Seven Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts faculty members will receive promotions and/or tenure, effective Aug. 1.
Promoted to Associate Professor and Awarded Tenure
Dalton Lin, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
Dalton Lin is a political scientist specializing in theories of international relations and foreign policy. His research interests focus on theorizing the bargaining between major and lesser countries in international politics, with an area focus on China and East Asia.
He is a research associate with the China Research Center and founder of the Taiwan Security Issues. Before joining Georgia Tech, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Joycelyn Wilson, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
Joycelyn Wilson — an interdisciplinary, cultural studies scholar, educational researcher, and essayist — examines hip hop as a design remix, its digital preservation in the American South, and the capabilities of pairing music with education involving computing, engineering, technology, and media arts. Her research appears in both scholarly and popular publications, including the Handbook of Remix Studies and Digital Humanities, the Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, and The Bitter Southerner.
As a subject matter expert, she has contributed to MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her book on hip hop and remix is forthcoming with University of Georgia Press in Spring 2026. She received her B.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, a M.A. from Pepperdine University, and was the 2011 – 2012 Hiphop Archive Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.
Awarded Tenure
Casey Wichman, School of Economics
Casey Wichman, associate professor in the School of Economics, is an applied microeconomist working on issues at the intersection of environmental and public economics. His research focuses on how people interact with the natural and built environment, and what that behavior reveals about the value of environmental amenities. Topically, Wichman works on issues in water and energy management, climate change, transportation, public goods provision, and outdoor recreation.
Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Wichman served as the Research Director of the Energy and Environment Lab at the University of Chicago and as a Fellow at Resources for the Future, an environmental economics think tank in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 2015.
Promoted to Professor
Paul Alonso, School of Modern Languages
Paul Alonso is a former journalist for international newspapers and magazines and the author of four books of fiction. His books Satiric TV in the Americas (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Digital Satire in Latin America (University Press of Florida, 2024) are pioneering studies on the convergence of journalism, entertainment, satire, politics and digital cultures in Latin America.
Before joining Georgia Tech, Alonso was a staff member of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. He is currently the director of Polivision, a bilingual and multimedia outlet based in Atlanta that covers Latin American and Global Cultures. Alonso is a 2024 Fulbright Scholar Awardee. He holds a Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
Magaret E. Kosal, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
Margaret E. Kosal’s research explores the relationships among science, technology, and security to explain how these phenomena impact geopolitics. She focuses on two, often intersecting, areas: understanding the politics of emerging technologies and reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Kosal previously served as a Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, as Science and Technology Advisor within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and as an Associate to the National Intelligence Council (NIC).
She is a champion of students as young scholars at the intersection of science, technology, and international affairs, and she is committed to bridging the academic-policy gap, as seen by her leadership on national and international advisory boards and committees. She earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Southern California.
Amit Prasad, School of History and Sociology
Amit Prasad specializes in global, transnational, and postcolonial sociology and history of science, technology, and medicine. His research focuses on the history of the present — in particular, how the history of colonialism continues to impact present day norms, values, and practices. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.
His first book, Imperial Technoscience: Entangled Histories of MRI in the United States, Britain, and India (MIT Press, 2014) investigated how the invention, industrial production, as well as cultures of MRI were entangled within colonial, West-centric, and Orientalist discourses. His book Science Studies Meets Colonialism (Polity, 2022), investigates how colonial tropes, norms, ideologies, etc. continue to animate the present, including in the fields of history of science and science and technology studies (STS). He is an editor of the journal Science, Technology and Society (Sage) and Treasurer of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).
Johnny Smith, School of History and Sociology
Johnny Smith is the Julius C. "Bud" Shaw Professor of Sports History. His research and teaching explore U.S. history during the twentieth century. He is especially interested in the history of sports, popular culture, political culture, African American history, and the relationship between war and society.
He is the author of six books, including The Fight of His Life: Joe Louis's Battle for Freedom During World War II (written with Randy Roberts; forthcoming 2025); Jumpman: The Making and Meaning of Michael Jordan; and Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (written with Randy Roberts). In 2021, Netflix released Blood Brothers: Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, a feature documentary based on Smith's book. Smith received his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2011, his M.A. from Western Michigan University in 2006, and his B.A. from Michigan State University in 2004.