Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty
Dr. Erin Wagner
Program Director & Associate Professor
E-Tower 720
607-746-4384
Dr. Erin K. Wagner graduated with her PhD in Literature and interdisciplinary specialization
in Medieval Studies from The Ohio State University. At Delhi, she teaches a variety
of courses, including Composition, British Literature, and Gender Studies. Her research
focuses on heresy studies, a field which investigates how medieval people related
to their religion and each other. She is also a creative writer of speculative fiction,
with two published novellas and numerous short stories to her name. For this research
and writing, she was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship
and Creative Activities in 2021.
Dr. Peter Brusoe
Assistant Professor
E-Tower 707
607-746-4460
Peter Brusoe is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Political Science. Peter’s
research focuses on the intersection of money, lobbying, and public policy choices.
He has also done research on the impact of technology on learning outcomes. His research
has appeared in the Election Law Journal and The Journal of Political Science Education.
He was co-author on the chapter on campaign finance inThe Oxford Handbook of New York State Government and Politics.
Peter earned his PhD in Political Science from American University in Washington,
DC, his master's degree from Albany’s Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs
and Policy, and graduated summa cum laude from the University at Albany with a bachelor's
degree in Political Science and History. Before teaching at Delhi, Peter worked for
ten and a half years for Bloomberg Government as a Campaign Finance, Lobbying, and
Legislative Data Analyst. He is a former research associate for the Campaign Finance
Institute, a non-partisan research institute affiliated with The George Washington
University. He was also an adjunct professor for both American University and the
University of the District of Columbia.
Dr. Jason Cash
Associate Professor
E-Tower 717
607-746-4463
Dr. Cash teaches composition, literature, film, and occasional specialized courses like Environmental and Social Justice. His research interests include twentieth-century Irish fiction, especially the relationship between Irish nationalism and postcolonial discourse, and game studies, particularly how video game narrative and interactivity reproduce or challenge dominant ideology. His work has appeared in New Hibernia Review and First Person Scholar, and he has co-edited a collection of scholarly essays, The World of Final Fantasy VII: Essays on the Game and its Legacy, which is due for publication in 2022. Dr. Cash obtained his PhD from Lehigh University, MA at Rutgers University-Camden, and BA from Bridgewater College.
Dr. Kathryn DeZur
Professor
E-Tower 713
607-746-4462
Dr. Kathryn DeZur is a Professor of English and has taught at SUNY Delhi since 1999. She teaches composition, creative writing, research writing, literature, gender studies, film, and honors courses. She earned the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010. Dr. DeZur received her PhD from the Claremont Graduate University in English, with an emphasis on Early Modern Studies. She has been active in scholarly and creative fields, publishing the book Gender, Interpretation, and Political Rule in Sidney's Arcadia (University of Delaware Press, 2013) and a poetry chapbook Blue Ghosts (Finishing Line Press, 2019), along with several other articles and poems. Her photography has been featured in literary magazines and has won third place in a national juried art show. She served as the Vice President and then President of the International Sidney Society from 2016-2020. Dr. DeZur earned the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2016, becoming the first person in the history of the institution to receive two Chancellor's Awards.
Dr. Dan Gashler
Associate Professor
E-Tower 613
607-746-4372
I teach world and American history, along with a few specialized courses (the end
of colonialism, history of global healthcare systems, and history of farming), and
I advise the highly active History Club. I love interacting with students and take
great joy in helping students achieve their highest potential, whatever their backgrounds
or past academic preparation. I’m also deeply committed to service, within the university
and in the community. I’m currently researching the role of women’s organizations
in creating connections between people in the second and third world during the Cold
War, along with a separate project on religious discourses among immigrant communities
in upstate New York. I have a PhD in Modern European History from Binghamton University
and wrote a dissertation on World War II memory debates in Slovenia.
Dr. Terry Hamblin
Professor
E-Tower 708
607-746-4454
Dr. Terry Hamblin is a Professor of History at Delhi. I've taught courses in U.S.
history, Latin American history, International Relations, and Macroeconomics. My field
of specialization is modern American History, with an emphasis on diplomatic and political
history and cultural studies. I have a PhD in United States History from Stony Brook
University. As a historian, I have presented at regional, national, and international
conferences and have published several reviews and articles on topics relating to
United States history, cultural diplomacy, and foreign relations. My current research
is focused on the interconnection between popular culture and politics. I am about
halfway through writing a book on the cultural, social, and political impact of The
Beatles and their music during the 1960s. In 2017, Dr. Hamblin received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service.
Dr. Shelly Jones
Professor
E-Tower 720
607-746-4313
Dr. Shelly Jones (she/they) received her PhD in Comparative Literature from SUNY Binghamton.
At SUNY Delhi, she teaches classes in mythology, folklore, and writing. Her research
examines analog games and roleplaying games through the frameworks of disability studies
and intersectional feminism. She also writes speculative fiction and poetry, which
has previously been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In 2020, she was awarded the Chancellor's
Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.
Dr. Alice Krause
Associate Professor
E-Tower 708
607-746-4324
Alice Krause has a PhD in Spanish Linguistics from the University at Albany (SUNY).
She teaches courses on Spanish language and US Latino Studies. Her research has focused
on second language acquisition and pedagogy. She is active in the SUNY Delhi College
Senate, and for these efforts was awarded the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in
Faculty Service in 2022.
Dr. Kirby Olson
Professor
E-Tower 710
607-746-4457
Kirby Olson has been teaching at Delhi since 2001. Before that, he worked in Finland
for many years and is married to a Finnish national. They have four children. He received
his PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle) in 1994. Since his arrival at
Delhi, Olson has received two Chancellor’s Awards (Creativity and Scholarship), and
published five books on various topics related to humor. Three of the books are about
humorists such as Gregory Corso and Andrei Codrescu, and two of the books are a novel
and a book of poetry. Back in the day, he studied poetry with Allen Ginsberg and novel
writing with William S. Burroughs. Olson is the faculty liaison to women’s basketball,
and also he plays basketball several times a week (badly).
Dr. Joseph Piasek
Associate Professor
E-Tower 614
607-746-4486
An Associate Professor of Humanities, Dr. Joseph Piasek teaches a variety of communication
courses including Organizational Communication, Argumentation and Debate, Public Speaking,
A/V Production, and communication theory. Prior to SUNY Delhi, Joe was on the faculty
of Quinnipiac University and New York University. Joe is an award-winning practitioner-educator
with experience in cross-media promotion, strategic marketing, content development,
writing, and producing for multi-national entertainment corporations as well as independent
educational media. Dr. Piasek earned his doctorate in Philosophy (Education-Media
Specialization, Walden University-Riley College), MA in Communication (Corporate &
Political Communication, Fairfield University), BA in History (Quinnipiac University),
and post-graduate diplomas in Media Literacy (Neil Postman/New York University) and
Popular Culture (Henry Jenkins/Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Dr. Yassir Semmar
Assistant Professor
E-Tower 715
607-746-4477
Over the past two decades, Dr. Semmar has taught a wide range of undergraduate and
graduate courses in psychology and mentored learners from diverse backgrounds in both
online and onsite settings. He holds a PhD in Psychology (Capella University), an
MA in Linguistics/TESL (California State University, Long Beach), a BA in Psychology-Cum
Laude (San Diego State University), and an AA in Spanish (Grossmont College). Dr.
Semmar’s research interests include the effects of cognitive and affective variables
on second and foreign language acquisition and the cross-cultural contribution of
humanistic psychology and positive education in improving pedagogical practices and
prosocial behavior.
