House Fellows
Glenn Altschuler Glenn Altschuler
Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies; Dean of the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions at Cornell University
B-20 Day Hall
255-4987

Glenn Altschuler received his Ph.D. in American History from Cornell in 1976 and has been an administrator and teacher at Cornell since 1981. He is the author or co-author of eight books and more than one-hundred essays and reviews. In addition to his scholarly essays, he has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, the Los Angeles Times, the Jerusalem Post, the New York Observer, Barron’s Financial Weekly, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and American Heritage Magazine. For four years he wrote a column on higher education for the Education Life section of the New York Times. He was a regular panelist on national and international affairs for the WCNY television program The Ivory Tower Half-Hour, from 2002-2005. Glenn Altschuler has won several awards for teaching and undergraduate advising at Cornell. He is the recipient of the Clark Teaching Award, the Donna and Robert Paul Award for Excellence in Faculty Advising, and the Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Award for Outstanding Advising. He is a Weiss Presidential Fellow. Altschuler has been an animating force in the rapidly growing program in American Studies, and has been a strong advocate on campus for high-quality undergraduate teaching and advising.

Mina Amundsen Mina Amundsen
University Planner, Facilities Services
102 Humphreys Serv Bldg
254-8226

Mina Amundsen is the University Planner for Cornell University with Facilities Services. She directs the Campus Planning Office and is responsible for leading and overseeing physical planning on the Ithaca campus, including University-wide master planning, area and precinct plans, college plans, as well as the planning associated with specific projects, landscape, transportation, or utilities issues.

Mina Amundsen studied architecture at the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology in Ahmedabad, India and practiced architecture in India for several years before coming to the US. Mina has Master’s degrees in architectural studies and city planning from MIT, where her graduate studies focused on issues concerning the conservation of historic urban environments and the constant integration of historic and new development. Mina’s research on change in historic urban centers has taken her to Central Asia and to Morocco, to map the cities of Bukhara and Essaouira, and her graduate thesis studied the complex issues associated with the preservation of the historic Jewish quarter in the city of Rabat. Her interest in integrating the historic with contemporary development drew her to the complexities of campus planning and continues to engage her intellectually with planning for a campus, especially one as large, complex and diverse as Cornell's. Mina has previously worked as a planner on two other campuses - with the MIT Planning Office and with Harvard University’s Planning and Real Estate Office.

Mina lives in Ithaca with her husband Ole Amundsen III, and their two lively daughters, Surya and Keya. She generally enjoys the outdoors - hiking and cross-country skiing, bird watching and just rambling through nature and discovering new places. Mina is also an avid reader, and loves music - classical, jazz and folk, art, textiles and food from around the globe.

Chris Anderson



Picture and bio coming soon!

Nimat Hafez Barazangi Nimat Hafez Barazangi
Visiting Fellow, Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program
391 Uris Hall

Barazangi's forty years of combined active work with Arab, Muslim, and non-Muslim organizations and individuals has been intertwined with her scholarly research and achievements that resulted in over 45 published research articles and book reviews, edited journal, computerized instructional programs, and two monographs:

  • The 2004 monograph Woman’s Identity and the Qur’an: A New Reading, The University Press of Florida.
  • The co-edited volume: Islamic Identity and the Struggle for Justice. The University Press of Florida (1996).
She Received several awards for her Action Research, including:
  • Senior Fulbright Scholarship from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars to Syria 2005-2006;
  • United Nations Development Program TOKTEN Fellowships 1999 and 2002
  • Visiting Fellowship from Oxford University's Centre of Islamic Studies (1994)
  • Three-year (1995-1997) Serial Fulbright Scholarship from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars to Syria;
  • Scholarship from The International Council for Adult Education (1993-94);
  • The Glock Award for her 1988 Ph.D. dissertation "Perceptions of the Islamic Belief System: The Muslims in North America" from the Department of Education at Cornell University
Her major Participatory Action Research projects, relating the Islamic worldview that is based on faith and reason with research and community service, aim at educating in and about Islam and at integrating Muslims’ and Arabs’ worldviews with that of the Western worldview of North America.

Barazangi's "Eself-Learning in Arabic and English" website.

Tommy Bruce



Picture and bio coming soon!

