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Fall 2008 Faculty & Staff

Leonard Schoppa, Academic Dean

Leonard Schoppa is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. He received his D.Phil in Politics from Oxford in 1989 and has been employed at the University of Virginia since 1990, with stints at Keio University (1993-1994) and the University of Tokyo (2000-2001) as a visiting researcher. While his research focuses primarily on Japanese politics and international relations in East Asia, his teaching and travel experiences extend to many of the areas we will visit, including Brazil, China, Southeast Asia, and India.

He is the author of Race for the Exits: The Unraveling of Japan's System of Social Protection (Cornell University Press, 2006), which focuses on Japan's slow and uneven response to two "exit" trends: the decisions of many firms to relocate a growing share of their production work overseas; and the decisions of many young women to exit from the difficulties of combining work with family either by leaving the work force or by opting out of marriage and motherhood. An early version of the argument in this book was published in Foreign Affairs (Sept/Oct 2001). He is also the author of two earlier books, Education Reform in Japan (Routledge, 1991), and Bargaining with Japan: What American Pressure Can and Cannot Do (Columbia University Press, 1997).

Jack Van De Water, Executive Dean

Jack Van de Water recently retired from Oregon State University where he served as Dean of International Programs. He was also Assistant Vice Chancellor for International Programs for the Oregon University System. Van de Water is a graduate of St. Lawrence University and has an M.A. and PhD from Syracuse University, specializing in international relations and comparative and international education.

Van de Water held numerous regional and national positions, serving as President of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) and chairing international committees for NASULGC, NAFSA, and the Northwest Council on Study Abroad. He received four Fulbright awards and was selected as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow in Academic Administration.

In Oregon Van de Water developed new programs for international exchanges, internships, research, sponsored students, and an international degree program. He has received awards from AIEA, St. Lawrence, and several foreign universities.

A recent publication entitled International Partnerships: Guidelines for U.S. Colleges and Universities will be distributed by ACE in spring, 08.

Faculty

Cynthia Benton-Groner (Music)


Lecturer in the Music Department at the College of William and Mary and Director of Indonesian Gamelan Ensembles, Cynthia Benton-Groner’s initial study in Indonesia was as a Fellow for an Indonesian gamelan study group in Bali sponsored by California Institute of the Arts and the American Society for Eastern Arts. She later conducted doctoral field work on traditional gamelan music in Central Java funded by grants from the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund and the U.S. Indonesia Society. As founder and director of the Charlottesville gamelan, she regularly conducts gamelan workshops and presents programs on the performing arts of Indonesia sometimes with wayang (shadow puppetry) and dance. She has experience performing Javanese gamelan in the U.S., Japan and Indonesia having studied with K.R.T. Wasitodipuro, Suharti, Sumarsam, and I. M. Harjito. From 1984-2004 she was Lecturer at the University of Virginia where she served as Associate Director for the Center for South Asian Studies. Her educational background includes a B.A. from Vassar College, M.A. (World Music) and PhD candidate (ABD in Ethnomusicology), Wesleyan University.


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Lawrence E. Butler (Art History)


Lawrence Butler is Associate Professor of Art History at George Mason University. He received his BA in History and MA in Art History from Oberlin College, and his PhD in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. An architectural historian, his primary training is in Medieval and Islamic art, with training in Chinese art and classics as well. His recent research explores the cultural impact of the medieval trade routes o f Asia, by land and by sea. His publications include articles and book chapters on the architecture of Istanbul, Chinese art, the Silk Road, textile history and museum studies. He received GMU's Teaching Excellence Award in 2004, and was recognized by Phi Beta Delta in 2005 for his work in international education. He has lived and studied in Britain, Turkey, and Italy, and pursued research topics in China and Southeast Asia as well through the Asian Studies Development Program of the East/West Center and University of Hawaii. He has led many study tours overseas for universities, private groups, and the Smithsonian Institution. This will be his third voyage with Semester At Sea.


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Kima Cargill (Psychology)


Dr. Kima Cargill is an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. She holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and government, a master’s degree in counseling psychology, and a doctorate in counseling psychology, all from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the psychological experience of food and culture, specifically how cultural identity and childhood development are mediated by food customs and rituals. She has published her work in Food, Culture, and Society, Psychoanalytic Review, and Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, among other publications. She has directed international programs in Cuba and Morocco and has traveled extensively in Mexico and Europe.


