People & Contact Information
Our new faculty have strong credentials in scholarship, creativity, and teaching. New faculty members include award-winners in the creative and performing arts, including music, graphic art, and media studies, as well as scholars of history, anthropology, physics, education, economics, and many other fields as listed below.
Arts & Humanities | Education | Math & Natural Sciences | Social Sciences
Arts and Humanities Mark Anson-Cartwright
Benjamin Binstock
Lisa Brody, Assistant Professor (Art); completed her B.A. at Yale University with honors in Archaeological Studies, an interdisciplinary program that included the departments of Art History, Classics, Anthropology, Near Eastern Studies, and Geology. She received her Ph.D. in Classical Art and Archaeology from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, with minor concentrations in Greek History and Islamic Art. She also studied for two years at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens and spent summers during graduate school excavating on the island of Samothrace in Greece and at Aphrodisias in Turkey. Her dissertation is on the image and iconography of the Aphrodisias excavation series. Lisa has taught at the University of Notre Dame, Oregon State University, and elsewhere. In 2002, Lisa was the Gertrude Smith Professor for the summer session of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, where she led a group of advanced undergraduate and graduate students on a study tour of mainland Greece and Crete. Currently, she is preparing a revised edition of David Sacks’ Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World. She is also co-curating an exhibition of ancient lamps from public and private collections in the Pacific Northwest, planned for 2005-2006, and writing a scholarly catalogue to accompany the exhibition.
Juan Caamano Assistant Professor (Hispanic Languages and Literatures); is a heritage speaker of Spanish who teaches and works with equal facility in both languages. Apart from his linguistic ability, which makes him an excellent prospect for teaching a course for or cross-listed with Comparative Literature, he will bring much to our department. His knowledge and preparation in contemporary Spanish philosophy and critical thought, especially the work of the contemporary Spanish philosopher Juan Carlos Rodriguez, will fill a gap in our curriculum at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Although a recent Ph.D., he has already begun to make himself known in his field; he presented a paper on “La historia y el valor literario” at a conference held at the University of Granada (Spain). He is, as required by the position, expert in the literature of the Twentieth and Twenty-first centuries, including Cinema. However, his superb overall preparation as a “generalist” also supports our program in several other areas from Medieval to the present. In fact he has taught a highly successful course on Cervantes. Moreover, he comes with many excellent suggestions for curriculum design, for example, Spanish Literature in the Age of Postmodernity and The Picaresque and Narrative Voice. Many of his suggestions are based on his current research and hold a great deal of promise for future publications.
Additionally, Dr. Caamano’s years of teaching experience at the college level, some with us and some at SUNY Stony Brook, will strengthen our offerings not only in literature and critical thought but in advanced language as well. His prior experience at Queens as an M.A. candidate and as an Adjunct, has another advantage for us. It will allow him to join us without any time lapse that might otherwise have been needed by others to acquaint themselves with our students and system. The Department has great expectations for Dr. Caamano and we fully anticipate that he will fulfill them satisfactorily.
Alexander Elinson, Assistant Professor (Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages and Cultures); his research interests cut across the Middle East and North Africa, and include Arabic and Hebrew literature from the pre-Islamic to the modern period. His dissertation, entitled “Looking Back: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia and the Literary Definition of al-Andalus in Arabic and Hebrew Literature” examines the intersection between literary convention and poetic subjectivity in the literature of Muslim Spain. His interest in the creative process that emerges out of, and often defies, highly conventional forms informs much of his work. Publications include articles on the Arabic and Hebrew strophic poem (muwashshah}), medieval rhymed prose narrative (maqa>ma), as well as reviews and translations in Medieval Encounters, the Journal of Arabic Literature, Edebiyât, Paintbrush: a Journal of Poetry and Translation, and the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin.
At Queens College, he teaches courses in Arabic Language, Literature and Culture. Courses include: Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Arabic; History and Civilization of Islam; Modern Arabic Fiction in Translation; Literatures of the Islamic World.
Kelly Gates, Assistant Professor (Media Studies); comes to us from the University of Illinois’s prestigious Institute of Communication Research. Her research on biometric surveillance technology and social identity has been published in Information, Theory and Society and Television and New Media. She has forthcoming essays in Social Text and an edited collection on race and representation. Her dissertation is entitled “Our Biometric Future: The Social Construction of an Emerging Information Technology”.
