Search Committee
Kathryn Chval
chval@uic.edu
Committee Chair
Dean and Professor of Mathematics Education
College of Education
About the Co-Chair
Mark Bennett
mbenne2@uic.edu
Clinical Assistant Professor of English
Director of the First Year Writing Program
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Jose Camacho
jcamach@uic.edu
Director and Professor
School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
José Camacho is a Professor of Hispanic linguistics in Hispanic and Italian Studies (HIS) and director of the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics. He came to UIC in 2019 after teaching at Rutgers University for 20 years. He specializes in the theoretical syntax, with a focus on Spanish and Amazonian languages, as well as the grammatical representation of language in bilingual speakers. He is interested in processes related to how language is represented in the mind. Lately, he has begun to focus on learning algorithms and the ways in which bias can affect the results of those learning algorithms.
Michael Emerson
moe@uic.edu
Head and Professor
Department of Sociology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Alexandra Filindra
aleka@uic.edu
Associate Professor of Political Science
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Alex Garza
alex@aggconsulting.net
President and Founder of AGG Consulting Inc.
UIC Alumna '88
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Anna Guevarra
guevarra@uic.edu
Director and Associate Professor
Global Asian Studies Program
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Mohammed Haq
mhaq7@uic.edu
Student Trustee
Undergraduate Student
Department of Biological Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Agnes Herget
aherget@uic.edu
Senior Director
Innovation and Program Development
UIC Extended Campus
Agnes Herget has been at UIC for nearly 20 years and, up until recently, served as the Executive Assistant Dean in the Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In that role she provided strategic coordination and operational oversight to the College's leadership team and Dean's office staff on issues related to faculty affairs, student academic affairs, communication, advancement, and budget planning. She collaborated with department heads /chairs from across the College's 24 academic units and key campus stakeholders to drive strategic priorities in support of the College's goals.
Agnes recently transitioned to a new role at UIC as the Senior Director of Innovation and Online Program Development with UIC's Extended Campus. Having previously led the College's online teaching and learning efforts, this position allows her to contribute to the campus-wide priority to promote teaching innovation and to develop and launch fully online degree programs at the graduate and undergraduate level by partnering with UIC's academic units.
Agnes previously served as one of the Academic Professional members of the UIC Senate and currently is the Vice-Chair and a member of the Executive Committee of APAC, the Chancellor's Academic Professional Advisory Committee.
Jonathan Inda
jxinda@uic.edu
Director and Professor
Department of Latin American and Latino Studies
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Ellen McClure
ellenmc@uic.edu
Professor of French and Francophone Studies
Professor of History
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Kathryn Nagy
klnagy@uic.edu
Head and Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Kathryn Nagy is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. She has been on the faculty for 20 years and has been Head of the department since 2012. She was previously an Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories, and a Senior Research Geologist at Exxon Production Research Company. After receiving her Ph.D. in Geology from Texas A&M University in 1988, she was a Postdoctoral Scientist at Yale University. Dr. Nagy investigates geochemical and biogeochemical reactions relevant to environmental and geological systems. Her research explores molecular-scale processes that limit or enable transport of chemical constituents such as the toxic element mercury, in water, soils, and sediment using experimental approaches, natural materials, field samples, and synchrotron radiation. Currently, she is also involved in education research centered on increasing high school student interest in pursuing careers in geoscience and environmental chemistry. She is a Fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Union of Geochemistry, and has served in multiple leadership positions and on journal editorial boards for professional societies in geochemistry, mineralogy, and environmental science.
Aisha Pleasant
apleas2@uic.edu
Chief of Staff
Academic and Enrollment Services
Equity Advocate
Office of Diversity
Dr. Aisha Pleasant currently serves as the Interim Director of the President’s Award Program (PAP) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where she currently works with and supports academic excellence for high achieving students in the PAP program. She graduated from UIC with a Bachelor of Arts (2012) and Master of Arts in Criminology, Law and Justice (2014). She earned her PhD in Community Psychology from National Louis University in 2020. With eight years of experience working in administration at the university alongside higher leadership, Aisha specializes in administrative and organizational processes and procedures, and diversity, equity & inclusion. She previously worked as the Chief of Staff for the Vice Provost of Academic and Enrollment Services at UIC. Her work philosophy is to continue to challenge herself by learning new things and taking on new opportunities. Aisha uses her positive attitude and energy to get things done, even when unique and unpredictable challenges arise.
Tierney Powell
tpowel20@uic.edu
Ph.D Candidate
Department of English
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Tierney S. Powell is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English. Her research and teaching explore representations of logistics and infrastructure in contemporary fiction, film, and television. Tierney's recent courses have included Introduction to Multiethnic Literatures of the US, English and American Popular Genres, and Cinema and Culture, in addition to composition courses in UIC’s First Year Writing Program. She is a Graduate Assistant for Interim Dean of the UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Lisa A. Freeman, assisting with the organization and planning of humanities programming at and liaising with The Newberry Library. From 2018-2022, Tierney served as the Graduate Research Assistant for the UIC Institute for the Humanities, where she managed the creative and digital services for the Institute, including graphic design and video editing. In this role, Tierney worked closely with UIC’s Engaged Humanities Initiative (EHI), Digital Humanities Initiative (DHI), and Multi Ethnic Digital Humanities Project, as well as Institute working groups and visiting speakers. Tierney is also an active member of UIC’s Freshwater Lab, an initiative to communicate Great Lakes water issues to the general public and to train UIC students to manage and steward water systems. Prior to pursuing her PhD at UIC, Tierney received her MA in English at Creighton University, where she co-founded, organized, and ran the “You Are Here”: Interdisciplinary Conference on Place, Space, and Embodiment.
Brian Roessler
baroess@uic.edu
Executive Assistant Dean
Student Academic Affairs
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Brian Roessler is the Executive Assistant Dean for Student Academic Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a member of the College’s leadership team. In his role, he oversees College-based undergraduate recruitment, admissions, new student yield, new student orientation, academic advising, career development, degree certification, and undergraduate student administrative policies and procedures. LAS is UIC's largest undergraduate college serving 10,000 undergraduate students on UIC's diverse urban campus. Within the last 18 years of his service in LAS Student Academic Affairs, staffing has increased from 26 to 66 professionals in support of the UIC's historic undergraduate enrollment and LAS's initiatives in assigned advising, recruitment, first-year seminars, and career guidance and internships. Brian's focus is to support both students and the outstanding staff that works with and for LAS’s undergraduates. To this end, he has restructured student support services implemented several new initiatives—paperless record-keeping, the use of web-based appointment software and, most important, data-driven strength-based intrusive advising. An active campus collaborator, Brian serves on many committees and task forces.
Jasmin Searcy-Pate
jsearcyp@uic.edu
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology
Director of the Office of Applied Psychology Services
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member
Brooke Shipley
shipleyb@uic.edu
Professor Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Brooke Shipley is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (MSCS). She was the Head of MSCS from 2014 to 2022 and has been the co-chair of the campus Faculty Equity Committee since 2017. Before joining UIC in 2003, she was an Associate Professor at Purdue University. Dr. Shipley received her Ph.D. from MIT in 1995 and was a postdoc at University of Chicago and University of Notre Dame. She is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, was a Sloan Research Fellow, and was awarded the 2022 Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society. She is a co-PI on the NSF grant and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI) located at the University of Chicago and run in partnership with UIC, Northwestern, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Maria Yermolina
myermo1@uic.edu
Clinical Assistant Professor and Alumna
Department of Chemistry
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
About the Member