Seven faculty members—including five first-time honorees—were bestowed at Commencement with Wig Distinguished Professor Awards, recognizing their excellence in teaching, commitment to students, and service to the College and the community.
Presented annually since 1955, the awards involve anonymous votes from Pomona juniors and seniors that are then confirmed by a committee of trustees, faculty and students.
Malachai Bandy is an assistant professor of music who plays some 20 different instruments spanning more than 800 years of music history. His expertise includes viola da gamba technique, history and iconography; historical performance practice; and 17th-century North-German music.
Mietek P. Boduszyński is an associate professor of politics and expert on U.S. foreign policy, democratization, post-conflict stabilization, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the Middle East and North Africa.
J Finley is an associate professor of Africana studies whose research looks at Black women’s history, performance and cultural expression, and the performative and political efficacy of Black women’s humor and comedy.
Frances M. Hanzawa, an associate professor of biology who’s been at Pomona for 30+ years, conducts diverse research in ecology, evolution, plant ecology, genetic and demographic consequences of seed dispersal and plant-animal interactions.
Tom Le is an associate professor of politics with expertise in Japanese security policy, the U.S.–Japan alliance, military and security balance in East Asia and East Asia regionalism.
M. Bilal Nasir is an assistant professor of Asian American studies whose research interests include policing and surveillance, critical race studies, secularism, social movements, science and technology, and anthropology of Muslims and Islam.
Shahriar Shahriari is the William Polk Russell Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and now a six-time Wig Award recipient, with expertise in combinatorics of posets, extremal set theory, finite group theory, representation theory of finite groups and surreal numbers.
From left, Pomona Professors Shahriar Shahriari, Malachai Bandy, Frances M. Hanzawa and J Finley