51Թ faculty members work closely with students on many different kinds of research projects.
Forty seven new faculty members have joined 51Թ this year, adding to the university’s robust intellectual community and joining other professors and students in the vigorous pursuit of learning.
“We are fortunate to have such a dynamic group of colleagues join us and enrich our curriculum,” said Douglas Hicks, provost and dean of the faculty.
The new faculty members span the disciplines, from art and art history to writing and rhetoric. There are 11 tenure-stream appointments, 25 visiting-faculty positions, and three postdoctoral fellows. Two positions were announced in athletics and four in the library.
You can meet the new faculty below and learn more about all our faculty here.
Danny Barreto, visiting assistant professor of Spanish
(BA, Hunter College, CUNY; MA, PhD, Stony Brook University, SUNY)
Barreto comes to 51Թ from Vassar College where has been a visiting assistant professor of Hispanic studies. His dissertation title is “A Home Divided: A Post-National Approach to Family, Gender and Region in Modern Galician Narrative.” His teaching specialties include Hispanic studies and women’s studies, and his research interests center on 19th-century Spanish and Galician literatures, emigration and transnational Hispanic literatures, and women’s and gender studies/queer studies.
Jesi Bender, instructional design and web librarian and assistant professor in the university libraries
(BA, Cornell University; MLIS, Pratt Institute)
Bender came to 51Թ this past February, bringing experience from Cornell University’s Olin Library, the New York Public Library’s Schwarzman Center, and the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bender’s specialized teaching fields include art, art history, English literature, and creative writing. She will be presenting a paper at Karoli Gaspar University’s Arts of Attention conference titled Finding the Humanist’s G-d: Mapping Focus in Vonnegut’s Universe in September. Her research interest centers on art, Jewish studies, instructional design, user experience (UX), and English literature.
Michelle Bigenho, associate professor of anthropology and Africana and Latin American studies, Category I
(BA, University of California Los Angeles; “Magister” Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; PhD, Cornell University)
Bigenho will return to 51Թ in January having previously been NEH associate professor and visiting associate professor here from spring 2010 through 2010-11. She currently is an associate professor of anthropology at Hampshire College. Bigenho is the author of Intimate Distance: Andean Music in Japan (Duke 2012) and Sounding Indigenous: Authenticity in Bolivian Music Performance (Palgrave 2002). She has chapters in several edited volumes and articles published in American Ethnologist, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Anthropological Quarterly, and Journal of Latin American Anthropology. She is currently heading up a project funded by the National Science Foundation, “Cultural Property, Creativity, and Indigeneity in Bolivia.” Music performance on the violin has formed a significant part of her research approach in both Peru and Bolivia, and she has participated in eleven recordings with the Bolivian ensemble, Música de Maestros.
Reid Blackman, assistant professor of philosophy
(BA, Cornell University; MA, Northwestern University; PhD, University of Texas-Austin)
Blackman has been hired into a tenure-stream position after having served as visiting assistant professor of philosophy at 51Թ from spring 2009 through June 2012. He has spent the past year at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His dissertation title is “Role Aristotelianism: An Explication and Defense.” Blackman’s current research includes work on the objectivity of morality and the goodness of people’s lives, the rationality of emotion, and free will.
Jens Christensen, assistant professor of mathematics
(BS, MA, University of Copenhagen; PhD, Louisiana State University)
Christensen brings teaching experience from the University of Maryland and Tufts University. His dissertation title is “Function spaces, wavelets and representation theory.” Christensen’s teaching specialties and research interests center on analysis, harmonic analysis, wavelets, representation theory, sampling theory, and approximation theory.
Ralitsa Donkova, visiting instructor in political science
(BA, Mount Holyoke College; MA, PhD, candidate University of Minnesota)
Donkova comes to 51Թ from the University of Minnesota where she has been working toward the completion of her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Regimes of International Giving: The Politics of Public and Private Foreign Assistance in the United States, Britain and Sweden.” Donkova’s teaching specialties include international relations and comparative politics-European politics; and her research interests center on foreign assistance, European politics, and NGOs. Hobbies/other interests: photography, contemporary dance, and yoga.
