Arts & Letters
Leslie Sprout, Program Director, Fine Arts and Media Studies, Historical Studies
Leslie Sprout (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is the author of The Musical Legacy of Wartime France, which won the Béla Kornitzer Award for the best Drew faculty book published in 2013-15. Her scholarship focuses on music, modernism, and national identity in twentieth-century France. Additional research interests include the film music of Arthur Honegger and the engagement of European composers with American popular music and jazz between the two world wars. Dr. Sprout’s work has been supported by a Fulbright fellowship to France and by travel grants from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris.
Matthew Ayres, Teaching in the Two-Year College
Matthew Ayres is associate professor of English and Philosophy at County College of Morris and says: “I have always been moved by the written word. Great writers are able to give voice to some of the most significant moments of the human experience. I remember reading James Joyce’s “The Dead” for the first time and being touched by his description of the snow falling ‘generally all over Ireland’ and of Gabriel’s epiphany, as he ruminates about life and death at the end of the story. I love what I teach, and I hope this passion is evident to anyone who walks into my classroom.”
Robert W. Butts, Fine Arts and Media
Robert W. Butts has shared his passion, enthusiasm and knowledge of music through his work as conductor, composer, educator, writer and lecturer. He was the 2011 recipient of the American Prize Citation for educational excellence and was the 2012 American Prize second-place winner for community opera conducting, for his critically acclaimed performance of Mozart’s <em>Don Giovanni</em> with BONJ Opera. He was nominated for the 2013 prize for his conducting of Donizetti’s <em>L’elisir d’amore</em> and Mozart’s <em>The</em> <em>Magic Flute</em>. Butts has also conducted the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey since its founding in 1996. He has developed the orchestra into one of New Jersey’s leading ensembles, expanding the repertoire to include major works of all periods.
Robert Carnevale, Writing, Literary Studies
Sloane Drayson-Knigge, Historical Studies; Literary Studies
Sloane’s interest in the arts, history and culture was engendered by the diversity of people and communities she encountered on childhood trips in the family’s Studebakers. Her courses engage a spectrum of experiences and events in these academic fields. Among them are: Women in the Holocaust; Staging the Nation: The Presentation of Ourselves in American Drama; and Graphic Medicine: Embodiment, Illness, Health and the Visual Narrative. Sloane enjoys the rigor of independent studies. Material Culture and Memory Studies are particular areas of application.
Ron Felber, Literary Studies; Writing
Bill Gordon, Writing
Bill Gordon’s first novel, Mary After All, was published by Random House to positive reviews. His short stories and essays have been published in such outlets as The New York Times Magazine, Mississippi Review, New York Press, Newark Star-Ledger, Christopher Street, Downtown, and Men on Men 2000, an anthology by Plume/Penguin. He received an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Syracuse University. Since 2006, he has taught creative writing (literary fiction and memoir) at Drew University’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies, Arts and Letters Program. He lives in New York City.
Sandra Jamieson, Teaching in the Two-Year College, Teaching Writing
Jens Lloyd, Literary Studies, Teaching Writing
Jesse Mann, Historical Studies, Studies in Religion
Karen Pechilis, Historical Studies, Global Studies
Liana Piehler, Fine Arts and Media; Writing
Liana Piehler (PhD, Drew University) teaches courses that have blended literature and the visual arts. Recent courses have included focus on Watercolor as a creative medium in the Humanities (The Watercolorist’s Craft–a recurring topic-based course); the Victorian landscape as seen by novelists, poets and artists; Victorian women artists and their twentieth-century descendants; Provincetown’s arts colony (1900-1950) as a reflection of American culture; and poets as observers of the natural world (from Emily Dickinson in the nineteenth century to Mary Oliver in the twentieth); as well as participation in ARLT 801–the interdisciplinary introduction to the program. Piehler regularly teaches the Joy of Scholarly Writing to students in the Arts and Letters and Medical Humanities programs, guiding and mentoring them on the dissertation journey. In addition to scholarly and creative writing, Liana Piehler is a visual artist specializing in watercolor, printmaking, collage, book arts, and other 2-and 3-D mediums. Along with her work in the A&L program, she serves as a faculty writing consultant at the CAE for graduate students and a writing instructor in Drew’s Theological School.
Ben Pranger, Fine Arts and Media
Robert Ready, Literary Studies, Historical Studies
William B. Rogers, Historical Studies, Irish Studies, Global Studies
Jonathan Rose, Historical Studies
Erin Sheehan, Studies in Religion
Bio to come.
