We welcome the following individuals who have been hired to tenure-track positions beginning fall 2018:
Nigel O. M. Brissett
Assistant Professor, International Development, Community, and Environment Department
Nigel Brissett’s research focuses on how contemporary educational policies impact socio-economic opportunities for peoples of the Global South, particularly countries of the post-colonial Caribbean. His current work analyzes the intersection of global neoliberal principles and post-colonial social welfare policies, and the consequences for education. His research has focused on themes including skilled migration, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and development in the context of small island developing states. Nigel’s research is especially attentive to issues of educational access and equity for marginalized groups in the era of rapid neoliberal globalization. His teaching is informed by the constructivist educational approach, in which learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction. Nigel holds a bachelor’s degree in literatures in English and a master’s degree in government from the University of the West Indies, Mona. He received his doctorate in educational policy and leadership from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Youjin Chung
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Geography
Youjin Chung is a human geographer and sociologist with research interests in the political economy of development, feminist theory and political ecology, food and agrarian studies, and participatory visual ethnography, with a regional focus on eastern and southern Africa, particularly Tanzania. Her current work examines how agrarian life and livelihoods in post-socialist Tanzania articulate with the global rush for farmland, and how these relational processes (re)shape the multidimensional identities of Tanzanians and their relationships to the state, society, and the environment. Youjin holds a dual bachelor’s degree in international studies and journalism from Korea University. She earned two master’s degrees in development studies from the University of Cambridge, and in development sociology from Cornell University. She will be receiving her doctoral degree in development sociology from Cornell this August before joining Clark in the fall.
Jack Delehanty
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
Jack Delehanty’s research examines how people develop moral commitments and deploy them in organizations, politics, and social movements. His primary current project investigates the cultural contexts of progressive religious activism, with a focus on understanding how religious progressives foster solidarity and collective action across race and class difference. A second project explores the role of religious discourse in shaping Americans’ views of national belonging. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Religion, and The Sociological Quarterly. Jack received a bachelor’s degree in religion from Carleton College and a master’s in sociology from the University of Minnesota, and he will defend his Ph.D. in sociology at Minnesota in spring 2018.
Alena Esposito
Assistant Professor, Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology
Alena Esposito is a developmental psychologist focused on cognition, language, and memory. Her research examines the development of malleable factors that support cognitive processes contributing to learning broadly and school success specifically from a socio-cultural perspective. The tools she uses to address these questions are inherently interdisciplinary, drawing from developmental and cognitive psychology as well as linguistics and education. Of primary interest are factors influencing learning and subsequent academic achievement for minority race and language students, as well as those growing up in poverty. The current application of her research is in dual language education, where she is examining cognitive and academic outcomes for both language minority and majority students. This investigation entails examining the encoding and manipulation of semantic memory and conceptual representation across languages. Alena earned her master of arts in teaching (elementary education) at East Carolina University, her doctorate in lifespan developmental psychology from North Carolina State University, and joins us from a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory University.
Amy Heberle
Assistant Professor, Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology
Amy Heberle studies the effects of poverty, social inequality, and trauma on young children’s social-emotional development. Her research is motivated by the goals of improving the effects of socio-economic disadvantage on young children’s social-emotional development, reducing children’s rates of exposure to traumatic experiences, and helping children and families thrive despite experiences of trauma and marginalization. She is particularly interested in school and community-based interventions focused on low-income children and families. In her teaching, she uses student-centered, experiential pedagogical techniques to build students’ content knowledge, analytical facility, and communication skills. In addition, by exposing students to mainstream — as well as critical — perspectives on course topics, her teaching fosters students’ capacity to critically analyze issues of social justice related to course topics. Amy holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Harvard University and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Prior to joining the faculty at Clark, Amy served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Center for Optimized Student Support at Boston College.
Kaitlyn Mathis
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Kate Mathis is an ecologist interested in complex species interactions, particularly those involving social insects in agroecosystems. Her research asks questions that will advance our basic understanding of ecological principles while also providing insight into real-world issues. She uses an integrated approach to her work by combining observational studies, manipulative field experiments, chemical ecology techniques, and lab experiments to learn about the ecological dynamics of species interactions and how they impact managed systems. Kate holds a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College, received her doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, and joins us from an Excellence in Research and Teaching Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona.
Morgan Ruelle
Assistant Professor, International Development, Community and Environment Department
Morgan Ruelle is a human ecologist who studies how biodiversity and indigenous knowledge contribute to food sovereignty and security in the context of climate change. His current research investigates the diversity of Ethiopia’s food legumes, including the effects of new roads and market access on farmers’ use of traditional varieties with climate-adaptive traits. He has worked with Lakota and Dakota elders from the Standing Rock Nation for more than ten years, and now is exploring the potential of ecological calendars to anticipate climate variability on the Northern Great Plains. Morgan received his B.S. in ecology & evolutionary biology from Yale University, and completed his master’s and doctorate in natural resources at Cornell University.
Roxanne Samer
Assistant Professor, Department of Visual and Performing Arts
Roxanne Samer is a feminist and queer media studies scholar. In her book manuscript, Lesbian Potentiality and Feminist Media in the 1970s, she provides a history of 1970s lesbian feminist media cultures and the creative reimagination of social life they engendered. In her second research project, Roxanne examines the shifting conditions and contexts of queer archiving and investigates recent digital conservation and historical presentation endeavors on the part of queer artists, filmmakers, and fans. Roxanne has published essays in Jump Cut, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, and Feminist Media Histories. She edited Spectator 37.2 (Fall 2017), a special issue dedicated to the study of transgender media. She is also the co-editor of Spectatorship: Shifting Theories of Gender, Sexuality, and Media (University of Texas Press, 2017). Roxanne holds a doctorate from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, a master’s in the humanities from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s in art history from Tufts University.
Florencia Sangermano
Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Geography
Florencia Sangermano is a geographer specializing in conservation GIS, remote sensing, and landscape ecology. Her research focuses on climate and land cover change impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity through the lens of geospatial analysis, with the objective of supporting conservation planning and ecosystems management. She currently is studying the development of spatial methods to aid the assessment of biodiversity offsets and the implementation of REDD+ projects, as well as the assessment of ecosystems status and conservation in Bolivia. Florencia holds a B.Sc./M.Sc. equivalent (Licenciatura) in biology from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina, and a Ph.D. in geography from Clark University.