Scott Ables is interested in the history of Christianity, historical, and systematic theology. His research focuses on the intellectual history, cultural context, and theological program of the eighth century theologian John of Damascus, especially his treatment of Christology and Trinitarianism in the light of conciliar schism and desired Nicene peace in his local Syro-Palestinian context, while exploring John on sectarianism, polemic, heresy, canon, tradition, and pilgrimage. Ables teaches students to think historically, critically, and that writing is thinking, so don’t let someone or something else do it for you.
Alyssa Bader received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research program integrates genomic, archaeological, and community-held knowledge to investigate relationships between diet and health in past and contemporary Indigenous communities. This community-collaborative research includes reconstructing the diet and microbiome of past peoples using ancient DNA and stable isotope methods, and assessing how the oral microbiome of communities today has been shaped by traditional foods. Bader is Alaska Native (Tsimshian) and focuses her research on the Pacific Northwest coast, primarily in southeast Alaska and British Columbia, where she has several partnerships with Indigenous nations and organizations.
A central component of Bader’s research program is developing resources and guidance for ethical and just genomic research in collaboration with Indigenous nations. She is an alum and current instructor of the Summer internship for Indigenous peoples in Genomics (SING) USA program. Previously, she held positions as an assistant professor of anthropology at McGill University, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Colorado Boulder, and an NSF postdoctoral research fellow at the Sealaska Heritage Institute in Juneau, Alaska.
Chris Chen’s research examines how individuals use and perceive emerging media technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. Chen is especially interested in how the design of AI media technologies influences users’ perceptions and trust in the systems. Her most recent publications have appeared in SSCI journals, including Communication Research, Human-Computer Interaction, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, New Media & Society, Social Media + Society, and Behaviour & Information Technology. She has also presented at major international conferences, such as AEJMC, ICA, NCA, and ACM Conference of Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Chen’s work has been featured in mainstream media outlets like National Geographic and USA Today.
Brian Elliott has taught college-level philosophy continuously since 1998, initially at the University of Edinburgh and University College Dublin, before moving to Oregon in 2008. He held a full-time faculty position at Portland State University from 2011 to 2025. Building on a foundation in modern and contemporary European thought in the phenomenological tradition, Elliott's research and publishing profile has branched out to encompass architecture and urbanism, literature and culture, and political theory. He is the author of numerous articles and seven monographs in these areas, including Benjamin for Architects (Routledge, 2011), Natural Catastrophe: Climate Change and Neoliberal Governance (Edinburgh University Press, 2016), and The Roots of Populism: Neoliberalism and Working-Class Lives (Manchester University Press, 2021). His latest book projects, scheduled for publication in 2025, are A Child’s Place in Nature: From Romanticism to the Anthropocene (Bloomsbury) and a new edition of Art and Its Significance (SUNY Press).
Mary Follo received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon. She specializes in American politics and public policy, specifically with a focus on housing policy. Follo teaches a wide variety of classes, including research methods, presidential and congressional politics, public administration, and conspiracy theories in U.S. politics.
Before coming to Oregon State, Erik Fredner earned his Ph.D. in English from Stanford, did a postdoc at the University of Virginia, and was visiting assistant professor of data science at the University of Richmond. Erik studies literature and literary culture using computational methods, including large language models. His research has been published in PMLA, Nineteenth-Century Literature, and elsewhere. His first book project shows how statistical thinking influenced U.S. literature over the long nineteenth century. Fredner collaborates on computational literary studies projects with colleagues at the Stanford Literary Lab, the University of Pennsylvania Price Lab for Digital Humanities, and elsewhere.
Anna-Christine Grant earned her Ph.D. in history at Carnegie Mellon University, then taught as a visiting assistant professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles before coming to OSU. Her expertise is in modern Russian and French history, particularly histories of cities, childhood, and crime.
