PJHR AFFILIATE FACULTY & STAFF 2023-24
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Jason Mireles-James
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences
Email: jmirelesjames@fau.edu
Dr. J.D. Mireles James is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Florida Atlantic University with research interests in dynamical systems theory and nonlinear analysis. His work focuses on emergence of complex patterns and computational methods for analyzing coherent structures in mathematical models. website
Colin Polsky
Ph.D., Director of the Center for Environmental Studies; Professor, Department of Geosciences
Email: cpolsky@fau.edu
Professor Polsky is an environmental social scientist whose research and teaching examine how people create, perceive, and respond to environmental challenges. His inter-disciplinary training is in mathematics, humanities, French, geography, and Science & International Affairs (from U. Texas, Penn State, and Harvard). As a Center Director and Professor, he helps build and lead teams to advance knowledge of U.S. climate vulnerabilities, in both methodological and applied terms. His responsibilities include program-building, both within and across university departments; fund-raising from public and private foundations; staffing diverse and multi-generational teams; and communicating with varied audiences, for both persuasive and reporting purposes.
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Robin R. Vallacher
Ph.D., Professor and Interim Chair Department of Psychology
Email: Vallacher@fau.edu
Professor Vallacher is also a Research Associate in the Center for Complex Systems, University of Warsaw, Poland, and a Research Affiliate in the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity at Columbia University. Dr. Vallacher conducts research on a wide range of topics, from individual-level processes such as self-concept, self-control, mindfulness, and social judgment, to group- and societal-level processes such as prejudice and discrimination, social change, social justice, and social conflict.
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Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing
Safiya George Damina
Ph.D., APRN-BC, FAAN, Dean and Professor
Email: sgeorge@health.fau.edu
Dr. Safiya George's primary research area aims to promote the health and holistic well-being of individuals with or at risk for HIV/AIDS through evidence-based psychosocial interventions focused on social determinants of health. She isnationally known in the areas of holistic health, spirituality and HIV. Dr. George has received a numberof honors and recognition for her work. She is a board-certified Adult Nurse Practitioner. She wasinducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners in 2018 and as a Distinguished Fellow into the National Academies of Practice in 2020.
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College of Business
Kimberly Dunn
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Accounting
Email: kdunn@fau.edu
Dr. Dunn is a founding Board Member and Executive Director of Champions Empowering Champions, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting college students who have experienced foster care or homelessness. Her personal and professional experiences, knowledge of the educational systems, ability to inspire students from diverse backgrounds, and commitment to empowering socioeconomically disadvantaged students, make Dr. Dunn a tenacious social entrepreneur. website
Jerry Durbeej
Senior Instructor, Business Communications Program, College of Business
Email: jdurbeej@fau.edu
Durbeej co-authored the article “Medicine of Mindfulness: A Prescription for Faculty Vitality and Student Learning” published in The DeVry University Journal of Scholarly Research in 2015. He suspects suspect there is a connection between the themes of peace, social justice and human rights and the idea of Mindfulness. Durjeeb offers that one must be mindful to truly understand the implications of these themes, and has presented this concept at various conferences. website
Richard Gendler
Ph.D., Business Law Coordinator & Instructor, College of Business
Email: Rgendler@fau.edu
Dr. Richard Gendler serves as full time business law and ethics faculty, as well as coordinator, at the College of Business. He teaches business ethics to both undergraduate and graduate students. He has served the legal profession in ensuring ethical behavior, serving as vicechair of a Florida Bar Grievance Committee. He believes legal and business ethics are an integral part of any effort to effectuate peace, justice and human rights.
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Sarah Nielsen
Senior Instructor, Business Communications, College of Business
Email: nielsens@fau.edu
Sarah Nielsen is an Instructor in the College of Business at FAU. She teaches Business Communications courses at the undergraduate level, and has been a proud Owl since 2016. She is also a member of the Business Communications Exchange, a community partnership comprised of local employers and business faculty who gather to exchange ideas on current trends in business communication and in the business community. She is also a Board member of the Coalition to End Homelessness, committed to the organization's mission to end homelessness in Broward County.
Soyoung Park
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Hospitality and Tourism Management Program/Department of Marketing
Email: soyoungpark@fau.edu
Soyoung Park is an Assistant Professor of the Hospitality and Tourism Management Program in the Department of Marketing at Floria Atlantic University. Her research utilizes advanced data analytics and unstructured data to examine social issues in tourism and hospitality involving children and minorities. Her most recent focus of research includes orphanage tourism, human trafficking in the hospitality and tourism industry, and the wellbeing of children.
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Joseph R. Rakestraw
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Accounting
Email: jrakestraw@fau.edu
Joe Rakestraw is an Assistant Professor in the School of Accounting in the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University with research interests include gender issues in the accounting profession, corporate governance, and auditing. His research has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics, Accounting Horizons, the Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance, and other journals. Dr. Rakestraw earned a Ph.D. in business from Virginia Tech, a master’s degree in accounting from George Washington University, and a bachelor’s degree in business from the University of Louisville. Dr. Rakestraw is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the state of Virginia. website
Deborah Searcy
Ph.D Senior Instructor, Management Programs
Email: dsearcy@fau.edu
With a Ph.D. in Business, Debbie is faculty in the Management department at Florida Atlantic University. She teaches business strategy and negotiating and was FAU’s Innovative Teacher of the Year in 2021. She also consults for small businesses and her expertise has been featured in Inc. Magazine, by the BBC, Forbes, NBC, and more. Debbie currently serves as the Mayor of the Village of North Palm Beach, after first being elected to Council in 2018. When not working, she serves on the boards of Best Buddies International, the Friends of MacArthur Beach State Park, and the University of Virginia Alumni Club, and with Palm Beach North Chamber of Commerce, at the Benjamin School, and St. Paul of the Cross Church. She makes her home in North Palm Beach, with her husband and two children.
College of Education
Melanie Acosta
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: acostam@fau.edu
Acosta's research is focused on supporting African American educational excellence through improved teaching and school supports, particularly as it relates to elementary literacy in classrooms and local communities. Her work also centers Black educators to illuminate the potential of Black intellectual traditions in transforming education and society. Her research is featured in journals such as the Journal of Teacher Education, Urban Education, Reading Horizons, and Race, Ethnicity, & Education . website
Eileen Ariza
Ed.D., Professor, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: eariza@fau.edu
Dr. Ariza is a Teacher trainer; ESOL Specialist; Foreign Language Methodology; Bilingual Education; Three time Fulbright Scholar (Mexico, Costa Rica, and Malta); Fulbright Alumni Ambassador/Speaker; Fulbright Reviewer (Fulbright Scholars, Fulbright English Teaching Assistants-ETAs, Short Term Fulbright, Egypt Binational Center Scholars, Yearly Predeparture Orientations); Invited speaker for the president of Malta, San Anton Palace; Trainer of teachers of migrants/refugees; Research with teachers of migrants and refugees, teachers of refugee/migrants in Malta, and education of displaced families in Syria.