Joe Burke Joe Burke
Director for Residential Programs
1501 Clara Dickson Hall
255-5533

Joe Burke holds very fond memories of his undergraduate education at St. Francis College, Pennsylvania. He was heavily involved in a variety of student groups and organizations and this sparked his interest in working with students outside of the classroom. He continued this interest professionally and has held various administrative positions in residence life and judicial affairs throughout his career at Ohio University, Villanova, and now at Cornell. He completed a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and continues to learn and enjoy from the almost endless opportunities that are present on the Cornell campus.  

Joe enjoys reading (two of his favorite books are Pilgrim At Tinker Creek, and Einstein’s Dreams), photography, and spending time at the world renowned Cornell Ornithology Lab. He is a volunteer with the Family Reading Project in Ithaca. Joe and his wife (who also works for Cornell) came to Ithaca in 2006 and we are still exploring and enjoying the stunning gorges and magnificent waterfalls in the surrounding area. He is honored to be a part of Bethe House and looks forward to meeting the students who live in this dynamic house.

Bret de Bary



Picture and bio coming soon!

Milton Esman Milton Esman
John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, Emeritus; Professor, Emeritus, Department of Government
101 White Hall
255-6760

Milton J. Esman is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, Emeritus and Professor of Government, Emeritus; former Director of the Reynaud Center for International Studies; a Cornell grad (BA, 1939), Ph D in Politics from Princeton. A native of Pittsburgh, he remains a devoted fan of the Steelers and Penguins, and continues to suffer, year after year, with the hapless Pirates. He taught at George Washington and the University of Pittsburgh before joining the Cornell Government Department in 1969. He has lived and worked overseas for extended periods with the US Government and the Ford Foundation in Japan, Vietnam, and Malaysia; has been visiting professor in India, Israel, and Holland; and consulted in the US and overseas with the World Bank, UN Development Program, US Agency for International Development, and the Ford Foundation. His teaching, research, and publications originally focused on politics, public administration, foreign aid, and rural development in Third World countries. It has shifted in recent years to the origins and management of ethnic conflict in countries that include two or more ethnic communities. His recent book, An Introduction to Ethnic Conflict, was published in 2004 by the British publisher, Polity. He is currently working on a book about the politics of Diasporas and their effect on ethnic conflict.

David Feldshuh David Feldshuh
Professor of Theatre; Artistic Director, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts
234 Schwartz Ctr for Perf Arts
254-2717

David Feldshuh’s career is living proof that there are some choices you don’t have to make. As an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, David was a philosophy major and pre-med, became a disc jockey on the college radio station and began acting in his junior year. He then trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, attended the University of Minnesota on a McKnight Fellowship and joined the prestigious, Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis as a young actor. He remained at the Guthrie for almost ten years, first as an actor and then as an associate director. During this time he also received a Ph.D. in theatre, writing about creativity and actor training. From this work he decided to become a psychiatrist, attended the University of Minnesota Medical School and then (changing his mind again) decided to specialize in emergency medicine. (David supported himself in medical school by directing plays.) Following his residency, David continued to direct professionally as well as work in a number of different emergency departments until he accepted a professorship in the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance at Cornell in 1984 and became the first Artistic Director of the Department and the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. He continues to practice emergency medicine on a part-time basis.

During David’s twenty-one years as Artistic Director, he has directed numerous plays at Cornell and taught courses on directing, creativity and screenwriting. David has also written three published and widely produced plays, most notably Miss Evers’ Boys, a play about the infamous Tuskegee study. (David has spoken at universities and medical schools throughout the country about medical ethics and the use of theatre to address social issues.) Miss Evers’ Boys was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and (as an HBO movie with Alfrie Woodard and Laurence Fishbourne) won five Emmy awards including Best Picture as well as the President’s Award for Television Drama Exploring Important Social Issues. David’s wife, Martha Frommelt, is an active Ithaca volunteer in the field of arts in education and they live with their three children in Ithaca.

Ann Forsyth
Professor, City and Regional Planning


Trained in planning and architecture, Ann Forsyth is a Professor of City and Regional Planning who works mainly on the social aspects of physical planning and urban development. The big question behind her research and practice is how to make more sustainable and healthy cities. Forsyth's contributions have been to analyze the success of planned alternatives to sprawl, particularly exploring the tensions between social and ecological values in urban design. Several issues prove to be the most difficult to deal with in planning better places and provide a focus for some of her more detailed investigations: designing suburbs, providing affordable housing, maintaining social diversity, creating appropriate open space, and allowing for alternatives to the car.