Antonio Hart, Assistant Professor ( Aaron Copland School of Music); attended the Baltimore School of the Arts, the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and the Aaron Copland School of Music where he received a Master’s Degree in Jazz Performance, studying with Jimmy Heath. He has been a member of the Roy Hargrove Quintet, and a regular performer with the Dave Holland Big Band, the Dizzie Gillespie All Stars, and performs regularly with jazz greats Slide Hampton, Nancy Wilson, Dee Dee Bridgewater and Nat Adderley. He also founded his own group, the Antonio Hart Quintet. He has recorded 6 solo CD's and is a frequent guest on many other recording projects.
Amy Herzog, Assistant Professor (Media Studies); received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester’s program in Visual and Cultural Studies. Prof. Herzog’s research focuses on the role of sound and music in film and electronic media, the music industry and popular culture. Her writings on sound and critical cultural theory have appeared in the journals Film-Philosophy, Visible Culture and American Music and in a forthcoming book on music video. Her dissertation is entitled “Dreams of Difference and Songs of the Same: The Image of Time in Musical Film”.
Michael Lipsey, Assistant Professor (Aaron Copland School of Music); born in New York, holds a BM from Queens College and an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. He is the founder of the Talujon Percussion Quartet and has performed with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, Newband/Harry Partch Instrumentarium, Riverside Symphony, Westchester Symphony, Tan Dun's Crossings, Ensemble Sospeso, New Music Consort. Festivals-Caramoor, Chatauqua Institute, Bang-on-a-Can, Lille Festival, Making Music in Moscow Festival, Berlin Festival, Taipei Percussion Festival and Osaka Percussion Festival. He has recorded for Sony Classical (with the BBC Symphony), Red Poppy Records, CRI Records, Mode Records and Nonesuch Records.Michael Miller, Assistant Professor (Library); has experience as a manager of public services units in university and public libraries. He served as manager of Reference and Electronic Resources for the Brooklyn Public Library for five years, and manager of electronic publications and web content for one year. Prior to this, he was Social Work Librarian and coordinator of the Social Science Electronic Information Resources of the Lehman (social work) Library of Columbia University. He has also held reference librarian positions at Lehigh University and Rutgers University, Newark campus. He has taught as an adjunct at the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Queens College and the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science.
Jennifer Oates, Assistant Professor (Library); completed a master’s in library science from Florida State University in May 2003, where she was also the Head of Circulation/Reserves in the Warren D. Allen Music Library. She earned her Ph.D. in historical musicology from Florida State University in August 2001 with a dissertation entitled “Opera Traditions and Scottish Nationalism: Hamish MacCunn’s Jeanie Deans (1894)” and is working on a book on the life and works of Hamish MacCunn. Dr. Oates won the 2002 National Opera Association’s Scholarly Paper Competition with a paper entitled “The Making of a Scottish National Opera: Hamish MacCunn’s Jeanie Deans (1894), which will appear as an article in The Opera Journal later this year. Her article “Music Librarianship Education: Problems and Solutions” will appear in the next volume of Music References Services Quarterly this fall. Her other research interests include twentieth-century French music, and women and music. Her previous degrees include a master's degree musicology from the University of Kansas with a thesis exploring Francis Poulenc’s concerted sacred choral works. She also holds a bachelor’s of music in vocal performance from the University of Oklahoma.
Marcy Rosen, Assistant Professor (Aaron Copland School of Music); cello, performs in recital throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. She has appeared as soloist with many noted orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, and the Tokyo Philharmonic. A founding member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet, Ms. Rosen also appears regularly at international festivals. She is co-artistic director of the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Maryland and, as a long-time participant at the Marlboro Festival, she has toured on 10 occasions with Musicians From Marlboro. Ms. Rosen won the 1986 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was the first recipient of the Mischa Schneider Memorial Award from the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation. She has recorded for Columbia Masterworks, Deutsche Grammophon, Music Masters, Pro Arte, Sony Classical and the Musical Heritage Society.
