At the beginning of each academic year, we introduce the faculty members joining the Claremont McKenna College community. These brief biographies share their research interests, areas of expertise, and academic backgrounds. Please join us in welcoming them to CMC.
New Assistant Professors
Maya Binyam
Maya Binyam joins the Literature Department as an Assistant Professor of Literature, having arrived at CMC in fall 2024 as a Visiting Lecturer of Literature. Binyam is the author of the novel Hangman, which was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize, the Dublin Literary Award, and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She received the 2025 Bard Fiction Prize and a 2025-26 Rome Prize in Literature. Binyam is an advisory editor at The Paris Review and previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and The New Inquiry, and as a lecturer in The New School’s Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Her work has been supported by Blue Mountain Center, Art Omi, and Headlands Center for the Arts, where she received the McLaughlin Children’s Trust Award. She earned her B.A. from Yale University.
Akachukwu Obi
Akachukwu Obi joins the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences as an Assistant Professor of Integrated Sciences: Chemistry of Materials. His research focuses on improving the performance of earth-abundant inorganic materials for climate mitigation and energy storage. He is particularly interested in developing alkali and alkaline earth compounds for carbon dioxide capture and hydrogen storage. His work integrates molecular studies of structure-property relationships, bulk materials characterization, and systems-level sustainability assessments. Obi holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Bates College and the University of Virginia, respectively, as well as an M.S. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Weiliang Tan
Weiliang Tan joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance as an Assistant Professor of Economics. A trade and spatial economist, he uses large-scale microdata and quantitative spatial models to study the geography of innovation and entrepreneurship. His recent work examines the causes and consequences of the rising spatial concentration of American innovation. Tan earned a B.A. from Yale-NUS College and a Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he was also an IvyPlus Exchange Scholar at Yale University. He comes to CMC from the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he was a postdoctoral research associate on the Startup Cartography Project. Having participated in EnviroLab as an undergraduate, he is excited to join the vibrant liberal arts community at CMC.
New Associate Professor
William (Will) Parsons
William (Will) Parsons joins the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences in January 2027 as an Associate Professor of Integrated Sciences: Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research involves the development of new chemical tools to empower the study of poorly characterized proteins in the human body. His lab is currently studying proteins implicated in pathways underlying multiple diseases, including cancer and Parkinson’s disease, with the ultimate goal of evaluating the potential of these proteins to serve as therapeutic targets. Parsons earned a B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics from Williams College and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University. He performed postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute and comes to Claremont McKenna College from Oberlin College where he has been on the faculty since 2017.
New Full Professor
Susan McWilliams Barndt
Susan McWilliams Barndt joins the Government Department as a Professor of Government. McWilliams is a political theorist whose areas of interest include the history of political thought, American political thought, politics and literature, liberal arts education, and civic education. McWilliams has written and edited several books, including A Political Companion to James Baldwin (2017) and The American Road Trip and American Political Thought (2018). She has two forthcoming books: Mark Twain: America’s Political Philosopher, and The Princeton History of American Political Thought (coedited with CMC Government Professor Nicholas Buccola and Roosevelt Montás). Her writing has appeared in both scholarly and popular journals, and she is a regular media commentator on American politics for outlets such as Business Insider, KPCC’s AirTalk, LiveNOW From FOX, The Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, The Nation, The New York Times, Newsweek, Pacifica Radio, Politico, the Tavis Smiley Show, and “Today in LA” on KNBC. McWilliams has received accolades including the Graves Award in the Humanities, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and the Jack Miller Center’s Teaching Excellence Award in Higher Education. For the last two decades, McWilliams has taught at Pomona College, where she won the Wig Distinguished Award for Excellence in Teaching four times. She has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University and a B.A. in Political Science and Russian from Amherst College.
New Full-Time Visiting Faculty
Dail Chapman
Dail Chapman joins the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences as a Visiting Associate Professor of Integrated Sciences: Chemistry. She is a biophysicist whose previous research focused on the cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix proteins in and around neurons. She earned her B.A. from Scripps College and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine, and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University. For the past six years, Chapman served as a teaching professor at Georgetown University in courses such as “Foundations in Biology,” “Biological Chemistry,” and a course of her own design: “The Biology of How We Think.”
Niall Chithelen
Niall Chithelen joins the History Department as a Visiting Lecturer of History. Chithelen is a historian of the environment, technology, and architecture of modern China. He is currently finishing a dissertation at the University of California, San Diego, about concrete in China from 1949 to 1985. His research shows how economic shortages and nonhuman actors shaped technology and design in China, and he has published on these themes in Revolutionary Natures: Grassroots Environmental Histories of China’s Mao-era. He has also written about temporary housing and the history of dams, logistics, and packaging in Mao-era China. Chithelen has held fellowships at the Needham Research Institute at the University of Cambridge and the University of California Institute for Global Cooperation and Conflict. He also occasionally writes short fiction and essays for Taxis magazine.
