School of Arts and Sciences

Through a transdisciplinary practice integrating sculpture, performance and video, Lu Heintz engages feminist ethics of care, labor, and technology. The work develops from feminist and queer histories and often elucidates the conditions of invisible labor, with particular focus on the sensual, affective experiences of the body. Heintz creates sculptures preoccupied with material histories and artifacts such as clothing, furniture, equipment and tools, observing and reflecting the co-constitution of bodies and objects. These projects perforate normative standards and upend paradigms of use-value and ability.

Heintz is an Assistant Professor of Open Media in the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University. Areas of scholarship include gender justice, queer theory, affect, performance studies, and feminist economic perspectives. Heintz has contributed essays to Book Marks (Pressing Concern Books: NY, 2020), Repair: Sustainable Design Futures (Routledge: London, 2023), and Event Scores by Artist-Parents (Rooftop Ins.: Hong Kong, 2023). They have received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and Mellon Foundation for the 2025 Providence Commemoration Lab–re-imagining monuments and public forms of memory. Recent exhibitions include the RISD Museum (Providence, RI); Metal Museum (Memphis, TN); Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (Lubbock, TX); Strano Film Fest (Capestrano, Italy); and Overlap Gallery (Newport, RI). Heintz holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Professor Heller completed his PhD in 2012 at Harvard University. He taught at UMass Boston from 2012 to 2015, and has been on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh as Assistant Professor from 2015 to 2018 and Associate Professor from 2018 to 2024, most recently serving as interim Chair of the Music department. Professor Heller is the author of two books, Loft Jazz, Improvising New York in the 1970’s (University of California Press, 2017) and Just Beyond Listening: Essays of Sonic Encounter (University of California Press, 2023).

Professor Lyon is a violinist, curator, improvisor, and a three-time GRAMMY-nominated artist. She received her DMA in 2014 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which was followed by a fellowship with Carnegie Hall's Ensemble Connect. She is currently a co-Artistic Director of Decoda, Carnegie Hall's only Affiliate Ensemble, and served as Director of Programs and as a violinist with Spektral Quartet from 2014 to 2020, during which time she taught violin and chamber music at the University of Chicago. Recent performances have seen her onstage at venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the San Francisco Symphony SoundBox, and the Reykjavík Arts Festival.

A frequent recording artist, she can be heard on the New Amsterdam, Sono Luminus, Bright Shiny Things, New Focus, Miel Music, Nimbus, Sideband, and Tzadik labels. Her award-winning art film Thus, the Night, a collaboration with artist Antonia Contro, Spektral Quartet, and production company Four/Ten Media, recently debuted at Aspen Film in Aspen Colorado, and her work has also been seen/heard at the Secrist Gallery in Chicago.

• Katie Colford, Fine Arts
• Christopher Ostrom, Theater Arts
• Maggie Wong, Fine Arts

Dr. Cobeta holds an MA in Teaching Spanish as a Second Language and a PhD in Spanish Literature from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid. Her dissertation, which she completed in 2018, focuses on the reception of the work of writer Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) in the US, and the influence American culture had in his later novels. Her research focuses on transatlantic exchange in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the representation of women in modern peninsular literature. She has also co-authored a Spanish textbook called Puntos de encuentro. A Cross-Cultural Approach to Advanced Spanish. Previously she taught at Simmons University, the University of Notre Dame and The George Washington University, among others.

Professor Dannenberg received his PhD in 2010 from the University of California, Los Angeles and has since held faculty appointments at Dartmouth, Stanford, and the University of California, Los Angeles. His areas of specialization are Moral Philosophy, Political Philosophy, and Epistemology. He has published in journals such as the Journal of the APA, European Journal of Philosophy, Ergo, and the Journal of Ethics.

Dr. Edachira is a cultural theorist and comparatist. She received her PhD titled "Affective Archives: Caste and Contemporary Malayalam Cinema" in 2020 from the University of Hyderabad, India. Dr. Edachira has taught at the Centre for English Language Education, University of Hyderabad (2019-2021). She has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi from 2021-2023, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in 2023-2024 at the International Centre of Advanced Studies: Metamorphoses of the Political, an Indo-German research collaboration of six Indian and German institutions funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Dr. Edachira primarily works in the areas of Literary and Cultural Studies, Critical Caste Studies, Affect Studies, South Asian Popular Culture and Kerala Studies.