David Schober,
Assistant Professor (Aaron Copland School of Music);
composer, music theorist, and pianist David Schober is a graduate of the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he was most recently a fellow at the
Institute for the Humanities. As an undergraduate at the Oberlin
Conservatory, he received a Theodore Presser Foundation grant to study
history, language, and traditional arts at Yonsei University in South
Korea. Recognition for his composition work includes a Charles Ives
Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Aaron
Copland Awards, the Wayne Peterson Composition Prize, and awards from BMI
and ASCAP. He has received commissions from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Naumburg
Foundation (for the Miró String Quartet), and the Fromm
Foundation. His composition Split Horizon, a concerto premiered at
Carnegie Hall by the sextet eighth blackbird and the American
Composers Orchestra. He is also the author of an analytical study of
piano music by George Perle, Professor Emeritus at the City University of
New York.
Janice Smith, Assistant Professor (Aaron Copland School of Music ); joins the Copland School of Music after a 30-year teaching career as an elementary music specialist. In addition to her doctorate in Music Education (Northwestern University) she has training certificates in Choral music, Suzuki Piano and Orff-Schulwerk. She comes to the college with over 50 articles, book reviews and research presentations to her credit. Dr. Smith’s research addresses the impact of teacher imposed structure on children’s musical compositions. Her work also focuses on the revision process in children’s compositions and the effect scaffolding can have on that process. She is also interested in the impact of the academic experience on intellectual development of music education college students and in particular the impact of the experience of student teaching on traditional and nontraditional women students.
Lorain Wankoff,
Assistant Professor (Linguistics
& Communication Disorders); received her Ph.D. in 1983 in Speech and Hearing Sciences
from the CUNY Graduate Center. She is an expert in the treatment of child language disorders,
language-based learning disabilities, and literacy challenges. She is an innovative clinician
and an accomplished professor, coming to Queens College, her alma mater, from Long Island University.
She has consulted at some of the most prestigious schools and medical centers in the greater New York
metropolitan area and has presented her work
at several state and national professional fora. Dr. Wankoff is the editor of a much awaited book,
forthcoming this Fall, on treatment outcome measures in innovative methods in language intervention.
Christopher Winks,
Assistant Professor (Comparative
Literature); received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from New York University in
2002. As a graduate student at NYU, he won an award for his teaching. After serving
as Director of the Africana Studies Program there for one
year, he went to teach at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is a specialist in
Caribbean Literature in Spanish, French, and English. He has published
translations from French and Spanish as well as several articles.
Education
Kimberley Alkins,
Assistant Professor (Elementary and Early Childhood Education);
received her Ph.D. from
the University of Chicago with a specialization in urban education. Her
dissertation research examined the attitudes of African American and
Latino 4th and 5th graders about school. Presently
she is working on a project that examines how school-college partnerships
might best support their teacher graduates through the first years of
teaching. At Queens College she has taught graduate courses in research
and child development.
Héfer Bembenutty,
Assistant Professor
(Secondary Education & Youth
Services); is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology at The City University of
New York, Graduate Center. He received a Master of Arts in Educational Psychology from
The City University of New York, Graduate Center, a Master of Science in
Experimental Psychology from Eastern Michigan University, and a Bachelor of
Arts in Psychology from The University of Michigan. Currently, he is a
substitute lecturer of Educational Psychology at Queens College,
Department of Secondary Education. His main field of interest is
self-regulated learning with a focus on mathematics skills, language and
literacy self-regulation, motivation, delay of gratification, self-efficacy,
test anxiety, learning strategies, teacher evaluation, testing and
assessment, and homework. He has published articles in peer review journals,
served as a reviewer for peer review journals, and presented papers, served
as a chair, and as a discussant at professional conferences. With his
associates, he has conducted research in Korea and Belgium. He
was selected to participate in a seminar-training founded by the U.S.
Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. He
has taught courses on educational psychology, language, literacy, and
culture, human development and learning, cognition, technology, and
instruction, psychology of adolescence, child development, and introduction
to educational research.
Jacqueline Darvin,
Assistant Professor (Secondary Education & Youth
Services); received her Ph.D. in Literacy Studies (formerly Reading, Language and
Cognition) from Hofstra University. Dr. Darvin taught middle and high school
English and special education for over twelve years, and in 2002 received
the prestigious News 12 Long Island Educator of the Month Award for her work
integrating literacy instruction into career education courses at a
vocational high school in Nassau County. She was also featured in a cover
story of New York Teacher, the official publication of the New York
State United Teachers, for her work in Regents level, standards-based
literacy instruction. Her publications include several articles in
English Journal, the secondary journal of the National Council of
Teachers of English. Her presentations on cross-disciplinary instruction
include both national and international conferences in Philadelphia, San
Francisco, Scottsdale, Milwaukee, Nashville, London, and Havana, Cuba on
topics related to literacy teaching and learning.
