(Posted June 3, 2013)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Nine members of the Juniata College faculty received promotions in the 2012-2013 academic year at a recent Juniata College Board of Trustees meeting. The faculty members will assume their new titles at the start of the 2013-2014 academic year.

Brad Andrew, associate professor of accounting, business and economics, was promoted to full professor; Vince Buonaccorsi, associate professor of biology, was promoted to full professor; Lynn Cockett, associate professor of communication, was promoted to full professor; James Latten, associate professor of music, was promoted to full professor; and Ryan Mathur, associate professor of geology, was promoted to full professor.
Bethany Benson, assistant professor of art, was promoted to associate professor; Judith Benz, assistant professor of German, was promoted to associate professor; Norris Muth, assistant professor of biology, was promoted to associate professor; and Matt Powell, assistant professor of geology, was promoted to associate professor.

Brad Andrew, a resident of Huntingdon, Pa., came to Juniata in 2001 from Babson College, where he worked as a visiting lecturer during the 2000-2001 academic year. From 1996 to 2000, he also was an instructor for individual economics courses offered at Babson College and Bentley College. He has worked as an instructor at University of Connecticut campuses at Storrs, Avery Point and Waterbury.

He was promoted to associate professor at Juniata in 2007. Andrew also since 2002 has been director of Juniata's International Studies Program. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1989 from Framingham State College in Framingham, Mass. Andrew went on to earn a master's degree in economics in 1992 and a doctorate in economics in 2001, both from the University of Connecticut.

Andrew's research focus is in the history of economic thought and economic history. He has co-authored two papers on the economic history of the Shakers and wrote his dissertation on 17th and 18th century British economic thought and policy. He is interested in teaching such subjects as International Economics, Managerial Economics, Business Statistics, Financial Markets and Institutions, Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.

He published his research on the Shakers in Communal Societies and Exploration in Economic History. In 2004, he co-directed "The Role of Film in International Studies," a NEH-funded seminar, and has participated in outside review teams for business departments at McDaniel College and Washington College.

Vince Buonaccorsi, a resident of Huntingdon, Pa., earned his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1993 and went on to earn a doctorate in marine science from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. in 1998.

He was promoted to associate professor in 2007.

He joined Juniata's faculty in 2001 after working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Marine Fisheries Service in San Diego, Calif. Before that, he was a teaching assistant at the College of William and Mary.

His research interests center on population genetics and genomics, including population structure, population dispersal, speciation, species identification, molecular evolution and Endangered Species Act issues. His graduate research focused on the population genetics of the blue marlin. His postdoctoral work has centered on Pacific coast rockfish. His teaching interests include, genetics, molecular ecology, ichthyology and biostatistics.

He has published articles in Molecular Ecology, Evolution, Conservation Genetics, Copeia and Marine Biology. He has presented research at conferences of The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the American Fisheries Society, the Society for Organic Evolution, the Tuna Conference and the western Groundfish Conference. He also has presented research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

He currently is program director for Juniata's $1 million grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute and acts as coordinator for the GCAT-SEEK research network. He has received grants, awards, and subcontracts from Oregon SeaGrant, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council, and the Virginia Marine Recreational Commission.

He has received grants from the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council and the Virginia Marine Recreational Commission. He is on the editorial review board for the journal Marine Biotechnology.
Lynn Cockett, a resident of Huntingdon, earned a bachelor's degree in English with a secondary teaching certification from Messiah College in 1989. She went on to earn a master's degree in library science in 1993 and a doctorate in communication in 2000, both from Rutgers University.

She received the Gibbel Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2006. She was promoted to associate professor in 2007.

Previously, Cockett worked as an assistant professor and director of undergraduate studies at Rutgers from 2000 to 2001. She also worked as an instructor in Rutgers' communication department from 1999 to 2000.

Her research interests focus on group interaction, particularly how professional work practices relate to issues of identity. She has taught courses in Organizational Communication, Qualitative Research Methods, Group Communication, Interpersonal Communication, Communication and Information Theory, and Interaction.
Cockett's research has been published in the journals Knowledge Quest and Library Trends. She has written chapters in the following books: "Young Adults in Public Libraries: A Handbook of Materials and Services;" "Mosaics of Meaning: Enhancing the Intellectual Life of Young Adults Through Literature;" and "African-American Voices in Young Adult Literature: Tradition, Transition, Transformation." She also presented research at meetings of the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association and the Association for Library and Information Science Education.

Cockett was a member of the board of directors for the Children's Literature Council of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 1998 and served as the group's president in 1997. She received the Graduate Student Teaching Award from the International Communication Association in 1999. She is a member of ICA and the National Communication Association.

James Latten, a resident of Huntingdon, first joined the Juniata faculty in 1997 as adjunct instructor of percussion. In 2002 he returned to the college full time as director of instrumental music, director of the College Wind Symphony, and in 2003, director of the college's jazz ensemble. He conducts the percussion ensemble, teaches studio percussion, and instructs academic music courses. He also team-teaches the Acoustics of Music, a course within the physics department. From 2000 to 2002, Latten served as assistant professor of music at the University of Dayton.

He was promoted to associate professor in 2007.

Latten earned a master's degree in music education from Indiana University and earned a bachelor's degree in music education from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania. He went on to earn a doctoral degree in music education from Penn State University.
At Penn State, he served as graduate assistant with the band program, including the 280-member Penn State Blue Band, for three years.

Mr. Latten is currently a member of Music Educators National Conference, College Music Society, New York State School Music Association, Percussive Arts Society, Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society, The Conductors Guild, and the College Band Directors National Association, where he serves as national chair for the Small College/Community College Task Force.

