At the start of the new academic year, Barnard’s campus comes to life with energy from new students and new faculty. At the heart of the College’s mission is maintaining a rigorous academic environment, and each of these new faculty members bring with them a wealth of knowledge in their areas of expertise, as well as the passion to inspire students to reach their academic potential and become future leaders.
Marco Castronovo
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Marco Castronovo is a mathematician working in the field of topology, which studies the connections between continuous and discrete phenomena. He focuses on symplectic structures as a general framework for the quantization of classical invariants. Currently, he is interested in developing an open-string version of Schubert calculus.
Castronovo did his undergraduate studies in Pisa, Italy, and Bonn, Germany, and received a doctorate in mathematics from Rutgers University in 2021.
Sonya Chen
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Sonya Chen’s research and teaching focus on Asian American politics, social movements, and interminority politics. Her current book project examines the Stop Asian Hate movement and organizing against anti-Asian violence during the COVID-19 era, exploring the contentious relationship of Asian Americans to carceral politics and racial justice. Her research has been published or is forthcoming in Politics, Groups, and Identities, Political Behavior, and Amerasia Journal.
In tandem with her academic scholarship, Sonya has been involved in community research projects, from understanding racial violence and healing in Oakland, California to organizing against a proposed arena in Philadelphia’s Chinatown.
At Barnard, Sonya will teach classes on race and ethnic politics in the U.S., social movements and organizing, and identity politics. Prior to joining Barnard, Sonya was a postdoctoral fellow in the Asian American studies program at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Bachelor of Arts in political science from Swarthmore College and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University.
Sarah Gertler
Assistant Professor of Economics
Sarah Gertler is an international macroeconomist who studies the impact of exchange rates and tariffs. Sarah received her doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to graduate school she was a Senior Research Analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the Financial Intermediation division, and she received her Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College in 2017 in economics and mathematics. She is a native of New York City, and was a National Merit Scholar at the Horace Mann School.
Alexis Hill
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
and Behavior
Alexis Hill is a neurobiologist whose research focuses on uncovering how genes influence neuronal activity and behavior in response to environmental stressors, using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. She employs a combination of genetic, imaging, and behavioral approaches to investigate gene function across all stages of development. She is currently working on a research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF): Glial regulation of neural homeostasis during environmental stress in D. melanogaster. This fall, she will be teaching Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience.
Prior to joining Barnard, Hill was a faculty member in the Biology Department at the College of the Holy Cross, and Director of the Neuroscience Program. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, a doctorate in neurobiology and behavior from Columbia University, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Washington University in St. Louis.
Eysa Lee
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Eysa Lee’s research is in cryptography, with a focus on multiparty computation and threshold signatures. Prior to joining Barnard, she was a postdoctoral research associate in the Data Science Institute at Brown University and earned her doctorate in computer science from Northeastern University. Much of her research focuses on practical, internet-scale authentication protocols, such as distributed protocols for computing Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm signatures and privacy-preserving digital IDs. Her work has been implemented and deployed in industry in places such as Silence Labs, BlackDaemon, Paypal, and Coinbase.
Verónica Tello
Assistant Professor of Art History
Verónica Tello’s research encompasses global and Latin American art history, with a focus on diasporic and queer methodologies. Currently, she is working on a monograph that tracks the border-crossing circulations of Chilean conceptual art during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Tello’s research has received support from various residencies, fellowships, and grants from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Rhodes University, Social Practice at the City University of New York, and the Australian Research Council.
In the fall, Tello will teach “Art, Writing, and Archives,” encouraging students to develop creative and critical approaches to primary sources, and the Art History seminar, “American Conceptualism.” She earned a bachelor’s degree in art history and her doctorate in art history from the University of Melbourne.
Tatiana Webb
Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy
Tatiana Webb is an experimental condensed matter physicist interested in understanding and manipulating novel electronic phenomena.
Prior to joining Barnard, Webb earned her doctorate in physics from Harvard University investigating the electronic structure of high-temperature superconductors using scanning tunneling microscopy. Webb then joined Columbia University as a postdoctoral research scientist, where she investigated a variety of phenomena in 2D materials heterostructures using cryogenic atomic force microscopy techniques.
Ashley Wong
Assistant Professor of Economics
Ashley Wong’s current research agenda explores empirical questions at the intersection of labor and gender economics with a focus on topics related to the role of diversity in innovation, gender inequality in the labor market, and the role of gender in entrepreneurship.
Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, J-PAL, International Growth Centre, and Upjohn Institute.
Wong also was the recipient of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Commission.
Prior to joining Barnard, Wong was an assistant professor of economics at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
She was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Wong received her Bachelor of Arts in economics from Dartmouth College and her doctorate in economics from Northwestern University.