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Joseph Chapman (English)


Joseph Chapman graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelors of Arts in 2005. He then studied Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, where he received his Masters of Fine Arts. After graduating from the University of Virginia, he accepted faculty positions at University of Virginia’s Young Writers Workshop and Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies programs. He has published poems in the magazine Cellar Door and has served as the Poetry Editor for Meridian magazine. He was awarded the Academy of American Poets prize in 2005 and 2007.


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Deborah Dubiner (Linguistics)


Deborah Dubiner holds a BA in Linguistics from Tel Aviv University, a Master’s in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Southern California, and a doctorate in Second Language Acquisition from Carnegie Mellon University. Her research interests include sociolinguistics, trilingualism and third language acquisition and teaching, as well as second language reading and fluency. Her published works discuss second language fluency and the connection between immersion programs and multilingualism . She speaks several languages, has lived in Brazil, Israel, and the US, and has traveled in several other countries. She currently teaches at the Kinneret College in Israel.


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Patti Duncan (Women's Studies)


Patti Duncan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Women's Studies at Oregon State University, where she specializes in transnational feminist theories and movements. She received her B.A. from Vassar College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Institute for Women's Studies at Emory University. She is the author of Tell This Silence: Asian American Women Writers and the Politics of Speech (Univ. of Iowa Press, 2004), and numerous articles about women of color, feminist pedagogies, and transnational feminisms. In 2004, she was a Visiting Researcher at Ewha Woman's University in Seoul. She also taught a seminar on gender, migration, and globalization in Cuernavaca, Mexico (summer 2007). Prof. Duncan is a winner of the John Eliot Allen Outstanding Teaching Award, and a recipient of grants/fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund, and the National Women's Studies Association. She has made more than forty presentations at national conferences. Her current research focuses on gendered forms of violence, and the effects of war and militarism on women in Asia.


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Tracy Bachrach Ehlers (Anthropology)


Tracy Ehlers' first academic appointment after receiving her doctorate in anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder was on Semester at Sea's Spring 1980 voyage. She then taught at Colorado for several years before moving in 1987 to the University of Denver where she is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Ehlers was a Fulbright Scholar in Costa Rica in 1995, winner of the DU Teacher/Scholar of the Year in 2001, and has published two books (Silent Looms: Women and Production in a Guatemalan Town and Sugar's Life in the Hood: The Story of an Former Welfare Mother) as well as numerous scholarly articles. In 1991, Britain's Granada Television worked with Dr. Ehlers to make a documentary film based on her fieldwork among the Maya in highland Guatemala. Her research interests are underdevelopment and globalization, gender relations, indigenous peoples, marriage and the family, and Latin America.


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Robbie Engelmann (Sociology)


Robbie Engelmann is a psychotherapist and educational consultant with a focus on diversity issues. Professor Engelmann has also received a high school teaching credential from San Francisco State College. She has been active in the diversity program at Stanford University and received the Metro Diversity award for her service in 2002. She was a Resident Fellow at Stanford from '98-'02. Until recently, she was the Director of Building Bridges', a YWCA program bringing diverse groups of people together to talk about racism and explore ways to work toward eliminating it. She has been lucky enough to live in many parts of the world and explore many cultures. Her educational backgrounds includes an M.S., Communications, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and M.S., Clinical Psychology, International College.


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Gustavo Fares (Literature/Studio Arts)


Gustavo Fares, Ph.D., a native of Argentina, is a Professor at Lawrence University, where he specializes in Latin American and cultural studies. He received a J.D. Law Degree, from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, in Argentina, a Master in Foreign Languages and Literature from West Virginia University, and a Ph. D. in Latin American Literature with emphasis in cultural studies from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of four books, among them Imagining Comala. The Space in Juan Rulfo’s Works (Peter Lang, 1991), and Contemporary Argentinean Women Writers. A Critical Anthology (U. P. of Florida, 1998, with E. Hermann). Fares has published numerous articles and has presented more than ninety papers on the topics of space in literature and the arts, Latin American cultures, women studies and border studies. In 2004 he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, where he taught a graduate seminar on culture and identity. In 2006 he traveled throughout Asia with a Freeman Grant from Lawrence University. In addition to teaching, Fares is also an accomplished visual artist. He holds a Professor of Painting and Drawing degree from the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes “Prilidiano Pueyrredón” from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a Master in Painting and Lithography from West Virginia University. He has had numerous solo and group exhibits, both in the United States and abroad, and has taught several university courses on visual arts. His current research focuses on the relationships between the verbal and the visual.


