Several scholars have been appointed to the faculty after national searches were conducted this fall and winter, Vice President for Academic Affairs Virginia Horvath announced. Their new appointments, which are tenure-track, begin in the Fall 2008 Semester.
One of the new appointees are Timothy Strakosh, who has been teaching at SUNY Fredonia in the biology department since 2006. He teaches Global Environmental Issues, Environmental Assessment, Environmental Biology, Aquatic Biology, and Methods in Environmental Analysis. He has led a study abroad course in Morocco-Fez/Casablanca. He has collaborated on research with a number of undergraduate and graduate students. His research focuses on the restoration and conservation of fishes and aquatic ecosystems, particularly the mechanisms structuring fish populations. His articles have been published in Freshwater Biology, North American Journal of Fisheries Management, Journal of Great Lakes Research, Ecology of Freshwater Fish, and other scholarly journals. He is currently engaged in a grant-funded project on Lake Erie smallmouth bass populations. Prior to coming to Fredonia, Dr. Strakosh was a research assistant with the Kansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Kansas State University. He earned an A.A.S. in Ecology and Environmental Technology at Paul Smith’s College, a B.S. in Natural Resources (Fisheries and Aquatic Ecology) from Cornell University, an M.S. in Natural Resources (Fisheries Biology) from the University of Connecticut, and a Ph.D. in Biology (Fisheries and Aquatic Ecology) from Kansas State University.
Dustin Parsons (Assistant Professor, Creative Writing; Department of English) is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the SUNY Fredonia English Department, where he teaches Advanced Writing, American Identities, Creative Writing, Novels and Tales, American and Mass Popular Culture, Survey of American Literature, and Composition. He also serves as faculty advisor to The Trident and to the Writers’ Ring group on campus. Mr. Parsons earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Bowling Green State University, an M.A. in Literature (Creative Writing) from Kansas State University, and a B.A. in English with a minor in History from Fort Hays State University (Kansas). He has published fiction as well as book reviews, and he has given readings and presented workshops in a range of venues. He served as nonfiction editor and assistant editor for the Mid-American Review at Bowling Green State University and co-editor of Touchstone Magazine at Kansas State University.
New to Fredonia this fall will be:
Josh Adams (Assistant Professor, Sociology; Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice) has recently completed doctoral studies in sociology at The Ohio State University, where he has taught Sociological Theory, Men in Society, and Contemporary World Societies. Teaching interests include globalization/global society, qualitative methodology, social movements, and deviance in society. His dissertation examined culture, stratification, and body modification, and he has publications and work in progress on white supremacists, tattooing, cosmetic surgery, and the internet as ethnographic field. Dr. Adams previously earned an M.A. in sociology from The Ohio State University and a B.S. in Sociology from Middle Tennessee State University, where he also had minors in American Culture and Recording Industry Management.
Eric Rodrigo Meringer (Assistant Professor, Latin American History; Department of History) is currently completing his Ph.D. in Latin American History and Public History at Arizona State University. At Arizona State University and Gateway Community College, he has taught courses in Colonial and Modern Latin American History, as well as Western Civilization. His dissertation, “Miskito Bila: A History of Survival as Told by the Miskito People,” is based in part on his nine months of continued language study and oral history research in Miskito communities of eastern Nicaragua. Prof. Meringer has served as a development worker in the United States Peace Corps in Nicaragua, where he later served as an international election observer. He also was a public history researcher and consultant with the Athenaeum Public History Group in Phoenix. He earned an M.A. in Latin American History from New Mexico State University and a B.A. in Economics, with a certificate of Latin American emphasis, from Arizona State University.
Dixon Reynolds (Assistant Professor, Costume/Makeup Design, Department of Theatre and Dance) is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and Theatre at Georgia College and State University. He teaches Theatrical Heritage, Costume Construction, Costume Design, Costume Crafts, Stage Makeup, Advanced Costume Design, and Fine and Applied Arts in Civilization. He has led study abroad courses on Ancient Greek Theatre (in Greece), Introduction to Theatre (London), and Shakespeare (London). He earned a B.F.A. in Theatre, with a costume design emphasis, from the North Carolina School of the Arts and an M.F.A. in Theatre, with a costume design emphasis, from Indiana University. His professional work includes many designs for productions at Georgia College and State University and Indiana University, as well as designs for productions at Wake Forest University, Florida Repertory Theatre, American Dance Festival, Brown County Playhouse, The Essential Theatre, Georgia Diversity Project, and other venues. He has been employed professionally in a range of roles and places, and he has exhibited his designs as well.
