2022-2023 New Faculty
Laurel Ahnert
Assistant Teaching Professor
Communication Studies
Laurel Ahnert’s research addresses ethical questions raised by global documentary films and other nonfiction moving images. She teaches various classes on special topics in film, as well as courses that cover issues of identity and representation in mass media and popular culture.
Greg Allen
Assistant Teaching Professor
Theatre
Greg Allen has worked as a director, educator, and producer for twenty-five years, directing many college/university productions, as well as several professional productions in Boston and New York.
Nazanin Bani Amerian
Postdoctoral Teaching Associate
Communication Studies
Nazanin "Naz" Amerian was born and raised in Tehran, Iran and holds a PhD in communication studies from the University of Southern Maine, a master's degree in mass communication and media from the University of Central Florida. Areas of research include health communication, risk and crisis communication, and intercultural communication.
Christopher Aaron Barney
Associate Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Christopher Barney teaches a wide variety of subjects in the GAME and GSND programs at Northeastern, from Level Design and Game Architecture to Generative Design. In almost all his courses, students transform their own knowledge of games into design theory and practice by applying the principles of Design Patterns and Pattern Languages.
Skylar Borgstrom
Assistant Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Skylar Borgstrom is a Boston and New York-based artist utilizing intersectional feminism as a research platform to explore themes of resistance, disillusion, and emotional vulnerability in the United States. At the root of her practice is a desire to understand the systems in which we function, thrive, and fail so that we may thoughtfully bring about change.
Mark Bresnihan
Assistant Co-op Coordinator
Communication Studies
A true lifelong learner, Mark is currently working on a third Master’s degree in the MBA program here at Northeastern, and has a Master’s degree in Higher Education and a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Studies.
Ann Bryan
Postdoctoral Teaching Associate
Communication Studies
Ann Bryan received her PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), with master’s degrees in Communication (UIUC) and Conflict Resolution (Creighton University). Her research focuses on the connections between policy and lived experiences, which are often filtered through or experienced within organizations.
Amy Bryzgel
Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Bryzgel's research is focused on performance art from the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and her teaching focuses on modern and contemporary art, with a focus on art from Eastern Europe and Russia.
Maura Coughlin
Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Maura Coughlin holds a PhD in the History of Art from New York University, a Master’s degree in Art History from Tufts University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Art History and in English from UMass Amherst. She was formerly Professor of Visual Studies at Bryant University and is co-editor with Emily Gephart of Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene in Nineteenth-Century Art and Visual Culture (Routledge, 2019).
Maitraye Das
Assistant Professor, Jointly Appointed Faculty
Art + Design
Maitraye Das is a PhD candidate in Technology & Social Behavior, a joint doctoral program in Computer Science and Communication at Northwestern University. Her research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) focuses on making collaborative content production more accessible and equitable in ability-diverse teams that involve disabled and non-disabled people.
Caleb Gayle
Associate Professor, Jointly Appointed Faculty
Journalism
Caleb Gayle is an award-winning journalist who writes about the history of race and identity. A senior fellow at Northeastern’s Burnes Center for Social Change, he holds fellowships from New America, PEN America, and Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He is the author of We Refuse to Forget.
Anna D. Gibson
Postdoctoral Teaching Associate
Communication Studies
Anna D. Gibson researches the role of digital communication technologies and platforms in social and civic life. Her interdisciplinary approach is informed theoretically by the sociology of labor, organizational studies, and STS.
Nabeel Gillani
Assistant Professor
Art + Design
Nabeel is an Assistant Professor of Design and Data Analysis jointly appointed with the D’Amore-McKim School of Business and the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University. His research interests involve using tools from computation and design to foster pluralism—an inclusive response to diversity in society—in ways that promote educational, economic, and social inclusion.
Sofía Bosch Gómez
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Art + Design
Sofía Bosch Gómez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northeastern’s College of Arts, Media and Design, The Burnes Center for Social and The GovLab, and a 2023 incoming Assistant Professor in the Art + Design department.
Clareese Hill
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Art + Design
Clareese Hill is a practice-based art researcher. She explores the validity of the word "identity" through her perspective as an Afro-Caribbean American woman and her societal role projected on her to perform as a Black feminist academic. She has given performance lectures at Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, University of Sussex, CUNY Graduate Center, The Chicago Art Department, and Smack Mellon in Brooklyn.
