Colgate Welcomes New Faculty

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
AAS Regents College; BS, MPH American University of Beirut; MA, PhD Syracuse University

Ynesse Abdul-Malak returns to Colgate after serving as a visiting assistant professor of sociology and anthropology. Her dissertation title is “Healthy Immigrants? Exploring Country of Origin, Pre-Immigration Experiences, and Acculturation in Relationship to the U.S. Immigrants’ Health.” Her research interests include issues related to racial and gender inequality, health disparity, and disability studies. She enjoys teaching courses on race, aging, gender, immigration, medical sociology and research methodology.
 

Olive B. O’Connor Creative Writing Fellow
BTech Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria; MFA New York University

Gbenga Adesina comes to Colgate from New York University where he was a Goldwater Poetry Fellow and served as a Creative Writing Instructor. His dissertation title is “Alien in Residence.” Adesina’s teaching specialties include poetry, poetics, the craft of voice and moods, fiction, lyric fragments, and epiphanies. His research interests include poetry, poetics, the sociology of language, the nature of the lyric, fiction in verses, the poetry of migrations and transnational bodies, translations across languages, translations within a single language, writing the body, and writing intimacy.

Assistant Professor of Film and Media
BA Hebrew University, Jerusalem; MA Columbia University; PhD NYU

Neta Alexander comes to Colgate from New York University, where she was a PhD candidate in Cinema Studies. Her dissertation title is “Chronopower: On Demand Culture and Its Disconnects.” Alexander’s teaching specialties include film and media history and theory, new media, and science and technology studies (STS). Her research interests include digital culture, film and media, STS, infrastructure studies, and streaming. Her first book, Failure (co-authored with Arjun Appadurai), will be published by Polity Books this fall.

Lecturer in Biology
BS Grand Valley State University; PhD University of Michigan

Erik Anderson comes to Colgate after serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of Michigan. His dissertation title is “The Role of Hypoxia-Inducible Factors in the Regulation of Systemic Iron Homeostasis.” Anderson’s teaching specialties include molecular biology and animal physiology. His research interests include hematology, genetic engineering, and aging.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History
BA Reinhardt University; MA, PhD University of Mississippi

Dionne Bailey comes to Colgate from the University of Virginia, where she served as a postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute. Her dissertation title is “‘Please Don't Forget About Me:’ African American Women, Mississippi, and the History of Crime and Punishment in Parchman Prison, 1890–1980.” Bailey’s teaching specialties include U.S. history since 1877, African American history, African American women’s history, 20th century U.S. southern history, carceral studies, and black feminist theory. Her research interests include the intersection of the late 19th and 20th century of African American history, African American women’s history, 20th century U.S. southern history, the Jim Crow era, carceral studies, social justice, black girlhood, and black feminist theory. Her passion, however, is I-VOW (I am a Voice of Women), her nonprofit organization that aids women in their transition from the penal system back into society by providing access to education, support services, and job training.

Assistant Professor of Theater
BA SUNY Fredonia; MFA Goddard College

Kyle Bass is returning to Colgate after serving as the Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81 Endowed Chair in Regional Studies in the theater department. His creative thesis title is “Wind in the Field” — a full-length play. Bass’ teaching specialties include playwriting, screenwriting, as well as contemporary American and African American drama. His research interests include dramatic writing.
 

Postdoctoral Fellow in Biology
BS Vanderbilt University; PhD Rutgers University

Jennifer Blake-Mahmud comes to Colgate from Princeton University, where she served as teaching faculty in the Princeton Writing Program. Her dissertation title is “Temporal and environmental dimensions of variable sex expression in striped maple, Acer pensylvanicum (Sapindacaeae).” Blake-Mahmud’s teaching specialties include ecology, evolution, and botany. Her research interests include how organisms make choices about when and how to reproduce and what that entails for trade-offs with growth, physiology, stress tolerance, and mortality.

Assistant Professor of Economics
BBA HEC Montreal; MA Queen’s University; MA, PhD Boston College

Dominique Brabant comes to Colgate from Boston College, where she was a PhD candidate. Her dissertation title is “Essays in International Economics.” Brabant’s teaching specialties include macroeconomics, international macroeconomics, principle of economics, and international trade. Her research interests include international economics, macroeconomics, and international finance.

