Fall 2024 Unity in Diversity Speaker Bios
Meet some of the speakers for our Fall 2024 two-day Unity in Diversity event.
Kadie LaFlamme received her BA with a focus in Legal Studies and Political Science from UMass Lowell and her MLIS from Simmons College. She began working at the McQuade Library way back in 2015, and loves every minute of it. She serves as McQuade’s Access Services Librarian, as well as the liaison to the School of Education and Social Policy. Kadie enjoys true crime, hiking, YA fantasy novels, punk rock, and dismantling oppressive systems.
Bryan Mascio is an adjunct lecturer at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a guest faculty for Power of Place Learning Community. He has a background as a K-12 teacher working with students and families who have been disserved by the traditional system, and as a teacher educator preparing equity-oriented teachers. He works as an education consultant supporting teachers and schools (PK-12 and higher education) who wish to increase their incorporation of equitable and inclusive practices, such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), trauma-informed practices, culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP), and alignment with neurodiversity. A list of his publications – both scholarly and public-facing – as well as additional information can be found at linkedin.com/in/bryan-mascio-education.
David Claudio (he/him), PhD, PE, CPIM, is an associate professor and director of the Industrial Engineering program at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at UMass Lowell. Prior to joining UMass Lowell, he spent eleven years at Montana State University (2011-2021). He holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Ph.D. from Penn State.
Dr. Claudio’s research bridges the gap between healthcare and engineering by advocating for participatory, interdisciplinary problem-solving approaches to enhance quality management and reduce safety risks in clinical environments. His work integrates human factors and modeling techniques to tackle real-world healthcare challenges from a systematic perspective.
As a Hispanic STEM professional, Dr. Claudio’s experiences have fostered a deep empathy for individuals from underrepresented groups who face systemic barriers in accessing services. He is a fellow with the Robert Wood Johnson Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program, where his team explores systemic racism and its impact on Latino women’s health in Gallatin County, Montana.
Susan Marine is Professor of Higher Education and Special Assistant to the Provost at Merrimack. Susan’s teaching expertise is in the history of higher education, critical praxis in student affairs, and gender/LGBTQ issues in higher education. She has worked for many years in LGBTQ advocacy movements, and is the author of Stonewall’s Legacy: Bisexual, gay, lesbian and trans students in Higher Education.
Catherine Chandler is the Director of Graduate Academic Success in the Graduate Center at Merrimack and has volunteered extensively with LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS organizations. She lives in Haverhill with her wife, Alexandra, and two children.
Paul Poteat, PhD is a Professor at Boston College in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Over the past 20 years, his research has focused on the school-based experiences of queer youth. His work with Gender-Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) has identified how these clubs facilitate youth’s healthy development. His research has been supported by grants from the Institute of Education Sciences, National Institutes of Health, and William T. Grant Foundation. He has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and The Counseling Psychologist, and Co-Editor for the American Educational Research Journal.
Father Dan is a Catholic priest and member of the Order of St. Augustine. He works primarily with the Austin Scholars, a community of students dedicated to service in the local and Merrimack community. The participants of this session come from different religious and spiritual backgrounds.
Ray Lewis enters his third season as the Director of Volleyball at Merrimack College. In 2019, he hit a groundbreaking milestone becoming the first Black head coach to win a National Championship in men’s volleyball, at any level. Beyond his impressive coaching credentials, Lewis actively contributes to the sport’s broader community through his role on the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Diversity Committee.
Raised in inner-city Las Vegas by a single parent, Lewis turned to sports as a means to transform his life and create positive opportunities. He is one of only three active Division I men’s volleyball coaches in the nation, underscoring his unique position and perspective. Driven by a passion for promoting diversity and acceptance within athletics and beyond, Lewis is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of athletes and coaches.
Christian Kronsted is an assistant professor at Merrimack College in the Honors Program. He is also a director of the breakdance and DJ’ing collective Stylin’ Out Network in Chicago. Christian has over twenty years of experience as a competitive breaker and event organizer. He has performed, competed, and taught across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Christian got his Ph.D. from the University of Memphis, specializing in embodied cognitive science, and often writes about vernacular and crowd dance. He is also the organizer of the semi-annual Workshop on Embodied Cognition and Dance and the editor of the Dance Philosophy Network.
