Anthropology
Louis Calistro Alvarado, Assistant Professor
Louis Calistro Alvarado is a biological anthropologist who specializes in behavioral and reproductive ecology, prostate cancer epidemiology, and issues related to social inequity and health disparity. His current research examines men’s steroid physiology across their life course in rural agricultural villages in Southern Poland.
Biological Sciences
Aimee Danley, Lab Instructor
Aimee Danley enjoys teaching students the value of approaching the world through the lens of a biologist, with molecular techniques and genetic analysis being some of her favorite topics.
Sean Gess, Lab Instructor
Sean Gess has a background is ecology with a focus on wildlife management but has a passion for teaching. He likes the idea of helping to influence and educate the next generation of scientists and has taught of wide variety of courses from nursing anatomy and physiology to ecology and conservation topics.
Brenda Hammer, Laboratory Instructor
Brenda Hammer has a BS in Biology from LSU (Louisiana State University) and a MS in Biology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has taught Introduction to Biology, Microbiology, and Anatomy and Physiology for over 15 years at both two-year and four-year institutions in Alabama.
Stefanie Hedayati, Lecturer
Stefanie Hedayati is very happy to join the Department of Biological Sciences as a Lecturer this Fall. She majored in Microbiology and subsequently obtained her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology. This semester she goes back to her roots as a microbiologist by teaching the Microbiology Lab for Majors and is very excited to work with the talented undergraduates here at Pitt.
Craig Kaplan, Associate Professor
Craig Kaplan studies how the engine of gene expression in eukaryotes, RNA polymerase II, works and is regulated. This essential enzyme is required for expression of all protein-coding genes and its activity impacts cells in myriad ways.
Scott Stuckman, Lab Instructor
Scott Stuckman is currently interested in increasing student participation and learning by creating comfortable laboratory environments that are productive yet enjoyable. His future goals include combining his climate research and biology backgrounds to develop interdisciplinary courses in global change biology.
Abagael West, Lecturer
Abagael West is a paleontologist. She studies the morphological evolution and phylogenetic relationships of extinct and extant placental mammals, and the biogeography of South America and Antarctica during the late Cretaceous through early Paleogene. Abagael is also interested in how students learn tree-thinking and phylogenetic hypothesis-testing, and in aligning how these processes are taught with how they are practiced.
Lingqing Xu, Lab Instructor
Lingqing Xu loves research-based teaching and am interested in STEM education in general. Previously a PhD student in cell biology and currently a lab instructor teaching Foundations of Biology lab courses in the Department of Biological Sciences, she likes the idea of integrating researching, teaching, and learning.
Chemistry
Danielle Gombos, Lab Instructor
Danielle Gombos is a Lab Instructor in Chemistry. She received a BS in Chemistry from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, in May 2006, and a MA/Ed from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania in December 2014. She has vast experience as a Laboratory Instructor at Pitt.
Michelle Morgan, Lab Instructor
Michelle Morgan is a Lab Instructor in Chemistry. She received a PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland in 2015, a MS in Physical Chemistry from Colorado State University in 2009, and a BS in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005. She has taught at Montana State University and since 2016 has been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh.
Jacylyn Powell, Lab Instructor
Jacylyn Powell is a Lab Instructor in Chemistry. She received a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2014, and a BS in Chemistry from University of Texas at Austin in 2008. She has taught in various roles at the University of Pittsburgh since 2015.
Margaret Vines, Lab Instructor
Margaret Vines is a Lab Instructor in Chemistry. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh in 1999, and a BA in Chemistry from Kenyon College in 1992. She has over sixteen years of experience teaching at the University of Pittsburgh in several capacities.
Classics
Ellen Cole Lee, Lecturer
Ellen Cole Lee earned her PhD in Classical Studies at the University of Michigan in 2016 with a dissertation on Latin love poetry. At Pitt, she is excited to continue pursuing her interests in digital pedagogies for language instruction, cognitive approaches to the ancient world, gender and sexuality in Latin literature, and classical reception in the ancient, medieval and modern worlds.
Marcie Persyn, Assistant Instructor
Marcie Persyn researches the interaction of the Greek and Roman languages, cultures, and literary genres found in Latin literature from the middle of the second century BCE until the rise of the Julio-Claudians. She is specifically interested in Roman Satire as a genre that reflects these social and artistic developments, using the code-switching evidenced in Lucilius’ Satires to explore the Roman world.
