David O. Monda, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science
David is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Center – City University of New York. His research and teaching are situated at the intersection of Comparative Politics and International Relations with an emphasis on climate change, xenophobia and migration policy. His research has included field work and research in Belize, South Africa, Brazil, Kenya and Argentina. David teaches Political Science, American Government and International Relations at City University of New York – York College. Outside academia he enjoys scuba diving, playing soccer, chess and travel to exotic corners of the earth.
Kaitlin Mondello (organizer), Ph.D., English, Lauder Postdoctoral Fellow, The Teaching and Learning Center
Her research and teaching focus on environmentalist literature, science, and philosophy, beginning in the nineteenth century and their relevance to current debates about climate change and the Anthropocene. Her interests include the Environmental Humanities and the intersections of race, gender, and animal studies. She previously served as a WAC Fellow for the Environmental Justice Program at John Jay College and founded the Ecocriticism Public Working Group through The Center for the Humanities.
Joseph A. Torres-González, Ph.D. Candidate, Anthropology
His research research interests are located at the intersections of History and Anthropology, Economic Anthropology, Globalization, Food, and Environmental Anthropology. Joseph is studying coffee shops, baristas and coffee culture in order to analyze the following question: How have changing cultural and consumer palates transformed the coffee industry in Puerto Rico? He graduated from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus with a B.A. in Social Sciences and Anthropology, and from the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) with an MA in Anthropology and a Certificate of Graduate Studies (CGS) in Latin American, Caribbean, and US Latino Studies. He has conducted fieldwork in Puerto Rico, and in New York City, and currently teaches at Brooklyn College.
Fernanda Blanco Vidal, Ph.D. Student, Environmental PsychologyFernanda Blanco Vidal
She is a doctoral student at the Environmental Psychology Program at the Graduate Center (CUNY) and Critical Social Latin American Psychologist from Brazil. Her scholarship focuses on social memory, forced displacement, political suffering, and the relationship people have with land and water. She is Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Psychology at the City College where she teaches a course of her creation “Psychology of People in Places – From Climate Changes to Gentrification”. She was part of the Water Justice and Climate Change Across Curriculum Focus Inquiry Group and she is now a WAC Fellowship at the Teaching Learning Center and the Center for Public Humanities.
Eric Dean Wilson, Ph.D. Candidate, English
John Zayac, Ph.D. Candidate, Earth and Environmental Science, Teaching and Learning Center Fellow
His research combines field and analytical methods to decipher the triggering mechanisms and eruptive history of highly explosive volcanoes in northwestern Nicaragua. Following the completion of his B.S. at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his M.S. at the University of California, Santa Barbara, John worked as community college geology professor in Los Angeles. He teaches at Queens College and Vassar College.
