Alice Matthews is a Ph.D. student in art history at The Graduate Center, interested in ecogothic and science fictive readings of the long nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Previously, she was the Jock Reynolds Fellow in Public Programs at the Yale University Art Gallery and received an M.A. from the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art.
Commons site: https://art10000sp26.commons.gc.cuny.edu/
Reflection post: Waist-deep in OER
Beatrice Carnelutti is a PhD Candidate in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she holds a Certificate in Critical Theory. Her research explores Anglophone literature and poetics, with particular attention to the politics of border-crossing, thresholds, and transnational imaginaries.
Before turning to literary studies, she trained in law in Milan. She holds an MA in English Language and American Studies from the Università degli Studi di Torino, where her thesis examined the politics and poetics of border-crossing in the poetry of Seamus Heaney.
She teaches Italian language at Hunter College, Fordham University, and The New School, and English literature at Baruch College. A native Italian speaker fluent in English, French, and Russian, she brings a multilingual sensibility to her scholarship on language, translation, and displacement.
Commons site: Italian 202
Beatrice Mundo, CUNY PhD candidate, researches the paradox of 16th-century French Italianism and Italophobia. She coordinates the digital archive: Letters of Catherine de’ Medici.
Commons site: Elementary French
Reflection post: Beyond Perfection: Embracing Imperfection Through OER
Felix Yirdong is a Fulbright alumnus and doctoral student in the Health Psychology and Clinical Science Program at The CUNY Graduate Center. His research examines the conditions under which a desire for death emerges and the culturally specific factors that shape risk for suicidal ideation and attempts among ethnoracially minoritized youth. He is particularly interested in how childhood adversity, emotional regulation, and social connectedness interact to influence adolescent suicide risk. Felix holds an MA in Psychology from The New School, New York. He currently teaches Health Psychology at Hunter College.
Course site: Health Psychology
Reflection post: Opening Knowledge: Reflections from an Open Knowledge Fellowship
Fortunatus Ezebuo is a PhD student in Biochemistry at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He is currently conducting research on human sodium ion channels and peptide toxins. Fortunatus holds a PhD degree in Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry from Nnamdi Azikiwe University. He currently teaches introductory chemistry laboratory courses at College of Staten Island of The City University of New York.
Course site: General Chemistry II
Reflection post: Finding OER for Teaching Chemistry Laboratory Courses: The Challenges and the Way Out
Hart M. Zhang is a doctoral student in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Lehman College, CUNY. His research focuses on qualitative and ethnographic methods, particularly in the areas of urban geographies, spatializing culture, and homelessness.
Course site: Sociology 250: Racial and Ethnic Communities in the United States
Reflection post: Teaching “Race and Gender Ideologies” in the Resurgence of American Fascist Movements
Herline A. Honorat is a PhD student in Urban Education at The Graduate Center, with certificates in Africa Studies and Interactive Technology & Pedagogy. Herline is interested in the intersections of history education and computational thinking. Herline holds an MA from New York University in English education and a BA from UConn in English and human rights. She collaborates with educators across New York City Public Schools in her Brooklyn College course to examine how curriculum and pedagogy is discussed when thinking about childhood education.
Course site: CBSE 7203T: Advanced Study of Pedagogy and Curriculum in Childhood Education I
Reflection post: Journey to an OER
Hope Cullinan is a PhD student in the Department of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures at the Graduate Center, interested in Spanish language in the United States and the use of art and performance cultural formation and language learning. She did graduate coursework in Spanish at Hunter College and has an MSc in Art History from Edinburgh University (UK). As a Graduate Teaching Fellow, she teaches Spanish at Queens College.
Reflection post: Creating an Open Educational Resource for Spanish Language Classes at CUNY
H. Hüma Yardım is a PhD candidate in the Department of History whose research examines the intersections of medicine and incarceration in the late Ottoman Empire (1850–1923).
