Faculty

Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences (CAS) are innovators in the classroom and leaders in their fields. Their diversity of disciplines, backgrounds, and perspectives contribute to an academic and scholarly experience that is vibrant, inclusive, respectful, and collaborative. And their impact is boundless. Their work drives positive change in critical areas including sustainability, justice, policy, civic engagement, mental healthcare, and scientific discovery. As a community, we support and celebrate their many achievements. 

Outstanding & Innovative Teachers

Across multiple disciplines, CAS faculty advance innovative teaching and learning materials and techniques that inspire their students and colleagues and are adopted nationally by other faculty in their fields. Some examples include:

  • Professor of Economics Alison Kelly Hawke, whose textbooks have become McGraw-Hill’s most successful brand in the fields of Business Statistics and Business Analytics and won McGraw-Hill Product of the Year Award for Business Analytics – Communicating with Numbers, 2020
  • Associate Professor of Political Science Elena Llaudet, whose co-authored textbook with Harvard University Professor Kosuke Imai is receiving critical acclaim for making data science and its applications in the social sciences accessible to students with little to no math or coding background
  • Associate Professor of Biology Celeste Peterson and Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Environment & Physics Melanie Berkmen whose innovations in using AR/VR as a pedagogical tool to provide 4-D manipulatable, molecular models for biochemistry students has garnered NSF funding to share their techniques with STEM faculty from around the country as well as attention from META, the parent company that produces the Quest VR headsets they use 
  • CAS Faculty members Mary Beth Medvide, Jessica Gillooly, and Elena Llaudet, who have won the Suffolk University Innovative Teaching Award the last three years for their outstanding teaching innovations focused on experiential and applied learning

Celebrating Our Faculty

More than a hundred honorees and attendees gathered for the CAS Faculty Recognition Ceremony in which newly promoted and tenured faculty were acknowledged and retiring faculty were honored.
Each year, Suffolk’s Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence (CTSE) presents a faculty member with the Innovative Teaching Award. CTSE Director Rachel Plews and Provost Julie Sandell posed with the 2024 award recipient, Assistant Professor of Psychology Mary Beth Medvide, and CAS Dean Edie Sparks.
Assistant Professor of Art & Design Kristen Mallia, Associate Professor of Sociology & Criminal Justice Amy Agigian, and Associate Professor of English Elif Armbruster caught up at the CAS Faculty Scholarly & Creative Achievement Celebration. This annual event is a chance for faculty to connect and present their work, including projects completed on sabbatical during the previous year.

During the CAS Faculty Recognition Ceremony, the College’s longest-serving faculty member, Physics Professor Walter Johnson, said of his more than 50 year experience at Suffolk: “As I look back at my career, if I could do it again, I would.”

Nationally & Internationally Recognized Scholars & Artists

In the social sciences

Social Science faculty have been awarded significant grants, contracts and advisory roles that advance social justice in our criminal justice, government and business systems, including:

Literature and humanities

Humanities faculty publish work with top-ranked journals and academic presses that shed light on the human condition, literature and ideas and contribute original creative work that receives national attention. Our faculty are, for example, nationally and internationally recognized experts on authors Margaret Fuller (Leslie Eckel), James Baldwin (Quentin Miller), Haitian author Évelyn Troillet (Marjorie Salvodon), Greek poet Constantine Cavafy (Peter Jeffreys) and American Political Philosopher John Rawls (Chris Melenovsky) and prolific poets who advance the genre through their own publications as well as curation and editing (José Aragúz and George Kalogeris). 

In the lab and in the field

Faculty in STEM fields collaborate with colleagues at top Boston-area and other universities on grant-funded discovery research projects that incorporate undergraduates and produce results with meaningful health and environmental impacts. Examples include a collaborative publication in Cell by Associate Professor of Biology Maghnus O’Seaghdha with a team of other researchers funded by NIH that advances novel treatments for invasive infections by flesh-eating bacteria; NSF-funded research on how climate change affects the oceans by Associate Professor Hayley Schiebel; and NASA-funded research on cabin air quality and contaminant control strategies for the International Space Station by Associate Professor Kelsey Stocker, both in the Department of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Environment and Physics. 

