New Brandeis faculty
New full-time and visiting faculty
2007-2008 Arts & Sciences
CREATIVE ARTS
Fine Arts
Claudia Bucher (MFA, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, 2003). Ms. Bucher has been appointed as Avnet Artist-in-residence in Sculpture. She will teach two courses each semester, beginning in the fall with “Three-Dimensional Design I” and “Sculpture in the Age of New Media.” Ms. Bucher has had a number of group and solo exhibitions, and has taught at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and more recently at the Otis College of Art in Los Angeles.
Music and African and Afro-American Studies/Florence Levy Kay Fellow
Wayne G. Marshall (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2007), Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Ethnomusicology, and Lecturer in Music and African and Afro-American Studies. Dr. Marshall holds a PhD in ethnomusicology entitled “Routes, Rap, Reggae: Hearing the Histories of Hip-hop and Reggae Together.” His work focuses on popular music (in particular Reggae, Hip-hop and Reggaetón), race and technology; he also has considerable expertise in the realm of electronic studio/DJ techniques. Dr. Marshall has extensive teaching experience, having served as an instructor at institutions that include Brown University, the University of Chicago and the Harvard Extension School. In fall 2007, he will teach the course “Digital Pop from Hip-hop to Mashup.”
HUMANITIES
Classical Studies and Theater Arts/Florence Levy Kay Fellow
Eirene Visvardi (PhD, Stanford University, 2007), Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Ancient Greek Theater, and Lecturer in Classical Studies and Theater Arts. Dr. Visvardi’s research and teaching interests include Greek Tragedy, Archaic Greek Lyric, Greek Philosophy, Reception and Modern Production of Ancient Drama, Anthropological and Political Theories, and Theories of Performance and the Emotions. In line with the conventions of Florence Levy Kay Fellowships, Dr. Visvardi will teach one course each semester, beginning in fall 2007 with “The Performance and Politics of Greek Tragedy: Gender and the Emotions.”
English and American Literature
Ulka Anjaria (PhD, Stanford University, expected 2007), Assistant Professor. Ms. Anjaria will be contributing courses on postcolonial theory and global Anglophone literature to the department’s curriculum. This year she will defend her doctoral dissertation on literary realism and the politics of modernity in India from 1920-1947. She holds a B.A. in literature and anthropology from Harvard University.
Thisbe Nissen (MFA, The University of Iowa, 1997) has been appointed the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-residence in the Department of English and American Literature. Ms. Nissen is the author of Osprey Island (Knopf, 2004), The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook, with Erin Ergenbright, (Harper Collins 2002), The Good People of New York (Knopf 2001), and Out of the Girls’ Room and into the Night (University of Iowa Press, 1999). She has taught at the University of Iowa and at Columbia University. Her work has been widely received in the US and abroad, and has consistently ranked in the top ten books of the year in which each was published. Ms. Nissen will teach one course in fiction each semester in 2007-2008.
German, Russian and Asian Languages and Literature
Irina Y. Dubinina (MA, Bryn Mawr College, 2006), Lecturer in Russian, and Director of the Russian Language Program. Ms. Dubinina has taught Russian at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, Bryn Mawr College, and West Chester University. She holds a second Master’s degree, which she received in 1998, in anthropology (specializing in linguistic anthropology). Her scholarly interests include second language acquisition, in particular in relation to bilingualism and heritage speakers. She has extensive teaching experience, having created content-based courses, as well as offering a full range of beginning, intermediate and advanced Russian classes.
Yu Feng (PhD, Renmin (People’s) University of China, Beijing, 1988), Assistant Professor of Chinese, and Director of the Chinese Language Program. In 1995 Dr. Feng took up appointment at Harvard University where he worked until 2007, his last appointment there being Acting Director of the Chinese Language Program. During his Harvard career he received numerous certificates marking his distinction in teaching. Dr. Feng has presented and published widely in the field of Chinese pedagogy, and for the past several years has been a member of The College Board Chinese Advanced Placement Test Developing Committee.
