Farquhar Welcomes New Faculty Members

The Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences would like to welcome 28 new faculty members for the 2007-2008 academic year. Highlighted below are the experiences and research interests of seven new faculty members. 

Division of Humanities

Daniel Gelbmann, M.F.A. Specializing in technical theatre and scene design, Gelbmann has held professional positions with a number of theatre companies and has particular expertise in Asian theatre. He teaches theatre.

Alisa Karten, M.A. With research interests in human communication, rhetoric and semantics, and women in communication, Karten has been an adjunct instructor and lecturer with the Division of Humanities since 2000. Karten was awarded the 2003 Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences Part-Time Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award. She teaches speech and communication.

Division of Math, Science and Technology

Jeremy Perotti, Ph.D. After receiving his doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, and completing postdoctoral appointments at Harvard University in 2006 and USC in 2007, Perotti taught chemistry at the University of California, Irvine.

Saeed Rajput, Ph.D. Rajput received his doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 1992. Rajput served as a faculty member at University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University, teaching object oriented design and programming, network security, and foundations of computer science. He published numerous research papers in the areas of computer security and wireless security protocols. In 2001, he received a patent (US6401206) on a method and apparatus for binding electronic impressions made by digital identities to documents and another patent (US6199054) on automated software metering of digital payloads. Rajput also conducted several funded research projects with graduate and undergraduate students in speech perception of mobile phones and application security research.

Reza Razeghifard, Ph.D. Razeghifard completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at the Australian National University in 1997, and continued as a postdoctoral research associate in biochemistry at the University of Minnesota and later in the Department of Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch. In 2001, he joined the Research School of Biological Sciences at the Australian National University as a postdoctoral, then research, fellow. Razeghifard pursued research at the Medical School at the University of Michigan, working on the catalytic cycle of the P450 enzyme.

Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Lisa Machoian, Ed.D. With a doctorate in human development and psychology from Harvard University, Machoian served as the Director of the Gender Studies Concentration at that university. She is a recognized expert in the area of adolescent depression and has published extensively in that field. Her groundbreaking book, The Disappearing Girl: Learning the Language of Teenage Depression, received widespread popular and professional recognition for its advocacy of careful listening to depressed girls’ self-reflections that reveal their serious, self-destructive behavior as not so much the behavior of deviants, or nonconformists, but rather as over-conformists to stereotypic notions of femininity. She plans on continuing her research to include adolescent boys.

Madhavi Menon, Ph.D. Menon received her doctorate in psychology from Florida Atlantic University. Her research focuses on processes of social development during middle childhood, focusing on attachment, aggression, gender identity, and achievement. A major finding from this research is that high self-esteem encourages aggressive children, as well as avoidantly-attached children, to rationalize their antisocial conduct.