³Ô¹ÏÍø

³Ô¹ÏÍø is pleased to welcome its second cohort of Faculty Fellows to campus this fall. 

The Faculty Fellows program aims to create a mutually beneficial environment where scholars starting their academic careers can develop their teaching and research skills while introducing Whitman students to new areas of study and talented emerging professors. 

Faculty Fellows spend one academic year on Whitman’s campus filling in for faculty members on sabbatical. While here, they take on 60% of a regular teaching load, which provides them with additional time for reflection and research as they grow their careers. 

Meet the 2025–2026 cohort of Faculty Fellows:

Nicole Cox, Anthropology

Faculty Fellow in Anthropology Nicole Cox is an anthropologist, interdisciplinary scholar, and artist whose work engages the intersection of dance, power, and meaning making. Her scholarly research investigates how artists and movement practitioners navigate highly politicized settings of transnational cultural connection and how political actors in India’s foreign relations programs use cultural movement practices as political tools. 

Cox earned a doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in Dance and Sociology and Anthropology from Swarthmore College. Before coming to Whitman, she was a Center for Humanistic Inquiry Fellow and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Amherst College.

This fall, she is teaching Becoming Human: An Introduction to Anthropology (). In the spring, she will teach Moving Culture: Anthropological Perspectives on the Body and Human Movement, as well as Anthropology of Soft Power: Art, Culture and Diplomacy.

Mylan Gray, Theater

Faculty Fellow in Theater Mylan Gray is an Eagle Scout and Kansas State Debate champion turned playwright. He is a graduate of Stanford University, where he received the Kennell Jackson Jr. Award for his honors thesis. He has also received the Lorraine Hansberry Award from the Kennedy Center for his play, “Buried in Blood.” Their work has been developed by the Tank Theater, the Workshop Theater, the Kansas City Public Theater, the Whim Theater Company, the Mid-America Theater Conference and the Writing Downtown Residency in Las Vegas. Currently, he is under commission from La Jolla Playhouse for a play about AI companions, masculinity and intimacy.
 
Most recently, Gray completed a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of California, San Diego, after studying under Naomi Iizuka and Deborah Stein. Gray’s work draws on his deep reverence for Brazil and his penchant for spiritual journeying.

This fall, he is teaching Playwriting/Writing Performance () and will teach a U.S. theater history course () and a One Act Festival production class (independent study) in the spring. He will also be sharing a work-in-progress of his new play, “BOXED,” as part of the Studio Series at Harper Joy Theatre.

Zarif Rahman, Physics

Faculty Fellow in Physics Zarif Rahman is a nuclear physicist interested in understanding the mysteries of the universe. After completing high school in his home country, Bangladesh, he earned his undergraduate degree in Physics with a minor in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. He then defended his doctorate in Physics at Michigan State University. His doctoral research involved developing a novel technique to extract crucial nuclear data and simulating the heating evolution in neutron star crusts. Outside of academia, Zarif enjoys traveling, photography and weightlifting.

This fall, he is teaching three sections of the (PHYS-156L), where students learn skills in experimental design, data collection, data analysis and problem solving.

Emma Rossby, French & Francophone Studies

Faculty Fellow in French and Francophone Studies Emma Rossby is an interdisciplinary scholar of comics, media and museum studies, particularly as they intersect with critical race and queer theories. With a focus on print and digital bande dessinée (Francophone comics), her research examines how forms of multisensory and transmedia storytelling are used as vectors for public pedagogy in contemporary Belgium. 

She has taught courses on topics including Francophone visual cultures, transmedia storytelling, museology and public pedagogies, and French cultural history. Prior to coming to ³Ô¹ÏÍø, she earned a dual-title doctorate in French and Francophone Studies and Visual Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and won a Teaching Excellence Award. 

This fall she is teaching an advanced French course on museum studies, (Re)penser le Musée francophone (), and she will teach elementary and intermediate language courses in the spring.