Dr. Heazlewood-Dale returns to Brandeis as an OTS Lecturer, having completed his Ph.D. in Musicology at Brandeis in 2024. His dissertation, "Nintendian Jazz: Centering Jazz in Nintendo's Approach to Ludic Scoring Practices," explores the role of jazz music in Nintendo's video games. He has taught in the University Writing Program since 2023.

Ms. Hill has taught at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and held Poet-in-Residence positions for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Mass Poetry. Her poetry has appeared in such journals as Painted Bride Quarterly, POETRY Magazine, Baltimore Review, and Word Riot. She has two published chapbooks: How Her Spirit Got Out and This World Full of Weapons. Ms. Hill received her MFA in Poetry in 2013 from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Ms. Kamali has taught at Boston University's School of Management and School of Public Health as well as GrubStreet. Her publications include Together Tea (Massachusetts Book Award Finalist) and the international bestseller The Stationery Shop. Her third novel, The Lion Women of Tehran was published this past July. She was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Creative Arts Fellowship in 2022. Ms. Kamali received her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Dr. Kenan received her PhD from the University of Michigan in 2021. Her dissertation was entitled “States of Mourning: Nationalism and Loss in Palestinian and Israeli Literatures After 1948.” Dr. Kenan has previously held a Lecturer position at Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. King returns to Brandeis as an OTS Lecturer in the University Writing Program. Professor King has taught in the University Writing Program since 2022. He has taught the Composition Seminar as well as the University Writing Seminars "The Resistance Mix-Tape: Music and Social Justice," "Everyday Apocalypse; or Living Through the Long Emergency," and "Laughing Matters: Sitcoms and Society." He received his PhD in English from Boston University in 2022.

Prior to Brandeis, Professor McGlin held the position of Assistant Professor of Classics at Temple University. Professor McGlin received his PhD in 2019 from the University of Buffalo. His research focuses on the economic and social history of the Greek Mediterranean through the combination of epigraphy, religion, and archaeological remains, with a dissertation entitled “Sacred Loans, Sacred Interest(s): An Economic Analysis of Temple Loans from Independent Delos.”

• Karen Cohen, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
• Samantha Pickette, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Professor Álvarez-Gavela received his PhD in Mathematics in 2018 from Stanford University, and has since held faculty appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. His research touches on various aspects of symplectic and contact geometry, as well as interests in h-principle techniques and Weinstein manifold geometry.

Joseph Delfino returns to Brandeis this fall as an OTS Lecturer in Computer Science. Mr. Delfino holds a degree in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He recently transitioned into teaching after a career in the private sector, where he gained deep experience with large scale system development and software engineering leadership at CNN, Google, and several startups. Mr. Delfino taught courses at Brandeis in the Computer Science department in the 2023-2024 academic year.

Dr. Hegde received his PhD in Mathematics in 2024 from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. His research focuses on Hadamard Products and Schwartz functions.

Professor Johnson received his PhD in Chemical and Systems Biology from Stanford university in 2020. Prior to Brandeis, he held a postdoctoral fellow position with Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He has taught a course at Middlebury College and worked with Roxbury Community College students to discover new bacterial viruses. His research is focused on defining how cells respond to pathogen infection and the structural basis of immunological host cell death.

Dr. Kennedy received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 2023. His research focuses on dynamical systems, with a particular focus on prediction and inference via machine learning methods.

Professor Krones received his PhD in Engineering Systems from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016. Prior to Brandeis, held a faculty appointment at Boston College. His research in the field of industrial ecology focuses on environmentally sustainable waste and materials systems.

Professor Meisel received his PhD in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2016, and was part of the Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Program. Prior to Brandeis, he held a postdoctoral fellow position in the department of Molecular Biology with Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His research in this position has focused on mitochondrial complex I and iron sulfur cluster biosynthesis, and underscores the intimate relationships between mitochondrial biology, oxygen, and animal physiology.