Anna Guasco is an interdisciplinary researcher working across blue humanities/critical ocean studies, political ecology, geography, and environmental history. She earned her PhD in Geography at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Her teaching and research interests center around environment-society issues, with particular interests in conservation, wildlife, environmental justice, memory, and oceans/coasts. Her current book project examines narratives, histories, and justice issues circulating around the migration and conservation of gray whales along the North American Pacific Coast. She is a member of the inaugural editorial team for the H-Oceans network, and she previously worked as a park ranger at Channel Islands National Park.
Dannelle Gutarra Cordero is joining the ethnic studies program as a full-time instructor. Prior to OSU, she was lecturer in African American studies, Latin American studies, & gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, while also being affiliated with the global health program, the Center for Digital Humanities, and the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University. Having earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Puerto Rico, they were a visiting fellow at Harvard University and are currently a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Historical Society. Her book, titled She Is Weeping: An Intellectual History of Racialized Slavery and Emotions in the Atlantic World, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2021 and was named finalist for the Outstanding First Book Prize of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora.
Cara Keifer earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Stony Brook University. She completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center where she went on to serve as a clinical assistant professor. She has clinical expertise in the assessment and differential diagnosis of developmental disabilities. Her research has focused on using EEG and event-related potentials to better understand social cognition in neurodiverse and neurotypical children and adults.
Hailing from Norwich, U.K., Tim is a theatremaker, designer and technologist with work spanning disciplines including lighting, video, performance, and interactive media. Their research explores work that plays with form and sits at the intersection of performance, accessibility, and technology. They received their M.F.A. from the University of Maryland earlier this year, with their thesis entitled “Captioning the Imagination: Creative Type and Access in Hip Hop Anansi and Beyond.” Tim’s work was seen at PRAx last year in his collaboration with Dance-Squared and has recently appeared in projects and productions in the U.S., U.K., and New Zealand.
Khawar Latif Khan completed his Ph.D. in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at North Carolina State University, where he also earned an M.S. in Technical Communication. His teaching and research focus on technical communication, user experience, and digital media, with a particular interest in design and social justice. In his doctoral dissertation, Khawar examined how nonprofit organizations in Pakistan navigate collaboration in resource-constrained environments and developed an activity-centered design framework for a knowledge- and resource-sharing platform. His work combines empirical study and design research to highlight how communication, technology, and organizational practices intersect in socially situated contexts. Outside of work, Khawar enjoys exploring new coffee shops, watching and playing cricket, and traveling.
Shaina (shy-nah) Khan, Ph.D. ‘25, earned a B.S. and an M.Eng. in biological and environmental engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and an M.A. in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies from the University of Louisville. Khan’s research areas include queer diaspora, anticolonial literature, and conceptions of gender and sexuality in cultures of the Indian subcontinent. She is also a licensed professional engineer with a background in water, waste management, and air quality. Khan received her Ph.D. from Oregon State University, where she served as a graduate assistant with the Hattie Redmond Women and Gender Center for several years.
Kendon Kurzer (Ph.D., UC Davis) works at the nexus of Writing Across the Curriculum and multilingual writing. He has served as a Writing Across the Curriculum Director and has taught writing classes in engineering, business, food science, education, and health sciences; developmental/first year writing (primarily for multilingual students); language support courses for international graduate students; and tutor/teacher training courses for 17 years across the higher education landscape. His work has appeared in The WAC Journal, TESOL Quarterly, Assessing Writing, and elsewhere. Kendon is originally from Michigan and is a fan of local farming (you can take the boy out of the farm...).
Toni Maisano (Ph.D, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is a qualitative researcher who studies communication about social identity and difference in close personal relationships like the family. She is interested in understanding how religious and political identity and difference impact communication dynamics in these relationships, including how people maintain relationships across significant differences as well as how evolution and change in one’s own religious and political beliefs impacts their sense of identity and how they communicate those changes to others. She will teach courses in family and interpersonal communication, communication theory, social identity and intergroup communication, and communication about mental health, among other subjects.
