Welcome 2024 SBS Faculty!

Aug. 21, 2024
Montage photo of 11 faculty members

We are so pleased to welcome our new 2024 College of Social and Behavioral Sciences faculty! Our scholars join the University of Arizona driven by genuine dedication and represent a broad spectrum of research experience in a variety of subjects. 

From organizational and cultural sociology, multifaceted leadership, environmental and digital journalism, to U.S. Latino and U.S.-Mexican border history — their expertise reflects depth and breadth. Additionally, our faculty's interests extend to the role of the international community in countries' political transitions, creative writing, the morphosyntax of Indigenous languages, digging deeply into American legislative institutions, Indigenous institutions and policy through a pan-tribal lens, and the challenge of responding to harm and the threat of harm. 

 

Taylor Paige Winfield
Assistant Professor, Sociology    

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Taylor Paige Winfield is an assistant professor in the School of Sociology whose research examines how organizations use strict and comprehensive internal rules to shape behavior. Her upcoming book, Becoming a Soldier: How Institutions Shape Bodies and Bodies Shape Institutions, addresses — with a focus on gender, race, and class — how individuals from diverse backgrounds push organizations to change. 

Winfield’s work has been published in a wide array of journals and has received diverse sources of funding, including from the National Science Foundation and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. 
 

Theresa Ricke-Kiely
Assistant Professor of Practice, Government and Public Policy

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Theresa Ricke-Kiely is an assistant professor of practice in the School of Government and Public Policy. She holds an Ed.D. in organizational leadership from the University of Sarasota and is the inaugural book review editor for the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership. Her research and teaching interests include nonprofit leadership and management and organizational theory and behavior. 

Ricke-Kiely published The Path to Mindful Leadership: Practices for Nonprofit Success in 2024 and is currently working on a second book, aimed at emerging nonprofit leaders. Before joining the U of A, she held roles at the University of St. Thomas, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of South Carolina. 
 

Francisco Cantú
Assistant Professor, Creative Writing

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A lifelong resident of the Southwest, Francisco Cantú is an assistant professor of creative writing in the Department of English. Cantú is also a writer of essay, memoir, and literary criticism as well as a translator of Spanish to English prose. His first book, The Line Becomes a River, was the winner of the 2018 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. A former Fulbright Fellow, he is also the recipient of various awards: the Pushcart Prize, Whiting Award, Art for Justice fellowship, and the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano Literature. 

Cantú’s writing and translations have been featured in various publications including The New Yorker, The New York Review, and Guernica, as well as on “This American Life.” His work has also been widely anthologized, including in Best American Essays, The Selena Reader, and Shadows of Reality, A Catalogue of W. G. Sebald’s Photographic Materials. He is also the co-coordinator of the Southwest Field Studies in Writing program and the DETAINED archive. 

 

Josh Anderson
Assistant Professor, Journalism

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Josh Anderson joins the School of Journalism as an assistant professor and works on studying ways that environmental journalism can better serve the residents of climate-vulnerable communities such as those in Southern Arizona. 

Anderson received his Ph.D. from the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. 

 

 

 

Carlos Francisco Parra
Assistant Professor, History

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Carlos Francisco Parra is an assistant professor in the Department of History where he specializes in U.S.-Latino and U.S.-Mexican border history. As a member of the inaugural cohort of the U of A President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, Parra researched the history of Spanish-language television in Los Angeles. His manuscript based on that work is tentatively titled A Community on the Air: Latino Los Angeles and the Rise of Spanish-Language TV in the United States, 1960-2012.

Parra currently serves as a curator at a local history museum, developing a multimedia and educational project on behalf of Santa Cruz County, Arizona, titled “Beyond Fronteras: Treasuring an Arizona Border Community’s Past and Future," which will debut in September 2024. He graduated from the U of A with a B.A. in 
                                                         secondary education and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. 

 

Zicheng Cheng
Assistant Professor, Journalism

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Zicheng Cheng joins the School of Journalism with a research spotlight on digital journalism and political communication — in particular, how people consume and engage with news information on digital media and its societal and political impacts. 

Originally from Guangzhou, China, Cheng earned her bachelor’s degree from Sun Yat-sen University and later moved to the U.S. to complete her M.S. in mass communication at Boston University. She holds a Ph.D. in mass communications from Pennsylvania State University and her work has been published in the Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, the International Journal of Press/Politics, Social Science Computer Review, and others. 
 

Lauren Schneider
Visiting Professor, Linguistics

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Lauren Schneider is a visiting professor in the Department of Linguistics and focuses her research on the morphosyntax of Indigenous languages — specifically the serial verb constructions of Hul’q’umi’num’ Salish, one of the languages of the Salish Sea region in the Pacific Northwest. 

Schneider’s work interests also include language documentation, preservation, and revitalization.
 

 

 

Tessa Provins
Assistant Professor, Government and Public Policy

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Tessa Provins is an assistant professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and joins the U of A with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University, and a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of California, Merced. Her research emphasis is two-fold: American legislative institutions and Indigenous institutions and policy — primarily from a pan-tribal approach. 

Provins' teaching interests include American politics and race and gender politics. Her research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Politics, Journal of Public Policy, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Social Science Quarterly. In early 2024, she was part of a team of scholars awarded $500,000 in funding from Public Agenda to conduct studies showing how to achieve universal access to elections. 
 

Geneva Cole
Assistant Professor, Government and Public Policy

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Geneva Cole is an assistant professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and concentrates her research on public opinion, political behavior, and the role of political and social identities in shaping support for racial equality. Before joining the U of A, she was a postdoctoral researcher in race and ethnic politics at William and Mary.  

Cole holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago and her research has been published in Social Science Quarterly and Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties. Her work is also featured in the Washington Post, MinnPost, and the UCL Centre on US Politics Working Paper Series in American Politics.
 

David Clark
Assistant Professor, Philosophy

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David Clark is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy. He recently earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and his research centers on asking how we should respond to harm and the threat of harm. 

Clark is especially interested in understanding the mechanisms by which our moral rights against harm can be modified or suspended, and applying these insights to social and political institutions — including war, policing, immigration, and criminal, tort and contract law. 

 

 

Cameron Mailhot
Assistant Professor, Government and Public Policy

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Cameron Mailhot joins the School of Government and Public Policy as an assistant professor. His research contributes to the study of international organizations, international security, peace and conflict processes, and state-building. More specifically, his work examines the role that the international community plays in countries’ political (post-conflict and post-authoritarian) transitions. 

Originally from northern Minnesota, Mailhot received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. from Cornell University.