New tenure-track faculty hired for Fall 2009

Vice President for Academic Affairs Virginia Horvath announced new tenure-track faculty who will join have been hired for the upcoming academic year at SUNY Fredonia,

Donald Barnes (Assistant Professor, Marketing; Department of Business Administration) is completing his Ph.D. in business administration at Mississippi State University; his emphasis is in marketing, with statistics as a support area. He previously earned a B.S. in finance from SUNY Fredonia and an M.B.A. in business administration at Clemson University (South Carolina). His research interests include services marketing and consumer behavior, and his publications and presentations have examined such subjects as theoretical reasoning in market-entry position, the cell phone industry, customer delight, returns satisfaction, and college teaching proficiency. He has taught marketing, consumer behavior, and consumer research.

Anny Castilla (Assistant Professor, Communication Disorders and Sciences) is currently an instructor at the University of Toronto, where she teaches in the departments of Linguistics and Speech-Language Pathology. She earned her Bachelor of Education in speech and language pathology and her Master’s in bilingual education from the Universidad del Valle (Colombia). She earned the Ph.D. in speech-language pathology from the University of Toronto. Dr. Castilla has experience as a research assistant/associate for projects at the University of Toronto, Arizona State University, and the University of Georgia. Her publications and work in progress focus on such topics as individual differences and language interdependence in Spanish-English bilingual children, language acquisition in Spanish-speaking children in English-only and bilingual schools, Spanish clitics, Latino children with language disorders, and narratives and story grammar development in preschool Spanish-speaking children.

Kate Douglass (Assistant Professor, French/Second Language Pedagogy; Department of Modern Languages and Literature) comes to SUNY Fredonia from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she has been an Assistant Professor of French since 2005. Previously, she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of French at Bucknell University (Pennsylvania). She earned a B.A. in French from The College of William and Mary (Virginia) and an M.A. in French literature from the Pennsylvania State University. She earned a Ph.D. in French with a concentration in second/foreign language acquisition theory, research, and pedagogy from the Pennsylvania State University. As an undergraduate, she spent a year abroad at Université Paul Valéry (France). Dr. Douglass has taught a range of courses in French language, language teaching, and theory, and she has engaged in several innovative projects with technology. Her publications and research interests include foreign language acquisition and pedagogy, motivation and language development, study abroad, telecollaboration, blogs, immersion schooling, and language choice.

Scott Ferguson (Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology; Department of Biology) has served as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University/Howard Hughes Medical Institute (New Jersey) since 2005. He earned a B.S. in molecular biology from Westminster College and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. His research has included studies of the hormone melatonin, the heat shock transcription factor in gene expression, and genetic screening related to insulin signaling and checkpoint activation. Dr. Ferguson was a trainee on two NIH grants and recently submitted a proposal for an NIH grant which has implications for understanding human health through the regulation of processes important in developmental patterning, cancer, diabetes, and neurological plasticity.

Paul Holmes (Assistant Professor, Department of Economics) is completing his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Illinois, where his dissertation focuses on issues in sports economics and labor issues in sports. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and statistics and a Bachelor of Communication in economics from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), an M.S. in statistics from the University of Illinois, and an M.S. in economics from the University of Illinois. His primary teaching interests are microeconomics, game theory, statistics, sports economics, industrial organization, and public economics. Recent research has explored such topics as racial discrimination in professional baseball and firing of college football coaches.

Mark Kiyak (Assistant Professor, Television Production; Department of Communication) is currently an Assistant Professor of mass media in the Department of Communication Arts at Valdosta State University (Georgia), where he has taught courses in mass media, electronic media, broadcast writing, television production, audio production, digital media, electronic field production, media criticism, American film, and diversity in media. He earned a B.A. in film production and an M.F.A. in motion picture production from the University of Miami (Florida). His professional experience includes 15 years at NBC in New York, first as videotape librarian and then as broadcast engineer, and a year as television production engineer at WLRN-TV in Miami. Mr. Kiyak has received two EMMY awards for his work as a videotape engineer for the 1996 and 2000 Olympic games. He has published and presented on such topics as film studies, mass media courses, political communication, and media reform. Two of his films were recently screened at the international conference of the Eastwest Somatics Network.

Jonathan Mann (Assistant Professor, Piano; School of Music) has been an Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Idaho since 2006, where he has taught graduate and undergraduate piano majors, coordinated the secondary piano program, and assisted with national recruiting efforts. Previous teaching positions include serving on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music preparatory department and as a faculty member in the Young Pianists Program at Indiana University School of Music. Dr. Mann earned a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and a Master of Music in piano performance from Indiana University School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. In recent years, he has performed in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, Vancouver, Calgary, Spokane, Portland, Salt Lake City, Milan (Italy), and Stockholm (Sweden). In addition to adjudicating in many performance festivals, he has given many master classes and workshops at universities and music camps, as well as lectures on music, musicians, and piano pedagogy. He has served as music director of several churches, most recently the Moscow Unitarian Universalist Church.

Peter Tucker (Assistant Professor, Interactive Media Arts; Department of Visual Arts and New Media) is coming to Fredonia from Texas, where he has been on the digital art foundations faculty at the University of Texas (Austin) and teaching video production and new media at St. Edward’s University. He earned a B.A. in psychology from Oklahoma State University, a B.F.A. in studio art from the University of Texas, and an M.F.A. in Studio for Interrelated Media from Massachusetts College of Art. His artistic work—exhibited in Texas, California, Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington—is interdisciplinary. It ranges from traditional woodworking to video installations and performance, blending traditional craft and technology. He has also collaborated with a university orchestra and created collaborative public sculptures. His website, www.pedrotucker.com, includes video clips of his work and student work.