Our Academic Directors

Our Mentors

Below are our 2023-2024 FFPP Fellows listed by Mentor group:

Faculty Mentor: Siraj Ahmed, Lehman College

Sherlock Hackney, Queens College, “The Birth of Digital Text”

Sawyer Kemp, Queens College, “Trans Shakespeare and Accessibility Theatre”

Alexander Manevitz, Baruch College, “The Rise & Fall of Seneca Village: Remaking Race and Space in Nineteenth Century New York City”

Victor Sierra Matute, Baruch College, “Spiritual Mediumship & the Soundscape of Purgatory in Úrsula de Jesús’s Diario espiritual (1647-1661)

Aleah Ranjitsingh, Brooklyn College, “The Asian Caribbean in the Caribbean Diaspora”

Danielle Zach, City College of New York, “Transnational Insurgency: Irish America, the IRA, and Northern Ireland’s Troubles”

Faculty Mentor: Ava Chin, College of Staten Island

Allison Berkoy, New York City College of Technology, “YOU ARE PREPARED: a body-controlling performance for self-optimization”

Ryan Black, Queens College, “I’ve Come to California”

Agustina Checa, Lehman College, “Analog Weavings: Cassettes, Alternative Economies and Relational Values in Argentina’s Independent Music Scenes

Jennifer Jolley, Lehman College, “Spacewalk, a One-Act Opera about the First All-Women Spacewalk”

Megan Paslawski, Queens College, “Instructional Desires: American LGBTQ Life Writing in the Twenty-First Century”

Stephanie Vella, Baruch College, “Primitivism, Embodiment, Performance: A Genealogy of Performance Studies Research Methodologies”

Faculty Mentor: Jonathan W. Gray, John Jay College

Jacob Adler, Bronx Community College, “Kasura: A Tale of Survival”

Keisha Simone Allan, Baruch College, “Verbal Marronage as Linguistic Resistance in Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber”

Larry Au, City College of New York, “Dreams of Global Science: The Transnational Politics of Chinese Biomedical Innovation”

Uchenna Itam, Hunter College, “Feeling Visible: The Politics of Aesthetics, Identity, and the Senses in Contemporary Art of the United States (1990-2005)”

Janée Moses, City College of New York, “A House to Sing In: Extra/Ordinary Black Women’s Narratives”

Omari Weekes, Queens College, “Lurid Affinities: Sex and the Spirit in Contemporary Black Literature”

Faculty Mentor: Ted N. Ingram, Bronx Community College       

Gail Buffalo, City College of New York, “Supporting Early Childhood Education Graduates in the First Year of Teaching: How Teacher-Directed Growth Can Improve Child Outcomes”

Inés Corujo Martín, New York City College of Technology, “Unraveling the Mexican Rebozo: Multiculturalism and Intersected Identities”

Pedro De La Cruz, Brooklyn College, “Exploring the Role Identities of Students of Color in Educational Leadership Preparation Programs”

Evelyn Durán Urrea, Lehman College, “Developing Critical Language Awareness in Advanced Spanish Grammar and Linguistics Courses for Latinxs”

Carla España, Brooklyn College, “Escribiendo para desahogarme: Narrative Writing with Latinx Teens”

Nicora Placa, Hunter College, “Investigating the First Year Experiences of Latina STEM Students”

Faculty Mentor: Sarah Hoiland, Hostos Community College

Christine Choi, Hostos Community College, “The Myth of the “Good Woman”: Forced Motherhood and the Psychological Impact on Victorian Women”

Rhiannon Dowling, Lehman College, “We’re All Thieves Here: The Criminal and Society in the Soviet War on Crime”

Matthew Lindauer, Brooklyn College, “The Fruitfulness of Normative Concepts”

Michael Richter, Baruch College, “The Occupational Gender Gap”

Henry Smart III, John Jay College, “Racism, Colorism, Punitive Decisions, and Empathy: A Comparison of Data During Periods of Unrest and “Rest”

Joanna Stein, Kingsborough Community College, “Gender Bias and the Female Stand-Up Comedy Album”

Faculty Mentor: Lina Newton, Hunter College

Carolyn Abott, Baruch College, “The Politics of Public Pensions: How Strong Parties and Cooperative Politics Can Save State Government”

William Boland, Baruch College, “Reducing Inequality in College Outcomes for Latinx Students”

Yeju ‘Chloe’ Choi, John Jay College, “Millenials & Gen Z: The Experiences of Entry-level Women Engineers in Their Workplaces”

