Alaina Claire Feldman is the Director and Curator of the Mishkin Gallery at Baruch College, where she also teaches in the MA Arts Administration program. She is a MALS candidate (Social and Environmental Justice Studies) at the Graduate Center. 

Course site: FPA 9197 Contemporary Issues in Curating

Reflection post: A Public Collection as Open Access

Alex Viteri is a performance maker and scholar. She also likes to collaborate as a dramaturg for choreographers and visual artists. Lately, she co-facilitated the residency THE BODY OF WATER: Experimenting with Form in Playwriting and performed next to the choreographer Juliana Piquero and light/sound designer Catalina Fernandez in Fan de Ellas, Berlin. Alex is doing her Ph.D in Theatre & Performance at The Graduate Center & teaches at Hunter College.  

Course site: World Theatre Histories | A Critical Approach to Performance History.

Reflection post: Open Access Takes to the Streets

Angela LaScala-Gruenewald is a doctoral student in the Sociology PhD Program at The Graduate Center. Their research explores social control and punishment in social systems with an emphasis on how bureaucratic processes create inequality through racialized organizational structures and the criminalization of poor people. Angela’s current project uses qualitative methods to examine how fines and fees are applied in suburban and rural court systems. Angela teaches contemporary social theory and criminology at Hunter College.

Course site: Criminology 319

Reflection post: Criminology: A Critical and Open Approach

Anthony Wheeler is a Doctoral Fellow of Urban Education at The Graduate Center. He researches within Digital Humanities, where he studies digital pedagogies and educational technologies as methods of implementing social justice initiatives within the classroom. He’s also a member of the CUNY Academic Commons Team as a Community Facilitator and is a member of the English Department at City Tech and Communication Studies at LaGuardia.

Course site: ENG1121 – English Composition II

Reflection post: Digital Literacy, Writing, and Justice Through OER

August Smith is a doctoral student in sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Their research broadly looks at race and racism in U.S. education with an overarching goal of understanding how teachers and students can resist and subvert white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalist exploitation. Their current working project uses critical race theory to investigate differences in students’ and teachers’ perceptions of social justice in their school with the goal of better understanding the impacts of culturally-sustaining empathetic practices.

Course site: SOC 235: Education and Society

Reflection post: Saving Face as a Critical Pedagogue

Daniel Valtueña (he/him/his) is a PhD Candidate in the Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures Department at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Mellon Humanities Public Fellow at the PublicsLab. Daniel teaches romance languages and cultures at Baruch College and works as a Programs Assistant at the Queens Council on the Arts. His research focuses on contemporary performing arts in the Spanish-speaking worlds. He is an independent curator based in New York and Madrid.

Course site: Spanish for the Public Good | Español para el bien común

Reflection post: Language Learners as Changemakers

Inayah Entzminger is a doctoral student in the Biochemistry program, specializing in biophysics. They research the translation mechanism of the BYDV, an RNA virus affecting cereal grains, at Hunter College. Their career focus is in science writing and communication, and they run a graduate student mental health newsletter called Scientifically Sound.  

Course site: Hunter College CHEM 10600

Reflection post: OER in Science: Catching Up in STEM

Justo Planas is a Doctoral Candidate in Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center. His dissertation, “Born in Cuba: Imaginaries of the Child and the Nation,” examines the representation of children in literature, visual arts, and medical discourse. In 2018, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry published his first book, The Latin American Cinema of Disenchantment. In teaching literature, film, and Spanish to both elementary and heritage learners, Justo designs his classes to expose students to the diversity of Spanish-speaking communities and enable them to become better readers of Iberian, Latin American, and Latinx cultural expressions.

Course site: Introduction to Literary Studies in Spanish

Kashema Hutchinson is Ph.D. candidate in the Urban Education program. She is also a Co-Director of the CUNY Peer Leaders Program. Kashema creates and uses Hip Hop infographics to facilitate discussions in traditional and non-traditional educational spaces. She is also a Co-Director of the Universal Hip Hop Museum’s Education Committee. In addition, Kashema is also an adjunct lecturer and teaches critical thinking to undergraduate and early college students. 

Course site: Critical Thinking

Reflection post: Access, Resources, and Hip-Hop: A Story of Education

Katherine Rivera Gomez (she/her) is a Costa Rican-American PhD Student in the Biology Program at The Graduate Center. At the present moment, she is working on restructuring her dissertation focus. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Biology at Pace University in NYC. She teaches Biology Lab courses as a Graduate Assistant at Brooklyn College. Her goal is to become an educator where she can encourage students to cultivate their strengths and confidence through research.