Marcus Edino, postdoctoral fellow in geography
(BSc, University of Jos; MTech Federal University of Technology, Minna, Nigeria; MSc, PhD, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK)
Edino comes to 51Թ from Glasgow Caledonian University, where he completed his PhD. His dissertation focused on developing an inclusive framework for decision making that promotes and encourages environmental protection and conservation, defuses the climate of violence that has engulfed natural resources extraction industry in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. Edino’s teaching specialties and research interests include environmental security and justice; natural resources and sustainability, energy security, poverty and development, sustainable community development, climate change, African studies, peace and conflict studies. Hobbies: soccer, drumming, tree planting, charity work, telling stories to children (especially African folktales).
Ryan Endris, assistant professor of music
(BME, MM, DM, Indiana University)
Endris comes to 51Թ from Indiana University, where he recently completed his DM. His dissertation title is “Reflections of Thoreau’s Music and Philosophy in Dominick Argento’s Walden Pond (1996).” Endris’ teaching specialties include choral conducting, music theory, and arranging/orchestration; and his research interests center on historical performance practice, music hermeneutics and semiology.
Mieka Erley, visiting assistant professor of Russian and Eurasian studies
(BA, Hampshire College; MA, PhD, University of California, Berkeley)
Erley comes to 51Թ from the University of California where she completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Reclaiming Native Soil: Cultural Mythologies of Soil in Russia and Its Eastern Borderlands from the 1840s to the 1930s.” Erley’s teaching specialties and research interests include 20th-century Soviet literature and culture.
Vivian Ezeh, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry
(BSc, University of Ibadan; PhD, University of Georgia)
Ezeh comes to 51Թ from Kenyon College, where she was teaching while working toward the completion of her PhD from the University of Georgia. Her dissertation title is “Design and Synthesis of Novel Bluorescence Constructs for the Detection of Environmental Arsenic.” Ezeh’s teaching specialties include introductory, organic and environmental chemistry; and her research interests center on development and synthesis of fluorescent dyes, carbohydrate and organic chemistry, and organometallic catalysts. Hobbies/interests: watching football and soccer, travelling, and cooking.
Gert Fehlner, Olive B. O’Connor Professor of literature in the German Department (spring 2014)
(MA, PhD Universität Regensburg)
Fehlner comes to 51Թ next spring, taking leave from his position at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität. Gert has also been involved in assisting on site with 51Թ’s Freiburg Study Group over the years, including having served as its director in 2006. His teaching specialties include European political cultures; history, institutions and policies of the European Union; environmental thought and environmental policies in the US and Europe; American literature; American civilization; German language; and Germanic area studies.
Lazaro Fernandez, assistant women’s basketball coach and instructor in physical education
(BA, Taylor University; MS, Barry University; PhD candidate, Capella University)
Fernandez comes to 51Թ from Florida Christian School where he served as assistant athletic director and head coach of girls basketball since 2010. He brings other coaching experience from the University of Miami and Barry University.
Bruce Frohnen, Charles Evans Hughes Professor of jurisprudence within the Department of Political Science (spring 2014)
(BA, California State University; MA, University of California, Davis; PhD, Cornell University; JD, Emory University)
Frohnen will come to 51Թ next spring, taking leave from his position as professor of law at Ohio Northern University. Frohnen has taught courses in jurisprudence, constitutional law, and legal ethics, as well as teaching political science courses at institutions including Reed College and the Catholic University of America. He has published more than 100 books, book chapters, articles, and book reviews. His research focuses on the relationships between law and culture. He currently is completing work on a book, Constitutional Morality: Structure, Norms, and the Rule of Law, slated for publication in 2014.
Georgios Georgiou, visiting assistant professor of economics
(LLB, University of Athens; LLM, University of Cambridge; BA, University of Athens; MA, PhD,University of California, Santa Cruz)
Georgiou comes to 51Թ from Lawrence University where he has been a visiting assistant professor of economics. His dissertation title is “Essays on the Economics of Criminal Justice Administration.” Georgiou’s teaching specialties and research interests include microeconomics, law and economics, applied microeconomics, and public economics.
David Gray, assistant professor of philosophy
(BA, Columbia University; MA, PhD, Harvard University)
Gray comes to 51Թ from Vanderbilt University where he served as the Mellon assistant professor of philosophy. He also brings experience from Texas Tech University and New College of Florida. His dissertation title is “What Lies Within: Essays on Phenomenology, Psychology and Self-Knowledge.” Gray’s teaching specialties and research interests include philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of race and racism, and African American philosophy; his research interests, in particular, center on schizophrenia, consciousness, phenomenology, intentionality, metaphysics of race, Black nationalism, and DuBois. Spouse: Christina. Hobbies/interests: cooking and gardening.