Kirstie Lynn Dobbs, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Political Science, Policy, and History at Merrimack College. She specializes in youth political participation and civic engagement and is the Director of the Early College Program and Faculty Community Engagement Strategy at Merrimack. As a scholar-practitioner, she works with organizations focused on improving youth inclusion policies in countries across the world such as the United States Agency for International Development, the Arab Reform Initiative, and the European Partnership for Democracy. Her teaching focuses on equipping students with practical tools that enable them to bridge the power of research with community activism to promote social justice.
Jill Casa is a first-year graduate student at Merrimack studying clinical mental health counseling. She spent her previous four years at UMass Amherst studying Psychology. When she is not studying, you can find her hanging out at home with her two dogs, relaxing at the beach (if it’s summertime), or spending time with family and friends.
Anne Noonan, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at Salem State University (SSU). Most of her teaching load is in SSU’s Diversity, Power Dynamics, and Social Justice curriculum and in the intermediate and advanced writing curricula. She has taught Psychology of Gender since 2018 and its precursor, Psychology of Women, since 2009. She also teaches a course focused on the psychology of social class and its many intersections with race. She is lead author of a textbook, written with Dr. William Ming Liu, which brings together Dr. Liu’s Social Class Worldview Model with essays in the creative nonfiction genre (Psychology and the Social Class Worldview: A Narrative-Based Introduction, Routledge, 2021). Professor Noonan is also a published author of creative nonfiction.
Before joining SSU, Dr. Noonan was a research scientist at the Wellesley College Centers for Research on Women and New England Research Institutes. She was Principal Investigator of a National Science Foundation (NSF) study of science and math education among urban high school students, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of religiosity and sexuality among adolescents, and an NIH study of the relational resources of older workers. Other research projects focused on diverse populations such as: middle school students enrolled in comprehensive sexuality education; informal caregivers to frail elders; adolescent substance abusers in publicly funded treatment; same-sex couples; urban high school students in school-to-work programs; school-age children and their out-of-school time; and young children in a variety of care settings.
Eleanor Shonkoff’s research examines the links between parent factors (e.g. feeding practices, stress), child dietary intake and child obesity risk, particularly within underserved populations facing food insecurity. Her background training in psychology, health behavior research and nutrition leads her to take a mixed methods approach to child nutrition work. She has identified links between maternal stress, weight-related parenting behavior, child diet, child physical activity, and child obesity risk. Other research has expanded tools for dietary assessment including co-development and validation of a method using digital images in the quick serve restaurant environment and a method using Artificial Intelligence. She is the Co-PI of a CDC REACH cooperative agreement with the City of Lawrence, evaluating a whole-of-community approach addressing diet, physical activity and continuity of care in breastfeeding support. She’s developing a low-cost, sustainable obesity treatment program delivered through community organizations for families facing food insecurity and a location-aware artificially intelligent virtual assistant to provide diet-related advice and nutrition assistance.
Cyndy Carlson believes that the built environment impacts public and environmental health. Urban land use and runoff strongly impact water and soil quality, which in turn impact agriculture and therefore human health. Agricultural practices can negatively impact water and soil quality just as much, leading to a degradation in environmental health and a feedback cycle that leads to perceived conflicts between human and environmental wellbeing. In addition, land use and community planning impact human physical health (walkability, access, etc.) as much as environmental health (habitat, soil/water/air quality). Defining “justice” in a way that all parties and all-time scales are considered and respected requires first identifying all partners and at least some of the myriad impacts felt by all. Cyndy Carlson’s research lies in this space.
Erinn Gilson is a philosopher of ethics, social justice, and intersectional feminism whose research focuses on the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability names both specific ways people face increased susceptibility to harm and a fundamental and unavoidable condition all humans share (including mortality, dependence, fragility, and being affected by others). Her research seeks to understand how specific groups of people are made vulnerable to harm because others seek to avoid vulnerability in general. Dominant agricultural and food-related practices are examples of this idea: common agricultural practices aim to avoid vulnerability and master natural processes, exploiting them for maximum profit, but end up increasing the vulnerability to harm of many human groups, nonhuman animals, and diverse ecosystems. Erinn has published articles on food justice from a feminist perspective, the pitfalls of “voting with your fork” as an approach to food justice, and is the co-editor of Food, Environment, and Climate Change: Justice at the Intersections (Rowman & Littlefield 2018).