Lecturer in University Studies
BS Virginia Tech; MSc, PhD University of Nevada–Reno

Christopher Briggs comes to Colgate from Hamilton College, where he served as a visiting assistant professor. His dissertation title is “Carry-Over Effects and Plumage Polymorphism in Swainson’s Hawks.” Briggs’ teaching specialties include biostatistics, conservation biology, and ecology. His research interests include population ecology, plumage polymorphisms in birds, and effects of toxicants on wildlife behavior and populations.

A. Lindsay O’Connor Chair of American Institutions in Economics
BS/BA Plattsburgh State University; MBA Clarkson University; MA, PhD University of Colorado–Boulder

Justin Bucciferro comes to Colgate from Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Wash., where he served as an associate professor in economics. His research appears in the Economic History Review, Economic Anthropology, and the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History. Bucciferro’s teaching specialties include economic development and history. His research interests include historical income inequality in the Americas.

NEH Visiting Professor of Art and Art History
BA University of Reading; MA University of Manchester; Graduate Certificate in Education University of Leeds; PhD University of Kent at Canterbury

Michael Charlesworth comes to Colgate from the University of Texas at Austin, where he served as a professor of art and art history. His dissertation title is “The Idea of the Sacred in Landscape Gardens.” Charlesworth’s teaching specialties include 18th- and 19th-century European art and 19th-century photography. His research interests include the arts of landscape, 1700–2000.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
PhD National Taiwan University

Rong (Rosalie) Chen comes to Colgate from National Applied Research Labs, where she served as an assistant researcher. Her dissertation title is “Face and Nation: The International Power Game.” Chen’s teaching specialties include social psychology, political psychology, and cultural psychology. Her research interests include intergroup relations, national identity, and collective emotion.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy
BA Appalachian State University; PhD Cornell University

Brandon Conley comes to Colgate from Virginia Commonwealth University, where he served as a visiting assistant professor of philosophy. His dissertation title is “Ends, Norms, and Representations: Why as ‘Why?’ in Biology?” Conley’s teaching specialties include philosophy of science, especially biology and cognitive science, philosophy of mind, early modern philosophy, and ethics. His research interests include explicating the role of normative, teleological, and representational concepts in the sciences.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics
BA Susquehanna University; MA, PhD University of Kentucky

Robert Davis comes to Colgate from Harvey Mudd College, where he served as a visiting assistant professor. His dissertation title is “Unimodality Questions in Ehrhart Theory.” Davis’ teaching specialties include linear algebra, combinatorics, and abstract algebra. His research interests include polyhedral combinatorics, discrete geometry, and combinational commutative algebra.

Instructor in Physical Education and Head Coach of Women’s Rowing
BA William Smith College; MEd Elon University

Jessica Deitrick comes to Colgate from the U.S. Naval Academy, where she served as the assistant coach for women’s rowing.

Visiting Instructor of History
BA University of Denver, PhD University of Minnesota

Brooke Depenbusch comes to Colgate from the University of Minnesota, where she was a PhD candidate. Her dissertation was titled “Down and Out in the USA: General Relief and the Politics of Precarity in the Shadow of the Welfare State, 1935–1964.” Depenbusch’s teaching specialties include modern U.S. history; the history of inequality, gender, and the state. Her research interests include work, gender, politics, and inequality in modern and contemporary America.

Visiting Instructor of Computer Science
BS, PhD Candidate Arizona State University

Ryan Dougherty comes to Colgate from Arizona State University, where he is a PhD candidate. His dissertation title is “Hash Families and Applications to t-Restrictions.” Dougherty’s teaching specialties include theoretical computer science and intro to computer science. His research interests include combinatorial design theory, algorithms, and theoretical CS.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art and Art History
BA Hampshire College; MFA University of Iowa

Emily Drummer comes to Colgate from Franklin and Marshall College, where she served as a visiting assistant professor of film. Drummer’s teaching specialties include film and video production. Her research interests include ecology, environmental philosophy, elemental media, media archaeology, experimental film and video, film festivals, and moving-image curation.