Carrie Weaver, Lecturer
Carrie Weaver joins the Department of Classics as Lecturer II in Mediterranean Art and Archaeology. A specialist in burial practices and the analysis of human bone, her research bridges science and the humanities to reconstruct past population dynamics and cultural practices. Her teaching focuses on the art, architecture, and material culture of the ancient Mediterranean world (including the Near East and Egypt), and encompasses a wide variety of topics (e.g., gender, identity, ethnicity, health and wealth disparities, ritual, modern reception of classical antiquity) and time periods (ca. 3200 BCE to 7th century CE).
Communication
Alexandria Chase, Lecturer and Associate Director of Debate
Alexandria Chase, PhD, is Lecturer and Associate Director of Debate in the Communication Department. Her approach to directing debate is grounded in a deep belief in the transformative potential of argument both for personal growth and socio-political change. Chase’s academic research takes critical-rhetorical approaches to understanding gender and violence and can be found inArgumentation and Advocacy and Women’s Studies in Communication.
East Asian Languages and Literatures
Boo Kyung Jung, Assistant Instructor
Boo Kyung Jung holds an MA in TESL from Pennsylvania State University and is currently a PhD candidate in Korean linguistics at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. She has four years of teaching experience of at Penn State and Hawaii.
Economics
Louphou Coulibaly, Assistant Professor
Louphou Coulibaly received his PhD from University of Montreal. His research fields are international finance, monetary economics, open-economy macroeconomics and financial intermediation. Some of his research seeks to understand optimal monetary policy under the special conditions facing emerging market economies.
Andy Ferrara, Assistant Professor
Andy Ferrara, PhD joins the Department of Economics from Warrick University as an Assistant Professor. Ferrara is an economic historian with research spillovers to labor economics. He is doing fascinating work on topics such as the improvement in labor market outcomes of African Americans after WWII, and the impact on child outcomes of losing a father in the Civil War.
English
Amy Flick, Lecturer
Amy Flick, a new lecturer II in the Department of English’s Composition program, she specializes in the rhetoric of public health and medicine, community literacy, social justice issues in technical and professional communication, and in feminist research methodologies.
April Flynn, Lecturer
April Flynn, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, has taught courses in academic, creative, professional, technical, scientific, and medical writing, and her current teaching interests focus on guiding students to investigate semantics and affect through narrative in medical contexts.
Megan Kappel, Lecturer
Megan Kappel, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, directs the Public and Professional Writing Program (PPW), where she teaches Written Professional Communication, Writing for the Public, Integrating Writing and Design, Persuasive Writing for Advertising, Public Relations Writing, Corporate Storytelling, and Writing Proposals for Business.
Jeanette Lehn, Lecturer
Jeanette Lehn, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, teaches and researches the topics critical pedagogy, writing program administration, and cultural studies. In particular, she is interested in systems, constraints, and the ways that agency is enacted in light of influences.
Steven Lemieux, Lecturer
Steven Lemieux, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, teaches primarily in digital media, professional communication, and rhetoric. His research is focused on rhetorical theory, environmental and digital rhetorics, experimental design, and composition.
Timothy Maddocks, Lecturer
Timothy Maddocks, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, is a writer, researcher, and editor who teaches composition and nonfiction courses He serves as the managing editor of Sampsonia Way Magazine and as an editor for Longform.org.
Dana Nowlin-Russell, Lecturer
Dana Nowlin-Russell, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, teaches courses in the Public and Professional Writing Program, including Written Professional Communication and Grant Writing. She has several years of professional experience working in the education and mental health fields.
Samuel Pittman, Lecturer
Samuel Pittman, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, teaches in the Public and Professional Writing program and serves as a Faculty Consultant at the Writing Center. He has backgrounds in poetry, science and technical writing, ESL, and disability studies.
Renee Prymus, Lecturer
Renee Prymus, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition and Writing program, specializes in first-year composition, especially Workshop in Composition: ESL and Writing the Spiritual, along with the first-year engineering writing program.
