Fall 2024 Leadership Appointments

Dean Stephanie Shonekan announces new leadership appointments.

Dean Stephanie Shonekan is pleased to announce the following new leadership appointments within the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU).

Jill Bradbury is serving as director of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS), effective July 15, 2024.

Dr. Bradbury comes to Maryland from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), where she served as chair of the Department of Performing Arts at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Prior to her time at RIT, Bradbury was a faculty member, and eventually chair, of the English Department at Gallaudet University. She brings to TDPS a compelling scholarly record of achievement, considerable academic and artistic leadership, and a clear vision for the future of TDPS. Bradbury received her doctorate in English from Brown University in 2003.

Fabrizio Cariani is serving as chair of the Department of Philosophy, effective July 1, 2024.

Professor Cariani has been a member of Maryland’s Philosophy department since 2020. His research is broadly concerned with meaning, uncertainty, agency, modality, collective attitudes, the future, explanation, chance, mathematics, decisions, rationality and AI, while his recent writings have focused on the semantics of modals and on issues in social epistemology. He is the author of “The Modal Future” (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and numerous articles in leading Philosophy journals. Cariani received his doctorate from the University of California-Berkeley in 2009.

Jeffrey Lidz is serving as chair of the Department of Linguistics, effective July 1, 2024.

Professor Lidz is an experienced leader with a compelling vision for excellence, creativity and equity in the Linguistics department and across the arts and humanities. Lidz’s research examines syntax and semantics through several lenses—infants and children's language acquisition, cross-linguistic comparisons and the interface between language and other systems of mind. He directs the Project on Children's Language Learning and the Infant and Child Studies Consortium and is also on the executive committee of the Maryland Language Science Center and the Neuroscience and Cognitive Science Program. Lidz was named a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher in 2015. He received his doctorate in linguistics from the University of Delaware in 1996.

Michael Votta is serving as the interim director of the School of Music, effective July 1, 2024.

Professor Votta has taught at UMD since 2008 and currently serves as director of bands at the University of Maryland. Under his leadership, the UMD Wind Orchestra (UMWO) has been invited to perform at multiple national and divisional conferences of the College Band Directors National Association as well as the 2015 international conference of the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles. UMWO has also performed with major artists such as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Eighth Blackbird, the Imani Winds and Konshens the MC. Votta is currently president of the College Band Directors National Association and has served as president of the Big Ten Band Directors Association, editor of the CBDNA Journal and as a member of the boards of the International Society for the Investigation of Wind Music and the Conductors Guild. He received his doctorate of musical arts from the Eastman School of Music in 1986.

Ryan Long is serving as the director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center, effective July 1, 2024.

Professor Long’s primary areas of study are Mexican literature and culture, the writing of Roberto Bolaño, and the life and work of Hannes Meyer. He is interested in the intersections of literature, visual culture and politics; anti-normative sexuality, temporality and close reading; transnational cultural production and politics; and architectural theory and textual analysis. His published books are “Queer Exposures: Sexuality and Photography in the Fiction and Poetry of Roberto Bolaño” (Pittsburgh, 2021) and “Fictions of Totality: The Mexican Novel, 1968” and the “National-Popular State” (Purdue, 2008). He is currently writing a book titled “The Poetics of Place and Displacement: Hannes Meyer and Postrevolutionary Mexico.” His other publications include studies of representations of violence and the border in contemporary Mexican literature; mid-20th-century Mexican literature; the Taller de Gráfica Popular; the writing of Juan Villoro; and the writing of Álvaro Mutis. Long is a professor in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He received his doctorate from Duke University in 2002.

Please join Dean Shonekan in congratulating these new leaders in ARHU. She extends her thanks and appreciation to Maura Keefe, who served as director of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies since 2019; Samuel Kerstein, who served as chair of the Department of Philosophy since 2018; William Idsardi, who served as chair of the Department of Linguistics since 2012; Gregory Miller, who served as director of the School of Music since 2020; and Isabella Alcañiz, who served as director of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Center since 2021.