Inés Ouedraogo is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Women’s and Gender studies. She teaches various courses on the social fabric of identities such as gender, sexuality, race, and social class. Her courses explore concepts such as patriarchy, sexual liberation, racism & antiracism, social justice, and theories such as intersectional feminism and queer theory.
Inès holds a PhD in Hispanic Cultures and Literatures from Boston University. Her research interests revolve around dance studies, sexuality studies, and Brazilian studies.
Laura Hsu, Ed.D., is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Applied Human Development and Community Studies department at Merrimack College. She teaches human development and diversity courses to undergraduate students. She has had an active role in various D&I programming at Merrimack, including as a co-founder of the Faculty Senate DEI Committee, a moderator for Unity in Diversity Days, a panelist for the first-year Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Roundtable, and a participant in campus and community forums at the height of COVID-19 and Asian American racism. She has also been involved in a number of community education projects, including as a co-founder and co-facilitator of a summer civic engagement program with middle school students at the Lawrence YMCA and as an instructor in the jail education program in Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
Divya Anand, Ph.D., is a passionate advocate, educator, and activist who is dedicated to promoting equity and justice. She holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Sociology and Literature from La Trobe University, Australia, and has worked in various Diversity and Inclusion roles throughout her career. In addition to teaching, she has served as a D&I associate at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Driven by a deep commitment to justice, she founded Gaia Connections, which offers customized equity and antiracism workshop series for youth and adults in various organizational spaces. She is a senior faculty member at Cambridge College, and her current research is focused on whiteness in the US education system. She also serves as the Project Co-director of the non-profit organization, The Mystic Project.
Kathryn Welby, Ed.D., is an assistant professor of education. Her research and publications are grounded in her 15+ years of experience as an educator working in urban schools. Her research identifies problems of practice and uncovers solutions with a specific emphasis on inclusive practices and disability studies. This presentation incorporates teacher and student experiences shared in her newly published book, “Schools as Lens for Understanding the Opioid Epidemic: Impacts on Students and Educators in Crisis.”
Marissa Myers is the Campus Minister for Spiritual Development at Merrimack College. As a campus minister, Marissa is passionate about guiding students’ spiritual journeys. She organizes and leads retreats, facilitates wellness and spiritual growth workshops, and provides one-on-one spiritual direction. She also recently graduated with her MA in Spirituality from Merrimack College. Whether through retreats, workshops, or personal guidance, she is dedicated to fostering a community of mindful students.
Rebecca Davis has produced for HBO, VICE, Al Jazeera and A&E – and was the supervising producer for Season 2 of Vox’s hit Netflix show, Explained. She was a senior producer with NBC News for nearly a decade, where she helped to launch NBC News’ first digital video unit. Her work there in short-form documentaries focused on social movements, environmental and economic justice, and community innovators. Her first feature-length documentary, Join or Die, on the life and work of civic guru Robert Putnam, premiered at SXSW in 2023. Rebecca Davis is an Emmy Award-winning documentary director and producer with over 15 years of experience in news and production. https://www.rebeccadavisvideo.com/
Alvin Morton is an Assistant Professor at Merrimack College in the Department of Athletic Training and Exercise Science, specializing in promoting physical activity in underserved populations. His research focuses on understanding the psychological factors influencing physical activity among Black men and developing interventions to support healthier lifestyles. He holds a Ph.D. in Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, an M.S. in Exercise Science with a concentration in Physical Activity and Public Health from Northeastern University, and a B.S. in Cardiopulmonary Science from Northeastern University.
Stephanie Garrone-Shufran is an Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education and Social Policy. She teaches courses that focus on providing equitable educational opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse learners in all K-12 classrooms. Her research interests lie in teacher preparation, specifically how new English as a Second Language teachers understand their role as advocates for English learners and how coursework and community engagement projects can build future teachers’ empathy for immigrant and refugee students and their families. She holds a BA in English from Saint Anselm College, an MA in English Language and Linguistics from the University of New Hampshire, and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from Boston College.
MT Dávila, born and raised in Puerto Rico, is Associate Professor of Religious and Theological Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences at Merrimack College. Her areas of specialization include racial and migrant justice, public and political theology, Latino/a ethics, and the ethics of the use of force.