Course site: Biology 1001 Lab

Reflection post: The Challenge of OER and Experiential Learning

Kelsey Swift is a PhD candidate in linguistics at the Graduate Center. Her research focuses on critical approaches to language teaching and raciolinguistic ideologies in the adult English classroom. She teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in linguistics throughout CUNY and also works in community-based adult education.

Course site: Linguistics for TESOL/Bilingual Teachers

Reflection post: Open Pedagogy and Teaching for Social Change

Nicole Cote is a second year PhD student at the Graduate Center. She holds an MS in Integrated Digital Media from NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering and an MScR from the University of Edinburgh. She works at the intersection of the environmental and digital humanities, thinking about plants, knowledge generation, and applying feminist theory and ethics to those fields.

Course site: ENG 110: Food as Philosophy, System, Controversy

Reflection post: Cultivating Resources for the Future

Richard C. Clark (They/She) is a doctoral student in Critical Social Psychology at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. Richard’s work focuses on the decolonial project of Dismantling White Supremacy. This work utilizes two interlocking foci: Decentering Whiteness & Deconstructing Normalcy. They are trained in a broad range of qualitative and quantitative research methods but specialize in Critical Discourse analysis and Thematic Analysis.

Course site: Psychology of Personality

Reflection post: “Free Somebody Else”

Robeto Elvira Mathez (all pronouns welcome) is a PhD Candidate in the Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures Department at the CUNY Graduate Center, a WAC fellow at Brooklyn College and teaches Masterpieces of Hispanic Literature at Queens College. Roberto studies contemporary Argentinean, Brazilian and Mexican literature, focusing on neoliberalism, community and resistance. Writer and translator, he has published two short story books (Tras el reflejo and Tú y yo y las primeras lluvias) and translated poetry from English, Portuguese and Norwegian to Spanish.

Course site: Masterpieces of Hispanic Literature in Translation

Reflection post: Open Educational Resources as the Soul of CUNY

William Oliver is an MA student in linguistics at the Graduate Center. His interests include syntax, semantics, and computational linguistics. He holds a BA in Philosophy from SUNY Binghamton and an M.Ed. from Harvard University in Language and Literacy. Previously, he taught English as a second language for five years in Arizona and Texas.

Course site: EDCE 5800C Theories of Second Language Acquisition

Reflection post: Better Classes Through OER

Allen Zheng (they/them) is a PhD student in Physics at the Graduate Center and is currently researching in a NMR lab at Hunter. They graduated from the City College of New York in Physics and has been teaching intro physics labs at Hunter College since Fall 2020. Allen is recently interested in radical pedagogy practices after exchanges with childhood educators in Brooklyn. They believe dramatic changes need to be implemented particularly in STEM fields to break from current product-oriented banking system education, an issue which has particularly impacted CUNY’s underprivileged demographic in NYC. Currently, Allen is interested in learning more about theory on radical pedagogy and practices to implement.

Course site: Physics 110 Lab Section 8 Fall 2021

Reflection post: The Access Paradox

Andréa Stella (she/her) is a third year PhD student in the English Department focusing on Composition and Rhetoric at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research looks at access, disability, and abolition in the STS writing composition classroom. Andréa is queer, disabled, and mother to two young children.

Course site: Writing For Engineering – Digital Composition and Rhetoric

Reflection post: Science Writing and OER

Austin Oswald (he/they) is a PhD candidate in Social Welfare at the CUNY Graduate Center committed to research and education for queer, disability, and racial liberation across the life course. Their dissertation research applies queer gerontology and intersectionality theories to critically examine the “age-friendliness” of NYC alongside a coalition of queer elders of color. Austin teaches research methods at Hunter College and works with students to build knowledge that is accessible and inclusive of multiple perspectives.

Course site: Social Work Research (SSW 751)

Reflection post: Open Pedagogy and Social Work Education

Cecilia María Salvi (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in the Anthropology Program. Her research investigates the democratization of literature carried out in Latin America by editoriales cartoneras. She is a Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Fellow, an OIS Fellow and currently teaches at City College.

Course site: Research Methods in International Studies

Reflection post: The Copyright Challenge

Cristina Pardo Porto (she/her) is a 5th year doctoral candidate in the Department of Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures. She is currently writing a dissertation on contemporary photographic practices from Central America and the Caribbean. Her research is grounded in archival work in Latin America and it has developed at the intersection of transhistorical reflection, literary and aesthetic theory (in particular of decolonial frameworks within affect theory and visual culture studies), and the history of photography. She teaches Spanish language and Hispanic cultures and literatures in Hunter College (CUNY).

