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Academic Personnel

Meet Our Newest Faculty Cohort 2020


Anthropology
Anthony Dest, Assistant Professor
Anthony Dest

Anthony Dest is committed to supporting movements for social justice and liberation. His teaching, research, and writing explores the contours of violence and racism in Latin America. He earned his PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and his bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds a graduate certificate in Armed Conflict & Peace from La Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. His dissertation, After the War: Violence and Resistance in Colombia, was recognized as the Best Dissertation of 2019 by the Peace and Justice Studies Association. His research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Fulbright Program.

Counseling, Leadership, Literacy and Special Education
Julia Hood, Doctoral Lecturer
Julia Hood

Julia Hood is passionate about developing leaders who are committed to nurturing their followers, organizations, and communities. Her primary areas of research explore servant leadership, feminist leadership, organizational change and inclusive organizational cultures. Her dissertation, The Followers’ Journey – A Phenomenological Study of Greenleaf’s Best Test, explored the impact of servant leader on followers and offered foundational definitions for Greenleaf’s proposed list of follower outcomes. Her emerging research is challenging the assumptions of seminal leadership theories and western patriarchal biases by advocating for a more inclusive approach toward defining and understastanding effective leadership.  Julia holds a PhD in Organizational Management and Leadership, a MS in Organizational Communication and a bachelor’s degree in Communication.

Economics and Business
Hsien-Tseng Wang, Assistant Professor
Hsien-Tseng Wang

Hsien-Tseng (Elvin) Wang has been teaching at Lehman College as an adjunct lecturer since 2013, and also at Baruch College. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He also holds an MBA in finance and information systems from Baruch College. His research focuses on temporal extensions to Resource Description Framework—the foundation of the Semantic Web. Dr. Wang is also interested in business analytics and modeling augmented by the semantic web technology. His current teaching interest includes information systems, databases, spreadsheet modeling, and business analytics.

Jose E. Gomez-Gonzalez, Associate Professor
Jose Gomez

Jose did his undergraduate studies in Bogotá, Colombia. After obtaining a B.A. degree in economics from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, he pursued graduate studies at Cornell University, receiving an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Economics. His fields of interest are financial economics and real estate finance. He is passionate for teaching. He worked for the Central Bank of Colombia, holding several senior-level positions like director of the Department of Market Operations and Development. Jose also worked for several Colombian universities. He has published widely in leading economics and finance journals.

English
Eve Eure, Assistant Professor
Eve Eure

Eve Eure received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies from Smith College. She specializes in 19th century African American Literature, with a focus on the intermeshed histories of Black and Indigenous people and the visual culture of race and kinship. Her current research project, The Grammar of Kinship: Black and Native Intimacies in the 19th Century, explores the literary and legal effacement of Black and Native bonds and the new forms of kin-making and literary production that accompanied that effacement. She has presented work from the project at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), the American Studies Association (ASA), and the Critical and Ethnic Studies Association (CESA). At Lehman, she teaches courses on African American and Indigenous literatures.

I. Augustus Durham, Assistant Professor
Israel Augustus Durham

I. Augustus Durham is an assistant professor of English at Lehman College, CUNY, and his research focuses on black study from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. His current book project interrogates how melancholy catalyzes performances of genius; in so doing, he employs psychoanalysis and affect theory to chronicle the relationship between the black feminine/maternal and her "son" through the politics of abstraction in the black American literary and aesthetic canon. His work has been published in Black Camera: An International Film Journal, Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International, and Journal of Religion and Health; and he recently contributed an essay on the film Moonlight to an edited collection on the work of Tarell Alvin McCraney. Prior to this appointment, Durham was the President's Postdoctoral Fellow in English at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Matthew Caprioli, Lecturer
Matthew Caprioli

Matt Caprioli joins Lehman College this fall as a lecturer in professional writing. After majoring in English literature and psychology, he was an Arts Reporter for The Anchorage Press in Alaska before moving to New York to intern with The Paris Review. He worked in content marketing for eZ Systems and product marketing for Gig Werks, and has written about impact investing and social finance for several outlets, including HuffPost. Professor Caprioli completed the publishing program at Columbia University, and was a Hertog Fellow in the MFA program at Hunter College, during which time he wrote forewords for Shakespeare & Co. and summaries for SuperSummary.com. He was the Arts Editor at The Red Hook-Star Revue, and most recently was a Senior Editor for the financial consultancy Blue Heron Research Partners. 

