JOHN TALBIRD
John Talbird is Assistant Professor of English. He teaches courses in writing, literature and film. A frequent contributor to Quarterly Review of Film and Video, his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Literature Across Cultures, Laurel Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, and Coe Review among others. He is on the editorial board of Green Hills Literary Lantern.
SUSAN LAMBERT
Susan Lambert grew up in florida and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. she earned a master's degree in fine art at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Mount Royal. She has taught drawing, art history and computer design at Queensborough. she had her first solo show in New York las summer.
MARGOT EDLIN
Margot Edlin is an instructor in the Basic Educational Skills Department. Prior to being hired at Queensborough, she taught middle school and high school English Language Arts in the Glen Cove City School District, a diverse district on the North Shore of Long Island. She has also been a substitute and an adjunct for many years. She serves her local school district as a parent and teacher advocate and served on an advisory committee to assist the district in reducing the disproportionate numbers of African-American and latino students placed in special education. She is currently in the process of completing her doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University and plans to graduate in May, 2007.
MEGAN ELIAS
Megan Elias is an Assistant Professor in the History Department. She teaches U.S. History from 1600 to 1877, African-American History and the History of Women in America. Her research interests are in American cultural history, specifically food and gender studies. Her book Stir it Up on the history of home economics and American culture, will be published in the spring of 2008 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. She is currently at work on a study of nationalism and regionalism in American cookbooks.
ANN LIAO
Ann Liao, Ph.d. (University at Buffalo, 2003) came to QCC in Fall, 2006. Dr. Liao is currently teaching at the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts. Dr. Liao has a research background in social and political psychology. Her research in learning and teaching started after she began her college teaching career. Dr. Liao has three publications including two in college pedagogy.
Liao, H-A. (2006). Cultural Orientations and Collaborative Learning. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 10 (3).
Liao, H-A. (2005). Adoption of a course management System at a College Campus: The Implication of diffusion of Innovation. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2 (10).
ARANZAZU BORRACHERO
Aranzazu Borrachero was born in Madrid, Spain. she holds her Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures from the Graduate Center (CUNY), and her M.S. in Remedial and Developmental Reading from City College (CUNY). She has been an Assistant Professor at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of Queensborough Community College since 2005. She became interested in critical pedagogy and social justice issues in the late 80's and early 90's, while working as a teacher for the bilingual programs of the New York Department of Education. In the field of literature, her critical work ranges from XVII century women writers of Spain and Latin America to present debates on feminist literary theory and gender studies. She is now preparing an annotated critical edition of the poetry of Catalina Clara Ramirez de Guzman, a Baroque Spanish writer.
MONICA TRUJILLO
Monica Trujillo is an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at QCC. She was born and raised in Uruguay, Latin America and her husband and children are also Uruguayan. She came to the United States in 1993 and received her Ph.D. at the University of California. After almost four years she went back to Uruguay where she spent three more years and then relocated in Palo Alto, California. Monica worked there in the biotech industry for two years before relocating to New York. She has been here with her family since 2001. She worked in the pharmaceutical industry before making a career change and entered the world of education. Monica is very interested in contributing to the development of critical thinkers. She finds science, in particular microbiology, a fascinating tool for this purpose. The essential need of control and testing to interpret and understand a fact is an easy concept to grasp in science but its implications extend to almost all aspects in life. As a community college biology professor, my goal is to expose my students to the complexity of nature, to enhance their capacity for asking scientific questions and to help them to develop tools to answer them. My teaching philosophy is certainly influenced by my profound conviction that any citizen on this Earth needs to have a clear understanding of the challenges that our world is facing. She believes in the absolute need of a collective response to them. She is hoping her teaching of biology will contribute to engage students in this process. Monica feels that teaching Science is quite different from teaching other subjects. Science must be taught through the development of a hypothesis and the experimentation needed to test it. To understand Science the students must master the scientific method and this can only happen by "doing Science". Most people will agree on the need of an instrument to teach music, but many will have a hard time understanding that sicence can not be taught without renewing and testing hypothesis.
VIRGINIA COWEN
Dr. Cowen is an experienced health and fitness professional. She received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University in exercise and wellness, M.A. from Columbia University in applied physiology and B.S. from Indiana University in music. She is a New York State licensed and nationally certified (NCBTMB) massage therapist, holds multiple exercise and fitness certifications including: National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and American Council on Exercise (ACE). she is also a registered yoga teacher and certified Pilates instructor. Research to date has included quantitative and qualitative explorations of therapeutic massage, yoga, physical activity and health behavior. Dr. Cowen is an assistant professor in the massage therapy program at Queensborough Community College.
