CANTON -- St. Lawrence University recently appointed eight new tenure-track faculty members to begin teaching in the fall 2016 semester.

Cristian Armendariz-Picon joins St. Lawrence as an associate professor in physics, following a period of 12 years at Syracuse University.

Armendariz-Picon earned his Ph.D. at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 2001, under the supervision of Slava Mukhanov.

His research focuses on theoretical cosmology and the early universe. Armendariz-Picon will teach a variety of courses offered by the department of physics.

Sam Byrne comes to St. Lawrence as an assistant professor in environmental studies.

Byrne earned his Ph.D. in environmental health from the University at Albany in 2016.

His research interests include the environmental causes of health disparities, the health effects of environmental chemicals and the social and cultural factors that influence risk for disease.

He will teach an introductory course in environmental studies and advanced courses in environmental health and epidemiology.

Brook Henkel joins the department of modern languages as assistant professor of German and film studies.

He received his Ph.D. in Germanic languages from Columbia University in 2013 and served as visiting assistant professor of German at Haverford College before coming to St. Lawrence.

His research focuses on 20th-century German literature, film and media theory.

Henkel will teach all levels of German language and contribute to the program in film and representation studies.

Alvin Henry earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of California Berkeley.

A two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Middlebury College in Vermont introduced him to North Country winters.

He is finishing his first book, an analysis of how African American novels depict the challenges of growing up under racism.

His next book project asks how novels narrate the lives of the elderly. Henry will teach courses in literary theory as well as minority literature.

Sarah Knobel is a photographer and will teach in the department of performance and communication arts.

Her work has been featured in national and international exhibitions in Miami, Seattle, Portland, Kansas City, Washington D.C., Germany, Belgium and Greece.

She holds an MFA in photography from the design architecture art and planning program at the University of Cincinnati and a BFA in studio art from Texas State University.

James Sieja comes to St. Lawrence as an assistant professor of government from a visiting position at Skidmore College.

Sieja earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015.

His research focuses on the American judicial system, particularly the process for selecting federal judges.

Sieja will teach introductory classes on American government, as well as higher-level courses on the presidency, judicial system and constitutional law.

Jessica Sierk joins the St. Lawrence faculty as an assistant professor in education.

She earned her Ph.D. in educational studies with an emphasis in social analysis, educational policy and reform from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2016.

Sierk's research focuses on the sociopolitical context of education, specifically as it relates to race and whiteness.

This fall she will teach contemporary issues in American education and teaching in a differentiated classroom.

Angela Sweigart-Gallagher comes to St. Lawrence as an assistant professor of theater from Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago.

Sweigart-Gallagher earned her Ph.D. in theater research from the University of Wisconsin Madison in 2008.

Her research interests and performance projects focus on the intersection of politics and performance.

She will teach several acting classes in the fall and will direct “Everyman” in the spring.

In addition to the tenure-track faculty, St. Lawrence hired Fred Arroyo as the Viebranz visiting professor of English; Sun Hayou as the Fulbright foreign language teaching assistant in the department of modern languages; Jeffrey McLean as a teaching post-doc in statistics; Daniel Gallagher as the technical director and production manager for the department of performance and communication arts; and 15 visiting assistant professors across multiple disciplines.

Classes at St. Lawrence began Aug. 24.