New faculty for the 2019-20 academic year briefly describe their research and teaching interests.

Benjamin Bartlett

Department of Political Science

Dr. Bartlett's (PhD, University of California at Berkeley) teaching and research focus on the implications of information technology for international security, comparative cybersecurity policy, and security in the East Asian region. His work has been published in the Journal of Cyber Policy. Before joining Miami he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University.

Elizabeth Bell

Department of Political Science

Dr. Bell's (PhD, University of Oklahoma) teaching and research focuses on the role of politics, public management, and policy design in advancing equity in education. Her work has been published in Public Administration Review, American Educational Research Journal, and Policy Studies Journal. Her dissertation was selected for the 2019 Phi Kappa Phi Dissertation Fellowship.

Achilles Beros

Department of Mathematics

Dr. Beros (PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison) was a Temporary Assistant Professor at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa, where he helped develop a data science certificate for the mathematics department. For the last 13 years, he has taught courses ranging from precalculus and analytic geometry to graduate mathematical logic. As a researcher, he works in the fields of mathematical logic, computer science and machine learning. His papers are published in The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Fundamenta Informaticae, and The Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic as well as international conference proceedings.

Larysa Bobrova

Department of English
English Language Learner Writing Center

Dr. Bobrova (PhD, Pennsylvania State University) is an applied linguist with almost two decades of teaching experience. In her teaching, she combines rigorous theoretical enquiry with the best pedagogical practices, making the learning process productive and enjoyable. Her research focuses on second language literacy, ESL composition pedagogy, response to ESL student writing, and multimodal conceptual metaphor as a teaching tool in the second language context. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Applied Linguistics and Multimodal Communication, among others.

Wen-Ching Chuang

Western Program

Dr. Chuang's (PhD, Arizona State University) research focuses on disaster resilience. Through the lens of geospatial science, she combines conceptual frameworks of vulnerability and resilience with empirical studies on the interdependence of human and natural systems, impacts of environmental change and climate change adaptation. Her work and teaching are interdisciplinary and informed by the fields of sustainability, urban geography, and environmental management. Her research has been published in journals including Environmental Health Perspectives and Journal of Environmental Management.

Kate Dannies

Department of Global & Intercultural Studies

Dr. Dannies (PhD, Georgetown University) is a historian of the late Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East. Her research examines gender, family,  and institutions during the Ottoman First World War and the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the modern Middle East. Her teaching focuses on gender, conflict, and population in the modern Middle East and globally. She has forthcoming articles in the Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies and the International Journal of Middle East Studies.

CDR Matthew Donahue

Department of Naval Science

Commander Donahue (MBA, DePaul University), USN, is a Naval Aviator by trade, but has had a vast amount of experience over his 22-year career as a leader and manager in operational billets within the Navy and Marine Corps team. Prior to his orders to Mami, he was at United States Naval Academy where he taught economics and was the Associate Chair of the Economics Department.

Ebru Duffield

American Culture and English Program

Ebru Dirsel-Duffield earned her doctoral degree in TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include ESL teacher education, non-native English speakers, second language acquisition, and cross-cultural adaptation.

Capt Benjamin Durdle

Department of Aerospace Studies

Captain Durdle (MA, American Military University), USAF, has nearly a decade of operational experience supporting global military operations. He has provided operations support and planning efforts to Operations Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, Odyssey Dawn, Unified Protector, and Inherent Resolve. Captain Durdle has been assigned to bases in Germany, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

Theresa Evans

Department of English

Dr. Evans (PhD, Ball State University) teaches in the Professional Writing Program. She has a background in advertising and marketing communications, with teaching and research interests that include professional and technical writing, online writing instruction, commercial rhetoric, and contingency studies. Her work has been published in Rhetoric Review, The Proceedings of the Computers and Writing Conference, and the Online Literacies Open Resource (OLOR).

Carol Fabby

Department of Physics

Carol Fabby (PhD candidate, University of Cincinnati) focuses her teaching on using a strategy that builds student abilities, such as problem solving and critical thinking, for success across many disciplines.  By relating academic work to everyday, real-world situations, students learn not to be afraid of physics.  Her dissertation research is on Statistical Reasoning, which evaluates whether students use data in decision making, how they use data and the difficulties in math processes associated with probabilities.

Allison Farrell

Department of Psychology

Dr. Farrell (PhD, University of Minnesota) is a social-health psychologist studying the interplay between close relationships (parent-child, romantic relationships), stress, and physical health. Her work has been published in journals including Psychological Science, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and Health Psychology, and recognized with awards from the American Psychosomatic Society and the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.

Capt Michael Fitzgerald

Department of Aerospace Studies

Captain Fitzgerald (MA, Northcentral University), USAF, is a Financial Management Officer with over 6 years of experience in organizational leadership, cost and budget analysis, and project management. He has served as Flight Commander for both financial services and financial management during his time in Air Force Special Operations Command. Additionally, he maintained the life cycle cost estimates in support of cyberspace and ground-level radar tracking capabilities. He has been assigned to bases in Florida and Massachusetts.