His essays, poetry, and fiction have been featured in OpossumCirqueBest Gay StoriesUnderstory, and Chicken Soup for the Soul. His story on moving to New York is under adaptation for the Netflix docuseries Worn Stories.”

Health Sciences
Andrew Alto, Assistant Professor
Andrew Alto

Dr. Andrew Alto was both an undergraduate and graduate student at Lehman College. He received his B.S in Exercise Science, M.A in Health Education & Promotion, and his Ed.D in Sport and Performance Psychology. He has been teaching at Lehman for the past 4 years and will be transitioning to Assistant Professor in Fall 2020. He currently serves as the Director of the Human Performance Laboratory, and Co-chair of the undergraduate Exercise Science program. Dr Alto has coauthored research with his colleagues on topics related to muscle hypertrophy, and resistance training. Dr Alto’s research interests are the mental health benefits of resistance training, and the application of sport & performance psychology to maximize both health and performance.

Douglas J. Oberlin II, Assistant Professor
Douglas Oberlin

DJ Oberlin completed his Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology with doctoral minor in Educational Research Methodology from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro in 2016.  He completed his Masters in Exercise Physiology with a concentration in Nutrition in 2011, as well as his B.S. in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology in 2009 both from the University of Missouri.  He has worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, as well as at the Center for NeuroScience at New York University.  DJ has taught as an adjunct professor at Lehman College beginning in 2018.  He has had experience in clinical exercise physiology and exercise training in high-risk populations working at Boone Hospital Center’s Cardiac Rehabilitation, and Wellaware fitness center.  DJ’s research has included both human and animal studies in various aspects of exercise, nutrition as they relate to health, metabolism, mood, and cognition.

Elgloria Harrison
Elgloria Harrison

Dr. Elgloria Harrison is an educator, academic leader, and a clinician with over 25 years of experience as a practicing health care professional with a career focused on serving historically underrepresented populations. Dr. Harrison joins us as the Dean of the School of Health Sciences Human Services, and Nursing. She had been the Associate Dean of Academic Programs in the College of Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., since 2016, and recently as acting chair of the department of Health, Nursing and Nutrition at the same institution, with programs in Health Education, Nursing, Respiratory Therapy, and Speech Language Pathology. She previously served as chair of the department for six years from 2008-2013 and subsequently became special assistant and promoted to Associate Dean to the founding dean of the College with responsibility for academic programs, assessment, program reviews, accreditation, faculty development, student support services, and online education, among others.  An engaged scholar-practitioner with academic and industry experiences and a deep understanding of interprofessional health sciences and health services administration, Dr. Harrison was director of Clinical Operations at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital in Baltimore, MD., where she managed a $10m operating budget, and had oversight for four units (Respiratory Therapy, Pharmacy, Medical Laboratory, and Medical Radiography). As a faculty and academic leader, Dr. Harrison has a deep bench of knowledge and engagement with campus governance and has been involved in many initiatives to advance student success outcomes and the university’s mission. Dr. Harrison received her doctorate degree in Management and a Master of Science in Health Care Administration from the University of Maryland University Global Campus Largo, Maryland; and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Southern University, New Orleans, Louisiana.  She also holds a Master of Science in Strategic Communication from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Em V. Adams
Em V. Adams

Dr. Em V. Adams recently completed her PhD from Clemson University in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management where she received several awards including Graduate Researcher of the Year, a prestigious university-level award. Her cognate were in both Recreational Therapy and Clinical and Translational Science. Her dissertation was on the use of yoga to cope with stress for people in long-term care settings. Additionally, she holds a masters in Youth and Family Recreation, and she is a dually certified Recreational Therapist (CTRS) and yoga therapist (C-IAYT). Her research focuses on the treatment and prevention of violence, trauma, and toxic stress. This includes trauma and stress from racial and economic inequities, inter-generational trauma, and work-related stress, burnout, and moral injury. Her approach is at the policy level through implementing trauma informed systems, and at the individual level using mind-body approaches.