Stephen Quigley, Lecturer
Stephen Quigley, a new Lecturer II in the Department of English’s Composition program, specializes in craft theory and critical making methodologies, along with new media writing pedagogies and digital rhetoric as viewed through an ecological framework.
Clare Russell, Lecturer
Clare Russell, a new lecturer in the Department of English’s Composition program, teaches and researches theories and pedagogies that benefit a diverse variety of writing students. She has piloted Stretch Composition programs at two different institutions and emphasizes genre awareness theory.
Film and Media Studies
John Cantine, Senior Lecturer
John Cantine is a Senior Lecturer who helps intermediate and advanced film students tell stories that explore and change their world. As a filmmaker, Cantine is interested in long-form narrative, and is currently working to complete a no-budget web series.
Hillary Demmon, Professionalization Advisor, Senior Lecturer
Hillary Demmon is a documentary filmmaker whose work explores the intersection between identity and memory, and the material objects that act as a lifeline between them. In the classroom, she seeks to create an environment that welcomes all students into the collaborative endeavor of filmmaking, emphasizing that their various identities bring richness to the table and subtract nothing.
Kevin Smith, Director of Undergraduate Studies for Broadcast and Senior Lecturer
Kevin Smith is the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Broadcast and Senior Lecturer, who is utilizing his 20 years of broadcasting experience and 20 years in the film industry to design and implement dynamic broadcasting curriculum. Whether it’s the creative, on-air, business, technical, or production elements of broadcasting, Smith’s objective is to introduce students to every aspect of the broadcast industry.
GSWS
Bridget Keown, Lecturer
Bridget Keown comes to the University of Pittsburgh from Northeastern University, where she earned her PhD in the spring of 2019. Her current research focuses on the gendered history of trauma and PTSD diagnoses, and the very different ways that military doctors treated male combatants and female nurses who faced fire during WWI. Her areas of interest, therefore, include gendered histories of medicine, gender and trauma, gender and the military, and gender and the brain.
History
Alexandra Finley, Assistant Professor
Alexandra Finley’s research focus on the role of women’s domestic, sexual, and reproductive labor in economic development. Her current book project centers the labor of enslaved women in the domestic slave trade, using four case studies to consider the ways in which traditionally feminine work, including sewing, cooking, domestic management, and boarding–facilitated the expansion of the nineteenth-century “cotton kingdom” into the lower south. Her teaching interests include African American history, women’s history, gender history, history of sexuality, southern history, the history of capitalism, and labor history.
Alissa Klots, Assistant Professor
Alissa Klots is a specialist in Russian and Soviet history. Her first book, The Kitchen Maid That Will Rule The State: Domestic Service in the Soviet Union, uses archival documents, Soviet press publications, works of fiction and film, and memoirs and oral interviews to analyze how domestic workers, their employers, and the state each made sense of paid domestic labor while building socialism.
History and Philosophy of Science
Jonathan Fuller, Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science
Jonathan Fuller’s main research interest is the philosophy of medicine, especially the nature of disease and medical evidence. He graduated from the University of Toronto’s MD-PhD Program in 2019, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology from 2018-19.
Marian Gilton, Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science
Marian Gilton is a philosopher of physics focusing on questions about the nature of fundamental properties, the role that these properties play in the foundations of physics, and the historical development of physical theories from the ancient world onwards. She joins the department of History and Philosophy of Science after completing her PhD in the department of Logic and Philosophy of Science at UC Irvine, where she developed of pedagogical style based on intellectual virtues.
David Wallace, Mellon Chair of Philosophy of Science
David Wallace studied physics at Oxford before moving into philosophy of physics; he arrives at Pittsburgh after 20 years at Oxford and 3 years at the University of Southern California. His academic interests include symmetry and spacetime, foundations of statistical mechanics, quantum field theory, and the interpretation of quantum mechanics, especially the Everett (Many-Worlds) interpretation of quantum mechanics.
History of Art and Architecture
Sahar Hosseini, Assistant Professor
Sahar Hosseini is an architectural and urban historian, with a particular interest in cities of the Muslim world and the intertwined relationship between their socio-cultural and natural systems. Her doctoral research explored the urban history of seventeenth-century Isfahan (Iran) through the lens of its legendary Zayandehrud River.