Hiroko Sai-Hardebeck (MA, The University of Iowa, 1994), Lecturer in Japanese. After completing her MA, Ms. Sai-Hardebeck took up a teaching position at The College of William & Mary where she stayed for two years. She then moved to the University of Pennsylvania where she taught courses for both the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and for the Wharton School. In 2003, she relocated to the Boston area and joined the faculty of Tufts University where she taught Japanese language at all levels, from elementary to advanced.
Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Banu Eligür (PhD, Brandeis University, 2006) has been appointed the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Assistant Professor in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies for 2007-2008. Dr. Eligür wrote her doctoral dissertation on the topic of the mobilization of political Islam in Turkey from 1980 to 2002, and is working on a second book about Turkish nationalism. She is currently a research fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies. Dr. Eligür holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
Ilana Szobel (PhD, New York University, expected 2007), Assistant Professor on the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Chair in Hebrew Literature. Ms. Szobel’s dissertation examines the work of Dahlia Ravikovich (1936-2005), one of the most significant cultural figures in Israeli society since the 1967 war. In her teaching, Ms. Szobel presents the challenges posed by feminism, war and peace, family structure, economic and cultural dislocation as compelling entry points for the study of Israeli society and culture. Ms. Szobel will teach courses in English and Hebrew. She begins her appointment in January 2008.
Philosophy
Berislav Marušic (PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 2007), Assistant Professor. Dr. Marušic recently completed a dissertation entitled “Skepticism between Absurdity and Idleness,” which he describes as an attempt to formulate and defend a moderate form of skepticism compatible with successful scientific inquiry. He will be teaching courses in the area of epistemology. Dr. Marušic holds a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University.
Romance Studies
Mariya V. Kireyeva (MA in Spanish, Bowling Green State University, 2007), Lecturer in Hispanic Studies. In addition to the MA above, which focuses on Romanticism and the 19th century in the literatures of Russia and Spain, Ms. Kireyeva also has an MA from Russian State University awarded in 1998. Her thesis then was entitled “Pushkin’s Wanderer and Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress: Comparative Analysis of Two Perceptions.”
Ronnie Perelis (PhD, New York University, 2006), Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies. Dr. Perelis served as Lecturer in Spanish Language and Literature, and Sephardic Cultural History at the University of Pennsylvania from 2000 to 2004. Most recently, he was a teacher of world history, beginning Spanish, and creative writing at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Joelle Tomb (Graduate Diploma in Management, McGill University, 2004), Lecturer in French and Francophone Studies). Ms. Tomb is currently completing a master’s degree in Second Language Acquisition from the University of Montreal. She speaks four languages (French, English, Arabic and Spanish) and has worked as an instructor of French and English in corporate and government settings as well as at the Berlitz Canada Language School.
SCIENCES
Biochemistry
Douglas L. Theobald (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2001), Assistant Professor. Since 2001, Dr. Theobald has been a postdoctoral research associate in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 2005 he has also been engaged as a visiting research fellow at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, in the Department of Chemistry. His thesis was entitled “Crystallographic and thermodynamic studies of ssDNA sequence discrimination with the Oxytricha nova Telomere End Binding Protein.” Dr. Theobald’s areas of expertise include the structure and function of single-stranded nucleic acid protein complexes, and the adaptive evolution of molecular structures.
Biology
Michael T. Marr II (PhD, Cornell University, 2000), Assistant Professor. Since receiving his doctorate, entitled “Protein-nucleic acid interactions in prokaryotic transcription,” Dr. Marr has conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley as a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellow. In recent years his work has focused on investigating how metazoan cells respond to developmental and environmental signals, and how this response is manifest in changes in gene expression. Dr. Marr has also worked as an assistant instructor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.
Paul Miller (PhD, University of Bristol, 1991), Assistant Professor of Biology in the area of computational neuroscience. Dr. Miller also holds an undergraduate degree in Physics and Theoretical Physics from Cambridge University and has held postdoctoral research fellowships at Georgetown University and Brandeis, where his work has involved neural network modeling covering several areas of research, including the biochemical interactions underlying both short-term and long-term memory.