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Paul Groner (Religious Studies)


Paul Groner is professor and chair of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia. He received his BA in 1968 from Reed College, M.Phil. from Yale in 1971, and Ph.D. from Yale in 1979. He has published several book-length studies on medieval Japanese Buddhism, including Saicho: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School and Ryogen and Mount Hiei: Japanese Tendai in the Tenth Century. These focus on the doctrines and institutional history of the most important Buddhist tradition in medieval Japan. He has also published a translation of Hirakawa Akira's The History of Indian Buddhism. Professor Groner has lived in India for one year and Japan for over five years, as well as traveled extensively in China and Southeast Asia. Besides religion, he is enthusiastic about all Asian literature, art, music, history, and food.


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Michael E. Kaplan (International Business)


Michael Kaplan is a visiting professor of business at Vrije University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and The Aarhus School of Business in Aarhus, Denmark. He has previously taught at Gotlands University in Visby, Sweden; The University of Utah; Westminster College, Salt Lake City, Utah; and at The Varna Economics Institute in Bulgaria. Mr. Kaplan holds an A.L.M from Harvard University and a M.I.M. from Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management. He has also done graduate work in the former Soviet Union, Poland, and Sweden. Mr. Kaplan’s research and course work has focused on cross-cultural influences in the international business environment. Mr. Kaplan has owned and operated several U.S. and international businesses and real estate holdings and he employs a “real-life” teaching style to his classes. He has lived in 89 countries (and visited 123), speaks several languages, and recently authored a book about international travel. Originally from New England, he now calls Park City, Utah his home. This will be Professor Kaplan’s second voyage with Semester At Sea.


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David C. Miller (English)


Professor of English and Chairperson at Allegheny College, David Miller has published Dark Eden: The Swamp in 19th Century American Culture and edited American Iconology: New Essays in 19th Century American Art and Literature and is currently completing a book on the relations between art and literature in 19th century New England. Professor Miller heads the interdisciplinary programs at Allegheny and has long been an advocate for as well as practitioner of interdisciplinary approaches to scholarship and teaching. He is interested in elementary education, community based learning, and community re-vitalization and serves on his local school board. He has lived abroad on a number of occasions and traveled widely. David Miller’s educational background includes a Ph.D. in American Civilization from Brown University.


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Patricia O'Neill (History)


Professor O'Neill received her B.A. in History with a focus on European Intellectual History from the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1972. She received an M.A. in History with a concentration in Asian History from the State University of New York, Buffalo, New York in 1975 and her Ph.D. in Comparative European-Chinese History from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, in 1995. Professor O'Neill is a Professor of History at Central Oregon Community College, Bend, Oregon and an Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Oregon @ Bend; she teaches a variety of history courses, ranging from Western Civilization, through World History to East Asian History and a variety of upper-division history courses. Professor O'Neill was a recipient of the Burlington Northern Faculty Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching from Central Oregon Community College in 1999, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for Teachers focused on Comparative Institutional History: Ottoman Turks and Ming China at Princeton University in 1992. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association, a member of the World History Association, the Northwest Regional Branch of the World History Association, and the Northwest China Council, Portland, Oregon.


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John M. O’Sullivan (History)


John O’Sullivan has served as a Farm Management and Marketing Specialist for the Cooperative Extension Program, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&TSU), Greensboro, North Carolina for the past twenty five years. Prior to that, he taught world history and African history at Tuskegee University (AL) and Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (CA). He obtained his B.A. History from Stanford University; an M.A. in African Studies and his PhD, in History, from UCLA; and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics from Auburn University (AL). He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ivory Coast, West Africa. He has additional international experience in Rwanda and Guinea, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Chad, Congo (Brazzaville), Central African Republic and Sudan. He has published several articles in African history, as well as articles on the economic situation of small farms in the southern United States, and collaborative program evaluation. He was member of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension team that developed a very successful community development curriculum, Community Voices.