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Yash Bhagwanji
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: ybhagwan@fau.edu
A relatively new construct and direction in the field, my focus on supporting children as “problem-solvers and agents of change for sustainability” has intensified over the past few years. Some early accomplishments have been a publication advancing changes in formal and informal educational programs though a formative evaluation process, development of a series of state-of-the-art preservice education courses in early childhood environmental education, and participation in national initiatives promoting children’s connection with and care for the natural world. Another outcome of my engagement and interest in early childhood environmental education has been the establishment of a new double-blind peer-reviewed journal, International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, for which I have served as the editor since its founding in 2012. Current initiatives include the development of a Florida Environmental Literacy Plan in partnership with the League of Environmental Educators of Florida (LEEF), development of a nature playscape in partnership with FAU’s Pine Jog Environmental Education Center, and several other opportunities related to improving children’s ontological fluency about the world of nature. website
Rina Bousalis
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: rbousalis@fau.edu
Her research interests include immigration, multiculturalism, human rights, United States history, and global and civics education. She has co-authored a book, written articles for peer-reviewed journals such as Social Education, The Social Studies, Social Studies Research and Practice, and Multicultural Learning and Teaching, and presented at international, national, and state conferences.
Gwendolyn Carey
Ed.D., Visiting Instructor, Exceptional Student Education
Email: gcarey@fau.edu
Dr. Carey is a founding member of FAU’s Academy for Community Inclusion (ACI). ACI is a state of the art program that provides a comprehensive post-secondary education to individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (ID/DD). This is a population is often left out of the literature and discussions. Gwendolyn’s research revolves around inclusion, transition, and self-determination for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as the impact that inclusion has on other individuals within their communities.
Kelly Kearney
Ed.D., Associate Director of ACI Progams & Instructor
Email: kbrown65@fau.edu
As someone with a special education background, I am highly interested in peace, social justice, and human rights. I work extensively with individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities. This population is often excluded from society-at-large and has a long history of neglect and abuse, with limited access to social justice, and infringement upon their human rights. One of my lines of research revolves around increasing self-determination skills in this population, teaching the skills needed to self-advocate and problem-solve as needed to get access to wants and needs in the community.
Torica Exume
Ph.D, Coordinator Clinical Programs, College of Education, Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD)
Email: texume@fau.edu
Torica Exume coordinates two Florida Developmental Disabilities Council (FDDC) grants awarded to FAU CARD: an examination of the under-representation of Black children with autism and training first responders in autism. Exume advocates for parents needing guidance and support for treatment services for their special needs children. She continues to strive to make improvements in autistic children's lives. With extensive educational and hands-on training, she specializes in communication, social interactions, analysis and treatment of repetitive behavior disorders, safety skills, and more.
Susanne I. Lapp
Ed.D., Associate Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: slapp@fau.edu
Dr. Lapp is member of the Peace, Justice and Human Rights Committee (PJHR) committee since 2017. As a faculty member in the College of Education’s Department of Teaching and Learning specific responsibilities have been to prepare current and future reading and language arts teachers to teach in the culturally, linguistically, and ethnically varied classroom.
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Bryan H. Nichols
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: nicholsb@fau.edu
Bryan H. Nichols coordinates the FAU Environmental Education programs (Masters, Graduate Certificate, Honors). Dr. Nichols developed earth smarts, a construct for socioenvironmental literacy, and believes there can be no sustainable peace or justice without a better understanding of our natural environments and their role in sustaining our wellbeing, particularly given the global environmental challenges we all face. His research also examines the ethical use of animals in education to boost engagement and encourage interspecies compassion. website
Bianca Nightengale-Lee
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: bnightengalelee@fau.edu
Bianca Nightengale-Lee currently, she serves as an Assistant Professor in the department of Curriculum Culture & Educational Inquiry at Florida Atlantic University. As a critically engaged community scholar, her work centers on academic, school, and community-based settings. Her research explores critical pedagogy as it relates to socially conscious, humanizing, and inclusive educational practice. Dr. Nightengale-Lee’s scholarship interrogates, resists, and re-frames traditionalized notions of curriculum development to produce equitable learning conditions for culturally and linguistically diverse students. Through her teaching she is committed to preparing the next generation of educators to meet the demands of 21st century learning contexts, which reflect the racially, socially, and politically charged structures that shape education, and the practical pathways that lead to more humanizing modes of pedagogy. website
Andrés Ramirez
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: ramirezj@fau.edu
Dr. Ramirez's scholarly work specializes on the exploration of economic, cultural, and linguistic issues constraining and enabling the academic literacy achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse students in the US and on connecting these issues to advocacy and sound curricular practice.His academic work is anchored on postructural materialism, critical discourse studies, critical pedagogy, legitimation code theory and systemic functional linguistics (SFL).
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Dilys Schoorman
Ph.D., Professor, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: dschoorm@fau.edu
Dr. Schoorman's research interests in multicultural teacher education, immigrant education, family literacy, internationalization and faculty governance are informed by the principles of leadership for social justice. She teaches courses in multicultural education, curriculum and critical approaches to research at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels. Throughout her career she has enjoyed working in partnership with educators in Broward and Palm Beach Counties in the quest for educational equity. Her work with Maya immigrants and their educators in a Family Literacy program has been a catalyst in her development as a critical scholar. She currently serves on FAU’s Diversity Council and is the Chair of the College of Education Diversity Committee and was recently appointed to the University Faculty Senate ad hoc committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Kalisha Waldon
Ph.D., Adjunct, Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry, Department of Curriculum, Culture, and Educational Inquiry
Email: kwaldon@fau.edu
Dr. Kalisha A. Waldon is an Adjunct instructor within the College of Education, Department of Curriculum, Culture & Educational Inquiry and has worked in the PreK-20 system for over 17 as a professor, administrator, educational consultant, and mentor. She earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction with an emphasis in multicultural education/critical multiculturalism and a Master’s in Reading Education, both from Florida Atlantic University. Her dissertation entitled, Black Adolescents’ Critical Encounters with Media and the Counteracting Possibilities of Critical Media Literacy, was awarded the FAU College of Education 2016 Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award. Dr. Waldon is actively engaged in research and is presently studying the effects of media on adolescents’ perceptions of self. Her primary research agenda is grounded in social justice pedagogy. It is centered on the experiences and voices of historically marginalized youth. Adopting a transformative lens, one aim of her research agenda is to push beyond traditional research that looks for answers or interpretations, and to employ research methods that allow the voices, needs, and insights of participants, to emerge (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2005; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). Her most recent publication is a co-edited textbook for pre-service teachers, Equity Pedagogy: Teaching Diverse Student Populations.