Linguistics
Islam Farag, Instructor
Islam Farag is an Instructor of Arabic. He has been teaching foreign languages for 10 years. His interests are online teaching, using technology in teaching, and assessment.
Jillian Forschner, Instructor
Jillian Forschner is an Instructor of American Sign Language. Jillian holds a Master’s degree in Education of the Deaf from Boston University, and joins us from the Marie Philip School in Massachusetts, with almost 20 years of ASL teaching experience.
Daniel Hatfield, Instructor
Daniel Hatfield received his MA in Applied Linguistics from Pitt and has worked as an English language instructor both within the United States and abroad in Bahrain. His interests include language policy, refugee resettlement, and teaching English as a second language.
Jevon Heath, Lecturer
Jevon Heath is a Lecturer in the Linguistics Department and Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is interested in why people have different linguistic behavior and different expectations about language in different circumstances. His current research focuses on the relationship between phonetic, lexical, and syntactic accommodation, and on the effects of attention on phonetic perception. Other interests include language change, linguistic typology, and linguistics in science fiction.
Mathematics
Carl Wang-Erickson, Assistant Professor
Carl Wang-Erickson’s research specialty is in number theory and involves cutting-edge mathematics related to the celebrated Fermat’s Last Theorem. Wang-Erickson comes to us with extensive teaching experience at Brandeis University and at Harvard University, and experience with research mentorship including work as a counselor in PROMYS, a top high school mathematics program.
Music
Nicole Mitchell Gantt, William S. Dietrich II Endowed Chair in Jazz Studies, Professor, Director of Jazz Studies, Director of Creative Arts Ensemble
Award winning flutist/composer/improviser Nicole Mitchell Gantt’s creative work interacts freely between the realms of jazz, creative music and Western new music, mostly through the creation and performance of music composition for contemporary ensembles of varied instrumentation and size that incorporate improvisation and a wide aesthetic expression. In unwrapping the rich topic of contemporary African American culture, her creative work, teaching and service explores subtopics such as diversity, coexistence, inclusivity, Black identity, mystery, and the amplification of women’s voices. Recent courses include Sounds of Resistance: Black Music and Social Justice, Hip Hop Philosophy, Jazz History, Creative Arts Ensemble, and Message Music Composition.
Neuroscience
Chengcheng Huang, Assistant Professor
Chengcheng Huang is a computational neuroscientist and her research interests focus on neuronal network dynamics and neural coding. She is currently working on interactions between cortical areas and information transmission. Her classroom teaching will focus on computational neuroscience and mathematical modeling.
Shawn Sorrells, Assistant Professor
Shawn Sorrells’ research focuses on the neuroanatomical plasticity that occurs during childhood and adolescence, and into adulthood. His laboratory studies the cellular basis of this development, flexibility in these processes, and ways that they go awry in neuropsychiatric illnesses. His classroom teaching is in the area of developmental neurobiology.
Yao Wang, Research Assistant Professor
Yao Wang’s research focuses on the molecular mechanism underlying drug addiction. His particular expertise is in designing viral vectors to manipulate specific molecular components of neural circuits related to drug addiction.
Philosophy
Kevin Dorst, Assistant Professor
Kevin Dorst joins the Department of Philosophy having received his PhD from MIT. His research centers on the theories of knowledge, probability, linguistic meaning, and their interactions. An important branch of Kevin’s research explores what these theories can teach us about how to interpret the work of psychologists and cognitive scientists, in particular by introducing nuance and qualification into findings about putative ‘biases’ of reasoning.
Kate Stanton, Assistant Professor
Kate Stanton joins the Department of Philosophy (with a secondary appointment in Linguistics) having received her PhD from Yale University. Her research, which is informed by the resources and techniques of empirical semantics, explores the hypothesis that speakers are able to dynamically transform or ‘edit’ the meanings of the words they use. Though Kate draws on her working knowledge of German, Hindi, French, and Tamil in this task, she also sheds light on questions of meaning by investigating philosophically overlooked mechanisms of communication like winks, nudges, and air quotes.
Physics and Astronomy
Tom Purdy, Assistant Professor
Tom Purdy comes to us from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he was a staff member. Purdy is establishing an experimental research lab at Pitt which will investigate the physics and applications of nano-scale mechanical resonators, essentially tiny springs which vibrate and can interact with light photons. These have potential applications in storing quantum information, with direct relevance to building quantum computers.