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Rita G. O’Sullivan (Education)


Rita O’Sullivan is Associate Professor and Executive Director of Educational Evaluation, Assessment & Policy Connections, School of Education, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She earned her A.B. in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley; M.A. in Educational Administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; and Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Curriculum & Instruction from Auburn University. She has received awards for her teaching, service and research. Professor O’Sullivan’s recent publications include Practicing Evaluation: A Collaborative Approach, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage (2004)


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Erika Paterson (Communication/Literature)


Erika Paterson is a lecturer with the Co-coordinated Arts Program and the English Department at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She received a BFA in Theatre and an interdisciplinary PhD (Anthropology & Theatre) from the University of Victoria (1998). She has extensive maritime experience; at seventeen she began working as a deck hand on west coast trollers, she worked her way through the Panama Canal catching the ‘hawser ball’ for yachts as she earned ‘sea time’ for her studies with the Pacific Marine Institute where she earned her Class Four Master Navigation Papers. Her background includes working as a first mate on fishing and packing vessels, and as an artistic director, playwright and lighting designer for a cross-Canada touring theatre company. She spent several years traveling and living in Latin America and the Caribbean; she taught English in Chiapas, Mexico, studied Spanish with the University of Havana, and worked as a project developer for the Cayman Islands Maritime Heritage Foundation where she also raced authentic catboats. In Honduras, she assisted with the development and opening of a small university on Roatan Island: The Bay Islands University, where she was the first Chair of the English Language and Literature Department (2002). She is currently fascinated with exploring and creating digital environments and global communities on the www.


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Armin Rosencranz (Political Science)


Armin Rosencranz, a lawyer and political scientist, is a visiting professor of public policy and law at the University of Maryland. He taught a suite of environmental policy courses at Stanford from 1995 to 2006, These interdisciplinary courses were sponsored by ten different departments, from history to biology. Armin received three student-nominated teaching awards at Stanford, including “Teacher of the Year” in 2005. Before teaching at Stanford, Armin was president of Pacific Environment, an international environmental NGO that he founded in 1987. Armin has had two Fulbright lectureships to India, where he taught one of India’s first courses on environmental law. His book, Environmental Law and Policy in India (2001), is widely used throughout India. He is also co-editor, with climate scientists Steve Schneider and Michael Mastrandrea, of Climate Change Science and Policy (forthcoming, 2008). He taught on Semester at Sea’s spring ‘04 voyage. He enjoys reading, mountain music, bicycling and playing poker.


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Kesho Y. Scott (Sociology)


Associate Professor of American Studies and Sociology at Grinnell College, Kesho Scott sailed as faculty on a previous Semester at Sea voyage (Spring 91). She received a B.A. degree in Sociology/History from Wayne State University; M.A. in Political Sociology from the University of Detroit; and Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa. She taught in Ethiopia in 2001-02 as a Fulbright Scholar and in London and Nanjing, China as a Visiting Professor. Her research and teaching interests include Unlearning Racism Inside and Outside the Classroom, Black Women in America, Multiculturalism in Academia, American Beliefs and Cultural Values, Gender in American Culture, Gender and Society, Global Feminism, and Social Movements in the 20th Century. In addition to teaching and research, Kesho Scott serves as a Diversity Trainer/Consultant. She has appeared nationally on TV and radio shows including Oprah Winfrey, Sonya Live and Last Call.


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Ed Sobey (Education, Environmental Sciences)


Professor Sobey is President of the Northwest Invention Center (www.invention-center.com) and Senior Director, Asian Institute for Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (www.asiainvents.com). In these roles he develops creative learning programs and museum exhibits, and writes books on technology, inventing, and science. His academic background is in physics and math (B.S. from the University of Richmond) and oceanography (M.S. and Ph.D. from Oregon State University). Ed Sobey has published several articles in refereed journals; several extensive environmental summaries for NOAA resource impact summaries; authored the EPA's first manual for cleaning up oil spills in Arctic conditions; written approximately 100 articles in magazines; and published 21 books with two more to be published in 2008. He lived in Japan for a year and has conducted research or taught classes on six continents. Sobey has received several professional awards for his work in community education programs, for his books, and for one of the television shows he hosted. He was selected as a Fellow in The Explorers Club in 1981.


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Robert Scott Stewart (Philosophy)


Scott Stewart is a Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada. His Ph.D. is from the University of Waterloo where he wrote a dissertation on the influence of Romantic aesthetic theory on John Stuart Mill’s mature ethical, social, and political thought. His research interests are eclectic but focused mainly in applied philosophy, particularly biomedical ethics, and in philosophy and literature. He has published articles on topics as varied as Plato’s use of myths, the social construction of mental illness, British picturesque gardens, and the role of nurses in end-of-life care in such journals as History of Philosophy Quarterly, Journal of Value Inquiry, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, Janus Head, and Philosophy and Geography. Current projects include the ways in which love, writing, and memory interact in the works of Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss, the relation between laws regarding euthanasia and levels of palliative care in the Netherlands and Canada, and a comparison between end-of-life care in Canada and Cuba.