College of Social Work & Criminal Justice
Cassandra Atkin-Plunk
Ph.D., Associate Professor and Associate Director; School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Email: catkinplunk@fau.edu
Cassandra Atkin-Plunk is an Associate Professor and the Associate Director in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University. Her research interests span both institutional and community corrections with an emphasis on contemporary issues in corrections, including the reentry and reintegration of individuals returning to the community from incarceration. Atkin-Plunk examines evidence-based practices and conducts program and policy evaluations to identify what works in corrections. She is the recipient of over $800,000 in external funding and has been the principal investigator (PI) or co-PI in the evaluation of programs and policies for a variety of agencies, including the Florida Department of Corrections, Palm Beach County (FL) Criminal Justice Commission, Palm Beach County Public Safety Department, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, and The Lord's Place. As evidenced, Dr. Atkin-Plunk's research is largely community-based, and she won the 2018 FAU Presidential Award for Outstanding Community-Engaged Research. Her research has been published in Justice Quarterly, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Criminal Justice Policy Review, and Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. Dr. Atkin-Plunk teaches courses in Corrections, Capital Punishment, Ethics in the Justice System, and International Criminal Justice Systems.
Allan Barsky
Professor, Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work
Email: abarsky@fau.edu
Barsky teaches and conducts research on mediation, social advocacy, and other forms of peacemaking and conflict resolution. I also teach courses on ethics, including how to promote respect, social justice, and anti-oppression. website
Calli Cain
Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Email: cainc@fau.edu
Calli M. Cain, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University where she teaches courses on Human Trafficking, Victimology, Corrections, and Sex Offenders. Her primary research interests include victimization, human trafficking, juvenile delinquency, corrections, and criminal justice policy. Dr. Cain has published more than a dozen journal articles, technical reports, and book entries related to these topics. Before getting her doctorate, she worked in a foster home for youth with extreme victimization, mental health, substance abuse and delinquency problems. Additionally, Dr. Cain spent time abroad in Cambodia and Uganda volunteering with local non-profits that were combating human trafficking.
Gabriel Cesar
Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Email: cesarg@fau.edu
Gabriel T. Cesar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University. His research examines social control, violence, and youth development. Much of that research explores how the justice system shapes the lives of young people, from the perspectives of marginalized groups such as gang members, abuse victims, and youth in state custody. Throughout his career participation in mentorship, art therapy, and outreach programs for struggling youth has informed his research, enriched his spirit, and guided his path. Gabriel’s research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Children & Youth Services Review and Youth, Violence, and Juvenile Justice, as well as edited volumes The Oxford Handbook of Offender Decision Making, and Doing Ethnography in Criminology: Discovery through Fieldwork.
Marianna Colvin
Ph.D., Associate Dean for Research & Academic Effectiveness, Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work
Email: mcolvin@fau.edu
Marianna L. Colvin, PhD, MSW is an Associate Professor and Director of the Child Welfare Institute in the Sandler School of Social Work and serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Academic Effectiveness in the College of Social Work & Criminal Justice at FAU. As a mixed-methods researcher, Dr. Colvin studies child welfare interventions from a community-wide orientation with emphasis on the well-being outcomes of children and families, interactions across organizations, theories of systems and complexity, and implications for policy, practice, and network development. Similar to her research interests, Dr. Colvin’s teaching reflect a community orientation, and she enjoys building community within the classroom, facilitating community-based learning, and integrating a global-community perspective across content. She is passionate about social work education and through both teaching and research, aims to enhance the ways communities and organizations are knitted together in support of children and families.
Seth Fallik
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Email: sfallik@fau.edu
I am a policing scholar and methodologist involved in several co-ventures with community stakeholders. My expertise is in officer decision-making, criminals investigations, and policy analysis. Additionally, I am the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice Undergraduate Program Coordinator and teach undergraduate and graduate level classes on policing, criminology, and research methods. Finally, I have served on a taskforce addressing gun and gang violence in Palm Beach County and have advised the American Civil Liberties Union on criminal justice reform issues.
Dawn Rothe
PH.D., Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Email: rothed@fau.edu
Rothe's research is centered around issues of inequality, oppression, politics and power. This includes systems of oppression, inherent harms and violence of the broader structures globally and nationally, crimes and harms of the powerful, the harms of neoliberalism and of the patriarchal structure. I regularly teach courses here at FAU topics including violence against women: pop culture, politics and patriarchy; white-collar crime or what I call crimes of the powerful. website
Lea DeRigne
Ph.D., Professor, Phylis & Harvey Sandler School of Social Work
Email: lderigne@fau.edu
DeRigne's area of research expertise is in employment policy and health care policy, specifically analyzing how having paid sick leave increases access to health care services and stabilizes financial security in working-class families. She is committed to a broad array of social justice issues including living wage campaigns, access to employment benefits, increasing racial and gender equality, increasing fairness in our criminal justice system, overturning the death penalty, and tackling the problems of police misconduct and brutality. She loves teaching and hopes to inspire social work students to be involved in social change movements throughout their careers. website
Mara Schiff
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Email: mschiff@fau.edu
Schiff has been a restorative justice scholar, practitioner, speaker and advocate for nearly 30 years. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University, Vice-President of the National Association for Community and Restorative Justice (NACRJ), and President of PeaceWorks Consulting, Inc. In 2018, she ran for local office and was publicly elected to serve a 4-year term on the School Board of the School District of Indian River County Schools (Florida), where she currently serves as Vice-Chairwoman. Dr. Schiff’s academic work examines restorative philosophy and practice in criminal-legal, juvenile, and educational arenas, exploring whether or how restorative approaches might overcome systemic, institutionalized forms of exclusion, marginalization and injustice. Most recently, she has been exploring the limitations of restorative language and narrative, and how restorative approaches must be contextualized alongside other pervasive forms of institutionalized structural violence. She has authored multiple books, book chapters and articles in academic journals. website
Precious Skinner-Osei