Billy Tooma, Fine Arts and Media
Laura Winters, Literary Studies, Writing, Studies in Religion
Conflict Resolution & Leadership
Jonathan Golden, Program Director, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Darrell Cole, Professor of Comparative Religion
Allan C. Dawson, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Caitlin Killian, Professor of Sociology
Jinee Lokaneeta, Professor of Political Science
Sangay Mishra, Assistant Professor
Jennifer Olmsted, Professor of Economics
Christopher Rodriguez
Check back for bio.
David Thaler, Adjunct Professor of Arts and Letters
Check back for bio.
Carlos Yordan, Associate Professor of Political Science
Data Science
Sarah Abramowitz, Program Director, John H. Evans Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Mathematics and Computer Science
Prasad Kothapalli, Adjunct Professor
Diane Liporace, Adjunct Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science
Yi Lu, Norma Gilbert Junior Assistant Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science
Elizabeth Pemberton, Adjunct Professor
Alexander Rudniy, Assistant Professor
Ellie Small, Norma Gilbert Junior Assistant Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science
Finance
Steve Firestone, Program Director and Assistant Teaching Professor
Steve Firestone is an Associate Teaching Professor of Finance, Associate Chair of the Department of Business, and the Director of the Master of Science in Finance program at Drew University. His research focuses on market and credit risk, fixed income valuation, behavioral finance, and real estate economics. Steve worked for over seven years at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a capital markets and credit team leader. His tenure in the federal service followed a twenty-year career in the financial markets as a fixed income trader, portfolio manager, and investment banker. Steve has also been committed to public service, recently serving on the Site Plan Review Advisory Board in Princeton, N.J. He has also previously served on the Zoning Board of Adjustment in Hoboken, N.J. and both the Planning Commission and Zoning Board in Charlotte, N.C. He received a B.A. in Economics from Bucknell University, an M.B.A in Finance and Public Policy from Indiana University, and is working towards his Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) at Drexel University. Steve completed his Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designation in 2009 and is active in the CAIA Association where he serves on the Standards Committee and the International Association for Quantitative Finance. He is also an avid runner, completing two TCS NYC Marathons.
David Anderson, Adjunct Professor
F. Michael Hussain, Adjunct Professor
For the last 9 years he has been employed with IHS Markit (under proposed Merger with S&P Global; expected to close in Q2’22) covering a variety of roles including Quantitative Models, Factors and Research Product Specialist, IHS Markit PMI Product Specialist, built out the vendor community for a new compliance and due diligence software solution (KY3P), and has most recently served as an Executive Director leading a US Client Success team for the Enterprise Data Management (EDM) software application & now serves as the Global Head of Private Capital Markets for the iLevel, Qval, Credit, and Full Service Valuations product lines within the Financial Services Solutions division.
Michael has previously co-founded a non-profit foundation raising funds for local cancer related charities and causes in San Diego and continues to volunteer his time and give to causes serving to alleviate children’s illnesses, promote animal welfare, and support for post action military related issues. Michael is currently on the Advisory Panel for the Managing a Remote Workforce program at the Pace University Lubin School of Business. He enjoys martial arts, is currently kick boxing (yellow belt), a licensed sky diver, and an avid student of self mastery, spirituality, self awareness, conscious based living as well as discovering, nurturing and promoting the inherent power that lies within each and every one of us as individuals.
Yi Lu, Assistant Professor
Qiqi Liang, Adjunct Professor
John Nolan, Adjunct Professor
Joy Palmer, Adjunct Professor
Kerem Yaman, Adjunct Professor
History & Culture
Jonathan Rose, Program Director and William R. Kenan Professor of History
Frances Bernstein, Associate Professor of History
Jeremy Blatter, Associate Professor of Media and Communications
Jeremy Blatter (PhD, Harvard University) teaches Media and Communications, with a secondary field in Film and Visual Studies. His research examines the intersection of the behavioral sciences, technology, media and material culture during the long twentieth century. His writing and research has been published in academic journals including Science in Context, Medical History, and Media Studien, as well as in the edited volume Thinking in the Dark: Cinema, Theory, Practice (Rutgers University Press). Jeremy was previously a lecturer on the History of Science at Harvard and a research associate with metaLAB@Harvard and the Sensory Ethnography Lab. His research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Consortium for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Charles Warren Center for North American History, and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.
