Faculty & Staff
Many of UMass Boston’s most distinguished scholar-teachers as well as practitioners and individuals from outside of UMass Boston serve as Honors College instructors. Among them are:
Core Faculty
Interim Dean, Honors College and Associate Professor of Latin American and Iberian Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Expertise: Modern Mexican History
Associate Dean, Honors College
Associate Professor of Biology -- Gene Regulation in Plants and Animals
Expertise: Gene Regulation in Plants and Animals
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Psychology Department and Honors College
Expertise: Evolution and human behavior, developmental psychology, social neuroscience
Professor of Psychology, Psychology Department and Honors College
Expertise: Brain changes underlying psychostimulant abuse; the female body’s natural response to pain, immediately preceding pregnancy and during delivery
Professor of Music, College of Liberal Arts
Expertise: Flute (Modern Flute, Baroque Flute, Native and South American flutes), Musicology, Performance Practice, Chamber Music Coaching, Latin American Music and Dance, Organology
Affiliated Faculty
Senior Lecturer of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Lynne.Benson@umb.edu
Expertise: History of women in higher education, progressive era to present
Senior Lecturer in Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
Daria.Boeninger@umb.edu
Expertise: Lifespan development; developmental psychopathology and prevention of suicide; stress & coping processes; prevention and health promotion; longitudinal quantitative methodology
Associate Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts
Lauren.Bowen@umb.edu
Expertise: writing studies, literacy studies, composition pedagogy, age studies
Associate Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts
matthew.brown@umb.edu
Expertise: Global literatures in English; twentieth and twenty-first century British and Irish literature; transnational modernism; postcolonial theory, especially theories on human rights, humanitarian intervention, and citizenship; critical theory; film studies
Department Chair of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Professor of Chinese, College of Liberal Arts
Alex.Desforges@umb.edu
Expertise: Chinese language and literature, comparative literature, film, and culture
Senior Lecturer II in English, College of Liberal Arts
Todd.Drogy@umb.edu
Expertise: Embodiment, space, and transcendence in the works of Allen Ginsberg; queer/sexuality studies; the philosophy and practice of anarchism; self, consciousness, and memory in contemporary science fiction; composition.
Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
abbey.eisenhower@umb.edu
Expertise: Child Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychopathology, Early School Adjustment, Treatment Outcome Research
Professor of Philosophy
Nir.Eisikovits@umb.edu
Expertise: Transitional Justice and Post War Reconstruction
Associate Professor of Management
pacey.foster@umb.edu
Expertise: Creative industries
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts
Christopher.Fung@umb.edu
Expertise: Race, nationalism, hybridity, museums, settler societies, archaeology, Mesoamerica, United States, Hawai`i, China and Sub-Saharan Africa
Associate Professor
yumiko.inukai@umb.edu
Expertise: Early modern philosophy (esp. Hume), William James, nature and phenomenology of the self
Professor, MPA Graduate Program Director, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs, McCormack Graduate School
michael.johnson@umb.edu
Expertise: Management science planning models for public-sector facility location and service delivery, with applications to assisted housing and senior services
Associate Professor of Economics, College of Liberal Arts
YK.Kim@umb.edu
Expertise: Macroeconomics, Political Economy, Growth and Development
Senior Lecturer II in Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
Kathryn.Kogan@umb.edu
Expertise: Addictive disorders, Impact of Chronic Illness, Adult Psychotherapy, Group Psychotherapy
Professor of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts
Andrea.Leverentz@umb.edu
Expertise: Urban and community sociology, communities and crime, impact of incarceration on individuals and communities, gender, qualitative research methods
Senior Lecturer II of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Carney.Maley@umb.edu
Expertise: Women in U.S. Social Movements
Associate Professor of Biology - Developmental Biology, Molecular Mechanisms of Regeneration
catherine.mccusker@umb.edu
Expertise: Developmental Biology, Molecular Mechanisms of Regeneration
Associate Professor of Italian and French, College of Liberal Arts
shannon.mchugh@umb.edu
