Faculty Experts Guide

To reach out to one of our experts, please contact:
Deserae del Campo, deserae@miami.edu

To be added to the experts guide, please contact:
Juniette Fiore, j.fiore@miami.edu

Arts | Humanities | Natural/Core Sciences | Social Sciences

 

Arts

Curtis, Brian
Associate Professor of Drawing and Painting, Department of Art & Art History

Professor Curtis is a representational painter. He is the author of a best-selling introductory perceptual drawing text, Drawing from Observation, used at over 250 colleges and universities. His research interests include the importance of traditional approaches in art making, the drawbacks of education's over-reliance on digital technology (the ecosystem of interruption technologies), the shortcomings inherent in concept-based art (postmodernism after Duchamp), the bicameral brain and the primacy of perception (take issue with the field of Neuroaesthetics as scientism rather than science), color theory, the perceptual  dynamics underlying pictorial composition, the Golden Mean (the history and tradition of Sacred Geometry in art, religion, mathematics, and science). He can also speak on art, painting, color, drawing, narrative painting, figurative painting, visual art, perceptual art, embodied art.

Drost, Lise
Associate Professor, Department of Art & Art History

Research interests and areas of expertise include printmaking and 2D Area Head.

Efrein, Jenna 
Lecturer, Department of Art & Art History

Research interests and area of expertise include glass blowing, hot, sculpting and casting, flame working, cut, grind, glue paint, glass, cold working, kiln casting, fusing, and slumping of glass. She is also versed to the areas of sculpture in wood, metal, plaster, and metal foundry. Other interests include ecology, community, out reach, conceptual and representative art, and the environment.


Lopez, J Tomas
Professor, Department of Art & Art History; Director of Electronic Media

Professor Lopez’s research interests and areas of expertise include digital imaging, visual semiotics, how the photographic medium articulates histories, photography, film theory, political protests, public transportation photographs, advertising and media.
 

Thomas, Jena
Part-Time Lecturer of Painting and Drawing, Department of Art & Art History 

Research interests and areas of expertise include painting, abstraction, abstract landscape, representation, and contemporary art.

Van Beekum, John R.
Part-time Lecturer in Photography, Department of Art & Art History

Research interests and areas of expertise include high resolution digital imaging, mass communication, photography, fine art photography, and photojournalism.

 

Humanities

Abaka, Edmund
Director of Africana Studies 
Associate Professor of History & International Studies, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise include Africa's relations with Cuba spanning the period of the slave trade through Cuba's Internationalist missions to Africa in the 1960s, 70s and 80s; The Slave Trade and the African Diaspora - the Trans-Atlantic Exchanges that characterize the Black Experience; Religion and Political Violence in Africa.

Other languages: Akan (Ghana)

Bachin, Robin
Assistant Provost for Civic and Community Engagement
Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor of History, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise include American urban, cultural, and environmental history; civic and community engagement, cities; urban design; gentrification; affordable housing; civic culture; civic engagement; community development; sustainability.

Balcerak Jackson, Brendan
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy

Areas of expertise are the philosophy of language and linguistics (linguistic meaning language use and communication): natural language semantics, language understanding, linguistic communication / Epistemology: the roles of reasoning and sense perception in knowledge, logic

Other languages: German

Balcerak Jackson, Magdalena
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy

Dr. Balcerak Jackson works on the nature and epistemic value of different cognitive capacities, especially the imagination and reasoning. Other research interests and areas of expertise include imagination, empathy, rational decision making, and creativity.

Other languages: German, Polish

Bernath, Michael
Charlton W. Tebeau Associate Professor, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise include American Civil War, American South, 19th Century U.S. History, American Intellectual and Cultural History, race, slavery, confederacy, and politics.

Bueno, Otavio
Chair and Professor, Department of Philosophy

Research interests and areas of expertise include philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic; philosophy of art, philosophy of film, philosophy of literature; theory of knowledge; science and art; scientific imaging; metaphysics.

Other languages: Portuguese

Butterman, Steven
Associate Professor of Portuguese & Brazilian Studies; Director of Portuguese Program 
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies & Scholar-in-Residence at Tulane University

Research interests and areas of expertise includeLGBT rights and cultures in Brazil and the US; Brazilian immigration to US; Brazilian cultural studies; queer studies, immigration, culture, foreign language instruction, Latin American politics, women's rights, trans rights, LGBT rights, feminism.

Other languages: Portuguese, Spanish

Connors, Logan
Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in French, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Expert in early modern and modern European culture; Enlightenment studies; early modern and modern French political cultures; theatre and the arts in France; cultural polemics; European systems of higher education; emotion and the arts; literature pedagogy; education in France and humanities education.

Davidson-Schmich, Michael
Senior Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Research interests and areas of expertise include German politics and culture, the German language, foreign language acquisition, and language pedagogy.

Other languages: German

Di Benedetto, Stephen
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Theatre Arts

Current research and publications explore scenographic design in various cultural contexts, and examine the ways in which the five senses are harnessed by artists in performance from a phenomenological perspective. He is also interested in the ways that performance can inform other disciplines.

 
Donnelly, James
Lecturer, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise include Florida history, Miami history, historic preservation.

