Oberlin Welcomes New A&S Faculty for 2022-23

April 20, 2022

Communications Staff

A teacher leads an outdoor class.
An Italian class takes advantage of the nice weather in Tappan Square.
Photo credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones ’97

The commitment of our dedicated faculty lies at the heart of the Oberlin experience. We are honored to introduce the newest members of our faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, and we look forward to welcoming additional new faculty as we prepare for the year ahead.

College of Arts and Sciences

Jessica Arnett
Photo courtesy of Arnett

Jessica Arnett

Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Environmental Studies

Education

  • PhD, History, University of Minnesota
  • MA, Draper Interdisciplinary Program in Humanities and Social Thought, New York University
  • BA, History, California State University, San Marcos

Arnett’s research and teaching interests include American Indian history, 19th- and 20th-century U.S., indigenous studies, global history, law, race, U.S. settler colonialism and empire, and decolonization. She will teach Native American and indigenous studies.

Danielle Godon-Decoteau
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Danielle Godon-Decoteau

Assistant Professor of Psychology

Education

  • PhD, Clinical Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston
  • AM, Psychology, Mount Holyoke College
  • BS, Business Administration, Bryant University

Godon-Decoteau’s research interests include racial oppression and internalization of racism; Asian American mental health; race, culture, and identity; and transracial adoption. Godon-Decoteau will teach courses about mental health.

Anjanette Hall
Photo courtesy of Hall

Anjanette Hall

Assistant Professor of Theater

Education

  • MFA, Acting, Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts
  • BFA, Musical Theatre Performance, Western Michigan University

Hall’s theatrical experience includes acting and directing roles in A Christmas Story (Cleveland Play House); The Night Alive (Dobama Theatre); Opus (Two River Theater Company); and Men on Boats (Baldwin Wallace University). She also has experience in commercial/voice-over, television, and film.

Ali Masood
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Ali Masood

Assistant Professor of Politics

Education

  • PhD, Political Science, University of South Carolina
  • MA, Political Science, University of South Carolina
  • BA, Political Science, Georgia State University
  • BBA, Economics, University of Georgia

Masood studies American political institutions with a focus on the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. His research aims to provide a better understanding of the complex ways in which judicial actors, at various levels of the judicial hierarchy, interact to shape legal and policy outcomes in the U.S. Masood is working on several projects, including how the Supreme Court exerts its policy influence on the lower courts through its shadow docket. He will teach civil rights and civil liberties, constitutional law, judicial politics, and a seminar on the Supreme Court.

Gabe Moore
Photo courtesy of Princeton University

Gabe Moore

Assistant Professor of Biology

Education

  • PhD, Philosophy in Molecular Biology, Princeton University
  • BA, Biology and Musical Studies, Oberlin College

Moore’s coauthored research—“A Dual-Mechanism Antibiotic Kills Gram-Negative Bacteria and Avoids Drug Resistance”—was published in Cell in 2020. He will teach infectious disease biomedical/health science.

Michael Roman
Photo courtesy of Bates College

Michael Roman

Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Art

Education

  • MFA, Drawing, California State University
  • MA, Community Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art
  • BFA, Painting, Syracuse University

Roman’s work was recently shown in the Black Heritage and the Brotherhood of Man exhibition at the Steffen Thomas Museum of Art in Madison, Georgia. He will teach design and African American expression.

Josh Sperling
Photo credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones ’97

Joshua Sperling

Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies

Education

  • PhD, Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies, Yale University
  • MFA, Fiction, Brooklyn College
  • MPhil, Comparative Literature and Film and Media Studies, Yale University
  • MA, Film Production, Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya
  • BA, Physics, University of California, Berkeley

Sperling’s interests focus on 20th- and 21st-century aesthetics, the interplay of culture and politics, and the history of cinema. His first book, A Writer of Our Time: The Life and Work of John Berger, was published in 2018 by Verso. Sperling has been appointed to a permanent position on the Oberlin faculty after serving as a visiting assistant professor.

Bryan Terrazas
Photo courtesy of Terrazas

Bryan Terrazas

Assistant Professor of Physics

Education

  • PhD, Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Michigan
  • MS, Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Michigan
  • BA, Astrophysics, Columbia University

Terrazas’ scholarship focuses on how supermassive black holes affect the formation and evolution of galaxies throughout the history of the universe. Terrazas will continue this work through their research program and will teach astrophysics.

Dominic Toscano
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Dominic Toscano

Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies

Education

  • PhD, Pre-Modern Chinese Literature, Harvard University
  • MA, Chinese Literature, University of Colorado Boulder
  • BA, Chinese, University of California, Los Angeles

Toscano has published on various aspects of the literature and culture of medieval China. He will teach Chinese language and literature.

Veronica Vriesman
Photo courtesy of Vriesman

Veronica Padilla Vriesman

Assistant Professor of Geology

Education

  • PhD, Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis (anticipated spring 2022)
  • BA, Geology and Spanish, Colgate University

Padilla Vriesman recently published “Investigating controls of shell growth features in a foundation bivalve species: seasonal trends and decadal changes in the California mussel” in Biogeosciences. She will teach paleontology.

Emily Wang
Photo courtesy of Wang

Emily Wang

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Education

  • PhD, Technology and Social Behavior, Northwestern University (anticipated spring 2022)
  • MS, Technology and Social Behavior, Northwestern University
  • BS, Engineering with a Concentration in Computing, Olin College of Engineering

Wang’s coauthored article—“The Invisible Labor of Access in Academic Writing Practices: A Case Analysis with Dyslexic Adults”—will be published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human Computer Interaction.

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