Kalamazoo College has awarded tenure and promotion to Daniela Arias-Rotondo and Manfa Sanogo, recognizing years of their excellence in teaching, scholarly achievements and service to the institution while affirming their long-term roles as leaders in the College community.
Daniela Arias-Rotondo
Arias-Rotondo, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Endowed Chair in Natural Science, teaches courses including Introductory Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Molecular Structure and Reactivity at K.
Her research focuses on molecules that convert light energy into electricity with broad implications for renewable energy. In 2024, Arias-Rotondo received an American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund grant for her lab’s exploration of photoredox catalysis, a project which explored new uses for petroleum byproducts through these reactions. Her collaboration with Maxwell Rhames ’25 on alternative metals for more affordable solar panels earned an honorable mention in the 2024 Division of Inorganic Chemistry Award for Undergraduate Research, which recognizes research that students and faculty perform in tandem.
This academic year, working under Arias-Rotondo’s guidance, Will Tocco ’26 was one of just six undergraduates nationwide selected from more than 1,400 nominees to present at the ACS Presidential Symposium in Atlanta.
Tocco and Rhames are two of 36 students who have worked in Arias-Rotondo’s lab in her years at K. Tocco and Rhames both were also among the students who benefited from a $250,000 grant she received in 2023 from the National Science Foundation’s Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) program, which has provided funding for about eight to 10 student researchers per term.
Arias-Rotondo was recognized by the College in 2025 with the First-Year Advocate Award. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
Manfa Sanogo
Sanogo joined K as an assistant professor in 2020, bringing experience as a teaching assistant, lecturer and research fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Sorbonne Universités and École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and Florida State University.
Sanogo has recently taught courses at K such as Beginning French, Intermediate French, French Conversation and Composition, Indian Ocean Literature and Culture, and Afro-Perspectives. He earned a Chateaubriand Fellowship from the French Embassy in the U.S. in 2018 for a project highlighting how Madagascar’s Indigenous literature has shaped innovation in French-language literature while aiming to foster greater scholarly interest in the Indian Ocean as an important literary center. In 2022, he completed a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College of Dublin.
He has also been among the conveners of Africa Month events at the College over the last two years. The series brings world-renowned scholars, artists, filmmakers and performers from four continents to Kalamazoo for lectures, art exhibits, community conversations, meals and joyful music.
Sanogo holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University.
