Introducing Members of the 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 through December.

Kirby

Liddell

Sachs

Simpson

van de Walle

Vladimirsky

Brian J. Kirby

Assistant professor, mechanical and aerospace engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Kirby's current research focuses on transport in micro- and nanofluidic systems, with a stress on laser microfabrication techniques and application to microfluidic protein and cell analysis. Current interests also include laser fabrication of dialysis membranes and high-pressure microvalves, rapid prototyping in microfluidic systems, electrokinetic phenomena in nanofluidic systems, interface science, ultra-high-pressure microfluidic systems, enzymatic conversion of biofuels and optical manipulation of cells in microchannels.
Previous position: Senior member, technical staff, Microfluidics Group, Sandia National Laboratories, 2001-04.
Academic background: B.S., aerospace engineering, University of Michigan, 1994; M.S., mechanical engineering, University of Michigan, 1996; Ph.D., mechanical engineering, Stanford University, 2001.
Last book read: Only the Ball Was White by Robert Peterson.

Chekesha Liddell

Assistant professor, materials science and engineering
College: Engineering
Academic focus: Colloidal building blocks for three-dimensional photonic crystals; design and synthesis of colloids for environmental remediation strategies; mesoscale assembly techniques; colloid separations technology; hierarchical inorganic and hybrid bio-inspired materials; inorganic mesoporous materials; and matter-energy interactions for ion beam modification of colloids.
Academic background: B.S., chemistry, Spelman College, 1999; Bachelor of Materials Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1999; Ph.D., materials science and engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2003.
Last book read: Timeline by Michael Crichton.

Aaron J. Sachs

Assistant professor, history and American studies
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Cultural, intellectual and environmental history of the United States; 19th-century travel and exploration; the writing of history; landscape; radicalism and dissent; Western U.S. and comparative frontiers; environmental justice and social ecology; and anarchist geography.
Previous position: Instructor, Yale University.
Academic background: A.B., history and literature, Harvard University, 1992; Ph.D., American studies, Yale University, 2004.
Last book read: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Audra Simpson

Assistant professor, anthropology
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Nationhood, citizenship, narrative, borders (U.S.-Canada), the Iroquois (Mohawk).
Previous position: Provost's academic diversity postdoctoral fellow, Cornell.
Academic background: B.A., Concordia University, 1993; M.A., McGill University, 1996; Ph.D., McGill, 2004.
Last book read: The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith.

Nicolas van de Walle

John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and professor of government
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: The political economy of development, African politics, democratization and foreign aid.
Previous position: Professor of government, Michigan State University, 1999-2004.
Academic background: B.A., international relations, University of Pennsylvania, 1979; M.S., London School of Economics; Ph.D., public policy, Princeton University, 1990.
Last book read: The Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of Liberia by Claude Clegg.

Alexander Vladimirsky

Assistant professor, mathematics
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Numerical analysis, nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs), dynamical systems and control theory. He specializes in building fast numerical methods for problems in which the direction of information flow can be used to speed up the computations.
Previous position: National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, Cornell, 2001-04.
Academic background: B.A., applied mathematics, University of California-Berkeley, 1995; Ph.D., applied mathematics, UC-Berkeley, 2001.
Last book read: Publish and Perish by James Hynes.

September 23, 2004