Who We Are

WAC Coordinators

Min Choi (WAC Fellows & Program Development)

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Minkyung (Min) Choi received a Ph.D. in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Much of her research interests center on using student narratives to highlight literacy learning in school settings and inform teacher education. As an assistant professor of early childhood education and academic literacy at Bronx Community College, CUNY, Minkyung is particularly interested in how student voices are shaped by and shape learning experiences, including immigrant and refugee populations living in the United States. With a background in creative writing and public speaking, Minkyung has facilitated fiction workshops for seniors, North Korean refugees, and high school students with the purpose of amplifying students’ unique and authentic voices.

Giulia Guarnieri (Assessment & Faculty Development)       

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In my current role, I provide assistance in the areas of program assessment, faculty development, and    data analytics. Prior to joining the WAC program, I led the First-Year Program and created and managed the Podcasting Faculty Seminar, where I oversaw all aspects of the training, evaluation, planning, and assessment. I also serve on the board of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology. I was raised in Italy but have been living in the United States for over 20 years. I received a graduate degree in English Language and Literature and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages– at BCC, I am Professor of Italian Language and Literature. I was trained in WAC pedagogy both in graduate school and at Bronx Community College. In addition, I serve as an instructional technology consultant for higher education both in the US and Europe. I look forward to working with all future participating faculty and fellows.

2022-2023 WAC Fellows

Mark-Allan Donaldson (Comparative Literature)

Hello, by the cruel fate of alphabetization mine is the first fellows profile you are encountering. Please, do not let it discourage you from moving on. I am a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at the Grad Center and I spend most of my time stressing about the job dossier and procrastinating my dissertation, tentatively titled “The Truth and Other Fictions: Determining the Quality of Reality Across Historical and Fictional Medieval Literature” which is appropriately academic in its length but not yet snappy enough for my tastes. This work will focus on the truth claims of medieval legendary literature, particularly the Alexandrian and Arthurian – tracking how historical figures become fictionalized and fictional characters become people in all but biology. My other research obsessions are the interactions between literature and physics, and the lingering elements of the medieval in modern culture, particularly the endemic racism surrounding Medieval Studies and medievalisms. I am also also a lecturer at City College in addition to being a WAC fellow at BCC, where I hope to continue exploring ways of centering student experience regarding pedagogy and making the education process more accessible in general. 

(Pictured above: My cat Argo, who is by far the more photogenic of the two of us, and my research assistant / harshest critic lo these many years)

Eva Gordon Ryali (English)

I am a PhD Candidate in English at The Graduate Center, CUNY. My dissertation research focuses on nineteenth century American women journalists and novelists, shifting gender ideologies, and the emergence of celebrity culture. I hold an MA in English from Saint Louis University and an MFA in Fiction Writing from Spalding University. I have taught First Year Writing on and off beginning in 2012. I currently teach as an Adjunct Lecturer at Baruch College, where I also serve as Program Manager for the First Year Writing and Great Works of Literature programs.

My work has appeared in journals including The Louisville Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review, New Plains Review, New Southerner, and Life Writing. I am co-author of The Everything Guide to Writing Children’s Books, 2nd Edition and have a chapter in the recent edited Routledge essay collection Life Writing and Celebrity: Exploring Intersections. I have an essay forthcoming in a special issue of Pedagogy on teaching during Covid-19.

Mahnaz Izadi (Environmental Psychology)

I am a PhD candidate in Environmental Psychology, which explores the dynamic relationships between people and different environments. I have a background in Architecture which feeds my interest in the ways different places influence and are influenced by, our behaviors, actions, and perceptions. My dissertation focuses on the relationship between school design and planning and social issues like bullying. I have taught statistic labs for 3 years at Brooklyn College. This has opened my eyes to the struggles of incorporating meaningful assignments and real-life scenarios into our courses that could help students relate to and retain the knowledge they learn in college.

Clare Monfredo (Music)

I am a DMA candidate at the Graduate Center, where I study cello performance. In my research and cello playing, I am interested in studying interpretation, particularly the individual differences between performers in their approaches to a single musical score. My dissertation research is focused on different modern interpretations of the Bach Cello Suites. As a performer, I have focused mostly on a variety of standard and contemporary solo and chamber music as well as interdisciplinary collaboration with artists.

Before moving to New York, I studied in Leipzig, Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Yale University and a Master of Music from the Shepherd School at Rice University. In addition to my work at BCC, I am an adjunct professor at Hunter College where I teach cello and chamber music after working there as a graduate fellow for three years.

My website can be found at www.claremonfredo.com

Dean Schafer (Political Science)

picture & bio coming

Barbara Storch (Health Psychology and Clinical Science)

I am a PhD Student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. My research focuses on adjustment to chronic G/I conditions (like Inflammatory Bowel Disease) in children, adolescents, and young adults, with a focus on resilient adjustment. Clinically, I currently work with children and adolescents who struggle with anxiety and mood disorders.

I have taught Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences at Brooklyn College for 8 semesters, both as the lecture instructor and the lab instructor. Teaching “psych stats” has catalyzed my curiosity about how to scaffold learning for students in math courses, as well as how to incorporate different ways of “showing knowledge” in more STEM-based classes. I am looking forward to working with the BCC community this upcoming year!

