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Seven new faculty members bring wide-ranging expertise to UW Tacoma

Published on October 2, 2026 / Published by UW Tacoma Marketing & Communications

From responsible AI use to preventing common infections, this year’s new faculty members are tackling questions that matter to our community and beyond.

We’re excited to welcome a diverse group of scholars and educators to UW Tacoma. They offer fresh perspectives for the classroom, expanded opportunities for students and stronger community connections across the South Sound.

Julia Dressel, Ph.D.

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Julia Dressel, Ph.D.

Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

Julia Dressel joins UW Tacoma as an assistant teaching professor of organic chemistry. She earned her doctorate in chemistry from Stanford University in 2026, where she focused on developing molecular, Earth-abundant metal catalysts for renewable energy storage in liquid fuels. During her doctorate, she cultivated her interest in undergraduate chemistry education, completing an associate teaching certificate with the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning and the National Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning. Her excellence in teaching, leadership and scholarship has been recognized throughout her academic career, including the Jonathan L. Sessler Graduate Student Leadership Award and the Linus Pauling Teaching Award from Stanford Chemistry. She is excited to join UW Tacoma to share her love of chemistry and prepare students for impactful careers in the sciences.

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Angel Jones, Ph.D.

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Angel Jones, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, School of Education

Angel Jones (she/her/ella) joins UW Tacoma as an assistant professor in the School of Education. Her research explores the impact of racism on mental health with a focus on microaggressions and racial battle fatigue. Dr. Jones is also a public scholar who uses social media as an educational tool to increase access to academic scholarship. She is the author of Street Scholar: Using Public Scholarship to Educate, Advocate, and Liberate, an unapologetic call-to-action that challenges academia to thoughtfully and intentionally engage in public scholarship. Dr. Jones has been interviewed by multiple media outlets, including The New York Times, Forbes, USA Today and Insider for her expertise on racism in the United States.

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Pearl Magala, Ph.D.

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Pearl Magala, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences

Pearl Magala joins UW Tacoma as an assistant professor of biochemistry. Her research focuses on bacterial adhesion proteins that play central roles in urinary tract infections (UTIs). Her work seeks to understand how these proteins function and uses this knowledge to develop new strategies to combat bacterial infections. She also involves students in her research, providing hands-on training in modern approaches to studying proteins. Magala earned her doctorate in chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and has received support from the National Institutes of Health for her research.

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Sikha Pentyala, Ph.D.

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Sikha Pentyala, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, School of Engineering & Technology

Sikha Pentyala joins UW Tacoma as an assistant professor in the School of Engineering & Technology. She is an AI researcher focused on privacy-preserving synthetic data generation, AI auditing, fairness and transparency, with applications in healthcare and genomics. Her work has been presented at several notable conferences and published in multiple peer-reviewed journals, including the International Conference on Machine Learning and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource. Her teaching interests include machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science and the responsible use of AI. Before becoming a faculty member at UW Tacoma, she was a research scientist at the UW School of Nursing and a postdoctoral researcher at the UW eScience Institute. She earned her doctorate from UW Tacoma in 2025 and was awarded the 2023 JPMorgan Chase Ph.D. Fellowship. Before academia, she spent seven years as a scientific officer at the Nuclear Power Corporation of India.

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Rachel Roberson, Ph.D.

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Rachel Roberson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, School of Education

Rachel Roberson joins UW Tacoma as an assistant professor of higher education leadership. She earned her doctorate in education policy and organizations research from the University of California, Berkley. As a first-generation scholar and educator, Roberson has dedicated her multi-decade academic and administrative career to transforming the landscape of educational equity. Her scholarship leverages Black feminist and community-based epistemologies to elevate the holistic humanity of those most impacted by interlocking systems of oppression and build collective, liberatory power.

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Luyu Wang, Ph.D.

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Luyu Wang, Ph.D.

Assistant Teaching Professor, Milgard School of Business

Luyu Wang joins UW Tacoma as an assistant teaching professor at the Milgard School of Business. She teaches quantitative analysis, predictive analytics, information technology and data-driven decision-making. She earned her doctorate in tourism analytics from the University of Florida. Her research uses large-scale user-generated content, sentiment analysis, topic modeling and spatial analysis to understand travel experiences and support practical decisions. Her publications address cross-cultural interpretation, tourist emotions and emerging tourism markets. In the classroom, she emphasizes experiential learning, accessible analytical tools and clear communication for nontechnical audiences. She is committed to course design, student mentoring and continuous improvement.

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Ben White, Ph.D., RN

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Ben White, Ph.D., RN

Assistant Professor, School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership

Ben White joins UW Tacoma as an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership. He received his doctorate in nursing from the UW for his dissertation centering on environmental and individual factors supporting nurse resilience in pediatric nurses. He is also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholar and serves as a substitute school nurse. He focuses his scholarship on building a stronger and more resilient school nursing workforce through attention to individual and environmental factors, including continuing education, staffing and interprofessional collaboration.

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