Faculty Biographies
Department Chair
Chris Kellett
Chris Kellett received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Humanities and Sciences at Cornish College of the Arts. Before joining Cornish in 2004, Chris was on the faculty at Antioch University Seattle for fifteen years where she taught courses in literature, creative writing, composition and interdisciplinary studies. She previously taught for the University of Washington, Central Washington University (Extended Degree Programs), Bellevue Community College and the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Core Faculty
Adjunct Assistant Professor John Hagman
Western Civilization, Integrated Studies
John Hagman is in his tenth year of teaching history and Integrated Studies at Cornish. He earned his BA from the University of Washington and his MA from the University of Chicago, where he is now a doctoral candidate in history. He taught at history and philosophy at Coe College in Iowa for three years, and then moved into adult literacy. He earned a second MA, this one in Education and Reading Instruction, from Seattle University. He spent the next two decades in adult literacy, teaching at community-based organizations, community colleges, reservations, maximum and medium-security prisons, and the King County Jail. He also coached a middle school Math Olympics team for four years. Ten years ago he returned to college teaching. In addition to teaching at Cornish, he has been the Education Coordinator at the I-WA-SIL Youth Program, a division of United Indians of All Tribes. I Wa Sil has become a branch of Boys and Girls Clubs of America and an affiliate of the South Wind Indian Arts and Education Foundation. I-WA-SIL is America's first branch of Boys and Girls Clubs serving Native American young people living in an urban area. He is the author of many texts, learning materials, and articles on adult literacy. He is now developing a learning taxonomy for history for application to global citizen initiatives.
Assistant Professor Erica Howard
Physical and Natural Sciences, Environmental Studies, Quantitative Reasoning
Erica Howard teaches courses primarily in interdisciplinary environmental studies. She earned her B.A. in Chemistry and International Environmental Studies from Cornell University. She also received an M.S. in Land Resources and Forestry from University of Wisconsin – Madison, and will soon complete a Ph.D. in Environment and Resources, also from UW-Madison. In 2006 she earned a graduate certificate in the integration of research, teaching, and learning. She has strong interests in the human side of environmental issues, and in fusing artistic and scientific perspectives to advance our understanding of our environment. She has life-long interests in promoting public science literacy. She enjoys international travel, cross-cultural communication, and learning from and working with diverse types of people. She has studied abroad in Australia, Canada, Brazil, and Russia. She has also worked and performed as a modern dancer, choreographer, and pianist, and has occasionally taught modern dance, hatha yoga, and piano. Erica looks forward to new opportunities to bring the arts and the sciences together.
Professor Kimball MacKay
Integrated Studies, Literature, Creative Writing (Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction)
Kimball MacKay teaches Integrated Studies, Literature, Creative Writing (Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) at Cornish. He has received three grants from the Seattle Arts Commission's Seattle Artist Program and the Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship. His poetry has been widely published in such journals as Arts & Letters, The Crab Creek Review, The Journal, Spoon River Quarterly, Fine Madness, Willow Springs Review, Green Mountains Review, The Seattle Review, and others. He has been the Associate Editor of a scientific journal, Limnology and Oceanography, and has taught in California's Poets-in-the-Schools program, the University of Washington Extension program, Seattle Central Community College and City College in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 1999, he received the Cornish Teaching Excellence Award, and in 2003, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar, teaching American literature in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He has an MFA from Vermont College.
Professor Raymond Maxwell
Western Civilization: Antiquity, Western Civilization: Medieval, Western Civilization: Modernity, Western Civilization: Intellectual History
Raymond Maxwell has been on faculty since 1986. He received his Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. A recipient Fulbright scholarships (The Netherlands, 1989 and Poland/Czechoslovakia, 1992) and several National Endowment for the Humanities summer fellowships, he has also taught, been guest lecturer, and presented papers at a number of universities in the United States and Europe. Raymond Maxwell has done further studies at Sacred Heart University (Connecticut), the University of Washington and Herzen University (Saint Petersburg, Russia).
Associate Professor Lodi McClellan
Performing Arts Criticism/Practice; Integrated Studies
Lodi McClellan teaches Performing Arts Criticism with the Humanities and Sciences Department. McClellan holds an MFA in Dance Criticism from the University of Washington. Her dance reviews and articles have been published in Eastside Week, Dance International, The International Dictionary of Modern Dance, Curve, Seattle Weekly, (where she was a freelance critic for five years), and DanceNet, (where she was associate editor). Her teaching expertise includes Research Methods, Teaching Methods, Dance History, Avant-Garde Artist Studies, Performing Arts Criticism (theater, dance & music) and ballet and modern dance technique. She has designed and taught courses for freshmen and upper-class students in both Animal Ethics and Arts Censorship. McClellan's teaching credentials include the University of Washington, Harvard University, Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, Emerson College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was an Artist-in Residence for three years, and at many private dance schools on both coasts. She graduated with honors from Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts and received her BA in Dance, cum laude, from Mount Holyoke College. 2006 marks her 10th year at Cornish.
Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct Instructor Dr. Cori Adler
Integrated Studies
Dr. Cori Adler has a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Interdisciplinary studies, an M.A. from the University of Colorado Creative Writing program, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Literature/Cultural Studies. Cori has published poetry, short stories, articles and creative non-fiction in the U.S. and Canada and one chapbook, The Toothed World. Cori teaches in the Integrated Studies program at Cornish and at Antioch University Seattle and has taught previously in Colorado, Washington, Massachusetts and Greece. Her classes study interactions between society, culture and creative expression. They heavily emphasize discussion, collaboration and writing (both creative and academic).
Adjunct Instructor Gabrielle Dean
Integrated Studies
Gabrielle Dean's teaching and studies focus on the connections between literature, visual art, popular culture and identity, especially in nineteenth- and twentieth century America. She got her Ph. D. in English and Textual Studies from the University of Washington and is currently working on a book about Emily Dickinson, Gertrude Stein and popular print culture.
Adjunct Instructor Marc Dombrosky
Integrated Studies
Marc Dombrosky is a visual artist based in Tacoma. Recent projects have been featured in group exhibitions at Platform Gallery (Seattle), Davidson Contemporary (Seattle), as well as the traveling exhibition "Skirting the Line: Conceptual Drawing" (organized by DePauw University). He is a recipient of a 2005 Tacoma Artist Initiative Program grant and 2006 Artist Trust GAP Grant. He has instructed classes for Metro Parks Tacoma, Pratt Fine Arts Center, The Ohio State University, and Academie Voor Beeldende Vorming (Tilburg, Netherlands). He holds an MFA from The Ohio State University.
Adjunct Instructor Anita Feng
Continuing Studies Instructor: Writing Poetry
Anita Feng received a BA and MFA from Brown University in English Literature and Creative Writing, respectively. Her major writing awards include an NEA grant, an Illinois Arts Council grant, a Washington State GAP award and the Pablo Neruda Prize (for poetry). Publications include two books of poetry, Internal Strategies, published by the University of Akron Press, 1995, and Sadie " Mendel, winner of the Backwaters Press Prize, 2005. Individual works have been published by Nimrod, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review, North American Review, Northwest Review, and Primavera among others. In addition to teaching at Cornish, Anita works as a self-employed potter making musical instruments out of clay.
Adjunct Instructor Svetlana Gladycheva
Continuing Studies Instructor: Physics : Bodies in Motion
Svetlana Gladycheva holds a Ph.D. in physics and M.F.A. in dance from the University of Michigan, and is passionate about science and art. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the field of neuroscience at the University of Washington; her research involves investigating interactions of fluorescent-tagged proteins in live cells. Svetlana has danced in the works by the U of M Dance department faculty and took Peter Sparling's company class for a number of years. She now takes classes at the Velocity Dance Center and choreographs in her basement at nights after her kids go to bed. Svetlana has taught elementary physics labs and a graduate physiology class, and was a guest lecturer for the interdisciplinary Physics of Music class at the University of Michigan. For two years, she was a head coach for the Elementary school science Olympiad team and supervised Potions event at the Washtenaw county Elementary Science Olympiad in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Adjunct Instructor Himanee Gupta-Carlson
Continuing Studies Instructor: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Culture, Power & Privilege
Himanee Gupta-Carlson is completing her doctorate in political science at the University of Hawai'i. Her dissertation, "No Place to Call Home: Remapping America's 'Middletown' from a South Asian Perspective," narrates a story of Muncie, Indiana, the "typical" all-American community where she grew up, from the perspective of immigrant and American-raised South Asians who have made the town their home since the mid-1960s. Himanee has taught political science and women's studies at UH, and is enjoying her first semester in the Humanities & Sciences Department at Cornish. A longtime journalist and freelance writer, her work has appeared in The Seattle Times
Adjunct Instructor Caren Gussoff-Sumption
Continuing Studies Instructor: Literature: Fairy Tales & Culture
Caren Gussoff-Sumption received her own MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has dedicated herself to teaching art students. She has taught at Cornish since 2001, and recently begun teaching general education courses at the International Academy of Design and Technology. She is the author of a novel, Homecoming (Serpent's Tail, 2000), a collection of short stories, The Wave and Other Stories (Serpent's Tail, 2003), and her work also appears in numerous anthologies and textbooks.
