The following are among the new faculty members at the University. Others will be introduced periodically in this space.
Bruce Durazzi, Ph.D., joins the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. Durazzi earned bachelor’s degrees in music composition and in English literature, both from Oberlin College, and a doctorate in music from Yale University. His research interests include politics and musical modernism, the music and aesthetics of Arnold Schoenberg and his school and gender studies in music. Before joining the WUSTL music faculty, Durazzi taught music theory at the University of Arizona and at Northwestern University. His current research in music theory emphasizes the relationship between music analysis and broader social, cultural and historical issues.
Matt Gabel, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as associate professor. He earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Rochester and a master’s degree in advanced European studies at the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium. He spent 1996-98 at the University of Michigan as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research. His research interests include the political consequences of electoral laws, comparative democratic processes and American health policy.
James Spriggs, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as professor. His research interests are in American politics, with a specific emphasis on the scientific study of law and judicial process and politics. He is especially concerned with how institutions (i.e., formal rules or informal norms) shape the choices that judges make. This perspective focuses on how, in attempting to craft law consistent with their policy preferences, judges are constrained by institutional rules endogenous and exogenous to courts. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Westminster College, and master’s and doctoral degrees, both in philosophy, from WUSTL.
Melanie Jean Springer, Ph.D., joins the Department of Political Science in Arts & Sciences as assistant professor. She earned a doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 2006 and specializes in American politics and quantitative methods. Her teaching and research interests include voting and elections, political institutions, state politics and policymaking, American political development, Congress, political parties and quantitative methods.