Rev. Kenneth I. Clarke, Sr., Director of Cornell United Religious Work, is a graduate of Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD (B.A., English) and Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, NY (Master of Divinity). He is now enrolled in the Doctor of Ministry degree program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH. His academic interests are in post-World War II American history, particularly focused on the religious, political, cultural and economic dimensions of the African American freedom struggle of the 1950s and 1960s; media criticism; and cultural criticism. Rev. Clarke once served as an Instructor in African/African American Studies at Penn State University, where his teaching focused in the aforementioned areas. At Penn State he was employed full time as Assistant Director, then Director, of the Center for Ethics and Religious Affairs from 1990-2001.

Rev. Clarke was nominated to apply for his current position in October 2000 by a colleague who is also an Ivy League Chaplain. He began his work at Cornell in July 2001. A native of Baltimore, he came from a family and neighborhood of working class African-Americans and is a first-generation college graduate. Readings in religion, biography, history and politics interest him as does the history and music of the blues and electric football.

He would be interested in discussions about religion and spirituality, getting a sense of student perspectives on these matters from personal and intellectual frameworks; their understanding of diversity writ large, but with a particular focus on race and religion; their engagement with fellow students and environments reflective of racial and religious diversity; popular culture and its impact on student world views and values.

Iftikhar Dadi is Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art, where he teaches modern and contemporary art, and history of photography. He has co-curated the exhibition, Unpacking Europe in Rotterdam, and co-edited the volume of critical texts, Unpacking Europe: Towards a Critical Reading (2001). He is especially interested in the globalization of art and visual culture in the twentieth century. His recent research has focused on modern art and popular visual culture of South Asia and Middle East.

Iftikhar is also an artist who collaborates with his wife, Elizabeth Dadi. Together, they have shown their work in numerous international venues. These include Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil; Asia-Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Museum, Australia; Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, UK; Walker Art Center, Minnesota; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Queens Museum of Art, New York City. Their work "Clash of Civilizations" was recently exhibited on the facade of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell.

Professor Evans grew up in New York City where Central Park was his jungle habitat. Living close to the American Museum of Natural History, he worked there while in high school. He came to Cornell in 1940 to study Entomology. At the end of his second year he was called to active duty in World War II and served as a 2nd Lt in Oklahoma and Texas teaching truck driving. Professor Evans left Seattle for the invasion of Japan, but while at sea, the war ended. When he requested jungle duty, he was sent to Panama where he was made Commanding officer of the Corozal Bakery. In response to a letter, he was graduated in absentia and was accepted by the Graduate School. After receiving his PhD in Comparative Anatomy, Professor Evans was hired by the Cornell University Veterinary College where he taught Anatomy for 46 years and Natural History for 10 years as emeritus. Professor Evan's research and writing concern the structure and function of vertebrates.

Mary Fessenden is now in her eleventh year as director of Cornell Cinema, which is considered one of the best campus film exhibition programs in the country. Prior to becoming director, she worked as the organization’s administrative manager. She has a MBA in Arts Administration from SUNY Binghamton and completed that program with an internship at the Sydney Opera House in Australia. She has served as a panelist for the Electronic Media and Film Program of the New York State Council on the Arts and is a member of a consortium of North American film programmers, which convenes every year at the Toronto International Film Festival. She is also a member of the Cornell Council for the Arts.

She looks forward to discussing films with students, getting input on what they’d like to see and organizing movie nights.

Tom Gilovich has had the great pleasure of teaching at Cornell and living in Ithaca since joining the faculty in 1981. He grew up in California, earning his B.A. in Psychology from the University of California at Santa Barbara and his PhD from Stanford University. Professionally, he studies how people make judgments and decisions in their everyday and professional lives-judgments and decisions about relationships, about politics and government, about money, and even about sports. Undergraduate students are an important part of his lab group. When not teaching or conducting research, Tom likes to spend time with his wife, Karen, and two daughters, Ilana and Rebecca. He also plays basketball in the noontime game at Barton Hall, plays tennis on the delightful courts in Cascadilla gorge, skis at Greek Peak, and tries to get himself and his family to Sydney, Australia as often as possible.

