Welcome New Faculty
Fifteen new full-time educators joined Muhlenberg this fall, including tenure-track and visiting faculty members.Friday, September 27, 2024 10:03 AM
Greta Bergstresser ’04, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, Photography (she/her)
Bergstresser is a 2004 graduate (B.A., studio art) of Muhlenberg and has been an adjunct faculty in art since 2007. In addition, she has been a visiting professor at Lafayette College and a part-time lecturer at Penn State Lehigh Valley. Bergstresser received her MFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design. Her portfolio includes eight solo shows, nearly 40 group shows and five publications.
Lisa Busfield ’02, Visiting Lecturer of Dance (she/her)
Busfield is a 2002 graduate (B.A., dance, with a minor in business administration) of Muhlenberg College and has an Ed.M. in dance education from Temple University. Busfield has been an adjunct faculty at Muhlenberg in dance since 2011 and serves as the artistic director of dance and dance company at Moravian University. She has served as the education director & administrative manager of Muhlenberg Community Dance Center and associate faculty and choreographer at Indiana University-Purdue University as well as the University of Saint Francis.
Marion Cassard, Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology (she/her)
Cassard joins the Department of Sociology & Anthropology following the completion of her doctoral degree at the University of Florida. Marion has an M.A. in political science with specialization in political sociology and European studies from Sciences Po, France and a B.A. in social sciences with a specialization in media studies from the French Press Institute, Pantheon-Assas University. Her research interests include social movements and social justice, political economy, media studies, transnational ethnography, queer feminist theories and methods and sustainability studies. Cassard is a Fulbright Fellow and has also mentored first-generation college students.
Noam Cohen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern Hebrew and Jewish Studies (he/him)
Cohen’s dissertation is on portrayals of spousal violence in biblical and cuneiform texts at New York University, where he has had multiple teaching assistant positions. He is a scholar of Jewish studies with an M.A. and B.A. in Near Eastern and Judaic studies from Brandeis University. Cohen has extensive language skills including three ancient languages of Akkadian, Ugaritic and Biblical Hebrew as well as modern Hebrew, German and French.
John Favini, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology (he/him)
Favini began a visiting role at Muhlenberg in January 2024 and was previously at Bucknell University with the departments of anthropology and sociology, environmental studies and sciences, and international relations. Favini received a B.A. in international affairs locally at Lafayette College and M.A. and Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Virginia.
Jonathan Gooch, Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry (he/him)
Gooch returns to Muhlenberg’s chemistry department following a year at Arcadia University. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Syracuse University working in the inorganic and materials chemistry subdisciplines with gold nanoparticles and solid-state molybdenum oxide clusters. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Prior to serving as a lecturer at Muhlenberg between 2016-2023, Jonathan was a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at Hobart and William Smith in Geneva, New York. Gooch has authored four publications.
Leslie Hill, Chair and Artistic Director of Theatre & Dance (she/her)
Hill comes to Muhlenberg College from the University of Roehampton London, where she was a professor of theatre and performance making. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow, an M.A. in Shakespeare text & performance from The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, and a B.A. in both English literature and philosophy from the University of New Mexico. She has served in many senior faculty positions within British and American universities, including department chair, graduate studies convener and artistic director at Stanford University, and spent 25 years as a director of a professional London-based theatre company, Curious. She has authored four academic books, two professional development books and three artist books, and her portfolio contains more than 50 performances, films and installations.
Youngsun Jang, Assistant Professor of Computer Science (he/him)
Jang received his Ph.D. in computer science from South Dakota State University. Additionally, he has a Ph.D. in science and technology policy from Korea University of Science and Technology and an M.A. and B.A. in political science from Kyungpook National University in South Korea. His academic background extends beyond computer science, encompassing innovation studies and social sciences. His research centers on deep neural networks for natural language processing and computer vision. While his work initially focused on natural language processing using large language models, he has recently expanded into computer vision, applying new techniques like graph neural networks and multimodal methods to detect natural disasters from satellite imagery, building on previous work with convolutional neural networks. Additionally, driven by his interest in innovation studies and social sciences, and supported by his diverse educational background, he has been exploring opportunities to apply AI in these fields.