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Laxmi G. Tewari (Music)


Laxmi Tewari, Professor of Music at Sonoma State University, California since 1974, is an accomplished performer, teacher, and scholar. He has given concerts and lectures on Indian classical music all around the world and presented papers at international conferences. His voice provides the background vocal music for Sacred Verses, Healing Sounds by Deepak Chopra (two audio cassettes). San Rafael, California: New World Library, 1994. Since 1970, he has been studying and collecting the folk music of Turkey, India, and Trinidad & Tobago and has produced numerous books and compact discs from his field research, as well as four compact discs of his own performances. Some of his publications are: Celestial Music of Pandit Lalmani Misra, (DVD, Sonoma State University, California, 2007), Folk Music of Uttar Pradesh: India (D.K. Printworld, New Delhi, 2006), A Splendor of Worship: Women’s Fasts, Ritual, Stories, and Art (Manohar, New Delhi, 1991), and Folk Music of Uttar Pradesh, India (CD, Lyrichord, 2006). Sonoma State University honored him with its Outstanding Professor, Meritorious Performance and Professional Achievement, and Friends of the Library Faculty Awards. Doctor of Music Degree, Banaras Hindu University (India); Ph.D., Wesleyan University.


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Michael P. Timko (Biology)


Michael P. Timko is a Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia and Director of the Distinguished Major Program in Human Biology. He received a BS from the Rutgers College of Agriculture and Environmental Science in 1975, studied genetics and breeding at Michigan State University, and earned his PhD from Rutgers University in 1980. He held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Photobiology at Brandeis University (1980-1982) and the Laboratory of Cell Biology at Rockefeller University (1982-1986), where he was involved in some of the earliest studies of gene transfer methods to plants, including seminal research on protein targeting to organelles that resulted in technology now utilized in the production of commercial varieties of herbicide resistant plants grown worldwide. In 1986 he joined the faculty at the University of Virginia where he teaches courses that integrate his interests in plant sciences, molecular biology, food production, and nutrition and directs an internationally recognized research program that uses functional genomics for the molecular improvement of legume crops for Africa and the development of novel plant-based human nutriceuticals and therapeutics. He is actively involved in a wide range of research, training, and outreach activities throughout sub-Saharan Africa where his work is supported by various national and international granting agencies and private foundations including the NSF, CGIAR-GCP, and Kirkhouse Charitable Trust. He has authored or co-authored over 100 research papers, book chapters and review articles and has multiple US and world-wide patents in agricultural and nutritional biotechnology. He believes that the exchange of knowledge and technology among nations is key to improving food security, global health, and nutrition.


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Cheri Vasek (Drama)


Cheri Vasek is an Associate Professor at the University of Idaho, Department of Theatre and Film. She earned her M.F.A. in Theatrical Costume and Scenic Design at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and her B.S. in Costume Design from the University of California at Davis. Her areas of specialization include costumes, textile dyeing, masks and Asian Theatre history. She is a frequently invited lecturer in textile dyeing techniques. She has worked professionally for the Guthrie Theatre, the Santa Fe Opera and American Conservatory Theatre. Vasek has received numerous KCACTF Merit Awards for Design Excellence for her costume, scenic puppet and mask designs, and was a KCACTF National Costume Design Faculty Fellowship Nominee in 2005. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Arts & Humanities, Central Washington University in 1999, and was named to Who’s Who in Fine Arts Higher Education, 2005. Vasek’s recent costume designs include: Death and the Kings Horseman, Washington State University; Noh Telling, Central Washington University; Mary Rose, West Virginia University; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, University of Idaho.


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Frank Warnock (Business/Economics)


Frank Warnock is an Associate Professor of Business Administration at Darden Business School, University of Virginia, where he teaches in the GEM (Global Economies and Markets) area. His research, which focuses on international portfolio allocation, capital flows, and financial sector development, has been featured in Financial Times, The Economist, Barron's, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times and published in many journals. Frank’s career includes a stints as a Senior Economist in the International Finance Division at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC; with Merrill Lynch in Vienna, Austria; and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi's Thyolo District. His professional career started on Wall Street, where he was a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA). Frank is currently Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Senior Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas' Globalization and Monetary Policy Institute, Research Associate at the Institute of International Integration Studies (IIIS) at Trinity College Dublin, and a consultant on the World Bank/IFC global bond markets project, GEMLOC. He has recently been Research Fellow at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and a consultant to the IMF and the European Central Bank.


