Queens College Welcomes Our New Faculty for 2011

Jorge Alves (Assistant Professor of Political Science) will be teaching Comparative Politics, with a particular focus on Latin America. He is currently completing his PhD dissertation at Brown University, a project drawing on two years of fieldwork in Brazil and supported by a National Science Foundation grant. Entitled “Health under Federalism: Subnational Politics and the Building of State-Level Healthcare Institutions in Brazil,” the dissertation explores variation in the implementation of public health care in three states in Brazil. His project highlights how patterns of sub-national political competition shape federal institutions and social service provision. Beyond his interest in federalism and intergovernmental relations focusing on Brazil and Latin America, Alves has broader interests in the political economy of development and in-state capacity construction. Fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish, Prof. Alves received specialized training in geographic information systems and in mixed-methods research design; he holds an MA in Political Science from Brown University, and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Amherst College.

Abdurrahman Atcil (Assistant Professor of Classical, Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures) received a PhD from the University of Chicago, MA from Bilkent University, and BA from Marmara University. Before joining Queens College, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the formation of the bureaucratic class of religious scholars and the development of various branches of Islamic religious studies, especially Islamic jurisprudence, under the Ottomans. He is also interested in Ottoman law, religious culture and history writing.

Sandra Babb (Assistant Professor of Music) received her BME, MME, and PhD in Choral Music Education from Florida State University. She previously taught at Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music as an Adjunct Lecturer and a Substitute Assistant Professor of Music Education. Her dissertation was a study of rehearsal techniques used to build choral tone by expert conductors across various settings. Her current research interests include critical thinking and English-language-learning strategies in the music classroom. Prof. Babb serves on the Aaron Copland School of Music Student-Faculty Committee, and is the co-advisor for the Collegiate Chapter of the National Association for Music Education. She is a frequent guest lecturer and conductor, and her choirs have performed for State and Divisional American Choral Directors Association Conferences, selected by double-blind review. She has presented her research for the New York State School Music Association, the Texas Music Educators Association, and the Southwest Conference of the Music Educators National Conference. Prof. Babb is a member of the College Music Society, Pi Kappa Lambda, the American Choral Directors Association, and the National Association for Music Education.

William Haddican (Assistant Professor of Linguistics & Communication Disorders) received his PhD from NYU (2005) and from 2005 to 2010 was a lecturer at the University of York in the UK. His research focuses on theoretical syntax and models of language change. He is currently Principal Investigator on a multi-year project funded by the UK Economics and Social Science Research Council on sound change in Northern English Dialects, and is collaborator on a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education focusing on syntactic variation and change in Basque dialects. His most recent publications are in the journals Lingua, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, and Journal of English Linguistics.

James W. Marcum (Professor, Graduate School of Library & Information Studies) will be serving as Department Chair and Director of GSLIS. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, He is returning to CUNY after seven years as University Librarian at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, and brings 18 years of academic library administration in venues ranging from Centenary College of Louisiana to the University of Texas System (UTPB), to the College of Staten Island, CUNY, and Fairleigh Dickinson. His MSLS is from the University of North Texas, and he holds an MPA from the University of Oklahoma. Prof. Marcum has taught for many years at the university level, from Adjunct Professor at GSLIS to Professor of History at Oklahoma Baptist University. His scholarship covers an array of library issues, including information literacy and information technology literacy to library management and sustainability. He is the author of After the Information Age: A Dynamic Learning Manifesto (Peter Lang, 2006). His teaching and research will focus on academic librarianship and library management issues.

Thomas Ort (Assistant Professor of History) received his PhD in Modern European History from New York University (2005), with a specialization in the cultural and intellectual history of East-Central Europe. The main subject of his research is modernist and avant-garde life in early 20th-century Czechoslovakia, but he is also interested in the politics of memory in postwar Eastern Europe. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship, a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and an American Council for Learned Societies Fellowship. His book, Art and Life in Modernist Prague: Karel Capek and his Generation, 1911-1938, is under contract with Palgrave Macmillan.

Anahí Viladrich (Associate Professor of Sociology) is a sociologist and medical anthropologist originally from Argentina. She received her PhD with Distinction (2003), an MPhil in Sociomedical Sciences (Medical Anthropology) from Columbia University (2000), and an MA with honors from the New School University (1999). Before joining Queens College, she was a tenured associate professor at Hunter College, where she directed the Immigration and Health Initiative. Currently Prof. Viladrich also is an associate professor at the CUNY doctoral program in public health, is working on a book on Argentine immigrants in the United States, to be published by the University of Arizona Press, and is a domain editor for the first Encyclopedia of Immigrant Health, soon to be published by Springler. She has been appointed to be the director of the upcoming Center on Immigration Studies at QC.

Warren Woodfin (Assistant Professor of Art) has been appointed by the college to the Kallinikeion Chair affiliated with the Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies. A specialist in the art and archaeology of Byzantium, his book, The Embodied Icon: Vestments and Sacred Power in Byzantium, is scheduled to appear late this fall from Oxford University Press. For the past several years he has been collaborating with an international research team to study a medieval burial complex in the Black Sea steppe of Ukraine. His other publications include articles in Ars Orientalis, Gesta, and Dumbarton Oaks Papers, along with essays contributed to edited volumes, including the Metropolitan Museum’s catalogue Byzantium: Faith and Power 1261-1557. He earned a BA from Williams College and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to joining Queens College, Prof. Woodfin held teaching and research posts at Duke, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the Metropolitan Museum, and, most recently, the University of Zurich.

Simone L. Yearwood (Assistant Professor of Library) is an alumna of the college with a BA in Sociology (2004), MLS (2007), and MA in Urban Affairs (2009). She has previously taught at QC as an adjunct lecturer with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. She is the Head of Access Services and Resource Sharing Librarian.