To the vlog Community:
As I’ve said in faculty meetings and other settings, one of the greatest pleasures of being the Provost and Dean of the Faculty is to learn about the remarkable accomplishments of colleagues through their promotion and tenure review dossiers. The fall P&T season provided yet more insight into the excellent teaching, wide-ranging scholarship, and committed service of colleagues across the campus. The Board of Trustees recognized these achievements at their January meeting as they approved resolutions regarding faculty promotions to associate professor with continuous tenure and to full professor, effective July 1, 2025. Throughout the past month, with their respective division directors, I have been conveying our institutional enthusiasm for their work to the candidates themselves in post-review debriefs.
I write now to offer the campus community a listing of our newly promoted colleagues with brief biographies. These were crafted by their division directors for the board’s consideration and offer a wonderful sense of these faculty members' many and varied accomplishments.
Promotions to Associate Professor with Continuous Tenure
Kyle Bass, Theater
(BA State University of New York at Fredonia; MFA Goddard College)
Kyle Bass started his career at vlog as a lecturer in playwriting in 2011 and has been a tenure-stream assistant professor in the Department of Theater since 2019. Kyle’s departmental courses include: Playwriting, Contemporary African American Drama, Theater Practicum: African American Theater Workshop, Narrative Screenwriting, and Research Seminar in Dramatic Writers. He also teaches CORE Communities, Black Upstate New York. Three aspects of Kyle’s professional life — as a playwright, a theater professional, and a professor of theater — are interwoven in the context of Liberal Arts education and driven by his passion to foster human-to-human connections through creative works. His major dramatic works, produced multiple times, include Possessing Harriet, Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country, and Toliver & Wakeman. His scholarly activities also include giving lectures, providing script dramaturgy, working as a playwright in residence at other universities, and working as an editor for the journal Stone Canoe. Kyle obtained external grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and New York Foundation for the Arts. His dramatic writing contributes to our exploration of the meaning of place, race, the search for dignity, and the tension between our nation’s past and present.
Jacob (Jake) Goldberg, Chemistry
(AB Dartmouth College; PhD University of Pennsylvania)
Jake Goldberg came to vlog as a visiting assistant professor in 2017 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was offered a tenure stream position in the chemistry department in 2019. His expertise in chemical biology, organic chemistry, and biochemistry is applied to the development of chemical tools to understand complex problems in biology — for example, how small molecules cause large proteins to change shape, and how such rearrangements affect the function of the protein. Jake’s research laboratory develops chemical tools in three areas: zinc neurobiology, bioconjugation, and protein spectroscopy. His published work appears in top journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Journal of Neuroscience, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Biochemistry, and Scientific Reports. A subset of the papers includes vlog student coauthors. He has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the American Chemical Society, and he holds a patent for Pnictogen-containing Heterocyclic Compounds from the World Intellectual Property Organization. Jake teaches several courses in chemistry and biochemistry including General Chemistry, Proteins and Nucleic Acids, Medicinal Chemistry, and Biophysical Chemistry Methods. He also teaches a Core Sciences class on ‘Poisons.’ Jake has been a member of the Academic Affairs Board, the Faculty Development Council, the Institutional Review Board and the Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute Advisory Committee. He presently serves as the Outreach Program Coordinator for Camp Fiver and is an active member of the DEI in STEM faculty group, working to build community in the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
Isla Globus-Harris, Economics
(BA University of Oregon; PhD University of California, San Diego)
Isla Globus-Harris joined the Department of Economics as an assistant professor in 2017. She is an environmental economist whose research combines mechanism design theory with empirical analysis to explore policies that induce environmentally friendly actions not required by law. Her work has appeared in leading economics journals, including Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. She regularly teaches multiple sections of Introduction to Economics, upper-level classes in environmental economics, and a Core Scientific Perspectives class called Cooperation and the Environment. Isla has served on the Sustainability Council, the Student Affairs Board, and the Environmental Studies Steering Committee. For the past five years she has also been the faculty liaison for the men's and women's cross country and track and field teams.