Seon Mi Kim, Hunter College, “Asian Americans’ Sense of Asian-Linked Fate and Their Intention to Report Anti-Asian Hate Crimes during the COVID-19 Pandemic”

Nafiz Zaman Shuva, Queens College, “More than a Place for Social Capital Creation: Public Library as a Place for Newcomers’ Settlement in a New Country”

Monica Stanton Koko, Borough of Manhattan Community College, “Food Shopping Behavior, Food Environment and Food Security”

Faculty Mentor: Elys Vasquez-Iscan, Hostos Community College         

Meital Avivi-Reich, Brooklyn College, “How Does Linguistic Experience Affect Perceptual & Cognitive Processes in Monolingual & Bilingual Listeners”

Charlene Bryant, LaGuardia Community College, “Criminological Genocide: Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome and Mass Incarceration”

Teresa Gray, Hostos Community College, “What Can Be Done to Prevent Black Women Losing Their Lives during the Process of Giving Life”

Noreen Mulvanerty, Borough of Manhattan Community College, “Implementing Culturally Diverse Training Strategies incorporating Healthcare Simulation Programs”

Carolyn Sun, Hunter College, “Reducing Elderly Falls in Assisted Living Facilities with AI-Assisted Surveillance Technology”

An-Yun Yeh, College of Staten Island, “Perceived Changes in Cognitive Performance of Patients with Active Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) or Recovered from COVID-19”

Faculty Mentor: Mara Schvarzstein, Brooklyn College

Junyong Choi, Queens College, “Allosteric Inhibition of Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase”

Richard Denton, Medgar Evers College, “Microwave-Assisted Synthesis of Novel Isoxazoline DAG-lactone Mimetics as Protein Kinase C Activators”

Jonathan Gryak, Queens College, “A Machine Approach to Understanding Food Allergies”

Manpreet Kaur Kohli, Baruch College, “Novel Genomes of Arctic Dragonflies”

Venessa Singhroy, Queensborough Community College, “Enhancing Mathematics Assessment: Exploring the Efficacy and Insights of Ordinal Response Models (ORMs)”

Amy Vogel-Eyny, Hunter College, “Predictors of Lexical Accessibility of Common and Proper Nouns in Older Age: Evidence from the Tip-of-the-Tongue State”

The FFPP Academic Directors and Mentors offer our warmest congratulations to the Spring 2022 Fellows. We look forward to another productive year of writing, peer review, and professional development at CUNY.

Below are our FFPP 2022 Fellows listed by Mentor group:

Faculty Mentor: Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College

• Jennifer Corby, Kingsborough Community College, “Reclaiming Time: Liberating the Modern Subject”
• Ben Holtzman, Lehman College, “‘Smash the Klan’: Fighting the White Power Movement in the Late Twentieth Century”
• Vani Kannan, Lehman College, “Writing Mutiny: Rhetoric, Transnationalism, and Asian Coalitional Organzing in the U.S.”
• Fidel Tavárez, Queens College, “The Imperial Machine: Assembling the Spanish Commercial Empire in the Age of Enlightenment”

Faculty Mentor: William Carr, Medgar Evers College

• Jorge Matias Caviglia, Brooklyn College, “Pathophysiological mechanisms of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease”
• Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky, Brooklyn College, “Did New York City Type 2 Diabetes Prevention Programs Suffer or Succeed During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns?”
• Jihyun Kim, Guttman Community College, “Promoting Diversity in Chemistry”
• Shiryn Devi Sukhram, College of Staten Island, “The impact of COVID-19 and social-environmental factors on suicide rates in New York City”

Faculty Mentor: Katherine K. Chen, City College

• Tanuka Ghoshal, Baruch College, “Sequins, Saris and Ripped Jeans: How Bluffing and Open Secrets Facilitate Self-Transformation”
• Melanie Lorek, School of Professional Studies, “Lingering on the Past, Creating Future? Post-socialist Performances in Political Campaigns and Speeches in Contemporary Germany”
• Nerve Macaspac, College of Staten Island, “Insurgent Peace: Community-led Peace Zone and the Spatialities of Peace”
• Jeremy Sawyer, Kingsborough Community College, “Can learning about disability rights activism reduce implicit anti-disability bias?”

