The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities congratulates former Society of Fellows members Knar Abrahamyan, Leah Aronowsky, and Ruth Opara on their new Columbia University appointments. Knar Abrahamyan and Ruth Opara joined the Music Department at the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, and Leah Aronowsky will join the Columbia Climate School in January.

Knar Abrahamyan joined the Music Department as an Assistant Professor as of fall semester 2023. Dr. Abrahamyan is a music scholar whose work examines the historical and political entanglements of cultural production.

Leah Aronowsky, a historian of science and environmental history, will be appointed as Assistant Professor of Climate, effective January 1, 2024. Dr. Aronowsky’s published research to date has focused on the history of climate science, the history of climate denialism, and the history of climate policy inaction.

Ruth Opara also joined the Music Department as an Assistant Professor of Music, Ethnomusicology. Opara’s research centers on African and African diasporic music and knowledge production. Specifically, music and decolonial discourse, women in music, music, and gender, and African music and transnational encounters.