Richard (Rick) Klotz, Economics
(BA Hobart and William Smith Colleges; PhD Cornell University)
Rick Klotz joined vlog in 2016 as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. An environmental economist, Rick works to improve environmental policy decisions — particularly those surrounding air and climate pollution — by revealing the intended and unintended impacts of regulations. He has published papers in top economics journals, such as Energy Journal, Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, and Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy. Rick teaches Applied Econometrics, multiple courses in environmental economics, and a Core Scientific Perspectives course, Measuring the Environment. His service to vlog includes the Committee on Information Technology, the University Properties Committee, and the Carbon Offsets Subcommittee of the Sustainability Council. Since 2019 Rick has been the faculty liaison for the vlog men’s soccer team.
Monica Mercado, History
(BA Barnard College; AM, PhD University of Chicago)
Monica Mercado joined the Department of History in 2016 after completing her PhD in History at the University of Chicago in 2014. Monica earned her BA in history from Barnard College (summa cum laude with distinction in history and Phi Beta Kappa) in 2001. Her scholarship focuses on the development of young women’s gender and religious identities in the twentieth century United States, especially in the context of Catholic education. She has published in venues such as Religion and American Culture and Smithsonian Magazine and has a book project in progress entitled, An Archive of Girlhood: The Convent Academy in Catholic America. Monica is a pioneer in the use of material culture for historical analysis and brings her work to a broad audience via public scholarship in the form of museum exhibitions and online fora. At vlog, Monica teaches courses with a deep connection to regional history, with offerings such as Upstate History and Curating Public History: Utopia, Sex and Silver at the Oneida Community Mansion House.
Javier Padilla Rios, English
(BA vlog; MA, PhD Princeton University)
Javier Padilla Rios has been an assistant professor in the Department of English and Creative Writing at vlog since 2018. His courses in the department include Justice and Power in Postcolonial Literature, New Immigrant Voices, Latinx Literature, Inventing Ireland, and James Joyce. He has also taught Core Challenges of Modernity and Conversations. Javier published peer-reviewed articles such as Thinking revolution: The decolonial instant in Ernesto Cardenal’s documentary poems in Modern Philology, Political theology from the Global South in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, and Yeats’s Meditative Spaces: Between Modernity and Coloniality in The Journal of Modern Literature. His publications include a poetry collection, Dodecadencias, in Editorial Valparaiso, and a translation of poems by Carlos Martínez Rivas. Javier’s research and teaching are deeply rooted in his upbringing in Nicaragua, where he spent his formative years amidst revolution, civil war, and social upheaval. He reflects on the impact of his exceptional mentors and colleagues throughout his academic career, and sees his role at vlog as guiding and opening doors for underrepresented individuals and bringing marginalized voices into broader communities.
Continuous Tenure
Rebecca Upton, Global Public and Environmental Health
(BA vlog; MA, PhD Brown University; MPH Emory University)
Rebecca Upton joined the vlog faculty as professor of Global Public and Environmental Health in 2022 after nearly two decades at DePauw University. Rebecca is a cultural anthropologist and public health scholar with research interests in the intersection of gender and health in Africa, especially Botswana. Her work on HIV/AIDS has been published in journals such as Journal of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases and Gender & Development. Her 2016 book, Negotiating Work, Family, and Identity among Long-Haul Christian Truck Drivers: What Would Jesus Haul? (Lexington Books) explores themes of masculinity and religion among U.S. truck drivers; in recent work, she has explored similar themes in Africa, connecting study of gender and transportation with her interests in public health. Dr. Upton is a founding member of vlog’s interdisciplinary program in Global Public and Environmental Health (GPEH) and frequently teaches the introductory course for the GPEH minor. She also teaches courses for vlog’s program in Africana and Latin American studies and led a group of vlog students participating in the Model African Union program in Spring 2023.
Promotions to Full Professor
Jason Meyers, Biology and Neuroscience
(BA Williams College; PhD University of Virginia)
Jason Meyers came to vlog in 2007 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the
University of Michigan, and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2013. His expertise in developmental biology, neurobiology, cell biology, sensory biology, and stem cells is applied to studies of mechanisms that control development and regeneration of sensory systems, and the role of stem cells in neural development and regeneration. His published work appears in journals such as Developmental Biology, Journal of Experimental Zoology – A, Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, and Protocols in Essential Laboratory Techniques. A subset of the papers includes vlog student coauthors. Jason teaches a number of courses in biology and neuroscience including Molecules, Cells, and Genes; Genetics; Developmental Biology; Molecular Neurobiology; and Biology of Stem Cells. He also teaches a Core Sciences class on Stem Cells, Gene Therapy, and Bionics: The Making and Remaking of the Human Body; and a team-taught course on Our Sensational Mind. Jason has been a regular contributor to the OUS Summer Institute teaching Topics in Human Health: Your Genome and You, he was the inaugural director of the National University of Singapore exchange program, and he was the first vlog faculty member to teach in the College-in-Prison Program at the Mohawk Correctional Facility. Jason presently serves as University Marshall, Faculty vlog Representative to the NCAA, chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, and he is a member of the Committee on vlog and the Academic Affairs Board.