Daniel Hackbarth, visiting assistant professor of art and art history
(BA, Grinnell College; MA, PhD, Stanford University)
Hackbarth comes to 51Թ from Scripps College where he has been working this past year. His dissertation title is “Media is Medium: Raoul Hausmann, 1915-1945.” Hackbarth’s teaching specialties include European modernism and the culture of Weimar Germany; and his research interests center on media theory and the historical Avant-Garde.
Craig Hamilton, visiting assistant professor of writing and rhetoric
(BA, Michigan State University; MA, University of Massachusetts; PhD, University of Maryland)
Hamilton comes to 51Թ from the University of Haute Alsace in France, where he is an associate professor of English. His dissertation title was “Opaque Enigmas: Mind and Body Metaphors in W.H. Auden’s Poetry.” Hamilton’s teaching specialties and research interests include rhetoric, stylistics, scientific writing, and cognitive linguistics. Spouse: Sonja. Children: Julien, David, and Gabriel. Hobbies/interests: music, skating, skiing, and ice hockey.
Caitlin Hayes, Olive B. O’Connor creative writing fellow in the Department of English
(BA, MA University of New Hampshire; MFA Syracuse University)
Hayes comes to 51Թ from Syracuse University where she recently completed her MFA. Her dissertation title is “A Pain Like That: Stories.” Her teaching specialties include fiction writing and contemporary American literature.
Seth Holm, visiting assistant professor of the classics
(BA, University of Massachusetts; MA, Boston College; PhD, Boston University)
Holm comes to 51Թ from Tufts University where he taught full time this past year. His dissertation title is “Honeyed Cups: Latent Didacticism in Lucretius’ de Rerum Natura.” Holm’s teaching specialties include Latin poetry, Greek drama and epic, and ancient philosophy; and his research interests center on Lucretius, especially didactic rhetoric, myth in philosophy, rhetoric and its reception in epic and drama, and the genre of popular science ancient and modern rhetoric. Spouse: Lauren (Lauren will also be teaching a section of Core 152 and a section of Major British Authors this year). Children: Ella and Alex (Ziggy).
Melissa Hubbard, assistant professor and rare books, manuscripts, and digital projects librarian
(BA, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; MA, University College London; MSLS, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Hubbard will begin her duties in September after coming from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where she is serving as rare book librarian, a position she has held since 2008. Her interests include the pedagogical uses of special collections materials, and comprehensive approaches to increasing access to special collections.
Jennifer Hull, visiting assistant professor of history
(BA, Vermont College; MA, PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Hull comes to 51Թ from Edgewood College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has been teaching this past year. Her dissertation title is “Remapping Black Manhattan: Transformations of Space in the Early Republic City.” Hull’s teaching specialties and research interests include American history, African American history, and history of women and gender.
Silvia Jiménez Bolaños, visiting assistant professor of mathematics
(BS, Universidad de Costa Rica; MSc, PhD, Louisiana State University)
Bolaños comes to 51Թ from Worcester Polytechnic Institute where she has served as visiting assistant professor since 2010. Her dissertation title is “Homogenization of Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations.” Bolaños’s research centers on using mathematical techniques for modeling multiscale phenomena, with an emphasis on the multiscale mechanics of heterogeneous materials. Whether natural (e.g., rocks, bones, tissues, muscles), or man-made (e.g., composite materials, ceramics, emulsions), heterogeneous materials exhibit several scales caused by the inhomogeneities, or by the complexity of the mechanical processes. Her research deals with homogenization theory, which helps derive the macroscale (effective) properties of the heterogeneous material as a function of the properties of the constituents and of the local geometry. Her teaching specialties include applied analysis, analysis, and differential equations.