In doing this work she has created a number of new tools and methods in planning -- an urban design inventory, GIS protocols, and participatory planning techniques. She is also a reflective practitioner/theorist and has developed some new ways of understanding social and intellectual diversity in planning and design education and practice.

Forsyth has mixed academic work and practice and has been director or co-director of two university-based design centers working with communities to solve urban planning and design problems. She is also interested in using the internet in planning education and practice. Her monthly blog column deals with planning education (Planetizen (Ann Forsyth's Blog) and she manages a number of educational web sites including Design for Health.

Maria Cristina Garcia Maria Cristina Garcia
Professor, Department of History
455 McGraw Hall
255-6598

I was born in Havana, Cuba not long after Fidel Castro came to power. The early 1960s in Cuba were violent and unstable for many reasons, and my family decided to temporarily leave their homeland until conditions improved. Forty years later, we are still in the United States, but we now consider it home. I have lived in many cities: Coral Gables, Guaynabo (Puerto Rico), Washington, D.C., Austin, San Antonio, College Station (Tx), London (U.K.), and since 1999, Ithaca.

My experience as a refugee and immigrant in the United States has influenced much of what I now do in my professional life. I earned degrees in American Studies (A.B. Georgetown University, and M.A. and Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin), concentrating on immigration and ethnic history. I teach courses on immigration, Latinos in the U.S., and U.S.-Cuba relations, as well as the general surveys of U.S. history. I write books and articles about migration. My first book, Havana USA, is a study of Cuban migration. My second book, Seeking refuge, is a comparative study of refugee policy in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada.

Carla Gomes Carla Gomes
Professor, Computing & Information Science; Professor, Applied Economics and Management; Professor, Computer Science


Carla Gomes is a computer scientist interested in teaching computers how to solve tasks as diverse as playing chess or poker, planning the route for a driverless car, designing wildlife corridors for grizzly bears, performing content-based selection of music programs, scheduling airlines, or solving Sudoku, the latest puzzle craze.

Carla has an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics (University of Lisbon) and  a Ph.D. in Computer Science (University of Edinburgh). She is a professor in Computing and Information Science, Applied Economics and Management, and Computer Science. She is also the director of the Intelligent Information Systems Institute (IISI) at Cornell and she is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Mary Beth Grant



Picture and bio coming soon!

David Harris David Harris
Deputy Provost
501G Day Hall
255-5864

David Harris holds a B.S. in human development and social policy, and a PhD in sociology, from Northwestern University. His first academic job was as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. Since July 2003 he has been professor of sociology at Cornell, and from 2004 to 2007 he served as the first director of Cornell’s Institute for the Social Sciences. In July 2005 he was appointed vice provost for social sciences at Cornell University and in August 2007 he became the deputy provost.

David has broad research interests in race and ethnicity, social stratification, social identity, and public policy. His research applies theories from sociology, economics, and psychology to such issues as the determinants of racial identity among African Americans, the new Census definitions of race, social isolation among the inner-city poor, and the racial and nonracial determinants of white residential mobility. David has published his work in sociology journals, as well as in public policy outlets, and major national newspapers.

Isaac Kramnick Isaac Kramnick
Vice Provost R.J. Schwartz Professor of Government
433 Day Hall
255-9151

Vice-Provost Isaac Kramnick came to Cornell to accept a good job at one of the world's great universities with great students and to live in the wonderful city of Ithaca. He was an undergraduate and graduate student at Harvard, with a year at Cambridge University and before Cornell he taught at Harvard, Brandeis and Yale. His academic interests include the history of western political thought in general and in the U.S. and Great Britain from the 18th century to the present. He is also interested in church-state relations in the U.S.

Isaac grew up in a small farming community in Massachusetts and is cursed with being a life-long Red Sox fan, which makes him intimately aware of the inevitable triumph of evil in the world. i.e., the Yankees and other examples of power and privilege.

One of his hobbies is Cornell lore, derived from teaching here for 32 years. His program interests include anything political....church, state...films....Cornell lore.