Dr. Mirzadeh received his PhD in Mathematics from Brandeis University in 2018. Prior to returning to Brandeis for this faculty appointment, Dr. Mirzadeh held Visiting Assistant Professor positions at University of Cincinnati and Michigan State University. Dr. Mirzadeh is a specialist of dynamical systems, ergodic theory and their applications to number theory.

Professor Mun received her PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Ewha Womans University in 2018. Prior to Brandeis, she held a postdoctoral fellow position in the Computer Science Department at Boston University as well as an engineer position at DMC research center, Samsung Electronics.

• Marissa DiGirolamo, Psychology
• McKee Krumpak, Mathematics
• Ryan Lundell-Creagh, Psychology
• Marty Samuels, Biology
• Mercedes Villalonga, Psychology

Professor Alvarado received her PhD in 2022 from Boston College. Since 2022, she has served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University at Buffalo - SUNY - Graduate School of Education. Professor Alvarado is an interdisciplinary scholar of race, equity and bilingual education policy, with a research focus on the intersections between societal inequities, educational policies, and families’ experiences in K-8 schools.

Since completing his PhD at the University of California, San Diego in 2019, he has taught at Hunter College (CUNY), City College (CUNY), Brown University and the Community College of Rhode Island. Professor Berman has served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities in the Department of Anthropology and Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University since 2022. His research focuses on how different forms of care and listening constitute modes of governance.

Dr. Cardozo received his PhD in 2022 from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research and teaching interests focus on: climate justice activism and the anthropology of climate change in the Philippines and the wider Transpacific, including in California; settler colonialism and indigenous sovereignty; feminist and queer ecologies; and Filipinx and Asian American experiences.

Dr. Chigumadzi was the 2022-2023 Dorothy Porter Fellow at Harvard’s Hutchins Centre for African and African American Research, and completed her PhD in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University in 2024 with a specialization in history. Trained as an interdisciplinary historian and scholar of African and Black Studies, her research focuses on 19th and 20th-century Southern African histories of Black intellectual, political, spiritual, and religious traditions in the wake of struggles against war, land dispossession and slavery across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds.

Dr. Deng completed her PhD in 2019 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Brown University from 2019-2022, Visiting Scholar at Brown from 2022-2024, and she was the European Commission Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy from 2022-2024. Her scholarly interests include transnational migration, intercultural dynamics, social inclusion/exclusion, urban encounters, migration and health, Chinese diaspora and Italy.

Prof. Norwich received her PhD in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an MBA in Nonprofit Management from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management. She most recently served as the Executive Director of the Network for Social Justice (NFJS), based in Winchester, MA. In addition to having more than fifteen years of experience in the nonprofit world, Professor Norwich has also taught at the graduate and undergraduate level at Regis College, Concordia University, and at Brandeis as a postdoctoral fellow at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies. Along with her work in the field of non-profi t management, Professor Norwich has published widely on the politics of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity and on social movements in Israel.

Professor Oyarzun received her PhD this year at Rice University. She also earned an MPH in Global Health from George Washington University in 2018. Professor Oyarzun is a cultural and medical anthropologist with a background in public health. Professor Oyarzun’s research is centered on health and medicine in the United States, focusing on the effects of inequality, especially race and racism, on both health and medical practices.

Professor Wolk served as a Lecturer in Journalism at Brandeis in 2021-2022. He earned an MS at the Columbia University School of Journalism. With a long career as an entrepreneurial editor and digital media executive, Professor Wolk launched and led the revamp of Vulture.com, was a top editor at Entertainment Weekly and Yahoo, and most recently served as Editorial Consultant to GQ.com, The New York Times, and Fast Company . Professor Wolk also taught at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute from 2022 to 2024.

Prof. Yu received her PhD in 2018 from Harvard University. Professor Yu served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan from 2019 to 2021, and Visiting Assistant Professor at Boston College from 2021 to 2024. Professor Yu is a historian of late imperial and modern China, with a research focus on China’s social and political thought and intellectual culture from the 17th century to the present.

• Kimberly Barton, Sociology
• Megan Burns, HSSP
• Kim Craig, Anthropology
• Ashley Dunn, Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Keitan Guan, Education
• Sean Hwang, Education
• Eileen McNamara, Journalism 
• Karry Sarkissian, GRALL
• Joseph Silcox, Sociology
• Yuya Wang, Education