Ezekiel Kalipeni, A. Lindsay O’Connor Professor in the Department of Geography (spring 2014 and fall 2014)
(BSc, University of Malawi; MA, PhD, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Kalipeni will return to the 51Թ faculty next spring and the following fall, taking leave from his position at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he is a full professor in the Geography department. He was a visiting assistant professor of geography at 51Թ from 1991-94. Kalipeni’s research centers on medical geography, population studies, environmental issues, health care, and Africa. His most recent books are International Geographies of HIVAIDS (2012, guest editor with C. Pope; NY: Springer Publishers) and Turning Science into Action: Biodiversity Conservation and Natural Resources Management in Africa (2009 with Kakoma, Sanogo, Fawcett, and Warner; Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press). His earlier work includes articles in numerous journals, chapters in books, and research reports/ monographs.
Francis Kayiwa, assistant professor and systems librarian
(BA, St. Bonaventure University; MLS, SUNY Buffalo)
Kayiwa will begin his duties in September after coming from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he is serving as library systems coordinator, a position he has held since 2000. He also brings varied experiences from SUNY Buffalo. Spouse: Kimberly Kayiwa. Children: Madeleine Kayiwa and Kiley Ziko. Hobbies/interests: soccer, running, craft/home-brewing, Python, and OpenBSD.
Jason Keith, assistant professor of chemistry
(BS, University of North Texas; PhD, California Institute of Technology)
Keith comes to 51Թ from Los Alamos National Laboratory where he has served as director’s postdoctoral fellow since 2010. His dissertation title is “Palladium Mediated Activation of Molecular Oxygen.” Keith’s teaching specialties include inorganic and computational chemistry; and his research interests center on density functional theory, and inorganic reaction mechanisms. Hobbies/interests: science fiction literature, snowboarding, and hiking.
Natalie (Tasha) Kimball, visiting assistant professor of history
(BA University of Washington; MA, PhD University of Pittsburgh)
Kimball comes to 51Թ from the University of Pittsburgh where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “An Open Secret: The Hidden History of Unwanted Pregnancy and Abortion in Highland Bolivia, 1952-2010.” Kimball’s research centers on sexuality and reproduction and women’s rights movements in Latin America. Her teaching specialties include Latin America, women and gender, and race and ethnicity. Hobbies/interests: Instructor of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. She also likes biking, yoga, and anything outdoors.
Amelia Klein, assistant professor of English
(BA, Amherst College; PhD, Harvard University)
Klein comes to 51Թ from Harvard University where she was a teaching fellow. Her dissertation title is “Makings of the Sun: Romantic Nature Lyric and its Legacies.” Amelia’s teaching specialties include 19th-century British literature and lyric poetry; and her research interests center on poetry and poetics, especially romantic to contemporary, literature and the natural world, and perception and representation. Spouse: David Conti. Hobbies: hiking, cooking, skiing, gardening, and painting.
Penny Lane, assistant professor of art and art history
(BA Vassar College, MFA Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Lane comes to 51Թ with teaching experience from Bard College, Williams College and Hampshire College. She has been making experimental films, video art and documentaries for over ten years. Named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2012, her debut feature-length work is Our Nixon, an all-archival documentary featuring the lost Super 8 home movies of Nixon’s closest aides. Our Nixon was released in film festivals, in theaters and on CNN to wide acclaim in 2013. Other short videos and films include The Voyagers, about the secret love story at the heart of NASA’s Golden Record, and her 2005 MFA thesis, the award-winning short documentary The Abortion Diaries, which has shown all over the world and is still widely used as an activist and educational tool. She has been awarded grants from Creative Capital, Cinereach, Tribeca Film Institute, NYSCA, LEF Moving Image Fund, the Jerome Foundation, Experimental TV Center, IFP and the Puffin Foundation. And yes, Penny Lane is her real name. (Read about her new film “Our Nixon” on the 51Թ news page.)
Dong Li, Olive B. O’Connor creative writing fellow in the Department of English
(AA, Deep Springs College; BA, MFA, Brown University)
Li comes to 51Թ from Brown University where he has been working toward the completion of his MFA. His dissertation title is “The Orange Tree.” Li’s teaching specialties include creative writing, translation, contemporary American poetry, and language pedagogy (Chinese). His research interests center on modern Chinese, French, German, American, Danish literatures and cultures; the documentary; genre-defying literature, the Avant-Garde, and translation.