Kathryn Gleason grew up on the bays of Southampton, Long Island and came to Cornell in 1979 to study landscape architecture as a way to combine her interests in art, history, and the environment. A term paper in Arkeo 101 lead her to a career in landscape archaeology studying the origins of designed landscapes in the Mediterranean. She holds her doctorate in Archaeology from Oxford University and a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard University. She is widely known for her development of methods of excavating the remains of ancient gardens, such as those of “Horace’s Sabine Villa” in Licenza, Italy, or of Herod the Great’s palaces in Judea. She has just returned in late June from the exciting discovery of the remains of a large public garden in Petra, Jordan. She frequently involves Cornell students in her field projects.

Since 1988, she has taught undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania and, since 1997, at Cornell. She teaches archaeology seminars, but primarily teaches students in the contemporary landscape architectural design studios. In her courses she explores notions of ruins and the archaeological landscape in America, as well as in Europe and the Middle East. As these cultures were frequently very attuned to environmental issues, Professor Gleason has participated in sustainable community projects from Acoma and Zuni, New Mexico, to Ithaca NY, where she is retrofitting her home to passive and active solar heating.

Michael Evan Gold is an associate professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR School). He has a wife, two grown children (who only get more expensive as they age), and two grandsons. He used to have a dog and a mortgage, but both of them have expired.

Professor Gold was born, reared, and educated in California, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a law degree from Stanford. After law school, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa; his principal assignment was teaching in the law school of the University of Liberia. After a year on a kibbutz in Israel, he returned to America and practiced law for three years in Los Angeles with a firm representing labor unions, and then taught for two years in a small, independent law school. He came to Cornell in 1977 because he had tired of the beautiful weather and his law school seemed to be collapsing.

Professor Gold teaches undergraduate courses in the ILR School on labor relations law, employment discrimination law, and ethics. He has published a number of widely ignored articles on the law of employment discrimination.

As a fellow of the Cook House (Alice Cook was a colleague of Professor Gold in the ILR School), he hopes to interest residents in reading some of the classics of ethical literature by authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Mill.

Rebecca Harris-Warrick has been teaching music history at Cornell since 1987, covering repertoire from medieval chant to the latest compositions by her Cornell colleagues. She is particularly fond of teaching music from before 1750 and opera of all periods, and enjoys taking students to see opera productions in Syracuse or Binghamton. Her research interests center mostly around French baroque music and dance (ever hear of Jean-Baptiste Lully?), but she has also made research excursions into the 19th-century. She is a lapsed flutist, but still makes music by singing in choral groups, and, with her husband Ron (also a Cook House fellow) teaches baroque dance, the ancestor of ballet, from time to time. She is currently serving as chair of the Music Department and is always delighted to serve as a resource for students interested in learning about the many opportunities the department offers, both in the classroom and in the performing groups.

Ron Harris-Warrick has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in neurobiology at Cornell since arriving here in 1980. He grew up in Berkeley, California, and received his BS and PhD degrees from Stanford University. After postdoctoral training in Boston, Ron was delighted to move to the more scenic and less hectic atmosphere of Ithaca. His research interests are in the structure and function of neural networks that generate simple rhythmic behaviors, currently focusing on a small network in lobsters and on the spinal networks that drive locomotion in the mouse. He always has several undergraduate students working in the lab. He teaches introductory neurobiology and an advanced neuropharmacology course, "Drugs and the Brain".

When not working, he goes to a lot of concerts, opera and ballet with his wife Rebecca, a Professor in the Music Department. He also loves to be outdoors, wandering the Finger Lakes Trail or traveling to distant mountains, and skiing at Greek Peak as well as out West.

As an Alice Cook House Fellow, he would be interested in talking with students about brain and behavior, social and ethical issues surrounding neuroscience, going to concerts and taking hikes.

