New Faculty Bios 2023-24
Lori Clark comes to St. Lawrence University as an instructor of Environmental Studies and Public Health. Her PhD research includes waste management, gas remediation and engineering, landfill gas modeling, and waste related climate policy. She holds a master’s degree in marine environmental science with a focus in trace toxic metals. She has taught at Stony Brook University, Moorpark College, California Polytechnic University Pomona, and Chaffey College. She worked as an instructor for Women in Science and Engineering and as a marine environmental researcher for the Hudson River Foundation, NYC.
Anna Fahr is an independent filmmaker, educator, and founder of Morning Bird Pictures Inc, a production company dedicated to creating films with social impact that focus on the contemporary Middle East and its diaspora. From 2012 to 2015, she served as a Visiting Instructor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. She went on to independently produce and direct a number of documentaries and shorts in Lebanon as well as the narrative feature film, Valley of Exile, which will be released in 2023. Anna holds a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University in Montreal, an MFA in Screenwriting from Hollins University in Virginia and an MA in Film and Middle Eastern Studies from New York University.
Santee Frazier, A member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Santee Frazier earned a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Syracuse University. His first collection of poems, Dark Thirty (2009), was published in the University of Arizona Press Sun Tracks series. Frazier’s honors include a Fall 2009 Lannan Residency Fellowship 2011 School for Advanced Research Indigenous Writer in Residence and the 2014 Native Arts and Culture Foundation literature fellow. His second collection of poems, Aurum, was released in 2019 by The University of Arizona Press. He is the 2023-2024 Viebranz Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at St. Lawrence University.
Dr. Mark Holland comes to St Lawrence as an assistant professor of geology. Originally from Massachusetts, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 2018, went on to be a post-doctoral researcher at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, then an assistant professor at West Texas A&M University from 2019-2023. His research is focused on the formation and evolution of continental crust, which has led him to work in Grand Canyon, Alaska, and soon the Adirondacks. When not geologizing or wrangling his one year old son, Mark tries to make time for playing the drums, canoeing, and adventures with his dog.
Shu Jiang is joining St. Lawrence University as a tenure-track assistant professor in Psychology. I hold a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. My research interests encompass culture, language, and person perception. I am looking forward to being a part of the vibrant academic community.
Dr. Keith Edward Cantú comes to St. Lawrence as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Religious Studies. He previously was a postdoctoral fellow at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (www.cas-e.de) in Germany and at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. He has taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he received his doctoral degree, at the Esalen Institute, and online. His research especially focuses on yoga, tantra, esotericism, and the interface between Sanskrit and Indic vernaculars like Bengali, Tamil, and Hindi. His book Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami and Śivarājayoga will be published by Oxford University Press next month.
Abhradeep Karmakar will join St. Lawrence University as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics. He did his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Calcutta in India. Abhradeep is an aspiring applied micro-economist with broad interests in Development, Environment and Public Economics. His current research focuses on studying the health and education effects of large-scale government programs. In his research, he mainly uses causal inference tools to answer policy-relevant questions and identify the unintended positive benefits of government interventions.
Dr. Yizhao (Andy) Wang, joins St. Lawrence University as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Economics. After graduating with a Ph.D. in Economics from Lehigh University, Dr. Wang has specialized in applied micro theory, applied game theory, and health economics. His research encompasses a comprehensive analysis of the return policy and consumer behavior, adolescent smoking behavior, and price discrimination in a two-sided market
Dr. Patrick Burke comes to Saint Lawrence as a visiting Assistant Professor of Economics. He graduated from Michigan State University last summer and spent the last year teaching at the University of Akron. His research covers labor force participation, job finding rates, and the business cycle. He will be teaching courses in Intermediate Macroeconomics and Money and Banking this fall
Dr. Ashley Rife comes to St. Lawrence as a Visiting Assistant Professor in rhetoric and communication. Dr. Rife is an interdisciplinary scholar curious about the intersections of places, discourses, and pasts. Her varied academic background includes a Ph.D. in Human Communication, M.S. in Architecture, M.A. in Communication, and B.S. in Interior Design. Her research and teaching foci include critical approaches to public communication, memory and history interpretation, space/place, and consumer culture.
Dr. Patrick Rickert comes to Saint Lawrence as a visiting Assistant Professor of Government. Dr. Rickert is a recent graduate of Washington University in St Louis, where he earned his PhD in political science with a focus on the US Congress. He earned undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of Alabama. Dr. Rickert’s research is on the evolution of American political institutions, and he will be teaching courses on American government, Congress, and disability politics.
Mario Tumen comes to St. Lawrence as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Caribbean & Latin American History. Dr. Tumen is a recent graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he earned his PhD in history with a focus on race & ethnicity, and political culture in Latin America. Dr. Tumen will be teaching modern and colonial Latin American History, as well as a number of introductory courses.
Nafisa Awadh comes to St. Lawrence as a Professor in Swahili. Nafisa Awadh is a graduate of Pwani University in Kenya where she earned her Master’s in Swahili with a focus on Kiwaata Language, which is endangered and likely to be lost. She earned her Bachelor of Education Arts degree from Pwani University in 2015. Nafisa will be teaching Elementary Swahili and Swahili Culture and history.
Dr. Zeyno Ustun is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Digital Media&Film at the St. Lawrence University. She came to SLU after her 2019-2021 Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Media at Risk in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Sociology at the New School for Social Research in 2019. Her areas of research align at the intersection of traditional media and critical media studies, global media infrastructures, networked social movements, and Internet law with a particular focus on the Global South.