This academic year (2020–21), 10 CAS lecturers were promoted to senior lecturer and six were promoted to master lecturer. These promotions were instated at the beginning of July. Please congratulate the following colleagues on their promotion, and thank you all for the continued great work and support of our students and staff.
Promoted to Senior Lecturer:
- Allison Blyler, CAS Writing Program
Allison’s teaching and scholarship focus on place, urban nature, eco-pedagogy, and multi-species justice. She is a writing associate at Sargent College and co-director of the Writing Program’s Boston Now experiential-learning curricular initiative. - Elena Carrión-Guerrero, Department of Romance Studies
Elena generally teaches courses in the LS111–212 sequence as well as 300-level sections of Spanish, and her student evaluations are overwhelmingly positive. Students comment on her expertise—in particular, the clarity of her explanations—as well as the rigor and challenge of her classes. She was the co-organizer of the weekly Geddes Brownbag Lunch Series this past academic year and, with Senior Lecturer Maria Datel, one of the chief organizers of the BU Second-Language Learning and Disabilities Conference. Elena is very active professionally as well, presenting at conferences such as the Northeast Regional Conference of the AATP, the NHWALT conference in New Hampshire, and NECTFL. - Ishita Dey, Department of Economics
Ishita joined the department in 2015 as a part-time instructor and transitioned to a full-time instructor in 2016, and during her time has introduced a new elective course, the Economics of Education, and is working on new advanced courses in empirical methods. She’s a frequent instructor in intermediate empirical courses and macroeconomics courses and has also taught labor economics and is known for high student engagement, rigorous teaching, and care for students. She publishes research on post-secondary education, such as on the relationship between student attendance and outcomes, and she sometimes uses her own BU classes for study. She also works in the Boston Public School’s Community Service program. - Bahar Erbas, Department of Economics
Bahar is a popular instructor in intermediate microeconomics, industrial organization, public economics, and environmental economics at both the undergraduate and master’s levels. Students praise her passion for her students, her precise lectures, her knowledge of economics, her availability, and her mentoring. Bahar has a distinguished history of publications and conference presentations on innovation, public finance, and environmental quality. Currently, she is working on empirical papers on the relationship between climate change and energy taxes and between CO2 emission intensities and passenger car sales, respectively. - Stephen Hodin, CAS Writing Program
Stephen’s scholarship explores American culture and literature, labor and technology studies, and race theory, and he has taught a range of courses, including “American Manifestos” and “Visions of Technology & Society.” Since 2018, Stephen has served as studio coordinator of Kilachand Honors College, in which he helped lead the redesign of the first-year writing course for the BU Hub. - Christiane Kaden, Department of World Languages & Literatures
Christiane is a specialist in German linguistics, with a research focus on phonetics. Since joining BU in 2015, she has worked to advance WLL’s German language program by tightening the curriculum, opening up German courses to the BU Hub, and creating a welcoming community for students. Her signature events include a monthly “Kaffestunde” where students get to know faculty and each other while speaking German. LG 305, a language course she redesigned for STEM majors, culminates with a “Science Fair” at which students do presentations in German on scientific topics. Additionally, she has been centrally involved in the design and planning of the Global House and served as the first advisor to the German cluster. - Michael O’Mara Shimek, CAS Writing Program
A linguist and translator, Michael offers classes in the WR111–112 cycle as an English language learning specialist, in addition to research seminars that explore metaphor and consumerism in mass media. His scholarly work explores the intersection of rhetoric, metaphor, and journalism ethics in financial news media during times of crisis. - Brenda Phillips, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences
Brenda regularly teaches Social Psychology, Experimental Psychology: Developmental, Experimental Psychology: Social, and Psychology of the Family, and occasionally General Psychology and Experimental Psychology: Personality. Her course evaluations are excellent in all of the courses she teaches. She also supervises undergraduate directed-study students and students undertaking honors projects in psychology. In addition, she advises over 50 advisees per semester and has worked to develop curriculum and learning outcome assessments department-wide. And since 2013, she has co-authored four peer-reviewed journal articles or conference papers. - Randi Rotjan, Department of Biology
Randi teaches two block courses annually in the marine semester (Marine Urban Ecology and Coral Reef Dynamics) and two large gateway courses (Ecology and Marine Biology). Randi employs an impressive array of active and inquiry-based learning strategies in her courses, particularly related to science communication. She has an active research program focused on coral reefs, climate change, and marine conservation, and actively mentors undergraduate and graduate students in research. She has published 25 papers since coming to BU, with many students as co-authors. She brings strong connections to other scientific institutions, as she is the co-chief scientist at the Phoenix Islands Protected Area and on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean. At BU, she is a faculty associate at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and a faculty affiliate of the Boston University Initiative on Cities. - Andre Switala, Department of Economics
Andre has been a full-time lecturer at BU since 2015, and before that, he held lecturer positions at multiple prestigious institutions including Bentley University, University of Massachusetts Boston, Wellesley College, and Tufts University. Andre is a remarkably versatile lecturer, having taught courses at all levels, including principles of macroeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, intermediate empirical courses, undergraduate electives, and master’s theory and econometrics courses. He has been particularly successful in his elective course on the theory of money and banking. Students know him for his ability to connect economics lectures to real-world events, his high level of organization, and his support for students. He has also taken on a major advising caseload, particularly advising senior economics majors as they consider graduate school and the job market.
