Bates is welcoming a number of new faculty members for the 2026-2027 academic year, including 11 tenured or on the tenure track. Bates News began introducing new faculty last week and will continue over the next few weeks. Read our second installment below.

Arron Levi Foster, assistant professor of art and visual culture

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a printmaker, interdisciplinary artist, and educator whose research explores landscape, memory, and the shifting boundaries between personal and public space. Working across printmaking, artists’ books, drawing, video, animation, and installation, I employ research-driven, site-responsive methodologies that position print as both index and archive. My projects emerge through sustained engagement with specific environments, translating physical terrain, lived experience, and cultural memory into layered visual forms that examine the relationships between place, history, and human intervention.

I received my MFA in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Georgia and my BFA in Printmaking and Art Education from East Carolina University. My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at George Fox University, Waterloo Arts, Dayton Society of the Arts, Akron Soul Train Gallery, and Hiram University, as well as the 5th Global Print Exhibition in Portugal. 

What is the focus of your teaching and scholarship?

I believe the studio is a place where curiosity, creativity, and community converge. My teaching is grounded in the conviction that every student deserves an inclusive, supportive environment where diverse perspectives are valued and creative risk is encouraged. As both an artist and educator, I strive to balance technical proficiency with critical inquiry, helping students develop meaningful, interdisciplinary practices that connect personal experience with broader cultural and historical contexts. I am passionate about mentoring students from all backgrounds, fostering collaboration, and empowering them to engage thoughtfully with visual culture while discovering their own voices as artists, scholars, and engaged citizens

What are you most excited about in the coming year at Bates?

I am excited to join the Bates community because of its commitment to interdisciplinary inquiry, collaborative learning, and undergraduate education. I look forward to working closely with students as they develop ambitious, research-driven creative practices while contributing to a departmental culture that values experimentation, critical dialogue, and engagement with visual culture. The opportunity to connect my own interdisciplinary practice with colleagues and students across the college makes Bates an especially inspiring place to teach, learn, and create, and I am eager to contribute to a vibrant community where artistic practice and intellectual curiosity are deeply intertwined.

Mónica C. Quiñones-Frías, assistant professor of biology 

Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

I am excited to join Bates College to teach cell biology and open my research lab. Neurons are fascinating cells, and throughout my career I have studied how they function at the molecular level. I did my bachelor’s degree at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, studying regeneration of the enteric nervous system in sea cucumbers, before earning my Ph.D. at MIT, where I used fruit flies to study the molecular machinery that controls neuronal communication. Outside the lab, I am a plant enthusiast with more than 80 plants at home. My interest in plants began in graduate school. I grew up in Puerto Rico, going to the beach and rainforest year-round, so I missed seeing tropical plants during the New England winters.

What is the focus of your teaching and scholarship?

During my postdoc at Brandeis University, I studied the neuron-specific functions of a membrane-bound cellular structure called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and discovered that mutations in the neuronal ER cause dysfunction specifically at nerve endings. My lab will build on this work, using genetics and microscopy in fruit flies to understand how ER dysfunction contributes to neurodegenerative disease. I’m also excited to teach cell biology of neurons to my students. Neurons often modify standard cell-biological processes to fit their specific structure and function, and I believe students will find exploring this aspect truly captivating.

What are you most excited about in the coming year at Bates?

I have been working toward becoming a professor for over 10 years, and I’m excited to begin this next chapter of my career. I’m eager to set up my lab, recruit students interested in my research, and explore Maine in all the seasons. I am also looking forward to being at a liberal arts college, where I’ll get to work with peers in other disciplines. I feel very fortunate to be entering this role as a Puerto Rican woman, and I hope that I can share my experience with Bates students who identify with me and my origins. 

Sonny Kim, assistant professor of philosophy

Tell us a little bit about yourself. 

I am a social and political philosopher. My research explores the conceptual and normative questions raised by the idea of structural injustice: injustice that is essentially about our social structures rather than a few bad actors, as some would describe persistent racial disparities in infant mortality in the United States. I’m currently working on a book that tackles what I think are the three most important questions about structural injustice: What is a social structure, and what is its relationship to human agency? Is structural injustice a problem of freedom, equality, or both? Finally, what responsibilities do we as individuals have to address structural injustices in our society? In both my research and teaching, I am interested in exploring social and political issues by critically examining the assumptions and ideas and values that shape how we understand them.

What is the focus of your teaching and scholarship?

I’ll be teaching philosophy of law in the fall and topics in social and political philosophy in the winter. Research-wise, besides the book manuscript on the idea of structural injustice, I plan to start a new project examining the built environment or infrastructure as a site of unfreedom and inequality. 

What are you most excited about in the coming year at Bates?

I’m looking forward to getting to know the people that make up this community. I’m especially excited to meet and learn from the students here at Bates, both through my classes and through campus life more broadly. I’m also looking forward to experiencing the natural splendor of Maine, in all seasonal fonts.

Faculty Featured

Sonny Kim

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Arron L. Foster

Assistant Professor of Art and Visual Culture

Mónica Quiñones-Frías

Assistant Professor of Biology