Sonya Martin, Assistant Professor ( Elementary and Early Childhood Education); after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a Master’s degree in elementary education, Martin taught science at both the elementary and high school levels within the city of Philadelphia. Drawing on her B.A. in Biology from Bryn Mawr College, her M.S. in Chemistry (also from the University of Pennsylvania) and her teaching experiences, now she is currently researching the larger questions surrounding student-teacher relations, specifically student and teacher interactions can influence and be influenced by the culture of science. She expects to complete her doctorate in science education from the Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Australia by June of 2004.
Carol Rhodes, Professor (Secondary Education & Youth Services); holds a Ph.D. in Teaching and Learning from the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. Her teaching and research focus on literacy education particularly as it is affected by university/school partnerships and technology. She has received numerous awards for university teaching including the Ross M Burkhart Middle Level Educator Award and the Outstanding Reading Educator Award. She has been selected as a Fulbright Senior Research Specialist. Carole has received numerous grants including two prestigious FIPSE grants; AACTE/Microsoft Innovative Teaching Grants and a Spencer Foundation Research Grant. She is the author of dozens of articles and book chapters. Her newest book, Born to Learn, has been reviewed very favorably. She has presented the findings of her work at more than forty National and International Conferences.
Lourdes M. Rivera,
Assistant Professor (Educational
& Community Programs); received her doctorate
in Counseling Psychology from Fordham University. She holds a Master’s
degree from New York University, and a Bachelor's degree from
Lehman College. Dr. Rivera’s areas of interest include: Career Development,
particularly as it relates to students of color, Multicultural Counseling,
and the educational achievement of minority students. Dr. Rivera has
co-authored a number of published articles, including a chapter in the
Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (2001). Dr. Rivera comes to Queens
College from LaGuardia Community College where, as a member of the
Counseling faculty, she provided personal, career and academic counseling
services to students.
Lisa Scott, Assistant Professor (Elementary and Early Childhood Education); came to Queens College in 2002 after 8 years of elementary school teaching in Ontario, California. She recently received her doctorate from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California in March 2004, and has specific research interests in critical community and cultural studies.
Joel Spring, Professor (Elementary and Early Childhood Education); after receiving his Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin, he taught at a number of universities with the most recent being the New School University. His research interests are educational policy, globalization, history of education, and multicultural education. He has published over thirty books. Dr. Spring’s most recent book is How Educational Ideologies are Shaping Global Society (2004).
Lea Theodore,
Assistant Professor (Educational
& Community Programs); received her B.A. degree
from Binghamton University (1997) in Psychology, a Masters Degree in General/Experimental Psychology
from St. John’s University (1999), and a Doctorate in School Psychology at
the University of Connecticut (2002) where she was awarded a Doctoral Research Fellowship and a Doctoral
Dissertation Fellowship. Her scholarly work has focused on interventions
designed to address serious emotional disturbance, health-related disorders,
and communication disorders. She has been active in Division 16, School
Psychology, of the American Psychological Association, serving as a member
of the Conversation/Videotape Series committee, and is running
for the office of Treasurer in the Division. Dr. Theodore was Assistant
Professor at Hofstra University and Interim Program Director of the School Psychology
Program there before joining Queens College.
Mathematics
and Natural Sciences
Mitchell Baker,
Assistant Professor (Biology);
received his Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of California – Davis working under the mentorship of Dr.
Hugh Dingle in the Animal
Behavior Graduate Group. Dr. Baker’s thesis work, which involved field work
in the Negev desert, was a population study of the desert isopod
Hemilepistus reaumuri with particular interest in dispersal strategies.