James M. Carter, Associate Professor of History
Allan C. Dawson, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Alex de Voogt, Professor of Business
Alex de Voogt received his PhD from Leiden University researching masters of a board game played in East Africa. Since then, he has conducted extensive research on the history and cultural transmission of board, card and dice games. In 2009, he joined a French team of archaeologists active on Sai Island, Sudan, with subsequent publications on the history and archaeology of Nubia. At Drew University he taught courses on the history and development of writing systems and the archaeology of Sudan and Egypt. In 2020 he started collaborating with the Drew Library Archives and organized several lectures and exhibits on Egypt and Sudan as well as the history of writing systems (see: www.EgyptandSudanatDrew.com).
Robert Kaminski, Assistant Teaching Professor of Economics
Joshua Kavaloski, Professor of German
John Lenz, Associate Professor of Classics
Jesse Mann, Theological Librarian
Karen Pechilis, Professor of History
Candace Reilly, Manager of Special Collections
Robert Ready, Professor Emeritus of English
Kimberly Rhodes, Professor of Art History
Leslie Sprout, Professor of Music
Medical and Health Humanities : Core Team
Merel Visse, Program Director and Associate Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
Merel’s work builds bridges between the everyday lived experiences of people and the socio-political realm of public issues. She follows a dialectic approach to research that is both responsive and critical. On the one hand, this approach involves being receptive to the movements that occur in everyday situations of care, and on the other hand a critical analysis of ideological and theoretical concepts that inform the concept of care. Care research is not only seen as a deliberate act of analysis in order to produce knowledge, but also as an event that requires a praxis of unknowing by living one’s questions real time.
Merel serves multiple roles and aims to create intersections between the diverse set of communities she is affiliated with. At Drew, she works as the Director of Medical Humanities at the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies and as an Associate Professor in Health Studies. She is also affiliated part-time as an Associate Professor with the Care Ethics group of the Dutch University of Humanistic Studies. Together with her Dutch colleagues, she coordinates the International Care Ethics Research Consortium (www.care-ethics.org).
She draws upon her prior experience with the coordination and execution of complex evaluation and qualitative inquiry projects, as well as the acquisition of grants. She is a published author of peer reviewed articles in impact-factor journals and several books. She is a regular speaker at conferences and facilitates labs and workshops.
For up-to-date news, her inspirations and background, please visit www.merelvisse.com.
Feel free to contact Merel at: [email protected].
Gaetana Kopchinsky, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
Kopchinsky has served as an educational officer on the board of directors of rehabilitation facilities. She specializes in written procedures, policies in a rehabilitative environment for young women of diverse backgrounds who suffer from addictions. She develops “self-wellness, ethics and esteem” programs for female residents of such facilities. She lectures for the New Jersey Drug Court Program on expressive, therapeutic narrative and ethics; and has collaborated on numerous publications for the New Jersey Drug Court Program.
She is affiliated with the “Angel for Students” program for community student scholarship based upon financial need in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Paterson, as well as a member of Phi-Theta Kappa International Scholastic Order; Member of Psi Chi: The National Honor Society in Psychology; Pinnacle Honor Society: Winner of Outstanding Achievement Award Spring 2006 for outstanding business, academic and cultural achievement. She is winner of the Schering-Plough Scholarship (2008) for Outstanding Achievement in Medical Humanities. She is a three-time alumna of Drew University and serves on the Drew Alumni Council. As a professor at Drew Caspersen Graduate School, her expertise is in clinical narrative; humanism; contemporary psycho-social issues including pain and major chronic depression on the human condition. Kopchinsky coaches dissertational students by utilizing unique narrative templates of composition and ethics.
A newly appointed trustee of Drew University, her special talent develops existing Drew University strengths, especially in the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies; extends and build medical humanity offerings; her past, vast business expertise offers medical links to military medicine and to addiction issues; and supports new programming in the area of business humanities. These opportunities will strengthen and expand the construct of business humanism at Caspersen Graduate School in terms of the commercial applications of the Medical Humanities degree and its product offering/capability to students.
