Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Sarah Andrea Fulton Political Science Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2006) University of California at Davis
Fa 2007 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Sarah Andrea Fulton’s interests include campaign and elections, with an emphasis on women in politics, congressional elections, political behavior, public opinion, and quantitative methods. Her seven published articles appear in the discipline’s leading journals. She won numerous awards, including the Political Research Quarterly’s Best Published Article Award (2012), the Sophonisba Breckinridge Award (2011), the Carrie Chapman Catt Award (2011), and the Pi Sigma Alpha Award (in 2003, 2004, and 2006). Her award-winning research has been featured on National Public Radio, in Foreign Policy, and in Salon Magazine.
Dr. Fulton teaches courses in American national government, women in politics, and campaigns and elections. Her courses combine lecture on core concepts, with discussion and reflection of the material for contemporary political life. Dr. Fulton has taught over 7,250 students at Texas A&M University and consistently receives outstanding teaching evaluations. In recognition of her expertise, she has been asked to serve as an external dissertation committee member and has served on both doctoral and master’s committees in the department.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Joshua A. Hicks Psychology Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2009) University of Missouri
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Joshua A. Hicks is a social and personality psychologist who studies the self, psychological well-being, and substance use and abuse. He authored 35 peer-reviewed publications, five book chapters, and co-edited a book on the experience of meaning in life. Dr. Hicks is an elected Fellow of The Society for Experimental Social Psychology and serves on the editorial board for the top academic journal in his field.
Dr. Hicks teaches both introductory to social and personality psychology courses at the undergraduate level and graduate courses on both research methods and current readings in social and personality psychology. His teaching evaluations are consistently above the departmental average. Dr. Hicks is the primary advisor for three graduate students, currently advising two undergraduate honors theses and has served on five others.
Page 33 of 47 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS (Continued)
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date
Dr. Felipe Hinojosa History Assistant Professor 09/01/15
Ph.D. (2009) University of Houston
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Felipe Hinojosa’s area is in United States History with a specialty in Mexican-American and Latino, comparative race/ethnicity, gender, and religious studies. He has a single-authored manuscript published by Johns Hopkins University and two peer-reviewed publications on Latino social movements and religion during the civil rights era. This work involves fundamental research in archives, utilizing oral histories, and an engagement with the secondary literature. Dr. Hinojosa received $95,200 in fellowships and external research funding.
Dr. Hinojosa teaches United States history after 1865, Mexican-American history after 1848, and Latino communities in the United States. He has also taught the historian’s craft and research course for undergraduate history majors as well as a graduate readings course in Chicano/Latino history. He received outstanding student evaluations, chairs two graduate student committees and serves on six master’s student committees.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date
Dr. Emily Johansen English Assistant Professor 09/01/15
Ph.D. (2008) McMaster University
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Emily Johansen's research area focuses on contemporary literature and culture with specialization on transnational literature and theory. Her book, Cosmopolitanism and Place: Spatial Forms in Contemporary Anglophone Literature, was published by Palgrave in 2014. She also has seven published or forthcoming articles. She received $21,000 in internal grants, fellowships and awards.
Dr. Johansen teaches a sophomore-level survey course in British literature from the early nineteenth century to the present and upper level courses in twentieth century British literature for which she has received strong teaching evaluations. Additionally, she chaired one graduate student committee and served on seven others.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Kristan Poirot Communication and
Women's and Gender Studies
Assistant Professor 09/01/15
Ph.D. (2004) University of Georgia Fa 2004 - Sp 2009
Fa 2009 - Present
University of South Carolina Texas A&M University
Assistant Professor Assistant Professor
Page 34 of 47 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS (Continued) Dr. Kristan Poirot (continued)
Dr. Kristan Poirot is an interdisciplinary humanities scholar who specializes in rhetoric and social movements with emphasis in feminist and black freedom movements in the United States. She published one book and five articles on feminist history, contemporary gender theory, public memory, and black resistance. Her research has been recognized by the National Communication Association and the Organization for Research on Women and Communication. She received three internal grants totaling $21,000 from Texas A&M University to finance her research program.