Promoted to Master Lecturer:
- Laura Brusetti McGinn, Department of Romance Studies
Laura has served as overall coordinator of the Italian Program since 2015 and has also served on multiple committees including the RS Executive Committee, the French Lecturer Search, and the RS Assessment Committee. Whether it’s through her teaching philosophy or in overseeing the program, her passion for the Italian language and breadth of thought is evident, and her teaching evaluations are consistently excellent. Her leadership as coordinator of the program and service to the department, Geddes Language Center, Global House, and the University’s orientation programming all stand out. - Alison Carberry, Department of Romance Studies
From her recent presentations at prestigious conferences of foreign language teaching to her continuing research in the field of medieval Iberian studies, Alison has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to the program and the profession. Alison was previously the head of the Spanish Program and is currently serving as coordinator for LS112. Her student evaluations are outstanding, and colleagues visiting her classes share the same enthusiasm, remarking on her sophisticated organization in the classroom. As a Learn from Anywhere (LfA) coach for the department, Alison’s contribution to advising and teaching is stellar. - Kyna Hamill, Core Curriculum
Kyna, a lecturer in the Core Curriculum since 2011, has distinguished herself through both her consistently outstanding teaching and her exemplary service and leadership in the College. Kyna is the first lecturer to be appointed director of the Core Curriculum, a position she has held since 2019. In this capacity, she has worked with her colleagues to refresh the Core’s courses and to develop and expand the array of enriching experiences for Core students, including the Core Docent program and the Core in Florence program. She has also made important contributions to the College and University, most recently by serving as an Arts & Sciences Diversity & Inclusion Action team member. A theater historian who works at the intersection of theater and visual culture, she is completing a book on the Baroque artist Jacques Callot (1592–1635) and his influence on popular entertainment. - Molly Monet-Viera, Department of Romance Studies
Molly’s teaching evaluations are excellent, as her students are particularly impressed with how much their knowledge broadened not just linguistically but culturally as well. She has made a major contribution to supporting Latinx students, developing the new LS 309 course. Molly is an active presence in the department and on campus, serving multiple times as course coordinator for the second (fall 2019), third (2011–2015), and fourth semesters (2015–2018). Her broader professional activities included service on a college-level committee about digital learning, a speaking role at the department’s yearly orientation, and a presentation at a BU “Teaching with Technology” festival. - Luluah Mustafa, Department of World Languages & Literatures
Luluah came to BU’s Arabic program in 2010, later serving as both the overall coordinator (2017–20) and as the first-year coordinator. She has taken on a leadership role in curriculum development, creating syllabi and materials that facilitate student-centered and proficiency-based instruction using the communicative method. Her effective and pedagogically sound materials have made WLL’s Arabic courses more engaging, relevant, and lively; for example, her advanced course “LY 411 Arabic through Hip-Hop and Editorial Cartoons” is now part of the BU Hub. She is also the winner of this year’s Frank and Lynn Wisneski Award for Excellence in Teaching. Together with colleagues at the Wheelock School of Education, she has secured a STARTALK Teacher Academy grant to train 30 Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish language teachers from across the U.S. She is a frequent conference presenter on the board of both the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA) and the New England Regional Association for Language Learning Technology. - Amber Navarre, Department of World Languages & Literatures
Amber specializes in technology-enhanced teaching, which is also her research expertise. She is the sole author of two textbooks in Chinese language pedagogy, including the forthcoming Teaching Chinese through Theater, and has developed and/or fully redesigned five courses, including the graduate-level Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. She was awarded BU’s 2017 Gitner Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology and has served as lead instructor and principal investigator for two prestigious STARTALK grants. She maintains two YouTube channels to share over 100 educational videos she has developed with Chinese language instructors around the world. Since March 2020, she has shepherded the remote-learning transition for the language instructors in WLL and the sister language departments, serving as the de facto pedagogy resource person and later a LfA Coach.