Sheila S. Hemami received her B.S. degree from the University of Michigan in 1990 and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 1992 and 1994, respectively, all in electrical engineering. She worked at Hewlett Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California in 1994. In 1995, she joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering department at Cornell where she currently directs the Visual Communications Lab. Her research interests broadly concern communication of visual information. She studies how the human brain perceives visual information by developing better models for low-level vision (which occurs in the visual cortex - VI) as well as for higher-level vision which includes cognition, and she develops signal processing theory and algorithms which exploit this understanding.

Sheila grew up in Columbus, Ohio and is a hardcore Ohio State Buckeyes fan; she was present at the 2003 Fiesta Bowl when the Buckeyes won the NCAA National Championship. She enjoys any and all outdoor activities, dining anywhere in Europe, her two beagles Hubble and Webster, and shopping for handbags and shoes. She thinks the two most beautiful places on earth are the Canadian Rockies and the Whitsunday Islands.

Dan has been a faculty member at Cornell on and off since 1988, leaving at various times to work in industry but always finding his way back to campus. While his academic interests are rooted in computer science they extend to a wide range of applications including self-driving cars, online social networks, and financial trading systems. He is broadly interested in how computing and communications technologies are changing the ways people live, work and play. Dan teaches in both the Computer Science Department and the MBA program, and never ceases to be amazed by how different the classroom experience can be in different parts of the university. Beyond academic pursuits, he tries to find time to enjoy Cayuga Lake and to snowboard some real mountains every winter.

Harry C. Katz is the Dean and Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining, at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1977. After teaching at MIT from 1977-1985, he came to the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1985. His major publications include: Converging Divergences: Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems (with Owen Darbishire), Cornell University Press; Shifting Gears: Changing Labor Relations in the U.S. Automobile Industry, MIT Press; The Transformation of American Industrial Relations, (with Thomas Kochan and Robert McKersie), second edition, Cornell University Press; Telecommunications: Restructuring of Work and Employment Relations World-wide, Cornell University Press and An Introduction to Collective Bargaining and Industrial Relations (with Thomas Kochan), Irwin-McGraw-Hill, third edition.  

The Transformation of American Industrial Relations was awarded the Terry Book Award in 1988 as the most significant contribution to the field of management by the Academy of Management.

Since 2006, Katz has been a member of the UAW Public Review Board.

A native of Russia, Raissa Krivitsky earned her degree in Russian Language and Literature at Odessa National University in the Ukraine. She became one of the founders of the Odessa Literary Museum, where she conducted research, helped build the collection, and headed the Department of Late 19th Century Early 20th Century Russian and Ukrainian Literature. Later, she moved to Moscow, where she joined the Bakhrushin Museum of Theater and worked as a freelance writer for several newspapers and magazines. At the time of Perestroika, under the umbrella of the popular magazine Ogoniok and the TV company Vid, she organized cultural programs to help raise funds for Russian children with HIV/AIDS.

In 1992, she moved from Moscow to Ithaca with her husband Nikolai, a scientist, and their two children, Pavel and Ludmila. She studied second/foreign language pedagogy at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, and, prior to joining the Russian Department at Cornell in 2003, she taught English as a Second Language and Russian in area schools. Her major professional interest is developing new models of language teaching based on authentic, culturally charged material. Her other interests include reading, travel, art, and international film.

From 2004 to 2006, Raissa served as a Fellow for the Russian section of the Language House, and she is planning to continue promoting Russian and Eastern European culture at Alice Cook through film, poetry, music and food.

Cecelia Lawless, Senior Lecturer, has her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from Cornell University. The title of her dissertation is "Homeward Bound: A Study of Home in Hispanic and American Gothic Novels".

Cecelia also has a background in comparative literature and architecture and an interest in film. As a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Romance Studies, she teaches both language and literature courses. She has published Making Home in Havana, Rutgers Press, 2002, and various articles on film and architectural concepts in literature.

Recently, she received a Fulbright award to go to Merida, Venezuela, where she conducted research on cinema and the cityscape.