Wesley Mathis grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and earned an M.A. at Oregon State University, where he was awarded the Lisa Ede Award for Excellence in Composition Instruction. His teaching and research interests include first-year writing pedagogy, translingual composition practices, and science communication, the latter showcased in publications like “Learning to Write Like a Scientist: A Writing-Intensive Course for Microbiology/Health Science Students” in ASM Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, Special Issue on Science Communication. Mathis has taught writing at institutions throughout the Willamette Valley for more than a decade.
Monique McDade received her Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her teaching and research centers women writers of the long 19th century, with a focus on the multiethnic American West. Her monograph, California Dreams and American Contradictions: Women Writers and the Western Ideal (University of Nebraska Press, 2023), critiques a 19th-century rhetoric of progress as it is co-opted by violent ideologies such as Manifest Destiny. Prior to joining Oregon State, she completed an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Kalamazoo College, where she subsequently served as digital humanities fellow, constructing the Place-Based Teaching for the Humanities website. She employs place-based and community-engaged pedagogies to capture 19th-century cultural histories and to help foster partnerships between academic institutions and the communities they serve.
John P. Nelson is an interdisciplinary scholar with a background in science studies and innovation policy. His research interests include the governance of emerging technologies; the role of science in politics and policymaking; and the evolution of knowledge and technology. Nelson’s current projects focus on ethics and responsibility in development and implementation of artificial intelligence; the effects of AI on scientific and technological progress; and the role of science in democracy. Nelson received his Ph.D. in human and social dimensions of science and technology from Arizona State University. Prior to arriving at Oregon State, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His most recent book, with Barry Bozeman, is An Advanced Introduction to Innovation and Public Values, published by Edward Elgar.
Derek Rury’s work focuses on the economics of education, particularly how students’ and parents’ beliefs influence their educational decisions and outcomes. He also studies the labor market consequences of those decisions as well as how educational institutions and policy shape the way students think and behave. Derek holds a Master of Public Administration degree from New York University. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California at Davis and then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Sana Saboowala is an interdisciplinary scholar in anthropology focusing on how lived experiences impact the body. Her research interests include the impacts of colonialism on the body, oral narratives and health, and the social study of science. She holds a Ph.D. in integrative biology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she explored the molecular embodiment of intergenerational trauma and migration in South Asian immigrants to the United States.
Joshua Schulze was born in South Africa but grew up and studied in England, before completing his Ph.D. in film, television, and media at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the relationship between race and labor in film and media production cultures, and he is currently working on a book project about Hollywood’s response to the Second World War from a labor perspective, particularly in relation to location shooting. His research has appeared in American Quarterly, Screening the Past, and numerous anthologies, and has been supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Endowed Fellowship from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rebekah Sinclair’s research and teaching takes place on interdisciplinary shores where environmental and animal ethics, Native American philosophies, and feminist philosophies meet the sciences. Her recent publications, grant awards, and upcoming courses all critically examine epistemic and normative frameworks that render issues like climate change, invasive species, biological individuality, and ecosystem/species management intelligible in morally and often scientifically problematic ways. She is also currently immersing herself in the blue humanities and philosophy and sci-fi; creating international study abroad courses that center Indigenous persons and knowledges on issues like climate change and biodiversity loss (like PHL 476 in Peru); and developing both on- and off-campus experiential courses, including some at the Oregon coast (PHL 472) and one on Love, Sex, and Desire (PHL 225) that’s run like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. She can usually be found scuba diving looking for sharks, reading a book that includes space ships, or doing some cliche PNW outdoor activity with her pup.
Peter G. Wallace earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. Over the past four decades, he has taught undergraduate courses in all areas of pre-modern European history from Antiquity to the French Revolution. He has published a monograph on the post-Reformation period in the Alsatian city of Colmar, where he explored the shifting relations between its Protestant and Catholic communities. His articles and essays have covered a variety of historical events in the Swiss, German, and French areas of the early modern Upper Rhine Valley. His textbook, The Long European Reformation, appeared in a third edition in 2019. He is currently working on a revised and enlarged fourth edition.