Community-Engaged Teaching Fellows

2023–24 Fellows cohort

Divya Gupta

Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Program

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Gupta is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research and teaching interests focus on development and natural resource governance in the context of global change. Within this larger context, Gupta explores questions about multi-actor networks and interactions, grassroots organizations, and other local-level actors in policy learning, adoption, implementation, and diffusion.

As a Community-Engaged Fellow, Gupta networks and partners with community actors and organizations in and around the Binghamton area to build mutually beneficial partnerships. These connections are then extended into the courses on Justice and Sustainable Development, where Gupta teaches about conducting community-based research on various topics such as green infrastructure, transportation, food security, flood mitigation, and housing. Through these initiatives, she hopes students will develop research projects that not only address relevant socio-ecological and economic questions, but also have relevance for local community members and contribute to better planning, management, human health, and sustainability.

Melissa Haller

Instructor, Digital and Data Studies

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Melissa received her PhD in Geography from the University of California, Los Angeles. As an instructor, she teaches courses on data analysis and visualization, mapping and geospatial analysis, and critical data studies. She is passionate about using data science tools to make a positive impact on the local community, and her teaching has a strong emphasis on data ethics and social justice. 

As a Community Engaged Teaching Fellow, Melissa is developing a new capstone course for the DIDA program, DIDA 426: Community Practice, in which students will partner with community organizations to complete real-world projects using data and digital methods. DIDA students have already had the opportunity to develop projects with the Broome County Food Council, Broome-Tioga BOCES, and Harpur Edge, and she looks forward to both strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones through her teaching.

Robert Holahan

Associate Professor of Political Science

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Holahan received his doctorate in 2011 in Political Science from Indiana University, under the guidance of Elinor Ostrom. His research investigates environmental policy from a socio-economic perspective, particularly the production of natural resources like oil, gas, and renewable energy. In addition to teaching courses on public policy and environmental policy, he regularly teaches in the first-year research-focused Source Project and is the Faculty-in-Residence of the undergraduate volunteer research program, the Dickinson Research Team (DiRT).

As a community-engaged teacher, his Source Project course and DiRT both focus on the local Binghamton region as a laboratory for exploring social scientific and ecological research topics. In the Source Project course, for example, students all conduct an independent and original research topic within the general area of People, Politics, and the Environment. Holahan plans on incorporating the community-first model he learned as a CCE Fellow into the course by encouraging students to work with local community organizations to answer questions of importance to them. In DiRT, future research projects will similarly follow a community-first commitment to developing questions and undertaking large-scale analyses of the Binghamton region.

Wendy Martinek

Professor of Political Science

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Wendy’s research is focused on judicial politics and behavior, with particular interests in how the group nature of appellate court decision-making structures behavior. Her current projects include one investigating decision-making in the appellate courts of Ireland and another examining the off-the-bench appearances of U.S. Supreme Court justices. As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she has been working to transform an existing undergraduate judicial process class into one in which community-engaged learning is a meaningful component. The goal is to create opportunities for students to partner with organizations such as the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York and the Crime Victims Assistance Center. She envisions the class as affording students the opportunity to broaden their idea of what the law is and how legal systems operate in the everyday lives of individuals.

Peter McKenney

Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Peter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and joined Binghamton University in Fall 2020. He teaches BIOL 425 Molecular Biology Laboratory every semester. Students in the course isolate the (surprisingly abundant) antibiotic resistant bacteria present on bagged baby spinach from the grocery store and characterize their antibiotic resistance genes. He is interested in developing a teaching module based on this course for high school students. 

Nirav Patel

Lecturer, Environmental Studies Program

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Professor Nirav S. Patel is a trained natural and social scientist with a PhD from Cornell University and possesses expertise in human dimensions and dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH).  As the inaugural Civic Education and Engagement and Civil Discourse Fellows (2024-25) appointed by the Chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY), Dr Patel has engaged local/state and international partners through research and education initiatives that yield collaborative experience which deepens engagements on integrative environmental science. He has developed a novel course at Binghamton University which utilizes experiential learning to teach civic engagement that occurs at the confluence of Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus, Global Health, and Urban Ecology in the Anthropocene. His course exploring the nature of place and people and its larger role in environmental communications and behavioral change, students investigate how values, attitudes, social structure, and communication affect public perceptions of environmental risk.  He has been successful in creating science-based community engagement in Broome County to engage in building collaboration for PFAS testing in food packaging linking consumer preferences and its effect on waste streams to ecological corridors.  Dr Patel utilized state funding to augment neural diverse youth to work in a sustainable hydroponic lettuce growing facility that bolsters their economic well-being for local communities.  Dr Patel is recipient of multiple fellowship awards as well as teaching excellence awards over the last decade.

