The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences welcomed five new heads of departments, centers, and institutes this year. Spanning the College’s disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, the new leaders bring a wealth of experience both in academia and industry, a renewed interest in graduate education and research, and a fresh perspective on their growing undergraduate programs.
Jason Chang, director of the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute
“Many people think they have to be ethnically Asian to take an Asian American or Asian studies class, but this is absolutely not true. Because our programs are fundamentally about justice, human rights, and peace, they are, by definition, for everyone.”
Samuel Martinez, director of El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies
“Our students are often impressed with how much our faculty’s teaching grows directly out of their work and life engagement with Latinx identities.
“We don’t just study it; we live it.”
Barry Wells, head of the Department of Physics
“There seem to be as many reasons to study physics as there are students. Some common draws I have heard from students include an interest in recent news about detecting gravity waves from black holes, the discovery of planets in other solar systems, a fascination with the weird behavior of the quantum world, and even the influence of the TV show The Big Bang Theory.”
Cindy Zhang, head of the Department of Geography
“Our Department itself is an interdisciplinary community of scientists from different scientific fields equipped with geographical perspectives and techniques. We are concerned with links between people and nature, as well as spatial analysis and representation of the flows of mass, energy, people, capital, and information.”
Mark Healey, incoming head of the Department of History, January 2019