Joerg Stelzer, Research Assistant Professor
Joerg Stelzer joins our high energy physics experiment group and will remain primarily in residence at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, working on the ATLAS experiment. Joerg’s area of specialization is the experiment’s crucial trigger software, which sorts through 600 million particle collisions per second to pick out the rare ones which might reveal interesting new physics.
Political Science
Donghyun (Danny) Choi, Assistant Professor
Donghyun (Danny) Choi’s research focuses on democratic representation, political behavior, and identity politics in the developing world, and beyond. He is currently working on a book project, Severed Connections: Intraparty Politics and Representation in Democratic Africa, and his article “Parochialism, Social Norms, and Discrimination against Immigrants” was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Psychology
Travis Alvarez, Lecturer
Travis Alvarez’s teaching interests are in the area of Cognitive Psychology and Research Methods. Additionally, he is committed to strong mentorship, and will be taking over as the Director for the Psychology Hot Metal Bridge Program.
Jill Cyranowski, Director, Clinical Psychology Center, Associate Professor
Jill Cyranwoski will be serving as the Director of the Psychology Clinic operated by the Clinical Program within the Department of Psychology. Her teaching interests are in the area of professional, ethical, and multicultural training in Clinical Psychology.
Diana Leyva, Associate Professor
Diana Leyva’s program of research examines familial practices that support the development of preschool children’s language, literacy, and math development in ethnically diverse communities. Her teaching interests are in the area of Developmental Psychology.
Rebecca Reed, Assistant Professor
Rebecca Reed’s program of research examines the role of emotion regulation and relationship dynamics on immune function and immunological aging, and her teaching interests are in the area of Health Psychology.
Religious Studies
Cuilan Liu, Assistant Professor
Cuilan Liu joins us as Assistant Professor of Religious Studies with a focus on religion in China. She joins us from Victoria University/University of Toronto where she taught for three years after post-docs at McGill and Munich. She earned her PhD from Harvard in 2014. She studies Buddhism in China and Tibet and her research focuses on relations between Buddhism and the state as well as Buddhist monastic life. She has a book under contract with Harvard University Press, Stringless Zither: Law, Performing Arts, and the State-Religion Relationship in Buddhism. She is also a documentary film-maker currently working on a documentary about the hegotiation of gender, ethnicity, education, and non-sectarianism in the world’s largest Buddhist Seminary in Southwest China, where Chinese and Tibetans co-inhabit to study and practice Buddhism.
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Olga Kilmova, Lecturer and Acting Director
Olga Klimova joins the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures as a Lecturer and Acting Director of the Russian Program. She holds an MSEd in Instructional Technology from Duquesne University, an MA and a PhD in Russian Literature and Culture from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MA in Popular Culture from Brock University (Canada). Klimova has been teaching Russian language, literature, and culture courses in Pitt’s Slavic Department since 2005 as a graduate assistant, and, later, as a Visiting Lecturer. She has also taught a variety of language, literature, culture, and film courses at Carnegie Mellon University, Brock University, Mercyhurst University, Chatham University, and Washington and Jefferson College.
Klimova has received extensive training in second language teaching methodologies, educational technologies, and online teaching at Pitt, Duquesne University, the University of Hawaiʻi, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Iowa. Her academic interests include visual and popular culture of the late-Soviet and post-Soviet periods, Kazakh and Belarusian cinema, Chernobyl culture, instructional technology, instructional design, online teaching and learning, and curriculum development. She is also a program director of The STARTALK Russian Summer School and a regional chair for the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Olympiada of Spoken Russian.
Marcela Michalkova, Director of Slovak Studies
Marcela Michálková, whose areas of expertise include West Slavic linguistics, Russian language and culture, the methodology of language teaching, and Americana studies, has masters’ degrees from both P. J. Šafárik University in Prešov, Slovak Republic, and The University of Tromsø, Norway, and she received her doctorate in 1999 from The Ohio State University. Michálková takes over the position recently vacated by the late Professor Martin Votruba.
Statistics
Joshua Cape, Assistant Professor
Broadly speaking, Professor Cape’s research involves the theoretical and applied study of networks and complex data problems; carrying out this work requires the development and application of tools rooted in statistics, applied mathematics, and machine learning, among other areas. Cape’s recent research includes matrix-based spectral analysis of latent space network models and diffusion MRI connectome data sets.