Dreyer, June Teufel
Director of China Studies Minor
Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include Asian Politics (China, Japan, Taiwan), the UN Security Council, U.S. and Asian security issues, Sino-Japanese relations, China in general, Japan in General, Taiwan.

Evnine, Simon
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy

Research interests and areas of expertise include Metaphysics (the nature of ordinary objects), aesthetics (especially the nature of artworks and issues in literature, genre and interpretation), the arts, the role of philosophy, and the nature of reality.

Ferriss-Hill Jennifer
Associate Professor, Department of Classics

Research interests and areas of expertise include Latin poetry, especially Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Persius, and Roman Satire; ancient Greek poetry, especially Old Comedy (Aristophanes), ancient Greece; ancient Greek language, literature, and linguistics; ancient Roman; Latin language, literature, and linguistics; individual ancient authors: Aristophanes, Horace, Virgil, Catullus,  and Persius.

Other languages: Latin, Ancient Greek, Finnish

Funchion, John
Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Department of English

Research interests and areas of expertise include nineteenth-century American literature and culture; politics and art; regionalism; popular culture and media.

Goff, Krista
Assistant Professor of History, Department of History

Dr. Goff is a historian of Russian and Soviet history, with a particular expertise in post-Soviet ethnic conflicts and the Caucasus. Other research interests and areas of expertise include Russia, Chechnya, Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Ethnic conflict, Genocide, Soviet.


Green, Henry
Professor of Religious Studies and Judaic Studies, Department of Religious Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include Human rights, Middle East (especially Israel), religion and spirituality, sociology of religion, Judaism, Arab-Jews, Miami Jewry, and ethnicity.

 
Guzman, Tracy Devine
Associate Professor of Latin American Studies, Portuguese, and Spanish
Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

Research interests and areas of expertise include Brazilian and Latin American politics, culture, and society.

Other languages: Portuguese, Spanish

Hammons, Pamela
Chair and Professor, Department of English

Research interests and areas of expertise include English literature, the Renaissance, poetry, women's writing, queer and feminist theory, the humanities, LGBTQ writing, Shakespeare, the medieval period.

Heerman, Scott
Assistant Professor, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise includeslavery, race, emancipation, civil war.

Hoffman, Laura
Lecturer, Department of English

Research interests and areas of expertise include composition and rhetoric, mass communication, eduation, higher education, professional development, and faculty development.

Isogai, Eiko
Senior Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures 

Research interests and areas of expertise include foreign language acquisition and cultures.

Other languages: Japanese, Spanish

Judd, Catherine
Associate Professor, Department of English; American Studies; Women's & Gender Studies

I have published on several topics including Victorian nurses (nursing history); women writers using male pseudonyms; the English novelists Charles Kingsley and Anthony Trollope; the American 19th century novelist Henry James; and the Irish Famine. In addition, I teach several courses on the topic of Hollywood films of the 1940s and 1950s, most especially American film noir. Research interests and areas of expertise include Victorian England; the Irish Famine; American Film Noir; British nursing history; Florence Nightingale; children's literature; Henry James; Anthony Trollope; George Eliot; Charles Dickens.

Kling, David
Professor and Chair, Religious Studies

Dr. Kling is a specialist in American religious history and the history of Christianity. He can also speak on topics of baptisms and Easter.

Mack III, Henry
Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include philosophical theology, philosophy of religion, moral philosophy and ethics, Catholic studies, religion and ethics, religion and politics, higher education administration, higher education leadership, humanities and higher education, higher education and public policy.

Maldonado, Michelle G.
Professor, Department of Religious Studies
Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Education

Dr. Maldonado is an expert on Catholicism, Cuban-American and Cuban religion, Afro-Cuban culture and religion, and more broadly Latino/a, Black, Latin American religion, and feminism. Watch Dr. Maldonado and UM Student Government President Nawara Alawa speak to Channel 7′s Belkys Nery about what it was like to be in St. Peter’s Square when Francis was announced. This video shares her impressions and thoughts on being at the Vatican, and on Pope Francis being the first pope from Latin America. Research interests and areas of expertise include religion in Latin American and the Caribbean and in Latino/a and Black Communities in the U.S. with a special emphasis on African Diaspora Religions and Catholicism; Religion in Cuba.

Manzor, Lillian
Associate Professor of Spanish and Interim Chair, Department of Modern Languages
Founding Director, Cuban Theater Digital Archive

Founding member of ENCASA – Emergency Network of Cuban American Scholars and Artists for Change in US-Cuba Policy . She can talk about Cubans on the island since she travels to Cuba frequently, on Cuban culture, U.S.-Cuba relations, civil society in Cuba, travel restrictions and human rights. Dr. Manzor can also speak on Latin American Studies.

Other languages: Spanish, French, can have conversation in Italian


McCain, Maha
Artistic Director of the UM Summer Theatre Academy
Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre Arts

Research interests and areas of expertise include acting for the stage, acting for musical theatre, improvisation, children’s theatre, interpersonal communication, communications, bioethics, standardized patient training.

McCarthy, Patrick
Professor, Department of English; Cooper Fellow; Editor, James Joyce Literary Supplement

Research interests and areas of expertise include British and Irish modernist literature, science fiction, utopian and dystopian literature, textual editing, genetic criticism; special author interests: James Joyce, Malcolm Lowry, Olaf Stapledon, and Samuel Beckett.