Steven Ludeke, visiting assistant professor of psychology
(BA, Carleton College; MA, PhD, University of Minnesota)
Ludeke comes to 51Թ from the University of Minnesota, where he recently completed his PhD. His dissertation title is “Authoritarianism and Personality: Conceptual Issues and the Role of Biased Responding.” Ludekes teaching specialties include personality and individual differences; and his research interests center on social and political attitudes, religiousness, personality, and behavior genetics. Hobbies/interests: rock climbing, and board and card games.
Mercy Palamuleni, visiting instructor in economics
(BA, Wake Forest University; PhD, candidate Kansas State University)
Palamuleni comes to 51Թ from Kansas State University where she has been working toward the completion of her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Three Essays on the Macroeconomics of Human Capital and Growth.” Palamuleni’s teaching specialties include macroeconomics; and her current research focuses on the macroeconomic aspects of labor issues, public policy, and economic development.
Richard Pilgrim, visiting professor of religion (spring 2014)
(BA ,Hamline University; BD, Yale Divinity School; MA, PhD, University of Chicago)
Pilgrim will come to 51Թ next spring taking leave from his retirement from Syracuse University where he was Professor of Religion. Pilgrim’s teaching and research interests include religion, art and aesthetics in Japan, Japanese religion and culture, Buddhist thought and practice, and Buddhist/Christian studies. His publication list includes several articles and reviews, some of which have appeared in places such as History of Religions, Eastern Buddhist, Philosophy East and West, Monumenta Nipponica, and Chanoyu Quarterly. His book Buddhism and the Arts of Japan (Columbia, 1989) is in its third printing.
Kathleen Poling, visiting assistant professor of history
(BA, MA, PhD, University of California, Berkeley)
Poling comes to 51Թ from the University of California, Berkeley, where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “The Performance of Power and the Administration of Justice: Capital Punishment and the Case Review System in Late Imperial China.” Poling’s teaching and research interests center on late imperial China, modern China, and Chinese legal history.
Nimanthi Rajasingham (a k a Nimanthi Perera-Rajasingham), assistant professor of English
(BA, St. Lawrence University; MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University; MA, PhD, Rutgers University)
Rajasingham comes to 51Թ from Rutgers University, where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Performing Ethnic Identities in Neoliberal Economies: Power and Resistance in Sri Lanka’s Dirty War.” Rajasingham’s teaching specialties include post-colonial studies, South Asian studies, globalization, performance and theater studies, women’s and gender studies, and culture studies. Her research interests center on globalization, ethnic war, working class literature, feminism, and South Asian studies.
David Roberts, assistant professor and first-year experience and instructional design librarian
(BA, Wabash College; MA, MLS, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Roberts began his 51Թ appointment this past April, having spent twelve years serving as a public school teacher and media specialist. He also brings experience teaching online courses and in museums. Roberts’s teaching centers on blending technology and content into meaningful instruction.
J. Francisco Robles, visiting assistant professor of Spanish
(BA, MA University of Chile; PhD El Colegio de México)
Robles comes to 51Թ from El Colegio de México where he recently completed his PhD. He also brings teaching experience from Alberto Hutado University and Andrés Bello National University. Robles’ dissertation title is “La literatura novohispana de la Ilustración. Sus primeros años.” His teaching specialties include colonial Latin American literature and nineteenth century Latin American literature; and his research interests center on science, history and philosophy in New World; knowledge and literature in colonial Latin America; enlightenment literature in Latin America, and travel literature (18th century).
Nicholas Rutter, visiting assistant professor of history
(BA Brown University; MA, MPhil, PhD Yale University)
Rutter comes to 51Թ from the Yale University, where he recently completed his PhD. He also brings teaching experience from Fairfield University. Rutter’s dissertation title is “Enacting Communism: The World Youth Festival, 1945-1975.” His teaching and research interests center on history of the world communist movement, Cold War history, and history of the future.
Ayse Sapci, visiting assistant professor of economics
(BA Dokuz Eylul University; MA, PhD Vanderbilt University)
Sapci comes to 51Թ from the Vanderbilt University, where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Financial Intermediation Costs: Effects on Business Cycles, Delayed Recoveries and Relative Consumption Volatility.” Sapci’s teaching specialties include macroeconomics and monetary and financial economics; and her research interests center on costly financial intermediation, banks, business cycles, housing sector, and environment.
