Five new faculty join the college

Yarden Golan Maor

Assistant Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences

Can you tell us about your academic focus and what drives your work?

My research focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms that regulate human milk production. I am specifically interested in understanding how the mammary gland adapts during the early days of lactation and how these processes vary among individuals. In our lab, we integrate clinical studies with mechanistic research using biospecimens and in vitro models to explore the biological pathways that influence milk composition and volume. What drives my work is the goal of translating these discoveries to support mothers who face breastfeeding challenges and to optimize infant health, especially in cases where milk production or composition is not ideal.

What’s one key lesson you hope students take from your courses?

I hope my students will come away with an appreciation for the remarkable biology of lactation and the critical role breastfeeding plays in maternal and infant health. I want them to understand how the early postpartum period lays the foundation for long-term breastfeeding success, and how scientific insights can be applied to better support families during this crucial time.

Jessica Salerno

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Can you tell us about your academic focus and what drives your work?

I am a social psychologist, so I study how people judge others — particularly in the legal setting. Nearly all of my work is driven by identifying psychological assumptions embedded in our criminal and civil justice system and testing whether those assumptions are true. If they are not, we use social psychology to suggest interventions or reforms to how the legal system is run to hopefully make the system more fair and just.

What’s one key lesson you hope students take from your courses?

That psychological science is highly relevant and can make our legal system more fair and just for all. That, although many legal actors (jurors, attorneys, judges, police) may all have the common goal of trying to determine legal truth and appropriate punishment, the human mind has inherent biases in how it processes social information that need to be accounted for in how the system guides legal decision making.

Jung-hye Shin

Professor and Chair, Department of Human Centered Design

Can you tell us about your academic focus and what drives your work?

My academic focus centers on the intersection of design, aging and disability. I study how the environments we live in — from our homes to our communities — shape daily experiences, independence and well-being, particularly for older adults and people with functional limitations. A core part of my work is aging in place: understanding how people can continue to live safely, meaningfully and comfortably in their own homes and communities as they age. What drives my work is the belief that design has profound social responsibility. I’m motivated by the opportunity to collaborate across disciplines to translate evidence into environments that truly support people’s dignity, health and everyday needs.

What’s one key lesson you hope students take from your courses?

I hope students walk away understanding that design is never just about aesthetics or function — it’s about people. Designers carry a profound responsibility: our design decisions can elevate human experiences or create harms that persist in everyday life and on a global scale. If they take away just one thing, I want it to be the awareness that every design decision carries social responsibility, and that thoughtful, compassionate and research-grounded design has the power to make the world a better, more equitable place.

Shibani Ghosh

Associate Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences

Can you tell us about your academic focus and what drives your work?

With a background in public health and nutritional science and a keen interest in global nutrition, I have worked to develop a research agenda that focuses on better understanding the factors and triggers that impede optimal nutrition and health and evaluating interventions targeting vulnerable populations like women and children.

Specifically, I focus on understanding and testing solutions that aim to improve and/or reduce the effects of nutritional and environmental insults on outcomes of pregnancy and early childhood. This has included work on diet quality, environmental toxins and insults and birth outcomes in pregnancy, improved growth in infants and young children.

What are you most excited about as your begin your time at Cornell?

I am excited with the opportunity to collaborate and learn from a diverse set of colleagues — within the division and college as well as across the university. I look forward to engaging in interdisciplinary dialogue and building partnerships that enrich both research and teaching. Working with students to develop critical questions, design analyses, and translate findings into meaningful insights is something I deeply value. I am also eager to expand my teaching to include both graduate and undergraduate students, fostering an environment where curiosity, rigor and creativity thrive.

Paige Cunningham

Assistant Professor, Division of Nutritional Sciences

Can you tell us about your academic focus and what drives your work?

The focus of my work is ingestive behavior. Specifically, I am interested in investigating how different properties of food — for example, portion size, energy density, sensory attributes, etc. — influence what and how much we eat, and how we can manipulate these properties to benefit human health.

What are you most excited about as you begin your time at Cornell?

I deeply value mentorship and attribute a lot of my success so far to the incredible mentors I have had along the way. I am excited to start teaching and growing my research group so that I can hopefully pass on some of the wisdom and mentorship that I have received to my future students and mentees.

What's one key lesson you hope students take from your courses?

People are complicated; individuals differ widely in their biology, psychology and environment. What works for one person or group might not work for another, and it is important to keep this in mind when making recommendations about diet and health.