Lisa Frazier

Department of Political Science

Dr. Frazier's (PhD, Ohio State University) research and teaching interests are situated at the intersection of public administration, health policy, and complexity science. Her work leverages computational, behavioral, institutional, and systems approaches to understand and address complex problems related to human health. This includes using system dynamics to model endogenous enrollment patterns in Medicaid administration, and using cognitive psychology and Bayesian logic to teach students about health-related decision making.

Saruna Ghimire

Department of Sociology & Gerontology

Dr. Ghimire's (PhD, University of Nevada Las Vegas) research focuses on health and well-being in late life and understanding the determinants of healthy aging. After completing her Master's in Public Health in England, Dr. Ghimire returned to her native country of Nepal where she spent four years as an Assistant Professor and Public Health Program Coordinator at Valley College in Kathmandu. Dr. Ghimire has extensive research experience, including collaborations with researchers around the globe.

Lt Col Matthew Goodman

Department of Aerospace Studies

Lt Col Goodman (MA, University of Oklahoma), USAF, has over 22 years of operational experience in air defense, multinational/coalition operations, Air Mobility (aerial refueling, airlift, aeromedical evacuation, and humanitarian operations), leadership, and as an instructor.  He has been assigned to bases in Delaware, Washington DC, Texas, Iceland and Germany.

Jeffrey Hunger

Department of Psychology

Dr. Hunger is a social psychologist whose research and teaching focuses on the health consequences of stigma and discrimination. His research has been published in journals such as Health Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and JAMA Pediatrics. He is frequently featured in popular press outlets such as the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.

Donghyung Lee

Department of Statistics

Dr. Lee's (PhD, Stony Brook University) research goal is to develop statistical methods/software for analyzing modern high-throughput human genomics data and utilize them to identify and characterize genetic variants associated with human phenotypes and diseases. In particular, his recent work focuses on the development of statistical methods for analyzing large scale datasets generated from genome-wide association studies, whole genome/exome sequencing studies and the next generation single-cell sequencing studies. Before joining Miami, he worked as a Computational Scientist at the Jackson Laboratory.

John Mauk

Department of English

Dr. Mauk (PhD, Bowling Green State University) studies both rhetoric and literary fiction. He has developed four writing textbooks and a collection of stories, Field Notes for the Earthbound. He has been published in College English and a range of literary journals such as Arts and Letters, Salamander, and New Millennium Writings. In 2017, he was elected Sigma Tau Delta professor of the year at Miami University.

Jeffrey Messinger

Department of Statistics

After teaching for 2 years at Miami University, Mr. Messinger (Master of Statistics, Miami University) is now joining the faculty ranks in the Statistics Department as an assistant lecturer. A former Masters Student in Miami University's Statistics Department with intern experience at Procter & Gamble, he currently teaches many of the intro statistics courses with a focus of bringing in real world experience and data for students to explore.

Jill Page

Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Professor Page (MS, Florida State University) has taught at Miami University for 4 years in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department and is now joining the faculty as an assistant lecturer. She teaches general chemistry for majors and non-majors and is working to expand the Department's online presence.

Yuridia Ramírez

Department of Global & Intercultural Studies

Dr. Ramírez is a community organizer, oral historian, public scholar, and Ford Foundation Fellow. Her research interests include Critical Latinx Indigeneities, environmental history, social movements, and diaspora and migration studies. She is currently working on her book manuscript, tentatively titled Indigeneity on the Move: Transborder Politics from Michoacán to North Carolina, a historic and interdisciplinary analysis of a diasporic indigenous community and their transforming sense of indigeneity.

Fred Reeder Jr.

Department of Media, Journalism and Film

Along with teaching, Reeder (MEd, University of Cincinnati) serves as business adviser for all Miami student media organizations. Prior to Miami, Reeder was a co-founder/executive editor of On Campus Sports, a national platform for college student journalists. A former AP English teacher at a National Blue Ribbon high school, Reeder was featured in Time magazine for his creation of a major journalism project. Before teaching, Reeder wrote for The Cincinnati Enquirer and has been published in Cincinnati magazine.

Jill Russell

Department of Biology

Jill M. Russell (PhD, Miami University) is a returning alum who earned both her Masters and PhD at Miami. She comes from Mount St Joseph University, where she was an Associate Professor of Biology for a decade, before deciding to move into lecturing. For the past 2 years she was a Lecturer in Biology at Indiana University East, where she taught anatomy and physiology to nursing students. Jill is thrilled to have the incredible honor of now teaching at both of her alma maters: first Mount St Joe (where she got her undergrad in Biology and became a tenured professor) and now Miami, where her heart never left. She will teach Human Anatomy and Physiology and Pathophysiology.

Adam Strantz

Department of English

Dr. Strantz (PhD, Purdue University) is a jointly appointed Assistant Professor of Professional Writing and Interactive Media Studies. He teaches courses in visual rhetoric, data visualization, accessibility, and graphic design. His research on mobile technology and locative media has been published in Computers and Composition, Kairos, and Intercom.

Alan Strautman

Department of Microbiology

Although teaching in the Microbiology department, he (PhD, Purdue University) has taught a broad range of topics in Biology during his 25-year higher education career. Prior to joining the faculty at Miami he was the Associate Dean of Science and General Education with a Ohio based college of nursing where he helped develop and oversee the curriculum for an online bachelors and master’s degree. He has taught at several Cincinnati-area universities but also at colleges and universities across the US.