Board approves six faculty appointments
The Princeton University Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of six faculty members, including four full professors and two assistant professors.
Professor
Laura Arnold Leibman, in the Effron Center for the Study of America, specializes in American Jewish studies. Her appointment is effective July 1, 2024. She comes to Princeton from Reed College, where she has taught since 1997, most recently as the Kenan Professor of English and Humanities.
Leibman is the co-editor of “Jews Across the Americas: A Sourcebook, 1492-Present” (2023) and the author of “Once We Were Slaves: The Extraordinary Journey of a Multi-Racial Jewish Family” (2021), “The Art of the Jewish Family: A History of Women in Early New York in Five Objects” (2020) and “Jews in the Americas: 1176-1826” (2017), among others. Her books have garnered four National Jewish Book Awards and a Jordan Schnitzer Book Award.
She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California-Los Angeles and a B.A. from the University of California-Davis.
Lydia Lynch, in molecular biology and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Princeton Branch, specializes in immunometabolism. She joins the Princeton faculty from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where she has taught since 2016. Her appointment became effective Jan. 16.
Lynch has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles, holds two patents and has three patents pending, and has given more than 70 invited talks and symposia. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader Award and the Brigham IGNITE Award for Innovation Acceleration.
She earned a Ph.D. and a B.S. from University College Dublin.
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, in gender and sexuality studies and sociology, specializes in gender, labor, migration and globalization. Her appointment became effective Jan. 16. She comes to Princeton from the University of Southern California, where she has taught since 2010, most recently as the Florence Everline Professor of Sociology and Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies. She was previously on the faculty of Brown University, the University of California-Davis and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Parreñas was a visiting professor of gender and sexuality studies and sociology at Princeton in 2022-23, and a Deutsche Bank member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 2015-16.
Her book “The Trafficker Next Door: How Domestic Employers Exploit Forced Labor” is forthcoming from W.W. Norton. She is also the author of “Unfree: Migrant Domestic Workers in Arab States” (2021), “Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo” (2011) and “The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization” (2008), among others.
She earned a Ph.D. and a B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley.
Joseph Subotnik, in chemistry, specializes in quantum chemistry. He joins the Princeton faculty from his professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 2010. His appointment at Princeton is effective July 1, 2024.
Subotnik has published some 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and has given more than 100 invited talks and symposia. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including American Physical Society fellow, Guggenheim Fellowship, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, and a National Science Foundation Career Award.
He earned a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.
Assistant professor
Tri Dao, in computer science, joins the faculty in September 2024. He specializes in machine learning and holds a Ph.D. and a B.S. from Stanford University.
Andrew H. Moeller, in ecology and evolutionary biology, joined the faculty Jan. 16. A specialist in symbiosis, he holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and a B.S. from the University of South Carolina.
