Welcome new faculty members

Welcome to these new tenure-track faculty members.

Paul Allen (Theological Studies) was an LTA at Concordia last year, teaching courses in systematic theology. He earned a PhD in theology from the University of Ottawa’s Saint Paul University in 2001.

C. Assi, Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE), got his bachelor’s in electrical and computer engineering from the Lebanese University in 1997 and his MS and PhD in electrical engineering from the Graduate School of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he held the Mina Rees Dissertation Fellowship. He spent a year at Nokia Research Center, Boston, as a visiting scientist. His research interests are in optical networking and more specifically, provisioning and restoration, network survivability, and network control and management.

Nilanjan Basu (Finance) majored in economics at Presidency College, Calcutta University, and did a postgraduate diploma in management at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad. He worked for three years as a stock analyst and a financial analyst in Mumbai, then got his PhD from Purdue University. A chartered financial analyst, his research interests are in empirical corporate finance.

Christine Beckett (Music)

Kathleen Boies (Management) got a PhD in industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Western Ontario in 2003. Her research interests lie transformational and charismatic leadership, and erosion of trust in leaders. Her secondary interest is in the area of personality, and specifically the role of honesty and integrity in organizations.

Eleanor Bond (Studio Arts) is one of Canada's premier painters, with solo exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporatain. A graduate of the University of Manitoba, she has been teaching at Canadian colleges and universities since 1988 and was artist in residence for the MFA Painting Studio at Concordia University in 2002-03. Ms. Bond has a stellar research profile with solo exhibitions include the Mus⁄e d'Art contemporain de Montreal; the Musuem of Contemporary Art in Toronto; the Winnipeg Art Gallery; YYZ in Toronto and the Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil to name a few. Writing about her work has been profiled in many publications including Canadian Art, Parachute, Border Crossings and C Magazine. Eleanor Bond has influenced a generation of artists in her use of the tradition of landscape painting as a forum for discussion.

Maria Boutchkova (Finance) received her PhD from the University of Oklahoma, where she was a Fulbright scholar. She had a degree in international business in her native Bulgaria and was involved in the process of mass privatization. Her research interests include privatization of state-owned enterprises, international corporate governance, investor protection and stock market development in emerging markets.

Walcir Cardoso (Education) is a native of Brazil who first came to Montreal in 1995 to pursue a PhD in linguistics at McGill University. He had previously received an MA in applied English linguistics from Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Minas Gerais.

Saul Carliner (Education) specializes in information design, which encompasses the informal learning that takes place in the workplace. He has vast experience in both the academic and private sectors and was mostly recently a visiting assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong, where he taught courses in visual communication and content development. He has a PhD in instructional technology from Georgia State University.

Elaine Cheasley (Art History)

Regina Crameri (Exercise Science) is an Australian native who comes to Concordia after completing a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Sports Medicine Research Unit at Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. She has a PhD in sports and exercise science from the University of Sydney.

Fern Delamere (Applied Human Sciences) is a specialist in therapeutic recreation. She has an MA in leisure studies from Dalhousie University and is completing a PhD at the University of Waterloo.

Effrosyni Diamantoudi (Economics) comes to Concordia from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, where he was an assistant professor for three years. He is no stranger to Montreal, having received his MA and PhD degrees from McGill University.

Deborah Folaron (Etudes françaises) is a translation specialist who comes to Concordia from New York University, where she taught in that school’s Translation Studies Certificate Program. She previously served as Manager of Language and Technology for Eriksen Translations of New York. She has a PhD in francophone literature and translation theory from Binghampton University.

Pablo Gilabert (Philosophy) is a native of Argentina who comes to Concordia having just completed a PhD in philosophy from New School University in New York. His dissertation was entitled Freedom and Solidarity: The Substantive Dimension of Deliberative Ethics and Politics.

Tobias Gittes (Liberal Arts College) comes to Concordia from Columbia University in New York, where he received a PhD in Italian and comparative literature in 2000. He has been teaching at Columbia and Barnard University while preparing his dissertation for publication as a book.

Amin Hammad has joined the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE) as an associate professor.

Sergey Isaenko (Finance) has a PhD in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in finance and statistics from the Wharton School. He earned his master’s in physics from Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute. His research interests are portfolio choice and asset pricing, imperfect financial markets, informational economics, and computational finance.

Andrew Ivaska (History) is a specialist in African history who is set to complete a PhD from the University of Michigan. He also has an MA in Arab studies from Georgetown University.

James Kelly (Political Science) is an expert on Canadian politics and legal institutions. He spent the past three years in the Department of Political Science at Brock University. He earned a PhD in political science from McGill University in 1999.

Arang Keshavarzian (Political Science) is a Middle East specialist whose research focuses on the study of bazaars and their influence on regime change. He earned a PhD in political science from Princeton University this year and previously studied in the Middle East studies master’s program at the University of Washington.

Joanna Komorowski (Exercise Science) comes to Concordia from the University of Ottawa’s School of Human Kinetics, where she spent three years as an assistant professor. Her research involves examining the impact of low-carbohydrate diets on body composition and weight. A native of Poland, she has a PhD in physiology from the University of Ottawa.

Rafael Lara (Accountancy) did his master’s at the University of Utah. His PhD work was at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and he expects to complete it this year. His teaching and research interests are in financial accounting, particularly the U.S. banking industry and mergers and acquisitions.