Latten also is principal percussionist for the Altoona Symphony Orchestra.
Ryan Mathur, a resident of Huntingdon, returned to Juniata College in 2001 as a faculty member after earning a bachelor's degree in geology/history at Juniata in 1997. He earned a doctorate in geosciences at the University of Arizona in 2000 after completing his undergraduate work.
He was promoted to associate professor in 2007.

Mathur's teaching interests include Structural Geology, Hydrogeology and New-class Geophysics, Death and Destruction by Nature and Mining in the Americas.

Mathur's research focuses on using geochemistry to investigate the evolution of ore deposits. He has done considerable research on the genesis of porphyry copper deposits using isotope analysis, including projects in Alaska and internationally. Mathur's research has been published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Mineralium Deposita, Geology and Economic Geology.

He received First Place in the University of Arizona Graduate Student Showcase in 2000. While at Arizona, he received the Tucson Gem & Mineral Society Scholarship and the Sulzer Earth Science Scholarship. He earned honorable mention for both a Fulbright Graduate Student Fellowship in 1998 and for a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship in 1997.
Mathur also received the Bowser Mathematics and Geology Award from Juniata College in 1996.

Bethany Benson joined the Juniata's faculty in 2007 as assistant professor of art, after working at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill. She earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 2000 from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, in Dartmouth, Mass. She went on to study at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and earned a master's degree in fine arts in 2007 from Southern Illinois University.

At Southern Illinois, she taught the advanced ceramics course from 2004 to 2007 and taught the introductory "Foundations" course in ceramics for the 2006-2007 academic year. She also served as a teaching assistant for the university's visual culture course.

In addition, Benson worked as a book conservation assistant in Morris Library at Southern Illinois from 2005 to 2006 and also worked as a studio technician at Southern Illinois in the ceramics studio from 2004 to 2005.

Benson also has worked as a resident artist for several companies. She started her art career in 2001 as resident artist at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine.

Her work focuses on social interaction by employing utilitarian vessels as a means to invite the user to experience her work exploring senses other than sight, asking the user to interact with the work incorporating taste, touch and scent.

She has exhibited her ceramics at various galleries and museums around the country, including the Mellwood Arts and Entertainment Center in Louisville, Ky., Yeiser Art Center in Paducah, Ky., Market House Craft Center in East Petersburg, Pa., Kent State University Museum in Kent, Ohio, and Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in Jingdezhen, China.
Judith Benz came to Juniata in 2008 from Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., where she was a visiting assistant professor of German.

She earned a bachelor's degree in 1997 from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Before finishing her education at William and Mary, she studied German history and literature at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and returned there to study in fall 1995. She went on to earn a master's degree from Yale University in 1999 and a doctoral degree from Yale in 2007.

She started her academic career as an instructor at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2007. She also taught extensively at Yale University as a teaching assistant and served as chair of Yale's Summer Language Institute in 2004.

She has taught courses in the German language, German literature of the Middle Ages, post-World War II German literature, Goethe, and King Arthur and the Holy Grail in literature. Her research interests focus on medieval German literature, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries, and courtly culture in Germany in the Middle Ages. She also is interested in medievalism in modern German literature.

She is a member of the American Association of Teachers of German, the German Studies Association, the International Arthurian Society, The Medieval Academy of America and the Modern Language Association.
Norris Muth, a resident of Pine Grove Mills, Pa., joined the Juniata faculty in 2007. Before coming to Juniata, Muth worked as a postdoctoral researcher and teaching associate at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. from 2005 to 2007.

He earned a bachelor's degree in environmental studies in 1997 from Brown University, in Providence, R.I. and went on to earn a master's degree in forestry science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 1999. He earned a doctorate in ecology and evolution from the State University of New York, Stony Brook in 2006.

From 1999 to 2004, Muth worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn., where he taught classes in evolution, biodiversity, plant ecology and general ecology.

His research interests center on conservation biology, community ecology and the history and philosophy of science. He is particularly interested in how to assess the impact of biological invasions of species and how biological communities interact and react to invasive species. He has published his work in several professional journals, including an article on using invasive species biology to teach about evolution, in Evolutionary Science and Society: Educating a New Generation. He also has published articles in Philosophy Now and the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

Muth has taught courses in general biology, evolutionary biology, natural history interpretation and the history and philosophy of science. In addition to his academic career, Muth also worked as a research librarian at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Conn. from 1997 to 1998 and worked as a U.S. National Park Service ranger in Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine and at the San Juan Islands National Historical Park in Friday Harbor, Wash.
Matthew Powell joined the Juniata College faculty in 2007. Previously, he worked as a Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany from 2006 to 2007.

Powell, a resident of Huntingdon, Pa., earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1998 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va. and went on to earn a master's degree at Virginia Tech in geological sciences in 2000. He earned a doctoral degree in earth and planetary sciences in 2005 from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md.

Before pursuing graduate studies, Powell worked as a research assistant in 1998 at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. From 2005 to 2006, he was a visiting assistant professor of geology at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.
He has taught a variety of courses, including general Sedimentology, Historical Geology, Global Climate Change and Invertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoecology. He has taught graduate lab courses in earth systems history, paleontology and historical geology. As a researcher, Powell is interested in looking at the invertebrate fossil record to see biogeographic patterns of evolution. His specific area of expertise centers on the effects the late Paleozoic Ice Age had on the ecology and evolution of brachiopods.

He has had his research published in a variety of professional journals, including the Journal of Geology, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Geology, Paleobiology and the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

He is a member of a number of professional organizations, including the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, the International Biogeography Society and the American Geophysical Union.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.