Albright Welcomes a Dozen New Faculty Members

Abrams received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and LL.B in law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and an LL.M from New York University Law School. He is completing his Ph.D. in philosophy at the City University of New York. His interests are in a broad range of topics in philosophy and law and related disciplines. His work focuses on causal reasoning, the nature of rationality, scientific explanation, legal evidence and proof, the theory of contracts and torts, and responsibility. Abrams grew up in New Jersey but moved to Israel with his family when in high school. He has practiced law in both Israel and the United States and clerked at the Israeli Supreme Court. Yuval most recently served as a Lecturer in Philosophy at Baruch College in New York City.

Al-Habieli is an award-winning designer and visual artist. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama and her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College. She was the resident scenic designer for Publick Theatre Boston and the Watertown Children’s Theatre from 2008-2010. Her work includes designs for the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, New Repertory Theater, Company One, Central Square Theater, and Wellesley Repertory (formerly Wellesley Summer Theater) among others. Al-Habieli is also a graduate of the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn. She returns to the O’Neill each year as the young playwright’s conference dream designer, mentoring middle and high school playwrights in collaboration with professional actors and directors. In her spare time, Al-Habieli enjoys illustration projects, science fiction novels, studying linguistics and languages, and perfecting the ultimate guacamole recipe.

Burdett earned her Bachelor of Arts in home economics, clothing and textiles from San Francisco State University in California and continued on there to earn a Master of Arts in family and consumer sciences with a major in clothing and textiles. Burdett earned her Ph.D. in human ecology, specializing in dress history at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She was a pattern maker for PW Minor shoe factory and also operated her own custom historic clothing reproduction company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Burdett’s research interests focus on customs, context and construction of historic apparel and how they may be translated to a modern body or inform modern designs. She has presented research and juried designs at several International Textile and Apparel (ITAA) Conferences and Design Exhibits. She has also published proceedings at the Costume Society of America’s (CSA), National Symposia. Her most recent presentation was an invited Professional Development workshop at CSA in Cleveland, Ohio entitled Kleibacker Techniques for Successful Bias Cut Construction. Burdett has been teaching fashion and textiles since 2002. Most recently, she served as director for the fashion design and merchandising program at Villa Maria College in Buffalo, N.Y.

Cost joins Albright as an assistant professor of biology specializing in anatomy and physiology. Cost graduated from Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Arts in Asian studies. He then completed a Master of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass. Cost worked as a grade school educator specializing in curriculum development for students with special learning needs. He returned to graduate school and completed a Master of Science in biology at Fort Hays State University in Kansas where he studied integrative biology. Cost recently completed his Ph.D. in integrative anatomy at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research focuses on the biomechanics of bird and non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Cost is a truly integrative biologist who combines statistical and model-based analysis of large data-sets with avian ecology to explore the world at multiple hierarchical scales. Beyond the laboratory, Cost is also an avid birder and photographer.

Kevin Dibble is in the final stages of completing his D.M.A. in choral conducting and pedagogy at the University of Iowa. He spent last year on the choral faculty at Temple University where he had the privilege to teach conducting and directed both the women’s choir and the men’s choir. He also serves as the conducting apprentice for the renowned Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, and as the tenor section leader at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. Prior to his time in Iowa, Dibble served on the faculty of the Greatbatch School of Music, Houghton College, The School of Music at Cairn University and in the music department at Ursinus College. His primary areas of interest include choral literature, the combination of chorus and orchestra in the presentation of masterworks, choral performance practice, and indigenous choral music from non-western traditions. Dibble serves as the Chief Editor of the Repertoire Reviews Column for the American Choral Directors Association’s national publication, The Choral Journal and is a regular contributor to the recorded sound reviews column in the same publication. In the Pennsylvania chapter of the same organization, Dibble has recently been appointed to the position of ethnic and multi-cultural repertoire chair.

Fletcher received her Ph.D. in history from Morgan State University in 2013 with a subset of race and gender studies. She joins us after serving as an associate professor in the history, political science, and philosophy department at Delaware State University where she offered courses on the Great Migration, the Southern Plantation, as well surveys in both U.S. history and African-American history. Her research informs her teaching in exciting ways, as her current scholarship focuses on African-American experiences of death and dying, which then allows her to bring in not only cultural expressions, but also the material space of African-American cemeteries. She is co-editing a volume, “Till Death do Us Part; American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed,” which will be published in 2019 by the University of Mississippi press.

Rachel Yu Guo received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Maryland. As a social science researcher, Guo takes special interest in the topics of social structure, agency, power hierarchy and inequality. As a teacher, Guo is passionate about communicating the power of sociological inquiry in an engaging, relevant, and caring way, because she believes that sociology can empower us through scientifically questioning perceived social realities and envisioning a different world. Before joining Albright, Guo has worked closely with the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center at the University of Maryland, and she looks forward to collaborating with people at Albright to create great learning experience for students here.