Kevin Poirer, Teaching Assistant and Doctoral Student, DMH Program
Crystal King Wallner, Graduate Assistant and Doctoral Student, DMH Program
Adjunct and Affiliated Faculty in Medical & Health Humanities
Kimberly Adams, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
Elisabeth Bertolini, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities, Atlantic Health Systems
Catherine Burns Konefal, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
Nancy Gross, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
In her role as a humanities educator she works with resident physicians, medical students, hospital professional and support staff, community members and patients bringing humanities activities to support reflection and to evoke stories of illness and insight into the illness experience. The goal of her sustained work is to illuminate the voices of patients, families and clinicians as they intersect at the time of illness, in order to support each as they travel the path together. Gross has developed many programs which support this work at the hospital. As Palliative Care Community Liaison, Gross develops educational programs which help community members understand the philosophy and practice of Palliative Care. She facilitates Literature and Medicine seminars to provoke conversation of medical themes. She has worked with stroke patients, cancer patients, elders and people living with Parkinson’s disease and memory loss. She works with diverse populations in helping people tell their stories.
Jeanne Kerwin, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
She was a leader in the State’s initiatives for out-of-hospital DNR orders in 1997 and currently serves on the New Jersey POLST Task Force. As a member of the NJ Bar Association’s End-of-Life Task Force, she promotes partnering with the legal community to create more effective advance directives for health care and serves on Allspire Health Care Partners, a five-health care system partnership in NJ and PA to improve advance care planning and end-of-life care in our hospitals and communities. Most recently, Kerwin was appointed by the Governor of New Jersey to serve on the State’s newly formed Advisory Council on End-of-Life Care. Prior to her work in palliative care, she was the Director of Emergency Medical Services for Atlantic Health System and a practicing mobile intensive care paramedic until 2002, bringing her passion and expertise for high quality end-of-life care to the field of emergency medical care.
Kerwin holds a Master’s and Doctorate of Medical Humanities from Drew University, has a Bachelor’s in Public Health from Rutgers University, a Certificate in Bioethics and Medical Humanities from Columbia University and is a Faculty Scholar in the Palliative Care Education & Practice Program from Harvard Medical School.
Saville Kushner, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities, Professor Emeritus of Public Evaluation, University of the West of England, Bristol
Rosemary McGee, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities
Stephen G. Post, Adjunct Professors of Medical and Health Humanities, Director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics. Professor of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University
Yvette Vieira, Adjunct Professor of Medical and Health Humanities, Atlantic Health System
Sloane Drayson-Knigge, adjunct Professor of History and Literature
Kenneth Ngwa, Professor of Hebrew Bible; Director, Religion and Global Health Forum
Liana Piehler, Adjunct Professor of Arts and Letters
Liana Piehler (PhD, Drew University) teaches courses that have blended literature and the visual arts. Recent courses have included focus on Watercolor as a creative medium in the Humanities (The Watercolorist’s Craft–a recurring topic-based course); the Victorian landscape as seen by novelists, poets and artists; Victorian women artists and their twentieth-century descendants; Provincetown’s arts colony (1900-1950) as a reflection of American culture; and poets as observers of the natural world (from Emily Dickinson in the nineteenth century to Mary Oliver in the twentieth); as well as participation in ARLT 801–the interdisciplinary introduction to the program. Piehler regularly teaches the Joy of Scholarly Writing to students in the Arts and Letters and Medical Humanities programs, guiding and mentoring them on the dissertation journey. In addition to scholarly and creative writing, Liana Piehler is a visual artist specializing in watercolor, printmaking, collage, book arts, and other 2-and 3-D mediums. Along with her work in the A&L program, she serves as a faculty writing consultant at the CAE for graduate students and a writing instructor in Drew’s Theological School.
Philip C. Scibilia, Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities
Erin Sheenan, Adjunct Professor of Arts and Letters
Laura Winters, Arts and Letters
Richard Morehouse, Affiliated Faculty, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Viterbo University
Alistair Niemejjer, Assistant Professor Care Ethics, University of Humanistic Studies, The Netherlands
Robert E. Stake, Affiliated Faculty, Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois, College of Education
Teacher Education
Kristen Hawley Turner, Program Director and Professor of Teacher Education
Cathryn Devereaux, Assistant Professor of Education
Patrick McGuinn, Professor of Political Science
Maureen O'Sullivan, Coordinator of Candidate Assessment and Clinical Partnerships
Bio to come.
Nancy Vitalone-Raccaro, Associate Professor of Teacher Education
Adjunct Faculty
Amy Arsiwala
Carol Baker
Kathie Brown
Melissa Bryan
Vivian Gil-Botero
Meryl Ironson
John Jordan
Jessica Mongiovi
Joann Pezzano
Melissa Scherzer
Lauren Sherburne
Thomas Smock
Jill Stedronsky
Jennifer Yeager
Jeta Wilson
Lauren Zucker