Louise Lacroix (Creative Arts Therapies)

Erin Manning (Cinema)

Kimberley Manning (Political Science) is a specialist in comparative politics, Chinese politics and feminist theory. She comes to Concordia from the University of Washington, where she recently completed a PhD in political science. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Jean-François Mayer (Political Science) is a specialist in comparative politics, with a particular focus on Latin America. He comes to Concordia from the University of Guelph, where he spent four years as an assistant professor. He has BA and MA degrees from the Université de Montréal and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University.

Peter Morden (Applied Human Sciences) is an expert on the science of leisure who graduated from Concordia in 1994 with a BA in leisure sciences, then got an MA at Dalhousie University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo.

Sameer Mustafa (Accountancy) earned his doctorate in business administration (D.BA) last May and his master’s in accountancy and financial information systems in 1994 from Cleveland State University. He has a bachelor’s from the University of Jordan. He is certified public accountant (CPA), certified management accountant (CMA), and certified in financial management (CFM). He won a teaching award at Cleveland State, and his research interests include corporate governance and financial fraud.

Chitu Okoli (Decision Sciences/MIS) expects to obtain his PhD in business administration this November from Louisiana State University. He holds a BS in computer science and MS in ISDS from Louisiana State, and his recent research has been on e-commerce and telemedicine in sub-Saharan Africa, using the Internet to compete based on information resources, and online voting for public government elections.

Hariclia Petrakos (Education) is a child psychologist with an expertise in the education sector. She has a BA in psychology and an MA in child studies from Concordia, as well as in educational psychology from McGill University. She previously worked for Montreal’s Lester B. Pearson School Board as a school psychologist.

Shaoming Qu (Marketing) has a PhD from the University of Southern California, and two master’s degrees, one in statistics and the other in economics, from the same institution. His research interests are technology innovation and new product development, pricing strategy, advertising and promotion, the management of channels of distribution, and the econometrics of consumer behaviour.

Goretti Ramirez (Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics) is a native of Spain who is an expert in Hispanic Studies. He has completed an MA in the field at Brown University in Rhode Island, where he is finishing his PhD.

Rosemary Reilly (Applied Human Sciences) is an expert in human relations and small group processes. She first came to Concordia in 1987, completing a Certificate in Family Life Education two years later. She subsequently received an MEd in educational psychology from McGill University and is scheduled to complete a PhD in the same field this fall.

Shelley Reuter (Sociology and Anthropology) specializes in issues related to health, and specifically, diseases that affect specific racial groups. Her PhD dissertation, which examined the sociocultural history of agoraphobia, is being published as a book. She comes to Concordia from Memorial University of Newfoundland. She earned a PhD in sociology at Queen’s University in 2001.

Hilary Rose (Applied Human Sciences) is a specialist in applied life-span development. She comes to Concordia from Washington State University, where she spent five years as an assistant professor. A native Canadian, she earned a PhD from the University of Georgia in 1997.

Alison Rowley (History) is an expert in Russian and Soviet history. She has a PhD in history from Duke University, where she has also spent the past three years as a visiting assistant professor of Slavic studies.

Mark Russell (Liberal Arts College) was an LTA at Concordia last year, teaching courses on Western society and Western civilization. He earned a PhD in modern German history and fine art from the University of Cambridge in England in 2000.

Leslie Shade (Communication Studies) comes to Concordia from the University of Ottawa, where she was an assistant professor for five years in the Department of Communication. She earned a PhD in Communications from McGill University in 1997.

Yehudit Silverman (Creative Arts Therapies) is a drama therapist and dance movement therapist, and has been a professional performer/director/composer for 25 years. She also has 20 years of clinical practice in Montreal hospitals. Her research interests include stages and clinical application of the creative process and the use of myth and fairy tale in therapy.

Justin Smith (Philosophy) comes to Concordia from Miami University of Ohio, where was an assistant professor of philosophy and an associate member of the school’s Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies. He earned a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University in 2000.

Matthew Soar (Communication Studies) joins Concordia after completing a PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a trained graphic designer and wrote with his PhD dissertation on the intersection between graphic design and political dissent in North America.

Linda Szabad-Smyth (Art Education)

Pavel Trofimovich (Education) is an applied linguist who specializes in the linguistic aspects of bilingualism and second-language acquisition. He has a BA in English philology from the University of Latvia and is currently a PhD candidate in educational psychology at the University of Illinois.

Christopher Wilds (Chemistry and Biochemistry) has been hailed as one of North America’s best young nucleic acid chemists whose work in the field has already led to significant advances in the development of chemotherapeutic agents. He received a BSc in chemistry from Concordia in 1994 and a PhD from McGill in 1999. He has since completed three postdoctoral fellowships, at Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University and Johns Hopkins University.

Y. Zeng has joined the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE) as an associate professor. Prior to joining Concordia, he had been an Assistant Research Officer in Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute at National Research Council Canada for about two years. He received his BEng in structural engineering from the Institute of Logistics Engineering in July 1986, his MSc and PhD degrees in computational mechanics from Dalian University of Technology in 1989 and 1992, respectively. He completed his second PhD in design engineering in 2001 from University of Calgary. Between his two PhDs, he worked at the Institute of Logistics Engineering for five years. His research interests include design science, computer-assisted conceptual design, surface reconstruction, and finite element modeling. He has been applying his research to automotive engineering, biomechanical engineering, and structural engineering.