Ph.D., Interim Director and Assistant Professor, College of Social Work and Criminal Justice
Email: pskinnerosei@fau.edu
Dr. Skinner-Osei's research interests are in the areas of mass incarceration, criminal justice reform, justice-involved African American fathers, and trauma-informed care for justice-involved youth. She has professional practice experience with justice-involved parents and children, food insecurity, HIV/AIDS, persons experiencing homelessness, and community outreach. She is an undergraduate program coordinator and instructor in the School of Social Work. She teaches Social Welfare Policy, Communities, and Organizations, Global Perspectives of Social Services, Research Methods, and Introduction to the Profession of Social Work. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers, National Organization of Forensic Social Work, and International Association of Schools of Social Work. She also serves on the boards of The Poverello Center, Inc., and Impact Justice & Equity Solutions, Inc. website
College of Design and Social Inquiry
Adam Dobrin
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Email: adobrin@fau.edu
Dobrin co-founded and held leadership positions in two international health research entities: he was the Field Coordinator for the Cochrane Justice Health Field, and was the Assistant Director of the Cochrane College for Policy at George Mason University. Dr. Dobrin is currently exploring various issues relating to volunteer policing. He sees volunteer policing as a bridge between the police and those they serve. He has produced numerous academic and professional articles and conference presentations on volunteer policing topics, and is active in a leadership role with the Volunteer Law Enforcement Officer Alliance, a 501(c)3 charity. Dr. Dobrin won FAU’s first Presidential Award for Outstanding Faculty-Led Community Engagement for Engaged Service in 2017 for his volunteer work as a road patrol deputy with his local sheriff’s office’s reserve unit. website
Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Stacey Balkan
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of English
Email: sbalkan@fau.edu
Stacey Balkan is assistant professor of Environmental Literature and Humanities at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Balkan received her Ph.D. in English from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), and her teaching and research interests include Environmental Literature(s), Ecocriticism, Environmental/Energy Justice, Global South and Postcolonial Studies,and Petrocultures & Petromodernity. Recent articles on environmental/energy justice and just futures include “Energo-poetics: Reading Energy in the Ages of Wood, Oil, and Wind” (Revue Etudes Anglaise). Her forthcoming edited collection Oil Fictions: World Literature and our Contemporary Petrosphere (Penn State University Press, 2021) examines aesthetic registers of imperial violence in postcolonialstates; and her forthcoming monograph Rogues in the Postcolony: Narrating Extraction and Itinerancy in
India (West Virginia University Press, 2021) documents the intersection(s) between landscape ideology, agricultural improvement, historical trauma, and aesthetic expression on the subcontinent.Stacey is also a frequent contributor to Public Books and believes strongly in the role of the public intellectual as a scholar-activist. website
Evan Bennett
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of History
Email: ebennett@fau.edu
Evan Bennett is a historian of the American South whose research focuses on the intersections of rural, environmental, and labor history. He is author of When Tobacco Was King: Families, Farm Labor,and Federal Policy in the Piedmont (University Press of Florida, 2014). He is also co-editor of Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule: African American Landowning Families since Reconstruction (University Press of Florida, 2012). Bennett's research explores the intersections of race, labor, and environment, particularly in the American South. website
Carla Calargé
Ph.D., Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature
Email: ccalarge@fau.edu
Calargé's research interests are grounded in postcolonial studies, feminist theory, as well as visual and cultural studies. Postcolonial studies is a discipline that is concerned with issues related to the human, cultural, economic, as well as political consequences on those countries and peoples who underwent the colonial, anti-colonial, and/or post-colonial experience. It analyzes the production, dissemination and circulation of representations of and knowledge about the dominated Other. She explores French-speaking literature and cultural production of the Arab world (with a special emphasis on Algeria and Lebanon) and the (silenced) memories of the different war(s) that ravaged the region with the repercussions that those wars have in the present day region. Issues such as torture, trauma, and the many legacies of the colonial period are at the core of her investigation. website
Annabelle Campbell
Ph.D. Candidate, Comparative Studies Program at Florida Atlantic University
Email: annabellecam2013@my.fau.edu
Campbell specializes in the ideological dynamics of housing policy and housing justice, particularly within the state of Florida. She is a key member of a research team conducting an emergency housing study, which aims to inform policy recommendations for a City Commission and contribute to community-driven solutions for local housing justice. In addition to her research endeavors, Annabelle teaches courses in international relations, offering students a nuanced understanding of global governance, conflict, and human rights.
Jane Caputi
Ph.D., Professor, Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Email: jcaputi@fau.edu
My research and teaching expertise is in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, with a focus on gender-based violence and American Studies and Popular Culture Studies. My books and films address the heroization of the serial sex killer in popular culture, nuclearism, and the enmeshment of environmental destruction in gender-based violence. website
Laurie Carney
MPA, CAP 9 (R), Senior Director of Development and Outreach
Email: lcarney@fau.edu
Major gifts officer at Florida Atlantic University since December 1999 responsible for development activities within the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education (since 2008) and more recently programs related to the Peace, Justice and Human Rights.
Stephen Charbonneau
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Email: scharbo1@fau.edu
Charbonneau’s research is humanistic in orientation and centers on the theory and history of documentary aesthetics and practice in cinema, video, and digital media. Most of my focus has been on community-based, non-theatrical, or activist forms of documentary that aim to be collaborative in one form or another. My books include "Projecting Race: Postwar America, Civil Rights, and Documentary Film" (Wallflower/Columbia UP) and "InsUrgent Media from the Front: A Media Activism Reader (co-edited with Chris Robe; Indiana UP). website
Gail Choate
Ph.D., Visiting Instructor, Department of Political Science
Email: gchoate2012@fau.edu
Choate has been teaching political science at FAU since 2016. Her research interests are focused on grassroots organizing and the role of identity in political campaigns. She has developed an original data set of gubernatorial elections held since 1976 and is currently using it to develop an identity novelty index for candidates. This index will be used to study the impact of gender, race, religion, and intersectionality on candidate success. Her work in grassroots organizing analyzes political behavior during gubernatorial campaigns and as acts of resistance in response to electoral outcomes. Her love of researching and teaching follows a successful career in healthcare. Choate works diligently prepare and empower students to be the change they want to see in our world.