Sarah Hirschman
Associate Teaching Professor, Mills College, Visiting
Architecture
Sarah Hirschman is a partner in the California-based architecture practice Object Projects. She has taught design studios at UC Berkeley, The Ohio State University, the Boston Architectural College, and MIT, where she received her M.Arch. She holds an M.A. in Modern Culture and Media and a B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University.
Brockett Horne
Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Brockett Horne is a designer, educator, and writer. Her creative work encourages audiences to question their own ways of consuming design. Before joining Northeastern, she served as department chair of Graphic Design at MICA in Baltimore. She holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, and an MA from the Bard Graduate Center.
Carmen Hull
Assistant Professor
Art + Design, Architecture
Carmen is an Assistant Professor of Information Design and Data Visualization with a joint appointment in the College of Arts, Media, and Design and Architecture. She received her PhD at the University of Calgary in Computational Media Design and has taught in art, engineering, human computer interaction, and data science departments.
Chenyan Jia
Assistant Professor, Jointly Appointed Faculty
Journalism
Chenyan Jia (Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin) will be joining Northeastern University in 2023 Fall as an Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism in the College of Arts, Media, and Design with a joint appointment in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Before that, she will spend one year as a postdoctoral scholar in the Program on Democracy and the Internet (PDI) at Stanford University.
Denise Khor
Associate Professor
Art + Design
Denise Khor is a media historian working on early cinema history, film preservation, and Asian American film and media culture. She is jointly appointed in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies (CSSH) and Department of Art + Design (CAMD), with a courtesy appointment in History.
Viviane Kyulee Kim
Assistant Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Originally from South Korea, Viviane Kyulee Kim holds an MFA in Graphic Design and BFA in Fine Art. She is interested in how to efficiently communicate with audiences and how to build influential concepts for her visual works.
Rébecca Kleinberger
Assistant Professor
Music
Rébecca Kleinberger, PhD, is a creative technologist and researcher and is jointly appointed at College of Arts, Media and Design and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Her work leverages the hidden potential of the voice to create new experiences that span from assistive technology to vocal experiences design, including inner-voice and interspecies interactions. She aims to raise awareness of the richness of the voice beyond words and the potential of using the voice to access the mind.
Alex Krieger
Distinguished Professor of the Practice
Architecture
Alex Krieger, FAIA, is an architect and urban designer whose career has combined teaching and practice in working to improve the quality of place in major urban areas. He is a founding principal of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, a design firm established in 1984 that spanned the disciplines of architecture, urban design, and public space planning, and merged with NBBJ in 2010.
Wallace Lages
Assistant Professor
Art + Design
Dr. Lages is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Art + Design and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. His research focuses on user experience of Augmented and Virtual Reality applications, leveraging methods from disciplines such as design, engineering, and psychology.
Marie Law Adams
Associate Professor
Architecture
Marie Law Adams is an architect and co-founder of Landing Studio, an architecture and urban design practice focused on the design of just and sustainable infrastructure. Before joining Northeastern University, Marie taught urban design and architecture at MIT and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Todd Linkner
Assistant Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Todd is a designer and educator with expertise in design research, information design, graphic design, and user experience design. He holds an MFA in Information Design and Visualization from Northeastern University and a BFA with a dual concentration in graphic design and printmaking from the University of Michigan.
Blair MacIntyre
Professor
Art + Design
Blair MacIntyre is a Professor of Augmented and Virtual Reality in the Department of Art + Design, jointly appointed with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Since the early 1990’s, he has been creating tools and experiences leveraging AR (and more recently VR) technology with the goal of understanding the potential of AR/VR as a new medium for games, entertainment, education, and work.
Peter Mancusi
Associate Teaching Professor
Journalism
Peter Mancusi is a lawyer, crisis manager, and former veteran journalist with extensive experience advising companies, organizations, and individuals facing intense public scrutiny. Peter is a graduate of Northeastern University and Boston College Law School. He was also a John S. Knight journalism fellow at Stanford University.
Chris Martens
Associate Professor
Art + Design
Dr. Chris Martens is a computer scientist and computational media scholar in the field of digital games and narrative with a joint appointment in College of Arts, Media and Design and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. Their research advances tools for building expressive and playful interactive experiences, building on insights from programming language design, procedural content generation, AI for narrative and social agents, and cognitive models of player- and user interactions.
