St. Lawrence Welcomes New Visiting Professors

St. Lawrence University’s 14 new visiting faculty for the 2021-22 academic year bring a wealth of expertise with them that will provide students with opportunities to explore, discuss, and engage with the world's most pressing issues. 

The group’s areas of interest and research include governance systems, igneous petrology, ethnography, trauma and contemporary global horror, the baby food industry and health, gender, modern media, dance, and human connection, American political parties and U.S. Congress, corporate strategies and financial data, and sport and gender. 

Leeming Chen, World Languages, Cultures, and Media

Leeming Chen comes to St. Lawrence as a Fullbright Foreign Language Teacher Assistant in the World Languages, Cultures, and Media department and will be teaching Chinese. Chen holds a master’s degree in cultural anthropology with a focus on the ethnography of Taiwanese visiting Japan in the University of Tokyo, where she completed her Ph.D. 

Steve Ingham, Performance and Communication Arts 

Steve Ingham joins the Laurentian community as a visiting assistant professor of performance and communication arts and will teach courses on rhetorical criticism, social movements, and public speaking. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication from Wayne State University with a focus on comedy and mental health. Ingham has a wide array of teaching and research interests including gender, modern media, pop culture, race, rhetoric, theory, and practical applications of communication. 

Sarah Brehm, Geology

Sarah Brehm comes to St. Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of geology and will be teaching structural geology, petrology, as well as several introductory courses. Brehm is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan where she earned a Ph.D. in geology with a focus on igneous petrology. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Union College in 2015. 

Javier Muñoz-Diaz, World Languages, Cultures, and Media 

Javier Muñoz-Diaz joins St. Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of Spanish. He is a literary and cultural critic and holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before joining St. Lawrence, Muñoz-Diaz taught at the University of Denver and the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the cultural history of the Andes and Amazon regions, Indigenismo, Indigenity, LGBTQ+ Studies, and Environmental Humanities.

Tamara Cooper,
Performance and Communication Arts 

Tamara Cooper joins St. Lawrence as the costume shop manager and an instructor of costume courses which includes teaching courses in costume construction and working on productions with University Theatre. She brings 10 years of teaching, designing, and costume making experience with her from Ohlone College in Northern California. She holds a master’s in art from New York University and a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Houston. Her artistic work has been seen in theatres in Los Angeles, California, New York, Houston, Texas, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and additional venues in Northern California. 

Katherine Guerra,
Film and Representation Studies 

Katherine Guerra joins St. Lawrence as an instructor in film and representation studies where she will teach Film History, as well as courses on gender performance and current transborder horror. Guerra will be awarded her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley this winter. Her research focuses on trauma and contemporary global horror. 

Wayne McVeigh, Economics

Wayne McVeigh comes to St. Lawrence as a visiting instructor of accounting with the economics department. Before joining St. Lawrence, McVeigh was a faculty member in the Master of Accounting (MAC) program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a clinical assistant professor, he also taught at the executive MBA and undergraduate levels. His teaching and research interests include activity-based cost management, linking corporate strategies to operational planning and budgeting, and analyses and interpretation of financial data.  Before entering academia, he held senior financial management positions with IQVIA, Duke Energy, and General Motors.  McVeigh received his MBA from Rochester Institute of Technology and bachelor of science degree in Accounting with distinction from Clarkson University.

Jessica Madden, Performance and Communication Arts

Jessica Madden comes to St. Lawrence as a visiting lecturer of dance and will teach courses in both modern and jazz dance this fall. Madden started her career as a Teaching Artist for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. She earned her master’s degree in dance with a concentration in choreography from the University of Iowa in 2021. Her research centers on the body as a source of embodied experience and memory in movement generation, and she seeks to employ dance as a catalyst for human connection and empathy. 

Atal Ahmadzai, Government

Atal Ahmadzai joins St. Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of government and will be teaching introductory and elective courses. Previously, he worked with the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona as a postdoctoral scholar, where he researched the governance system of armed-non-state actors. Ahmadzai received his Ph.D. in the multi-disciplinary field of Global Affairs from Rutgers University. For his dissertation, he examined the nexus between large dams-development-conflicts. Ahmadzai holds a master’s of science degree in Global Affairs with a concentration in Environmental and Human Security from Rutgers University and a master’s degree in Public Health from Mahidol University-Bangkok, Thailand. 

Dennis Simiyu,
World Languages, Cultures, and Media

Dennis Simiyu comes to St. Lawrence as an instructor of Swahili and will teach elementary Swahili. He holds a bachelor of education arts degree and a master of arts degree in Swahili Studies from Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Swahili Studies and has taught Swahili for eight years at the high school and university levels. Simiyu has published academic papers, is an ardent researcher in Swahili language, literature, and culture, and is an expert in translation.

Elisa Van Kirk, Education 

Elisa Van Kirk returns to St. Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of education and will teach courses in the education department and continuing her work with the First-Year Program. In 2013, Van Kirk joined the Laurentian community as the head softball coach. She earned her doctorate of education in Organizational Leadership from Northeastern University. Van Kirk’s research focuses on collegiate athletics as well as, sport and gender. 

Irma Hidayana,
Asian Studies & Public Health 

Irma Hidaya comes to St. Lawrence as an ASIANetwork-Luce Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow and will teach Maternal and Child Health in Southeast Asia. Hidayana earned her doctorate in Health and Behavior Studies from Columbia University’s Teachers College in 2019. Her research focuses on the impact of the baby food industry on maternal and child health in Southeast Asia. 

Zachary McGee, Government 

Zachary McGee joins St. Lawrence as a visiting assistant professor of government and will teach introductory courses on American politics as well as upper-division courses on Congress and political parties. McGee completed his Ph.D. in government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research lies at the intersection of American political parties and the United States Congress with a focus on factionalism. 

Amir Tayebi, Economics 

Amir Tayebi comes to St. Lawrence as a visiting instructor in economics and will teach financial economics and economic development at St. Lawrence. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma, department of economics, and will defend his dissertation this year. Amir's research interests include topics in economic growth, development, and the political economy of finance. 

Michelle R. Martin-Atwood

In addition to welcoming new visiting faculty, St. Lawrence also welcomes adjunct assistant professor in the First-Year Program Michelle R. Martin-Atwood. Martin-Atwood is also an adjunct instructor at SUNY Potsdam.