Meet Inaugural Cohort

Yatma Diop holds a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from Michigan State University. His research centers on how early caregiver-child interactions and home-learning environments support children's language and literacy development. His current research focuses on families and children in Senegal. However, he plans to examine African immigrants' parenting beliefs and practices in the U.S. and to what degree acculturation influences these parenting patterns. He aims to implement culturally relevant interventions that support language and literacy development for parents and children in Senegal and African immigrant families in the U.S. Dr. Diop also has experience teaching courses on child development, parenting, and cultural diversity in human development research.

Lee Her holds a PhD in second language studies from Michigan State University.  As an applied linguistics researcher and educator, she adopts a critical lens to situate, analyze and critique the oftentimes implicit power dynamics that language policies create in public institutions, such as community colleges or in the home setting. Currently, she is interested in how dual language bilingual education policies –formal and informal– shape Hmong heritage language maintenance. Her future research goals aim to investigate issues of equity, concerning the Hmong language in classroom language policy, institutional language policy and family language policy. She hopes that such studies contribute to highlighting the linguistic experiences of speakers and learners of less commonly taught languages and improve students’ heritage language learning experiences.

Taneka Jones completed her Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois, with expertise in cell and tissue engineering applications. Her bioengineering background has fostered experience in dental pulp tissue engineering, cell therapy and disruptive technologies such as three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting. Dr. Jones has experience spanning three sectors; academia, government and industry. She is recently motivated to address issues of significant health disparity and reproductive injustice for women of color. In her current role as Research Assistant Professor, her research agenda includes designing and developing novel, physiologically relevant in-vitro cellular and tissue models to study uterine tissue and fibroid development.

Minjung Noh, Ph.D. is a religious studies scholar with a transnational and interdisciplinary method, specializing in the confluences of religious cultures between South Korea, Haiti, and the United States. Her work to date spans Korean religions, comparative ethnic and gender studies, and transnational Christianity. She has held previous positions at Drew Theological School (Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Christianity and Gender Studies, 2021-2023), Wartburg College (Visiting Assistant Professor of World Religions, 2019-2020) and Temple University (Instructor of record, 2016-2021). Her research has been published in Journal of Korean Religions, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and Religion, State & Society. Her current book project "Transnational Salvations: Korean Women Missionaries in Haiti" is the first monograph that investigates the multidirectional religious dynamics between South Korea, USA, and Haiti through the angle of the evangelical missionary network built between these three nation-states.

UPDATE: Dr. Noh was appointed an assistant professor in the Department of Religion Studies in Fall 2024.

Rosemary Steup studies the mutual shaping of information technology and social life in the context of work. Her research takes a constructively critical perspective on the use of data and predictive algorithms in various types of care work. Using primarily qualitative methods—in-depth interviews, discourse analysis, and ethnography—she investigates the discourses surrounding data-driven work, the abstractions that underlie predictive algorithms, and the work practices that technologies seek to facilitate (or eliminate). Her mission is to inform technology design and policies that enable people to work sustainably and cultivate meaning in work. Dr. Steup holds a Ph.D. in Informatics from Indiana University and a B.S. in Computer Science and French from Trinity University.

Dr. Jordan will join Lehigh in Summer of 2024.  Bio will be with the 2024 members to reflect the time she joins the Lehigh Community.