Pedagogies of Writing Faculty Fellows (Spring 2026)

Sebastian Alvarado

Biology

Dr. Sebastian Alvarado is an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department and a faculty member of the CUNY Graduate Center. He leads the Alvarado Lab, where his research focuses on epigenetic and molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity, social behavior, and environmental adaptation, using aquatic model systems such as African cichlid fish. Dr. Alvarado is also active in science communication and interdisciplinary collaboration, bridging biology with education, technology, and public engagement. In the classroom, he has developed AI-assisted independent studies and is a strong proponent of leveraging AI to improve learning outcomes. 

S.E. Hackney

Graduate School of Library and Information Studies

Dr. S.E. Hackney is an Assistant Professor at the School of Information Studies at Queens College, CUNY. His research examines the intersections of librarianship and the history of computing with regards to digital text and information processing, and he does extensive work with community recordkeeping groups around information privacy and surveillance. His teaching and pedagogical practice focuses on the ethics of information work, and the shifting relationships between workers, institutions, and the communities they serve.

Marc-Antoine Longpre

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Marc-Antoine Longpré is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Queens College. He is a volcanologist studying the chemistry of igneous rocks to better understand how volcanoes work and improve volcanic hazard assessment.

Aniko Szucs

Drama, Theatre & Dance

Dr. Aniko Szucs is an Assistant Professor of Theater Studies and Dramaturgy at Queens College. Her research focuses on Central and East European political theater, feminist protest movements and performances, and the genealogy and critique of state surveillance. She earned a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University. Her book project, Gestures of Radical Care: The Affect and Aesthetics of Political Resistance in Hungary, explores contemporary protest performances and resistance movements. Dr. Szucs has published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes on Central and Eastern European political performance and has served as a resident and production dramaturg in theaters across the U.S. and Hungary. Her curatorial work on political theater, feminist performance, and the intersection of hospitality and performance has been showcased at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, Yale University, and in Performance Research. 

Wendy Tronrud

Secondary Education and Youth Services

Wendy Tronrud is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Queens College, CUNY and a former NYC high school teacher. She finished her doctorate in nineteenth century literature at the CUNY Graduate Center in 2020 and was the founding Associate Director of Education Programs with the Bard Prison Initiative until she joined QC in 2022. She works on the intersection between literature, education and visual arts with publications in the Emily Dickinson Journal, Women’s Studies, ESQ, Camera Austria, Brooklyn Rail amongst others. Since 2015, she has developed an annual online critical literacy through the arts curriculum, Reading Resources, with the non-profit organization, Art Resources Transfer.

Michelle Yom

Aaron Copland School of Music

Michelle Yom is an adjunct lecturer at Queens College. Her research focuses on the politics and aesthetics of African American music theory and practice, the emergence of Black Studies in the early 1970s, crossovers between Off-off Broadway theater and American opera, and theories of listening. At the Aaron Copland School of Music, she has taught courses including Introduction to Music, Writing about Music, Topics in Musicology, and Bibliography and Research Techniques. Previously, she taught courses in the departments of music and American Studies at Brooklyn College.

Pedagogical Approaches to Career Connected Learning Faculty Fellows (Spring 2026)

Eric Goldfischer

Urban Studies (Facilitator)

Eric Goldfischer is a Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies at Queens College. He is a geographer by training, and his research and teaching interests focus on the intersection of housing justice, participatory-action research, urban space, and policing. Dr. Goldfischer is the Service-Learning coordinator in the Urban Studies Department, with a particular focus on teaching and facilitating the service-learning seminar (URBST 370/372) and guiding students through fulfilling service-learning placements with nonprofits, activist organizations, and government agencies. His writing has been published in journals such as Housing Studies, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, and Metropolitics. In his research, he has collaborated closely with groups led by those with lived experience of housing deprivation. Outside of academic work, Dr. Goldfischer began his career as a community organizer and is trained as a popular educator, and he believes that in the classroom setting, we are all teachers and learners alongside each other.

Shemeka Brathwaite

Cooperative Education

Shemeka Brathwaite is an Orientation to the World of Work Adjunct Instructor within the Cooperative Education Department at Queens College and works full time in CUNY as an Associate Program Director. Beyond the campus, she is frequently invited to present keynotes as a motivational speaker and delivered a TEDx Talk, How to P.L.A.N. Activism into Your Work-Life Balance, which offers a framework for sustainable leadership and community impact. Her civic engagement and program leadership have earned recognition from congressional, state assembly, and city council leaders. Her published work appears in The New York Journal of Adult Learning, Our Stories, Ourselves: The EmBODYment of Women’s Literacy, and Diversity in Ed Magazine. 