Lisa McCarty
Associate Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Lisa McCarty’s photographs, books, and videos explore environmentally conscious communities and image-making practices. McCarty has participated in over 100 exhibitions and screenings at venues including the American University Museum, Amherst College, Carnegie Museum of Art, Cassilhaus, Fruitlands Museum, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, the Nasher Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Visual Studies Workshop.
José R Menéndez López
Assistant Professor
Art + Design, Architecture
José R. Menéndez is a graphic designer and educator, with a background in marine science communication and landscape architecture. His multi-disciplinary practice, research, and teaching are intertwined as he investigates topics such as community engagement through health communication and social justice; expanding the canons of graphic design by highlighting Latin American and Caribbean practices; and designing spatial justice and ecological narratives in the landscape.
Kiel Moe
Distinguished Professor of the Practice
Architecture
Kiel Moe, FAIA, FAAR, is a practicing architect, researcher, and author. In recognition of his design and research endeavors, he was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Helsinki, the Gorham P. Stevens Rome Prize in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome, the Architecture League of New York Prize, and the American Institute of Architects National Young Architect Award.
Najla Mouchrek
Associate Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Najla Mouchrek is a designer and scholar interested in the potential of design-based methodologies to empower, create community, and promote transdisciplinary collaboration in processes of change towards sustainable futures. Highlights of her work include research on design education and course-based collaborative research projects linking the culture of sustainability and design.
Matthew Okazaki
Assistant Teaching Professor
Architecture
Matthew Akira Okazaki is an Assistant Teaching Professor at Northeastern University’s School of Architecture, a practicing artist, and founder of the design practice Field Office LLC. Okazaki is also a principal at Architecture for Public Benefit, a benefit corporation providing design services for mission-driven organizations in the Greater Boston area.
Alexandra Roberts
Professor
Music
Professor Roberts holds a joint appointment with the School of Law at Northeastern University. She is a leading authority on intellectual property and social media. She holds a JD from the Yale Law School, an AM from Stanford University, and an AB from Dartmouth College.
Jody Santos
Associate Teaching Professor
Journalism
A human rights filmmaker, Jody Santos has traveled to some 30 countries across five continents, documenting everything from the trafficking of girls in Nepal to the widespread and often abusive practice of institutionalizing children with disabilities in the U.S. and abroad. Her documentaries have appeared on public television and cable networks like Discovery Channel, and her work also has been featured on New England Public Radio and in publications like Mad in America.
Aaron Seitz
Professor
Art + Design
Aaron Seitz joins Northeastern as a joint Professor of Psychology, Game Design, and Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Services with a primary position in the Center for Cognitive and Brain Health. He holds a BA in mathematics (Reed College), PhD in computational neuroscience (Boston University), postdoc in systems neuroscience (Harvard Medical School), and was a Research Assistant Professor on human psychophysics and neuroimaging (Boston University).
Jeb Sharp
Associate Teaching Professor
Journalism
Jeb Sharp is an award-winning audio journalist with deep experience in public media as well as podcasting. She has been a reporter, producer, editor, and news manager. She began her career as a reporter and news director at KCAW in Sitka, Alaska and later worked at WBUR and at WGBH’s global affairs show The World which became her professional home for 20 years.
Mara Sidmore
Associate Teaching Professor, Visiting
Theatre
Mara Sidmore is an actor, educator, communication consultant and coach, and arts administrator. Her career is inextricably linked to early experiences of theatre as a powerful tool for human development. From that perspective, she has been training both actors and non-actors across a wide spectrum of ages, cultures, and industries for over two decades.
Bill Skinner
Assistant Teaching Professor, Visiting
Architecture
Bill Skinner specializes in the history of architecture and urban development in the Caribbean during the twentieth century. He examines how colonial welfare initiatives were articulated across the region through large-scale development projects during the postwar period. His current research centers on mass housing and town planning schemes in Barbados.
Humbi Song
Assistant Professor, Visiting
Architecture
Humbi Song is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Design Research and Teaching. Her work focuses on the intersection of design, technology, and interaction. She speculates on the possible futures of society and technology – on technologically-enhanced spaces and imagining new ways to interact with each other and with machines. Her research interests include Responsive Architecture, Digital Fabrication, Human-Computer Interaction, Kinetic Mechanisms, Electronics, Robotics, and AI.
