Introducing New Members of the Faculty

To help introduce to the Cornell community the new members of the university's faculty -- almost 60 new tenured or tenure-track faculty members have joined Cornell since July 1 -- the Cornell Chronicle is publishing brief new-faculty profiles each week during the semester.

William Bracken

Assistant professor, philosophy
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Focus is on 19th and 20th century Continental philosophy, philosophy of psychoanalysis, Kant, history of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and epistomology. He specializes in 19th and 20th century Continental philosophy, philosophy of psychoanalysis, moral psychology, Kant and aesthetics, and he currently is writing a book on the conception of the self in Lacan's early work.
Previous position: Head teaching fellow and teaching fellow at Harvard University, 1991-97.
Academic background: B.A., philosophy, Wheaton College, 1986; M.A., philosophy, Northern Illinois University, 1988; and Ph.D., philosophy, Harvard University, 1998.

Piet Brouwer

Assistant professor, physics
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Theoretical meso-scopic physics, a subfield of condensed matter physics that deals with the properties of small, mostly electronic systems, such as semiconductor or metal wires, small metal grains or semiconductor quantum dots. In particular, his focus is on transport and thermodynamic properties of disordered or chaotic electronic systems and how these are affected by interactions, the proximity of a superconductor, variations (random or non-random) of the environment and type of disorder.
Previous position: Postdoctoral fellow, Harvard University, 1997-1999.
Academic background: M.S., physics, 1993, M.S., mathematics, 1994, and Ph.D., theoretical condensed matter physics, Leiden University, 1997.

Margaret G. Meloy

Assistant professor, agricultural economics
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: While working with the department's Food Industry Management Group, Meloy's research focuses on consumer and managerial decision-making processes. She also studies store loyalty programs.
Previous position: Assistant professor, marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Va.
Academic background: B.S., agricultural economics, rural sociology, Pennsylvania State University, 1984; M.S., agricultural economics, 1988, and Ph.D., marketing, 1996, Cornell.

Scott J. Peters

Assistant professor, education
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Research interests include higher education policy, civic education and the history of American higher education, with a special focus on the civic mission of land-grant education. As a member of the Cornell Department of Education's Agricultural, Extension and Adult Education program, his research, teaching and extension work are aimed at renewing the democratic promise of the land-grant idea.
Previous position: Assistant professor, University of Minnesota Extension Service.
Academic background: B.S., education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1983; and M.A., public policy, 1995, and Ph.D., educational policy and administration, University of Minnesota, 1998.

Yi Wen

Assistant professor, economics
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Macroeconomics and business cycles; the structure and performance of national economies and the policies that governments use to affect economic performance. The issues include: What determines a nation's long-run economic growth, economic fluctuations, unemployment and inflation; how the global economic system affects national economies; how to understand the economic impact of government policy changes; and how to forecast changes in economic trends, such as production, price level, unemployment, interest rate, and the implications of current economic events on the national economy.
Previous position: Assistant professor, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Academic background: B.S., pharmacology, West China University of Medical Sciences, 1986; M.A., economics, 1994, and Ph.D., economics, 1996, University of Iowa.

November 4, 1999