Meet Some of Our Volunteer Professors
Simona Aimar
Simona Aimar is Vice Dean EDI and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University College London. She works on ancient and contemporary theoretical philosophy, specializing in Aristotle, modality, and causation.
Naomi Altman
Professor emerita of Statistics and Bioinformatics at The Pennsylvania State University, Naomi Altman specializes in applying mathematical sciences to fields like medical and biological sciences, earth and environmental sciences, and social sciences. Her expertise includes bioinformatics, high-dimensional data, model selection, and functional data analysis. She is also a member of the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences, focusing on bioinformatics and genomics.
Gul Nosh Attai
Gul Nosh Attai is the founder of Speakease Online Academy, Vice President of Pashtun Zarghon Saffron Kar Women Ltd, and an alumna of the Aspire Leaders Program in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Shabnam Akhtari
Shabnam Akhtari, Professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, specializes in Number Theory. She earned her undergraduate degree from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. Passionate about sharing the joy of mathematics, she enjoys inspiring others.
Ellen Anderson
Ellen Anderson is Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of St. Joseph, specializing in biochemistry and teaching chemistry to medical students.
Kathryn Batchelor
Kathryn Batchelor is Professor of Translation Studies at UCL, specializing in translation theory, history, and literature. With her main working languages English, French, and German, she also contributes to the Comparative Literature program. She is the author of Decolonizing Translation (2009) and Translation and Paratexts (2018) and has co-edited six essay collections, including Translation Trouvailles (2023).
Elena Beretta
Elena Beretta is Clinical Professor of Mathematics at NYU Abu Dhabi and editor of the journal Inverse Problems. Her research focuses on mathematical modeling, partial differential equations, inverse problems, machine learning, medical imaging, and seismology. She has worked at leading research institutions worldwide and has been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences.
Elisa T. Bertuzzo
Elisa Bertuzzo is an ethnographer and urban sociologist with 20 years of experience in South Asia, focusing on care, community economies, and decolonial epistemologies. Her work uses participatory mapping, filming, and exhibiting to explore self-organization and innovation in marginalized urban areas. Professor Bertuzzo holds a PhD in Urban Studies from TU Berlin and has taught and conducted research at institutions like Free University Berlin, Humboldt University, and IIT Madras.
Colin Chamberlain
Colin Chamberlain is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University College London, specializing in 17th and 18th century European philosophy with a focus on Descartes, Malebranche, Cavendish, and Astell.
Captain (Retired) Cheng Xu
Captain (Retired) Cheng Xu, Assistant Professor of Government at Smith College, specializes in qualitative research methods, international relations, conflict studies, and Southeast Asian politics. With a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto, his research focuses on insurgency, civil war, and mass violence in Southeast Asia, using the Philippines as a case study to examine civilian interactions with armed groups.
Angus Fake
Angus Fake, a Newcastle native, studied Industrial Design at Pratt Institute before transitioning to education. He has taught art, design, psychology, and social studies at schools in Colorado and Maine. Currently, Professor Fake is part of Lincoln Academy's social studies department, teaching economics, government, and psychology. He enjoys Maine's outdoor activities in his free time.
Sarah Feili
Sarah Feili, originally from Iran, is pursuing a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. She earned her B.A. in Music and French Studies at Occidental College, where she was awarded the prestigious Benjamin Gilman Scholarship to study abroad in France. Her research focuses on Iranian classical music and how it intersects with religion and gender.
Gary Felder
Professor of Physics at Smith College, Gary Felder researches matter production in the early universe and explores chaos theory's intersections with quantum mechanics. He has authored two textbooks—Mathematical Methods in Engineering and Physics and Modern Physics—and created the video course The Big Bang and Beyond for The Great Courses. He earned his PhD in Physics from Stanford University.
Carmel Finnan
Carmel Finnan is Professor emerita at the University of Limerick, Ireland. She specializes in teaching communications, writing, and English as a Foreign Language. She is based in Berlin, Germany. She has published extensively on the topics of language acquisition, intercultural communication, and writing pedagogy. In addition to her academic work, she is also a certified life coach and provides workshops and coaching sessions to help individuals improve their communication skills in various aspects of their lives.
Elisa Francini
Elisa Francini is Associate Professor of Mathematical Analysis at the University of Florence, Italy. With a PhD in Mathematics from the same university, her research explores inverse problems for partial differential equations. She also previously served as a researcher at the Italian National Research Council. Professor Francini is passionate about promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of mathematics.
Erin Leigh Frymire
Erin Leigh Frymire is a lecturer at Trinity College, where she has taught since 2017. With a Ph.D. from Northeastern University and a B.A. from Skidmore College, her research focuses on systemic violence, rhetorics of the body, law, and human rights. She fosters a student-centered classroom, emphasizing critical thinking, rhetorical literacy, and effective communication skills.