Assistant Professor of Economics
BA Rutgers University; MA, PhD Boston College

Michael Fethes Connolly comes to Colgate from Boston College, where he was a PhD candidate. His dissertation title is “Essays in Empirical Finance and Macroeconomics.” Fethes’ teaching specialties include financial economics and macroeconomics. His research interests include banking, macro-finance, and real estate.

Lecturer in Art and Art History
BA University of Virginia; MFA Boston University

Elizabeth Flood comes to Colgate from Boston University, where she served as a teaching assistant for the senior painting seminar, painting 1, and printmaking (etching). Her dissertation title is “Strata: a body of work investigating the intersection of nature, culture, public, and private in the landscape through the language of painting.” Flood’s teaching specialties include painting, drawing, and visual arts. Her research is rooted in the pictorial and cultural history of the American landscape. In her work, she documents the traces of historical, environmental, and human impact on the land through the discourse of painting.

Assistant Professor of Native American Studies and History
BA University of Oklahoma; MA, MPhil, PhD Yale University

Ryan Hall comes to Colgate from Northern Arizona University, where he served as an assistant professor of history. His dissertation title is “Blackfoot Country: The Indigenous Borderlands of the North American Fur Trade, 1782–1870.” Hall’s teaching specialties include Native American history, U.S. history, North American frontiers and borderlands, and global Indigenous history. His research interests include Blackfoot history, Indigenous peoples of the U.S.-Canadian borderlands, and fur-trade history.

A. Lindsay O’Connor Chair of American Institutions in Women’s Studies
BA Colgate University; MS Miami University; PhD University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Dominique Hill returns to Colgate after serving as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies at Amherst College. Her dissertation title is “Transgressngroove: An Exploration of Black Girlhood, the Body, and Education.” Hill’s teaching specialties include black feminisms, conventional and creative qualitative methods, creative and critical pedagogies, and cultural studies. Her research interests include exploring and curating mutual encoding between race and gender in traditional and cultural education spaces and black girls and women’s unlearning and subversion of these codes. Her recent book, Who Look at Me: Shifting the Gaze of Education Through Blackness, Queerness, and the Body, uses a black feminist cultural lens to observe multiple levels of gaze and proposes performance and critical introspection as tools to interrogate and shift how blackness and queerness are read, engaged, and valued in educational spaces, in and beyond schools.

Assistant Professor of LGBTQ Studies
BA, PGCE, PhD University of Birmingham, UK

Paul Humphrey comes to Colgate from Monmouth University, where he served as an assistant professor in world languages and cultures. His dissertation title is “Gods, Gender, and Sexuality: Representations of Vodou and Santeria in Haitian and Cuban Cultural Production.” Humphrey’s teaching specialties include gender and sexuality studies, Caribbean studies, and Spanish and Fredawnch language and literature. His research interests include gender and sexuality in the Caribbean, African-derived religions in the Caribbean, Caribbean literature and cultural studies, and speculative fiction and comics/graphic novels.
 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics
BSC University of Sarajevo; PhD University of Minnesota

Abdel F. Isakovic comes to Colgate from Cornell University, where he served as a visiting scientist, and Khalifa University, where he was a professor of physics. His dissertation title is “Spin Transport in Ferromagnet-Semiconductor Heterostructures.” Isakovic’s teaching specialties include general physics courses; nanoscience, statistics, and data science; and crossover bio-inspired math, science, and engineering courses. His research interests include quantum spintronics, 2D/1D charge and spin density wave materials, nanophotonics, bio-inspired complex systems, biochemical sensors, biophysics, and nature-inspired and quantum computing.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics
BSS, MSS, MHE University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh; MA, PhD Florida International University

Nazmul Islam comes to Colgate from Florida International University, where he served as a dissertation year fellow in the Department of Economics. His dissertation title is “Essays on Macroeconomic Analysis of Development.” His teaching specialties include macroeconomics (principles, intermediate, and advanced), development, public economics, health economics, and microeconomics (principles and intermediate). His research interests include macroeconomics, inequality, development, and health.