Following this he joined Dr. Adam Porter’s research group at the University
of Massachusetts at Amherst for postdoctoral studies but spent a year at
Franklin and Marshall College as a sabbatical replacement where he gained extensive
teaching experience. Dr. Baker’s postdoctoral research is on the evolution
and spread of insecticide resistance in the potato beetle. Dr. Baker
considers himself to be a behavioral ecologist whose research focuses on the
evolution of dispersal. He is an excellent field biologist and has worked on
insects and birds. Dr. Baker’s Ph.D. thesis work was supported by a grant to
him from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Currently, Dr. Baker is
co-PI on grants from the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) and
the NSF.
Kent Boklan, Assistant Professor (Computer Science); by trade, a cryptographer and a mathematician. He worked for the National Security Agency (1996-1999) where he was professionalized as a cryptologic mathematician. Dr. Boklan received his SB from MIT and PhD from the University of Michigan (in Mathematics) and has published more than twenty research papers in cryptography and cryptanalysis (many CLASSIFIED), mining large data sets, probability and statistics, inference control and number theory. He has lived in Sweden and, most recently, Iceland (1999-2002), spending much of his time correcting errors and identifying inversions in the sequencing of the human genome. Dr. Boklan has taught at several schools including Vanderbilt University, the University of Michigan, NYU and the University of Iceland. He is the CTO of a small software company in New York City and a partner in a (cryptographic) consulting firm. In his spare time, Dr. Boklan has broken a Confederate code, made a few films and written (the first part of) his memoirs.
Timothy Eaton,
Assistant Professor (School of Earth and Environmental
Sciences); received his M.S. in
Water Resources Management and his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. During this period he also held the position of
Associate Geological Survey Specialist/Hydro-geologist in the state of
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey. His areas of interest
include hydrogeology and geochemistry of fractured low-conductivity media,
groundwater flow modeling methods in fractured and porous media and regional
geology and hydrostratigraphy.
William Farrell, Assistant Professor (Psychology);
is interested in the interrelationships among experience, physiology, and species-typical social
behavior. He received BS degrees in Psychology and Biology from Tufts
University in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Indiana University,
Bloomington in 2000. As a doctoral student, his research focused on the
roles played by sensory systems, hormones, and experience in the development
of rat maternal behavior. Following graduate school, he received additional
training in comparative neuroanatomy and behavioral neuroendocrinology in
Postdoctoral Fellowships at the University of Colorado Health Sciences
Center and at The University of Texas at Austin. His current research
utilizes green anole lizards as a model organism to study the behavioral neuroendocrinology of aggressive behavior. More specifically, his research
interests include exploring the bidirectional relationship between hormones
and aggression, and endocrine involvement in aggression-related
reinforcement and associative learning.
Sarit Golub, Assistant Professor (Psychology);
is a social psychologist who studies the formation and maintenance of individual identity with special emphasis on
the strategies people use to cope with negative events. Her research bridges
Psychology and Public Health; she received her Master’s degree in Public
Health from Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from
Harvard University. A native New Yorker, she has worked in both hospital
settings and community-based agencies throughout the city, and has provided
behavioral science and statistical consultation to clinical researchers in
both New York and Boston. Her research will continue to focus on the role of
identity upon treatment compliance in clinically-relevant populations,
including clients with breast cancer, Parkinson’s Disease and HIV-AIDS.
George Rummens Hendrey, Professor (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences); an ecologist, will participate in the Urban Environmental Initiative of the City University of New York. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle and prior to his appointment at Queens College was Head of the Earth Systems Science Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Hendrey played a leading role in the initiation of multi-disciplinary research programs in limnology, and atmospheric science. He developed the Free-Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) system, a means by which the atmospheric concentration of a gas could be held constant in an open-field setting. His work on atmospheric contaminants led to proposals for the Urban Atmospheric Observatory now developing within New York City, supported by the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
Yiqun Huang, Assistant Professor (Family, Nutrition, and Exercise Sciences); received a BS in Food Processing and Engineering from Human Agricultural University (P.R. China), an MS in Chemical Engineering from Beijing Institute of Light Industry (P.R. China), an MS in Food Science from the University of Washington, School of Fisheries, and a Ph.D. in Food Science (with a minor in Computer Science) from Washington State University, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. She has completed two years as a postdoctoral research associate at Washington State University, Department of Biological Systems Engineering. She will be teaching courses in food science and continuing her research using near infrared methods for characterization of various biopolymers.
