FIU New Faculty Introductions
Fall 2008
Index
1. COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE & THE ARTS
Jennifer De Castroverde, Assistant Professor
Mette Tommerup, Assistant Professor
Shahin Vassigh, Assistant Professor
2.COLLEGE OF ARTS SCIENCES
Daniel Alvarez, Instructor
Andrian Ang, Assistant Professor
Whitney Bauman, Assistant Professor
Steven Blevins, Assistant Professor
Deron Burkepile, Assistant Professor
Nathaniel Cadle, Assistant Professor
Shaoming Cheng, Assistant Professor
Kathryn DePalo, Instructor
Paul Feigenbaum, Assistant Professor
Hai Guo, Assistant Professor
Sheng Guo, Assistant Professor
James Heffernan, Assistant Professor
Patricia Houle, Instructor
Xiaosheng Li, Assistant Professor
Hong Liu, Assistant Professor
Maria del Mar Logrono-Narbona, Assistant Professor
Li Ma, Instructor
Matthew Marr, Assistant Professor
Jesse Michel, Assistant Professor
Joohngho Moon, Assistant Professor
Kenneth Murray, Assistant Professor
Milena Neshkova, Assistant Professor
Victoria Pace, Assistant Professor
Jason Pearl, Assistant Professor
Magda Pearson, Instructor
Jennifer Rehage, Assistant Professor
James Riach, Assistant Professor
Laurie Shrage, Professor
Leonard Scinto, Assistant Professor
Dionne Stephens, Assistant Professor
Rebecca Vega Thurber, Assistant Professor
Ligia Collado Vides, Lecturer
Daniel Wright, Professor
3. COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIOM
Julia W. Chou, Assistant Professor
Alexandra Aguirre Rodriguez, Assistant Professor
Changjiang Wang, Assistant Professor
4.COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Laura Dinehart, Assistant Professor
Joyce Taráguila Harth, Assistant Professor
Teresa Lucas, Instructor
Prathiba Natesan, Assistant Professor
5. COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTING
Michael Christie, Instructor
Yen-Chih Huang, Assistant Professor
Chen Liu, Assistant Professor
Behrooz Mirafzal, Assistant Professor
Nezih Pala, Assistant Professor
Ming Zhao, Assistant Professor
Zhenyu Yang, Assistant Professor
6. COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
Daniel Castellanos, Clinical Assistant Professor
Pedro Lopez, Professor
C.V. Rao, Professor
Manuel Viamonte, Professor
7.COLLEGE OF NURSING & HEALTH SCIENCES
Henao Bloyer, Clinical Assistant Professor
Katherine Chadwell, Clinical Assistant Professor
Vicente Gonzalez, Clinical Assistant Professor
Anahid Kulwicki, Professor
Dennis McCarthy, Assistant Professor
Nancy L. Miller, Clinical Assistant Professor
Michelle Odai, Assistant Clinical Professor
Elizabeth Olafson, Clinical Assistant Professor
Marilys Randolph, Associate Professor
Debra Renna, Clinical Assistant Professor
Lindsey Wilkins, Clinical Assistant Professor
Marlon Wong, Clinical Assistant Professor
8. COLLEGE OF LAW
Christyno Hayes, Assistant Professor
Yordanka Valdés Delionado, Assistant Professor
9. SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM MANAGEMENT
John H. Thomas, Assistant Professor
10.STEMPEL SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Erica Gollub, Assistant Professor
Juan Liuzzi, Assistant Professor
Vijaya Narayanan, Assistant Professor
Timothy Page, Assistant Professor
Fermando M. Trevino, Dean
Jue Wang, Assistant Professor
11. UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
David Lawson, Instructor/Librarian
1. COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE & THE ARTS
Jennifer De Castroverde, Assistant Professor
Jennifer Smith De Castroverde joins FIU as an Assistant Professor in the College of Architecture and in the department of Theatre. She specializes in voice, movement, acting, and modern dramatic literature. Ms. Smith De Castroverde is an alumna of the Theater Graduate Program at the University of California, San Diego, where she taught several courses in public speaking. After completing her studies in 2002, she worked with theatrical and commercial agencies in Los Angeles and New York. As a professional SAG and AEA (eligible) actress, she has performed in diverse theatres in Los Angeles and New York including La Jolla Playhouse, A Noise Within, and Circus Theatricals. She is currently developing a course on the history of Cuban theater with noted author and Professor Jose Excarpanter.
2. COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE & THE ARTS
Mette Tommerup, Assistant Professor
Mette Tommerup, a native of Denmark, is an Assistant Professor, Painting, at the School of Art & Art History. She is an artist in Miami, represented by Fredric Snitzer Gallery, and a curator/ exhibition coordinator. She received her BFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her MFA from School of Visual Art in NYC. Ms. Tommerup’s work has been reviewed in publications including Art in America,The New York Times, and The Miami Herald, and included in journals such as Miami Contemporary Artists and Miami Arts Explosion. She has exhibited in numerous international and national venues in cities including Copenhagen, London, Berlin, New York City, and Miami.
3.COLLEGE OF ARCHITECTURE & THE ARTS
Shahin Vassigh, Assistant Professor
Shahin Vassigh has been appointed an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture. She received her Master of Architecture, Master of Urban Planning, and Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. Ms.Vassigh has extensive experience working at consultant engineering firms on a wide range of projects, and taught courses on structures and building technology. Her nationally-recognized research centers on improving structures and technology education by developing alternative teaching pedagogies that utilize digital media. She has been awarded two major federal grants for her research; both projects develop interactive learning environments using state-of-the-art computing technology.
4. COLLEGE OF ARTSSCIENCES
Daniel Alvarez, Instructor
Daniel Alvarez has been a faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies since 1999.He graduated with a degree in European History from StetsonUniversity in 1976. He subsequently earned two master’s degrees with special emphasis on theology and philosophy at HarvardUniversity. Mr. Alvarez worked for a few years in college administration in Boston, and has been teaching in Miami since 1994. He published "On the Possibility of an Evangelical Theology" in Theology Today in 1998, and "Rupp in Perspective" appeared in the April 2005 issue of Philosophy East and West. In addition to teaching core courses in religion analysis and world religions, he teaches courses on the Reformation, Protestantism, Mysticism, Religion and Violence, Contemporary Religious Thought, and Religion in America.
5.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Andrian Ang, Assistant Professor
Dr. Ang received his B.A. in International Relations from Okanagan University College, Canada, in 1998; his M.A. in Political Science from the University of Calgary, Canada, in 2001; and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri in 2008. He joins the Department of Political Science. His research and teaching specializations include voting behavior, public opinion, and parties, campaigns, and elections.
6.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Whitney Bauman, Assistant Professor
Dr. Bauman’s teaching and research specialization is in religious studies. In particular, he focuses on the field of religion and ecology, examining how religious beliefs, insights, doctrines, and practices shape the material-physical worlds around us. After completing a Master of Theological Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, he developed the Science and Religion Course Programat the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. During this time, he also worked for Theological Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality or TREES,a group based at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. His field work with this group, which hosted courses and forums dealing with various topics at the intersection of religious studies and environmental studies, was the foundation for her dissertation at the Graduate Theological Union. Prior to joining the FIU faculty, he worked as a Program Associate for the Forum on Religion and Ecology.
7. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Steven Blevins, Assistant Professor
Dr. Blevins received his Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Davis, with designated emphases in Critical Theory and Feminist Theory and Research. His teaching and scholarly interests include postcolonial literature and theory, transnational cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, and twentieth-century British literature and culture. Dr. Blevins’ dissertation investigates the way in which contemporary narratives and performances of migration dislodge violent colonial and postcolonial histories from their particular sites of encounter, and interrogates the politics of new transnational public cultures in transit across global terrain. His dissertation also analyzes the critical and theoretical issues surrounding the reproduction of violence within colonial, postcolonial, and neo-colonial regimes, and considers in particular the problem of responsibility and redress at the heart of postcolonial creative practices.
8. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Deron Burkepile, Assistant Professor
Dr. Burkepile joins the faculty of the Marine Science Program at the Biscayne Bay Campus. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was the Brown Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at YaleUniversity. Dr. Burkepile’s research uses experimental, observational, and statistical techniques to ask basic and applied ecological questions about how biotic and abiotic forces determine community structure and ecosystem processes. On coral reefs in the Florida Keys, he has studied the role of herbivores in driving seaweed dynamics and coral growth and the interactions between herbivory and productivity in driving seaweed abundance and community organization. His current studies in South African savannas examine the interactions among herbivore size (all the way up to elephants), fire frequency, and productivity in determining tree recruitment, plant species diversity, and nutrient cycling.
9. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Nathaniel Cadle, Assistant Professor
Dr. Cadle received his Ph.D. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008. His research and teaching interests include late-19th- and early-20th-century American literature, cultural criticism, national identity, and the history of globalization. He has published and presented papers on a diverse range of authors, including Henry James, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jack London, Lafcadio Hearn, and Abraham Cahan.
10. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Shaoming Cheng, Assistant Professor
Dr. Shaoming Cheng joins the Department of Public Administration as an Assistant Professor. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from GeorgeMasonUniversity. He previously served as a Research Assistant Professor at the Regional Research Institute at West VirginiaUniversity. Dr. Cheng’s research focuses on areas including businesses’ location strategies and location of economic activities, and the reasons why businesses prosper and decline. His dissertation and peer-reviewed journal articles have won numerous research awards including the Charles M. Tiebout Prize in Regional Science of the Western Regional Science Association, the 2006 William H. Miernyk Research Excellence Award, and Second Place Winner of the M. Jarvin Emerson Student Paper Competition of the Mid-Continent Regional Science Association. Dr. Cheng is currently serving as the Principal Investigator of a two-year research, education, and outreach integrated project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
11.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Kathryn DePalo, Instructor
Dr. DePalo is an Instructor and Undergraduate Advisor in the Department of Political Science. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from FloridaInternationalUniversity in 2006, and served as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science from 2006-2008. Her dissertation, which examines the effects of term limits on Florida’s state legislature, is currently undergoing final revisions as a book-length manuscript. Dr. DePalo’s teaching specialization is American government, and her primary research interest is state and local politics, encompassing state judicial selection, legislative behavior, and gubernatorial elections. She is currently conducting research on the effects of gender on state legislative politics and career paths of term-limited legislators, and on the impact of partisanship on state legislatures.
12.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Paul Feigenbaum, Assistant Professor
Dr. Feigenbaum recently completed his Ph.D. in the Joint Program in English and Education at the University of Michigan. His pedagogical, research, and community engagement interests include helping students learn how rhetoric and writing can advance both their individual goals and the welfare of communities. In particular, he helps students create reciprocal and egalitarian community–university relationships that focus on literacy issues and increase access to higher education among urban populations. Dr. Feigenbaum has taught a variety of first–year and upper–level writing courses, as well as EFL (English as a Foreign Language) during a stint with the Peace Corps in Uzbekistan.
13.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Hai Guo, Assistant Professor
Dr. Hai (David) Guo joins the Department of Public Administration as an Assistant Professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at GeorgiaStateUniversity and the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on state and local public finance and budgeting.
14.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Sheng Guo, Assistant Professor
Dr. Guo received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 2008. After graduation, he worked for an E-commerce start-up company in Beijing, and subsequently studied economics for two years in the graduate program at Renmin University ofChina. Dr. Guo’s current research field is applied econometrics with special focuses on switching regression analysis and its applications in household finance, consumption-based asset pricing, and intergenerational mobility.
15. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
James Heffernan, Assistant Professor
Dr. Heffernan has a joint appointment in the Southeastern Environmental Research Center (SERC), and will also work with the NSF-funded Long Term Ecological Research program on the Florida Coastal Everglades. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from ArizonaStateUniversity. Previously, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the University of Florida Water Institute and the School of Forest Resources and Conservation. Dr. Heffernan’s research aims to understand the interactions between ecological and geomorphic processes as drivers of the distribution and structure of wetlands, the consequences of that structure for nutrient transport and transformation, and the effects of human activities on those patterns and processes. His post-doctoral research at the University of Florida addresses the role of spring-fed rivers as nitrogen sinks and the relationship between nitrogen loading, algal blooms, and denitrification by bacteria.
16. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Patricia Houle, Instructor
Patricia Houle graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with her B.Sc. in Biological Sciences and her M.Sc. in Nutritional Biochemistry. She went on to work in the medical device industry, developing new tests for the assessment of human health and disease and managing research laboratories. She subsequently earned her M.Sc. in Environmental Studies and a Graduate Certificate in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at FloridaInternationalUniversity. Ms. Houle’s research, in collaboration with Drs. Zhang and Ross, used laser altimetry to study the 3D structure of pine forest and mangrove vegetation in the Everglades and the Florida Keys. She teaches undergraduate courses in the Environmental Studies Department, including Ecology of South Florida and Introduction to Environmental Science. She also collaborates with diverse faculty members on applications of remote sensing and GIS to areas of environmental research.
17.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Xiaosheng Li, Assistant Professor
Dr. Li, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics, received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA in June 2005. After graduation, he became an Acting Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.
18.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Hong Liu, Assistant Professor
Dr. Liu has a joint appointment in the Department of Environmental Studies and The Center for Tropical Plant Conservation, FairchildTropicalBotanic Garden.. After earning a B.S. from NanjingUniversity in 1989, she went on to earn a master’s degree from ClemsonUniversity in 1997 and a doctorate from FloridaInternationalUniversity in 2003. Dr. Liu is an ecologist with research interests in invasive species biology and conservation ecology. Her areas of specialization include plant mating systems, population viability analysis and plant-animal interactions (seed dispersal, insect pollination, and insect herbivory). Her current research addresses important environmental issues such as predicting horticultural plant naturalization, the role of specialized pollination mutualism in plant invasions as well as rare plant restoration. She teaches courses in restoration ecology and invasive species ecology.
19. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Maria del Mar Logrono-Narbona, Assistant Professor
Dr. Maria del Mar Logrono Narbona, a native of Spain, joins the faculty of the History Department. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2007. After earning her B.A. in History at the Universidad de Alcala de Henares, she studied modern Middle Eastern history at UC Santa Barbara. Her work centers on political movements among Syrian and Lebanese emigrants in Brazil and Argentina during the period of the French Mandate. She has authored two articles on this topic, and has presented her work at several international conferences. Dr. Logrono Narbona is currently transforming her dissertation into amonograph.
20.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Li Ma, Instructor
Li Ma, who previously served as a Visiting Professor in the Modern Language Department at FIU, is the first full-time Instructor of Chinese at the university. He earned his B.A. in English from Beijing Language and CultureUniversity, and continued his graduate studies in education at the University of Michigan. Currently, he is on the doctoral path at the University of Miami.
21.COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Matthew Marr, Assistant Professor
Dr. Marr joins the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, where he will teach courses on contemporary Japanese society and urban sociology, both in comparative and global perspectives. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2007; his M.A. in Sociology from HowardUniversity in 1997; and his B.A. in Government and Japanese with a minor in East Asian studies from the University of Notre Dame in 1993. Dr. Marr's research focuses on urban inequality and globalization, using an approach that combines ground-level qualitative fieldwork and a macro-comparative framework. He is currently developing his dissertation research, which explores the process of exiting homelessness in Los Angeles and Tokyo, into articles and a book manuscript.
22. COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
Jesse Michel, Assistant Professor
Dr. Michel joins the faculty of the Industrial/Organizational program in the Department of Psychology. He recently completed post-doctoral training, and was a Visiting Professor at the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at MichiganStateUniversity. Dr. Michel specializes in work and the family, and in particular, work-family conflicts, occupational health, and the measurement of leadership.Recently, he has been working on validating a new social-cognitive approach to the conceptualization and measurement of leadership, which he has termed “leadership coherence."