GUEST SPEAKER DIRECTORY

Guest speakers to enrich your CEL course.

Use Ctrl ‘F’ to highlight the following keywords and specialties in the tag cloud further below:
Activism, Antiracism, Arts, Augsburg University, Black History/Culture, Bronx, Bronx Business, Bronx History, Bronx Literacy, Bronx Music, Business Development, Campaigns, Campus Ministry, Caribbean Studies, CEL, Childhood Literacy, Clergy, Climate Change, Clothing/Apparel, Cohort-Based Work, Communications, Community, Community Development, Computer Science, Contemplative Practice, Criminal Justice Reform, Crisis Communication, Culture, DEI, Diverse Neighborhoods, Diversity & Inclusion, Education, Educator, El Salvador, Entrepreneurship, Food Insecurity, Fordham, Gender, Government Affairs, Health, Healthcare, Higher Education, HIV, Houseless Youth, Housing, Human Rights, Immigration, Incarceration, Jesuit Education, John Jay, Journalism, Law, LGBTQ+ Issues & Inclusivity, Library Archives, Literacy, Marketing, Mass Incarceration, Medical Practitioner, Medicine, Mental Health, Mentorship, Merchandizing, Migration, Mindfulness/Wellness, Music Education, Music Heritage/Preservation, Nassau Community College, Non-Profit Executive, NYPL, Peace & Justice, Peacemaking, Pediatric Psychology, People of Color, Photography, Policy, Psychology, Race Relations, Racial Justice, Redlining, Rent Laws, Research, Research Lab, Restorative Justice, Sneakers, Social Justice, Social Mapping, Social Services, STEP/CSTEP, Student Affairs, Student Success, Student Support, Sustainability, Tenant Rights, UI/UX, Volunteer Coordinator, Web Presence, Women's Rights, Workshops

 
 
 
 
 
 

Usha Sankar, Ph.D.

Usha Sankar is an Advanced Lecturer for the Department of Biological Sciences and the Academic Advisor to Bachelor of Science Students at Fordham University. She earned her Ph.D. from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. Dr. Sankar is currently a National Science Foundation QUBES HITS Fellow. Her field of interest includes Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, Cell Culture, and Immunology. These interests include air pollution and its impact on human health, namely, air quality and its effects in the Bronx.

 

Aseel Sawalha, Ph.D.

Aseel Sawalha is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Chair at Lincoln Center. She completed her BA and MA at Yarmouk University and her PhD at the City College of New York. Her research interests include urban anthropology, arts, gender, critical social theory, war and violence, and globalization. In addition to featured articles in publications such as the Toronto University Press and the Center for Migration Studies of New York, she is the author of the book Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City, published by the University of Texas Press, Austin. She also works with the Canary Mission, an organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Sadibou Sylla

Sadibou Sylla is an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Gabelli School of Business. He received his BS at St. Peter’s College, and he earned his MA from Georgetown University. He is the founder of ASKA Partners, an organization that aims to create an equitable environment for children in post-conflict zones. Through sport, the organization hopes to reduce the vulnerability and risk of child trafficking, drugs, and violence by supplying various African communities with adequate school, athletic, and technological supplies. He also co-leads Fordham University’s AshokaU Changemaking Campus Initiative, which aims to support and strengthen entereneruial efforts to resolve social issues.

 

Kirsten Swinth, Ph.D.

Kirsten Swinth is a Professor of History at Fordham University. She completed her BA at Stanford University in Modernism and Culture and earned her PhD in American Studies at Yale University. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, a John Paul Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship in Art and the Humanities, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Mozambique. Her research and teaching interests include U.S. women’s and gender history, post-World War II U.S. social, cultural, and economic history, visual culture, popular culture, and American Studies. She has authored numerous books, essays, and edited collections, and has been published in the Fordham University Press, Temple University Press, and Journal of American History.


Angelina Tallaj-Garcia, Ph.D.

Angelina Tallaj-Garcia joined the faculty in 2020. Her research focuses on Dominican folk and popular music and their role in the construction of ethnic, racial, gender, and religious identities, particularly in the New York City Dominican diaspora. She is also a trained pianist who enjoys performing music from Latin America and the Caribbean and has performed in major venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.


 

Alessia Valfredini, Ph.D.

After earning her MA at the University of Turin (Italy) and teaching in Italian public schools, Dr. Valfredini moved to New York and pursued a PhD in Language, Learning, and Literacy at the Graduate School of Education of Fordham University. Dr. Valfredini studies the sociocultural dimensions of language pedagogy and multilingual academic literacy. She also conducts program assessment. What she likes the most about teaching is the collaborative interaction with her students. She values languages as a remarkable entry point to world-views and perspectives. She hopes that her courses will raise important questions and that the journey spent seeking answers will be transformative.

Sudip Vhaduri, Ph.D.

Sudip Vhaduri is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science at Fordham University, where he teaches courses in Data Visualization. His research interests include mobile and wearable computing and machine learning in healthcare, place discovery, and user authentication. His projects have been featured in a number of prestigious venues, such as Forbes. Currently, he is working on a new project entitled CAir Project. This will develop a set of sensors and machine learning models to prevent Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and simultaneously lower the financial burden that healthcare systems bear. He is also the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the NSF Smart and Connected Health (SCH) Aspiring Principal Investigator Award (2020), Outstanding Research Assistant Award in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University of Notre Dame (2018), and he has been nominated for the Eli J. Helen Shaheen Award from the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame (2020).



 

Annalise Wolf

Annalise Wolf is currently an English PhD candidate at Fordham University. Her field of study includes Early Modern Literature. She completed her B.A. at Brevard College and earned her M.A. at the University of Kentucky.