Sunitha Jasti, Assistant Professor (Family, Nutrition, and Exercise
Sciences); received her BS in Home Science from Andhra University (India), an MS in Nutrition from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a Ph.D. in Nutrition from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health. She worked as a nutritionist for the Women Infants and Children, a food supplementation program prior to her doctoral studies and continued to focus on maternal and child health issues in her research. Her dissertation examined determinants of adherence to use of multivitamin/mineral supplements among low-income pregnant women. She will teach classes in foods and nutrition and continue her research in the areas of maternal and child health, micronutrient deficiencies, and health disparities.
Karen Kohfeld, Assistant Professor (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences); is a Midwesterner who came to an East Coast college to pursue journalism or music, and wound up in the natural sciences. Her research involves using the geologic record of dust and ocean productivity to evaluate global models that predict future climate change. She returns to the USA after six years of biogeochemistry research in Sweden and Germany, and will enthusiastically join the Earth Science faculty in February 2004.
Igor Kuskovsky, Assistant Professor (Physics); attended
Columbia University, earning the Ph.D. in Applied Physics in 1998, and
serving as a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor until
2004. His research has employed a wide range of characterization techniques
to explore the optical and electrical properties of nano-scale structures,
wide bandgap semiconductors, and holographic materials. Dr. Kuskovsky is
setting up facilities for magneto-luminescence and micro-photoluminescence
at Queens College, and also maintains an active collaboration with Brookhaven National
Laboratories. His research addresses the use of quantum dots and nano-islands
for novel device and medical applications.
Andrea Li, Assistant Professor (Psychology);
is interested in the perceptual and neural mechanisms of visual
processing, with a particular interest in understanding the perception of
3D shapes and objects from 2D images. She received her B.S. in Brain and
Cognitive Science from MIT (1990) where her research interests focused on
cognitive aspects of language processing and visual perception. She then
received her Masters degree in Psychology (1993) and her Ph.D. in Brain
and Cognitive Sciences from the University of Rochester (1996). Her
dissertation examined the perceptual roles of color and brightness in the
segmentation of textured surfaces. She then received a post-doctoral NRSA
award from NIH to work at SUNY College of Optometry, examining the roles
of spatial frequency and orientation in 3D shape perception from images of
textured surfaces. Subsequently, she has continued her collaborations at
SUNY on an R01 from NIH to further study the neural basis of 3D shape
perception from textural cues.
Stuart Margolis, Professor (Mathematics); received his Bachelor’s from Rutgers University in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of California-Berkeley. He has been a faculty member at the University of Vermont, the University of Nebraska and is currently Professor of Mathematics at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel. He has published some 60 articles in leading journals of mathematics and computer science. His main interests are in the connections between algebra, logic, formal language theory, automaton theory, geometry and topology. He is also Managing Editor of the International Journal of Algebra and Computation.
Vinod Menon, Assistant Professor (Physics); received the Ph.D. in Physics from
the University of Massachusetts - Lowell in 2001, where he worked on the design, fabrication, and characterization of quantum cascade terahertz emitters. He then received the prestigious Lucent-Bell Labs Postdoctoral Fellowship in Photonics, allowing him to serve until 2004 as Research Associate at the Princeton University Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials (POEM). At Princeton, he worked on the design and realization of advanced optoelectronic circuitry, including integrated optical amplifiers and Sagnac loop interferometers.
Dr. Menon’s research focuses on the fabrication of novel hybrid (using both organic and inorganic) materials that will find applications in the area of Quantum Information Processing (QIP). The ultimate goal of QIP is to harness quantum physics to conceive (and ultimately build) “quantum” computers that could dramatically exceed the capabilities of today's “classical” computers. Dr. Menon possesses a unique combination of talent and experience in both the theoretical and practical aspects of this area. His findings will push the limits on optoelectronic devices in terms of reduced size, speed and efficiency so that the next generation of high speed computers and optical communications networks will be greatly improved as well as more secure.
Dr. Menon is a member of the CUNY Photonics Initiative.
Sang-hoon Suh, Assistant Professor (Family, Nutrition,
and Exercise Sciences); received a BA in Physical Education and an M.Ed. in
Physical Education, specializing in Exercise Physiology (both from Seoul National
University, Korea) an MA and a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from the University
of California, Berkeley. His dissertation title is, “Glucose Flux During
Rest and Exercise in Response to Endogenous and Exogenous Ovarian
Hormones.” He has completed two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the
University of California, Berkeley, in the Exercise Physiology Laboratory of the Department of
Integrative Biology. He will be teaching courses related to exercise physiology and metabolism and continuing his research on metabolic adjustments to acute and chronic exercise in skeletal muscle with a particular interest in identifying molecular mechanisms of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism.