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Veronica Cacdac Warnock (Economics)


Veronica Warnock is Batten Fellow at the Batten Institute at Darden Business School (UVA), Lecturer at the School of Architecture (UVA) and Principal of CW Economics Group. She teaches 'Economics and the Built Environment' at the A-School and co-teaches 'Markets in Human Hope' at Darden. At the core of her research is development and equity, with a current focus on access to finance and financial sector development. She is working on a credit assessment system for housing microlenders in South Africa—partially funded by the Gates Foundation. She is also studying local bond markets around the world in conjunction with a World Bank/IFC initiative. As Research Fellow at the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, she recently conducted a cross-country study of housing finance systems, which has been presented at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, South African Reserve Bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and at universities in Copenhagen, Dublin, and Manila. Previously, Veronica was Senior Economist and Director at Mortgage Bankers Association (Washington, D.C.) and Research Associate at Haver Analytics, Inc. (New York City). She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Fordham University and A.B. in Economics from Ateneo de Manila University. She was born and raised in the Philippines.


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Christine A. Wernet (Sociology)


Dr. Wernet has been an Assistant Professor of Sociology since 2000. She was awarded one of thirteen Fulbright Scholarships to travel to South Korea during the summer of 2004. Was a finalist for the "Excellence in Teaching Award" at her University. Dr. Wernet's research focus is in comparative sociology and global inequalities. Her paper "The postmodern Individual: Structure Determinants of Attitudes" which explores how culture shapes people's values in 39 countries, has been published in the journal for Comparative Sociology. Her paper, "Experiential Learning in the Classroom: Demonstrating Income Inequality" has been accepted for publication in the Teaching Corner of the Southern Sociologist. She received her PhD. and MA in Sociology from the University of Akron, and her BA in Psychology from the University of Dayton.


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Martha Works (Geography)


Martha Works is Professor of Geography and International Studies at Portland State University. She received her B. A. in Anthropology from the University of the Americas in Cholula, Puebla; her M. A. (Geography) from Arizona State University; and a Ph. D. (Geography) from Louisiana State University. Research and teaching interests include political ecology and cultural landscape change in the Americas, particularly how human use of natural resources transforms landscapes and the physical environment. Research projects include the impact of national and international policies on agricultural land use change in the Peruvian Amazon, ecological impacts of community-managed forestry in central Mexico, and the impact of trade on settlement patterns in Spanish Colonial New Mexico. Current projects look at the impact of urban growth on rural land use in the Portland Metro region and how cultural preferences for food (local, organic, sustainable) affect metropolitan agriculture. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, grants from the National Geographic Society, and the Allen Outstanding Teaching Award from Portland State.


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Laura Meitzner Yoder (Biological & Environmental Sciences)


Professor Yoder is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor level) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, as Program Leader of the Aceh Research Training Institute of Syiah Kuala University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Her background includes studies in Biology/Natural Science (B.A., Messiah College), International Agriculture and Rural Development (M.P.S. Agriculture, Cornell University), and Social Ecology/Forestry and Environmental Studies (Ph.D., Yale University). Her research and writing covers environmental anthropology and historical ecology, collaborative research in plant breeding, customary-state interactions on land and forest management, and community resilience in areas affected by conflict and natural disaster. She has spent more than a decade studying and teaching about interactions of people and plants in tropical America (Ecuador, Honduras, and Costa Rica), South and South-East Asia (India, Bangladesh, Indonesia from Papua to Aceh, East Timor), Australia, and England.


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John Zelenski (Psychology)


John Zelenski is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He completed psychology degrees in his native USA at Northwestern University (B.A.), the University of Michigan (M.A.), and Washington University in St. Louis (Ph.D.). He studies individual differences in happiness, and how personality manifests itself 'in the moment' as emotional and cognitive processes. Recent work has focused on the causes and consequences of social behavior, and the links among people’s sense of connection to nature, happiness, and sustainable behavior. His research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Research Fund, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and is published in journals such as Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Environment and Behavior, and Journal of Happiness Studies.


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