Peter McAniff
Peter McAniff joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance as a Professor of the Practice of Accounting. Prior to teaching, McAniff was a vice president in the M&A Group at J.P. Morgan in New York; co-authored two industry books: The Practitioner’s Guide to Investment Banking, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Finance and The Recruiting Guide to Investment Banking (both with Jerilyn J. Castillo); and was an analyst for Poplar Forest Capital. The Practitioner’s Guide has been used as a textbook at Arizona State University, Boston College, Fordham College, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, Rutgers University, Texas A&M, and the University of Wisconsin, among others. Since leaving practice, McAniff taught at CMC for four years, spent the last five years at Caltech where he received a departmental teaching award in 2023-24, and is now delighted to return to CMC. McAniff holds a B.A. in History from Holy Cross, a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and speaks Spanish fluently.
Minjae Yun
Minjae Yun joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics. She is a law and economics researcher currently working with the Los Angeles Superior Court on systemic policy changes. She previously served as Assistant Director of CMC’s Lowe Institute of Political Economy, where she mentored undergraduate data journalists in a program combining intellectual rigor, statistical precision, and applied programming skills, while conducting various economic research projects. Before joining the Lowe Institute, Yun worked at the UCLA School of Law in a statistician position co-funded by the RAND Corporation, collaborating with practitioners, including the Florida state court system and the Los Angeles Superior Court. Originally from South Korea, Yun earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Claremont Graduate University.
New Part-Time Visiting Faculty
Robin Brooks
Robin Brooks joins the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program in January 2027 as a Professor of the Practice. She is simultaneously a Visiting Fellow in Global Policy and Governance at Pomona College. Previously, Brooks was Special Advisor in Europe to Vice President Kamala Harris, and Director for Central Europe and the Balkans at the National Security Council. During a more-than 20-year career as a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, Brooks held senior assignments in the Office for Multilateral Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. Mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and at U.S. embassies in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Turkey. Brooks holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her academic career has included teaching and research positions at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and at Sofia University in Bulgaria. Her research interests are in democracy/democratic backsliding, corruption and kleptocracy, the role of values in foreign policy, and Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans.
John Brown
John Brown joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance in January 2027 as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics (Accounting). Brown is a licensed CPA in California and New York with nearly 25 years of experience in accounting, auditing, and regulation. He is an audit partner at KPMG and a member of KPMG’s Department of Professional Practice, and he has experience auditing both public and private companies across technology, manufacturing, alternative energy and consumer markets industries. He is also designated by his firm as an SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) reviewing partner. Brown earned his Bachelor of Accountancy and Master of Accountancy at Brigham Young University.
Cameron Hajialiakbar
Cameron Hajialiakbar joins the CMC Faculty as Professor of the Practice (Randall Lewis Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship). He is an attorney in Cooley LLP’s Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice, where he advises startups, founders, and venture investors from formation through exit. Hajialiakbar already works closely with student entrepreneurs across The Claremont Colleges as a volunteer with the Claremont Accelerator and Harvey Mudd College’s Summer Entrepreneurship Studio. In the classroom, he is excited to demystify the legal side of launching a venture-backed startup and help students think through the decisions founders and investors face. Hajialiakbar earned his B.A. from UCLA and his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law.
Sophia Helland ’20
Sophia Helland ’20 joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics. Her research uses quantitative methods to examine how state and local policies shape access to healthcare and other public services. Her current work focuses on the effects of geographic, legal, and administrative barriers to reproductive and maternal healthcare, with broader interests in policy evaluation, econometrics, and state and local policymaking. Helland earned her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College in Economics and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy and Management at the University of Southern California, where she is finishing her dissertation on reproductive health policy.
Aileen Huang
Aileen Huang joins the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance in January 2027 as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics (Accounting). She is an accounting and finance professional and educator with 28 years of industry and teaching experience, including leadership positions at major entertainment companies such as Disney, HBO, and Warner Bros. Her professional expertise spans financial reporting, audit and advisory services, corporate and production finance, budgeting, forecasting, and financial analysis. Huang brings her real-world experience into the classroom through a student-centered approach grounded in academic rigor, compassion, and relevance, while integrating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence to prepare students for the evolving workforce. She holds an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a B.S. from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and is a licensed California CPA.