Nesvig, Martin
Associate Professor, Department of History

Research interests and areas of expertise include history of Mexico, history of religion, the inquisition, and sociology of religion.

Other languages: Spanish, Italian (intermediate)

Newell, Catherine
Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Ecosystem Science & Policy

Professor Newell’s research explores the connections between religion and the STEM - science, technology, engineering, and medicine - fields.

O’Connor, Chris
Assistant Professor, Department of Theatre Arts

Research interests and areas of expertise include acting and directing pedagogies, producing for the non-profit theatre, performing arts, playwriting.

Quesada-Gomez, Catalina
Lecturer, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Among her research interests are 20th and 21st-century Latin American literature and culture, particularly contemporary globalization and cultural production, the neobaroque, and Cuban and Colombian studies.

Languages: Spanish, French

Rossi, Manny
Italian Program Director, UM Italian Festival Coordinator
Senior Lecturer in Italian and Spanish, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

Research interests and areas of expertise include 21st century Italian cinema, documentary and ecocinema, Italian language and linguistics, Italian poetry, Giacomo Leopardi, Italian immigration, Italy, UM Italian Film Festival, UM Italian Film Festival (UMIFF), and horror films.

Other languages: Italian, Spanish

 
Rowlands, Mark
Professor, Department of Philosophy

Research interests and areas of expertise include philosophy of the mind and theories of embodied, extended and enacted cognition.


Sanchez-Garcia, Adina
Associate Director of English Composition, Senior Lecturer, Department of English

Primary research interests have been in developing courses that address the various writing needs across the university and in a number of different disciplines with special emphasis on professional, scientific, and technical writing. Other research interests and areas of expertise include writing best practices, professional communication, scientific and technical communication, writing in the disciplines, aspirational peers, student learning outcomes, multimodal, multimedia, interactive media, information literacy.

Other languages: Spanish


Seaton, Maureen
Professor, Department of English

Maureen Seaton has authored fourteen poetry collections, both solo and collaborative—most recently, Stealth, with Sam Ace (Chax Press, 2011); Sinéad O’Connor and Her Coat of a Thousand Bluebirds, with Neil de la Flor (Sentence Book Award, Firewheel Editions, 2011); and Cave of the Yellow Volkswagen (Carnegie Mellon, 2009)—and a memoir, Sex Talks to Girls (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008, Living Out Series), winner of the Lambda Literary Award. She is co-editor, with Denise Duhamel and David Trinidad, of the anthology, Saints of Hysteria, A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry. She has received numerous honors, including the Lammy and the Iowa Poetry Prize for Furious Cooking, the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award for Venus Examines Her Breast, the Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize for Fear of Subways, the Society of Midland Authors Award for The Sea among the Cupboards, the NEA, and two Pushcart prizes.


Siegel, Harvey
Professor, Department of Philosophy

Research interests and areas of expertise include philosophy of science, philosophy of education, epistemology, argumentation, reasoning, Science Education, intelligent design, and creationism.

Stampino, Maria
Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
Professor, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures

My research deals with performance and theater in the Renaissance and with Italian women writers in the same period. I can also talk about the impact of religion (Catholicism) on politics and culture, the impact of migration on traditional cultures, and the changes in the undergraduate experience in the last 20 years. Research interests and areas of expertise also include Italy, theater, performance, women's rights, women's life experience, impact of migration on Europe, undergraduate experience, undergraduate curriculum building.

Other languages: Italian, French


Suzuki, Mihoko
Director, Center for the Humanities
Professor, Department of English

Research interests and areas of expertise include Renaissance studies, women’s literature, gender and authorship, and women and politics.

Other languages: Japanese

Turner, Giovanni
Lecturer, Department of English

Research interests and areas of expertise include English composition, African American literature, music aesthetics, entertainment law, lyricism in hip hop, and archetypal analysis with tarot.


Walsh, Robyn
Assistant Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, Department of Religious Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include the New Testament and related early Christian literature (with specialization in the Gospels and the letters of Paul); broader first-century Greco-Roman literature; Roman archaeology; Ancient Mediterranean religions and practices.

 

Natural/Core Sciences

Afkhami, Michelle
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

My lab studies the ecology, evolution, and genomics of species interactions at scales ranging from genes to communities using a combination of long term field and greenhouse experiments, mathematical modeling, and laboratory-based molecular methods. While our research spans all types of interactions, we are especially interested in positive species associations and often work with plant-microbial mutualisms, such as rhizobia, mycorrhizal fungi, and fungal endophytes. Much of our research is aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying how mutualisms work and integrating these associations into the broader foundations of ecology and evolution.


Alza, Luis
Ph.D. Biology graduate student with B.S. in Biology and minor in Ecology

Research interests and areas of expertise include evolutionary biology, population genetics, ecology, behavioral ecology, genomics, ornithology, tropical biology, marine biology, Andean biology, conservation biology, evolution, immigration, contamination, resource management.

Other languages: Spanish

 
Baker, James

Research Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Imaging Core Facility Manager

Dr. Baker's area of focus is cell biology. He studies the mechanisms that regulate and underlie ciliary development in animals (Drosophila in particular). 