Visiting Instructor of Educational Studies
BA Colgate University; PhD Candidate Syracuse University

Laura Jaffee returns to Colgate from Syracuse University, where she is a PhD candidate in cultural foundations of education. Her dissertation title is “The Political Economy of Able-Bodied Supremacy in the Imperial University: Militarism, Occupation, and Struggles for Disability Justice.” Jaffee’s teaching specialties include foundations of education, transnational feminism, and feminist disability studies. Her research interests include political economy of higher education, social movements in education, disability justice, and anti-imperialist feminism.

A. Lindsay O’Connor Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies and Religion
BA Stanford University; BA Cambridge University; PhD University of Virginia

Mark Randall James comes to Colgate from Hunter College and Fordham University, where he served as an adjunct professor. His current book project, Learning the Language of Scripture: Origen, Wisdom, and Exegesis (Brill 2020), develops a new theory of Origen’s exegesis as a form of philosophical inquiry. He is also editing a volume of essays on the work of Peter Ochs. James’ teaching specialties include Bible, patristics, modern Jewish thought, and modern philosophy. His research interests include scriptural interpretation, pragmatism and theology, and Origen of Alexandria.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
BA Hampshire College; MA, PhD University of Connecticut

Anne Kohler comes to Colgate from the University of Connecticut, where she was a PhD candidate in anthropology. During her candidacy, she served as an adjunct instructor at Southern Connecticut State University and a visiting lecturer at Trinity College. Her dissertation title is “Pursuing a Good Life: The Sociocultural, Clinical, and Experiential Dynamics of Down Syndrome.” Kohler’s teaching specialties include medical anthropology, global health and human rights, the anthropology of morality and ethics, and the anthropology of the body. Her research interests include intellectual disability, moral and ethical experience, the anthropology of the body, mental health, human rights, and the anthropology of reproduction.

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Chair in the Africana and Latin American Studies Program
MA Cornell University; PhD Howard University

Kwasi Konadu comes to Colgate from the City University of New York, where he served as a professor of history. He is the author of several books, including Our Own Way in This Part of the World: Biography of an African Community, Culture, and Nation and The Ghana Reader: History, Culture, Politics, both published by Duke University Press, and Transatlantic Africa and The Akan Diaspora in the Americas, both published by Oxford University Press. Konadu’s teaching specialties include the histories of Africa and worldwide African diasporas. His research interests include medicine, religion/spirituality, and social and cultural history.

Technical Director in the Department of Theater
BA Mount Holyoke College; MFA University of Texas, Austin

Anna B. Labykina comes to Colgate from the Boston Lyric Opera, where she served as the production and technical director. A native of Russia, Labykina made Boston her home for two decades prior to coming to Colgate. Her thesis is “Source Material for a Guide to Choosing a Career Path in Technical Theatre.” Labykina’s teaching specialties include theater technology — specifically scenery engineering and construction, properties construction, and production management. Her research interests include producing theatre, opera, and dance in non-traditional, non-theatrical environments as well as site-specific design and increasing efficiency in production operations by adopting electronic information workflow.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater
BFA University of Washington; MFA Columbia University

Erika Latta is the artistic co-director of the cross-media theater company WaxFactory, based in New York City, where she works as an actor, director, and writer. She is also a member of the site-specific theater company Begat Theater of Marseille, France. Latta’s teaching specialties include acting, directing, devised theater, and site-responsive performance. Her research interests include theater, time-based work, site-responsive/site-specific theater, dance theater, and devised theater. Latta's most recent academic appointment was at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she served as a visiting lecturer.