Narayana Murthy



Picture and bio coming soon!

Muna Ndulo Muna Ndulo
Director, Cornell Institute for African Development; Professor, Law School

255-6642

Muna Ndulo is a Professor of Law Cornell Law School and Director of Cornell University's Institute for African Development.
He was formerly Professor of Law and Dean of the School of Law, University of Zambia. He served as Legal Office in the International Trade Law Brach of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He also served as Legal Adviser and Political Adviser with the United Nations Mission Observer Mission in South Africa (UNOMSA) United Nations Assistance Mission to EAST Timor (UNAMET), United Nations Mission to Kosovo (UNAMIK) and United Nations Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA). He has published 11 books and well over 80 articles in academic journals.

Maureen O'Hara Maureen O'Hara
Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance, Johnson Graduate School of Management
447 Sage Hall
255-3645

Maureen O’Hara is the Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. She holds degrees from the University of Illinois (B.S. Economics), Northwestern University (M.S. Economics and Ph.D. Finance), and Facultés Universitaires Catholiques à Mons (FUCAM), Belgium (Doctorate Honoris Causa). Dr. O'Hara joined the faculty at Cornell in 1979. She has had visiting faculty appointments at UCLA, the London Business School, the University of New South Wales, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Cambridge University and the Universite Paris Dauphine. Professor O'Hara's research focuses on issues in market microstructure, and she is the author of numerous journal articles as well as the book Market Microstructure Theory (Blackwell:1995). In addition, Dr. O'Hara publishes widely on a broad range of topics including banking and financial intermediaries, law and finance, and experimental economics. Professor O’Hara has served as President of the American Finance Association, and as President of the Western Finance Association, and she has recently stepped down as the Executive Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. Professor O’Hara is on the Board of Directors of Investment Technology Group, Inc. (ITG), an agency brokerage firm, where she serves as Lead Director and Chair of the Compensation Committee, and on the Board of Directors of NewStar Financial, a commercial finance company. Professor O’Hara has recently served as Chairman of the Board of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rochester. She has consulted for a number of companies and organizations, including Microsoft, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, the New York Stock Exchange, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and the World Federation of Exchanges.

Mary George Opperman Mary George Opperman
Vice President, Office of Human Resources
130 Day Hall
255-3621

Yes, it's true.

I did work tending bar through my undergraduate years to help pay for my college expenses. As I reflect, it was great training in terms of learning to really listen to others, developing an intuitive sixth sense about people and their stories, and keeping my cool in situations that had the potential to escalate-all qualities that have served me well in life.

I came to Cornell in 1996 after working 13 years at Harvard, so it's a particularly delicious thrill to cheer on the Big Red when Harvard comes to Lynah to play hockey.

One of the high points of my Cornell year is participating in the annual University Commencement, which I co-chair. To witness the joy and pride in the faces of new graduates, their families and faculty, is to be reminded again of why I choose to work in higher education.

I believe in the limitless power of caring, the restorative power of laughter and the emotional power of family. I take delight in connecting and re-connecting with my own family-daughter Emily, now in college; Will, a junior in high school; and my husband Kip, who works in the field of disability services.

I bring these life experiences-lessons learned from bartending, the joys of family life, years of professional service, and my strong convictions as to why I choose to be at this university-to bear as I work through the varied responsibilities and challenges of my day job: serving as Cornell's vice president for human resources.

Brian Page



Picture and bio coming soon!

Patricia Phillips Patricia Phillips
Chair, Department of Art


Patricia C. Phillips joined the faculty of the Department of Art at Cornell in fall 2007. She currently serves as chair of the department. Although she is quite new to Cornell, she is excited by the diverse intellectual resources of the university and the natural beauty of the area.

Curiously, she is not an artist, but writes about contemporary art and organizes exhibitions for art spaces and museums. She is particularly interested in contemporary artists who engage public art, architectural space, sculpture, landscape, and the intersection of these areas. Another interest is the relationship of art, environmentalism, and science.

Her essays and reviews have appeared in art and design publications internationally and she is the author of It is Difficult, a survey of the work of Alfredo Jaar (Barcelona: Actar Press, 1998) and book editor of City Speculations (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). From 2002-2007, she served as editor-in-chief of the Art Journal, a quarterly publication on contemporary art published by the College Art Association.