Kathleen Long arrived at Cornell in 1990, from Brandeis University. She grew up in Washington, D.C., and received her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She researched French history, art history, and literature in the Renaissance Studies program at Yale, acquiring a PhD. in that field. Monsters, gossip and other marginal forms of history and culture fascinate her; her current research focuses on religious violence from the Crusades to the present day, but she maintains an active interest in gender studies as well. Kathleen is currently the Director of Undergraduate Studies in French. She likes to hang out with her husband, Doug, her son, Chris and her daughter, Emily. When she has free time, she likes to paint and draw, particularly local landscapes.

Hongnan Ma started her academic career in 1990 as an assistant professor of English in China. Besides teaching, her professional experience was most extensive in the areas of supporting local government and businesses in their internationalizing efforts. Hongnan came to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in Sociology and Anthropology in 1995. Her teaching experience has since been enriched through courses in Anthropology, Asian Studies, and Mandarin Chinese. Her passion for promoting intercultural exchanges continued through her involvement in various educational exchange projects. Prior to joining the Language House Program, Hongnan served the Cornell community as the Assistant Director/Lecturer of the China and Asia-Pacific Studies (CAPS) program where her job was to develop the management and financial framework, coordinate the academic and non-academic activities, and advise majors and prospective majors as they anticipate and experience the unique privileges and challenges of this path breaking program.

Grit Matthias was born and raised in Jena, Germany. She studied in Heidelberg, Dresden and Jena, where she received her M.A. (Magistra Artium) in German as a Foreign Language with minors in American and Romance Studies. Her research and teaching interests include Internet-based language learning, the use of digital materials in language instruction, foreign language acquisition and teaching, intercultural communication, and German short lms. She has incorporated Podcast workshops in her teaching, where language learners produced their own Podcasts in German. She has presented her experience of working with Podcasts in Foreign Language Education at various conferences.

Professor McMichael's current academic interests are in globalization and power, and the rise of social justice movements on a world scale. He came to Cornell to study and teach international development with a focus on the political economy of international food systems. His training is in economics, political science, and sociology - he completed his Ph.D. in Sociology at SUNY-Binghamton, the founding department of the world-system school of thought. He is an Australian expatriate, with an interest in current affairs, sports and film, and is undefeated (so far) by students on the pool table.

As far as programming is concerned, he's interested in promoting interaction between students and visiting speakers, screening films and discussing current affairs related to global developments.

Larry Moore grew up in Houston, Texas, and received his B.A. degree from Rice University. He came to Cornell in 1972, shortly after finishing his graduate work at Yale. He has served several times as Chair of Cornell’s History Department, and since 1998 he has been Director of the American Studies Program. Long interested in American religious history, his recent books include Touchdown Jesus. The Mixing of Sacred and Secular in American History and (co-authored with Isaac Kramnick), The Godless Constitution, The Case Against Religious Correctness. Moore has twice been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, most recently (1997) in India. He has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington D.C. and at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. He is the recipient of Robert and Donna Paul Award in Advising. His wife, Lauris McKee, is an anthropologist whose fieldwork has centered in the highlands of Ecuador.

Susan H. Murphy serves as the Vice President for Student and Academic Services. In addition to being a member of President Skorton’s executive staff, she oversees most departments related to student life outside of the classroom: Athletics and Physical Education, Public Service Center, Dean of Students, Gannett: University Health Services, Cornell Commitment, Registrar, Campus Life, Career Services, Center for Learning and Teaching, and Internal Transfer Division.

A graduate of Arts and Sciences, Susan returned to Cornell in 1978 after completing master’s degrees at Stanford University and Montclair State College. She began her career in the Undergraduate Admissions Office and worked for sixteen years in admissions and financial aid, the last nine as Dean. While serving as Dean, she completed her doctorate at Cornell in Educational Administration.

Prior to working at Cornell, Susan worked in the guidance department at Chatham High School in New Jersey.