John Terilla, Assistant
Professor (Mathematics);
received his BS in mathematics from Miami University and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. He has also done postdoctoral research at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook in the Mathematical Sciences Research
Institute (MSRI). His
specialties are information theory and mathematical physics. His work
involves algebraic, topological, and geometric aspects of deformations of
string theory and quantum field theory. He also has interests in quantum
physics and statistical mechanics and has done research on quantum
information theory and quantum computing.
John
Waldman, Professor (Biology);
received his Ph.D. in 1986 from the Graduate School of the
City University of New York. His thesis research on the systematics of
Morone fishes was carried out jointly with the American Museum of
Natural History Joint Program in Evolutionary Biology. Following this he
joined the Hudson River Foundation for Science and Environmental Research of
New York as a Staff Biologist and rose to the position of Senior Scientist
with responsibility of overseeing the Foundation’s research funding program.
Dr. Waldman has authored over 55 journal articles and book chapters on the
population biology of a number of saltwater and freshwater fishes,
particularly striped bass and sturgeon and over 30 technical reports for
consulting firms, the NY Power Authority of White Plains, and the NY State
Department of Environmental Conservation, and others. Dr. Waldman authored
three
books for general audiences: Stripers: An Angler’s Anthology
(Ragged Mountain Press); Heartbeats in the Muck: The
History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor (Lyons Press);
Dance of the Flying Gurnards: America’s Coastal Curiosities and Beachside Wonders
(Lyons Press), plus Perfume Creek, a chapter on Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal in the Book of New York Walks (Time-Out). Additionally, along with Dr. C. Di Paolo, Dr. Waldman edited
Hempstead Harbor: History, Ecology, and Environmental Challenges
(published by the Coalition to Save Hempstead Harbor).
Support for his work comes from a variety of sources including the National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation, New York State Sea Grants, the Salstonall-Kennedy
Program, the New York Power Authority, USEPA Harbor Estuary Program, and Sea
Grant – NOAA Partnership Program for Strategic Research and Development. Dr.
Waldman is a reviewer for several funding agencies and scientific journals
and serves on a variety of national and local committees relating to harbor
management and ecology. He writes regularly for the popular literature with
articles appearing in Underwater Naturalist, The New York Times,
The Fisherman, and other venues.
Saeed Zakeri, Assistant Professor (Mathematics); received his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran in 1990 and his MS in Mathematics from the University of Tehran in 1992. After emigrating to the US, he received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1999. He has held positions as lecturer in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania and visiting assistant professor at Stony Brook. His areas of interest include dynamical systems, complex analysis and hyperbolic geometry and Kleinian groups.
Social
Sciences
Clive Belfield, Assistant Professor (Economics); received a BA with first class honors from the University of Durham, UK and a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter. His areas of specialization include, labor economics and industrial organization, the economics of education, and finance. From 2001- to the present, he was Associate Director, National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Education. He has published several works, including Economic Principles for Education: Theory and Evidence (2000) and Understanding Educational Vouchers (Teachers College Press, 2004) with HM Levin, as well as numerous articles on labor economics and on the economics of education.
Anique Qureshi, Professor (Accounting & Information Systems); a graduate of Adelphi University, received his Ph.D. in accounting from Rutgers University in 1987. He taught at Queens College from 1993 to 2002, achieving the rank of professor in 2001. From 2002-2004, he was Professor of Accounting at the University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida. He returns to the College to take a key role in the newly established MS in Accounting program and in the new BBA program. Widely published in a number of key professional journals, his areas of specialization include artificial intelligence in accounting and business, the uses of computer software in managerial accounting, and the effects of news on initial corporate lawsuits.
Kristin Roth-Ey, Assistant Professor (History); a graduate of Dartmouth College, received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2003. In 2003-2004, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. In 2005-2007, she will be a research scholar at the Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University.
