(Top from Left) Professor Elyse Granik, Rabbi Shay Schachter and Professor Shaina Trapedo (Bottom from Left) Professor Anderson Oliveria, Professor Rachel Besser and Rabbi Dr. Richard Weiss

Yeshiva University welcomed 30 dynamic and forward-thinking full-time faculty members for the fall 2022 semester across the undergraduate and graduate schools, as well as the Undergraduate Torah Studies (UTS) program. Six of those hires teach at Stern College for Women (SCW) and span a wide variety of academic interests and subjects, from speech language pathology to English to Jewish studies. Rabbi Shay Schachter and Professor Rachel Besser will both serve as instructors in Jewish studies. "I see this as an opportunity to be inspired by the deep passion and dedication of the young women at Yeshiva University," remarked Rabbi Schachter. "It is exciting to join along for a small part of the journey, as they aspire and reach toward a life of greatness. I, together with the entire Beren Campus faculty, look forward to their remarkable contributions both to our community and to society as a whole." "It is an honor to be teaching at YU, an institution that had a profound impact on my own intellectual and religious development, and to have the opportunity to engage over texts with the next generation of Jewish women thinkers and leader," Professor Besser, who attend SCW as an undergrad, added. A former adjunct instructor and alumna of SCW, Professor Elyse Granik has been promoted to chair and instructor for the speech pathology and audiology department. Professor Granik specializes in working as a speech language pathologist with children from birth to five years old with hearing loss and auditory processing disorders and has experience treating listening and spoken language skills both in home care and school-based settings. She has been working at Strivright/Auditory Oral School of New York since 2008. Professor Anderson Oliveria will serve as a Stern College for Women assistant professor of chemistry. Professor Oliveria earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where he also worked as an assistant professor of chemistry. His research focuses on molecular understanding of the light emission process by bioluminescent reactions and its use in analytical detection systems, imaging and diagnostics, and he has been published in scientific journals. Professor Shaina Trapedo will serve as a lecturer of English. Professor Trapedo earned her MA and Ph.D. in English from University of California, Irvine, and has been teaching SCW students as an adjunct since 2019. She is also the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought recruitment officer and the host of the Straus Center’s podcast Twice Blest: A Podcast Exploring Shakespeare and the Hebrew Bible. Finally, Rabbi Dr. Richard Weiss has been appointed clinical associate professor of biology at SCW and director of the newly created YU/Albert Einstein College of Medicine Scholars Program. A former SCW adjunct and a licensed physician, Rabbi Dr. Weiss’ courses include human physiology, human development and pharmacology. To learn more about Stern College for Women and its impactful faculty, click here.