Susan’s academic interests include American higher education, especially access to and the financing of higher education, student development, civic engagement, and athletics. She looks forward to connecting with residents of Cook House, especially through current topics of interest and concern about the University and higher education.

Susan enjoys golf and tennis, reading a good book (especially biographies), and spending time with her husband, Gerry Thomas.

Philip Nicholson has been on the faculty of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University since 1982. An Australian by birth, he completed his B.Sc. in Physics at the University of Queensland in 1972 and a Ph.D. in Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology in 1978. His research involves the orbital dynamics of planetary ring systems and natural satellites, as well as near-infrared and radar studies of the outer planets and their ring systems. He is a regular user of the Palomar and Arecibo Observatories, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. Outside of teaching and research, Phil enjoys reading about history and traveling to remote places. He has a morbid fascination with the megalithic stone circles and ancient tombs of Ireland, Scotland and Brittany, and spend his Christmas holidays in New Zealand. Since 1998 he has been the Editor of Icarus, the primary international journal of planetary sciences.

Hunter Rawlings served as Cornell's tenth president from 1995 to 2003, following seven years as president of the University of Iowa. He is now Professor of Classics and History at Cornell and teaches classes in ancient Greek language and literature, as well as in Greek history and culture. As a strong proponent of Cornell's North Campus for all freshmen, and of the West Campus House System, Professor Rawlings serves as advisor and mentor to Cornell undergraduates. His principal scholarly interests are in Greek history and historiography, as well as in 18th century American history.

Jean Reese was born in Pittsburgh, PA and grew up on the north shore of Long Island. With a B.S and M.S. in early childhood education, Jean enjoyed teaching kindergarten as well as many rewarding years as a stay-at-home mom and literacy volunteer. Her most fond memories in campus life include serving as the first Assistant Dean of Cook House and her duties as project leader for the new residence halls and community center on north campus and the house system and Noyes Community Recreation Center on west campus. After 21 years in campus life at Cornell, she recently joined the division of Alumni Affairs and Development.

Outside of work Jean enjoys traveling to Boston and New York City to see her children; Jen – a science teacher and Greg – a post-production film colorist. Other interests include adult and childhood literacy, gardening, quilting and walks with her dog Bailey.

Thomas Ruttledge was born in Detroit, MI and grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. He has a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Chemistry from Wayne State University in Detroit. He earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from The University of Chicago and his post doc in the Department of Plant Pathology here at Cornell.

His research interests have always been focused at the intersection of chemistry and biology, particularly the chemistry of host-parasite interactions. Thomas has had extensive contact with Cornell over the past 7 years, as I have taught every year since 1999 in the summer sessions and in two academic years when I was on leave from my home campus. Thomas recently accepted the opportunity to re-join Cornell as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. I am excited to be back at Cornell.

Thomas enjoys traveling, cycling, running, history, art, food, wine, and politics.

Robert Sukle is the Director of the Japanese FALCON Program at Cornell. He also teaches in the regular Japanese program, primarily Japanese 101-102. Robert was born and grew up in Colorado. He has a BA from the University of Colorado in Boulder. After college he spent two terms in the Peace Corps, one in Malaysia and one in Thailand. During this time he became enamored of Asian languages and, after a stay in Japan, decided to specialize in Japanese linguistics. He did his MA and PhD work at Cornell and then began teaching in the Japanese program at Cornell, where he became a Senior Lecturer in 1978. In 1988 he was appointed as Director of the Japanese FALCON Program and in 1989 he was appointed as Director of the Japanese Teacher Training Workshop, a four-week summer intensive program for training Japanese language teachers. His interests are Japanese grammar and sociolinguistics as well as language pedagogy. Most of his time and effort is spent on his students, but he also enjoys gardening, music and antique-collecting.

Professor Teng earned her B.A. from Department of History, Peking University, P R China and M.A. from Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University. She worked as an editor at Department of Literature and History in Beijing Publishing House, and as a journalist and an editor for the magazine University Students in Beijing Publishing House. She currently teaches Chinese 201-202 (intermediate level), and Chinese 411-412 (Advanced reading course, which focuses on Chinese fiction reading). She is also one of the instructors who teach Chinese FALCON. (Full-year Asian Language CONcentration).