Michele Bernatz (Assistant Professor, Art History; Department of Visual Arts and New Media) graduated from SUNY Fredonia with a B.A. in art history and was a Marvel Award winner. She then earned her M.A. from Williams College in 19th and 20th American Art and her Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin in Precolumbian Art. Her dissertation focused on the concept of divinity in Maya art. At UT Austin she was awarded a Foreign Language and Area Study (FLAS) Fellowship—a Maya language study grant and a Doctoral Fellowship from the American Association of American Women that funded her final year in the UT program. Dr. Bernatz is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fredonia this year; previously she taught at SUNY Geneseo and Southwestern University (Texas). She teaches a range of courses, including art survey (prehistory to medieval and Enlightenment to present), Women in Art, Writing about Art, and Aztec Art and Culture. She has served as assistant director of visual arts at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island and as a curatorial assistant at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo), Salander-O’Reilly Galleries (New York), Williams College Museum of Art, and Clark Institute (Massachusetts).
David Kaplin (Assistant Professor, British Literature; Department of English) is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Lawrence University (Wisconsin), where he teaches The English Novel, The Victorian Age, Romanticism, Major British Writers, and Literary Analysis. He has also taught argumentative writing, elementary composition, and a range of special topics courses (The Villain, The Lover, The Outsider, Bi-Polar Personalities, The Naked City, Dangerous Women, Resistance and Conformity, Criminal Fascinations, Science Fiction and the Western Tradition, Law and Literature). His scholarship focuses on nineteenth-century literature and gender studies, as well as legal issues. Dr. Kaplin earned a B.A. in Western literature, history, and philosophy from Wesleyan University (Connecticut), an M.A. in English Literature from Indiana University, a J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and Ph.D. degrees in Comparative Literature and English Literature from Indiana University. A member of the American Bar Association and New York and District of Columbia State Bar Associations, he served as a litigation attorney for seventeen years and as an award-winning lead teacher for the Kaplan Test Preparation program.
Gregory Kaye (Assistant Professor, Scene Design; Department of Theatre and Dance) is completing his M.F.A. at Florida State University, where he has taught Drafting for the Stage and developed a scenic design thesis for a Florida State University production of Lanford Wilson’s A Sense of Place. He previously earned a B.A. with a double major in communication (theatre) and history from St. Norbert College (Wisconsin). In addition to a full range of software skills and experience, Mr. Kaye has special skills in intelligent lighting programming, theatrical projections, scenic rentals, and student and crew management. He has experience with scene design for eighteen productions, and he has additional experience in lighting design, technical direction, directing, and props management for dozens of other productions.
Michael Markham (Assistant Professor, Musicology; School of Music) is currently the Postdoctoral Mellon Fellow at the Stanford Center for the Humanities, where he teaches The History of Western Music to 1600 and a graduate seminar, Writing the History of Music Theory. He has also taught Introduction to Music and assisted in courses on European Music, Twentieth-Century Music, Performance Practice, Social History of Music, Medieval and Renaissance Love Lyric, and History of Music from the Middle Ages to the Baroque. Dr. Markham earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Music History and Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. He previously earned an M.M. in Music History from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University, where he also earned a B.Mus. in Music Performance—Guitar. His dissertation focused on oral tradition and Giulio Caccini’s “Le Nuove musiche,” and his research interests include narrativity in nineteenth-century piano music, representations of Chinese opera on film, and allegorical programs in French royal progresses.
Xuguang (Simon) Sheng (Assistant Professor, Economics; Department of Economics) is completing his doctoral studies in Economics at SUNY Albany, where he teaches Introduction to Econometrics, Principles of Macroeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Economic Statistics. He previously earned a B.A. in Economics at Renmin University of China (Beijing). With research interests in econometrics, macroeconomics, international economics, and economic forecasting, he is a referee for three professional journals. Mr. Sheng served as a research assistant in the Econometric Research Institute at SUNY Albany, where he managed data from the biannual New York State Establishment Survey, analyzed trends of the regional economy, and drafted reports for the New York State Division of Budget. He earned the Pong Lee Award for Excellence in Teaching at SUNY Albany and the Fei Xiaotong Award for Excellence in Research at Renmin University of China.
