The Princeton University Board of Trustees approved the appointment of seven new faculty members, including one full professor and six assistant professors, according to a May 29 announcement.
Melissa Schwartzberg has been appointed as a full professor in politics and the University Center for Human Values, effective July 1. Schwartzberg specializes in political theory and joins Princeton from New York University, where she held several roles including the Julius Silver, Roslyn S. Silver, and Enid Silver Winslow Professor of Politics. Her research spans politics, law, philosophy, and classics with interests in ancient and modern political thought as well as constitutionalism. Schwartzberg is the author or co-author of several books such as “Democratic Deals: A Defense of Political Bargaining,” which won the American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory Section’s 2025 David Easton Award.
Schwartzberg’s academic background includes positions at Columbia University and George Washington University. She has received honors such as a Guggenheim Fellowship in political science (2020), an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2020), and an Andrew W. Mellon New Directions Fellowship (2013). She served as a visiting faculty fellow at Princeton’s Center for Human Values from 2016 to 2017.
The board also approved six assistant professor appointments: Beeta Baghoolizadeh in Near Eastern studies; Supratik S. Baralay in classics; Mark Letteney in religion; Stan Palasek in mathematics; Jordan A. Rudinsky in politics; and Mingjia Zhang in mathematics. These appointments are set to begin between July and September depending on the department.
Each new appointee brings experience from institutions such as Bucknell University, Harvard University, Universidad Católica de Chile, Bonn University, Institute for Advanced Study, and Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, among others.