She has been an instructor at Lehman College since Jan 2019. Prior to working in academia, she worked as a Recreational Therapist in various behavioral health care settings. She was the lead recreational therapist at the Utah State Hospital for several years, and additionally worked at the Carolina Center for Behavioral Health, Center for Change (residential treatment center for eating disorders), and did consulting work to develop community programs at the Utah County and Salt Lake County women’s shelter and youth shelter.

Dr. Adams was the recipient of the 2020 Young Investigator Award from the International Association of Yoga Therapy and was recently selected as one of the Academy on Violence and Abuse 2020-2021 scholars. She currently serves as chair of the Society of Behavioral Medicine Violence and Trauma Special Interest Group.

Kezia Hercules, Lecturer
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Kezia Hercules has served as an Adjunct and Substitute Lecturer at Lehman College since 2015. She has earned her Masters Degree in Public and Healthcare Administration at Long Island University - Brooklyn, and is currently pursuing a Phd in Healthcare Administration. She teaches a wide range of courses in the Health Services Administration program at Lehman, and also serves as the Internship Coordinator for the program’s field placements. She is passionate about teaching and her fields of interest are Healthcare Finance and Human Resources Management in healthcare.

Roldos Prosser, Maria Isabel, Associate Professor
Roldos Prosser, Maria Isabel

Dr. Maria Isabel Roldós holds a Doctor in Public Health (DrPH) degree from the University of Georgia (UGA) awarded in 2012, in addition to two master’s degrees, one in Public Administration from New York University (NYU) and another in Public Policy and Economics from Georgia State University (GSU).  Her experience includes: CDC’s National Center for Injury and Violence Prevention; the NIH’s National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)’s Office of Science Policy, Strategic Planning, Assessment, Reporting and Data (OSPARD) and multiple global health appointments including: USAID; associate dean of Universidad San Francisco de Quito-Ecuador and as the highest ranking public health official in the city of Quito-Ecuador – as Health Commissioner.

Her research and practice focus are in data science and in the applications of economic evaluations in health policy to improve minorities’ health and reduce health disparities and achieve health equity.  She has conducted prevention effectiveness studies on topics of violence prevention, unintentional injuries, health services and women’s health, for example: estimated the economic burden to intimate partner violence (IPV); a population based willingness-to-pay study on child maltreatment (CM); developed an econometric model to measure the effect of drug abuse on labor productivity among Black young adults in Iowa and Georgia; conducted delphi panels amongst medical personnel to diagnose and treat HPV, among others.   Currently her focus is in the use of Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) analyses to characterize populations that experience health disparities and in developing innovative methods to improve minorities’ participation in research, practice, and programs.

History
Benjamin Holtzman, Assistant Professor
Benjamin Holtzman

Benjamin Holtzman studies the intersection of political and social history in the modern United States, with particular focus on politics, capitalism, race and class, cities, and social movements. He is the author of The Long Crisis: New York City and the Path to Neoliberalism (Oxford University Press, 2021). His writing has appeared in Modern American History, the Journal of Social History, the Journal of Urban History, and several popular publications. Holtzman was previously a postdoctoral Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Lecturing Fellow at Duke University. He received his Ph.D. in History from Brown University.

Rhiannon Dowling, Assistant Professor
Rhiannon Dowling

Rhiannon Dowling is currently an Assistant Professor of History at Lehman College. She was previously a postdoctoral research scholar at Columbia University's Harriman Institute and a fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. She received her PhD from the History Department of the University of California, Berkeley in 2017. She is presently completing a book, The Soviet War on Crime, which explores how ordinary Soviet citizens, in the course of fighting crime at the behest of the state, came to agitate against corruption and inequality.

