Marymount Manhattan Welcomes Diverse Group of Full-time Faculty

(New York, NY) – Marymount Manhattan College welcomed 15 fulltime faculty members at the beginning of the 2010-2011 academic year. The group includes 13 new and two returning faculty members, who collectively will serve as experts within MMC’s five academic divisions: Accounting and Business Management, Fine and Performing Arts, Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences.

Leah Anderst, Ph.D., visiting instructor of writing, completed her Ph.D. in comparative literature at the CUNY Graduate Center after successfully defending her dissertation “Double Consciousness” and “Dual-Voice:” Ambivalence and Free Indirect Style in Novels and Films this past spring. She also received an M.A. from CUNY and her B.A. in English literature at Butler University. Anderst has taught writing and literature at St. John’s University, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Brooklyn College, and the City College, CUNY where she also directed faculty workshops on writing across the curriculum as a writing fellow. She has designed several composition courses around the philosophy that writing is a skill learned over time and best learned by “writing to think.” 

Dawn Elizabeth Archey, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of mathematics, received her B.A. from Kalamazoo College where she learned to cherish the breadth of knowledge offered by a liberal arts education. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon where she served classes as both T.A. and on 17 occasions as the main instructor. She has been conducting research at Ben Gurion University on Israel for the last two years and is very excited to return to the classroom as a professor. 

Elizabeth A. Barre, Ph.D., assistant professor of religious studies, has spent the last year as a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Prior to that she served as a Spruill Fellow in Law and Religion at Emory University and as an instructor in the department of religion at Florida State University, where she also received her M.A. and Ph.D. She studied with pioneers in the field of comparative religious ethics and served as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Religious Ethics. Barre’s research focuses on the interaction of moral philosophy and the history of religion with a specific interest in comparisons of Christian and Muslim arguments about the nature and function of political authority. Barre received her B.A. in philosophy at Bowling Green State University. 

Jill Choate Beier, M.B.A., J.D., assistant professor of accounting, has spent the last five years practicing as a trusts & estates attorney here in New York. She received her M.B.A. from Fordham, graduated from Touro Law School as valedictorian and subsequently received an LL.M. in Taxation from NYU. She has trained members of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (V.I.T.A.) program and taught in NYU’s Summer Institute and for the Nassau County Bar Association. Beier began her legal service in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office before moving on to private practice. Prior to law school, Beier worked in the financial services industry as a vice president at J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse First Boston, among others. 

Jennifer Cho, Ph.D., visiting instructor of writing, defended her dissertation “Trauma and the Politics of Forgetting in the Asia/American Pacific” at The George Washington University this past spring. She received her B.A. and M.A. from NYU. For the past five years she has served as a graduate writing preceptor, a fully funded teaching and research fellowship, at GWU. Her research and teaching interests include rhetoric and composition, 20th century and contemporary American literatures with a focus in Asian American, multi-ethnic and diasporic literatures, cultural studies, trauma studies, queer theory, post colonialism and trans/post-nationalism. 

Alan R. Cohen, Ph.D., assistant professor of education and chair education department, served as an assistant professor of special education at Adelphi University for the past nine years during seven of which he also served as department chair. He has also served as the administrator of special education and school psychologist for the North Shore Schools in Sea Cliff, NY and run his own private psychology practice. Cohen received his Ph.D. at Hofstra University and completed post-doctoral programs at Adelphi University and Queens College. He is certified by the State of New York as a school psychologist, a psychologist, and a school administrator. 

Joseph Gulli, CPA, M.B.A., assistant professor of business management, originally joined the MMC community as an adjunct professor in 2009. He has also taught at NYU. In addition to his work in the academic sector, Gulli worked as a financial consultant and analyst in the private sector for more than 20 years. His writing and research centers on fair value measurements and reporting of share price. He is working to develop and propose a fair value financial statement or improve existing ones to provide greater transparency for investors, creditor, suppliers, and customers. 

Andreas Hernandez, Ph.D., assistant professor of international studies, joins us from Ithaca College where he has been teaching courses on political economy and social issues in the department of sociology for the past two years. He also taught at Elmira maximum-security prison through the Bard College Prison initiative. While at Ithaca College, Hernandez co-led an international field experience to the Dominican Republic. Last year he edited a historically grounded, ethnographic film and worked on a series of papers on the emergence of new ecological forms of production and ways of life in the Brazilian Landless Movement as a part of the sustained inquiry into the construction of alternative forms of development that forms the back bone of his scholarship interests. Hernandez received his Ph.D. in development sociology from Cornell, his M.S.W. from the University of British Columbia and his B.S.W. from the University of Washington. 

