Welcome 2025 New SBS Faculty!
Welcome our new faculty members, whose diverse expertise reflects the breadth and depth of research, teaching, and community engagement that define the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Our scholars explore topics including the study of attention and addiction, social and spatial theory, theories of linguistics in the O’odham language, sustainability, digital tools in journalism, gender-based violence, models of language development, political morality, human nature and ethics, Indigenous forest management, and much more!
Junzi Huang
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Global Studies
Junzi Huang (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) researches social theory, colonialism and decolonial futures in education, food and body politics in border crossings, and grassroots social and feminist movements in East Asia. She is currently working on projects that examine the global travels of “mind” and how that shapes the pharmaco-psychopolitics of attention and addiction.
Huang has many years of experience in organizing grassroots activist efforts to support underserved communities of migrant workers. She teaches in non-profit and community engagement settings, such as teaching workshops of poetry and creative writing for migrant children and children with non-neurotypical conditions.
Andrew Grogan
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Geography, Development & Environment
Andrew Grogan is an assistant professor of practice in the School of Geography, Development and Environment. Previously, Grogan was the assistant director of the Geographic Information System Technology program. His expertise centers on arid lands, environmental perception, and urban terrain analysis. Before joining the University of Arizona, Grogan worked in the geospatial industry, working for companies such as General Dynamics; and his experience includes GIS database, mapping, and analysis work for large environmental engineering projects. He is an avid fly fisherman, fascinated with the natural world.
Jeremy Johns
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics
Jeremy Johns (Ph.D., Yale University) joins the University of Arizona as an assistant professor in the Department of Linguistics. Johns is from the Ak-Chin Indian Community (Tohono ’O’odham/’Akimel ’O’odham) and his research focuses on the theoretical aspects of linguistics as it pertains to the phonology and semantics of reduplicative morphology in the O’odham language. O’odham, an Uto-Aztecan language native to the Sonoran Desert, is an endangered language currently experiencing revitalization efforts.
Johns has served as an O’odham language instructor for Tohono O’odham Community College in Sells, Arizona, since 2017. As a heritage speaker and someone raised in an O’odham community, he is uniquely positioned as both a community member and academic researcher affording him opportunities to explore community level linguistic issues from an Indigenous point of view.
Keith Woodward
Director and Professor, School of Geography, Development, and Environment
Keith Woodward (Ph.D., University of Arizona) returns to his alma mater as a professor and director of the School of Geography, Development, and Environment. His work centers on social theory, with a focus on how space, politics, and experience are shaped by philosophical and real-world forces. He is the co-author of the forthcoming book, Whole Onflow (Routledge), which explores new ways of thinking about space and place. He is currently working on a monograph dedicated to Jean Genet and mereology.
Justin Strong
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Sociology
Originally from Phoenix, Strong joins the University of Arizona as an assistant professor of practice in the School of Sociology. His research examines the intersection of punishment, social suffering, law and sovereignty, and the rights of incarcerated people. Strong holds a B.A. and M.A. in criminology from Northern Arizona University and a Ph.D. in criminology, law, and society from the University of California, Irvine. He was previously an assistant professor in the Department of Justice Studies at San Jose State University and has a Chihuahua named Randall.
Erin Heinz
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Sociology
Erin Heinz joins the University of Arizona as an assistant professor of practice in the School of Sociology. Coming from her role as a postdoctoral associate with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, Heinz is looking forward to returning to her alma mater, the rugged mountain bike trails on Mt. Lemmon, and Tucson winters. As an environmental sociologist, Heinz explores the paradoxes of sustainability, and the social context that shapes the perception of urgency and risk of climate change. In her previous role with Boston University, Heinz investigated the sociotechnical barriers to decarbonization of buildings. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and is the author of a forthcoming book on the paradox of sustainability certifications in resource-constrained environments.
Elizabeth Hearne
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History
Elizabeth Hearne is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of History. She holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and for her doctoral dissertation, she was the winner of the 2023 Organization of American Historians Lerner-Scott Prize for the best doctoral dissertation on U.S. Women’s History. Hearne was the UIC nominee for the Society of American Historians’ 2022 Allan Nevins Prize for best-written dissertation in American history. She previously served as a Bonquois Postdoctoral Fellow at Tulane University's Newcomb Institute and a lecturer in the history department at Texas A&M University.
Jan Lauren Boyles
Director and Professor, School of Journalism
Jan Lauren Boyles (Ph.D., American University) is the director of the School of Journalism. She previously served as associate director and professor at Iowa State University’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, where she led curriculum innovations and new program development. In 2024, Boyles completed a visiting fellowship at the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Boyles has held research roles at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. and was named a Google Journalism Fellow.
A former reporter, Boyles’s scholarly work, which has been cited more than 1,300 times, explores how journalists engage with digital tools, practices, and platforms to better serve communities. She is currently an associate editor for Digital Journalism and actively contributes to national journalism education leadership.
Angie Torres-Beltran
Assistant Professor, School of Government and Public Policy
Angie Torres-Beltran is an assistant professor in the School of Government and Public Policy. Her research contributes to the study of gender, violence, political behavior, and institutions, specifically — women’s political responses in the aftermath of gender-based violence, with a particular focus on bureaucratic performance and the consequences of the gendered state-society relations. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation, American Political Science Association, and the Empirical Study of Gender Research Network.
Torres-Beltran holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University, and her research has been published in Political Science Research & Methods, International Studies Quarterly, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Sarah Phillips
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics
Sarah Phillips received her Ph.D. in linguistics from New York University in 2022. Phillips’ research focuses on developing linguistically inclusive, neurobiologically grounded models of language development and language processing that are translatable into clinical spaces. To achieve this, she primarily uses behavioral (psychometrics, eye-tracking) and neuroimaging (MEG, fMRI) measures with bilingual populations. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, she completed three years of postdoctoral training in neurology at Georgetown University.
Scott Casleton
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Economy and Moral Science
Scott Casleton (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) joins the University of Arizona as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science. His work focuses on moral and political philosophy, with particular focus on fundamental values in liberal political morality, such as freedom of speech, privacy, and equality. Casleton also has a historical interest in philosophy, primarily centered on the early modern period, especially the development of modern value theory. He is a core faculty member in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom.
Mohsen M. Mazdeh
Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics and Elahe Omidyar Mir-Djalali Iranian Linguistics Professorship, School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies
Mohsen Mazdeh is a phonologist — an expert in the study of the sound system of a language — with broad interests across phonetics, syntax, and computational linguistics. Mazdeh’s research in prosodic phonology follows two main tracks: the structure of poetic meter and the interplay of intonation and stress, particularly in the languages of the Iranian family. His work on metrical traditions, such as those in Persian, Arabic, and Ancient Greek, examines how cognitive, cultural, and linguistic factors shape verse systems, with a special focus on text-setting practices.
Mazdeh’s interests also include the intersection of literature, language, and social history in historical Iran and the broader linguistic spheres of Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, and Urdu.
Mariana Noé
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
Mariana Noé’s research foci are Greek and Roman ancient philosophy and ethics. Her current project explores the ways in which our imperfect human nature limits how virtuous we can become and what we can do about it. Noé addresses this question at the intersection of ancient proposals and current concerns in ethics. Noé holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in classical studies from Columbia University, and she served as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard. Noé’s academic journey began with a licentiate degree in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the nature of human emotions—a personal interest that informs her academic research, public philosophy, and a podcast she co-hosts on the same topic.
Tae Joon Moon
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Endowed Professorship in Alcohol Studies and Communication
Tae Joon Moon’s research focuses on health communication and healthcare technologies. His work centers specifically on developing technology-enhanced interventions that use remote biosensors and mobile communication technologies to address alcohol and other substance use disorders. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Moon served as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Long School of Medicine and the University of Texas School of Public Health in San Antonio, both part of University of Texas Health, San Antonio.
Amirreza Vakilifard
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies
Amirreza Vakilifard, an assistant professor of practice in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, received his Ph.D. in education sciences, with a specialization in second language didactics, from the University of Montréal in 2007. The author of more than 80 publications, his research focuses on Persian language education and didactics, specifically for second language learners.
Vakilifard played a pivotal role in designing Iran’s first Bachelor of Arts program in Persian language. In 2011, he founded the Journal of Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages. In 2017, he developed the SAMFA, or Standard Assessment of Persian Language Proficiency, which is now recognized nationally and internationally as the most widely administered Persian proficiency test.
Mohana Mukherjee
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Sociology
Mohana Mukherjee’s research explores the intersection of digital sociology, cyber-criminology, and restorative justice, focusing on how technology is reshaping youth conflict, identity, and institutional responses to harm. She examines online behaviors such as cyberbullying, digital aggression, and image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) within K–12 schools in Canada and the U.S.
Mukherjee’s scholarship engages with how algorithms, artificial intelligence, and surveillance infrastructures influence online interaction and identity performance, particularly amid “context collapse.” She also interrogates how technologically mediated social contexts are often overlooked in policies addressing cyber-harms and advocates for school-based restorative justice interventions.
Mukherjee has taught in India, Canada, and the United States, employing a philosophy that centers on restorative dialogue and participatory learning. She enjoys manga, growing plants, reading widely, and curating teas from around the world.
Belle Cheves
Assistant Professor, Department of History and Roshan Institute for Persian and Iranian Studies, School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies
Belle Cheves received her Ph.D. from Harvard University and previously taught at Harvard and Bard College. Her research explores gender, race, kinship, and labor in modern Iran. In 2024, Cheves was awarded the Mehrdad Mashayekhi Dissertation Award from the Association for Iranian Studies. Her first book, tentatively titled Qajar Affects: Making, Remembering, and Racializing the Family in Iran, investigates how emotions and interpersonal relationships shaped the daily lives and power structures within royal and elite households during the Qajar era in Iran (1787–1909/1925), and how these dynamics have been remembered, reimagined, or idealized in collective memory and nostalgia after the Qajar period.
Patricia Machelor
Assistant Professor of Practice, School of Journalism
Patty Machelor is an assistant professor of practice in the School of Journalism. A longtime reporter in both New Hampshire and Arizona, she began her journalism career in New Hampshire with small daily newspapers. In 1999, she moved to Tucson and joined the Tucson Citizen. From 2001 to 2003, she reported for the Arizona Daily Star, covering local government, the criminal justice system, child welfare, and health and social issues.
Over the course of her career, she has earned multiple state and national awards for her investigative work and for health and public service reporting. Machelor received a Thomson Reuters Foundation fellowship for reporting on vulnerable children and was a national fellow with the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism.
Grace Ward
Assistant Professor, School of Anthropology
Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Grace Ward (Ph.D., Washington University) held a postdoctoral position in the Spatial Archaeometry Laboratory at Dartmouth College. Her areas of focus are the archaeology of Indigenous forest management and early monumental architecture in eastern North America. Before her doctoral work, Ward coordinated a traditional food program at the Northwest Indian College. She has taught courses in archaeology and environmental anthropology at Washington University, Berea College, Dartmouth, and through WashU’s Prison Education Project.
Young Choi
Assistant Professor, School of Sociology
Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Young Choi was affiliated with the Institute for Population Research at The Ohio State University, where she also earned her Ph.D. in sociology. Choi specializes in population and health, health disparities, aging and life course, and family and immigration. Using advanced quantitative methods and demographic analysis, she explores health inequalities among vulnerable populations and examines how social determinants — particularly immigration status, family formation, and gender — shape mortality patterns and health outcomes.
Yongren Shi
Assistant Professor, School of Sociology
Yongren Shi’s expertise centers on the interplay of culture, social groups, and social networks. He uses various methods including large language models, network analysis, computational textual analysis, agent-based modeling, and online experiments. Shi’s research has appeared in journals such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Nature Human Behaviour, and Social Forces. He has received the Outstanding Article Publication Award and Dissertation-in-Progress Award from the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.
Shi’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, and his work has been covered by various media outlets, including Wired, The Guardian, BBC News, Huffington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. Prior to joining the University of Arizona, Shi received his Ph.D. from Cornell University before working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Yale Institute for Network Science and later as an assistant professor at the University of Iowa.
Kit Wellman
Visiting Professor, Department of Philosophy
Kit Wellman returns to the University of Arizona, where he earned his Ph.D., as a visiting fellow in the Department of Philosophy. His research focuses on ethics, with a particular emphasis on political and legal philosophy. He is the author or co-author of six books, with a seventh, Rights and Resistance, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Before joining the University of Arizona, Wellman held academic appointments at Washington University, Georgia State University, and Guilford College.