Photo of the "Serenity" statue with Bernard Brommell Hall in the background.

Friday, July 15, 2022

Northeastern awarded tenure and promotion to associate professor to 11 members of the faculty, who were introduced during the April 14, 2022 Board of Trustees meeting. 

Here is the list of the awards of tenure and promotion to associate professor: 

Zachary Bloom, Counselor Education
Bloom earned a Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Counselor Education. Currently, he serves as a graduate program advisor for the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Bloom’s research centers on the counseling implications associated with individuals, couples or families’ use of various forms of technology and their levels of empathy, objectification and quality of interpersonal relationships. Subsequently, he expanded his research to include instrument development and validation. He has authored, co-authored and contributed to various peer-reviewed publications, including the textbook “” (Pearson, 2021).

Jenny Ruth Dawley-Carr, Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies
Dawley-Carr earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies. Dawley-Carr has been a teacher, teacher educator and field experience supervisor of teacher candidates for 22 years. Her research centers on citizenship education with qualitative studies primarily examining civic dispositions in Cuba’s K-13 educational system, and civic skills in U.S. teacher education. She has presented at conferences and has been published in various publications, including “” in a 2021 special issue of the Politics of Education Association’s peer-reviewed Peabody Journal of Education. 

Sarah Fabian, Communication, Media and Theatre
Fabian earned an M.F.A. from Northwestern University. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, Media and Theatre (CMT). She is currently the Managing Director of Stage Center Theatre. She developed two CMT courses: STAM-300: The Performative Self—Exploring Identity and Character through Theatre, and CMTT-130: Introduction to Theatre—Online. Her research and creative activities focus on theatrical scenic design and technology. During the past six years, Fabian has served as the scenic designer for 16 external theatrical productions for a wide range of companies in Chicago and across the U.S. and 17 theatrical productions at Northeastern. 

Stacey Goguen, Philosophy
Goguen earned a Ph.D. from Boston University. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and core faculty in the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. She teaches courses on feminist philosophy, philosophy of science, epistemology, and applied ethics--including Ethics in Science and Research (PHIL 250), a general education course for students interested in STEM, as part of the Creating Access to STEM for All (CASA) Title V grant. She is the co-editor of the anthology “” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and has also recently co-written the paper, "" (Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 2021). She is currently working on a book project about the role that social networks of trust play in spreading or halting misinformation. 

Orin Harris, Physics 
Harris earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics. Harris led a three-year National Science Foundation grant between Indiana University South Bend, Penn State and Northeastern for the development of PICO-500, software that is needed to help successfully run an experiment that will search for dark matter. He has mentored an average of three summer students through research projects each year. These projects have included hardware work, including a hydraulic system for a future bubble chamber at NEIU, and software work, including data quality monitoring that the NEIU group oversees for PICO and SBC collaborations. In addition to his grant and research initiatives, Harris has published a number of works in peer reviewed journals. 

Casey Holtschneider, Social Work
Holtschneider earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work. She took a leadership role in the M.S.W. program’s overall curriculum development and created seven new courses for the program. Holtschneider’s research is focused on improving the understanding of the impact of services provided for young people in situations of homelessness. She has published, presented and developed much of her work, including a practice textbook for graduate social work students, three peer-reviewed articles that have been cited more than 100 times in publications, successful grant applications, as well as speaking at the annual Association for Behavior Analysis International Conference.

Manar Mohaisen, Computer Science
Mohaisen earned a Ph.D. from Inha University. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. His research interests are in the areas of wireless communications, applications of social network analysis to business and educational networks, and computer systems security. Mohaisen involves students in his research to acquire the skills needed for their career paths. Overall, 11 students have worked with him on four different projects, and five more will join his research team in Fall 2023. He has served on technical program committees, served as a reviewer, submitted grant proposals, and published his works, most recently the article "" in Applied Sciences.

Alex Peimer, Geography and Environmental Studies
Peimer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies. Currently, he serves as the environmental policy, planning and management advisor for the Environmental Studies program, and teaches courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Peimer is involved in three overlapping areas of multimethod research, and conducts original work in political ecology and critical physical geography. He has published his work and presented at various conferences, including the 2021 annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers.

Katherine Petersen, Music 
Petersen earned a D.M.A. from Ohio State University. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music and Dance Program. Currently, she serves as Head of Voice, Applied Voice, Vocal Pedagogy and Vocal Repertoire, Bachelor of Arts Advisor, and Bachelor of Music Vocal Performance Advisor. Petersen invests one-on-one time with her students through applied lessons, curates concerts and opportunities for solo and recital work in smaller venues, and has developed her reputation as a well-regarded soprano in Chicago. She will present a workshop in Summer 2022 at the International Congress of Voice Teachers conference in Vienna, Austria.

Rachel Trana, Computer Science
Trana earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Within the last six years, she has mentored 12 students as their primary advisor and 12 students as their secondary advisor for master's projects. In Fall 2016, she became a Co-PI on the Peer Enhanced Experiential Research in STEM (PEERS) project funded under the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program by the National Science Foundation (NSF). As part of the NSF IUSE grant, she helped with the development of mini-research modules for Programming I/II courses. She has published works, presented at various conference and guest lectures, as well as contributed to grant proposals, including, most recently, NSF’s CISE-MSI: RPEP:S&CC: “Information Systems meet CUltural COmpetencies (IS-CUCO): Enabling data-driven decision-making in underserved Hispanic populations.”

Russell Wartalski, Literacy, Leadership and Development 
Wartalski earned a Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Literacy, Leadership and Development. Wartalski’s research activities have focused largely on self-directed learning, instructional design, online learning, and career development—many areas that are foundational components within the Human Resource Development field. In order to meet the needs of students’ and teaching and learning modalities, he is involved in the Quality Matters initiative, which further enhances offering fully online courses. Wartalski has published and presented his works. In Summer 2021, he co-presented “Pivoting in difficult times: Teaching and advising during the COVID-19 pandemic” at the 4th Annual International Global Conference on Education and Research.

Northeastern also awarded promotions of professor to the following faculty members: