Minerva Schools at KGI Announce 24 Additions to Faculty

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Minerva Schools at KGI, which offer an innovative university program for the most talented and motivated students from around the world, today announced the appointment of 24 accomplished faculty. These faculty previously were at institutions including Harvard, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, and the Central European University of Budapest, among others. The new faculty members have diverse fields of expertise, and each brings a passion for teaching through active learning, mentoring and helping students achieve their full potential.

"As our student body expands significantly this fall, we are thrilled to welcome an incredibly talented group of scholars who will teach freshman and sophomore courses this year," said Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn, Founding Dean and Chief Academic Officer. "All courses at Minerva are conducted as live, interactive seminars through our proprietary Active Learning Forum, which gives us the unique opportunity to attract and hire extraordinary faculty who live anywhere in the world. Our teaching staff is now distributed across 20 cities and 4 countries, and we are delighted to welcome each of these gifted teachers to the Minerva team."

New faculty members include:

College of Arts and Humanities:
Michael Bogucki, Assistant Professor, Literature. His areas of expertise include modern British and Irish literature, Victorian and modernist performance cultures, narrative theory, and the philosophy of psychology. Prior to Minerva, he taught at Rhodes College in Memphis and for four years in Stanford University's Structured Liberal Education program. Professor Bogucki earned his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lindsey Fiorelli, Assistant Professor, Philosophy. Her research specializes in philosophies of film, language and perception. Prior to Minerva, Professor Fiorelli taught courses at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy. She received a graduate fellowship for teaching excellence from U Penn's center for teaching and learning. Her undergraduate degree is in English and Philosophy from Oberlin College, where she achieved high honors.

Taylor Jardno, Assistant Professor, History. She is a historian of Latin America and a digital humanist working at the intersection of higher education and technology. She is joining Minerva's faculty from Yale University, where she received her Ph.D. and developed and taught courses for the departments of History and American Studies. Professor Jardno received a Master's in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in History and Political Science from Duke University.

Peter Mann, Assistant Professor, History. He is a historian with a specialty in modern European intellectual history. Prior to joining Minerva, he taught History and Interdisciplinary Humanities courses at both Stanford University and the University of San Francisco. He has a joint Ph.D. from Stanford University in History and Humanities.

Louise Vigeant, Assistant Professor, Philosophy. Her expertise includes human rights, applied ethics, logic and philosophy of language. Prior to Minerva, she was the Head of Studies: Social Sciences at Amsterdam University College and taught at the University of Mississippi. Professor Vigeant received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cornell University and M.A. in Linguistics from Stanford University.

Scott Wisor, Assistant Professor, Philosophy. His research focuses on ethics and international affairs. He has previously held academic positions at Australian National University and the University of Birmingham. Professor Wisor received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he also earned graduate certificates in Development Studies and Gender Studies, and his B.A. in Philosophy and History from Washington University in St. Louis.

Grace Woods-Puckett, Assistant Professor, Art History. Her research specialties include nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century American and European art in all media; sub‐Saharan African art; masquerade in African and European traditions; and punishment in medieval art. Prior to Minerva, she helped design and teach a variety of undergraduate and graduate-level courses in Art History at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University and B.A. in Art History from Smith College. 

Mina Yang, Professor, Music. Prior to Minerva, she taught a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate-level courses in music history at the University of San Francisco; the University of California, San Diego; and the University of Southern California. She earned her B.A. in Art History from Brown University, M.M. in Piano Performance from the New England Conservatory, and Ph.D. in Musicology from Yale University. Professor Yang is the author of California Polyphony: Ethnic Voices, Musical Crossroads (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2008) and Planet Beethoven: Classical Music at the Turn of the Millennium (Wesleyan University Press, 2014).

College of Natural Sciences:
Allison Gale, Assistant Professor, Geology. She is a top researcher on mid-ocean ridge basalt geochemistry. Prior to Minerva, she taught geoscience courses as an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University.

Suzanne Kern, Assistant Professor, Biochemistry. Prior to Minerva, she taught General Biology and Microbiology at the Claremont Colleges. Professor Kern earned her Ph.D. in Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), researching bacterial metabolism using a combination of chemical and biological approaches, with implications for clinical medicine and bio‐energy.

Elise Kleeman, Director of First-Year Curriculum and Assistant Professor, Neurobiology. Her background includes five years of science journalism, and prior to Minerva she helped design and teach undergraduate biology classes at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Kleeman earned her Ph.D. in Biological Science from the University of California, Irvine, her Masters‐level certificate in Science Communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her B.S. in Geology from the California Institute of Technology.

