12 New Faculty on Campus in the Division of Social Sciences

By Genevieve Shiffrar

December 8, 2000 (Updated April 4, 2001)

The Division of Social Science in the College of Letters and Science benefits from many new faces among the faculty. This year, the division has hired 18 new professors, 12 of whom are already on campus. Please join Dean George Breslauer in welcoming the following new faculty on campus.

The Anthropology Department welcomes William F. Hanks to the Berkeley Distinguished Chair in Linguistic Anthropology, the first privately funded faculty position on the Berkeley campus. Dr. Hanks hails from Northwestern University where he was the Milton H. Wilson Professor of the Humanities. In authoring three major interdisciplinary books, editing a number of others, and publishing over 25 research papers, Professor Hanks arguably has established himself as the preeminent historical and linguistic scholar of the Yucatecan Mayan. Dr. Hanks has conducted field research among them since 1977 and has developed mastery of written and spoken Mayan to explore the ways in which speakers construe themselves and others and locate themselves in time and space, including domestic space, agricultural space, and the ritual space of shamanic practice. Professor Hanks has developed a long-term commitment to the relationship between history and anthropology, specifically to the colonization and missionization of indigenous Mexico by the Spanish.

The Demography Department has hired Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, a recent graduate of Northwestern University's anthropology program, who brings to the department ethnographic experience, a strong attention to social theory, and an expertise in fertility issues. In her groundbreaking dissertation, "An Uncertain Honor: Education and Family Formation in Catholic Cameroon," Dr. Johnson-Hanks challenged the common general assumption that the more education girls receive, the fewer children they will have. Professor Johnson-Hanks worked with nearly 200 girls and studied the content of their school curricula to argue that the correlation between schooling and fertility is not primarily causal. This well-supported conclusion is sure to raise controversy and influence the work of other demographers addressing fertility reduction.

The Economics Department has hired 3 new professors of exceptional caliber.

Botond Koszegi, a recent graduate of MIT, has filled the position for Pure and Applied Economic Theory and Public Finance. While Koszegi has wide-ranging interests, his dissertation focused on the economics of self delusion, specifically self-serving biases. For example, he argued that as individuals develop well being from positive self images, they tend to ignore key information which does not reinforce such favorable self assessment. This phenomenon leads us to view ourselves as more capable than our abilities actually allow. Professor Koszegi's dissertation also addressed the economics of self-control problems with respect to addiction and retirement decisions. Botond Koszegi brings with him a wide range of teaching experience in mathematics and economics and has received Harvard's Bok Center Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Of graduates in the past ten years in the area of Labor Economics, David Lee is considered one of the very best. The Economics Department induced Dr. Lee to leave his post as Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard, a position he held for only one year after receiving his Ph.D. from Princeton. Professor Lee explores the sources and measurement of income inequality in the U.S. He also has very strong skills in econometrics and is praised for his exceptionally careful and rigorous analysis of data. Dr. Lee has written about the declining value of the federal minimum wage and its impact on the sharp increase in wage inequality in the 1980s. He has also examined wage differentials between African Americans and whites and the role of unobservable skills of workers in accounting for wage dispersion.

Ted Miguel, a third new hire in the Economics Department, recently received his Ph.D. from Harvard for his studies in Microeconomics and Development Economics. In his dissertation on micro-level studies of health and education in Africa, Dr. Miguel found that local primary schools in western Kenya that have greater ethnic diversity receive less funding than schools with less ethnic diversity. He also wrote about the effect of medical treatment programs on education in Africa, finding that inexpensive worm debugging projects lead to significantly higher school attendance. These field-work-based conclusions are significant to our understanding of Africa's slow economic growth. Professor Miguel's appointment will be of interest not only to the Economics Department but also to the Africa Studies Program and international development programs within several colleges and professional schools on campus.

Three new faculty in the Ethnic Studies Department strengthen the Native American Studies Program and the Comparative Ethnic Studies Program and bring far-reaching interdisciplinary perspectives that will touch many in the university community.

Nimachia Hernández is the first of the current hires in Native American Studies. She comes to Cal from Harvard with the Ed.D. in Human Development and Psychology, the Ed.M. in Teaching and Curriculum, and with advanced study in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University. Dr. Hernández is a specialist in Native American philosophy whose research has focused most recently on the epistemology of the Blackfeet. Her dissertation, "Mokakssini: A Blackfoot Theory of Knowledge," is a unique investigation into the intersection of cosmology and the practice of knowledge. "Mokakssini" is a fascinating delineation of the cosmological, spatial, environmental, and sacred elements of Blackfoot knowledge. It is perhaps the only such sustained, focused study of Native American epistemology. Along with her specialized research, Dr. Hernández brings the more general ability to inculcate Western philosophy, religion, and anthropology with alternative and Native ways of knowing. Dr. Hernández is the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Fulbright and Smithsonian. Next year she is on leave, supported by a Rockefeller fellowship, to complete a book on gender, the sacred, and Native cosmology.

Tiya Miles, a specialist in African American and Native American history, joins the Ethnic Studies Department's Comparative Ethnic Studies Program. Professor Miles describes her teaching philosophy as one that "pulls students into interaction with the material and each other so that their relationship to the course is active [and] dynamic." Dr. Miles' dissertation, "Bone of My Bone: Stories of a Black Cherokee Family, 1790-1850," completed for the American Studies Program at the University of Minnesota and using a wide variety of archival sources, reconstructs the life of a Cherokee war hero and slaveholder, Shoeboots, his slave wife Doll, and their children. This fascinating story illuminates broader themes: federal policies to remove Native Americans from their land, White Southerners' efforts to highlight racial differences, and growing class divisions among Native Americans.

The Ethnic Studies Department also welcomes Darren Ranco to its Native American Studies Program. Dr. Ranco utilized his expertise in both Law (Master of Studies in Environmental Law from the Vermont Law School) and Social Anthropology (M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard) in his dissertation, an exploration of conflict between the Penobscot Nation and the US E.P.A.over the issuance of a permit to a paper mill upstream from the island nation that polluted the Penobscot water source. "Environmental Risk and Politics in Eastern Maine: The Penobscot Indians and the US Environmental Protection Agency" is an impressive examination of a multifaceted negotiation process and a call to appreciate decisions made by tribes not simply as arguments to protect their rights, but as assertions of expertise. Professor Ranco's appointment will be of interest to faculty and students in a variety of disciplines.

The Political Science Department has hired two new faculty with specialization on Asia.

Pradeep Chhibber, formerly an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, specializes in Indian politics. Professor Chhibber's 1999 book, "Democracy without Association: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India," examines India's metamorphosis from a country with a single political party to one with a multitude of competing parties. In it, Chhibber argues that the process of political cleavage is not inevitable, as widely believed. Rather, political splitting emerges from organizations that mobilize people according to social difference, leading to politicization of those differences. Dr. Chhibber has also published on topics such as property rights, economic liberalization and women's political participation in India.

Kevin O'Brien may not seem like a new face in the Political Science Department, for he served as a visiting professor there from 1997 to 1999. Professor O'Brien, who taught previously at Ohio State, specializes in Chinese and comparative politics, emphasizing social movements and institutional change. His work on local rural activism, resistance, and mobilization in China is widely acclaimed. Dr. O'Brien has coined the term "rightful resistance" to explain a mode of popular resistance by which Chinese peasants manipulate the ideology, interests, and divisions of local powerholders in search of opportunities to protect their own interests. Dr. O'Brien comes to Berkeley with consistently high teaching evaluations and impressive civic responsibility as a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on US-China Relations.

The Psychology Department will share with the new Wills Neuroscience Institute the appointment of Noam Sobel as a systems and cognitive neuroscientist. Having received his doctorate from Stanford only one year ago, Dr. Sobel has already published eight papers in major scientific journals such as Nature and the Journal of Neuroscience. Professor Sobel shares enthusiastically his interest in uncovering the neural basis of olfaction through the use of functional magnetic resonance imagery. By identifying both the primary and secondary areas in the human cortex, he has essentially put to rest a long-standing debate regarding the location of olfaction centers in the brain. Dr. Sobel has also studied the relationship between smelling (i.e., the sensory consequence of olfaction) and sniffing, which is the essential motor action that facilitates our experience of smells, to demonstrate the active nature of human perception.

Sociology's newest faculty member, Dawne Moon, will provide the department with expertise in the sociology of both religion and sexuality. Dr. Moon's ethnography-based dissertation, "The Limits of Christian Love: Homosexuality and the Politics of the Church," examined the ways in which two Methodist congregations dealt with conflicts arising from gay and lesbian members' demands for equality in the church. Professor Moon's scholarship makes important and timely contributions to the understanding of contemporary American culture; she also enjoys a reputation as an inspiring and dedicated teacher.

For descriptions of additional new faculty in the sciences, see "Introducing 9 New Professors on Campus in the Biological and Physical Sciences" or 12 New Faculty in the Arts and Humanities.

All photos by Genevieve Shiffrar, except those of Ted Miguel (courtesy of the Economics Department) and the Ethnic Studies faculty (courtesy of the Ethnic Studies Department).