Dr. Sanum Shafi
Assistant Professor
E-Tower 715
shafiss@delhi.edu
607-746-4445
Dr. Sanum Shafi is an Assistant Professor of Psychology. Her research interests include
the development of prejudice in childhood and adolescence, cross-cultural child development,
and bilingual education. She earned both her PhD and MS degree in Human Development
and Family Science from Syracuse University and graduated from SUNY Binghamton with
a bachelor's degree in psychology and French Linguistics. Her family is originally
from Pakistan, so she is also fluent in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi. She has been teaching
at SUNY Delhi since Fall 2023. At Delhi, she teaches a variety of Psychology courses
including Child Growth and Development, Adolescent Psychology, and Abnormal Psychology
Professor Lisa Tessier
Professor
E-Tower 710
607-746-4315
Lisa Tessier has a bachelor's from Cornell and a Master of Landscape Architecture
from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF). She has taught
in art and design at Capital Community College (Hartford) and at SUNY ESF, and has
worked for landscape architecture firms and for the Center for Community Design Research. She
presently is a Professor at SUNY Delhi where she teaches online and face-to-face classes
that explore the intersections of landscape, art, and human health (e.g., The Art
of Healing Landscapes, Honors: Environmental Art in America, and Sustainable Design
and Planning), and her scholarship centers on pedagogy. Her artwork includes landscape
designs with native plants, basketry, and watercolor botanical sunprints that have
been shown at Hartwick’s EcoArt Festival and The Fenimore Art Museum’s “Art by the
Lake.” Lisa is an Experienced Online Practitioner Fellow through Open SUNY’s Center
for Online Teaching Excellence, and received SUNY Delhi’s President’s Program Award
for Diversity and Inclusion, SUNY Delhi’s Student Life Leadership Award, and SUNY’s
Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service.
Dr. Lori Tremblay
Associate Professor
E-Tower 519
607-746-4135
Lori Tremblay is a bioarchaeologist and forensic anthropologist whose primary research
focuses on structural violence and health care provisioning during the Industrial
Era. In her research, she explores how normalized social and socioeconomic structures
of oppression and marginalization, as well as identity, may have had an impact on
health and risk for physiological stress in impoverished and institutionalized populations
from the late 19th- and early 20th-century United States. She also examines health
care provisioning and efficacy in Industrial Era institutionalized populations. She
has contributed a chapter in New Developments in the Bioarchaeology of Care (Springer 2018) and has co-edited two edited volumes, The Bioarchaeology of Structural Violence: A Theoretical Framework for Industrial
Era Inequality with Dr. Sarah Reedy (Springer 2020) and Bioarchaeology of Care through Population-Level Analyses with Dr. Alecia Schrenk (University Press of Florida, 2022). Dr. Tremblay obtained
her PhD from the Ohio State University and her MA and BA from SUNY Albany.
Dr. Ben West
Professor
E-Tower 717
westbs@delhi.edu
607-746-4132
Dr. Ben West has been teaching at SUNY Delhi since Fall 2012. He received his PhD in Literature and Criticism from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He teaches face-to-face and online English and Literature courses at SUNY Delhi; recent courses he has offered include Composition I, Introduction to Literature, and Great Writers courses on the poet Emily Dickinson and contemporary fiction author Cormac McCarthy. Dr. West’s book Crowd Violence in American Modernist Fiction was published by McFarland in 2013 and includes chapters on American fiction writers such as Willa Cather, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and Richard Wright. His recent publications have primarily focused on the fiction of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy; these publications include a chapter on McCarthy and Gnosticism in the Cambridge University Press volume Cormac McCarthy In Context and an article on McCarthy’s influence on the indie rock band Modest Mouse in The Journal of Popular Culture. He also co-edited the MLA volume Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy, published in 2021. Dr. West received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2022. In his spare time, Dr. West enjoys all things related to music, including listening, playing guitar and drums, jamming with friends, and recording.
Part-Time Faculty
- Stacy Branigan, Communications
branigsm@delhi.edu - Martin Christiansen, Humanities
christma@delhi.edu - Kristin DeForest, American Sign Language
deforeka@delhi.edu - Rhonda Harrow-Engel, Arts
harrowrl@delhi.edu - Karim Ghidinelli, Arts
ghidinkk@delhi.edu - Elizabeth Sherr, Economics
sherrej@delhi.edu - Joshua Sperber, Communications
sperbejb@delhi.edu - Simone Tucker, English & Communications
tuckersl@delhi.edu - John Vanderlippe, History
vanderjm@delhi.edu - Patricia Verlaan, English
verlaaps@delhi.edu - Laurel Zeisler, English & Communications
zeislela@delhi.edu