James Cunningham
Ph.D., Professor, Department of Music
Email: jcunning@fau.edu
Cunningham's research includes community-engaged music composition and performance, College Liaison APAI (Association of the Performing Arts of India). website
Sika Dagbovie-Mullins
Ph.D., Professor, Department of English
Email: sdagbovi@fau.edu
Sika Dagbovie-Mullins is associate professor of English in the Department of English where she specializes in modern and contemporary African American literature. She is author of Crossing B(l)ack: Mixed-Race Identity in Modern American Fiction and Culture (U of Tennessee Press 2013) and co-editor of the forthcoming Mixed-Race Superheroes (Rutgers University Press 2021) with Eric Berlatsky. website
Shane Eason
Associate Professor and Associate Director, School of Communication & Multimedia Studies (SCMS)
Email: eason@fau.edu
Shane Eason is a dedicated scholar and filmmaker. His academic focus encompasses expanded cinema, experimental and documentary filmmaking, along with a critical exploration of representations of masculinity in popular culture. Simultaneously, he immerses himself in diverse landscapes across various geographical regions that impact underrepresented communities, aiming to unravel intricate textures and personal associations. Notable projects include "PAPA," the film series "SIN BIN," "He Sees Dead People," “Mangroves,” and the upcoming film in development, “Rockets’ Red Glare.” Within these diverse realms of media, he conducts a rigorous reevaluation of conventional cinematic norms, transcending narrative constraints and clichés to delve into alternative non-narrative forms. website
Meredith A.B. Ellis
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Email: ellism@fau.edu
Meredith Ellis is an historical bioarchaeologist who specializes in combining skeletal remains and social theory. In particular, her work has focused on three themes: childhood, race, and ethics. She has worked on remains from a 19th century abolitionist congregation, a 19th century Chinese mining camp starvation site, and an early 20th century hurricane. She also has participated in compliance and repatriation work under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. She teaches courses on topics that include focuses on race and ethics. She is the author of the 2019 book The Children of Spring Street: The Bioarchaeology of Childhood in a 19th Century Abolitionist Congregation. website
Andres Espinoza Agurto
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Music
Email: espinozaa@fau.edu
Dr. Espinoza Agurto has been playing percussion since he was 8 years old. He studied Afro-Cuban percussion at the Escuela Nacional de Arte (ENA) in La Habana, Cuba, graduated summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music, receiving a BM in Jazz Composition, and holds an MA in Jazz studies and Ethnomusicology from the University of York (England). He received his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Boston University in 2014. His upcoming book (Michigan State University Press) is titled Una Sola Casa: Salsa Consciente and the Poetics of the Meta-barrio, and analyzes the impact of Salsa music as a forging element of social and political identity within Latino and Latin American communities. He is also the composer, musical director, and percussionist of his band Ayé. website
Regis Fox
Ph.D., Associatet Professor, Department of English
Email: mannr@fau.edu
Regis M. Fox earned her Ph. D in English from the University of California, Riverside. Her primary research interests include Nineteenth-Century American Literatures, Feminist Theory, and African-American Literary and Cultural Studies. She has published in such journals as Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal and the Journal of American Studies, and in edited collections, including the volume A Determined Life: The Elizabeth Keckley Reader. Her first book, Resistance Reimagined: Black Women's Critical Thought as Survival (2017), addressed understudied authors and thinkers who critique fundamental discourses of American liberalism. She engages in social justice and diversity-oriented community service on and off campus. website
Nuria Godón
Ph.D, Associate Professor of Spanish, Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature
Email: ngodon@fau.edu
I am interested on questions of social justice and human rights linked to gender, sexuality, migration, and Hispanic national identities. I have included these areas of interest in my teaching, research, and service through different activities including: course contents, books and articles, the organization of three international symposiums (2014, 2018 & 2019); and the co-organization, along with Dr. Alejandra Aguilar, of the series of Conversations on Literature, Languages and Social Justice. I have also been the guest curator of the art exhibition entitled, "The Farewells. Photographs by Alberto Martí" (Schmidt Center Gallery, FAU, October 24, 2019 - January 26, 2020) that documented the mass migration of people from Galicia (Northwest of Spain) to the Americas between 1957 and 1963. This creative work has inspired my new book project on mass migration of people from Northwest of Spain to the Americas between 1880 and 1930. website
Mehmet Gurses
Ph.D., Chair and Professor, Department of Political Science
Email: gurses@fau.edu
Mehmet Gurses (PhD in Political Science, University of North Texas, 2007) is a professor of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University. His research interests include ethnic and religious conflict, post-civil war peace building, post-civil war democratization, Kurdish politics, and the emergence and evolution of the Islamist parties in the Middle East. He is the author of Anatomy of a Civil War: Sociopolitical Impacts of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey (University of Michigan Press, 2018) and co-editor of Conflict, Democratization and the Kurds in the Middle East: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). He has published extensively in journals including, International Interactions, Social Science Quarterly, Party Politics, Conflict Management and Peace Science, and Political Research Quarterly. website
Eric Hanne
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of History
Email: ehanne@fau.edu
Hanne's research focuses on Medieval Islamic socio-political history and culture; manifestation of power and authority; medieval political thought. website
Wendy Hinshaw
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of English and Director of English Writing Programs
Email: whinshaw@fau.edu
Hinshaw’s research and service focus on writing programs in prisons and prison-university partnerships.She is currently involved in projects to expand access to postsecondary education in Florida prisons and to remove college admissions barriers for formerly incarcerated Florida students. website
Michael Horswell
Ph.D., Dean and Professor, Dorothy F Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Email: horswell@fau.edu
Dr. Horswell specializes in the literature and culture of the colonial period as well as indigenous literatures of the Andes. His first book, Decolonizing the Sodomite: Queer Tropes of Sexuality in Colonial Andean Culture (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), focused on indigenous gender and sexuality as tropes used in the representation of the conquest and colonization of the Americas. His interest in the confluence of sexuality and culture in the Hispanic world has led to two recent collections of essays co-edited with Dr. Nuria Godón, Sexualidades Periféricas. Consolidaciones literarias y fílmicas en la España de fin de siglo XIX y fin de milenio (Madrid: Fund amentos, 2016) and the special issue of the Journal of Language and Sexuality on the theme of "Transnational Discourses of Peripheral Sexualities in the Hispanic World" (Vol. 5, no. 2: 2016). Dr. Horswell has also published articles and book chapters on important literary figures such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Latin American cinema and the Baroque in the Americas. website
Phillip A. Hough
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Email: phough2@fau.edu
Phillip A. Hough’s main areas of expertise are political economy, labor and agrarian movements, global commodity studies, comparative and world historical sociology, and Latin American development. He regularly teaches Drugs and Society, Labor and Globalization, and Sociological Theory at the undergraduate level. He teaches Labor and Globalization, Economic Sociology, Research Methods and Design, and Sociology of Development at the graduate level. His recent book, At the Margins of the Global Market: Making Workers, Commodities, and Crisis in Rural Colombia (Cambridge University Press 2021) uses qualitative and comparative-historical methods to analyze labor/agrarian struggles in Colombia’s coffee, bananas, and coca-producing regions. His current research projects include local research on the social struggles of migrant farmworker families in Florida and world-historical analysis of displaced persons, transnational migrants, and surplus populations. website
Courtney Jones
DMA, Associate Professor of Music; Artistic Director, Jazz Ensembles; Trumpet; Jazz Band
Email: courtneyjones@fau.edu