Kledia Spiro
Postgraduate Teaching Fellow
Art + Design
Kledia Spiro creates videos, performances, installations, and paintings. Kledia was born in Albania and was part of an olympic weightlifting team. She uses strength and weightlifting as a symbol of survival, empowerment, and celebration.
Dennis Staroselsky
Assistant Teaching Professor, Visiting
Theatre
Dennis Staroselsky has appeared in the feature films Rubberneck, We Don’t Belong Here, Detroit (Directed by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow), American Woman and the upcoming Love, Wedings and Other Disasters, alongside Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons. He has taught at Emerson College, Lesley University, and Boston Casting.
Bill Stout
Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Bill Stout enjoys a peripatetic career of adventures and artistic excellence. Highlights include working on the popular character McGruff the Crime Dog and Rocket in Disney’s Little Einsteins. He eventually focused on teaching and became the Chair of the Animation Department at the New York Film Academy. He now brings his animation skills to Northeastern University.
Nancy Tarr
Senior Co-op Coordinator
Music
In addition to her new role as Senior Co-op Coordinator at Northeastern, Nancy Tarr is the Executive Director of Well Dunn (a music industry nonprofit). She worked on over 50 films in the music department at Paramount Pictures and was the Music Coordinator on the movie "8 Mile."
Pierre-Valery Tchetgen
Assistant Professor
Music, Art + Design
Dr. Pierre-Valery Tchetgen is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in Music and Art and Design. He is formerly an educational researcher in the Principal Leadership Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. As Founder and Ambassador of the Music is Healing Collective, he has used music as a vehicle for social change to break down barriers of bias and motivate youth toward social justice in order to improve the livability and vibrancy of communities nationwide and bring people from diverse paths together.
Ilya Vidrin
Assistant Professor
Theatre
Dr. Ilya Vidrin is a performer, educator, and researcher at the intersection of performing arts, philosophy, and interactive media. Ilya is an alum of Northeastern, where he pursued undergraduate studies in Cognitive Psychology and Neuroscience. He holds a Master's Degree in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University, and a doctorate in Performing Arts from Coventry University in the United Kingdom.
Maria Elena Villar
Department Chair, Professor
Communication Studies
Dr. Villar comes to Northeastern from Florida International University where she has taught in the School of Communication and Journalism since 2007, and was promoted to full professor in 2021. She served as Chair of the Department of Communication and then Associate Dean of Strategic Communication for the College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts.
Rachel Villari
Assistant Co-op Coordinator
Art + Design
Rachel Villari is an artist and educator. She has taught a wide variety of traditional studio, computer-based design, animation, film, photography and art history courses at Rhode Island School of Design|CE and Johnson & Wales University. Rachel is currently a Ph.D. candidate, studying Humanities with focus on early modern, abstract artist, Hilma af Klint at Salve Regina University.
Dakuo Wang
Associate Professor
Art + Design
Dakuo Wang is a jointly appointed Associate Professor at the College of Arts, Media and Design and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. As a Research Team Lead at IBM Research AI, Cambridge, Massachusetts, his research lies in the intersection between human-computer interaction (HCI) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Stephen Warren
Assistant Teaching Professor
Communication Studies
Stephen Warren is media effects and sports communication scholar who previous lectured at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Stephen’s research focuses on media psychology, entertainment theory, and sports communication regarding television, sports, new media technologies, and audience behavior and habits, primarily using quantitative methods.
Seo Eun Yang
Assistant Professor
Communication Studies
Seo Eun Yang is a political scientist who studies graph/network theory, deep learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Computer Vision (CV). She is jointly appointed at the Department of Political Science and at the College of Arts, Media and Design. Her research interest lies at the intersection of communication, psychology, and computational social science, with an emphasis on photojournalism, visual politics, framing studies, and political neuroscience.
Fox Zarow
Assistant Teaching Professor
Art + Design
Fox is an experience designer and artist creating games and other playful works, often focusing on themes of personal queer identity and imagination. Throughout their graduate studies, Fox explored game design through the lens of experience design, and vice-versa, marrying human-centered approaches with player-centered game design practices, as well as areas of concern within the larger games industry including labor exploitation and crunch culture.