Marjolein was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and moved to the US with her parents when she was two years old. She mainly grew up in Yorktown Heights, NY, except for two years of high school that her family spent in West Germany. She received an SB from MIT and then MS and PhD degrees from Stanford, all in Mechanical Engineering. She then stayed in the Bay Area, working as a biomedical engineer at the Rehabilitation R&D Center of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Palo Alto, for three years.

Marjolein came to Cornell in 1996 and is now as an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She also has an appointment at the Hospital for Special Surgery, the orthopaedic affiliate of Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. Her research is in orthopaedic biomechanics focused on the skeletal system. She is especially interested in the response of bone tissue to mechanical stimuli and the determinants of bone mechanical properties. This work is particularly relevant to diseases such as osteoporosis.

Amy Villarejo joined the faculty at Cornell in 1997 with a joint appointment in the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and the program then known as Women's Studies (now the much longer Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program). She grew up in California, received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Mostly what she does is watch movies, from documentaries to avant garde shorts to summer blockbusters; her most recent book is Film Studies: The Basics, which introduces its readers to the academic study of cinema. She is currently working on a book on television's queer representations. When not in a dark room, she enjoys food, wine, sailing, and reading.

Mariana Wolfner is a biologist who uses fruit flies as a model for studying early embryo development and cell division, and how reproductive proteins regulate fertility and behaviors.  Her lab's research integrates molecular, cell, developmental, genetic and evolutionary biology. Most of her teaching is in advanced developmental biology. She has also taught cross-disciplinary biology courses, and has mentored many undergraduates in research. She is a recipient of the Robert and Donna Paul Award in advising.

Born in Caracas Venezuela, Mariana grew up in New York City. She first encountered Cornell through a summer program for high school juniors. She liked it so much that she returned as an undergrad, to major in biology and chemistry, and began doing biology research here and at Cold Spring Harbor Labs. Having moved to California for PhD (Stanford, Biochemistry) and postdoctoral (UC San Diego) studies, she was delighted to return to Cornell as a faculty member in 1983, since she knew that here she'd find great students and faculty, an interactive and interesting scientific environment, "real weather", and hills. She has been an Alice Cook House Fellow for two years, and has enjoyed interacting with Cookies during House dinners and in various House-activities, including (but not limited to!) chatting about careers in biology and current issues in science.

Mariana lives with her husband, Jim Rothenberg (a sociology professor at Ithaca College), daughter Miriam (age 15) and son Joshua (age 13 and an ever-changing menagerie of pets and plants. Outside of biology research and teaching, her interests include nature, hiking, travel, reading, chocolate, crossword puzzles, and terrible puns.

Munther earned his his B.A. in English and a diploma in education from the University of Jordan (1974) and a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin (1982). Before joining the Cornell faculty in 1990, he taught Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Prior to that, he taught English and linguistics in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Munther has developed an Arabic program at Cornell that is radically different from Arabic programs elsewhere in its integration of spoken Arabic with written Arabic in a way that reflects the use of the language by native speakers. At the Arabic Language House, Munther would like to give students the opportunity to converse informally in Arabic and to learn about Arab and Middle Eastern culture in an environment free of the pressure of the classroom and grades. He also hopes to engage students in discussions of linguistic issues, particularly those relating to Semitic languages.

Munther is married and has four children ranging in age from 15 to 22. Jenin is a Religious Studies major at Cornell. Jelal is majoring in economics at Grinnell College in Iowa. Amin and Sharif are in high school at the Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca. Munther's wife, Rebecca, is a web application developer in the ILR School at Cornell. A native of the West Bank, Palestine, Munther is the only member of a large family to come to the United States. Other members of the family currently live in Palestine, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Munther's hobbies include soccer, tennis and ping-pong. He enjoys listening to Middle Eastern music and cooking Middle Eastern food.