Jones is an award-winning performing and recording artist who has also emerged as a leading figure in contemporary performance and pedagogy, conducting, and service to inner-city youth through music outreach programs research includes 20th Century Performance Art in relation to Culture and Social Injustices. website
Yangsook Kim
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Email: kimy@fau.edu
Yangsook Kim is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. Her research conceives care as a key locus to analyze intersecting inequities of migration, gender, race, and labor. As a critical ethnographer, she is particularly interested in how marginalized people maneuver or resist the deepening inequalities. She is currently studying the ongoing immigration reform in South Korea and its impacts on low-waged care workers. Through collaboration with her community partners in South Korea and US, Yangsook seeks out activist scholarship that produces social justice-oriented knowledge. She also engages with advocacy activates, hoping to contribute to more inclusive global conversations across academia and advocacy. website
Carter Koppelman
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Email: ckoppelman@fau.edu
Koppelman’s research examines how states use development and social policies to manage the urban poor, and how those policies are used and contested by individuals, community organizations, and social movements to claim dignity and inclusion in unequal societies. In the classroom, Professor Koppelman teaches in the areas of development & globalization, social theory, social movements, and various aspects of cities and urban life. His teaching is guided by a commitment to help students develop critical and global perspectives on the social forces that shape their everyday lives, and provide tools for analyzing and acting on the challenges and opportunities faced by their communities and the world at large. website
Annette LaRocco
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Email: laroccoa@fau.edu
LaRocca's research focuses on state-society relations as they relate to biodiversity conservation in southern Africa, as well as the international relations that structural environmental governance processes in the Global South. This approach considers biodiversity conservation not as simply a technical, scientific or apolitical process but as one that is inextricably connected to the political processes of the international system, postcolonial statehood, and citizen-state relations. website
Karen Leader
Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Visual Arts and Art History
Email: kleader@fau.edu
Former director of the Barb Schmidt Fellowship: Cultivating Community Involvement, Advocacy, and Social Change. Founded in 2018, this dual-enrollment high school program provides students with the skills and knowledge to initiate, execute, and sustain a social movement. Partnering with Peaceful Mind, Peaceful Life, this is underpinned by a strong ethos of mindfulness, the necessity for activism to include self-care and sustainable expenditures of physical and emotional energy, in order to have maximum impacts. website
Stacy Lettman
Assistant Professor, Department of English
Email: lettmans@fau.edu
Lettman’s research deals with violence in the Caribbean with a focus on the legacies of slavery and colonialism, particularly issues of race, colorism, class, and the ways in which hegemonic institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank maintain and entrench the inequities between the Global North and Global South. The economic destabilization in the Caribbean, for instance, has led to increasing violence that stem from the socio-economic condition. In her book project, she investigate how these issues are represented in literary and musical texts and the ways in which the representations not only mediate but also mitigate violence. website
Rebecca LeMoine
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Email: rlemoine@fau.edu
Dr. LeMoine specializes and teaches in political theory, a subfield of political science concerned with fundamental theoretical questions underlying the study of politics, such as, What is justice? Which form of government is the best? What should the purpose of government be? What rights and responsibilities do citizens have?Her specific research interests lie in bringing ancient Greek political thought to bear on contemporary discussions related to cultural diversity , cross-cultural engagement, and global justice. She is the author of Plato's Caves: The Liberating Sting of Cultural Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2020), and her work has been published in numerous academic journals including the American Political Science Review, History of Political Thought, Political Theory, and Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought.
Benno Lowe
Ph.D., Professor, Department of History
Email: bplowe@fau.edu
Dr. Lowe specializes in early modern European history, with particular attention to the mid-Tudor period. His research focuses on the religion, social ideology and political culture of England during the early Reformation (c.1530-60). At the moment, he is working on a book about Bishop John Hooper (d.1555) and how his theology was interpreted within particular social settings. website
Doug McGetchin
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of History
Email: dmcgetch@fau.edu
McGetchin is a past PJHR Interim Director (2019-2020), PJHR Associate Director (Jupiter) (2016-2019), and Director of the FAU Peace Studies Program (2012-13). His research and teaching on topics relating to peace include nonviolence and Gandhi in world history, modern Germany, modern Europe, and ancient and modern South Asia. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, specializing in cultural, political, and intellectual connections between Germany and India. He has held a Nehru-Fulbright senior research grant in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant to study in Leipzig and Berlin. website
Linda Medvin
M.Ed., Director, The Arthur Gutterman and Emalie Family Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education in the Center for Peace, Justice and Human Rights
Email: lmedvin@fau.edu
Linda Medvin is the Director of FAU’s Center for Holocaust and Human Rights Education (CHHRE). Prior to joining FAU in July, 2015, she worked for Broward County Public Schools for 27 years as a middle school teacher, a resource teacher for Holocaust Education, and as the District’s Multicultural Curriculum Specialist overseeing Florida Statute 1003.42: Required Instruction of the Holocaust, African and African-American History, Women’s and Hispanic Contributions to the United States. A member of the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) Commissioner’s Task Force on Holocaust Education since 1996, she has served as Chair since 2009
Nicole Morse
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Email: morsen@fau.edu
Morse studies LGBTQ media production with particular attention to how queer and trans people use media to envision liberatory futures, contest oppression, and challenge prisons and other forms of injustice. website
Jeffrey Morton
Ph.D., Professor and Pierrepont Comfort Chair, Department of Political Science
Email: jmorton@fau.edu
Morton is a a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Association and recipient of the prestigious FPA Medal, which is bestowed upon leading members of the American foreign policy establishment. He has been honored with numerous university awards, including Researcher of the Year, the Talon Service Award, Master Teacher and University Distinguished Teacher of the Year. Professor Morton has contributed to articles that have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He directs the Leon Charney Diplomacy Program, which has received forty-five national and international awards for academic excellence and placed 1st overall at Nationals in Washington, D.C. in 2018 & 2020. website
Jacqueline Mullen
M.Ed., Instructor, Department of English
Jacqueline Mullen is a dedicated advocate and scholar, driven by a profound commitment to LGBTQIA, gender, cultural, and racial justice. Their academic and activism work centers on the urgent need for decolonization in both the environment and in the lives of those who endure perpetual violence and dehumanization. With a relentless focus on social justice, Jacquelineearned their BA and MA in English at Florida Atlantic University, and in the future plans on continuing with doctoral work at FAU in Comparative Studies, focusing on English and Gender Studies. While in graduate school, they received a fellowship from the Center for Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Initiative due to their activist work within our community. Their academic journey has been characterized by a deep exploration of several critical areas, including Literature and the Environment, Modernism, Postcolonial Studies, Multicultural and Gender Studies, and Indigenous Religious Rhetoric. Through their research and activism, they seek to bridge the gap between academia and real-world change, championing the rights and well-being of marginalized communities and advocating for a more inclusive, equitable society. They are dedicated to making a positive impact on the world by promoting decolonization, justice, and resistance to violence and oppressive forces in all aspects of life.
