Emily Walton, associate professor of sociology and a faculty fellow in the Society of Fellows, will become the society’s next director, Dean of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Jon Kull ’88 announced.

Walton follows Mona Domosh, the Joan P. and Edward J. Foley Jr. 1933 Professor of Geography, who has led the society since 2019. Domosh welcomed Walton and praised the mission of the Society of Fellows, founded in 2014 by President Philip J. Hanlon ’77 to foster intellectual innovation across the institution.

“The Society of Fellows is one of the few—if not only—spaces at Dartmouth dedicated to the interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and experiences, an invaluable asset in a world that can only be comprehended through multiple lenses,” says Domosh.

Kull says the society, which is part of the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, has fostered an interdisciplinary network of early career scholars and faculty mentors that has continued to grow in the eight years since its founding.

“I want to thank Mona for guiding the evolution of this extraordinary project at Dartmouth,” Kull says. “And I am thrilled that Emily Walton, whose work in sociology looks at how racially diverse communities function, will transition from faculty fellow to the role of director of the Society of Fellows.”

The society’s postdoctoral fellows, in collaboration with faculty fellows and faculty affiliates, form an interdisciplinary community that integrates research and teaching across all divisions within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Tuck School of Business, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Geisel School of Medicine.

Walton says her work in sociology to understand how differently racialized groups interact together in community is well suited to the task of leading the Society of Fellows. She sees the core of this work as integrating people from diverse scholarly fields into a creative collaborative project.

“My tasks as the director are to support a culture of openness and curiosity and encourage a spirit of risk-taking. This kind of atmosphere will help bring the postdoctoral fellows together across disciplinary boundaries in order to create something that is new,” Walton says.

“What’s really incredible about interdisciplinary space is that it is integrating, it is synthesizing, it is energizing,” she says.

The application period for the next cohort of postdoctoral fellows will open in July and run through Sept. 12, 2022.