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Reflection post: Open Education and the Future of Knowledge Sharing
Ibrahim Abuelrob is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His research centers on speech phenomena and prosody, with particular emphasis on intonational patterns and prosodic structure in Palestinian Arabic and the prosodic typology of Arabic dialects. He also studies speech variation in contexts of urbanization and immigration, contributing to Speech Prosody and Sociophonetics.
Course site:
Reflection post: Making Linguistics Affordable: Challenges and Possibilities
Juan Corredor-Garcia is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center. He earned a BA in Political Science at Universidad del Rosario, a MPhil in Political Sociology at Sciences Po Bordeaux and Université de Bordeaux. He has worked as an Adjunct Instructor at Hunter, Lehman, and Fordham University.
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Juan Rúa-Serna is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the City University of New York, The Graduate Center, concentrating in International Relations and Comparative Politics. His research examines the links between immigration, political participation, and integration.
Course site: International Politics
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Lisa Di Battista is a language instructor at Hunter College and Lehman College, CUNY, teaching Elementary Italian. Her work focuses on accessible language pedagogy and inclusive classroom practices. She is committed to designing courses that reduce barriers to participation and foster student confidence from the first day of class.
Course site: Italian 112
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Marilyn Stotts is an educator and community organizer currently pursuing a PhD in Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. She teaches a course on School Communities and Children at Lehman College and researches how families protest for equitable schools.
Course syllabus: ECE 302: Communities, Schools, Families & Children
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Md Abu Hanif is a dedicated and driven PhD student in Computer Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is deeply engaged in cutting-edge research at the intersection of machine learning and data science. His focus is on developing and applying advanced algorithms for mmWave radar sensing, an area with immense potential for future technological advances, particularly in domains such as autonomous systems, healthcare monitoring, and smart environments.
Course site: Introduction to Machine Learning
Reflection post: Opening the Black Box: Teaching Machine Learning Without a Textbook
Michael Villanova is a doctoral candidate in political theory at The Graduate Center, CUNY. His dissertation is on the political tradition of “urban revanchism,” investigating the intersection between antidemocratic politics, urban citizenship, and the appeals of reactionary movements.
Course site: Democracy and Its Critics
Reflection post: Teaching “Democracy and its Critics” using OER
Mikaela Elliott is a doctoral student in Developmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses on developing inclusive psychometric assessments that integrate emerging technologies to better represent individuals with developmental disabilities and other historically underrepresented groups. In her teaching, she emphasizes research literacy and the real-world implications of developmental science.
Course site:
Reflection post: Contributing to the World of OER
Patrick Schelle, MSW, ABD is a social worker working for over 15 years in NYC and Westchester. His experience in the community and working with youth has led him to pursue a PhD in Social Welfare and a role as educator with CUNY. He is currently teaching Forensic Social Work and related topics at CUNY. Patrick’s dissertation is focused on how comic books can improve attitudes towards learning to read for justice impacted youth.
Course site: Criminal Justice 101
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Pranjal Agarwal is a Physics PhD student specializing in quantum information theory. He teaches undergraduate physics and astronomy at CUNY, where he focuses on making science accessible and cost-free for students.
Course site: PHY 2001
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Qiwen (Thomas) Tong CUNY Graduate Center PhD student and Experimental Psychology lab instructor at Brooklyn College, focusing on using open educational resources and student-centered, collaborative learning in the classroom.
Course site: Experimental Psychology
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Reina Gattuso (she/her) lives, teaches, and writes in New York City. She’s a teacher at Hunter College, a contributing writer to the cultural learning platform Curationst, a PhD student in cultural anthropology, and a student of kathak dance.
Course site: Our New York: A Collective CUNY Ethnography
Reflection post: Anthropology for Everyone
Sergei Rozhkov is a PhD student in Biology at the CUNY Graduate Center, affiliated with the CUNY School of Medicine. His research interests focus on cancer immunotherapy, biotechnology, and drug discovery. As part of his teaching responsibilities, Sergei teaches Human Biology and Biology 101 courses at CCNY campuses.
Course site: Human Biology
Reflection post: Learning to Teach Open: The Importance of Open Educational Resources in the Classroom