Browne, William
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, da Vinci Program

Research interests and areas of expertise include evolution, animal development, embryogenesis, marine invertebrates, molecular genetics, genomics, transcription factors, gene regulation, technical diving.


Cohn, Joshua
Professor and Chair, Department of Physics

Research interests and areas of expertise include materials science, thermoelectric materials and energy conversion, low-temperature physics, superconductivity.


Collins, Kevin
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Dr. Collins' areas of focus are neuroscience, molecular and cellular biology, and behavior.


Dallman, Julia

Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Director of the CAS Zebra Facility

To decipher how mutations affect behavior, my lab uses the zebrafish Danio rerio.  We disrupt zebrafish versions of conserved genes, which are known to affect human behavior (genes linked to autism and neurodegenerative disorders), to determine their roles in the development of the neuronal circuits that underlie behavior. Using recent advances in genome editing approaches (CRISPR/Cas9), we can now reliably and efficiently make stable mutations that mimic the human mutations to better understand their impact on behaviors through lifespan. Other research interests include genetics, neurobiology, development, and animal models of inherited disease.

Galeazzi, Massimiliano
Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Physics

Research interests and areas of expertise include x-ray astrophysics and astrophysics instrumentation.

Other languages: Italian

Green, Steven
Emeritus Professor, Department of Biology

Research interests and areas of expertise include animal communication (other than bird song), particularly monkeys; conservation of tropical forests and wildlife – Africa and Asia (Not Latin America); use of statistics in research.

Gundersen, Joshua
Professor, Department of Physics

Research interests include observational cosmology at millimeter-wave and radio wavelengths.  Areas of expertise include studies of the Cosmic Microwave Background and using molecular spectroscopy to study star formation and the high redshift Universe as well as the Big Bang, black holes, dark matter, dark energy, star formation, and evolution of the universe.


Hood, Terri

Lecturer, Department of Geological Sciences
Assistant Director of the Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, Undergraduate Program

Dr. Hood’s research interests include chemical processes occurring in coastal sediments and development of new methods in electron microscopy. Her research in the last decade has focused on deciphering human impacts in coastal environments using sediment records. Dr. Hood’s particular areas of study have included the Everglades/Florida Bay ecosystem and the Mississippi River outflow region in the northern Gulf of Mexico.


Indorf, Jane
Lecturer, Department of Biology
Office of Undergraduate Research & Community Outreach
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Science Education Program

Research interests and areas of expertise include undergraduate and graduate science education, research experiences for undergraduate students, STEM education.

 
Kaifer, Angel
Senior Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education
Professor, Department of Chemistry
 

Research interests and areas of expertise include Physical organic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, electrochemistry, molecular recognition, molecular self-assembly, responsive materials, and sensors.

Other languages: Spanish


Keene, Haywood
Ph.D. Director of Education and the Exploration Science Program, Abess Center, Coral Gables
Adjunct Professor, Marine Ecosystems and Society, RSMAS

Research interests and areas of expertise include Emerging technology and media and its application in exploratory field work and education, filmmaking, documentary, mapping, technology, media, GIS, GPS, and .


Knecht, March
Director of Undergraduate Studies in Chemistry
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry

Research interests and areas of expertise include nanotechnology, biomimetic materials, chemistry, catalysis, peptide, and self-assembly.

 
Krempels, Dana
Senior Lecturer & Director of Undergraduate Studies , Department of Biology

Research interests and areas of expertise include evolutionary biology, biology and natural history of Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares, pikas), cottontails, and natural history.


Lu, Zhongmin (John)
Associate Professor, Department of Biology

Dr. Lu is interested in sensory neurobiology with the primary focus on the sense of hearing. His areas of focus are developmental biology and neuroscience.

Ramamurthy, Vaidhyanathan
Professor, Department of Chemistry

Research interests and areas of expertise include organic chemistry, photochemistry, energy and sustainability related research.


Sealy, Kathleen Sullivan
Associate Professor, Department of Biology
Ecosystem Science & Policy

Associate Professor of Biology focusing on conservation and restoration biology, tropical biology, and sargassum, the stinky seaweed washing up on Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico beaches. Other research interests and areas of expertise include coastal and marine ecology, tropical marine ecology, climate change impacts on coastal ecology, sustainable coastal development, tourism and sea level rise.

Other languages: Spanish
 

Skromne, Isaac
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Research interests and areas of expertise include embryonic developmental biology of the of the early nervous and musculoskeletal system, embryonic development, fetal development, nervous system, muscular development, skeletal development, spina bifida, chiari malformations, scoliosis, bone formation.

Other languages: Spanish

Sutcliffe, Geoff
Professor and Chair of Computer Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include artificial intelligence and logic.


Tosney, Kathryn
Professor and Director, Department of Biology

Research interests and areas of expertise include conservation and biology of marine iguanas as well as the Galapagos Islands.


Uy, Al

Aresty Chair of Tropical Ecology
Associate Professor, Department of Biology

Work in Dr. Uy’s lab explores how biodiversity is generated and maintained in nature. Their focus is in the tropics. In addition, they explore the process of mate choice and animal communication, primarily in birds and lizards. Other research interests and areas of expertise include evolution, biodiversity, biological diversity, animal behavior, mate choice, animal communication, genetics, ecology, conservation, tropical biology, and ornithology.

