New tenure-track faculty join North Central College fall 2014

With the start of fall term classes on Sept. 15, 2014, North Central College welcomed nine full-time, tenure-track faculty members. They represent all four academic divisions and a range of academic disciplines: sociology, biology, philosophy, psychology, Chinese, music, education and management.

These new tenure-track faculty are:

Ericka Adams, assistant professor of sociology. She earned a B.A. in criminal justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York City, and an M.A. in criminal justice and Ph.D. in criminology, law and justice from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Previously, Adams served as a visiting professor at San José State University and assistant professor in North Central’s sociology and anthropology department.

Silvia Alvarez-Clare, assistant professor of biology. She earned a B.S. in biology from Universidad de Costa Rica and an M.S. in botany with a minor in statistics and Ph.D. in interdisciplinary ecology from the University of Florida. Previously, she was an adjunct researcher at Argonne National Laboratory and postdoctoral research fellow with the National Science Foundation.

Greg Lynch, assistant professor philosophy. He received his B.A. in philosophy with a minor in Greek from Cedarville University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Fordham University. Lynch also was a postdoctoral teaching fellow and teaching fellow at Fordham University.

Elise Percy, assistant professor of psychology. She earned a B.A. in psychology from Simpson College and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Indiana University. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, where she taught courses in research methods.

Shawna Rohrman, assistant professor of sociology. She received her B.A. in sociology and criminal justice from Baldwin-Wallace University (formerly Baldwin-Wallace College), her M.A. in sociology from the University of Akron, and her Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University where she taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses.

Jinai Sun, assistant professor of Chinese. She earned a B.A. in English literature and linguistics from Harbin Normal University and an M.Ed. and Ph.D. in educational administration from The Pennsylvania State University. Since 2011, Sun has held a visiting teaching position in Chinese at North Central College where she directed its Chinese program and STARTALK Chinese Immersion program.

Kelley Tatro, assistant professor of music. She earned a B.M. in applied music from Eastman School of Music, a B.A. in English from the University of Rochester, an M.A. in verbal and visual representation in British culture from Reading University, United Kingdom, and an M.A. in art history and Ph.D. in music from Duke University. Proficient in Spanish, Tatro has studied viola and violin.

Veselina Vracheva, assistant professor of management. She received a B.A. in management and marketing from the University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a B.B. from Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Ireland, an M.B.A. from Western Carolina University, and a Ph.D. in business administration with an emphasis on strategic management from Old Dominion University, where she also taught.

Alicia Wyche, assistant professor of education. She earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of Notre Dame, an M.A.T. in education with a social science endorsement from National-Louis University, and a Ph.D. in special education with a concentration in literacy and language from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Wyche has held visiting and assistant professor in education positions at North Central College since 2013.

In addition, North Central welcomes Riad Ismat as scholar-in-residence for the 2014-2015 academic year. Ismat will serve as visiting professor of arts and letters and teach courses in playwriting and acting and will lecture on Syria, Arabic literature and drama, and Shakespeare in the Middle East. An award-winning playwright, short-story author and literary and arts critic, Ismat is the former Syrian Minister of Culture. He holds a B.A. in English literature from Damascus University, Syria, a postgraduate diploma in theater studies at Cardiff University, United Kingdom, and received a certificate in television production and direction from the BBC in London.