Journalism and Media Studies
Christine McKenna, Assistant Professor
Christine McKenna

Christine McKenna is an online editor, multimedia producer and new media instructor. She graduated from the first new media class at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1995. Over the past 15 years, she has produced documentary and news sites for Time magazine, PBS, the Discovery Channel, WNYC and The Wall Street Journal. She co-founded an online production company and posted digital stories from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. In addition to her journalistic experience, Christine has worked as an investigator for death row inmates, developed health modules for UNICEF, and taught an online storytelling course at the University of Barcelona. Christine holds a bachelor's degree in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. Her courses in Multimedia Journalism include New Media and Online News Page Design and Editing. She is the editor of The Bronx Journal and the digital producer of NYCityLens.com. A portfolio of her work can be found on her website christinemckenna.com

Library
Vanessa Arce Senati, Assistant Professor
Vanessa Arce Senati

Vanessa Arce Senati started her position as Head of Reference at the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College in the Spring 2020 semester. Her library career began at Lehman, where she was a summer intern while attending library school.

Vanessa earned her Master’s in Information and Library Science from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), where she received the Dean's Scholarship Award for Educational Diversity and Excellence. She also has a MA in French from Middlebury College in Vermont, and a BA in Psychology from the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. She has worked in a variety of fields including teaching, translation, publishing, and customer service, possessing a diverse skill set that has proven invaluable in the field of librarianship.

Before Lehman College, Vanessa worked at the Hostos Community College Library. Along with a former Hostos colleague, Vanessa co-authored a chapter for an Association of College and Research Libraries publication on the intersections of Open Educational Resources and Information Literacy (currently under review). Her interests include Scholarly Communications, Open Access Publishing, Open Educational Resources, Reference Services and Information Literacy.

She lives and works in the Bronx.
Mathematics
Kevin Johnson, Lecturer
Kevin Johnson

Mr. Johnson is not new to lehman College, having served as an adjunct lecturer since 2015 and, most recently, as a substitute lecturer in mathematics. At Lehman, he teaches a broad range of courses in the Mathematics Department. He has also taught at Hostos Community College. His primary focus as an educator is in building problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. Mr Johnson earned an MS in theoretical physics from Kharkiv National University in Ukraine (1994), as well as an MA in mathematics from Lehman College (2016). In addition to his teaching at CUNY, he has had extensive experience working as a medical physicist in the Caribbean.

Tanja Haxhoviq, Lecturer
Tanja Haxhoviq

Ms. Haxhoviq is not new to Lehman College Community having served in different capacities. She joined Lehman college in 2012 as a substitute lecturer and served as a Senior Academic Adviser for Mathematics and Computer Science at Lehman since 2014 until 2020 after she was appointed as a full -time lecturer in the Department of Mathematics. Meanwhile she has been and Adjunct Lecturer since she joined Lehman in 2012. At Lehman she has taught a wide range from service courses to advanced electives for the Department of Mathematics and sometimes Department of Computer Science. Her academic interests include Number Theory, Combinatorics and Algebra. Before joining Lehman, College Ms. Haxhoviq was an adjunct lecturer at Brooklyn College and Kingsborough Community College for a long period of time. She is a Ph.D Candidate of Mathematics at the Graduate School of CUNY and has earned M.A in Mathematics(2010) and M.Phil in Mathematics(2015) from G.C CUNY.

Middle and High School Education
Rabab, Abi-Hanna, Assistant Professor
Rabab Abi-Hanna

Dr. Rabab Abi-Hanna joins the Middle and High School Department as an Assistant Professor in Mathematics Education, Lehman, College, CUNY.  She serves as co-coordinator of the Graduate Program in Middle and Secondary Mathematics Education.  She completed her doctorate in mathematics education at Montclair State University, New Jersey.  Her research interests lie in the areas of teacher education and how students learn mathematics. Dr. Abi-Hanna has actively collaborated in self-study research and focused on exploring the relationships between teaching practices and learning mathematics.  She is interested in exploring the effects of technology on student learning and its impact on their ability to connect mental structures and build deeper understanding of mathematical content. 