Hartman earned a Ph.D. from Drew University in Christianity of late antiquity. Her dissertation is entitled, “Enslaveable: Citizenship and Slavery in Late Antiquity (Augustine’s Letter 10*),” and it addresses illegal and legal human trafficking in the Roman Empire. In her work, she examines ethnicity, animality, gender and sexuality in the rhetoric around citizens and slaves. Her other degrees include a Master in Theological Studies from Vancouver School of Theology and a Master in Ancient Culture, Religion and Ethnicity from the University of British Columbia. She has most recently taught Greek, Latin, and Gender and Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome at the University of Delaware. She is also the blog submissions editor and web director for Feminist Studies in Religion.

Henceroth’s teaching and research focuses on comparative politics, European politics, and political behavior. Previously, he was a visiting assistant professor at Allegheny College, and has worked as a high-school English teacher in Alsace, France, and as a program coordinator for international engineering and business at Iowa State University. Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, he received his bachelor’s degree from Centre College, a master’s degree from Charles University (Prague), and a Ph.D. from UNLV.

Andy Junikiewicz has over 25 years of experience in finance, tax and sales. He is a partner with an independent insurance sales agency and tax consulting practice. From 2012 to 2016, Andy served as vice president of finance and administration at ABC Home Medical Supply, Inc. He oversaw the accounting, finance and human resource departments. He was part of the executive team that took a regional durable medical equipment company to a Top 10 Industry leader prior to being acquired in 2016. In addition, he was a professor of accounting at Penn State University and an adjunct professor at Temple University since 2009. Prior to his insurance firm, tax practice and instructing college-level courses, he was a tax manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. He serves as an executive board member of the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors. He is a Certified Public Accountant, a graduate of Albright College with a degree in accounting and he received his master’s degree in taxation from Villanova University.

Mark Lomanno is an ethnomusicologist and jazz pianist who specializes in the music of the Atlantic world, including Latin America and the Caribbean, the African Diaspora, and the Eastern Atlantic region of Macaronesia (the Azores, Cape Verde, Madeira, and Canary Islands). His courses emphasize analytical and empathetic listening practices as gateways to experiential learning, creative experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration and community engagement. In the music industry, Lomanno has been active as an artist, club manager, consultant, educator and writer for the past 20 years, mostly in the New York City jazz scene. Before joining the Albright community, Lomanno taught previously at Swarthmore College (as a Mellon Foundation & Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow), St. John’s University in New York City and Northeastern University. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude, in music and Latin) at the University of Richmond, a Master of Arts in jazz history and research at Rutgers University Newark, and a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was awarded both the Livingston and Graduate Dissertation Fellowships for his work in the Canary Islands.

Nick Ungson comes to Albright from Lehigh University, where he just completed his Ph.D. in social psychology. He has a Master of Arts in psychology from New York University and earned his Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science in psychology and religion from the University of Florida. Broadly, his research examines the role of social identity in group processes, and he has published several papers in these areas. For example, how do individuals react, both behaviorally and attitudinally, to disloyal group members? What are the dynamics underlying intergroup cooperation and moral evaluation? More recently, Ungson’s research has investigated the role of humor in encouraging individuals to confront threatening information about their social group.

Originally from Saint-Etienne, Kebaïer is a French-Tunisian anglophile who has been teaching French in secondary schools and doing translations in London for the past few years. Before that, she enjoyed the sun and exceptional teaching by studying Humanities in the Classe Préparatoire aux Grandes Ecoles in the Lycée Pierre de Fermat in Toulouse. She subsequently earned a dual bachelor’s degree in English/American studies and performing arts at the Université Lumière in Lyon. She has also finished the first year of her master’s degree in performing arts. She now plans to complete her master’s degree in teaching French as a foreign language with an emphasis on integrating drama into language teaching. When she isn’t teaching French or practicing foreign languages, Kebaïer is most likely in a theater, on stage or in the audience, riding her bike or at the circus on a trapeze.

Born in Pamplona, Spain, Sánchez received her bachelor’s degree in advertising and public relations with a concentration in international communications from the Universidad de Navarra. She holds a master’s degree in teaching Spanish as a foreign language from the Universidad de Navarra and a master’s degree in secondary education teacher training, with a concentration in Spanish language and literature, from the Universidad Pública de Navarra. She has worked as a Spanish teacher in different places in Spain: Pamplona, San Sebastián, Barcelona and Granada. She has a special interest in pragmatics, the subject of her master’s thesis.