Suzanne Paradis (PhD, Harvard Medical School, 1999), Assistant Professor. Having completed her thesis, entitled “Molecular and Genetic Analysis of an Insulin Receptor-like Signaling Pathway in C. elegans,” Dr. Paradis took up a three-year appointment as postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. She then returned to Harvard Medical School in 2002, joining the laboratory of Dr. Michael Greenberg, where she conducts research on molecular mechanisms of excitatory and inhibitory synapse development in the mammalian CNS. Dr. Paradis begins her Brandeis appointment in January 2008.
Chemistry
Bing Xu (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1996), Associate Professor. After a postdoctoral fellowship at M.I.T, and a subsequent fellowship at Harvard University, Dr. Xu joined the faculty of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His research program has two major facets: the design and synthesis of biofunctional magnetic nanoparticles, and the design and synthesis of molecular hydrogels, both developing areas where the fields of chemistry and materials science are beginning to blend. Dr. Xu will join the Brandeis faculty in January 2008.
Computer Science
Antonella Di Lillo (PhD, Brandeis University, expected 2007), Lecturer. Ms. Di Lillo, a PhD candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Brandeis, obtained her MA from that department in 2003. Her research interests include Visual Pattern Recognition, medical imaging, and texture analysis (to name but a few). Over the coming year, Ms. Di Lillo will teach four courses, beginning in the fall semester with “Internet and Society” and “Programming in Java and C.”
Mathematics
Joël R. Bellaïche (PhD, Université Paris XI, 2002), Associate Professor. After having served in a number of postdoctoral positions at institutes including the Universities of Warwick, Padova, and Nice, and after a four-month residency at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, Dr. Bellaïche was appointed as Joseph Fels Ritt Assistant Professor at Columbia University. Dr. Bellaïche’s area of specialization is number theory. He will join the Brandeis faculty in January 2008.
Alan K. Haynes (PhD, University of Texas at Austin, 2006), Lecturer. Dr. Haynes’ specialization is probabilistic number theory; his current research focuses on applications of martingales to the metric theory of continued fractions. Over the course of 2007-08, Dr. Haynes will teach four courses, beginning in the fall with “Techniques of Calculus: Calculus of Several Variables,” and “Introduction to Rings and Fields.” He holds undergraduate degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and from the California Institute of Technology.
Ki Hyoung Ko (PhD, Brandeis University, 1984), Visiting Professor. Dr. Ko is on a year-long sabbatical from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology where he has worked since 1987. His expertise is in the theory of Knots and Braids, and Cryptography. Over the course of his visiting appointment, Dr. Ko will teach two courses: “Introduction to Algebra, Part I,” and “Topology I.”
SOCIAL SCIENCES
African and Afro-American Studies
Peniel E. Joseph (PhD, Temple University, 2000), Associate Professor. Dr. Joseph comes to Brandeis from SUNY-Stony Brook and is a scholar and teacher in the fields of African-American history, African Diaspora studies, African-American popular culture, and comparative racial and ethnic studies. He is the author of Waiting ‘Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America, which has been very warmly received by leading scholars as an important and authoritative contribution in an emerging field of study. Dr. Joseph was named one of the “Top Young Historians” by the History News Network in 2006.
African & Afro-American Studies (joint appointment with Politics)
Mingus Ulysses Mapps (PhD, Cornell University, 2004) Assistant Professor. Dr. Mapps is beginning a joint appointment in the Departments of African and Afro-American Studies and Politics after recently completing a Kay Postdoctoral Fellowship in the same departments. Prior to Brandeis, Dr. Mapps was an Assistant Professor of Government, Legal Studies, and Africana Studies at Bowdoin College and also served as a visiting research fellow at the Kennedy School of Government from 2000 to 2003. His research is in the areas of American and urban politics, and democracy and cultural pluralism. He is currently working on a book examining the politics of state legislative elections.