Dr. Abi-Hanna has published in conference proceedings and professional journals including Mathematics Teacher, and Gender, Feminism, and Queer Theory in the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices. She presented papers at conferences nationally and internationally. Most recently, she shared the findings of her study exploring how manipulative help students articulate their understanding of mathematics at The Learner Conference in Athens, Greece. At the Castle Conference in Herstmonceux, England, she was immersed in self-study research focusing on teacher education practices.  The Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA) Conference allowed her an opportunity to present her work on virtual manipulatives, and be part of a working group exploring the impact of teacher research on classroom practices and student learning.

Dr. Abi-Hanna experienced diverse professional positions ranging from adjunct professor, high school teacher, coordinator and lecturer, and a mathematics consultant.  She is a reviewer for Common Grounds Publications and Taylor and Francis’ The Educational Forum.

Music, Multimedia, Theatre & Dance
Wendell Cooper, Assistant Professor
Wendell Cooper

Wendell Cooper (aka Mx. Oops) is a New York-based artist with a focus on multimedia performance, urban dance, and queer mysticism. Their work centers hybridity, combining: dance, video design, costume, and rap. A certified yoga instructor (500hr RYT) and practitioner of Thai Yoga Massage, they are also trained in various forms of energy healing. Mx. Oops has toured across the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Cooper studied dance and religion at the George Washington University and completed an Integrated Media Arts MFA at Hunter College. They began teaching in Lehman College's Dance BA, Somatics Studies and Wellness Minor, and Multimedia Performing Arts (BFA) Programs since 2016, and is beginning a new chapter as Assistant Professor in the 2020-2021 academic year. www.mxoops.com

Social Work
Joseph Quiñones, Instructor
Joseph Quiñones

Joseph Quiñones received his MSW from Fordham University and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at Adelphi University.  His teaching experience stems to both the undergraduate and graduate level with coursework including Social Work Practice with Children and Adolescents. His experience includes early childhood intervention, community mental health care, crisis intervention, care coordination and managed health care. He served as the Program Coordinator of the In-Home Geriatric Mental Health Program at The Visiting Nurse Service of New York as well as the Social Work Development Specialist for VNSNY’s CHOICE Program. His research interest includes older gay Latino men and childhood attachment as influenced through divorce. He has been lecturing at Lehman College’s Social Work Department since 2019.

Maurice Vann, Assistant Professor
Maurice Vann

Dr. Maurice T. Vann Sr. is an educator whose primary focus is developing, implementing, and evaluating programs designed to assist returning citizens with reintegrating into the community. His work focuses on the social workers role in ensuring community and public safety. His most recent research uses Computational Social Sciences to track the pathways to youth violence for youth in Baltimore. He has worked in several corrections facilities and jails in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. In addition, he has worked in the five District and Circuit Courts in Baltimore City.

Dr. Vann’s dissertation is entitled, The Freddie Gray Uprising: Persistence and Desistance Narratives of Community-Engaged Returning Citizens. In this study, he investigates the experiences of formerly incarcerated returning citizens who became assets to the community, acting as interlocutors between the rioters and the community at large during the Baltimore Unrest of 2015. He has co-authored work concerning prison privatization in the United States, entitled; The Political Economy of Prison Privatizations,” Prison Privatization: The Many Facets of a Controversial Industry. He has designed and implemented programs intended to assist youth with the trauma of having an incarcerated parent. Dr. Vann also trained at the Center for the Children of Incarcerated Parents formerly located in Eagle Rock, CA.

Sociology

Brittany Fox-Williams, Assistant Professor

Brittany Fox-Williams

Brittany Fox-Williams earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University in 2020. She also holds a M.P.A. in Urban Policy from Columbia. Dr. Fox-William’s research and teaching specializations include race and ethnicity, social inequality, education, urban sociology, and research methods. Her current work examines the contours of racial inequality among youth in the U.S. education and justice systems—particularly as it concerns their interactions with authority figures. Her research has received funding support from the National Science Foundation and MDRC as well as recognition from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Dr. Fox-Williams is a proud HBCU graduate of Cheyney University and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.