Dr. Poirot teaches seven undergraduate courses and three graduate courses in women and gender studies, rhetoric of the civil rights movement, gender and communication, and sex and feminism. She received outstanding student evaluations. She currently chairs four doctoral committees. Dr. Poirot received numerous teaching awards and grants, including the 2014 Montague Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar Award.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Rebecca J. Schlegel Psychology Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2009) University of Missouri
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Rebecca J. Schlegel’s research area is in social psychology with a specialty in self-identity and well-being. She authored 19 journal articles and two book chapters. She received funding from the National Science Foundation as a co-principal investigator totaling $1.08 million. She currently serves on the editorial board for two of the top journals in her field (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin).
Dr. Schlegel teaches introductory statistics and introductory psychology at the undergraduate level and two seminars on specialized topics in social psychology at the graduate level. She received outstanding student evaluations each year. She has served as the primary advisor for three graduate students and advised two undergraduate theses. She chaired two dissertation committees and served on 13 other thesis/dissertation committees.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Rodrigo A. Velez Economics Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2009) University of Rochester
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Rodrigo A. Velez is an economist with a specialty in fair allocation theory, mechanism design, and algorithmic game theory. He authored seven publications in top economic theory and game theory journals and presented at six conferences. Dr. Velez received the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research Stipendiary Fellowship in 2011.
Page 35 of 47 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS (Continued) Dr. Rodrigo A. Velez (continued)
Dr. Velez teaches intermediate microeconomics for undergraduates as well as two graduate-level courses in microeconomics and the theory of market design. He continuously receives outstanding evaluations. Dr. Velez mentored seven graduate students, six of whom graduated with a master’s degree and one with a doctorate degree.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Cara Wallis Communication Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2008) University of Southern California
Fa 2009 - Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Cara Wallis studies the social and cultural implications of new media technologies and issues of power, difference, and subjectivity, particularly in China. Her work examines how uses and understandings of technology both reproduce inequitable power relations and open up spaces for individual and collective agency and, thus, social change. She is the author of the book Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones (NYU Press, 2013). The book received the 2013 James W. Carey Media Research Award and the 2014 Bonnie Ritter Book Award. She also authored seven journal articles, six book chapters, and provided eight invited lectures. Dr. Wallis received $204,483 in grants, fellowships and awards.
Dr. Wallis teaches courses on communication technology and culture, gender and media in East Asia, and media and society in contemporary China. She continuously receives high course evaluations by students. She is advising one doctoral student and has co-advised two others as well as one master’s student. She has served as a committee member on several doctoral student committees. She directed four independent studies for graduate students as well as one year-long mentorship project.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date Dr. Darrell A. Worthy Psychology Assistant Professor 09/01/15 Ph.D. (2010) University of Texas at Austin
Fa 2010-Present Texas A&M University Assistant Professor
Dr. Darrell A. Worthy’s research examines learning and decision-making using a computational cognitive neuroscience approach. He published 20 papers examining the effects of cognitive aging on decision-making, the roles of depression and personality in decision-making, as well as work developing computational learning models. He currently holds a National Institutes of Health grant through the National Institute of Aging totaling $1.18 million.
Dr. Worthy currently teaches the department’s two required graduate-level statistics courses. He also teaches statistics, research methods, and cognitive psychology at the undergraduate level. Across all courses he received high student evaluations. He supervises four graduate students with whom he has published scholarly work. He is a member of 12 graduate student committees and mentored 10 undergraduate researchers.
Page 36 of 47 COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS (Continued) Dr. Darrell A. Worthy (continued)
Dr. Worthy is being recommended for early tenure because the department believes his record is consistent with the performance of faculty who meets full expectations for promotion and tenure at Texas A&M University.
Name Department Present Rank Effective Date
Dr. Yuzhe Zhang Economics Assistant Professor 09/01/15
Ph.D. (2006) University of Minnesota Fa 2006 - Sp 2011
Fa 2011 - Present
University of Iowa Texas A&M University
Assistant Professor Assistant Professor
Dr. Yuzhe Zhang’s area is dynamic contract theory with a specialty in continuous-time modeling, contracts with persistent private information, unemployment insurance, and contracts with limited commitment. He authored nine publications to promote continuous-time methods in analyzing dynamic contracts under various frictions. This work involves fundamental research both in mathematical methods and economic theory on incentives. He was selected as the associate editor of Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control in 2013.
Dr. Zhang teaches first year macroeconomics theory for doctoral students as well as two intermediate macroeconomics courses for undergraduates. He received the award of Outstanding Graduate Faculty of Economics in 2011 and had outstanding student evaluations each year. He chaired two graduate student committees and served on nine others.