FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2017, 4:00 p.m. CDT
Contact Jason Hogue, Peru State College Marketing and Communications, 402-872-2429
Peru, Nebraska- Four new faculty members have come to Peru State College to meet campus academic
needs. Faculty are hired through a rigorous recruitment and application process culminating
in on-campus interviews with other faculty, staff and students.
Dr. Timothy Borchers, vice president of academic affairs, said, “We continue to attach
excellent academics with real-life experience in their fields.
“The most important piece of the Peru State experience is connecting students to quality
teaching and engaged learning opportunities.
New Peru State faculty, from left to right, Dr. Nathan Netzer, Dr. Kathleen Nehls, Ms. Cassandra Cox and Ms. Heidi Jo Bartlett.
Heidi Jo Bartlett was hired as an Instructor of Education. Bartlett most recently taught in China through
the U. S. Department of State English Language Fellows program in Beijing. Bartlett
has both K-12 and university experience in English as a Second Language (ESL) and
English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings.
Bartlett has educated others in these language areas across the spectrum of experienced,
novice and prospective learners. She has also taught grades 6–12 German and English
Language Learners (ELLs) in Wisconsin.
Bartlett holds a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
(TESOL) from the University of Central Florida and a Bachelor of Science in Education
from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Cassandra Cox was hired as an Instructor of Mathematics. Cox previously worked at the University
of Nebraska-Omaha as the Coordinator of Intermediate Algebra where she led planning
and coordinated on-campus instruction on-campus. In addition, she held an adjunct
position with UNO’s Division of Continuing Studies where she wrote, planned and managed
all online Intermediate Algebra curriculum.
Her teaching interests include Pre-Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra, Statistics,
Trigonometry and Business Calculus.
Cox is a Peru State graduate with a Bachelor of Mathematics. She received a Master
of Science in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. While at Peru State
College, she worked as a math tutor and for Residence Life.
Dr. Kathleen Nehls was hired as an Assistant Professor of History. Previously she worked as a Post-Doctoral
Teaching Fellow at Utah State University. She was as a part-time Instructor and a
Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Georgia. She has also been a visiting
Lecturer at Oxford College of Emory University.
Her field of specialty is U.S. social and cultural history, with teaching and research
emphases in women’s and gender history, environmental history, public health, the
American West and American Indian history.
Nehls received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and her bachelor's from the
University of Central Oklahoma.
Dr. Nathan Netzer was hired as an Assistant Professor of Materials Chemistry. Netzer previously worked
in a post-doctoral position at Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden, where he conducted
research on environmental and biological sensors in the Solid State Electronics Department
at the Ångstrom Laboratory for two years.
His current research is focused on synthesizing, characterizing, and fabricating nanomaterials
as well as ion-selective electrodes for the sensing of environmental and biologically
relevant molecules.
Netzer received his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D degrees from the University of South
Dakota. During his time at USD, he served as a guest researcher for three summers
at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA, working on sensing platforms used
by the Mars (MSL) Curiosity Rover.
###
Ashley Peiman contributed to this release.