Adjunct Instructor Matt Kuharic
Continuing Studies Instructor: The Science of Global Warming
Matt Kuharic is originally from New Hampshire and graduated with a degree in Geology from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington; his research focuses on long-term climate change. During graduate school Matt has developed a passion for connecting science with real life decision making. He is currently a Henry Luce Fellow leading a group of graduate students on a year long project partnering with the City of Seattle's Office of Sustainability. The project team is working to 1) evaluate possible actions the UW can take to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and 2) help the Seattle Climate Partnership recruit 100 climate partners by the end of 2007. Check out the project at www.climatepartnership.com.
Adjunct Instructor Jennifer Leehey
Continuing Studies Instructor: Sociolinguistics
Jennifer Leehey is a doctoral candidate in Anthropology at the University of Washington. She conducted her dissertation research in Burma (Myanmar) on language and life under the military dictatorship. She currently teaches courses in linguistics and anthropology at various schools in the Seattle area.
Adjunct Instructor Madeline McDonnell
Continuing Studies Instructor: Writing Short Fiction
Madeline McDonnell received her MFA in Fiction Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she held an Iowa Arts Fellowship. She taught undergraduate workshops in fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction at the University of Iowa, and, as a Rose Writing Fellow, offered one-on-one instruction in academic writing to undergraduates at Brown University. She also worked for two years as an Assistant Editor and lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary's North American Editorial Unit.
Adjunct Instructor Ellen Mitchell
Continuing Studies Instructor: Exploring Science
Ellen Mitchell obtained her Ph.D. in 2003 from the University at Albany and is presently working as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington. Her research interests include depression, memory and aging.
Adjunct Instructor Craig Snyder
Continuing Studies Instructor: Gender Studies
Craig Snyder is an experimental filmmaker, installation artist and curator. He has an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College and an MA in Film Studies from Warwick University in the United Kingdom. Craig Snyder's studio practice and academic research center on the culture production of identity through the representation of gender, race and sexuality within popular culture.
Adjunct Instructor Susan Starbuck
Integrated Studies
Susan Starbuck, PhD, is a writer and historian, author of Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment, a biography of one of Washington State's premier environmental activists. For many years she taught writing, language arts, history, and master's research for the Education Department of Antioch University Seattle. She currently teachers writing for the First Peoples' program on the Muckleshoot Reservation as well as directs the Shoreline Writing Institute for K-12 teachers.
Adjunct Instructor Christine Sumption
Integrated Studies
Christine Sumption comes to Cornish from Seattle Repertory Theatre where for nine years she served on the artistic staff as dramaturg, publications editor, and producer of the annual Women Playwrights Festival. She has worked as a dramaturg for Sundance Theatre Lab, and her new play development credits include work with playwrights Tanya Barfield, Elizabeth Heffron, Sarah Ruhl, Kathleen Tolan, and Cheryl L. West, among many others. She has directed plays at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, and Tacoma Actors Guild, among other theatres, and at DARTS/Company Subaru in Tokyo, where for three years she was resident director. She has been a guest artist at the Art Institute of Chicago, NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, Coe College, and the University of Washington; has published numerous articles on theatre; and has served on the faculties of Bradley University, Toin University in Yokohama, and Seattle University, where she currently teaches theatre history. She holds an MFA from the University of Washington School of Drama.
Adjunct Instructor Nicole Torres
Continuing Studies Instructor: US Demographics
Nicole Torres currently holds an M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago. She is currently a doctoral student in the department of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include urban anthropology and medical anthropology with a focus on the dynamics of the inner-city and total institutions. Nicole's current research focuses on the relationship between ethnicity, prisons, and health care along with its related public discourse.
Adjunct Instructor David Watkins
Integrated Studies
David Watkins is a Ph.D Canditate in Political Science at the University of Washington. He is completing a PhD thesis on contemporary democratic theory on the relationship between the practice of democracy and processes of globalization. His teaching and research interests include Environmental policy, feminist theory, social inequality, theories of global justice, and global cinema. In addition to teaching at Cornish, David teaches at UW-Seattle and Bothell and Shoreline Community College, and has served as a Visiting Instructor of Political Theory at Western Washington University.
Adjunct Instructor Nadya Zimmerman
Integrated Studies
Nadya Zimmerman is a cellist and composer who received her PhD in Musicology from the University of California Los Angeles with a focus on the Sixties Counterculture, and her undergraduate degree from the University of California Berkeley in English and Mathematics. Her scholarly work on topics ranging from African American slave spirituals and resistance, narrative in the works of James Joyce, and countercultural ideologies has been published in Music Research Forum, The Journal of Modern Literature, and American Music and she is currently completing a book on the late Sixties counterculture for the University of Michigan Press. In addition to being an experienced adult school English as a Second Language instructor and high school math/basic college math instructor, Nadya Zimmerman has taught music history as well as interdisciplinary 20th-century humanities/science courses for the past six years at the University of California Los Angeles, San Francisco State University, Linfield College, Foothill College, Antioch University, University of Puget Sound, and most recently here at Cornish College of the Arts.