Rachel Samiani

Lecturer, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Samiani's research and teaching interests include linguistic and cultural diversity in Italy, and Italian American history. For many years she has supervised interns in planning Romance Languages events which serve to engage and educate both our student body and the greater Binghamton community. More recently she has taught various culture courses and has served as Faculty in Residence for the campus Romance Languages Learning Community.

To further develop her work in community outreach and connectivity, Samiani has both adapted an existing language course and created a new "Italian Culture and Composition". Both courses create opportunities for students to partner with an area school district. They are designed to expose all students involved to the importance of continuing foreign language education and to learn about Endicott's Italian-American heritage. BU students have opportunities to learn and practice teaching pedagogy, while Union-Endicott students are able to learn about University life and Italian studies at Binghamton. The hope for both of these courses are to foster a mutually beneficial relationship between the 2 schools, grow our student population, and build research and communication skills in the target language.

Omid Ghaemmaghami

Associate Professor, Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies

Undergraduate Director - Arabic Studies

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Omid Ghaemmaghami teaches courses in Arabic, Persian, Quranic, and Islamic Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern and Ancient Mediterranean Studies (MEAMS). His research interests includes themes and topics in Islamic intellectual history and the history and literature of the Bábí and Bahá’í religions. His most recent publications includes a special issue of Hawwa: Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World (Brill Academic Publishers), dedicated to Ṭáhirih (d. 1852), the first Iranian woman to preach the equality of women and men and religious freedom. His next book, Exploring the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: The Laws and Teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, an extensive study of the most important text in the Bahá’í religion, is scheduled to be published by I.B. Tauris in early 2025. As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow through the Center of Civic Engagement, he is building capacity to more effectively offer students the opportunity to contribute to the betterment of their communities and the development of their intellectual abilities by partnering with local organizations like the American Civic Association for language exchanges and volunteer service.

Cláudia N. H. Marques

Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences

Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Cláudia She received her PhD in microbial biofilms from the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK. Her current research focuses on microbial communities, interspecies biofilms, microbial control, bacterial persister cells, and how the microorganisms interact with the host to cause infections or how they can be beneficial to the host.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow she is designing a new course where she intends to expand the collaboration with local schools to engage the students into how microorganisms live mostly as microbial communities and how they are present in our day-to-day life, their role in health and our well-being.

Stacey Pavelko

Associate Professor, Division of Speech and Language Pathology, School of Rehabilitation Sciences

Decker College of Nursing and Health

Stacey’s language disorders research is focused on parent training to increase young children's speech/language abilities and preschool teacher training through community partnerships.  Her students’ community-engaged learning is with children and families to provide assessment and therapy. 

2022–23 Fellows cohort

The CCE supports these fellows as they develop innovative applied learning classes with significant student engagement projects addressing community issues in local schools and communities.

William Eggleston 

Assistant Professor, Pharmacy Practice
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

He received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Wilkes University and completed a fellowship in clinical toxicology and emergency medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University and with the Upstate New York Poison Center in Syracuse, N.Y. Eggleston is director of the Opioid Research Center for Central New York (ORCC-NY).

Susan Flynn

Research Assistant Professor Biomedical Chemistry
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

 “If you are a researcher, you are an educator!” Susan incorporates this philosophy into her pedagogical and mentorship practice and has been awarded the Harter Family Mentoring Prize for Harpur College Faculty, the Best Individual Teaching Award in the Harpur College at BU, as well as the American Chemical Society Binghamton Distinguished Teaching Award for her mentorship. 

As Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow through the Center of Civic Engagement where she is developing strategies to set first-year students up for success and engage K-12 students with character building and STEM identity. Specifically she is focused on inquiry based elementary school discovery with character building though in person workshops.  Development of curriculum support to aid with stem identity and understanding of protein synthesis for primary school students. As well as expanding to a university based where students support each other while facing imposter syndrome and developing a community. 

Her lab’s research focuses on identifying molecular targets and improving delivery for therapeutic treatment of neurological disorders and cancer. She piloted the biomedical chemistry track for the First-year and Summer Research Immersion program and is also a faculty fellow for the External Scholarships and Undergraduate Research Center at BU where she support students with their applications. She is proud of the accomplishments of all of her mentees and their impact beyond BU.

Marta Agüero Guerra

Lecturer, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

She earned a doctorate in Hispanic applied linguistics (University of Salamanca) and a PhD in Hispanic literary and cultural studies (University of Iowa). Her research explores multimodal narratives that comment on sociopolitical issues in the Spanish-speaking world. She has taught courses in Spanish language, Hispanic cultures, and linguistics.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she co-developed and taught a course titled “Spanish in the Community” (Fall 2022). Through mutually beneficial civic engagement experiences, students in the course had the opportunity to serve the local Spanish-speaking communities while they continued improving their communicative and intercultural competence. For that purpose, students partnered with different organizations in the area, such as the American Civic Association, Literacy Volunteers of Broome/Tioga Counties, and CNY Latino Newspaper. Students tutored learners of English as a Second Language, acted as language conversation partners, helped immigrants prepare for their citizenship exams, and wrote bilingual articles focused on giving visibility to the Hispanic/Latino population in the Greater Binghamton area.

Jean Goodheart

Lecturer, Lyric Diction & Education Coordinator for Voice & Opera, Department of Music 
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

She is very interested in "Social Prescribing of the Arts" which is readily embraced by medical & arts communities in Europe & Canada and is beginning to gain a foothold in America. An enthusiastic advocate and ambassador for the arts, she believes they should be made available to individuals at every stage of their lives. She is currently overseeing a project with WSKG and 5 BU music graduate students working to address senior isolation. 

Jean is designing a new course entitled "Community Arts Partners" that will create opportunities for students to partner with area schools, museums, senior communities & hospitals to increase wellness for individuals in those communities. She envisions a future where medical & arts institutions work closely together for the benefit of human health and wellbeing following the broad definition adopted by the World Health Organization: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Vanessa Cañete Jurado

Lecturer, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Her research and teaching interests include Hispanic cultural production, audiovisual translation, transmedia fiction, adaptation studies, and discourse analysis. In her courses, Cañete Jurado encourages students to actively engage with local communities, critically analyze discursive practices, and explore the role of language and translation in social transformation. She has worked closely with local artists, activists, and grassroots organizations to develop multilingual platforms for expression, including art exhibitions, film festivals, and multimedia projects. 

Her work is dedicated to expanding collaborative and reciprocal partnerships with local schools, museums, agencies, health and legal clinics, and nonprofit organizations in order to spark an interest in and appreciation for other languages and cultures.

Hyejung Kim

Assistant professor, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership
College of Community and Public Affairs

She received her PhD in special education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her current research focuses on the intersectionality of autism and other sites of minoritization and transition from high school to college. She recently teaches special education teacher preparation courses, such as special education assessment, positive behavior support, and internship seminar. 

Hyejung became interested in community-engaged teaching and research due to the interconnectedness of teacher education programs and the community. She plans to expand her research on the educational pathway for autistic students through community-engaged learning experiences. Working with community partners would enhance the social validity of educational experiences and help develop broader perspectives on enduring issues in the local education system.  

Fernando Castro Ortiz

Lecturer, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Fernando teaches courses in Spanish language, culture, and linguistics. He holds a master’s degree in Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language and a master’s degree in Hispanic Linguistics and is interested in fostering student learning in authentic contexts beyond the classroom setting. As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, he has codeveloped a course designed to strengthen the ties between the university community and the Spanish-speaking population in the area. “Spanish in the Community” was taught for the first time in the Fall 2022 semester and included several community partnerships (local government agencies, nonprofits, and media,) which will be refined in future semesters. This class allowed students to develop their Spanish language skills and intercultural competence by working with native speakers, as well as drawing attention to the Hispanic/Latino population.

Naorah Rimkunas

Assistant Professor, Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership
College of Community and Public Affairs

Her research centers on university-school-community partnerships and the preparation of the next generation of community school professionals. Naorah leads the University-assisted Community Schools Regional Training Center for New York and New Jersey for Binghamton University Community Schools through a grant from the Netter Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania. She also co-leads the Research Lab for the Binghamton University Center for Community Schools, where she and colleague Amber Simpson connect students to community-engaged research on school mental health, STEM, and family engagement practices in local community schools. A counselor at heart, Naorah has a masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Florida and her doctorate in Community and Public Affairs from Binghamton University. 

2021–22 Fellows cohort

Mary Grace Albanese

Assistant professor of English
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Albanese’s work centers on the transnational Americas in the long 19th century. Her book project, Prophetic Power: Haiti, the United States and Black Women's Spiritual Labor reveals how African American women, including Marie Laveau, Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart, and Pauline Hopkins drew on Afro-Caribbean spiritual energies to reclaim their right to their own bodies, minds, and kinship structures. She received her PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 2017 and was a visiting doctoral student at Sciences Po, Paris from 2015–16. She is a 2019–20 Cornell Society for the Humanities Fellow.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she hopes to strengthen ties with local centers that advocate for survivors of sexual assault and develop a public-facing education program in which students can engage in community trainings, classroom visits and public events to raise awareness about intimate partner violence. She believes students, especially those trained in the historical roots of racial and sexual violence, could provide a good deal of support to the community, and that engaging with the community can help students better understand and concretize the real, material, and ethical stakes of their research.

Bennett Doughty

Clinical assistant professor
School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Doughty’s research interests primarily focus on the engagement of patients in substance use disorder treatment, particularly within the opioid epidemic. Current projects examine the integration of opioid use disorder treatment into primary care settings, patient preferences in deciding treatment as well as increasing treatment options in rural communities. Doughty earned his PharmD with honors from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy in 2016. Following graduation, he completed two years of residency training at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven, Conn., specializing in psychiatric pharmacy. He is a Board-Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist (BCPS) and a Board-Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist (BCPP).

Doughty has worked with nursing, medicine, social work, and pharmacy faculty to design and implement a new, interprofessional co-curricular program called The Rural and Underserved Service Track (TRUST). Through this program, he has developed programming for students that focuses on and involves community members working with or from underserved populations. He has also worked with faculty to develop multiple health education topics that are designed for student implementation in community member settings, including affording medications, immunizations, understanding COVID, etc. 

BrieAnna Langlie

Assistant professor of anthropology
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Langlie's research is focused on the origins and long-term sustainability of agricultural systems and foodways. She specializes in paleoethnobotany and landscape archaeology in the Andes Mountains of South America. She received her PhD from Washington University, St. Louis.

Langlie is involved the development of a Binghamton University Seed Library, and as a community-engaged teaching fellow, she hopes to start an Indigenous foods teaching garden linked to the teaching and research components of this project. She plans to integrate this work into her existing curriculum and involve community partners locally and abroad.

Jacqueline (Jackie) McGinley

Assistant professor of social work
College of Community and Public Affairs

McGinley's program of research grew out of 15 years of experience in the field of disability. During this time, she was privileged to support seriously ill clients during some of their most vulnerable moments, witnessing the emergence of a new and urgent issue: aging and end-of-life care for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Her mission as a social work scholar is to lead translational research that improves care for people with disabilities as they age, experience serious illness, and reach life’s end. As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she hopes to explore best practice as it relates to harnessing community partnerships to help develop and implement simulated learning experiences for students. 

She earned her MSW (2007) from the Rutgers University School of Social Work and her PhD (2018) from the University at Buffalo School of Social Work. She also completed a yearlong fellowship with the University of Rochester, receiving advanced research and clinical training from the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program.

Matthew Uttermark

Assistant professor of public administration
College of Community and Public Affairs

As a graduate student, Uttermark was affiliated with a public policy think tank that issued reports on education policy and state politics in Florida. He would like to engage MPA students at Binghamton in similar experiences by engaging in partnerships with local government agencies and nonprofits, particularly those focused on minority populations. 

Yuxin Wang

Research assistant professor and lecturer of Environmental Studies Program,
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Wang’s research focuses on the risk assessment of contaminants arising from society and technological development. Her primary research interests are in water quality challenges arising from human activities, developing laboratory experiments and mechanistic models, and exposure risk assessment for contaminants in natural and engineered systems (drinking water and wastewater treatment systems).

Wang and her students have collected water samples from the local community and tested them to better better understand the quality of our surface water, wastewater and drinking water. She is also beginning a study on lithium-ion battery recycling and its impact on our local environment and community, based on a proposed battery recycling plant in nearby Endicott, N.Y. Students in her fall environmental pollutions: science and policy class will be interviewing local community groups focusing on different environmental issues.

Wang was a postdoctoral associate in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University and a visiting instructor in Sustainable Engineering at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She received her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

Bridget Whearty

Assistant professor of English, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Whearty's research interests include 14th- and 15th-century English Literature; works of Geoffrey Chaucer, John Lydgate and Thomas Hoccleve; and digitization and medieval texts. She received her PhD from Stanford University and her BA from the University of Montana.

Whearty is teaching courses on medieval manuscripts in concert with a traveling "Manuscripts in the Curriculum" program that brought students unprecedented access to medieval manuscripts. She would like to find a way to also open up the study of rare books to the community more broadly. She also teaches an LGBTQ+ Middle Ages course and would like to build bridges with local LGBTQ+ community groups.

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2020–21 Fellows cohort

Emrah Akyol

Assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science

Akyol received his PhD in 2011 from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. His research interests include game theory, communications control, networks, information processing and socio-cyber-physical systems.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, he plans to develop a program in the context of the graduate level classes he teaches to introduce less privileged high school students to game theory and probability. 

Jodi Dowthwaite

Research assistant professor, Master of Public Health Program; Community and Global Public Health, research assistant professor

Dowthwaite received her PhD at the University of Cambridge. Her research centers on childhood origins of adult disease, particularly prevention of osteoporosis (weak bone) and sarcopenia (low muscle mass). She has expertise in assessment of the development of bone, muscle and fat using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT). Dowthwaite aims to optimize pediatric health, as it is her belief that a focus on health in childhood and adolescence builds a strong foundation for individual health throughout the lifespan. 

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she plans develop one or more long-term programs to benefit the local community that would allow students from the MPH and FRI programs to do multiple semesters of experiential learning and research while benefiting the community in key problem areas. Programs could include: exercise programs in community schools to benefit executive function and mental/physical health; family health programs geared towards increasing awareness of health risks that can be addressed via preconception, prenatal and postnatal behaviors; programs to improve access to healthy foods and exercise and improve self-efficacy related to associated health behaviors.

George Meindl

Instructor, Environmental Studies Program
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Meindl received his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. His research integrates plant ecology, evolution and toxicology with the goal of understanding how the abiotic environment mediates species interactions. As an educator, his primary goal is to inspire an appreciation for the natural world to help create responsible global citizens that support sustainability.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, he hopes to designate a new community-engaged course: Urban Ecology (ENVI 324). In this class, he wants to find ways for students to develop independent research projects that not only address a relevant ecological question, but also have relevance for local community members and that can contribute to better urban planning, urban management and human health.

David W. Mixter

Research assistant professor, Environmental Studies Program and anthropology
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Mixter received his PhD from Washington University, St. Louis. He is an archeologist interested in societal collapse and regeneration, social change, collective memory, resistance, relationality, archaeology of communities, Ancient Maya, geographic Information Systems (GIS), activity area studies, microartifacts, and soil chemistry.

Sara Velardi

Lecturer, geological sciences and environmental studies
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Velardi received her PhD from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her research and teaching interests focus on the human dimensions of agriculture and natural resources. In her teaching, Velardi incorporates community-engaged research and learning experiences for students with an interest in understanding how community engagement impacts learning and development for students and communities alike.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, she would like to figure out effective ways to include more community engagement opportunities for students in a large class (~70 students). She is also teaching an Environmental Education and Communication class in that will involve students working with environmental educators in the local area (Roberson, Waterman Conservation Center, Upper Susquehanna Coalition) to help them develop and implement environmental education programs.

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2019–20 Fellows cohort

Lauren Dula

Assistant professor of public administration
College of Community and Public Affairs

Dula earned her PhD in public affairs from Indiana University. Dula’s work concentrates on management and the voluntary sector, particularly in the areas of philanthropic board governance, performance, gender diversity and equity. She works to combine traditional public administration theories such as representative bureaucracy and institutionalism with social theories through the study of nonprofits and the third sector.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Dula is connecting her students with the Broome County community by incorporating David Campbell's Philanthropy Incubator into her Issues in Nonprofits course. The students are responsible for working with the local nonprofit sector to evaluate and select a recipient for grant funding. The master's program will be holding an event to raise those funds.

Monica Majors

Assistant dean, Academic Diversity and Inclusive Excellence, Dean’s Office,
Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science

Majors is informed by and conducts practitioner research. Her practice and research are rooted in connecting academe with community and fostering an inclusive climate in all spaces. She currently serves as the co-director for the Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) TRIO program and Science Technology Entry Program (STEP) — two K–12 outreach programs. In concert, she creates and oversees diversity grants and programs, industry partnerships and serves as a unit-level diversity officer.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Majors is revamping two courses: WTSN 196 and WTSN 396 Sci & Tech Entry Prg Mentors. Each undergraduate student taking the course is required to work in a dyad or triad focused on supporting local middle school and/or high school students in Johnson City or Binghamton public schools. The college students assist the program staff and other stakeholders in building and implementing STEM modules, serving as a role-model and/or mentor, or building and implementing STEM career preparation modules. The aim is to create more interest and engagement in STEM fields and empower high school students to pursue STEM fields by developing a sense of belonging and STEM identity.

Candace Mulcahy

Associate professor of special education, Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership
College of Community and Public Affairs

Mulcahy earned her doctorate in special education, behavioral disorders, from the University of Maryland, College Park. She prepares master's level special educators and conducts research on education policies and practices for children and adolescents with high incidence disabilities.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Mulcahy is enhancing the community engagement component of two courses: Introduction to Special Education and Special Education Technology. In Introduction to Special Education, students will visit area organizations that serve students with disabilities, analyze the current services against best practices and make recommendations on how the organizations support individuals with disabilities and their families, and how they could improve their practices. In Special Education Technology, students will spend time in area PK–12 classrooms and create a technology profile for a targeted PK–12 student based on that student's identified strengths and needs.

Christine Podolak

Instructor/field placement coordinator for Master of Public Health program
Decker School of Nursing

Podolak received her master of science in community health from SUNY Cortland University. She is currently the instructor for a sequence of three Master of Public Health (MPH) experiential education courses. The purpose of these courses is to prepare students to become public health professionals by providing them with real-world experiences, addressing public health issues via community engagement and learning to work effectively in an interprofessional environment.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Podolak will modify the current curriculum to develop quality community engagement experiences and learning opportunities for public health students based on the needs of the community. Additionally, she will partner with new community-based organizations on and off campus to develop mutually beneficial relationships. Furthermore, community-based and healthcare delivery organizations are partnering now more than ever to address the health and social determinant needs of populations. Exposure to these processes by methods of community-engaged learning will be a meaningful and rich experience for the MPH students.

Deborah Schechter

Visiting assistant professor of anthropology
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Schechter received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a biocultural anthropologist whose research and teaching interests focus on how dimensions of inequality affect health and well-being.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Schechter is working to develop a new graduate course, ANTH 572X Community-based Research Methods. The goal of this course is to provide training and practice in the design and implementation of research in the setting of a community-based research partnership. As appropriate and effective community engagement is the cornerstone of successful community research projects, the content of the course will cover the latest science in community-based research methods and practice. Activities will focus on initial project development, including ethical considerations in developing and maintaining community partnerships, and an introduction to research design, survey methods, interview and focus group techniques, and elementary quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Students will have the opportunity to engage directly in field research through collaboration with a local community partner.

Wendy Wall

Associate professor of history
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Wall teaches courses on the political, cultural, and social history of the 20th-century U.S., and is the associate director of Binghamton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH). A former journalist with a PhD from Stanford University, she is the author of various scholarly works exploring the intertwined issues of race, ethnicity, religion, citizenship and politics from the late 19th century through the 1960s.

As a Community Engaged Teaching Fellow, Wall is developing a new seminar on public history for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. She will bring in speakers who have worked as museum curators, county historians, superintendents at national historic sites, and historical consultants to law firms, corporations, government agencies and Hollywood filmmakers. She will also help her students develop projects benefiting local organizations like the Endicott History and Heritage Center, TechWorks! and Binghamton University Library’s Center for the Study of the 1960s.

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2018–19 Fellows cohort

Congrui Jin

Assistant professor of mechanical engineering
Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science

Jin received her Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. Her research group has a long-standing history of extensive outreach activities at local K-12 schools. She has organized three campus visits for K-12 students aged 8 to 11 to give them the opportunity to visit research laboratories as well as interact with undergraduate and graduate students. She was also a contributing author for the "Ask a Scientist" column in Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin, answering the STEM questions received from local K-12 classrooms.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Jin will develop two courses into community-engaged learning courses: ME 577 Mechanics in Energy Applications and ME 572 Big Data Science in Mechanics. Each graduate student taking the course is required to pair with two high-school students for the preparation and presentation of a course project. The aim is to inspire high school students to pursue STEM fields and develop their appreciation for the role of science and technology in addressing today's energy and sustainability challenges.

Bryan Kirschen

Assistant professor of Romance languages and literatures; Linguistics Program
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Kirschen holds a joint title in the Department of Romance Languages and the Linguistics Program. Prior to arriving at Binghamton University, he received his PhD in Hispanic linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

As a Community-Engaged Teaching Fellow, Kirschen will develop two courses that implement civic engagement so as to enrich the learning experience of his students, while fostering connections with local communities. His Language Endangerment and Linguistic Revitalization course (spring 2019) and Judeo-Spanish course (fall 2019) will include several community partnerships and visits that will allow students to not only learn about different languages, cultures, and histories, but also engage in efforts of documentation.

Judith Quaranta 

Assistant professor of nursing
Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Quaranta '79, MS '98, PhD '13, holds certifications in pediatrics and asthma education with an emphasis in community health nursing. She is also a distinguished fellow in the National Academy of Practice of Nursing.

As a community-engaged fellow, Quaranta will continue to partner with the community to provide asthma education to the children and families in the local community. Through Nursing 499, Asthma-based Research, Binghamton University students are trained as asthma educators, become certified facilitators for the American Lung Association, and implement a variety of asthma programs. Each student is also CITI trained and participates in the research process, with the realization that unless we measure outcomes, we don't know the level of our success in effecting change in asthma outcomes. In spring 2019 students will continue to present vaping education to the Vestal School District using the curriculum they developed in fall 2018. Learn more about Quaranta's previous community-based work on the CCE website.