2021-2022 WAC Fellows

Lisa Babel (Psychology)

I am a PhD candidate in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. I received my Bachelor’s Degree from CUNY’s Hunter College, with a double major in Political Science and Sociology. As an undergrad, I did research on the nation’s Head Start program. Once I enrolled in the CUNY Graduate Center, I compared Head Start to Montessori preschools and the potential effect(s) various learning environments have on children and their families. I completed my Master’s Degree in Childhood and Youth Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as an enroute Master’s Degree in Developmental Psychology. As a PhD student, I am conducting a qualitative study on Kindergarten readiness and academic redshirting across socioeconomic status for my dissertation. I am also working on several studies related to types of play and equitable play spaces in urban environments. Other areas of interest include universal preschool, the transition from home to school, standardized testing, global education initiatives, as well as alternative school pedagogy. Currently, I am an Adjunct Lecturer and Thesis Advisor at CUNY’s City College where I teach both undergraduate and graduate courses in psychology.

Dongwoo Kim (Philosophy)

I am a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  My research is in the metaphysics and epistemology of modality. Some things in the world could have been otherwise, while others are not. This is the distinction between contingency and necessity. Whence the distinction, and how do we recognize, of a given fact, whether it is contingent or necessary? These are the main questions of my dissertation project. I also work on some of the topics in areas such as logic, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mathematics, and the history of analytic philosophy.

I was previously a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Baruch College, where I taught courses in ethics, critical thinking, and logic. My pedagogy focuses on fostering two inter-related abilities by guided discussion in classroom: the ability to articulate abstract ideas in terms of concrete examples, and the ability to identify, of any given idea, its strengths and potential weaknesses. 

Madeline Lafuse (History)

I am a PhD candidate in History at CUNY Graduate Center. I write on slavery and poison in nineteenth-century New Orleans. I use a wide variety of cultural productions to explore the complex relationships that emerged from the tension between enslaved culinary labor and slaveholder vulnerability to poisoning. In the process, my project draws new connections between the politics of free people of color, slaveholders’ racial fantasies, and mythmaking around the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau.

I come to BCC from Lehman College’s History Department, where I was a Graduate Teaching Fellow. I taught six semesters of the US History survey through Reconstruction. My pedagogical approach draws from my previous experience teaching English as a Second Language around the world. I encourage student engagement and self-confidence with creative assignments that lean into the challenges of a multilevel, linguistically diverse classroom.

Irina Mindlis (Psychology)

I am a PhD Candidate in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science program at The Graduate Center of CUNY. My research focuses on psychosocial adjustment to illness among older adults, especially in those with multiple chronic illnesses – also known as multimorbidity. I am especially interested in how the compounding of difficulties that comes with multimorbidity and aging affects underserved and underprivileged populations. I also work on projects related to patient-physician communication.

I was previously a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Hunter College, where I taught two semesters of Health Psychology to large sections of 100+ students. Teaching large courses inspired me to think deeply about how to encourage writing for the sciences through short assignments and group collaboration.

Pedro Monque Lopez (Philosophy)

I am a Ph.D. student in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Originally from Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, I work in Latin American philosophy, social and political philosophy (especially race, feminist, and LGBTQ+ philosophy), and environmental philosophy. My research focuses on processes of decolonization by indigenous, black, and queer communities in Latin America, especially those under the banner of “defensa del territorio”. I also regularly organize and participate in grassroots educational projects in Latin America.

Before becoming a WAC fellow at Bronx Community College, I was a teaching fellow at Lehman College where I developed a new class on Latin American philosophy in Spanish, and also regularly taught Theories of Human Nature. I came to education searching for ideas that would help me combat forms of oppression that I witnessed or had myself experienced. Many students come to class with a similar hunch that education can be a liberatory practice. My pedagogical approach relies on several traditions (Latin American popular education, feminist and anti-racist pedagogy, learner-centered pedagogy) to design learning spaces that are personal and diverse enough to benefit all students.

Chandni Tariq (History)

I am a PhD student in History at the CUNY Graduate Center. I am working on understanding the construction of alterity and racial categories across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds. My research examines the cultural materials of slavery and empire and their lasting legacy of anti-Blackness in the United States, Britain, and South Asia.  

Before joining WAC at BCC, I was a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Queens College’s History Department. At Queens, I taught U.S. History since 1865 for six wonderful semesters. I continue to teach this semester at Manhattan College. My pedagogical approach emerges from my personal experiences as a student of color growing up in NYC. My emphasis has always been on using reading and writing together to give my students a language to express and advocate for themselves in an academic setting. I have also spent my time teaching interrogating my own grading practices and have adapted them to meet the wide range of reading and writing capabilities students bring to the classroom. Teaching and learning ought to be socially conscious and explicitly anti-racist.

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2020-2021 Fellows

  • Zoe Cunliffe
  • Jiwon Han
  • Maxine Krenzel
  • Brenna McCaffrey
  • Dean Schafer
  • Martha Schulenburg

2019-2020 Fellows

  • Austin Bailey
  • Allison Cabana
  • Elena Chavez Goycochea
  • Jessie McCormack
  • Marc Cesar Rickenbach
  • Kelsey Swift
  • Katherine Volkmer

2018-2019 Fellows

  • Gabriel Arce Riocabo
  • Kiki Leung
  • Jessie McCormack
  • Parfait Kouacou, Drexel University
  • Eleanor Luken
  • Katherine Volkmer

2017-2018 Fellows

2016-2017 Fellows

2015-2016 Fellows

2014-2015 Fellows

  • David Bridges
  • Jennifer Chancellor
  • Benjamin Dumbauld
  • Yu-Yun Hsieh
  • Svetlana Jović
  • Michael Polesny
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