Faculty Mentor: Bridgett Davis, Baruch College

• Matthew Burgess, Brooklyn College, “Taking Play Seriously: The Transformative Power of Poetry in a Liberatory Pedagogy”
• Cassandra Evans, School of Professional Studies, “Five Wives (a novel regarding disability justice and intersectionality)”
• Ann, Genzale, Hostos Community College, “Re-Writing the Book of Myths: Embodied Narrative in Cheryl Strayed’s Wild”
• Christina Saindon, Queens Community College, “Gendered Education: Narrating the Silence of Women and Girls in the Classroom”

Faulty Mentor: Michael Gillespie, City College

• Ted Gordon, Baruch College, “Sun Ra Meets the Moog: Discipline, Freedom, and Electricity”
• Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson, Queens Community College, “Afrosurrealism in Contemporary Pop Culture”
• Nicole Wallenbrock, Hostos Community College, “Cinematheques of the Maghreb and France”
• Nicole Williams, Bronx Community College, “Rewriting History: The Function of the Linchpin Character in Biopics about Black Americans”

Faculty Mentor: Ted Ingram, Bronx Community College

• Michelle Fraboni, Queens College, “Revisiting Notions Of Identity, Belonging, and Community With Teacher Education Students”
• Nakia Gray-Nicolas, Queens College, “College-Ready by Whose Definition: Towards a More Inclusive Definition and Approach to College-Readiness”
• Dialika Sall, Lehman College, “Connecting Black: Second-Generation Africans and the Redefining of Blackness in America”
• Jennifer Van Allen, Lehman College, “Knowledge of Open Educational Practices: Tools for Empowering Student Voice”

Faculty Mentor: Nivedita Majumdar, John Jay College

• Tarun Banerjee, John Jay College, “Social Movements and Public Policy Implementation: The Civil Rights Movement and the War on Poverty, 1965-71”
• Eileen Markey, Lehman College, “God Was on the Block: How Community Power Stopped the Fires and Rebuilt the Bronx”
• Salvador Salazar, Bronx Community College, “History of the Cuban Press of the Twentieth Century”
• Eric Essono Tsimi, Baruch College, “A Microhistorical Approach to the Decolonial Epistemologies in the Twenty-First Century Africa”

Faculty Mentor: Mark McBeth, John Jay College

• Charissa Che, Queens Community College, “An Asset-Based Inquiry of Liberal Arts ELL Instruction at a Queens Community College”
• Stacy Katz, Lehman College, “Exploring the Intersections of Open Educational Practices and Equity Pedagogy”
• Cristina Lozano Argüelles, John Jay College, “The Bilingual Spectrum: Redefining Bilingualism in Translation Studies”
• Catherine Voulgarides, Hunter College, “Opportunity Gaps, the Educational Debt, and Racial Inequity in Special Education in an Urban Context”

Faculty Mentor: Lina Newton, Hunter College

• Neil Hernandez, Baruch College, “Congressional Republicans Reorganize the Immigration System: A Case Study of Utilizing Bureaucratic Structure to Ease and Tighten Immigration, 1906-1913”
• Emily Pelletier, Queens Community College, “An Evaluation Approach to Examining Juvenile Defense”
• Viviana Rivera-Burgos, Baruch College, “Responsiveness to Co-ethnics and Co-minorities: Evidence from an Audit Experiment of State Legislators”
• Shreya Subramani, John Jay College, “Carcerality In Transition: The Productive Relations of Reentry Governance”

Faculty Mentor: Anahi Viladrich, Queens College

• Anthony Dest, Lehman College, “Dissident Peace: An Ethnography of Struggle in Colombia”
• Robin Naughton, Queens College, “Modern Impressions: Understanding Queens College Library (QCL) website users”
• Anika Thrower, Borough of Manhattan Community College, “Stress-based Experiences among Black Non-traditional Community College Students: A Path to Discovery and Action”
• Victor Torres-Vélez, Hostos Community College, “Toxic Assemblages: Necroecologies of Race and Accumulation”

Dear Fellows, please consider submitting your work produced in 2020 and 2021 for one of the annual awards from the Working-Class Studies Association. Though you may not explicitly locate your work within “working-class studies,” those of you working on CUNY communities, precarity, race/class/gender intersections, and many other topics likely have significant overlap with this growing field. Awards are given out for different types of academic and creative writing, including books, scholarly articles, and media/journalism. Submissions are due by February 1, 2021. Full details here:

The Call For Proposals is now available for the 2021-2022 Faculty Fellowship Publication Program (FFPP), sponsored by the Office of the Dean for Recruitment and Diversity.

Full-time, untenured CUNY faculty are eligible to submit proposals. Previous FFPP fellows are the best spokespeople for the wonders of this program. Please share FFPP details with your colleagues and encourage them to apply. More information about the program, including the CFP, application instructions, and important meetings dates, can be found HERE.

The 2021-22 application deadline is Friday, October 29. Fellows will be notified by November 19.