Other languages: Tagalog (Filipino)


Uy, Floria

Research Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Our research is focused on understanding the evolution of cooperation and the selective pressures that favor the transition from solitary life to cooperative group living. To this end, we explore the evolution of cooperation and group formation in animals by studying insect colonies that vary in their extent of sociality. We are particularly interested in answering fundamental questions that provide critical bases to understand the relationship between brain development and sociality in animals. How do social animals process information from their physical and social environment to make decisions that enhance their survival and reproductive success? In animal societies where group members are constantly interacting, how do these interactions shape brain architecture and function? Other research interests and areas of expertise include social interactions, social behavior, cognition, brain, social insects, cooperation and conflict, evolution, entomology.

Other languages: Spanish


Wang, Yunqui (Daniel)
Senior Lecturer, Department of Biology

Dr. Wang studies the genetic structure of South Florida’s slash pine population using polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers. Slash pines are a keystone species of the Everglades pine and rockland community, one of the most endangered forest types in the world. Dr. Wang’s work to characterize the genetic relationships among the remaining pineland population and identify genetically diverse seed sources, are critical steps in the race to restore pine rocklands before a major hurricane hits South Florida.


Wanless, Harold R.
Professor and Chair, Department of Geological Sciences

Dr. Wanless has an active research program documenting hurricane effects on coastal environments; and also documenting the geologic and historical evolution of the coastal and shallow marine environments, and influences of sea level rise and anthropogenic stresses. Resarch interests and areas of expertise include Coastal and Shallow Marine sedimentary environments and processes, modern and ancient;  Sea level dynamics, modern and ancient; Hurricane and other storm effects on coastal and shallow marine environments; Climate change, ice melt and sea level rise. Sedimentary petrology and sediment diagenesis; Mangrove, sea grass and reefal dynamics, modern and ancient; Climate change and sea level rise, hurricane effects; coastal stability, inundation and evolution; energy;  turkey point placement; aquifer storage and recovery and deep well injection.


Whitlock, Barbara
Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Biology

Research interests and areas of expertise include plant evolution and diversity

 

Social Sciences

Alessandri, Michael
Clinical Professor of Psychology; Assistant Chairman of Psychology
Director, Center for Autism and Related Abilities (CARD)

Research interests and areas of expertise include autism spectrum disorder, autism, intervention, early detection, adults. Can speak about all clinical topics and educational issues related to autism.


Ardren, Traci
Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology

Traci is an anthropological archaeologist interested in New World prehistoric cultures. Her research focuses on issues of identity and other forms of symbolic representation in the archaeological record, especially the ways in which differences are explained through gender.  Current preoccupations include the role of cuisine in identity formation in the later periods of Classic Maya culture and prehistoric southern Florida, as well as the ways we can read memories in ancient living spaces.  Traci directs the Matecumbe Chiefdom Project looking at the political organization and environmental adaptation of the pre-Hispanic occupants of the Florida Keys and is a staff member of the Proyecto de Interacción Política del Centro de Yucatán, at the Classic Maya site of Yaxuna, in Yucatan, Mexico where she is investigating the ways ancient road systems allowed for the flow of information and ideas and how culinary tourism and modern foodways intersect. As Consulting Curator for Mesoamerican Art, Traci has curated a number of exhibits at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, including “The Jaguar’s Spots: Ancient Mesoamerican Art from the Lowe Art Museum” in 2010, “Flowers for the Earth Lord: Guatemalan Textiles from the Permanent Collection” in 2006, and most recently, “Kay Pacha: Reciprocity with the Natural World in the Ancient Art of the Andes” in 2016. She grew up in and around the Ringling Museum of Art and the many ways in which objects are allowed to convey our wants and needs is a lifelong fascination. Other research interests and areas of expertise include social identities, gender, childhood, memory, urban experience, islands, cuisine and foodways, heritage, indigenous, art, museums.

Other languages: Spanish


Bagley, Bruce
Professor, Department of International Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include U.S.-Latin American relations, democracy, trade, and organized crime/drug trafficking issues as well as Colombia, Mexico, Central America and the Andean Republics, immigration, and energy-related issues.

Other languages: Spanish


Boswell, Thomas
Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include Cuban migration, Hispanic populations in the U.S., world population problems, migration, ethnicity, housing segregation and discrimination, poverty, immigration policy, and Hispanic voters.


Connolly, Jennifer
Assistant Professor of Political Science; Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program

My research interests include political institutions, public management, local government, and distributive public policy. My work has examined the risks and rewards of city management, specifically the way that managers evaluate the nature of the job and negotiate to shift career risk onto councils via employment contracts. My work makes the case that severance protection plays an important role in recruiting talented city managers to difficult jobs. I have conducted studies of local government regulation of the sharing economy, specifically Uber and Airbnb, and I have also connected the study of institutions with public management and public finance at the local level by examining how turnover among city managers has influenced local fiscal health in the wake of the Great Recession. Another recent project examines the impact of decision-maker ideology on local resource allocation priorities, nascent electoral ambition among local elected officials, the recruitment of city managers, and the adoption of e-government services by local government managers. Other interests include local government, local regulations, urban government, government institutions, city managers, sharing economy, local elections, city budget, and city government.