She enjoys meetings students involved in different areas or departments at Cornell. She is an avid walker, does some bicycling, occasionally kayaks in Cayuga Lake, and loves to travel.

Per Pinstrup-Andersen Per Pinstrup-Andersen
H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition, & Public Policy
305 Savage Hall
255-9429

Per Pinstrup-Andersen is the H. E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy, the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Professor of Applied Economics at Cornell University; and Professor of Development Economics at the University of Copenhagen (formerly KVL). He is past Chairman of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Past President of the American Agricultural Economics Association (AAEA). He has a B.S. from the Danish Agricultural University (KVL) and a M.S. and Ph.D from Oklahoma State University. He served 10 years as the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Director General, 7 years as Division Director and 7 years as an economist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Colombia. He is the recipient of the 2001 World Food Prize. His publications include “Seeds of Contention” published in five languages, and more than 500 other books, refereed journal articles, papers and book chapters.

Alison (Sunny) Power Alison "Sunny" Power
Dean of the Graduate School at Cornell University; Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Professor, Department of Science and Technology Studies
350 Caldwell Hall
255-7374

As a faculty member, Sunny Power enjoys mentoring students, carrying out research, and trying to think synthetically about ecology. As Dean of the Graduate School, she enjoys working with students, faculty, and administrators to improve the quality of graduate programs and support for graduate students.

Sunny grew up in Seattle and spent summers in Alaska, living in Nome, Yakutat, and Soldotna as a child. These summers gave her a deep appreciation for wilderness and the natural world. After spending two years as an English major in college, she dropped out to work as a heavy equipment oiler on the construction of the Alaskan oil pipeline. She also spent a year traveling by local bus and train through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Burma and Thailand. The trip provided her with a remarkable exposure to diverse cultures and landscapes, and inspired her to study biology, in order to better understand the diversity of ecosystems that she had visited.

On returning to the US, she enrolled at University of Alaska in Fairbanks where she obtained her B.S. in biology. Along the way, she was lucky enough to spend several summers doing ecological research on seabirds in Northwestern Alaska, passerines in the Brooks Range, and herbivorous insects on the North Slope. These experiences convinced her to go on to graduate school in ecology at the University of Washington where she studied insect vectors of plant viruses in the tropics.

Sunny’s research focuses on the ecology of infectious disease in plant communities, interactions between agricultural and natural ecosystems, agroecology, and biodiversity in managed ecosystems. Current research addresses the role of host and vector diversity in disease ecology, the role of pathogens in plant invasions, and the ecological risks of genetically engineered crops. Currently, she is the President of the Association of Graduate Schools and President-Elect of the Ecological Society of America. 

Donald Rakow Donald Rakow
Elizabeth Newman Wilds Director, Cornell Plantations; Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture
One Plantations
255-6139

Dr. Donald A. Rakow is the Elizabeth Newman Wilds Director of Cornell Plantations, and is an associate professor in the Cornell Department of Horticulture. Previous to becoming the director of Plantations in 1996, Dr. Rakow served as associate director from 1993 – 1996.

Dr. Rakow’s research interests include: the history of botanical gardens in Europe and North America; the management of public gardens; and the interactions between plants and people. He has written extensively on these subjects and is currently writing a book on the origins of the earliest botanical gardens in Europe.

Dr. Rakow is the instructor for HORT 485, Public Garden Management, and HORT 480, Plantations Lecture Series. He is also the director of the Master of Studies Program in Public Garden Leadership.

Don Randel Don Michael Randel
President, The University of Chicago


Don Randel grew up in Panama (where his father operated a small business) and then attended Princeton University, where he received bachelor’s, M.F.A., and Ph.D. degrees in music.

He joined the Cornell University faculty in the department of music in 1968. Thereafter he served as department chair, vice-provost, and associate dean and then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1995, he was named provost of Cornell University. He became President-Elect of the University of Chicago on December 13, 1999 and began his term of office on July 1, 2000.

His scholarly specialty is the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in Spain and France, but his interests incorporate music as diverse as Latin pop and jazz.

Under his editorship, the New Harvard Dictionary of Music was published in 1986, and he completed the companion Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music in 1996. Randel also edited the Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians in 1999, and completed editing The Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4th ed. in 2003.