Diertra Hunter, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of psychology, joins us from the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, where she just completed her second year as a post-doctoral student in the Developmental Neuroscience division where she trained and worked with undergraduates seeking research experience. Prior to entering graduate school she taught high school science in two New York City public high schools. Hunter’s postdoctoral work focuses on developmental differences in the role that immune system plays in nociceptive responses. She received her Ph.D. in biopsychology and behavioral neuroscience from the CUNY Graduate Center, her M.A. in science education from NYU and her B.A. from Hunter College. 

Eberly Mareci, Ph.D., visiting instructor of writing, has been a part-time faculty member at Marymount Manhattan since 2007. Including that time, she has been teaching writing for 16 years and writing professionally for more than 12 years. Mareci has focused her study, practice and teaching of writing by questioning how people make, perceive and communicate meaning and examining the development of language and the relationship between morality and literacy. She has taught at Fontbonne and St. Louis Universities in St. Louis, MO, served as an assistant editor for the Folger Library, and worked as a freelance writer and editor. Mareci received her Ph.D. in English from St. Louis University, her M.A. in English for the University of Texas at Austin, and her B.A. from Louisiana College. In 2009 she received the Distinguished Teaching Award as a member of MMC’s part time humanities faculty. 

Christine Riley, M.M., artist-in-residence in musical theatre, taught acting, audition technique, and music theory classes at Five Towns College as well as serving as the musical director for the Long Island institution’s four musicals a year. In addition to teaching, she has served as a private vocal coach in New York City and a musical director for New York City Public Schools and regional theatres. Riley has an M.M. from Arizona State University and a B.M. from Ithaca College. 

Nicolas Schneider, M.F.A., assistant professor of art, has been teaching as a member of the part-time faculty at MMC since 2005. He received his M.F.A. in ceramics from SUNY New Paltz. Prior to earning his master’s Schneider worked as a contractor specializing in restoration. He studied at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia, The Ann Arbor Art Factory in Michigan and received his B.A. in creative writing from the University of Montana at Missoula. His work was on display in the Hewitt Gallery of Art as a part of the Six by Six by Six group show in October 2009. 

Nava Silton, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, is a member of the New York State Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Autism Society of America. She has taught at Cornell, Columbia, and Fordham Universities as well as Hunter and Touro Colleges. Silton has published articles on the topic of religion and psychology, mental illness, and perceptions and treatment of mental illness. Her research interests include the social-emotional, empathic and spiritual development of individuals on the autism spectrum and individuals with mental and physical illness. She received her Ph.D. from Fordham University. 


Tami Stronach, M.F.A., assistant professor of dance, is a dancer, choreographer, educator and mentor. She has taught ballet, modern, composition, improvisation, and aesthetic education at Dance New Amsterdam, The Lincoln Center Institute The New York City Ballet Education Department, and Princeton, Purchase, and Barnard Colleges. After receiving her B.F.A. with honors from SUNY Purchase, Stronach toured nationally and internationally with Neta Pulvermacher and Dancers. She went on to work with choreographers Monica Bill Barnes, Kate Weare and numerous others before forming her own company, Tami Stronach Dance (TSD), as a vehicle for her own choreography. TSD has performed internationally, nationally and in many venues in New York, including Joe’s Pub, La MaMa and Galapagos Performance Space. Stronach received an M.F.A. in dance from Hollins/American Dance Festival. 

Sarah Weinberger-Litman, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, has been a postdoctoral fellow at the Spears Research Institute, Healthcare Chaplaincy in New York and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. She has taught at Brooklyn College and Shulamith High School for Girls and worked as a Quality Assurance and Research Specialist for Ohel Bais Children’s Home & Family Services in Brooklyn. Weinberger-Litman has published articles on body image and eating disorders and spiritual affiliation. She produced the 2009 film “Hungry to Be Heard: A look at Eating Disorders in the orthodox Jewish Community.” She received her Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center. 

Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, independent, liberal arts college. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual achievement and personal growth and by providing opportunities for career development. For more information, visit www.mmm.edu.

Published: September 09, 2010