Davidson-Schmich, Louise
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science; Women’s and Gender Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include German politics; women and politics, LGBT politics, New Zealand politics, women, gender, Germany, Angela Merkel, and New Zealand.

Other languages: German

 

Doss, Brian
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Assistant Chair for Academic Studies and Research

Dr. Doss conducts research on a wide range of interventions to improve romantic relationships, including couple/marriage counseling and web-based programs. His research interests and areas of expertise include couples therapy, marriage counseling, and internet/web-based intervention.

 
Durocher, Jennifer
Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Clinical Director, Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD)

Research interests and areas of expertise include autism, clinical topics, comorbidity, and abnormal psychology.


Ehrenreich-May, Jill
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Dr. Ehrenreich-May is an expert on anxiety and stress in children, including coping after trauma.  She researches novel treatment approaches for anxiety disorders and related conditions in youth, etiology of child anxiety, clinician training and dissemination of evidence based treatments for children and adolescents.

Faraldo, Monica
Lecturer, Department of Anthropology

My research agenda focuses on the peopling of the New World through osteological analyses of ancient skeletal material from sites in Costa Rica and Florida.  I have research projects in Florida also include food ways of early residents of Key West and the 17th century Spanish treasure ships which sank in Florida waters.  I have presented more than 15 professional papers on my research projects since coming to the University of Miami.  I have an active teaching schedule incorporating my research with hands-on excavations in Key West at the famous Audubon House site.  I bring practical experiences and certifications in police medicolegal investigation of death, international forensic photography and imaging, forensic odontology and others, to my popular courses in human osteology and forensic anthropology for undergraduates.  I have also adapted my forensic background and teaching expertise in a summer, hands-on program for advanced secondary students.  My students can be found testing various projectiles on simulated human tissue and bone at law enforcement firing ranges, attending autopsies at the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office, excavating a notorious prison site on a tropical island off Costa Rica, presenting papers on their own research at venues like the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and pursing exciting careers biological anthropology in top-rated doctoral programs across the United States.

Other research interests and areas of expertise include discovery, recovery and analysis of human skeletal remains; historical and forensic archaeology; forensic investigation and anthropology; criminal justice & law enforcement.

Forrest, David
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Research interests and areas of expertise include HIV among high risk populations, drug use, Miami and South Florida, and the gay and bisexual communities.

Gellman, Marc
Research Associate Professor and Associate Director, Division of Health Psychology, Department of Psychology

Research interests and areas of expertise include dugs, human behavior, and society; behavioral medicine; health psychology; stress and disease; cardiovascular disease risk factors.


Grant, Richard
Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Studies; Africana Studies
Director, Urban Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include urban Miami, urbanization in Africa, electronic waste, sustainability, informal economy, urban Africa, Accra (Ghana), Cape Town and Johannesburg (South Africa), Swakopmund (Namibia), global urbanization theory, slums, gentrification, new towns, global arts, cities, urban Africa, and electric waste.


Gonzalez, George
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include U.S. environmental politics and policy, energy, pollution, global warming, and U.S. public policy.


Gutierrez, Anibal
Research Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Associate Director, Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD)
Director, Intensive Behavioral Intervention Services Clinic (IBIS)

Research interests and areas of expertise include autism, applied behavior analysis, autism early intervention, and autism spectrum disorder.

Other languages: Spanish


Jensen-Doss, Amanda
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

My research is dedicated to characterizing and improving services for youths in community mental health clinics.  To this end, my research has followed three interrelated themes: 1) to identify the strengths and limitations of current youth mental health care in clinical care settings, 2) to identify experimentally supported assessment tools and treatments that are most ready for dissemination to these settings, and 3) to bridge the gap between clinical services and evidence-based practices (EBPs) by testing the benefits of employing evidence-based assessment tools and treatments in clinical care settings.  Other research interests and areas of expertise include children’s mental health and psychotherapy.

Other languages: Spanish


Jha, Amishi
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
Director, Contemplative Neuroscience; UMindfulness Initiative

Amishi P. Jha, PhD has expertise in how the brain pays attention as well as how can we create mindful behavior. Neuroscientist, researcher, and Associate Professor at the University of Miami, her lab uses functional MRI, electroencephalography (EEG), and neurobehavioral measures. Her passion is to explore the potential benefits of low-cost, low-tech, and highly accessible forms of mental training to help individuals build brain fitness and maximize well-being. Several projects in her lab investigate mindfulness training, a Western-style cognitive-affective attention training program with origins in the meditative traditions of the East. With grants from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, private foundations, and gifts from individuals and foundations, she has been systematically investigating the importance of attention and mindfulness training in education, mental illness, job-related stress, aging, and military applications. Amishi has been recognized as a pioneer in the cognitive neuroscience of attention and mindfulness, making important and far-reaching contributions in areas of considerable importance to educators, public health officials, as well as business and military leaders. She has several awards for teaching and innovation in science, including selection as a Poptech Science and Public Leadership Fellow in 2010. She is an internationally recognized speaker on many topics including optimizing attention, building brain fitness, mindfulness and other forms of contemplative training, and how to protect the brain from stress and aging. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Aspen Institute, and New York Academy of Sciences as well as many academic conferences & has been interviewed on NPR-Morning Edition, CBS Evening News, as well as the NY Times, GQ, Newsweek, and Scientific American Mind.