She has been the recipient of awards for the best graduate student essay for three professional associations in Slavic studies. Her dissertation, “Mass Media and the Remaking of Soviet Culture,” is a highly innovative and original study of the relationship between cultural forms and production in Russian and the erosion of commitment to the Soviet state.
Judith Serrin, Assistant Professor (Journalism); for two years a visiting professor of journalism at Queens College, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate from the University of Iowa and a 1968 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a faculty member and director of special programs from 1981-1991. From 1974 to 1979 she was a feature and science reporter for the Detroit Free Press. From 1991 to 1995 she was editor on the New York Desk of the New York Times and from 1995 to 1999 was assistant news editor for the Knight Ridder Newspapers. She is co-author, editor of Muckraking! The Journalism that Changed America, (New Press 2002), a collection of 150 “muckraking” news articles from 1765 to the 1980s.
Benjamin Silliman, Assistant Professor (Accounting
& Information Systems); with a BS and MS in accounting from the University of Mississippi,
an MS in Taxation from the University of Denver, a Certified Public Accountant license, and Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from New York University (May 2004)
he has broad and varied training. In addition, he has had a range of administrative, auditing, and teaching experiences. His dissertation on college tuition credits is an innovative look at a topic, tax credits and tax policy, that is not ordinarily addressed as a problem in auditing and accountancy. He has taught as an adjunct at Cornell University’s New York Campus, St. Johns University, and at Queens College.
Gerald Solomon, Visiting Assistant Professor (Journalism); is a highly honored and regarded journalist with extensive experience in both print and broadcast journalism, working with all three major networks and with PBS and CNN. His awards include the Wilbur award, Religion Communicators of America for his PBS production of
“Religion and Ethics Newsweekly”, funded in part with a grant from the Lilly Foundation and an Emmy award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. From 1967 -1973 he was a producer, writer, editor with CBS News, from 1973-1992, with NBC News he was an executive producer of
“Meet the Press”,
“Sunday Today”, and
“NBC Nightly News”. Most recently, 1999 to the present, he has been a producer, editor with CNN. He has taught previously as a visiting faculty member at Queens College and has served, since its inception, on the Journalism Advisory Board.
Florencia Torche, Associate Professor (Sociology); a summa cum laude graduate of the Universidad Catolica de Chile, received her Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in 2003. For the past year she has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Wealth and Inequality at Columbia University. Her dissertation, “Unequal but Fluid: Social Mobility in Chile in Comparative Perspective,” received distinction. Her areas of teaching and research interest are social mobility, economic stratification, and inequality and class formation in Latin America, with particular interest in Chile, as well as classical and contemporary social theory and the sociology of consumption. She has presented her work in both Spanish and English at various publications and professional conferences.
Leanne Ussher, Assistant Professor (Economics); a graduate of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia in economics and Asian studies, Professor Ussher received her Ph.D. from the New School University in 2004. Prior to her matriculation at the New School, she worked for two years as a securities market analyst for the Reserve Bank of Australia. Her fields of teaching and research interest are finance, central banking, financial market regulation, computational methods and agent based modeling, and the history of economic thought. She developed and maintained from 1996-2002 a highly regarded and widely used History of Economic Thought Website. She has delivered papers at professional conferences on, among other topics, “How Iraq can pay for its Reconstruction,” “Do Budget Deficits Matter?” and “International Price Stability and Full Employment.”
Vamsicharan Vakulabharanam, Assistant Professor (Economics); received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in 2004. His research and teaching interests include development economics, political economy, mathematical methods, and economic history. His dissertation, is a methodologically and conceptually innovative study of “Immiserating Growth: Globalization and Agrarian Change in South India, 1985-2000.” He has forthcoming articles and conference presentations on issues of irrigation, cotton farming, the relationship between Indian economic liberalization and the sustainability of peasant households in South India.
Dana Weinberg, Assistant Professor (Sociology); a summa cum laude graduate of Brandeis University received her Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University in 2000. In 2000-2001 she was a survey scientist at the Picker Institute and from 2002 to the present, Senior Research Associate at the Schneider Health Policy Institute, Brandeis University. Her fields of interest are medical sociology, organizational sociology and the sociology of work and professions. She has presented her research at numerous professional conferences. In addition to several articles and funded research reports, she published a very well received book, Code Green: Money-Driven Hospitals and the Dismantling of Nursing (Cornell University Press, 2000)