Shemeka holds a Master’s degree from Fordham University, a Bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, and a certificate in Women in Education Leadership from Harvard University and a Life Coaching certification from NYU. Shemeka is expected to complete her Doctor of Education in Community-Based Leadership at the College of Staten Island in Spring 2026. Her research interests include leadership, university–community partnerships, and work-life balance. 

Andrea Efthymiou

English and Writing Center

Andrea is an Associate Professor of English and Writing Center Director at Queens College. Andrea’s writing classes support students as they engage with community members in composing public-facing writing. Andrea’s research explores writing tutor labor and staff education, as well as best practices for supporting undergraduate research. Her current research projects include a collaboratively edited collection on interfaith dialogue in writing centers and a study of the rhetoric of adoption. 

David Goldberg

Physics

David Goldberg is a Lecturer and Director of Introductory Physics in the Department of Physics at Queens College, where he oversees the department’s introductory lecture and laboratory courses. 

An active member of the American Association of Physics Teachers, Dr. Goldberg’s work in Physics Education Research focuses on the implementation of research-based teaching practices to support effective classroom instruction. He applies these approaches across multiple instructional modalities, including HyFlex courses that allow students to participate either in person or remotely while maintaining an interactive, active-learning environment. His courses incorporate flipped classroom models, peer mentoring, and computational tools that help students visualize and analyze complex physical phenomena. 

Dr. Goldberg received his Ph.D. in Physics from the CUNY Graduate Center, where his research focused on resonant photonic structures. 

Dara Laczniak

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Professor Laczniak is a Doctoral Lecturer who teaches courses in planetary geology, mineralogy, science communication, and introductory physical geology. Her pedagogical approach aims to encourage student motivation and engagement in STEM courses by connecting class content to real-world issues, developing transferable skills, integrating creative assignments that leverage a range of popular communication modes, and emphasizing self-reflection as well as the process—rather than the product—of learning. As a planetary geologist by trade, her research uses returned samples and meteorites to understand how space weathering processes, including micrometeoroid impacts and solar wind irradiation, alter the chemistry, microstructure, and spectral signature of airless planetary bodies, like asteroids, the Moon, and Mercury.

Christine Ramadhin

School of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Christine Ramadhin teaches environmental science courses and serves as advisor for the Environmental Studies BA program at Queens College School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES). Her teaching centers on inclusive, inquiry-driven learning experiences that connect environmental science concepts to students’ academic and professional pathways.

As co-chair of the General Education Council and a member of the SEES Assessment Committee, she works to strengthen the curriculum with institutional learning goals and college-wide assessment priorities.   

Her current work examines the impact of active learning and skill-building interventions on student achievement, retention, and satisfaction in large introductory science courses. She integrates career-connected learning into the undergraduate experience through peer mentor programs, workshops on career mapping and LinkedIn optimization, and lecture exercises that help students identify the workforce skills they are developing through classroom activities. Through the CETLL Faculty Development Seminar on Pedagogical Approaches to Career-Connected Learning, she seeks to further develop evidence-based strategies for embedding career readiness into environmental science education.  

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Karen Weingarten

Women and Gender Studies and English

Karen Weingarten is Director of Women & Gender Studies and Professor of English at Queens College. Most recently, she edited the collection Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade, published by Penguin Classics. She writes about the cultural histories of reproduction and reproductive technologies, and she teaches courses on American literature, feminist theories, and women and gender studies.

Generative AI in the Classroom Faculty Fellows (2024-2025)

• Soniya Munshi, CETLL & Urban Studies (Facilitator)
• Lindsey Albracht, English
• Ashlyn Cavitt, Design
• Emily Drabinski, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
• Brandon Jeffries, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
• Robin Naughton, Library
• Joshua Rogers, Classical, Middle Eastern, and Asian Languages and Cultures
• Holly Weisberg, Psychology

General Education Faculty Fellows (Fall 2024)

• Amy Wan, English (Facilitator)
• Yu Chen, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Robin Hizme, English
• Christine Ramadhin, School of Earth & Environmental Sciences 
• Oren Steinberg, Computer Science