Other languages: Gujarati


Klofstad, Casey
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include the influence of society and biology on political attitudes and behaviors; elections; biology and politics; social networks; public opinion; Cuban Americans; voter turnout; youth political participation; survey research.


Koger, Gregory
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include U.S. Congress, political parties, federal budget, presidency, elections, filibustering, Republican party, Democratic Party, and interest groups.


La Greca, Annette M.
Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics, Department of Psychology
Director of Clinical Training

Dr. La Greca focuses on children’s reactions to trauma (especially natural disasters), adolescent peer relations (including peer victimization) and on anxiety and coping in children and adolescents. Dr. La Greca’s research team documented the effects of post-traumatic stress in children following Hurricane Andrew, and assessed children’s reactions to Hurricanes Charley, Katrina, and Ike to evaluate methods for mediating these reactions over time. Dr. La Greca has authored several publications designed to understand children’s reactions to natural disasters and disseminates information on how to help children cope in the aftermath of disasters. She has also developed several manuals for school personnel, counselors and parents on related topics. Her After the Storm guide to help children cope with the psychological effects of a hurricane has been widely used after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike and is available for free download. Her manual Helping America Cope is also available as a free PDF.

 
LiPuma, Edward
Professor, Department of Anthropology

Professor Edward LiPuma is a cultural anthropologist who has conducted influential research on a variety of topics ranging from kinship structures to the social practices involved in the utilization of financial instruments such as derivatives. He can speak about the use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media to organize protests; the use of satellite technology to communicate during the crisis; and concerns that tensions could migrate to oil-producing nations in the Middle East region.

Losin, Elizabeth
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
Director of Social and Cultural Neuroscience Lab

Dr. Losin is a social and cultural neuroscientist. In her lab, they study brain and psychological mechanisms underlying social and cultural processes. Specifically, they focus on social learning (learning from others through processes such as imitation) and social and cultural influences on pain perception, e.g. how the quality of the doctor-patient relationship affects pain perception and its underlying neural mechanisms.


Marcelin, Louis Herns
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Steering Committee Member for International Studies Program

Dr. Marcelin is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on anthropology of family and kinship in the Americas. His research also examines questions related to health and human security, and the roles of power, violence, and marginalization in society (particularly in Brazil, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the United States). Dr. Marcelin has previously taught at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Research interests and areas of expertise include violence, gang violence, youth gangs, politics and human security, family, kinship in the Americas, global health, political violence, Brazil, and Haiti.

Languages: English, Creole, French, Portuguese, Spanish


McCullough, Michael
Professor, Department of Psychology
Director, Evolution and Human Behavior Laboratory

Research interests and areas of expertise include Evolutionary psychology, social psychology, religion, revenge and forgiveness, cooperation, morality, conflict, and human evolution.


Messinger, Daniel
Professor, Department of Psychology

Research interests and areas of expertise include autism, early interactions, emotions, development, and facial expressions.


Moise, Imelda 
Assistant Professor, Deparment of Geography & Regional Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include health disparities, women and children's health, program evaluation of public health programs, public health preparedness, and mosquito control preparedness.


Muller, Peter
Senior Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Studies

Dr. Muller is an urban geographer with interests in the geography of suburbanization, urban structural transformation and the management of international urban problems. He is available to discuss where hurricanes occur, and how different cultures handle them, as well as the impacts hurricanes have on urban planning and development along coastlines.


Petersen, Nick
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology

Research interests and areas of expertise include the death penalty, policing, prosecutorial decision-making, police and prosecutorial responses to homicide, racial disparities and criminal justice, media coverage of crime, and historical racial violence.

Page, Bryan
Professor, Department of Anthropology
Director, International Studies Program

Dr. Page specializes in studying the consumption of drugs in urban, street based settings. His 42-year career in the anthropology of drug use has focused on the consequences and impacts of various patterns of legal and illegal drug use in a wide variety of cultural settings. Among his funded projects supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Mental Health are studies of: poly-drug use in the Seminole Tribe of Florida, poly-drug use among Cuban immigrants, prescription drug use among women, long-term marihuana use among Costa Rican working class men, HIV risk and disease progression among injection drug users (IDUs) in Miami, HIV risk among IDUs in Valencia, Spain, response to the HIV epidemic among Haitian Women, Haitian youth and gang activity, and needle cleansing behavior among Miami IDUs. These projects have resulted in the publication of over 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and numerous other materials, plus two peer reviewed books co-authored with Merrill Singer. He can also offer an international perspective on Muslim fundamentalism. 

 Perry, Lynn
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Dr. Lynn is interested in children's language and cognitive development. In particular, they are interested in word learning, vocabulary acquisition, and categorization in children, and the relationship between language and though in adults. Other research interests and areas of expertise include children, language development, language evolution, word learning, vocabulary, categorization, cognition, toddlers, child directed speech, and sound symbolism.