Matthew Sanger

Assistant professor of anthropology; director of the public archaeology program 
Harpur College of Arts and Sciences

Sanger holds a PhD in anthropology from Columbia University and has worked in publicly-faced institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History, for almost two decades. He works with indigenous Native American groups and local community members when conducting research in both the American Northeast (New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania) and Southeast (South Carolina, Georgia and Florida). His upcoming Community Archaeology course (spring 2020) will include opportunities for students to engage directly with community partners as they research and preserve the history of Broome County.

Natesha Smith

Assistant professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs
College of Community and Public Affairs

Smith is a military veteran with more than 14 years of combined experience in workforce analysis, personnel management and higher education settings. As a student affairs practitioner, she primarily worked in the areas of student transitions, international service-learning, career counseling, academic advising and student conduct. She received her PhD from the University of Louisville.

Through her course, SAA 516: Helping Skills in Student Affairs, she will be connecting with international education organizations, agencies and institutions to enhance community-based learning. She is also interested in identifying academic journal and publication outlets for disseminating lessons learned, research and best practices involving community-engaged student learning.

John Zilvinskis

Assistant professor, Higher Education and Student Affairs
College of Community and Public Affairs

Prior to teaching at Binghamton University, Zilvinskis served as a research project associate with the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, where he worked with mostly data from the National Survey of Student Engagement. He received a PhD in higher education and student affairs. His research has been published in Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education and the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education.

His vision is to create a service-learning component aimed at implementing FAFSA counseling sessions for local families. This experience would be offered within an established course (SAA 580c Finance in Higher Education), presenting an opportunity for students to learn, first-hand, the barriers to access represented by the FAFSA while working with community partners to increase participation in federal aid programs. He plans to pursue funding to continue and study this project, emulating the work of University at Buffalo's FAFSA Completion Project.

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2015–16 Fellows cohort

Elizabeth Anderson

Associate professor, Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership

The Engaged Fellows program will support Elizabeth Anderson in building the capacity of early childhood education through interprofessional education and collaboration. By deepening and expanding her current engagement in the community, Anderson will refine existing partnerships between local early childhood programs and Binghamton University students to engage with issues that community members name as important. She also looks forward to networking with others and learning more about best practices for promoting and assessing student engagement.

Karen-edis Barzman

Associate professor, art history

Karen-edis Barzman is interested in pursuing civic engagement and community-based pedagogy given her discipline's concern with architecture, urban studies and questions of space (including public space) and spatial practice. Previously, Barzman's students conducted research on Binghamton's Masonic Temple, collaborating with the Office of Economic Development and the Preservation Association of the Southern Tier (P.A.S.T.) as well as local Broome County historians. She will be creating a syllabus for a new interdisciplinary course on public space and "place-making" — both the history of place-making and its future in the city of Binghamton.

John Cheng

Assistant professor, Asian and Asian American studies

John Cheng's goal for the Engaged Fellows program is to reconfigure a student digital/social media project entitled Race-ing Digital Culture which gives students the option to work with real-world organizations rather than learning as a purely intellectual exercise. One goal of the course is to counter utopian views of digital and social media that see new technology overcoming social dynamics and circumstances like race. He would like to expand the project to include additional racial minority groups and to allow cross-cultural/cross-racial comparisons. In addition, being a fellow will allow him to learn how to incorporate similar service-learning components into other courses.

Margaret Decker

Clinical assistant professor, Decker School of Nursing

Margaret Decker will be creating a new community-engaged course for undergraduate nursing students. Her students will collect oral histories from local residents to help practice interview skills relevant to future patient interaction. This project will also engage the community to help recognize and celebrate the rich local history of Binghamton.

Heather DeHaan

Associate professor of history

As a fellow, Heather DeHaan will create a course designed to encourage students to think critically about cities — how cities have changed in the 19th and 20th century, how people make cities and how cities shape human identity, culture and behavior. The course will address how cities alter the environment; the economic, ecological and power relationships that shape relations between cities and hinterlands; and how human attitudes with regard to the "ideal city" have changed over time. Her students will examine first-hand the world of Greater Binghamton, its environs and the relationship of New York City to the natural and human communities of the Southern Tier.

Elizabeth A. Mellin

Associate professor, PhD program director, College of Community and Public 

Affairs

As a fellow, Elizabeth Mellin will develop a course for the new doctoral program in CCPA. The course will bring together organizations and PhD students to develop and carry out engaged research that can make significant contributions to local communities. Mellin also aims to explore alternative career paths for PhD-trained scholars who are committed to engaged research.

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2014–15 Fellows cohort

Tania Alameda-Lawson

Assistant professor of social work
College of Community and Public Affairs

A Cuban immigrant, Alameda-Lawson's research interests center on innovative designs for collective parent, family and community engagement; full-service community schools; and interprofessional education and training programs. As a fellow, Alameda-Lawson will develop an inter-disciplinary course to assist students and community members explore how local institutions such as libraries are valuable community spaces. Her work has been published in leading education and social work journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, Research on Social Work Practice, Children and Youth Services Review and Children & Schools.

