New faculty

Introducing New Members of the Faculty

To help introduce to the Cornell community the new members of the university's faculty, the Cornell Chronicle is publishing brief, new-faculty profiles each week during the semester.

Oren Falk

Assistant professor, history
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic Focus: History: cultural, medieval, Norse and North Atlantic; philology and anthropology; historiography of violence; medieval genders; and the religious conversion process.
Previous position: Yad haNadiv post-doctoral fellow and instructor, University of Toronto, 2001-2002.
Academic background: B.A., history and "Amirim" programme, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 1995; M.A., medieval studies, 1996, and Ph.D., medieval studies, 2002, both at University of Toronto.

Susheng Gan

Assistant professor, horticulture
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Gan's research focus is to decipher the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying plant aging and to devise ways to manipulate the plant developmental process for horticultural and agricultural improvements, such as prolonged floral and vegetable shelf life and increased productivity.
Previous position: Associate professor, plant molecular genetics, University of Kentucky. br>Academic background: B.Sc., biology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 1982; M.Sc., plant physiology, East China Normal University, 1985; and Ph.D., biochemistry, University of Wisconsin- Madison, 1995.

Georg Hoffstaetter

Associate professor, physics
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: The physics of band accelerator technology, especially related to the Energy Recovery Linear Accelerator (ERL) project, the proposed construction of a new type of synchrotron radiation machine, based on a superconducting linac and a one-turn storage ring for CHESS, the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source; nonlinear optics design; space charge within a tightly focused beam; the creation of synchrotron light; and the back-reaction of coherently emitted light on the electron beam.
Previous position: Accelerator physicist, Deutsche Elektronen-Synchrotron, Hamburg, Germany, and lecturer at the University of Hamburg.
Academic background: Diploma in physics, Darmstadt Institute of Technology, Germany, 1991; M.S., physics, 1992, and Ph.D., physics, 1994, both at Michigan State University; Dr. habil. (doctor habilitatus), physics, Darmstadt Institute of Technology, 2000.

Diana Kati Reese

Assistant professor, German studies/feminist gender and sexuality studies
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Philosophy of the enlightenment, Romantic and anti-classical literatures around 1800 in German, French and English, feminist theory, globalization and gender.
Previous position: Doctoral student and instructor in comparative literature/Germanic languages, Columbia University.
Academic background: B.A., comparative literature, University of California-Berkeley, 1988; Ph.D., comparative literature/Germanic languages, Columbia University, 2002.

Maureen R. Waller

Assistant professor, policy analysis and management
College: College of Human Ecology
Academic focus: Using qualitative and mixed-method techniques to examine the meaning of marriage, fatherhood and social policies in low-income communities. Her research investigates factors that are linked to stable romantic and parenting relationships among unmarried parents and to unmarried fathers' involvement with their children.
Previous positions: Research fellow, Public Policy Institute of California, 1997 to 2002.
Academic background: B.A., political science, University of Dayton, 1989; M.A., 1992, and Ph.D., 1997, both in sociology, Princeton University.

January 16, 2003