President Randel’s wife, Carol, is an alumna of the University of Michigan, where she majored in mathematics. They have four daughters: Amy Elizabeth Keating (Harvard, ’92), Julia Randel (Yale, ’93), Emily Catherine Pershing (Brown, ’94) and Sally Randel Eggert (Cornell, ’97).

He will become President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in July 2006. 

Frank H.T. Rhodes Frank H.T. Rhodes
President Emeritus


Frank Rhodes was president of Cornell University for eighteen years before retiring in 1995, having previously served as vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan.            

A geologist by training, Rhodes was a member of President Bush’s Education Policy Advisory Committee. He was chairman of the American Council on Education’s task force on minority education which produced the report “One-Third of a Nation,” for which former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford served as honorary co-chairs. He has also served as chairman of the National Science Board as well as several organizations in the field of higher education.                      
Rhodes has published widely in the fields of geology, paleontology, evolution, the history of science, and education.   His books include Language of the Earth, The Evolution of Life, Geology, Evolution, and his recently published The Creation of the Future: The Role of the American University. He is the recipient of over 35 honorary degrees.                      

Rhodes is a principal of The Washington Advisory Group, and a member of the Board of Overseers of Koç University, Turkey. He is chairman of the board of Atlantic Philanthropies and a member of the boards of the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Johnson Foundation. He is a member, and former chairman, of the American Philosophical Society.

Chris Schaffer Chris B. Schaffer
Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
B11 Baker Institute for Animal Health
256-5620

Chris Schaffer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and has been at Cornell since January, 2006. Chris received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, and his graduate degree from Harvard University, both in Physics.

Chris’s research focuses on the development and use of advanced optical techniques for in vivo studies of normal and disease state physiology. His research group is currently studying small strokes by using optical techniques to produce occlusions in the brains of rodents and study the consequences. Occlusions in the cerebral microvasculature are implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, but little is known about causes, disease progression, or possible treatment options. Chris’s research group occludes individual cerebral microvessels in rodent brain, and studies the changes in flow in the vascular network as well as changes in the activity and health of downstream neurons. A critical aspect of this work is the use of nonlinear optical techniques, utilizing femtosecond duration laser pulses, that allow individual vessels to be selectively clotted, and allow the resulting changes in blood flow and cell physiology to be characterized on a single vessel/single cell basis.

Steve Strogatz Steve Strogatz
Professor, Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics


Steve Strogatz teaches applied math (mostly to engineering students) and is a professor in the incomprehensibly-named Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. But don't ask him to fix your car - his lack of common sense is a source of much amusement to his wife Carole. Steve and Carole also have two young daughters, Leah and Joanna. You'll often see the whole family eating together, come on over and join them anytime.

Steve loves sports, science, movies, writing, and joking around in general. He's interested in pretty much anything, and really enjoys working with students and getting to know them. In fact, when he was a grad student and postdoc at Harvard, Steve lived among the undergrads as a Resident Tutor in Winthrop House for 6 years, so the threat of dorm food is no deterrent to him. 

Jeff Tambroni Jeff Tambroni
Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Men's Lacrosse


Jeff Tambroni has coached lacrosse at Cornell since 1997, first as assistant coach and then as the Richard M. Moran Head Coach of Men’s Lacrosse since 2000. He is a 1992 graduate of Hobart College with a bachelor of arts degree in American Studies. At Hobart he was a three-time All-American and named to first-team All-America as a senior. Following his graduation, Jeff coached at Hobart College, Loyola College, the Heaton Mersey Lacrosse Club of the English Lacrosse Union and the Czech-American Lacrosse Foundation in Prague.

Jeff’s time at Cornell has been filled with milestones and a resurgence of one of the greatest programs in the history of collegiate lacrosse. As important, his teams have been known for their performance in the classroom as well as on the field. Seven of his players have won ESPN/ Time Magazine CoSIDA Academic All-District honors. 

Jeff lives in Ithaca with his wife Michelle and daughters Carissa, Madison and Ella. 

Ratan Tata



Picture and bio coming soon!