Lina Begdache

Research Assistant Professor, Health and Wellness Studies

Lina Begdache received her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology at Binghamton University and is a certified Nutrition Specialist-Scholar. She teaches courses on nutrition related diseases, metabolism, and cell and molecular biology in the departments of health and wellness studies and biology. As a fellow, Begdache will develop a course to support the integration of nutrition curriculum into local schools. Begdache is the recipient of several awards, including the Binghamton University Excellence in Teaching Graduate Student award and Outstanding Dietetics Student award which she received from the New York State Dietetic Association in May 2014. Her research interests include nutrigenomics, epigenetics, neurodegeneration and nutrition and mental distress.

Siobhan Hart

Assistant professor of anthropology

Siobhan Hart received her PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently teaches anthropology courses. The Engaged Fellows for Teaching Excellence Program will support Hart in developing a course that examines the tangible and intangible aspects of cultural heritage and current approaches that engage with contemporary local, descendant and diasporic communities. She is interested in using collaborative archaeology to confront the erasures of Native American peoples and histories in New England in the interest of broader equity and social justice efforts. Her research interests include indigenous archaeologies, community-based practice, heritage, cultural property and the dynamics of colonialism. As Co-Director of the Pocumtuck Fort Archaeology and Stewardship Project (PFASP) in Deerfield, Massachusetts, her current project engages multiple stakeholder communities in the investigation and preservation and stewardship planning for a 17th century Native American site. The project includes student research projects focused on material culture, exhibit design, and the development of community-based heritage products.

Anne Larrivee

Reference librarian

Anne Larrivee teaches bibliographic instructional classes and serves as a research liaison for anthropology, social work, human development and Africana studies. As a fellow, Larrivee will work on developing a course to provide students with a basic understanding of the roles and settings in which social workers practice, with particular emphasis on an assets-based approach to building local communities. Larrivee studied family and community services at the University of Delaware and received her Master's in Library and Informational Sciences at the University of South Florida. Larrivee also serves as an advisor to Binghamton University's Habitat for Humanity chapter.

Jennifer Stoever

Associate professor of English

Jennifer Stoever teaches courses on African American literature and race and gender representation in popular music and is director of the Binghamton University Sound Studies Collective. The Engaged Faculty Fellows Program for Teaching Excellence will support Stoever in the design and implementation of an artistic historical soundwalk in Binghamton, a project intended to provoke a better understanding of how the past of an area shapes its present and how present occupants locate themselves in the community and come to know each other. Stoever has served as a fellow at The Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, participating in the research group on Sound: Culture, Theory, Politics, and is editor-in-chief for Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog. She received her PhD in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and her dissertation, "The Contours of the Sonic Color-Line: Slavery, Segregation, and the Cultural Politics of Listening," was a 2007 finalist for the American Studies Association Dissertation Prize. Stoever is on the editorial board of the Journal of Popular Music Studies and has published in Social Text, Social Identities, The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies and Sound Effects. Her essay on "Blackboard Jungle, the cold war, and the early cultural history of tape recording" was recently published in American Quarterly (September 2011).

Jennifer Wegmann

Lecturer, health and wellness studies

Jennifer Wegmann teaches health and wellness courses to engage students in the development of personal tools important for life-long health. Her courses assist students in improving nutrition, self-care and attitudes toward wellness. As a fellow, Wegmann will design a course in collaboration with the local schools that addresses self-esteem and self-worth. Wegmann received her MA in social science from Binghamton University and has earned the ACSM Health and Fitness Instructor Certification. She was also voted as one of the top 300 College Professors by the Princeton Review. Wegmann is currently working on her PhD in the College of Community and Public Affairs and her research interests include body image and eating disorders.

Lisa Yun

Associate professor of Asian American studies and English

Lisa Yun teaches courses with special focus on literature, culture, race and Asian Americans and Asian diasporas. Her students have gone on to careers in law, education, public service, arts, scientific research and medicine. Yun also serves in several leadership positions, including her founding of the Community Engagement Program, a structured course-based platform that cultivates and supports students with a passion for service, success, and self-development. As a fellow, Yun will develop digital content and platforms and further research on local narratives of migration and belonging. Yun received her BA from Yale University and PhD from University of Texas and is the author of Coolie Speaks (Temple University Press, 2008), a groundbreaking study of the earliest Chinese labor migration to the Americas. She has also written on topics of campus hate crime, cross-racial liberatory movements and Afro-Asian cultural politics.