Course site: Contemporary Spanish Literature in Translation (SPAN264)

Reflection post: Teaching (Hispanic) Cultures and Literatures in Translation with OA and OER

Di Wu is a PhD student in Computer Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He has earned master degrees in Business Management and Computer Science. His research interest is Temporal Semantic Web and Database Management. He has been teaching introductory courses at CUNY since 2015. Currently he is teaching Principles Of Database Management Systems at Baruch College. Di has a strong commitment in education and dedicated effort and time to the community that lacks resources.

Course site: Database Management Systems | A Learning Process from Ideas to Products

Reflection post: More Than Skills

Jeff Voss is a PhD student in the English Department at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is currently studying the social practice of comedy as a self-destructive, convivial tool and indeterminate force of revolutionary desire. Voss teaches English Composition at Brooklyn College. 

Course site: The Dispossessed: Anarchism & Utopia | English 1010

Reflection post: open/ings

Marianne Madoré is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in sociology, concentrating on feminist theories, race and racism, and global sociology. This semester, they are teaching at Brooklyn College and collecting data for a collective research project on the use of free-of-charge materials in CUNY classrooms.

Reflection post: We Can Decide What OER Are For

Maura McCreight (she/her) is a third year Ph.D. student in Art History with a focus on the History of Photography at The Graduate Center, CUNY in New York and teaches Art History at Brooklyn College. Her research explores the circulation of images within political and artistic networks of exchange between North Africa and Europe, with a focus on women combatants and political prisoners from the National Liberation Front (FLN) during the Algerian War of Independence (1954 – 62). She has an ardent interest in photographic forms that uphold ontologies of storytelling, and non-traditional art mediums that mobilize aesthetics as a tactic of insurgency against state repression.

Course site: Art 1010

Reflection post: An Art Historian’s Expedition: Visual Archives and Open Access

Michael L. J. Greer (she/her) is in the third year of the PhD program in Philosophy at The Graduate Center, CUNY and is an Ethics Fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital. Michael works in feminist epistemology and ethics, critical phenomenology, philosophy of language, bioethics, and fat studies. Her dissertation will investigate the concept of allyship between differentially privileged, situated, and subordinated social groups. 

Course site: Introduction to Philosophy – PHIL2101

Reflection post: Cultivating a Philosophy of Open Pedagogy

Natasha Tiniacos (she/her) is a poet and scholar doing the PhD student in Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures in the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Her research interests are queer disabilities, poetics, post-humanism, and sound studies. She has been teaching advanced Spanish composition to CUNY community college students and has discovered the potentiality to create an open education project that considers the intersection between students’ singular heritage and their expressive needs through writing.

Course site: Cultivating a Philosophy of Open Pedagogy

Nic Rios (they/them) is in their fifth year in the PhD program in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. They earned their masters in gender studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Nic’s dissertation research investigates the medical construction of autistic subjectivity as it intersects with transgender identity. They teach courses on gender, education, and family in the Sociology department at Lehman College.

Course site: SOC 328 Sociological Perspectives on the Dynamics of Gender

Reflection post: Aligning Ideals with Practice Through Open Pedagogy

Ryan McKinney (he/him/his) is a third-year PhD student in Theatre & Performance and serves as Director of Theatre Arts at Kingsborough Community College. In addition to his practice-based research as a theatre director and actor, Ryan’s scholarly research interests include musical theatre & politics, theories of actor training across the Americas, gay & lesbian representation onstage, as well as civic engagement and open pedagogical teaching practices.

Course site: THA 5000: Introduction to Theatre

Reflection post: Open Pedagogy in Theatre Arts

Shiraz Biggie is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance.  Her dissertation project looks at the earliest tours sent to the United States by the Abbey Theatre (Ireland) and Habima (Israel) and the relationship between diaspora and national culture movements.  Her research is centered around questions of homeland, nostalgia, storytelling, and identity.  Her evolving interests in folklore and literary adaptations for the stage have emerged from the courses in the performance of children’s literature that she teaches at Brooklyn College. 

Reflection post: The Complete Cost of OER Labor

Stefano Morello is a doctoral candidate in English and a Digital Fellow at The Graduate Center, CUNY. His interests include pop culture, urban studies, poetics, and digital humanities. His dissertation explores the heterotopic space of the East Bay punk scene and its modes of resistance and (dis-)association. He is also working on a book on cultural, architectural, and public health policy responses to immigration, poverty, and disease on the Lower East Side in the 20th century.

Course site: Literature and Place – New York City: 1880-1930

Reflection post: First Steps Toward Opening the University