American Studies/Journalism
Eileen McNamara (M.S., Columbia University, 1976), Professor of the Practice of Journalism. Ms. McNamara has taught part-time in the Journalism Program at Brandeis since 1994, where she has offered very popular courses on media and public policy and journalistic ethics. Ms. McNamara worked for thirty years at the Boston Globe, where her work as a columnist was nationally recognized for incisive commentary and stylistic excellence, culminating in the awarding to her of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary. In addition to a degree from Columbia University, Ms. McNamara is a graduate of Barnard College and a past holder of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University.
Crown Center/Economics
Nader Habibi (PhD, Michigan State University, 1987) has been appointed as the Henry J. Leir Professor of the Economics of the Middle East, in the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics. Prior to Brandeis, Dr. Habibi was a managing director of regional analysis, specializing in the Middle East and North Africa, for Global Insight, an international economic forecasting and consulting firm. Dr. Habibi has taught courses in political economy at Yale University, micro- and macroeconomics at Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey), as well as public economics, applied econometrics, and quantitative methods at Bu Ali Sina University and other institutions in Iran.
Economics
Kathryn Graddy (PhD, Princeton University, 1993) has been appointed as Associate Professor in Economics with a secondary appointment in the International Business School. Dr. Graddy is coming to Brandeis from the University of Oxford, where she was a professor of applied economics and a Fellow of Exeter College. Dr. Graddy is an applied micro-economist whose research ranges widely from issues of loss aversion, price discrimination, industrial organization, and the economics of art and education. Her current work includes research on “player behavior” in national lotteries, comparison of resources effects on boys’ and girls’ independent schools, and empirical studies of prices and resale rates in contemporary art markets.
Andrew Seltzer (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994), Visiting Professor for 2007-2008. Dr. Seltzer is on the faculty of the Department of Economics at Royal Holloway, University of London. In addition to Royal Holloway, Dr. Seltzer has taught previously at the Universities of Illinois, Melbourne, and Sydney. At Brandeis, he will be teaching courses in econometrics and American economic history.
Politics
Kerry Chase (PhD, University of California at Los Angeles, 1998) Assistant Professor. Dr. Chase has been appointed in the area of international political economy and he will be
contributing courses in the areas of international relations and global studies to the University’s curriculum. Dr. Chase is the author of Trading Blocs: States, Firms, and Regions in the World Economy and he comes to Brandeis from Tufts University. He is presently working on a book tentatively titled Commerce, Culture, and Competition in the Global Entertainment Industry.
Jill S. Greenlee (PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 2007), Assistant Professor. Dr. Greenlee will be contributing courses on topics in American politics, including politics and the media, women and politics, race and ethnicity, Congress, political parties, and public policy to the department. Dr. Greenlee recently completed a doctoral dissertation examining the political dynamics of parenthood. She holds a B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan.
Psychology
Angela Gutchess (PhD, University of Michigan, 2004), Assistant Professor. Dr. Gutchess is beginning an appointment in the Department of Psychology and the Volen Center. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Daniel Schacter through Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research addresses the impact of healthy aging and cultural background on long-term memory and social cognition, using behavioral and functional MRI methods. She also holds a B.A. in Psychology and English and a B.S. in English Education from Boston University.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS SCHOOL
Management
Preeta Banerjee (PhD, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2006), Assistant Professor. Dr. Banerjee comes to Brandeis from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she has been an Assistant Professor of Strategy. Her doctoral dissertation introduced the concept of cross-application, the entrepreneurial effort to innovate and diversify into new areas by leveraging existing technological resources. She also holds bachelor degrees in computational biology and industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Finance
Elif Sisli Ciamarra (PhD, New York University, 2007), Assistant Professor. Dr. Ciamarra’s interests include corporate finance and governance, financial intermediation, financial institutions, international finance, and managerial economics. Her doctoral dissertation examines the presence of bank executives on boards of directors of non-financial companies and their effect on firm financing and investment decisions, and performance. She holds undergraduate degrees in economics and business administration from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.