MARIA MERCEDES FRANCO
Dr. Maria Mercedes Franco is an assistant professor in the Math & Computer Science Department at QCC. Dr. Franco received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in August 2005. She also holds a M.S. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University, May 2000, and a B.S. In Mathematics from Universidad del Valle (Cali, Colombia), March 2000. Her research focuses on problems of nonlinear elasticity, calculus of variations and numerical analysis. Dr. Franco is a very committed educator, who has taught college and high school students at institutions in Colombia, Puerto Rico, and the United States. From giving lectures to organizing workshops to collaborating in REU programs, Dr. Franco is actively involved in activities that seek to (a) increase the number of women and minorities in the mathematical sciences;
(b) increase public understading of and appreciation for mathematics; (c) address issues relevant to educational equity, in particular issues relevant to under-served populations and incarcerated youth/youth placed at risk.
GEORGINA COLALILLO
Georgina Colalillo has been a part of the Queensborough community of teaching and learning since 2000. She has developed and continues to coordinate the Nursing Department Student Orientation and Mentoring Program. These programs assist students to become active participants in their own learning. In addition, these programs allow for anticipatory guidance, advisement, college skills development and enculturation into the profession, especially for beginning students. In a recently published article, "Mentoring as a Retention Strategy in a Diverse, Multicultural, Urban Associate Degree Nursing Program", the benefits of mentoring students is outlined. These positive results have led to the development of a "Peer Mentor Assistance Program" which includes recent Queensborough graduates. As the C-STEP mentor/advisor for nursing students, I observe first-hand, the struggles and triumphs of our diverse student population. This spring, she participated in the STEP program, collaborating with the Biology Department and high school students in developing and presenting a poster in Albany. The energy and enthusiasm of these students for learning and succeeding was contagious. She is privileged to be a member of this enriching pedagogy seminar series where she can share and dialogue with esteemed guest speakers and members of the QCC college community.
ANITA FERDENZI
Anita Ferdenzi holds a Doctorate in Eduation specializing in Curriculum and Instruction from St. John's University as well as a Ph.D in Instructional Leadership and a MS in elementary and early childhood education from Queens College. she is an Associate Professor in the Social Sciences Department at QCC and teaches for the Dual/Joint AA/BA Liberal Arts and Sciences and Education Degree with the Queens College program. She has published as a learning styles specialist with research interest and experience in effective strategies in math and science instruction for community college education majors, authentic assessment using multiple intelligences frameworks and student-conducted action research. She has presented her transparent approach to teacher education and community college pedagogy work to fellow educators in college, city-wide, national and international forums.
JOEL KUSZAI
Joel Kuszai was born in Michigan during the Summer of Love (and riots) and has studied at Lansing Community jCollege, Michigan State University, and Reed College, before earning a Ph.D. in English from SUNY-Buffalo. His research interests include poetry and poetics, composition and rhetoric, and cultural studies; he has written on anarchism and education, utopian public policy, and the history of student and resistance publications, especially in Detroit's tumultuous post-war period. Since 2005 he has curated the Southpaw Culture book series for the Factory School learning and production collective, which he co-founded in 2000. In 2007 he received a PSC-CUNY grant to edit the Fredy Perlman Reader, which will be published in 2008. He teaches writing and literature at QCC.
HARRY PAYNE
Since April of 2005, Harry Payne is the Director of the Affirmative Action, Pluralism, Diversity Compliance (AAPD) Office. He earned a MS degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Strategic Planning/Forecasting, a MA degree from Montclair State University in Counseling & Human Services, a BA degree from Seton Hall University in Psychology and he also holds a NJ K-12 Principal Certification from New Jersey City University and a TOESL/ESL Certification from University of Pennsylvania. He has also written an article for the social Justice Educators (2006) Winter Edition e-zine. In the past, he was a Teaching Assistant for Biology, Zoology, and Biological Science courses within the Health Careers Program at Montclair State College. He also taught a Consumer Behavior course, as part of the curriculum offered by the Business Department at New Jersey City University. As a member of the President's Office, the AAPD office is consistently seeking new opportunities to collaborate with community members, faculty, staff or students to develop or present diversity/pluralism initiatives. The AAPD Office collaborated with CETL in order to present the Pedagogy Seminar Series. The AAPD Office also presents Affirmative Action/EEO/Diversity programs for a variety of audiences throughout the year.
PETER GRAY
Peter Gray received his Ph.D. in English at the Univeristy at Albany, SUNY. He is currently a co-Director of the Queensborough WID/WAC Program. He has also been involved in general education inquiry, learning communities, and is now part of a CUNY-wide Leadership Council run in conjuction with the CUNY Office of Academic Affairs and the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
