Assistant Professors and Non-Tenured Faculty Representatives Faculty Council Election (2023-2025)

I am an Assistant Professor of Instruction at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. I teach Engineering Communication, and I study individual, institutional, and social factors that can drive or hinder public engagement with STEM. I have participated in campus-wide discussions about ways to empower and support professional track faculty at UT. I hope to further amplify the voice of professional track faculty as a member of the Faculty Council.

I am an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care at Dell Medical School. My clinical practice focuses on kidney and pancreas transplantation, while my research seeks to improve access to kidney transplantation for historically underserved and marginalized populations. I teach an undergraduate honors seminar in the College of Natural Sciences about the American healthcare system.

I have experience serving as part of the Medical School's faculty council. To this role, I would bring an enthusiasm and interest in faculty governance, as well as both the perspective of clinician-scientist and an early-career faculty member who changed institutions prior to promotion/tenure.

I have been teaching in a NTT position in Educational Psychology since Fall 2019 and I am excited to become more involved in university service. At previous institutions I have served on university-level assessment and DEI committees but was not eligible for faculty governance roles. In this role I would attend all meetings, take notes, and help facilitate discussion. I would be honored to serve and represent assistant professors and professional faculty on Faculty Council.

I am currently an Assistant Professor of Audiology in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. I act as the Graduate Program Director for Audiology, and will be moving to the position of Clinical Associate Professor in the fall. I have worked with several committees, including Chair of Audiology Graduate Admissions, Principal Investigator's Committee, Honors Committee, and am the SAB chair for the Misophonia Research Fund. My research focuses on the use of EEG to study brain plasticity across the lifespan in typical and clinical populations.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management at McCombs School of Business. I believe that effective faculty governance can encourage academic freedom and ensure that institutions operate in a fair and transparent manner. I am passionate about promoting a healthy working environment through shared decision-making and collaboration among faculty members and institutional leadership.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology. My research focuses on issues of racial, social class, and gender inequalities in education, including higher education. As both a scholar and UT community member, I care about how we navigate this moment of opportunity and challenge for higher ed, knowing that how we do so will have implications for our faculty and staff colleagues and for our students. My prior university-level service includes a seat on the Immigration and International Issues Committee at my former institution (UW-Madison). I'd be honored to represent Assistant Professors and Non-Tenured Faculty on the Faculty Council.

Emily Drumsta is Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and French and Italian Studies at UT. She teaches courses such as Modern Egyptian Film and Fiction, Theory and Practice of Literary Translation, Arab Francophonie, and Global Detective Fiction. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley and a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University.

I am a scholar of modern Japanese literature and thought in the Department of Asian Studies. In addition to offering a wide range of courses on Japanese cultural history in global context, I also serve as director of undergraduate studies and honors advisor.

I am a professional track Associate Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and have been involved in service and governance at department, college, university, and state levels. I previously represented faculty on Faculty Council and very much enjoyed the interaction in both the general and subcommittee meetings. Furthermore, I appreciate being a direct link between university administration and students, given that I am a full-time educator of undergraduate and graduate students.

I have worked mainly as a full time lecturer for the past 3 years in the mechanical engineering department. I teach undergraduate courses and one graduate course with class sizes from 15-175 students. I also help with training and maintenance on equipment in the department. I have not participated in any faculty governance, but I would like to opportunity to get involved at least once to see if I can contribute and improve the educational path for students at UT.

As a woman of color with 32 years of teaching experience in professional track positions at Duke, Yale, Rice and now UT-Austin, I am keenly aware of issues related to inclusion and equity in academia. Through active contributions in the university’s shared governance, professional and pre-tenure tenure-track faculty can make a significant difference in creating a supportive and constructive climate at the university. Impelled by this belief, prior to joining UT-Austin in 2011, from 2006-2010 I served as chair of Rice University’s Faculty Senate Task Force on policies for Non-Tenure Track faculty, at which time I set into motion efforts to create a career track for faculty in non-tenured positions. I am running for a seat in the Faculty Council representing Assistant Professors and Non-Tenured Faculty positions, as I believe that in the current academic and political landscape, the non-tenured faculty at UT-Austin who account for more than half of the university faculty, can provide a critically important faculty voice in our university’s shared governance.