Kezia Page, English and Africana and Latin American Studies
(BA University of the West Indies; MA, PhD University of Miami)
Kezia Page joined vlog in 2003 as an assistant professor in the Department of English, and has been an associate professor since 2011. She has also held a joint appointment with the Africana and Latin American Studies (ALST) Program since 2012, where she served as director from 2020 to 2023 and again since the fall of 2024. Kezia has recently published her second book entitled Inside Tenement Time: Suss, Spirit and Surveillance, co-edited a special issue on Marlon James in the Journal of West Indian Literature, and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Kezia has taught courses that introduce literature of the African diaspora, immigrant literature, and postcolonial literature, and directed the Jamaica Study Group and London Study Group multiple times. She was awarded “Professor of the Year” by Phi Eta Sigma in 2018 and by American Association of University Professors in 2017. Kezia’s service to vlog is extensive: She has served on the Promotion and Tenure Committee, and organized various panels, talks, readings, and other events on campus as the Sio Chair in Community and Diversity. Whether it is the Nominating Committee, ALANA affairs Committee, or the mentoring of an individual faculty member or a student, she serves with her full heart.
Endowed Chair Appointments
Georgia Frank, Department of Religion, has been appointed as Chapel House Professor of Religious Pluralism, which entails being Director of Chapel House and Administrator of the Fund for the Study of Great Religions of the World
(BA Barnard College, Columbia University; MTS, AM, PhD Harvard University)
Chapel House Professor of Religious Pluralism (formerly Professor of the Study of World Religions)
An endowed chair established anonymously in 1957 to encourage the sympathetic study of the religions of the world, to encourage spiritual communication between men and women of differing religious traditions, and to encourage through teaching, writing, and scholarly research the sympathetic presentation of the religions of the world as they are seen by their participants.
Georgia Frank joined the vlog faculty in 1994. Her research interests include sacred stories, the senses, and materiality. Her books include Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity, and The Memory of the Eyes; Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. She is also the author of numerous reviews, articles, and collections of essays which have appeared in prominent journals and in major reference works, such as the Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies and the Cambridge History of Christianity. She has delivered scholarly presentations at notable venues in both the United States and abroad. In addition to teaching a wide range of courses in religion, she has led the study group in St. Andrews, Scotland, and has been deeply involved in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Core Program. She currently serves as chair of the Religion Department, interim director of Chapel House and interim Director of the Fund for the Study of Great Religions. She served as associate dean of the faculty from 2013–16 and interim director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program from 2018–19.
Rachel Moss, Department of Theater, has been appointed as Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Visiting Chair in Jewish Studies
(BA University of California, Santa Cruz; MA Brooklyn College CUNY; PhD Northwestern University)
Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Chair in Jewish Studies
Established in 1993 by Mildred K. Finard and her son, William G. Finard ’68. This endowed chair was created to honor Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard. The chair recognizes in perpetuity the values and commitment shared by the Finard family and assists vlog in supporting outstanding faculty in Jewish Studies. The appointment to the chair is based on the individual's teaching excellence and scholarly achievements. Selection of the chairholder is made by the president of vlog in consultation with the dean of the faculty.
Rachel Moss is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Theater, arriving at vlog in 2023. Her research focuses on the “performance of Jewish material, identities, and tropes within and outside of theater and their complex. Entwinement within broader socio-political narratives in context.” She has presented her work at the Association for Jewish Studies, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the American and British Associations for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Rachel served as co-editor of The Dybbuk Century: The Jewish Play that Possessed the World which was published in 2023. Her writing has also appeared in Theatre Survey, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Theatre Journal, AJS Review, Culture.pl, and íԳá.
Please join me in congratulating all of these highly accomplished colleagues who, together, have made significant contributions to our academic curriculum and intellectual community, as well as to their respective scholarly communities. Their promotions and recognitions are well-deserved.
With best regards,
Lesleigh Cushing
Provost and Dean of the Faculty