In the gallery and the theater

Our creative and performing arts faculty are active professionals in their fields who receive commissions and present their work in juried art shows, regional theaters and international film festivals. These include:

  • Assistant Professor Kristen Mallia who has been an artist-in-resident internationally and collaborates with artists around the globe to produce exhibits of her mixed-media work
  • Jeremy Levine, Assistant Professor of Communications, Journalism & Media, whose documentary films, funded by the Ford Foundation and other arts-funding organizations, have premiered at international film festivals, including Sundance, received multiple awards and critical acclaim, been distributed broadly through commercial streaming outlets and in the communities they seek to elucidate with stories about systemic injustices
  • Theatre Professor Wesley Savick, whose play one state, two state/red state, blue state, a musical about our divided nation inspired by Arlie Hochschild's book Strangers in Their Own Land will return to Suffolk’s stage in Fall 2024

Shaping the future of health

Faculty in our clinical programs train licensed professionals working on the front lines of cancer care and mental healthcare and contribute to novel methods that advance health equity. Our medical dosimetry and radiation therapy programs, led by licensed professionals with deep ties to the Boston-area healthcare system, produce health practitioners who secure jobs in top cancer care hospitals in Boston and around the country. The mental health counseling (MA) and clinical psychology (PhD) programs produce mental health practitioners attuned to the social determinants of health and culturally responsive-, patient-responsive treatment mentored by faculty who are both clinicians and scholars, such as:

Dedicated to Public Impact

What unifies CAS faculty is a dedication to public impact. Our faculty across disciplines are committed to applying their expertise and engaging their students in making our community—regionally, nationally, globally—a better place.

Making an Impact

Our faculty’s passion for civic engagement drives Suffolk’s notably high student voter registration rates and non-partisan participation in the political process. Rachael Cobb, associate professor of political science & legal studies, and Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, associate professor and chair of communications, journalism & media, recently joined forces to launch the “Election Connection” podcast, a fun and illuminating dive into complex and often misunderstood concepts.
Psychology Associate Professor Sarah Schwartz, who leads the University’s Adolescent Connectedness and Empowerment Lab, researches climate anxiety among young people and runs workshops for youth activists. Initial findings from her studies suggest that education can help empower students to take action without significantly increasing their distress.
Suffolk’s Policy Debate Coach, Advertising and Public Relations Professor Frank Irizarry, has long mentored high school students from the Boston Debate League and recently re-established a college team at Suffolk. Capping off a championship 2024 season was news that the team won CEDA’s National Public Debate Award for their achievements, and for work that Irizarry did with the National Prison Debate League.
Pioneering work by faculty in multiple disciplines has made Suffolk a leader in integrating AR/VR tech into the classroom. Recently, CAS faculty and students participated in an ad for Meta Platforms, and held an NSF grant-supported workshop to train colleagues from around the country on applying VR to education.
Jonas Kaiser, an assistant professor of communication, journalism & media at Suffolk has made disinformation a key part of his academic research, studying how it proliferates online and what that means for society.
CAS Faculty members co-founded and co-lead the Women and Incarceration Project, which seeks to educate policymakers, journalists, and the general public on issues affecting the 1.2 million women under the supervision of the criminal justice system. WIP is housed at Suffolk’s Center for Women’s Health & Human Rights, which was established in 2003 by Amy Agigian, an associate professor of sociology and the center’s director. (From left, Suffolk Law Professor Erin Braatz; Sociology Professor Susan Sered; Amy Agigian; Political Science Professor Rachael Cobb)

Additional Resources for Faculty

Faculty Resources
Diversity Resources