the new director of the Buffalo Co-Lab at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations of Cornell University. For eight years, Creighton has taught classes to workers interested in becoming union representatives through the ILR Extension’s Labor Studies Program.

Creighton is a graduate of Cornell University and the Boston University School of Law.

Mary Sullivan, a professor of nursing at the University of Rhode Island, has been appointed an ambassador to the Friends of the National Institute of Nursing Research, an independent, non-profit organization founded in 1993 with the goal of supporting nursing research, and educating the public and congressional leaders on the impact nursing research has on the health care community.

Dr. Sullivan is a graduate of Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. She holds a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Nebraska and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Rhode Island.

Kristi Perryman, associate professor of counselor education at the University of Arkansas, has been named to the National Association for Play Therapy’s board of directors. Dr. Perryman also serves as director and founder of the Office of Play Therapy Research and Training at the University of Arkansas.

Dr. Perryman holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree from Southwest Missouri State University. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas.