A Nod to Excellence: Meet the SMC Faculty Members Who Just Earned Tenure Status

At a recent event honoring excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship, six faculty members at Saint Mary’s College were granted tenure. Tenure status ensures job security and the protection of academic freedom while also promoting research and innovation. 

Saint Mary’s faculty, staff, and members of the President’s leadership team gathered at the Faculty Recognition Dinner on September 13 to recognize faculty achievement and milestones. In addition to the awarding of tenure, years of dedicated service were also celebrated among many SMC faculty members—including English professor Robert Gorsch, who was honored for his 40 years of service to Saint Mary’s.

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Faculty earn the distinction of tenure through outstanding teaching and mentoring, research productivity, and professional service to the academic community.

“Our faculty are the heart of Saint Mary’s College,” said Corey Cook, Provost and Executive Vice President. “When I speak with alumni, they often reference an individual professor, a particular class, or a special interaction with one of their instructors that was transformative. This is the dynamic, compelling, and living mission of our College and it is embodied by the faculty who have earned tenure at an institution inspired by Saint John Baptist De La Salle, the patron saint of teachers.

“The faculty members awarded tenure represent the very best of our mission. Saint Mary’s creates opportunities for our students to thrive, and it all starts with our faculty.”

Here are the six Saint Mary’s College faculty members who recently earned tenure.

Anna Maximova, PhD | Associate Professor of Economics

Maximova has spent the past seven years at Saint Mary’s after receiving her PhD from the University of Kentucky In 2017. Her research studies focus on immigration, international trade, economic development, and economic education. Specifically, she examines the differential effect of immigrants and refugees on trade with their home countries. She also studies how differential fertility affects cross-country human capital accumulation and economic growth. Maximova has been the recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award, Outstanding Research Award, and Outstanding Service Award at Saint Mary’s.

Michal Strahilevitz, PhD | Professor of Marketing

In addition to her teaching duties, Strahilevitz serves as director of both the Guyette Student Fellows Program for Responsible Leadership and the Elfenworks Center for Responsible Business. She earned her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. A widely-published researcher whose articles have appeared in several journals, Strahilevitz’s research focuses on how emotions affect decision-making in well-being, eating, shopping, investing, volunteering, philanthropy, and other areas. She has also published several journal articles and case studies on sustainability and ways to improve the lives of vulnerable consumers. She is regularly quoted in the news media.

Elizabeth Valentín, PhD | Associate Professor of Chemistry

After obtaining her BS in Chemistry and her PhD from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Valentín pursued postdoctoral research work at New York University. She was a faculty member at Susquehanna University, a primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution, from 2016 to 2020, and started an undergraduate research program that incorporated green chemistry principles to organic synthesis methodologies. In 2020 Professor Valentín joined Saint Mary’s, where she teaches organic chemistry and encourages students to pursue research experiences using microwave irradiation to improve organic synthesis reactions as well as designing greener versions of laboratory experiences for the organic chemistry laboratory.

Nekesha Williams, PhD | Associate Professor of Environmental Science

Williams is the current Program Director of the Environmental and Earth Sciences Program. She joined the faculty at Saint Mary’s in July 2018 and, in her faculty role, has mentored undergraduates on their research projects, taught classes that serve STEM and non-STEM students, and engaged in multiple service activities. Williams received her PhD in Marine Science at the University of South Florida, College of Marine Science in Tampa. Her primary research areas include sediment geochemistry, wetlands, hydrology, spatial eco-informatics, and geoscience education. 

Lili Yan, PhD | Associate Professor of Business Ethics

An Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Business Law in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law, Yan received her PhD from George Washington University School of Business and a JD from the Indiana University-Bloomington Maurer School of Law. Her research and teaching interests are focused on the intersection of business ethics, law, and nonmarket strategy in international business. Her interdisciplinary research has been published in both ethics and law journals and in a book chapter, and she has presented this work at the Academy of Management Annual Conference, Society of Business Ethics Annual Conference, and Strategic Management Society Annual Conference. 

Yin Yuan, PhD | Associate Professor of English

Yuan’s work examines the intersections between literature, popular culture, and empire. Her first book, Alimentary Orientalism (Bucknell University Press, 2023), considers how racialized forms of consumption both perpetuated and unraveled British fantasies of the East. Her current project theorizes the cultural and transcultural logics of East Asian media forms by attending to how global media capital, digital platforms, and neoliberal structures are negotiated in everyday ways and spaces. Yuan is also the founder and editor of MENT, a digital magazine on Korean popular culture. Combining intellectual rigor with ardent feeling, MENT desires to bridge scholarly, fan, and public discourses. The publication is animated by the point of view that Korean popular culture offers insight into broader issues of gender, race, capital, labor, geopolitics, technology, and sociality.

Photo Gallery: Scenes from the 2024 Faculty Recognition Dinner