Two Lawrence University faculty members have been named to endowed teaching positions beginning in the 2025-26 academic year.
Jake Frederick will hold the Jean Lampert Woy and J. Richard Woy Professorship in History, a newly endowed chair. Jodi Sedlock will hold the Dennis and Charlot Nelson Singleton Professorship in Biological Sciences, an endowed position previously held by the retiring Bart De Stasio.
Immerse yourself in different times and places to develop important perspectives on the world past and present.
The Jean Lampert Woy and J. Richard Woy Professorship in History was established in 2018 by Jean Lampert Woy ’65 and J. Richard Woy ’64. This fund reflects their appreciation for liberal arts education and their interest in historical scholarship.
Frederick joined the Lawrence faculty in 2006. His scholarship has included research on and presentations about fire and other environmental crises in Mexico and economic factors that have informed Mexico’s history. Published books include Riot! Tobacco, Reform, and Violence in Eighteenth-Century Papantla, Mexico, and, with Tatiana Seijas, Spanish Dollars and Sister Republics: The Money That Made Mexico and the United States. In 2017, he was awarded Lawrence’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship. He is a recent recipient of a Newberry Library fellowship to research firefighting and fire prevention in eighteenth-century Mexico.
Frederick earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University.
The Dennis and Charlot Nelson Singleton Professorship in Biological Sciences was established in 2007. Charlot Nelson Singleton ’67 has a deep appreciation for her Lawrence education. The endowed position reflects her conviction that the biological sciences are a critical component of the liberal arts curriculum and an abiding belief in the value of education she and Dennis share.
Whether in ecology, microbiology, marine biology, or genetics, you can look forward to a depth of knowledge and understanding that can come from close collaboration with faculty and classmates.
Sedlock joined the Lawrence faculty in 2002. Her research has taken her and students frequently to the Philippines in Southeast Asia, where she has worked in collaboration with Filipino scientists, conservation professionals, Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, and other researchers, often in forests, caves, or biodiverse rice fields, as she seeks to better understand how bats respond to human-caused landscape changes. Her recent focus has been on acoustic ecology, a subfield of sensory ecology, using ultrasonic microphones to “eavesdrop” on bats as she explores animals’ evolved strategies for living in naturally noisy environments.
Sedlock earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Science in biology from Loyola University. She earned her Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from the University of Illinois.