Caren Neile
Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, School of Communication & Multimedia Studies
Email: cneile@fau.edu
Neile is a former Peace Corps volunteer. She developed and has taught the course "Peace, Conflict and Oral Narrative" for a decade. She received a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Grant for work on storytelling for peace with the National Storytelling Network and edited a special issue on storytelling and social justice for the academic journal Storytelling, Self, Society (Wayne State UP). Dr. Neile developed a multi-year storytelling for peace program for Boca Middle School with the support of Boca Raton Sunrise Rotary, performed "A Soldier's Story" with the support of FAU's Peace Studies Program, and is currently developing a peace project to be implemented in the West Bank in 2021. website
Angela Nichols
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Interim Director of the Peace, Justice and Human Rights
Email: nicholsa@fau.edu
Professor Nichols’ research broadly focuses on issues related to human rights and conflict. Her book Impact, Legitimacy, and Limitations of Truth Commissions examines how truth commissions may or may not contribute to positive outcomes following periods of conflict or mass abuse. She has articles published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Perspectives, Cooperation and Conflict, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Civil Wars. Dr. Nichols’ newest work examines the causes and consequences of women’s engagement in rebel groups. website
Ilene Prusher
M.A., Senior Instructor, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Email: iprusher@fau.edu
Ilene Prusher is an award-winning journalist, author and lecturer. As a foreign correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor from 1996-2010, she covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and served as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Tokyo. Most recently she served as Jerusalem correspondent for TIME Magazine, a columnist for Haaretz, and a program host on TLV1 Radio. Her work has also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Guardian and The Financial Times. website
Palina Prysmakova
Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Public Administration
Email: pprysmakova@fau.edu
Prysmakova is an Assistant Professor of the School of Public Administration, and the core lecturer at their Masters of Nonprofit Management Program. As a devoted instructor, she promotes the social justice and equal access to the public services both domestic and globally. In addition, stands for the protection of the human rights with the special focus on her home country Belarus. Through the years of research and service, she has been raising the awareness about the crimes against humanity and genocide of the nation that have been taking place there under the dictatorial destructive regime of its illegitimate president. website
Christopher Robé
Ph.D., Professsor, Film and Media Studies/ Literature, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Email: crobe@fau.edu
Robé's research concerns the use of media by various activist groups in their quest for a more equitable world. In the twenty-first century, media does not simply offer a representational platform for disenfranchised voices, but more importantly serves as a material practice to engage in collective struggles for equity, justice, and more sustainable systems. I have written about U.S. radical film culture in the 1930s in my book Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture (U of Texas Press, 2010) and have published numerous articles on media activism within various journals like Cinema Journal, Jump Cut, Framework, Journal of Film and Video, and Film History. My recent book, Breaking the Spell: A History of Anarchist Filmmakers, Videotape Guerrillas, and Digital Ninjas, explores the emergence of anarchist-based video activism. I have recently edited an essay collection with Stephen Charbonneau tentatively called InsUrgent Media: A Media Activism Reader, slated for publication in Spring 2020 (Indiana University Press). website
Alka Sapat
Ph.D., Professsor and Director, School of Public Administration
Email: asapat@fau.edu
Sapat's expertise encompasses disaster management, public policy processes, vulnerability and resilience assessment, and methodology. She was a research fellow with the National Science Foundation's "Next Generation of Hazards Researchers" program and has been involved in a number of initiatives including NSF and DHS funded projects on building code regulations, disaster-induced population displacement, post-disaster housing, the role of the Haitian diaspora and NGOs in disaster recovery, port recovery, and critical infrastructure resilience. Her work has been published in the Natural Hazards Review, Public Administration Review, the American Review of Public Administration, Risk Analysis, Natural Hazards, the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, and other scholarly venues. Her teaching interests include disaster management and homeland security, disaster planning and public policy, research methods, and statistical analysis. She serves on the Florida State Disaster Housing Task Force and the Governor's Hurricane Conference committee, along with serving on local committees on post-disaster housing initiatives. She is the coauthor of the 2014 book Displaced by Disasters: Recovery and Resilience in a Globalizing World, and co-editor of the 2017 book Coming Home after Disaster: Multiple Dimensions of Housing Recovery.
Edward Schwerin
Ph.D., Professor, Department of Political Science
Email: schwerin@fau.edu
Schwerin's research includes: International Political Economy, Policy Analysis, Political Risk Analysis, and Globalization. website
Jermaine Scott
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of History
Email: scottj@fau.edu
Scott's research and teaching interests include the African American and African Diaspora History, Cultural Politics of Sport, Black Politics, Black Diaspora Studies, Black Popular Culture, and Postcolonial Studies. His manuscript-in-progress, Black Teamwork: Football and Black Politics in the African Diaspora, is a racial history of soccer across the African Diaspora and the tactics Black collectives used to challenge the colonial constitution of modern sports, and football/soccer in particular. His writings have been included in the Journal of Sports History, the Journal of African American History, the African American Intellectual History Society’s Black Perspectives, and ESPN’s The Undefeated. website
Kelly J. Shannon
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of History
Email: shannonk@fau.edu
Shannon specializes in the history of U.S. foreign relations, with particular attention to the 20th century. Her research focuses on U.S. relations with the Islamic world, U.S. relations with Iran, Muslim women’s human rights, transnational history, and human rights and U.S. foreign policy. Her first book, U.S. Foreign Policy and Muslim Women’s Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) explores the integration of American concerns for women’s human rights into U.S. policy towards the Islamic world since the Iranian Revolution. Her other publications include book chapters and journal articles on President Harry Truman and the Middle East, the international movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM), U.S. encounters with Saudi gender relations during the first Gulf War, U.S. relations with Iran, and state of the field essays. website
Gerald Sim
Ph.D., Professsor Film Studies, School of Communication and Multimedia Studies
Email: gsim@fau.edu
Sim’s research and teaching is grounded in theoretically informed film and media studies. His writing appears in Convergence, positions, Discourse, Rethinking Marxism, Projections, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Asian Cinema, and Film Quarterly. They include essays about data Platonism in Moneyball, Netflix’s data operations and its place in media history, CNBC personality Jim Cramer’s Marxist investment advice, Edward Said’s influence on film studies, film music theory, and cinema’s transition to digital cinematography. website
Laura Tanner
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual Art and Art History
Email: grahaml@fau.edu
Bio to come.