Expertise: Late medieval and early modern Italian and French literature and social history; gender studies (women’s writing, masculinity studies, history of feminism); religious writing and culture, in particular of the Counter-Reformation; translation studies; visual culture, especially comics, graphic novels, and other modes of participatory fan culture
Associate Professor of Economics, College of Liberal Arts
Expertise: Development economics, Political Economics, Welfare Economy, Microeconomics
Lecturer of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, College of Liberal Arts
aparna.mujumdar@umb.edu
Expertise: Postcolonial and British literature
Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of Special Education, College of Education and Human Development
Kristin.Murphy@umb.edu
Senior Lecturer in English, College of Liberal Arts; Assistant Director of Composition
maura.norton@umb.edu
Assistant Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts
Timothy.Oleksiak@umb.edu
Expertise: rhetorical theory
Associate Professor of English and University Fellowships Director
louise.penner@umb.edu
Expertise: Victorian literature
Associate Professor
Mickaella.Perina@umb.edu
Expertise: Philosophy of law, social and political philosophy, contemporary French philosophy, Caribbean philosophy, Philosophy of race
Senior Lecturer in English and Assistant Director of Composition, College of Liberal Arts
Brittany.Peterson@umb.edu
Expertise: Composition theory and pedagogy, writing studies, collaborative learning and writing, Executive Function coaching
Associate Dean, College of Science and Mathematics; Associate Professor of Biology - Neurobiology
Alexia.Pollack@umb.edu
Expertise: Neurobiology
Senior Lecturer in Accounting, College of Management
Mark.Radding@umb.edu
Expertise: Financial Accounting, Financial Services, Business Software Implementation, Mortgage Company Operations
Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, College of Liberal Arts
joseph.ramsey@umb.edu
Senior Lecturer II in English, College of Liberal Arts
Natalia.Scarpetti@umb.edu
Expertise: Composition theory and history; pedagogy; image-text rhetorics; the essay genre; writing program administration
Research Assistant Professor and Lecturer in Biology
reinmar.seidler@umb.edu
Expertise: Evolutionary Biology
Associate Professor of Computer Science, College of Science and Mathematics
bo.sheng@umb.edu
Expertise: Wireless Networks, Security
Lecturer of Sociology, College of Liberal Arts
jyoti.sinha@umb.edu
Expertise: Social Stratification, Immigration and Diaspora, International Labor Rights, Globalisation, Critical Theory, Public Sociology, Participatory Action Research, Ethnographic and Interview Methods, Social Movements, Global Sociology
Professor of Environment and Public Health, School for the Environment
Carlos.Siqueira@umb.edu
Expertise: Environmental Justice
Chair of the Biology Department and Associate Professor - Molecular Genetics of Bacteria
rachel.skvirsky@umb.edu
Expertise: Molecular Genetics
Associate Professor of Global Health, Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security, and Global Governance; McCormack Graduate School and Department of Nursing, College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Courtenay.Sprague@umb.edu
Expertise: Health Equity
Dean of Faculty and Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts
Rajini.Srikanth@umb.edu
Expertise: Human rights and literature; American literature (including Asian American literature, Native American literature, and literature of the American South); interdisciplinary approaches to literature; literature in the context of comparative race and ethnicities; pedagogy of literature; literatures of the Middle East
Senior Lecturer II in Music, College of Liberal Arts
frederick.stubbs@umb.edu
Expertise: World music and ethnomusicology
Professor of Asian American Studies, School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, College of Education and Human Development
Expertise: War, gender, and migration | race and development | Southeast Asian American cultural and community studies | Chinese / Asian diasporic pop culture | collaborative / participatory research methodologies | storytelling via media production | AANAPISI / MSI research and practice
Associate Professor of Sustainability and Food Solutions, School for the Environment
michael.tlusty@umb.edu
Expertise: Sustainability Science
Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Asian American Studies, College of Liberal Arts
Paul.Watanabe@umb.edu
Expertise: American Foreign Policy, American Political Behavior, Ethnic Group Politics, and Asian Americans
Associate Professor of Biology - Disease Ecology
douglas.woodhams@umb.edu
Expertise: Disease Ecology
Staff
Program Manager and Science Student Career Mentoring Specialist, Honors College
Abby.Cheng@umb.edu
Honors College Ambassadors