Yervant Terzian Yervant Terzian
D.C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences, Department of Astronomy
512 Space Science
255-4935

Yervant Terzian, is “The David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences”, in the Department of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He was Department Chairman from 1979-1999. His fields of expertise are the physics of the Interstellar Medium, Galaxies, and Radio Astronomy. He has been a Scientific Editor of The Astrophysical Journal (1989-1999). In 1984, he received the Clark Distinguished Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1996, he was appointed Director of NASA’s New York Space Grant Program to enhance science education. He has been awarded Honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the University of Indiana (1989), the Yerevan State University in Armenia (1994), the University of Thessaloniki in Greece (1997), and from Union College (1999). In 1990, he was elected Foreign Member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences. In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2002 he was elected Chairman of the US Consortium of Universities and Institutes to construct the Square Kilometer Array giant radio telescope. In 2004 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the American University in Cairo. He is the Chairman of the Research Council of the Armenian National Science and Education Fund. He is the author or co-author of more than 220 scientific publications and the editor of six books, including “Carl Sagan’s Universe”. At Cornell at present he teaches a senior seminar course on “Critical Thinking”.

Alfonso Torres Alfonso Torres
Associate Dean of Public Policy, College of Veterinary Medicine
S2-008 Schurman Hall
253-3480

Alfonso Torres earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the National University of Colombia, a MS degree in veterinary pathology from the University of Nebraska, and a PhD in medical microbiology from the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Between Torres’ first appointment (in virology) at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine (1983-1987), and his return in 2002 to his current position, he was the Chief Veterinary Officer for the U.S., overseeing all animal health programs at USDA-APHIS Veterinary Services and serving as the U. S. delegate to the World Organization of Animal Health. Prior to his USDA duties in Washington DC, he directed the largest biocontainment center in the U.S. for the study of highly contagious animal diseases at the Plum Island Animal Diagnostic Center.

Scott Tucker Scott Tucker
Associate Professor and Director of Choral Music


Scott Tucker is Associate Professor and Director of Choral Music at Cornell University where he has conducted the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club since 1995. He also oversees the activities of the Cornell Chorale, Chamber Singers, and Sage Chapel Choir and teaches courses in music theory and conducting.       

Under Professor Tucker’s leadership, the Chorus and Glee Club have expanded the breadth of their activities. They have joined internationally known world music artist Samité of Uganda to present benefit concerts that combined to raise over fifteen-thousand dollars for AIDS Work of Tompkins County, NY. In 1997, the Glee Club appeared on National Public Radio with Garrison Keillor on “A Prairie Home Companion,” and in 1998, the Chorus was invited to Taiwan to perform for then President Lee Tung-Hui. Recently, the combined Glee Club and Chorus have shared the stage with such artists as Anonymous Four and Peter Schreier, and have sung with the Syracuse Symphony under the batons of Fabio Mechetti and Daniel Hege.

Prior to coming to Cornell, Professor Tucker was choral director of Milton Academy (MA) whose Chamber Singers toured the United States and Kenya and performed at the 1992 American Choral Director’s Association (ACDA) Eastern Convention and whose Glee Club was the sole featured choral ensemble at the 1995 National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) National Convention. Tucker received a Talbot Baker Award in 1993 for excellence in teaching.

In addition to his work at Milton, Professor Tucker was affiliated with choral music at Harvard University where from 1987 to 1993; he served first as assistant conductor of both the Harvard Glee Club and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and then as interim conductor of the Harvard Glee Club and the Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus.

Professor Tucker received a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from the from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1986, a Bachelor of Music degree in trumpet performance from the New England Conservatory in 1981, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Tufts University, also in 1981.    

In January 2000, Professor Tucker was listed in Who’s Who of American Music Teachers. He received a Talbot Baker Award for excellence in teaching in 1993, a St. Botolph Award for notable artists in the Boston area in 1985, and in 1980 was named a Presser Scholar.

Nicolas van de Walle



Picture and bio coming soon!

Jane Wang



Picture and bio coming soon!

Martha Washington Margaret Washington
Professor, History


Margaret Washington, professor of history and American studies, is originally from California and has been on the Cornell faculty since 1988. Her fields of study and teaching are nineteenth-century African American history and culture, African American women, and southern history. She recently completed a biography of Sojourner Truth, which will be published by the University of Illinois Press. Professor Washington has previously been a faculty fellow at the Town House and Balch Hall.