NEH Visiting Professor of Art and Art History
PhD Ohio State University

Janice Leoshko comes to Colgate from the University of Texas at Austin, where she is an associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History and the Department of Asian Studies. Her dissertation title is “Iconography of Pala- Period Buddhist Sculpture in Eastern India.” Leoshko’s teaching specialties include the art of South Asia as well as Buddhist Art throughout Asia. Her research interests include the development of Buddhist traditions in India, including pilgrimage at Bodhgaya, the sire of the Buddha’s enlightenment, the influence of museums and exhibitions, and the significance of the early writing of Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
BA University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; MA, PhD University of California–Irvine

Jennifer Lindsay comes to Colgate from Brigham Young University–Idaho, where she served as a visiting faculty member in psychology. Her dissertation title is “Everything I Need to Know I Learned Before Elementary School: The Roles of Phoneme Awareness, Letter Knowledge, and Working Memory.” Lindsay’s teaching specialties include cognitive science, developmental psychology, and gender psychology. Her research interests include the development of cognition about gender, specifically which environmental factors teach children about gender and what they are learning.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology
BA University of Washington, Foster School of Business; MA, PhD University of California–San Diego

Monica Liu comes to Colgate from the University of South Florida, where she served as a postdoctoral scholar. Her dissertation title is “The Case of China’s Email-Order Brides.” Liu’s teaching specialties include gender, family, globalization, and Chinese society. Her research interests include gender/sexuality, globalization, media/technology, race/ethnicity, immigration, and qualitative methods.

Visiting Instructor of Writing and Rhetoric
BA Hanover College; MA West Virginia University; PhD candidate Syracuse University

Jason Markins comes to Colgate from Syracuse University, where he is completing his PhD candidacy. His dissertation title is “The Head and the Hand: A Comparative Rhetorical Analysis of Craft and Technology in The Craftsman (1901–1916) and Make: (2005–2019).” Markins’ teaching specialties include composition and rhetoric, writing studies, digital humanities, and critical making. His research interests include looking at traditional craft practices, such as woodworking, crocheting, or ceramics, alongside high-tech innovations such as 3-D printing, computer coding, and robotics to see how various craftspersons discuss both how they learned their craft and the unique cultural rhetorics surrounding what it means to be a craftsperson. He does this in an effort to draw from these different communities a better understanding of what it means to be a writer-as-craftsperson at a time when technology is drastically affecting how our students compose texts.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science
AB Stanford University; MA, PhD Georgetown University

Shervin Malekzadeh comes to Colgate from Williams College, where he taught comparative politics as a visiting professor. His dissertation title is “Schooled to Obey, Learning to Protest: The Ambiguous Outcomes of Postrevolutionary Schooling in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Malekzadeh’s teaching specialties include comparative politics, modern Iran, revolutions, democracy and democratization in the Middle East and Latin America, power, identity, and culture, and the political theory of Alexis de Tocqueville and Antonio Gramsci. His research interests include modern education in Iran, the politics of schooling and identity formation in postrevolutionary countries, the comparative educational systems of Latin America and the Middle East, and the politics of modernity in late-developing countries.

Lecturer in University Studies
BA Grinnell College; MTS Harvard Divinity School; PhD Duke University

Alexander McKinley comes to Colgate from Loyola University–New Orleans and Louisiana State University, where he served as an adjunct professor in the religion departments.
 

Charles Evans Hughes Visiting Chair of Government and Jurisprudence
BA Syracuse University; JD University of Buffalo

Stephanie A. Miner comes to Colgate from the Volcker Alliance, where she serves as a member of the Board of Directors and from Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, where she serves as mayoral advisor. She has also recently served as mayor of the City of Syracuse and as a visiting distinguished urbanist at NYU. Miner’s teaching specialties include political science, municipal finance, and urban issues. Her research interests include municipal finance and economic development.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy
BA University of Texas at Austin; MA, PhD Emory University

Roshni Patel comes to Colgate from Dillard University, where she served as an Andrew W. Mellon graduate teaching fellow. Her dissertation title is “The Responsibility of Nonwilling: Martin Heidegger and Indian Buddhism.” Patel’s teaching specialties include continental philosophy, Asian philosophy, and ethics. Her research interests include 20th-century continental philosophy and Asian philosophy, especially Indian Buddhist philosophy.

Mark S. Randall Head Swimming and Diving Coach
BS West Virginia University; MS Jersey City University

Edward Pretre comes to Colgate from Villanova University, where he served as the head swimming coach.