Gunog Seo, assistant professor of mathematics
(BS, Catholic University of Korea; MS, PhD, University of Washington)
Seo comes to 51Թ from Ryerson University/York University, having served as postdoctoral fellow this past year. She also brings experience from Thompson Rivers University, McMaster University, and the University of Ottawa. Seo’s dissertation title is “The dynamics of simple predator-prey models with Holling’s functional responses.” Her teaching specialties include calculus, differential equations, dynamical systems, and mathematical biology; and her research interests center on mathematical biology/ecology, spatial ecology, population dynamics, dynamical systems, bifurcation theory, and differential equations (ODEs and PDEs).
Paul Shaffner, instructor and assistant football coach
(BS, MS, Ithaca College)
Shaffner began his 51Թ appointment in June, bringing coaching experience from Daemen College, Buffalo State College, Glenville State College, and Lafayette College. Spouse: Donna. Children: Jessica, Samantha, and Jake.
Todd Springer, visiting assistant professor of physics
(BA, Carleton College; PhD, University of Minnesota)
Springer comes to 51Թ from the University of Illinois, Chicago, where he has served as postdoctoral researcher in nuclear theory over the past two years. He has also served in similar positions at McGill University and the University of Minnesota. Springer’s dissertation title is “Hydrodynamics of strongly coupled non-conformal fluids from gauge/gravity duality.” His research interests are in the phenomenology of heavy ion collisions, the QCD phase diagram, early universe cosmology and high energy particle physics.
Robert Stephens, visiting assistant professor of mathematics
(BS, Austin Peay State University; MS, Middle Tennessee University; PhD, University of Toledo)
Stephens comes to 51Թ with teaching experience from Plymouth State University and Georgetown College. His dissertation title is “The Steenrod Algebra is a Prime Ring and the Krull Dimensions of the Steenrod Algebra.” Stephens’s teaching specialties include elementary statistics, calculus, linear algebra, abstract algebra, sets and logic, and geometrics; and his research interests center on associative rings and algebras, modules, cohomology, algebraic topology, and the Steenrod algebra. Hobbies/interests: rock climbing and hiking.
Margaret Suhanovsky, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry
(BA, The George Washington University; PhD, University of Connecticut)
Suhanovsky comes to 51Թ from the University of Connecticut, where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Nature’s favorite building block: Deciphering the HK97-like fold of bacteriophage P22 coat protein.” Suhanovsky’s teaching specialties are in general chemistry and biochemistry; and her research interest centers on protein folding, structure and function.
Jennifer Tomlinson, visiting assistant professor of psychology
(BA University of Rochester; MA, PhD Stony Brook University)
Tomlinson comes to 51Թ from Carnegie Mellon University where she served as postdoctoral fellow over the past three years. Her dissertation title is “Perceived Partner Idealization: Is There an Optimal Level?” Tomlinson’s teaching specialties include social psychology; and her research interests center on health and relationships. Spouse: Tristan. Hobbies/interests: hiking, pottery, and traveling.
Carrie Woods, visiting assistant professor of biology
(BS, MS University of Guelph; PhD Clemson University)
Woods comes to 51Թ from Clemson University, where she recently completed her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Determining the factors that influence the distribution and community structure of vascular epiphytes at multiple scales.” Woods’ teaching specialties and research interests include ecology, plant ecology, and community ecology. Spouse: Mark Wagner. Hobbies/interests: camping, hiking, traveling, music, and yoga.
Susan Woolley, assistant professor of educational studies
(BA, Wesleyan University; MA, PhD, University of California, Berkeley)
Woolley comes to 51Թ from the University of California, Berkeley, where she recently completed her PhD. Susan’s teaching specialties include anthropology of education, social foundations of education, language and literacy studies, gender and sexuality studies, and LGBT/Queer studies; and her research interests center on gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ issues in education; language, discourse, and power; and semiotics and critical literacy studies.
Greg Youmans, visiting assistant professor of film and media studies
(BA, University of California, Berkeley; PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz)
Youmans comes to 51Թ from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he served as visiting faculty this past year. He was also a 2012-13 Scholar in Residence of the Beatrice Bain Research Group in critical feminist studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Youmans’s teaching specialties include film and media studies, especially documentary and experimental; LGBT history; and queer and feminist theory; and his research interests center on histories of queer activism and cultural production, the relationship between political genres and media genres, and documentary and performance. He is also a video maker. Partner: Christian Vargas.