Christopher McKennan, Assistant Professor
Professor Christopher McKennan is interested in developing statistical methods to uncover new biology in high-throughput genomic, proteomic, microbiomic and metabolomic data. While his research is first and foremost motivated by the scientific questions of interest, he is particularly interested in random matrix theory, high-dimensional covariance estimation, latent confounding, non-random missing data and Bayesian inference without a likelihood.
Theatre Arts
Ricardo A. Vila-Roger, Lecturer
Lecturer Ricardo A. Vila-Roger is a Pittsburgh-based actor, singer, and director. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder where he studied acting, directing, and voice. While in CO, he worked as an actor, singer, director, scenic painter, and properties designer and studied performance techniques under numerous teachers (including a week-long Shakespeare intensive with Martin Jenkins, the director of BBC Radio Drama, and a musical theatre audition intensive workshop with Ben Vereen). He received a Peak Area Performance Award (PAPA) nomination for best actor for playing Yvan in the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center Repertory Theater Company’s production of Yasmina Reza’s Art. Since moving to Pittsburgh, he has appeared in the regional premieres of Fixing King John and Orange Flower Water as well as the world premier of Oedipus and the Foul Mess in Thebes with No Name Players. He directed the regional premiere of Dead Man’s Cell Phone — the inaugural production of Organic Theatre Pittsburgh (which was named best new theater company by The Pittsburgh Post Gazette). He also directed Pittsburgh premieres of Quiara Algeria Hudes' Pulitzer Prize-winning play Water by the Spoonful and Kirsten Greenidge’s Baltimore, as well as Our Town at the University of Pittsburgh. Recent productions include the Pittsburgh premier of Gloria for The Hatch Collective, the world premiere of OJO with Bricolage, Peribañez with Quantum Theatre, and In the Heights, Nine, and Curse of the Starving Class at UP Stages.
Bria Walker, Assistant Professor/Head of MFA Program
Bria Walker is a multidisciplinary artist and serves as Assistant Professor and Head of MFA Performance Pedagogy. Regional acting credits: Crowns, A Christmas Carol, King Lear, Working, The Elephant Man, 365 Days/365 Plays (Denver Center Theatre Company); From the Mississippi Delta (Triad Stage); The Royale (St. Louis Rep); It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues (Theatre Aspen); Shakespeare on Nature (Aspen Ideas Festival); The Royale, POP!, Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet, guest singer with THE SKIVVIES(City Theatre), Momentum Festivals 2016 & 2019; Saints Tour, In the Raw Festivals, Midnight Radio(s), B.U.S. 7 & 10 (Bricolage Production Co.); By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (The REP at Point Park); Venus(Univ. Of Pittsburgh Stages); The Sisters Grey, Every Tongue Confess, Last of the Line, The all-female staged reading of Piano Lesson, & August in August (August Wilson Center); Antony & Cleopatra (Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre). Film: The Beat Goes On; Somewhere Near Here. Webseries: Wallstrip.com (CBS). Directing credits: co-director of Crowns (Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre); for colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow is enuf (SUNY New Paltz); Avenue Q (SUNY New Paltz & University of Pittsburgh); Surreality; an evening of sh*t that may be deep, staged reading of She Like Girls (SUNY New Paltz); Morning Mourning (SWAN Day Festival); Dog Shit (B.U.S. 11); Off With Her Maidenhead (The Pitch series for Merry-Go-Round Playhouse). Assistant Directing credits: Sunset Baby, Black Ballerina, From the Mississippi Delta, Topdog/Underdog, Sweet, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre). Writing credits: “Chant” - The Monologue Project; The Doll Confessions, with original writings: “Monk Monk’s Interlude” & “Tattered Love”). Ensemble/Movement based work, African American Theatre, Devising, Theatre for Social Change, and New Play Development.
Urban Studies
Poppi C. Ritacco, Lecturer
Poppi C. Ritacco is a former prosecutor and attorney for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Ritacco has taught criminal and constitutional law to federal agents and officers at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (the main federal “police academy”). Ritacco is interested in criminal justice reform particularly as it relates to policing and use of force.