September 5, 2003

Loyola welcomes new faculty

During the fall convocation, deans introduced new faculty members to the university at large. This issue will list the new scholars in the College of Arts and Sciences, with the exception of the philosophy, physics, religious studies, sociology, and visual arts departments. Those and the other four colleges will be highlighted in the October issue of the newsletter.

Biology

J. Michael Guill, visiting assistant professor, earned his B.A. in environmental sciences from the University of Virginia, an M.S. and a Ph.D. in 2002 in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University. His research emphasis has been population ecology of freshwater fish species.

Chemistry

Christopher Costello received his B.S. degree in chemistry from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Tulane University in 2003. His recent research has involved the development of new synthetic methods for producing commercially promising organic conducting polymers using environmentally friendly methods.

Classical Studies

H. Paul Brown received his B.A. in art and his M.A. in classics from San Francisco State University, and his M.A. in linguistics and a Ph.D. in classics from the Ohio State University. His research involves the representation of sociolinguistic aspects of speech, specifically "politeness" phenomena in Ancient Greek literature.

Karen Rosenbecker received her B.A. in Greek and ancient history from the University of Minnesota and her M.A. and Ph.D. in classics from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research involves a study of the (mis)representation of cooking and dining in the comic poetry of Aristophanes.

Communications

John L. Morris will teach print journalism. He has a B.S. in journalism, from the University of Kansas, an M.A. in English from Kansas State University, and a Ph.D. in journalism from the University of Missouri. He taught at Adams State College and has previous professional experience as a writer and editor for newspapers in Kansas and Colorado.

Debra Woodfork will teach Layout and Design and News Media. She holds a B.S. in art from Xavier University and an M.F.A from Savannah College of Art and Design. Woodfork has been manager of the Donnelley Center for Nonprofit Communications and instructor at Loyola for the past three years.

Education

Rhonda Nowak received a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Florida with an emphasis on literacy education. She was a school teacher and a reading specialist. Her research interests include education reform, learning theory, and literacy issues.

English

Kathrin Ford is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Whitman College. She completed her master of divinity degree from Harvard University before entering the University of Iowa program in creative writing where she earned an M.F.A. in poetry in 2003. She will teach creative writing.

Mathematics and Computer Science

Ana-Maria Matei completed her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1999 at the University of Tours, France. Since then she has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Savoie, France and McMaster University, Canada. Her research specialty is in the field of geometric analysis and Riemannian geometry with application to partial differential equations.

Mikolaj Morzy, a visiting lecturer in computer science, will complete his Ph.D. in computer science this December at the Technical University of Poznan, Poland. His research has involved distributed computer systems and data mining. He has taught at Braunschweig/Wolfenbuettel University in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures

Angela Carr holds a master's degree in German and has a strong background in teaching all levels of the language. She also has experience in foreign language curriculum development, especially regarding the integration of technology into the teaching of German.

Javier Cortés de Jorge, born in Puerto Rico, holds a master's degree in romance languages, with an emphasis in linguistics. He will teach a variety of language courses, developing several websites associated with the department's teaching programs, and assisting the Spanish section of the department in designing and implementing new courses and programs.

Uriel Quesada, a native of Costa Rica, received his M.A. from New Mexico State University, and a Ph.D. from Tulane University, both degrees in Latin American literature. His research involves Post-Boom Latin American literature as well as Central American and Cuban literature and cultural studies. Quesada is also a published writer of fiction.

Claudia Triana-Smith earned her B.A. degree in philology and languages from the National University of Columbia, her M.B.A. from La Salle University in Bogotá, Columbia, and her MATL in Spanish and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) from the University of Southern Mississippi. She will teach Spanish and English in the Loyola Intensive English Program.