Winter 2022 Fellows

Alexander Legg is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Graduate Center. He holds a master’s in clinical psychology from the American University of Beirut. His research examines coercive control, intimate partner violence, and sex-trafficking victimization in LGBTQ+ communities.

Aman Desai is a doctoral student in the Department of Economics at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He holds a master’s degree in econometrics and quantitative economics. His research interests are at the intersection of income inequality, intergenerational income mobility, and their public policy implications. He is also interested in financial modeling using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques.

Britt Munro is an international PhD student in English (Cultural Studies) at The Graduate Center. She teaches first year composition at Lehman College, where she currently teaches a course exploring the different meanings of resistance. Her own research focuses on the historic entanglement of whiteness, capitalism and the idea of freedom-as-self-possession in the settler colony, with a comparative focus on Australia and the US.

Evan Rothman is a doctoral student in History at the Graduate Center and a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College, where he teaches world history. Evan holds an advanced certificate in Labor Studies from CUNY’s School of Labor and Urban Studies. His research focuses on teacher unionism, K-12 education reform, and neoliberalism in 1970s and ’80s New York City.

Farah Zahra is a PhD student in Ethnomusicology at The Graduate Center. She holds a master’s degree in ethnomusicology from The Graduate Center and a master’s degree in religious studies  from Harvard University. Her research explores amateur archiving practices of Iraqi traditional music in postwar Iraq. Farah is also an adjunct instructor at Brooklyn College and Hunter College where she teaches courses on world music.

Jacquelyn Marie Shannon is a PhD student in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY interested in magic and ritual; haunting and mourning; queer and feminist performance; materiality, affect, and dramaturgies of the body. Jacquelyn holds an MA from Indiana University in Communication and Culture and an MA from NYU in Educational Theatre. As a Graduate Teaching Fellow, she currently teaches introductory Theatre and Acting courses at Brooklyn College.

Jinah Lee is an international PhD student in Psychology (Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience) at The Graduate Center. Jinah holds an MA from NYU in Psychology. Her research interest is the effect of chronic stress in social behavior and underlying neuronal mechanism.

Joseph A. Torres-González is a PhD student in Cultural Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. His research focuses on coffee culture among the Spanish-speaking Caribbean Diasporas. He is interested in the intersections of food, culture, identity, and economics. He currently teaches Anthropology at Brooklyn College.

Katherine A. Volkmer is a PhD student in the Italian Specialization of Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center, CUNY, Katherine also holds a certificate in Global Early Modern Studies.  Her research explores la querelle des femmes and the emergence of proto-feminism in the texts of early modern Italian women writers.

Katia Henrys has a master’s in Clinical Psychology from the University of Paris 7 and a master’s in Women’s and Gender Studies from the Graduate Center. She is a Ph.D. student in Critical Social-Personality Psychology, interested in trauma and healing in medical settings. She teaches Fundamentals of Psychotherapy at Brooklyn College.

Luis E Escamilla Frias is getting his PhD in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center-CUNY. He also serves as adjunct lecturer of Spanish and Portuguese at Brooklyn College and College of Staten Island. He has taught at Manhattan College as well. As a scholar, his main interests are about ways of resistance by brown youth, women and indigenous populations over Mexico’s neoliberal era. As a creator, his works revolve around masculinities, parenthood, Latin America and literary genres.

Marjorine Castillo is a PhD Candidate in the Developmental Training Area of the Psychology Program at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Her research focuses on examining racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic differences in how acculturation shapes the mental health of youth in the US. She has taught courses on the psychology of student success, immigration and acculturation, and child development at City College and Lehman College, CUNY.

Maya Tellman is a doctoral student in Sociology at the Graduate Center. Her research explores how punishment can be transformed and transmitted through efforts of reform and other bureaucratic processes in New York City’s youth criminal legal and child welfare systems. She currently teaches Intro to Sociology at Brooklyn College.

Mike Rifino is a doctoral candidate in the Developmental Psychology program. His research explores how socio-emotional dynamics among student-teacher relations emerge in community college. Drawing on emotion/affect theories, Mike seeks to illuminate how shame and alienation are constituted through social practices and power that either support or challenge oppressive pedagogical dynamics.

Tuka Al-Sahlani is a Ph.D student in the English Department at the Graduate Center, CUNY, interested in creating digital humanities project(s) to feature Arab and/or Arab-American women writers and voices. She hopes to arrive at this goal by delving in composition and rhetoric, women studies, and applied linguistics.

Zoe Alexander is a doctoral student in Earth and Environmental Sciences (Geography) at the Graduate Center. Her research focuses on regional development in postindustrial cities, particularly around nonprofit healthcare. She currently teaches urban studies at Hunter College.