Gene Kelly, Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology (he/him)
Kelly has had full- and part-time instructor roles at regional institutions including Marywood (where he earned his Ph.D. in human development), East Stroudsburg, Kutztown and DeSales Universities and Lafayette College. Kelly has a master’s in forensic psychology from Arizona State University and a master’s in counseling: higher education from West Chester University as well as bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and English from Lebanon Valley College. His areas of presentation and experience include social justice, applied research, gender and sexuality, media studies, lifespan development and social psychology. He also served as dean of student life at East Stroudsburg and is a diversity, equity and inclusion trainer.
Anh Sy Huy Le, Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese History (he/him)
Le comes to Muhlenberg from St. Norbert College in Wisconsin, where he was assistant professor of East Asian history and also taught in the interdisciplinary peace & justice and international studies programs. Prior to that, he was a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore and the National Library of Singapore. A Vietnam-born Sinologist, he has conducted research with support from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Henry Luce Foundation in historical archives across southern China, Vietnam, France, Taiwan and Singapore. His professional interests include modern China and Sino-Southeast Asian connections, particularly the history of global Chinese migration and capitalism in maritime Asia. His most recent project focuses on the history of Chinese diasporic medicines in southern Vietnam and its connections to China. Le received a Ph.D. in history from Michigan State University, an M.A. in history from the University of Buffalo and a B.A. in economics and Chinese studies from Wabash College.
Edward A. Lenzo, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy (he/him)
Lenzo, who is returning to Muhlenberg’s philosophy department, received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Memphis, his M.A. in philosophy from Colorado State University and his B.A. in philosophy from Rutgers University. Lenzo’s areas of specialization are philosophy of mind (with an emphasis on cognitive science and psychopathology) and continental philosophy (especially phenomenology and phenomenological ethics). He identifies areas of competence in ethics (including biomedical and neuroethics), ancient Indian philosophy, logic and modern philosophy.
Victoria Pitre, Assistant Professor of Music, Choral Conducting (she/her)
Pitre was recently a visiting assistant professor and director of choral activities and Opera Workshop at Lincoln University. She has also taught at Texas Tech, where she earned her DMA in choral conducting, and Houghton University, where she earned her M.M. in choral conducting and vocal performance. Her B.A. in music is from Rollins College. She describes her approach to teaching conducting as focused on equipping students with sustainable, excellent technical and artistic understanding of conducting gestures. When programming concerts, she incorporates repertoire from a wide variety of composers and time periods in order to foster a well-rounded grasp and experience of the choral art and music in general. Recent highlights include directing the University Choir from Lincoln at the Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Inauguration and the Eagles-Dolphins NFL game.
Mike Opal, Visiting Assistant Professor of English (they/them)
Opal recently received a Ph.D. in literatures in English from Rutgers University, defending a dissertation titled “Shaped Like Itself: The Rhetoric of Reality in Renaissance England.” They received their B.A. in English from Pomona College. While at Rutgers, they were a co-organizer of the English Theory Group and Medieval-Renaissance Colloquium.
Noel Price-Bracey, Assistant Professor of Dance (she/her)
Price-Bracey recently completed her MFA in dance from the University of Washington and also holds a B.A. in dance from Western Michigan University. During her graduate studies, she taught modern and jazz dance for UW students and engaged students at the University of Montana, University of Iowa and Western Michigan University. Price-Bracey’s teaching experience spans adjunct teaching at Cornish College of the Art, master classes, community classes, K-12 schools and summer intensives. Her scholarly research, “Black Motion(s) in Arts and Power,” uses dance as a lens through which to examine the Black Arts and Black Power Movements of 1965.
Kecia Kathleen Sturdivant ’02, Director of the Innovation & Entrepreneurship Program (she/her)
Sturdivant recently received her Doctorate of Education from Drexel University. She has two master’s degrees: an MBA from Kutztown University and a master’s in special education from DeSales University. She is also an alum of Muhlenberg College (2002) with a bachelor’s in business administration. Sturdivant has been an adjunct instructor at Muhlenberg as well as West Chester University, served as assistant director of the Small Business Development Center at Kutztown and has had several other roles spanning her 25-year professional career. She is the founder and CEO of her own business, UROCEO. She is eager to bring her comprehensive experience in entrepreneurship, education and business leadership to her new director role.
