College of Arts & Sciences Faculty Receive Promotions

Hannah Hudson, English

Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Professor Hudson excels in the classroom, demonstrating a passion for the subject of her classes that is contagious. Each semester her courses are over-subscribed and highly reviewed. Her innovative teaching techniques transport students back to late 18th and 19th century Britain.

Multiple external reviewers of her scholarship praise the clarity of her writing and her ability to work in multiple fields including romanticism, gothic studies, women’s studies, and 18th century literary studies. She is also an active and engaged member of the University community, serving on numerous committees and working with students in multiple venues.

Annette McGehee, Biology

Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Professor McGehee is noted for her ability to engage and mentor students in meaningful and productive work. Her undergraduate students study nervous system development in the nematode roundworm to explore the genetic underpinnings of behavior, but through participation in McGehee’s research program they also learn about the transformative power of collaboration and scientific discovery.

McGehee has also played a key role in faculty governance during in her time at Suffolk, serving as chair of two of the CAS Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and the Shared Gen Ed Curriculum Committee.

Weiqi Zhang, Political Science & Legal Studies

Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Professor Zhang is dedicated to developing pedagogies to support students with different abilities, backgrounds, and academic experiences. His scholarship focuses on political and economic liberalization in totalitarian societies, primarily China and North Korea.

Zhang has worked on a number of departmental initiatives, primarily in the areas of curriculum development for the new major in international relations and in the assessment of learning. At the College and University level, he has served on the Educational Policy Committee, the Asian Studies Committee, and the Institutional Review Board.

Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Political Science & Legal Studies

Promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure

Professor Hirsch’s work examines the emergence and diffusion of international human rights norms. She creates supportive, student-centered classroom experiences through the innovative use of in-class simulations that allow students to experience the issues, events, or problems that she is bringing to life. She is an exemplar of the teacher-scholar model who involves students fully in her own scholarship.

Professor Hirsch has contributed greatly to Suffolk through her departmental, College, and University-level service, most recently working to develop the new international relations major and serving on the Institutional Review Board.

Evgenia Cherkasova, Philosophy

Promoted to Professor

Professor Cherkasova excels in the classroom, using a Socratic approach to make challenging material accessible. Whether she is actively engaging students in understanding Dostoevsky or Kant, or exploring conceptualizations of the meaning of life, her courses are rigorous and provocative.

Cherkasova’s scholarship on Dostoevsky has garnered international attention, and her applied work – such as the creation of Vixi (the “Meaning of Life” virtual game) – further illustrates her approach to experiential learning and innovative pedagogy.

She is an active and engaged member of the University community who has served as director of the First-Year Seminar program and is currently Chair of the Department of Philosophy.

Barbara Abrams, History, Language, and Global Culture

Promoted to Professor

Professor Abrams has demonstrated sustained commitment to teaching, scholarship, and service during her Suffolk career. Abrams helped develop the popular new major in global cultural studies and serves as its inaugural program director. Her expertise in French, Francophone Studies, French Literary History, and Women’s Studies affords her the range and flexibility to contribute to many of the College’s interdisciplinary programs.

Abrams’s most recent work includes an archival research project titled ReSisters which examines women cloistered against their will in 18th century France, and a multi-graph book titled Reframing Rousseau’s Le Lévite d’Ephraïm: The Hebrew Bible, Hospitality, and Modern Identity. Her book, Le Bizarre and Le Décousu in the Novels and Theoretical Works of Denis Diderot: How the Idea of Marginality Originated in Eighteenth-Century France, examines the background of our modern concept of marginality by focusing on Diderot’s materialist philosophy. She also serves as the academic liaison for the Suffolk/CAVILAM intensive French program in Vichy, France and the student exchange program at the Catholic University of Lille.