laura hunsicker wang and chris hertz in a lab
Trinity Awards Promotion and Tenure for 2019-20
Trinity University is proud to announce the following faculty promotions, which took effect for the Fall 2019 semester.

Trinity University is proud to announce the following faculty promotions, which took effect for the Fall 2019 semester.

Rosa Aloisi, Ph.D.

Promoted to Associate Professor of Political Science and Granted Tenure

Aloisi’s current research investigates the role that international judges play in the development of international criminal law and the impact that United Nations Special Procedures have on countries’ human rights ratings.

Alex Gallin-Parisi, M.S.L.S. 

Promoted to Associate Professor at Coates Library and Granted Tenure 

Gallin-Parisi is the library liaison to the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Political Science, Psychology, Economics, and Urban Studies. In addition to teaching information literacy sessions, she created the academic success for student-athletes course, participated in developing the “Starting Strong” QEP, and taught Summer Bridge for first-generation and Pell-eligible students.

Mario Gonzalez-Fuentes, Ph.D.  

Promoted to Associate Professor of Business Administration and Granted Tenure 

Gonzalez-Fuentes’ research focuses on the adaptation of consumers to different social and cultural environments. His recent publications explore the cross-cultural impact of globalization and information technology in consumer identities and the process through which individuals manage, negotiate, and express their new identities in different marketplaces.

Heather Haynes Smith, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Associate Professor of Education and Granted Tenure 

Smith researches incidence disabilities and the integration of academic and behavioral supports in education, including response to intervention (RTI) and multi-tiered systems of supports (MTSS), social and emotional learning, disability studies, inclusive education, general education and special education collaboration, school reform, social justice, experiential learning, feedback, and teacher preparation. 

Jason Johnson, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Associate Professor of History and Granted Tenure 

Johnson's book, Divided Village: The Cold War in the German Borderlands, looks at the effects of division on a sixty-person farming village split by the Iron Curtain, and he has published articles on the US occupation of a German country after World War II and East German cultural exchange to the United States. He is currently working on a project about tourism to Berlin during the Cold War.

Rachel Joseph, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Associate Professor of Human Communication and Theatre and Granted Tenure 

Joseph’s current project, Screened Stages: On Theatre in Film, analyzes cinema and performance in relationship to presentness and reproducibility. Her work has been published in literary journals such as The Coachella Review and The Brooklyn Review, and the book, Imagined Theatres: Writing for a Theoretical Stage

Zhaoxi Liu, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Associate Professor of Communication and Granted Tenure 

Liu’s research focuses on cultural meaning of news and mass media content, media system and change in China, journalism as an occupational culture, and comparative studies of journalism and mass media across cultures.

Laura Hunsicker-Wang, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Chemistry

Hunsicker-Wang explores the relationship between protein structure and function. Her lab uses a combination of mutagenesis, chemical modification, and spectroscopic and structural tools to study proteins involved directly or indirectly in the respiration process.

Patrick Keating, Ph.D.

Promoted to Professor of Communication 

Keating's areas of research and teaching include film history and style, Hollywood cinema, narrative theory, international cinema, cinematography, and film noir. He regularly publishes works of videographic criticism.

Kelly Lyons, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Biology 

Lyons studies the influence of diversity on ecosystem functioning and invasive species dynamics. Her current research focus is on restoration of Texas grasslands and rangelands with particular emphasis on interactions between plants and fungi. 

Patricia Norman, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Education 

As the coordinator of Trinity’s elementary Master of Arts in Teaching program, Norman helps teacher candidates identify, examine and revise their entering beliefs as educators. She maintains that educators are in a position to integrate new knowledge into their teaching practice, implementing strategies to teach and engage culturally diverse learners.

Maria Paganelli, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Economics

Paganelli researches the history of economic thought, specializing in the 18th century. Her work focuses on how self-interest interacts with motivational drives, systematic biases, and the surrounding institutional environment. She also explores the links between the Scottish Enlightenment and the results from behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and neuroeconomics.

Amy Stone, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Sociology and Anthropology

Stone’s research looks at belonging and marginalization in the LGBTQ community in the U.S. with a focus on urban communities. She is currently focused on urban citizenship in the South and Southwest through the study of festivals and an interdisciplinary team project with Strengthening Colors of Pride SA on the social determinants of health and resilience in the San Antonio LGBTQ community.

Rita Urquijo-Ruiz, Ph.D. 

Promoted to Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures

Urquijo-Ruiz’s academic interests include Mexican, Chicanx, and Latinx literatures, cultures, gender, and sexuality, as well as theater and performance studies. Her interdisciplinary approach to teaching and writing centers on the stories of socially and economically marginalized communities in Mexico and the United States.  

Abigail DeNike ’20 helped tell Trinity's story as a writing intern for Strategic Communications and Marketing.

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