Ben Richard, Assistant Professor, Physics. His research focuses on quantum field theoretic aspects of inflationary cosmologies. Professor Richard earned a Ph.D. in Physics and an M.A. in Mathematics, from U.C. Davis, in addition to a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Rochester.

Trisha Stan, Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology. She is joining Minerva from her recent role as a fellow in Stanford's Program for Writing and Rhetoric, where she taught Written and Oral Communication with an emphasis on Science Communication. She earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University in Immunology and her B.A. in Philosophy and Molecular Biology in William Jewell College's unique Oxbridge Honors program.

College of Social Sciences:
Dollie Davis, Assistant Professor, Economics. Prior to Minerva, she worked as an International Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in Taipei and has previously taught at the University of Southern California. She earned her Ph.D. degree in Political Economy from the University of Southern California and M.A. degree in Economics from the University of San Francisco.

Nicholas A. Kenney, Assistant Professor, Political Science/Law. His areas of expertise include grand strategy, terrorism, insurgency, ideology, and national security policy and law. He has extensive field, interview, and archival research experience in the Middle East, UK, and Ireland, and has taught at Tufts University and the National Defense University. Professor Kenney earned his Ph.D. in International Relations and M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, his J.D. from Boston College Law School and his B.A in History from the College of the Holy Cross.

Katie McAllister, Assistant Professor, Psychology. Prior to Minerva, she developed a broad skill‐set as a management consultant with the London office of the Boston Consulting Group, while continuing to be engaged in neuroscience. She completed her Ph.D. at The University of Cambridge, investigating the role of the prefrontal cortex and cognitive impairment in Schizophrenia.

Anand Murugesan, Assistant Professor, Economics. His research focuses on the fields of Economic Development and Behavioral Economics. Prior to Minerva, Professor Murugesan taught courses at the University of California, Merced. He graduated with an M.A. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Levy Odera, Assistant Professor, Political Science. He has researched, written and taught extensively on the topics of poverty and development in Africa. Prior to Minerva he served as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Center for Public Issues Education at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Professor Odera earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Florida.

College of Computational Sciences:
Philip Sterne, Assistant Professor, Computational Sciences. His research focuses on understanding the brain as performing optimal statistical inference under certain constraints. In addition to teaching, he has built machine learning applications for banking and online retail companies. Professor Sterne earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge.

Brian Stout, Assistant Professor, Mathematics. His research focuses on arithmetic dynamics. Prior to Minerva, he taught an array of Mathematics and Statistics courses as an Assistant Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Mathematics from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center.

Patrick Watson, Assistant Professor, Neuroscience. His work in neuroscience focuses on understanding how the brain learns, remembers, and generates new hypotheses. In addition to teaching at Minerva, he works at IBM's Thomas J. Watson research center, where he develops cognitive computing technologies for education. Professor Watson earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and B.S. in Molecular Biology, both from the University of Illinois (at Urbana‐Champaign).

College of Business:
Christine E. Looser, Assistant Professor, Behavioral Science. Her research explores how the brain makes social inferences about other people. Prior to Minerva she spent three years as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Business School and was a College Fellow in the Harvard Psychology Department. She holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College and a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross.

John Percival, Professor, Business Administration. Prior to Minerva he was the founder and CEO of JRP Associates, which provides executive education and consulting in finance for clients in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He taught finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1971 until June of 2014. He earned a Ph. D., MBA and B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Sanjay Saigal, Professor, Business Management. He came to teaching after more than 25 years as a business analytics consultant and entrepreneur. Prior to Minerva, he taught at the University of California, Davis, and served as Executive Director and Professor at St. Stephen's Institute for Management Excellence in New Delhi, India. Professor Saigal earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in Mathematical Sciences at Rice University.

Minerva's diverse and highly accomplished new faculty members will teach an equally diverse group of freshman and sophomore students this fall, who are among the most selective class in history. More than 270 enrolled students represent 50 different countries from around the world. Applications are now open for students interested to matriculate in the Fall of 2017.  Students may apply at https://minerva.kgi.edu/application/start/.

About Minerva Schools at KGI
The Minerva Schools at KGI offer an innovative university program for the most talented and motivated students from around the world. Combining an interdisciplinary curriculum and rigorous academic standards, an accomplished faculty versed in the science of learning, an advanced interactive learning platform leveraging cutting-edge technology, and four years of immersive global experience, Minerva delivers an exceptional liberal arts and sciences education for future leaders and innovators in every discipline. The Minerva Schools at KGI were established in 2013 by KGI – Keck Graduate Institute – a WASC (WASC Senior College and University Commission) accredited institution – in alliance with Minerva Project. www.minerva.kgi.edu

SOURCE Minerva Schools at KGI

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