The Board of Trustees approved the promotion of 16 assistant professors to the position of associate professor with tenure at its January meeting. The professors granted tenure are: Zaid Adhami, Religion; Cecilia Aldarondo, Art; Alice Bradley, Geosciences; Anthony Carrasquillo, Chemistry; Graham Giovanetti, Physics; Katie Hart, Chemistry; Mark Hopkins, Computer Science; Anne Jaskot ’08, Astronomy; Catherine Kealhofer, Physics; David Loehlin, Biology; Samuel McCauley, Computer Science; Shaoyang Ning, Statistics; Sophie Saint-Just, French; Pallavi Sen, Art; Shikha Singh, Computer Science; and Matthew Tokeshi, Political Science. Their new positions go into effect July 1.
The process of achieving tenure at the College generally takes seven years, though most faculty were given the option to pause their tenure clock for a year during the COVID-19 pandemic. After an assistant professor has taught for three years at the College, the Committee on Appointments and Promotions (CAP) considers whether they should be retained for a second term of up to four years. At the end of a second term, CAP makes provisional tenure decisions, which, according to the Faculty Handbook, are based on student feedback, peer reviews, committee members’ impressions from class visits, and the quality of the candidate’s scholarly research. The Board of Trustees then approves CAP’s decisions.
Cecilia Aldarondo – Art
Growing up, Aldarondo, who is Puerto Rican, said she rarely saw herself represented in the American film industry. “Artmaking was always around, but I was frankly not convinced that I had the talent to be an artist,” she said. “I had this very antiquated idea about artistic genius, which I think is fairly common if you are somebody from a marginalized background or intersecting marginalized identities. Nobody told me that somebody who looked like me could be a filmmaker or a director.”
Although Aldarondo studied documentary film and had no physical experience in film production, she became increasingly interested in creating her own films. “I was always really interested in film. I was a movie buff growing up,” she said. “My first job after my undergraduate degree was at a film festival, and I found that over the period of time that I was in grad school up until I completed my PhD, I was always gravitating towards makers and making.”
Aldarondo released her first film, Memories of a Penitent Heart, in 2016. The film, a documentary about the tension in Aldarondo’s family following her uncle’s death from AIDS, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival with four sold-out screenings before being presented at over 30 other festivals around the globe, and earned several awards. “I moved to New York, and decided that instead of going on the academic job market, like all of my other grad school friends were doing, that I was gonna make a movie on my own,” she said.
Aldarondo taught English at Skidmore for four years before coming to the College in 2020. “I wasn’t teaching that much filmmaking at Skidmore,” she said. “A big attraction for me for the job at Williams was that it was in a studio, so I was gonna be able to teach filmmaking classes,” she said.
Katie Hart – Chemistry
Though Hart initially intended to study English as an undergraduate at Haverford College and pursue a career in journalism, she discovered a passion for science after taking general chemistry courses. Hart said she was especially drawn to biochemistry due to its collaborative nature. “I think I do my best work in team settings,” she said. “I found that to be more appealing than [when] I saw [that] my friends who were in humanities majors tended to do their work independently.”
After completing her bachelor’s in biochemistry, Hart received her doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, where she conducted research into protein folding, which has remained a focus of her research.
Hart said she enjoys that the College environment allows her to work more with students on research projects. “[The College] has the world’s best students. The fact that I could take undergraduates to be the primary drivers of my research amazes people,” she said.
Now tenured, she said she looks forward to collaborating more with other researchers. “What I wanted to do is come back to doing science with more people,” she said.
Shikha Singh – Computer Science
Before teaching at the College, Singh earned a bachelor’s and master’s in mathematics and computing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and a doctorate in computer science from Stony Brook University.
After earning her doctorate, Singh received a job offer from a financial consulting company, but ultimately decided to decline the offer and began lecturing at Wellesley. “I didn’t feel like [the firm] was necessarily somewhere I could thrive,” she said. “I really like the intellectual atmosphere of college… and school environments.”
Singh currently teaches “Algorithm Game Theory,” a course she designed, but said she also enjoys teaching the introductory computer science course at the College. “I really enjoy introducing [students] to the joys of being a computer science person,” Singh said. “It’s for everyone, and everyone can do it.”
Singh is married to Assistant Professor of Computer Science Sam McCauley, also among the faculty being granted tenure.
Sam McCauley – Computer Science
McCauley teaches classes on algorithms as well as “CSCI 136: Data Structures and Advanced Programming,” one of the computer science major’s core classes.
After completing his bachelor’s in computer science at Tufts, he attended Stony Brook University for his doctorate. Before coming to Williams, he taught at Wellesley, where Singh, his wife, was on the pre-tenure track before the couple relocated to Williamstown.
McCauley said that CSCI 136 is his favorite class to teach. “You meet a huge chunk of the students that are going through the major that year,” he said. “It’s at a point … where people are still very new to computer science… [But] it’s not the absolute first stuff.”
Most of McCauley’s research is focused on algorithms. “It’s research into how we can use math to analyze different strategies for how to solve problems and how effective they are,” he said. “I also do a little bit of work with students where we actually code them [algorithms] up and see how fast they run in practice,” he said.
Graham Giovanetti – Physics & Astronomy
Giovanetti began his career working at a startup company involved in remote chemical sensing and optical character recognition. “I went and got a job in industry and I always thought back to the research I was doing as an undergraduate … as being way more fun than the stuff I was doing at this company,” he said.
He said he was especially attracted to the College because of its equal emphasis on research and teaching. “I liked the fact that teaching was valued, but at the same time, all the people in the physics department were pursuing meaningful and impactful research and involving undergraduates in that research in a really serious way,” he said.
Alice Bradley – Geosciences
Bradley initially studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, and was completing a doctorate at the University of Colorado, Boulder when she was first exposed to arctic ice measurement, which is now her primary area of research. “My work there was in designing systems to make measurements,” she explained. “That got me into the science of arctic sea ice and how you measure a harsh and changing world.”
At the College, Bradley said she is appreciative of her the opportunity to work closely with undergraduate students in research, and educate students who she believes will make a difference in the future. “The relationships with students are just one of the true joys of teaching at Williams,” she said.
“I feel like, as a climate scientist, some of the most good I will do for the world is teaching Williams economics and political science majors about climate,” she added.
Bradley teaches “Environmental Observation” and “The Cryosphere” at the College. Her research focuses on measuring changes in arctic ice, particularly around coastal areas, using satellite data and international coordination to improve observations.
David Loehlin – Biology
Loehlin is a geneticist who specializes in evolution and molecular genetics. He majored in environmental studies as an undergraduate at the University of Chicago before earning a doctorate in biology from the University of Rochester. “It surprised me how much of an intellectual component there is [in biology],” he said.
While Loehlin initially pursued a job at a large university after graduate school, he cited the involvement of undergraduate students in research as a key strength of the College. “I took a chance on Williams,” he said. “I really like research and I had mostly applied to research universities, but Williams has a strong value in research and scholarship, and I saw a way to bring my work here and be able to work directly in research with students.”
Loehlin said he leaned on the support of colleagues in developing pedagogy focused on the undergraduate teaching the College emphasizes.“It was a struggle for me to figure out how to be a great teacher in this place full of great teachers and demanding students,” he said. I was really grateful for the support of the people here in figuring that out on my own terms, and finding a way to connect with students.”
Anne Jaskot ’08 – Physics & Astronomy
Professor Anne Jaskot ’08 began showing interest in Astronomy early. “I think my earliest interest in astronomy probably came as a kid,” Jaskot said. “I’ve always been interested in the vastness of geologic time, which astronomy exemplifies more than any other field.”
Jaskot recieved a bachelor’s in astrophysics and anthropology from the College before pursuing graduate studies at the University of Michigan. It was during this time that she began considering a future as a professor. “I really enjoy teaching, and I wanted to be at a place that valued teaching and took it seriously, and where all the professors were also significantly committed to that and interested in always having these discussions about how to improve your teaching, how to come up with ideas for new classes,” she said.