Emily Haynes
Emily Haynes, PhD in Biophysics, has taught astronomy, chemistry, and physics at both high school and university levels, including Regis University in Denver. With experience as an analytical chemist and biotechnologist, she has also mentored students through NASA's Mars Exploration Rover and Phoenix lander programs. Many of her former students now thrive in careers across aerospace, medicine, and other scientific fields.
Barbara Kaltenbacher
Barbara Kaltenbacher is Professor of Applied Analysis at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, specializing in inverse problems, regularization, and PDE-constrained optimization. She is a member of the European Mathematical Society Executive Committee and holds a doctorate from Johannes Kepler University, Linz.
Ellen W. Kaplan
Ellen W. Kaplan, Professor emerita of Acting and Directing at Smith, is a Fulbright Scholar, actress, director, and playwright with global teaching and performance experience. She has worked in countries including Pakistan, China, Israel, and Romania, and taught at institutions like Tel Aviv University and the University of Kurdistan. During the pandemic, she taught virtually at Rojava University in Syria.
Christoph König
Christoph König is a doctoral candidate at Humboldt-Universität Berlin and teaches private and corporate law at the University of Erfurt. A former chairman of the Refugee Law Clinic Berlin and the Refugee Law Clinics Germany, he works on legal theory, comparative law, legal history, and civil liberties.
Anne Lavergne
Anne Lavergne is Senior Lecturer at Simon Fraser University's School of Computing Science in Canada. Sghe enjoys introducing students to the world of Computing Science both at SFU and globally in countries like China, Uruguay, and Malawi. When not teaching, Professor Lavergne enjoys traveling and trekking adventures around the world.
Ina Malloy
Ina Malloy has 40 years of experience teaching art, with a focus on photography and digital art for 25 years. She has mentored over 2,500 students, many of whom have built successful careers in photography, design, or media. She led the Amity Teen Teaching Program, placing 500+ students in elementary schools and donating 18,000 books to young learners. Many of her former students now work as educators themselves.
Janet F Morrison
Janet Morrison has been teaching in Trinity College's Chemistry Department since 1997, covering courses in Analytical Chemistry, Forensic Science, and more. Her research centers on developing and optimizing methods to detect trace analytes in biological specimens, including drugs, Parkinson's biomarkers, and ethanol indicators. She holds degrees from Hartwick College, Northeastern University, and The American University.
Reut Paz
An expert in public international law, European law, and international legal history, Professor Paz holds degrees in law and political science from the University of Helsinki and a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University. She is a senior researcher at the Franz von Liszt Institut für Internationales Recht at Justus Liebig Universität Gießen and is the author of A Gateway Between a Distant God & a Cruel World (2012).
Xavier Prudent
Xavier Prudent, a physicist and engineer, holds degrees in physics from Grenoble Engineering School, a master's in particle physics from Joseph Fourier University, and a PhD from Stanford University, where he worked on the BaBar experiment. He has conducted research for the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and specialized in bio-statistics at the Max Planck Institute. Currently, he serves as Director of Technology at Civilia, enhancing public transportation infrastructure in Canada.
Sue Quinlan
Sue Wallington Quinlan, a retired clinical psychologist with a B.A. from Stanford and Ph.D. from Yale, spent 50 years specializing in child and adolescent assessment and school consultations. Now based in Cambridge, MA, she focuses on teaching developmental psychology and fostering writing through critical thinking.
Sarah Rajtmajer
Sarah Rajtmajer is Assistant Professor at Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology and a research associate with the Rock Ethics Institute. Her work combines AI, machine learning, and human-AI systems to explore values like accuracy, objectivity, and privacy in managing information ecosystems. She holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Zagreb and a BA in mathematics from Columbia University.
Carolina Santos
Carolina Santos is an M.D. specializing in infectious diseases and a dedicated researcher in maternal and child health, cultural competency, and environmental health. With a Ph.D. in child and adolescent health and a master's in health professional education, she is the founder of "A Arte de Nascer," a nonprofit improving the well-being of pregnant women and children in northeastern Brazil.
Dianna Taylor
Dianna Taylor is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She is author of Sexual Violence and Humiliation: A Foucauldian-Feminist Perspective (Routledge, 2020) editor of Michel Foucault: Key Concepts (Acumen, 2010), and co-editor of Feminist Politics: Identity, Difference, Agency (Rowman and Littlefield, 2007) and Feminism and the Final Foucault (University of Illinois, 2004). Her current research identifies and analyzes feminist resources for preventing and resisting sexual violence and the sexual humiliation it produces.
Temenuga Trifonova
Temenuga Trifonova is Associate Professor of Creative Arts and Humanities: Moving Image at UCL. Her prolific works include Precarity in Western European Cinema (2025), Screening the Art World (2022), and The Figure of the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema (2020). She explores European cinema, visual culture, and the intersection of film, philosophy, and psychopathology. She has also authored two novels, Tourist (2018) and Rewrite (2014).
Persheng Vaziri
Persheng Vaziri is Special Assistant Professor in Film Studies at Hofstra University, specializing in film history and world cinema. Her book Non-fiction in Iran: Filming Social Change is forthcoming from the University of Texas Press.