Olive B. O’Connor Visiting Distinguished Chair in English
BA Spelman College; PhD Duke University

Riché Richardson comes to Colgate from Cornell University, where she served in the Africana Studies and Research Center. Her dissertation title is “Black Southern Displacements: On Regional Edge in African American Literature and Culture.” Richardson’s teaching specialties include African American literature, American literature, American studies, Africana studies, feminist and gender studies, including black feminism, and Southern studies. Her research interests include African American and American literature; black/Africana studies; Southern studies, including black Southerners in the U.S. and the new Southern studies; race and gender studies, including black feminism, masculinities and femininities; cultural studies, including black popular culture, film studies, Oprah studies, and Beyoncé studies; critical theory; and the body.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Design
BFA Temple University; MFA New York University

Glenna Ryer comes to Colgate from Middleburg College, where she served as a visiting assistant professor of costume design. Glenna’s teaching specialties include costume design, theatrical design, drawing, figure drawing, and costume history. Her research interests include costume technology, costume crafts, masks and performance, special effects makeup, and fiber arts.

Assistant Professor of Spanish
BA, MA California State University–Fullerton; PhD Michigan State University

Osvaldo Sandoval-Leon comes to Colgate from Michigan State University, where he was a PhD candidate in Hispanic cultural studies. His dissertation title is “Lo irrepresentableen escena: ‘los olvidados’ en la dramaturgia contemporánea en el Cono Sur y España (The Unrepresentable on Stage: ‘The Forgotten’ in Contemporary Dramaturgy in the Southern Cone and Spain).” Osvaldo’s teaching specialties include Spanish language and Latin American and Spanish Peninsular theater. His research interests include post-dictatorship theater in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay) and Spain, trans-Atlantic studies, performance studies, and memory and post-memory studies.

Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Affairs and Strategic Advancement
BA Smith College

Laura Sgrecci comes to Colgate after working at Dartmouth College, University at Buffalo, Seattle SuperSonics and Storm, and the National Basketball Association.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
BA Columbia University; MST Pace University; PhD University of Pennsylvania

Arjun Shankar comes to Colgate from Hamilton College, where he served as a visiting assistant professor in the anthropology department. His dissertation title is “Development, Value, and Education in India’s Digital Age.”

Visiting Assistant Professor
BS SUNY Geneseo; PhD Cornell University

Kevin Siegenthaler comes to Colgate from Cornell University, where he was a PhD candidate. His dissertation title is “Redox signaling through the endoplasmic reticulum chaperone BiP.” Siegenthaler’s teaching specialties include chemistry and biochemistry. His research interests include protein folding and cellular stress responses.

Visiting Assistant Professor of University Studies
BA Colgate University; MA, PhD University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Aleksandr Sklyar comes back to Colgate after pursuing research and education, including a PhD from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. His dissertation title is “Family Decisions in the Wake of Nuclear Disaster: Living in Grey Zones following Fukushima.”

Assistant Professor of Mathematics
BS Universidad de Costa Rica; PhD Purdue University

Gabriel Sosa Castillo comes to Colgate from Amherst College, where he served as a visiting assistant professor of mathematics. His dissertation title is “On Monomial Orders, Koszul Algebras and Toric Rings.” Castillo’s research interests include commutative algebra, graph theory, and mathematics education.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences
BA Boston University; PhD Oregon Health and Science University

Krystina Sorwell comes to Colgate from Linfield College, where she served as a visiting assistant professor of psychology. Her dissertation title is “Cognition and Steroidogenesis in the Rhesus Macaque.” Sorwell’s teaching specialties include psychology and neuroscience. Her research interests include neuroendocrinology, learning, and memory.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Educational Studies
BA, MAT Tufts University; PhD University of British Columbia

Sam Stiegler comes to Colgate from the University of British Columbia, where he served as a sessional instructor in the Department of Sociology after receiving his doctorate in curriculum studies from the Faculty of Education. Stiegler’s teaching specialties include educational foundations, qualitative research methodology, queer and trans theories, and youth studies. His research utilizes mobile methodologies to explore the knowledges and experiences of queer, trans, and non-binary youth.