Taryne Jade Taylor
Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Science Fiction Studies, Department of English
Email:
ttaylor5@fau.edu
Taryne Jade Taylor is an Advanced Assistant Professor of Science Fiction at Florida Atlantic University. She earned her PhD from the University of Iowa with a graduate certificate in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies. Taylor is a double-owl, having earned both her BA and MA in English from FAU. Her research focuses on the politics of representation in speculative fiction, particularly feminist science fiction and diasporic Latinx Futurisms. She firmly believes science fiction and fantasy build paths to a better, inclusive future, which is why her research focuses on diversity, inclusion, and justice as presented in the secondary worlds of the fantastic. Taylor is co-editor of the forthcoming Routledge Handbook to CoFuturisms with Grace L. Dillon, Isiah Lavender III, and Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay. This 375,000-word scholarly collection is the first comprehensive survey of the field. She is currently working on her monograph The Future is Decolonial: Defining Latinx Futurisms. Taylor has published in such journals as Science Fiction Studies, The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, Paradoxa, Label Me Latina/o, and Mythlore. She is an associate editor for The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, co-founding editor of the Routledge book series Studies in Global Genre Fiction, and a juror for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. With Isiah Lavender III, Dr. Taylor worked to establish the BIPOC Caucus of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. website: tarynejadetaylor.com
William Trapani
Ph.D., Director and Associate Porfesssor, Arts and Humanities
Email: wtrapan1@fau.edu
Bill Trapani's research and teaching are informed by rhetorical theory and criticism and critical/cultural studies. His principal areas of scholarly interest include the rhetoric of visual culture, national identity and citizenship studies, and the theorization of contemporary protest and social activism. His work primarily explores the rhetorical construction and consequence of varying figurations of the American national character. website
Luisa Turbino Torres
Assistant Professor, Center for Women, Gender & Sexuality and Department of Political Science
Email: lturbinotorres@fau.edu
Turbino Torres (she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies and Political Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU). By using interpretivist methodologies, her work broadly explores how power dynamics present in different spaces have effects that go beyond the individuals and feed into systems of oppression. She specializes in resistance and political organizing of minoritized communities around social and cultural practices such as sports and other popular culture spaces, and their efforts to address gender, sexuality, race, and class. Her most recent works focus on political mobilization as a practice of social change seeking to overturn political, social, and economic structures while establishing an emancipatory vision of society.
Eyal Weinberg
Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of History, Florida Atlantic
Email: eweinberg@fau.edu
Weinberg is a historian of modern Latin America, with a focus on Brazil. His research explores histories of health, political violence, and human rights in the twentieth century and particularly the Cold War in Latin America. Weinberg’s current book project explores the contested realms of professional medicine, bioethics, and political repression in military and post-authoritarian Brazil (1964-1988). Some of the project's themes are featured in Weinberg’s article “‘With colleagues like that, who needs enemies?’: Doctors and Repression under Military and Post-Authoritarian Brazil,” published in The Americas. website
Kaila Witkowski
Assistant professor, Department of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic
Email: kwitkowski@fau.edu
Kaila Witkowski is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University with research interests in public administration, public health, and emergency management. Her work focuses on applying visual and community-based research methods, such as PhotoVoice, to capture the lived experiences of different community groups in South Florida, including persons experiencing homelessness, persons living with HIV/AIDS, first responders, and persons using substances. website
Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College
Jacqueline Fewkes
Ph.D., Professor, Honors College Humanities and Social Sciences
Email: jfewkes@fau.edu
Fewkes works with diverse communities around the world as a cultural anthropologist, promoting intercultural understanding as a necessary part of building peaceful societies, and amplifying the local voices of social justice. website
Ashley Kennedy
Ph.D., Associate Professor, Honors College Humanities and Social Sciences
Email: kennedya@fau.edu
Kennedy’s research focuses on applied issues in philosophy of medicine, global justice and biomedical ethics. I am currently writing a book, "Concepts in Clinical Diagnosis," under contract with Oxford University Press, for medical trainees and physicians, as well as co-producing a documentary on the problem of child labor in Myanmar, where I am working with the International Labor Organization and local NGOs. website
Kevin Lanning
Ph.D., Professor, Honors College Math and Science
Email: lanning@fau.edu
Lanning is the former editor of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. His scholarship includes papers on democracy, voting, and political psychology. website
Annina Ruest
MFA, Associate Professor of Art
Email: aruest@fau.edu
Ruest (also spelled Rüst) is an artist-technologist and creates electronics and software-based media art. Her works often focus on political issues within tech culture, including gender representation and online privacy. Her work has been reviewed in such publications as Wired and the New York Times Magazine. The Huffington Post called her recent robotics work a "Badass Feminist Robot.” Besides making and exhibiting technology-driven art, she writes scholarly articles that contextualize her own work and the work of others. website
Timothy Steigenga
Ph.D., Professor, Honors College, Humanities and Social Sciences
Email: tsteigen@fau.edu
Steigenga help found the Wilkes Honors College in 1999. He has served as Interim Dean of the Wilkes Honors College, Chair or Social Science and Humanities, and Co-Director of the Kenan Social Engagement Program, and the college's named professor of community engagement. He is the author/editor of six books and numerous other publications on religion and politics in Latin America and issues related to migration and immigrant integration. Dr. Steigenga helped to found El Sol, Jupiter’s Neighborhood Resource Center, was awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and served as a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala. website
Mark Tunick
Ph.D., Professor, Honors College, Humanities and Social Sciences
Email: tunick@fau.edu
Tunick applies classic political theories to concrete, contemporary ethical and legal issues, issues involving punishment, privacy, religious freedom and toleration, and the right of self defense. His book Practices and Principles (Princeton University Press) discusses a debate between Kant and Hegel about whether there are universally valid moral principles that dictate what's right regardless of what the consensus is within a particular society, or whether moral judgments are determined by conventions and practices which vary among societies--and applies their work to specific cases involving promises, contracts, and privacy. Other work brings the theories of Locke and Mill to bear on contemporary controversies such as whether the U.S. criminal justice system should provide for a cultural defense, or whether there is a natural right to bear arms. Most recently he addresses issues of causation, privacy, and free speech that are raised in the 'texting suicide' case involving Michelle Carter, and is currently writing about the conflict between the rights of mature minors and parental rights. website