Pestle, William
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Will Pestle is a bioarchaeologist interested in the reconstruction of the lifeways of the prehistoric peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. In his research, he uses a variety of biogeochemical analytical techniques to study patterns of subsistence, mobility, and environmental interaction in prehistoric human populations.  He is in the third year of an international multi-disciplinary effort tracing patterns of exchange and migration in the Formative Period of the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, and is beginning a three-year NSF-funded project looking at the lived effects of Tiwanaku influence in Middle Period San Pedro de Atacama. Also, after 10 years of work at the southern Puerto Rican site of Tibes, he is now the director of a regional project focused on human-environment interaction in the western Puerto Rican municipality of Añasco.

Portes, Alejandro
Research Professor, Department of Sociology

Research interests and areas of expertise include immigration and ethnicity, institutions and development, second generation adaptation, urbanization and social change.

 
Prasad, Shivangi
Lecturer, Certificate Program in Geospatial Technology / Department of Geography and Regional Studies

Research interests and areas of expertise include environmental and social vulnerability modeling, climate change and natural hazards risk and impacts, and GIS/spatial analysis, environmental justice, inequities in resource allocation and political ecology as they relate to the hazard-disaster realm. She is particularly interested in exploring human-environmental interactions from the perspective of human vulnerability, response and adaptation to creeping climate stresses as well as sudden shocks caused by natural hazard events.

 
Roy, Joaquin
Professor,  International Studies Program
Director, European Union Center

Research interests and areas of expertise include the European Union, its economy and political alliances, the relationship between Cuba and EU, Latin American integration and technologies.

 
Shearer, Rebecca
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Research interests and areas of expertise early childhood social, emotional, regulatory skills, poverty and effects on early well-being and learning, Head Start, kindergarten readiness, preschool play, approaches to learning, classroom quality and parent engagement as buffers for early risks to learning, longitudinal analysis of behavioral trajectories and school outcomes, school based interventions to support early social-emotional development and learning, children, school or kindergarten readiness, self-regulation and social, emotional skills (non-cognitive skills) that support school and life success for children, and evaluation of public education programs for children living in poverty.

 
Sheskin, Ira
Chair and Professor, Department of Geography and Regional Studies; Judaic Studies Program
Director of the Jewish Demography Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies

Professor Sheskin is widely recognized for his work on the geography and demography of the American Jewish community. His areas of expertise involve the collection, analysis, and presentation of quantitative data. They also include the American Jewish community, the Middle East, Israel, demography, Judaism, antisemitism, geography, and elections.


Simpson, Elizabeth
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

My work focuses on understanding social cognitive development, including the ultimate and proximate mechanisms that shape individual differences in social perception. I currently have two programmatic lines of behavioral research, both with human and macaque infants. One research line examines the perception of social stimuli, such as faces, and the other examines action understanding. Other research interests and areas of expertise include psychology, development, evolution, infant, newborn, imitation, face perception, sociality, social development, social cognition, eye tracking, visual attention, social skills, developmental psychology, evolutionary psychology, comparative psychology, primates, animals, oxytocin, and mirror neurons.

 
Stoler, Justin
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography & Regional Studies; Ecosystem Science & Policy

My research explores the geographic patterns of urban health disparities, particularly in the developing world, and environmental influences on social and behavioral epidemiology. Other research interests and areas of expertise include global health, environmental health, epidemiology, GIS, urbanization, water, communicable disease, Zika virus, and Africa.

 
Stoycheva, Rayna
Lecturer, Department of Political Science
MPA Director for Business Development, Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program

Research interests and areas of expertise include public budgeting and financial management, public pensions, Social Security, social policy, state and local public finance, tax reform, and revenue resources.

Other languages: Bulgarian

Taratoot, Cole
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include federal courts, public law, and bureaucracy with specific interest in administrative courts, administrative law judges, the Supreme Court, issues in equity and diversity, and the politics of the federal bureaucracy. Research interests also include judicial confirmations, administrative law, Supreme Court decision making, civil rights, civil liberties, equity, and diversity.

Ter-Ghazaryan, Diana
Lecturer, Department of Geography & Regional Studies
Director of Geospatial Technology Program

Dr. Ter-Ghazaryan is a human geographer with research interests in the Former Soviet Union, urban geography, and qualitative and critical applications of geospatial technologies and GIS. Other interests include Geographic Information Systems (GIS), qualitative GIS, critical GIS, geospatial technology, urban geography, Soviet and post-Soviet cities, diaspora studies, and Armenian studies.

 

Timpano, Kiara
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

The primary aim of my research is to further our understanding of factors that play a role in the etiology, comorbid mechanisms and integrative risk models that seek to predict symptoms and explain associated features.  A secondary, yet interwoven domain is to apply vulnerability-focused research to the clinical arena, via the development and evaluation of empirically-informed treatment or prevention protocols. Other research interests and areas of expertise include anxiety, stress and OCD.


Uddin, Lucina
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology; Neuroscience

Research interests and areas of expertise include Cognitive neuroscience, brain networks, autism spectrum disorder, autism, brain imaging, brain connectivity, brain dynamics, brain networks, and brain development.

Other languages: Bengali


Uscinski, Joseph
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

Research interests and areas of expertise include American Politics, conspiracy theories, voting, public opinions, elections, and the media.

Top