Assistant Professor of Dance
BFA University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; MA, PhD Northwestern University

Amy Swanson comes to Colgate from Northwestern University, where she was a PhD candidate in theatre and drama. Her dissertation title is “(Il)legible Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Contemporary Dance in Senegal.” Swanson’s teaching specialties include contemporary dance, dance history and theory, African gender and sexuality studies, and African expressive culture. Her research interests include contemporary African dance, gender and sexuality, critical race theory, and postcolonial studies.

Postdoctoral Fellow in Geography
PhD Oregon State University

Anna Talucci comes to Colgate from Oregon State University, where she served as a graduate research and teaching assistant. Her dissertation title is “Beetle outbreaks and wildfires: drivers of fire severity, recruitment, and structural legacies for sub-boreal forest in British Columbia.” Talucci’s teaching specialties include fire ecology, biogeography, GIS, and remote sensing. Her research interests include fire ecology, landscape ecology, and biogeography.

Instructor in Physical Education and Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach
BS Cornell University; MSS SUNY Oswego

Kathy Taylor comes to Colgate from Le Moyne College, where she served as the head women’s lacrosse coach. Her research interests include ACL injuries in women.

Instructor of Philosophy
BA Reed College; PhD University of Pittsburgh

Laura Tomlinson comes to Colgate from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was a PhD candidate. Her dissertation title is “Acting for Reasons.” Tomlinson’s teaching specialties include ethics, metaethics, and philosophy of action. Her research interests include practical reason, intentional action, virtue, and the good.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
PhD University of Georgia

PJ Torres comes to Colgate from Queens University of Charlotte, where he served as an instructor. His dissertation title is “Low densities and extirpation of freshwater shrimps assemblages disrupt ecosystem-level properties and processes in high elevation streams in Puerto Rico.” Torres’s teaching specialties include ecology, aquatic biology, conservation biology, non-majors biology, and environmental science. His research interests include ecosystem ecology of headwater streams, tropical stream structure and dynamics, food webs, and active learning in field biology courses.

Visiting Assistant Professor of German
AB Bryn Mawr College; MA, PhD University of Pennsylvania

Didem Uca comes to Colgate from the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as a teaching excellence fellow while completing her PhD. Her dissertation title is “Coming of Age on the Move: Young Travelers, Migrants, and Refugees in 20th- and 21st-Century Literature in German.” Uca’s teaching specialties include German language, literature, and cultural studies, transnationalism and migration studies, travel narratives, and interrogating and opening up the German literary canon. Her research interests include intersectional approaches to German-language migration narratives, cultural production of minorities in Germany, and inclusive, feminist, and social justice-oriented pedagogies.

Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in the Department of English
BA University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill; MFA Arizona State University

Andrea (Annie) Vitalsey comes to Colgate from Arizona State University, where she was an MFA candidate in creative writing. Her dissertation title is “Fan the Violent.” Annie’s teaching specialties include creative writing and fiction. Her research interests include fiction writing.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science
PhD Claremont Graduate University

Kevin Walker comes to Colgate from Vanguard University, where he served as an assistant professor of history and political science. His dissertation title is “The Supreme Court in the Early Progressive Era: A Constitutional Basis for Active State Liberalism.” Walker’s teaching specialties include American politics and political philosophy. His research interests include education policy — the relationship between universities and American politics, as well as the place of curriculum in the “school wars” and the debate over school choice.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science
BA Vanguard University; MA, PhD Claremont Graduate University

Rachelle Walker comes to Colgate from Vanguard University, where she served as an assistant professor of history and political science. Walker’s teaching specialties include comparative politics and political philosophy. Her research interests include comparative politics — sovereignty and secession in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially South Sudan.

Assistant Coach of Women’s Ice Hockey
BSBA, MS Robert Morris University

Chelsea Walkland comes to Colgate from Robert Morris University, where she served as the assistant coach of women’s hockey.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology
AB Smith College; MA, MPhil, PhD Columbia University

Cecelia Walsh-Russo comes to Colgate from the University of Copenhagen, where she served as a visiting researcher and external lecturer in the Department of Psychology. Her teaching specialties include gender, race, and ethnicity, public policies, climate change governance, social movements, and collective action. Walsh-Russo’s research interests include gender, race, collective action, environmental politics, inequality, and climate planning.