Jaskot’s research is centered around the first billion years of the universe, a time when galaxies profoundly influenced their surroundings, transforming the gas in the universe. “There are certain properties of those early galaxies that we can’t study,” she said. “I study things that are nearby and similar to those early galaxies, where we can study them in great detail and learn lessons that we otherwise couldn’t.”
Matthew Tokeshi – Political Science
Prior to teaching at the College, Tokeshi earned a bachelor’s in political science and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate in politics at Princeton. At the College, Tokeshi teaches courses relating to racial politics, public opinion, and mass political behavior.
Tokeshi credited former President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 with influencing his passion for political science. “When I was growing up in the 1990s, all of the important people in politics were white, and most were white men,” he wrote in an email to the Record. “So to see a Black man become president was unexpected and very exciting.”
He developed an interest in the racial dynamics of election campaigns and began to conduct research into the subject.
Tokeshi has also begun researching how public opinion about Asian Americans influences elections. “As an Asian American living in a mostly white society, I often wonder what people see when they look at someone like me,” he said. “There’s very little in my discipline on those kinds of questions, and I feel like I have some technical training and background that allows me to study this in a serious way. I think that’s a contribution.”
Mark Hopkins – Computer Science
Hopkins studied computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and received a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before teaching at Williams, Hopkins was a computer science professor at Reed. Hopkins’ interests include machine learning, machine translation, automated question answering, and computational typology.
Anthony Carasquillo – Chemistry
Carasquillo majored in chemistry at Bowdoin and received his doctorate from MIT in environmental chemistry. He teaches “ENVI 102: Introduction to Environmental Science” and “Environmental Fate of Organic Chemicals” at the College. His research aims to understand how organic aerosol particles form and evolve over time to improve predictions of their impact on human health, visibility, and global climate.
Zaid Adhami – Religion
Adhami received his bachelor’s in religious studies and philosophy at Stanford and received his doctorate in religious studies from Duke. He is currently on leave, but has taught courses such as “Religion and Reason” and “Spiritual But Not Religious.” Outside of lecturing, he conducts research on the “crisis of faith” in U.S Muslim communities and is involved in numerous national professional organizations including the American Academy of Religion, according to the announcement published on the College’s website.
Sophie Saint-Just – French
Saint-Just teaches courses in French language, literature, and culture at the College. She attended La Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) in France for her undergraduate studies and received her doctorate from the City University of New York (CUNY). Outside of teaching, Saint-Just conducts research and scholarship in Francophone and Creolophone Caribbean film and literature, including completing a book manuscript titled Euzhan Palcy’s Rue Cases-Nègres: A Landmark Martinican Film, and co-editing a volume titled Raoul Peck: Power, Politics and the Cinematic Imagination (Lexington Books, 2015), according to the announcement published on the College’s website.
Pallavi Sen – Art History and Studio Art
Professor Pallavi Sen is an artist working across various media — including video, prints, textiles, paintings, landscapes, and gardens. Her art work has been exhibited in galleries across the world, including in New Orleans, La., and Mexico City. At the College, she teaches courses including “Drawing 2” and “LINOCUTS! An Introduction to relief printing.”
Shaoyang Ning – Statistics
Ning received his bachelor’s in probability and statistics from Peking University, China, and his doctorate in statistics from Harvard. His research focuses on the study and design of statistical methods for integrative data analysis. He is currently on leave, teaching “Statistical Methods I” at Swarthmore College.
Catherine Kealhofer – Physics
Kealhofer earned a bachelor’s in physics from Princeton and a doctorate in physics from Stanford. She teaches “Electromagnetism and the Physics of Matter” and “Seminar in Modern Physics.” She studies ultrafast processes in condensed matter and constructed an ultrafast electron diffraction apparatus with students at the College.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that professor of computer science Shikha Singh received a job offer from a financial consulting company after earning her doctorate. She received the offer after earning her master’s degree, before pursuing her doctorate, which she chose to do instead of accepting the offer.
