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Social and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Anne Laura Bizub
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Tel: (607) 735-1944
Email: abizub@elmira.edu
Office: Gillett Hall 2
Dr. Bizub's Personal Website

Dr Bizub earned the Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1998 from Duquesne University and is a licensed psychologist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “Dr. B” is also a certified school counselor in Pennsylvania, having earned her certificate in school counseling, K-12, at Chatham College. In addition, she has taught college courses since 1992 and has served as a researcher and a program director.

“Dr. B” joined the EC faculty in 2006 and teaches Abnormal Psychology, Introduction to Counseling, Introduction to Clinical Psychology, and (in Term III) All Creatures Great and Small: An Exploration of Human and Animal Relationships.  She has published on animal behavior and on the benefits of therapeutic horseback riding for individuals with severe and persistent mental illness.

Dr. Bizub has been a jewelry maker and metalsmith for 26 years and looks forward to teaching metalsmithing at EC as well when the opportunity presents itself.  Art, music, travel, and nature give her inspiration and joy.


Dr. Martha Easton
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Tel: (607) 735-1956
Email: measton@elmira.edu
Office: Watson Fine Arts 212
Dr. Easton's Personal Website

Dr. Easton came to Elmira College after having taught at Carleton in Minnesota.  She earned her BA from Swarthmore and the Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.  She teaches both Sociology and Women’s Studies, and has created three Term III travel courses.  Her European Union class spends three weeks traveling to major European cities where students meet European citizens engaged in the work (and protest) of European identity-building.  She and Dr. Rosati teach a class that travels to India, where students examine gender and globalization issues.  Drs. Easton and Rosati have also created a class that travels to South Africa to study the social construction of race. 

Co-Advisor for the Social Science honor society, and the Women’s Studies honor society, Dr. Easton’s research interests are in national identity in Europe and in the social construction of gender and race.  She has studied in Norway, where she spent several years doing fieldwork on the creation of Norwegian identity in the face of the European Union.


Dr. Kunihiko Imai
Associate Professor of Political Science
Tel: (607) 735-1945
Email: Kimai@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 236A
Dr. Imai's Personal Website

Dr. Imai earned the Ph.D. from Binghamton University. Since coming to Elmira College in 1997, he has developed such courses as International Conflict and Cooperation, Research Methods in Political Science, and Culture and People of Japan, a Term III travel course helping students gain first-hand knowledge of Japan and its people through language lessons, university lectures, visits to cultural sites in Japan, and living with host families in Tokyo.  Dr. Imai helps the College recruit students from Japan and maintain relationships with Japanese colleges, universities, and educational agencies.

Building upon his own experience in Russia, Poland, and Japan, Dr. Imai is well-versed in many areas of international relations, comparative politics, international law, U.S. foreign policy, international relations theory, international political economy, and research methods and statistics.  His articles have appeared in scholarly books, as well as professional journals such as Comparative Strategy: An International Journal, The International Journal on World Peace, International Interactions, and The Journal of Politics, among others.


Dr. Myra Glenn
Professor of American History
Tel: (607) 735-1901
Email: Mglenn@elmira.edu
Office: Gillett Hall 13
Dr. Glenn's Personal Website

Dr. Glenn earned the B.A. from Canisius College and the M.A. and Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has also studied at Gujarat University in Ahmedabad, India.  Her major research interests are in nineteenth-century American intellectual and cultural history; she has published two books: Campaigns Against Corporal Punishment: Prisoners, Sailors, Women, and Children in Antebellum America (1984) and Thomas K. Beecher: Minister to a Changing America (1996), as well as numerous articles in scholarly journals, including American Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, and Nineteenth Century American History.  Her next book is tentatively titled Jack Tar's Story: The Lives and Autobiographies of Antebellum American Sailors.  A two-time recipient of the Fulbright Lecture Award, Dr. Glenn has taught in Spain, Argentina, and Brazil.

At Elmira College, she regularly teaches both halves of the United States history survey and women's history.  She also teaches a wide range of upper-level seminars in American history as well as Freshman Core.


Dr. Carol Lenhart
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
Tel: (607) 735-1909
Email: clenhart@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 234
Dr. Lenhart's Personal Website

Dr. Lenhart graduated Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Brockport, and earned the M.A. and the Ph.D. in Criminology at the University of Delaware.  She is a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society, Alpha Kappa Delta International Sociology Honor Society, Alpha Phi Sigma National Criminal Justice Honor Society, Alpha Chi Honor Society, and a number of professional organizations.

She has been teaching Criminal Justice at Elmira College since 2005.  Areas of interest include inmate litigation, prison litigation reform effort, policing, profiling, history of corrections, youth violence, at-risk youth and local history.  Dr. Lenhart regularly teaches such courses as Criminology, Senior Seminar, Penology, Police Administration, Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice, and has recently begun teaching the Term III course Women and Quilting in American Society. She serves as advisor to the Elmira College Chapter of Alpha Phi Sigma.


Dr. Benjamin Lovett
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Tel: (607) 735-1897
Email: blovett@elmira.edu
Office: Gillett Hall 17
Dr. Lovett's Personal Website

Dr. Lovett joined the faculty in 2007. He earned his Ph.D. in School Psychology from Syracuse University, and his research focus is psychological testing. He has expertise in the diagnosis of learning and attention disorders, as well as the use of testing accommodations for students with these disorders. He consults widely on issues of how to best assess students with disabilities.

Dr. Lovett’s research has been published in a variety of professional journals, including School Psychology Review, the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, and the Journal of Learning Disabilities. He has also presented with students at state and national research conferences. His courses at Elmira College include Psychological Testing, the Psychology of Learning, and Child Psychopathology.


Dr. Diane Maluso
Associate Professor of Psychology
Tel: (607) 735-1907
Email: dmaluso@elmira.edu
Office: Harris Hall A
Dr. Maluso's Personal Website

Dr. Maluso earned the Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island in 1992.  A social psychologist, she teaches courses in the areas of experimental, social and personality psychology, statistics, the psychology of women, and interpersonal discrimination.  She is an active member of the Women’s Studies program and regularly teaches Women & Society and Feminist Theories. 

Her research interests include interpersonal discrimination, the social learning of gender, and online behavior. Her dissertation was an assessment of the efficacies of various interventions designed to lessen racist discrimination among college students.  She has served as a board member of the Association for Women in Psychology, has been a recipient of the Josef Stein Award, and has been voted “Teacher of the Year” by Elmira College students.  Professor Maluso, an avid outdoorswoman, enjoys camping, fly fishing, and canoeing.


Dr. Charles Mitchell
Associate Professor of American Studies
Tel: (607) 735-1937
Email: cmitchell@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 204
Dr. Mitchell's Personal Website

Having earned the Ph.D. in American History-American Studies from the Claremont Graduate University, Dr. Mitchell has been teaching at Elmira College since 1993.  His courses in American Studies include Perspectives on the American Dream and Individualism and Community in American Life; he also teaches courses in the Women’s Studies program and a Term III travel course to the canyon country of the Southwest. 

His primary research interests are in Environmental History with a focus on representations of nature and the landscape in literature and art.  This allows him to blend work and play while exploring America’s national parks and wilderness areas.  He has published a book on the legacy of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Individualism and Its Discontents) and essays and book chapters on such topics as teaching about the desert, gender and landscape, and the perils of landscape photography.


Dr. Robin O'Brian
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology
Tel: (607) 735-1925
Email: robrian@elmira.edu
Office: Harris Hall B
Dr. O'Brian's Personal Website

A native of California, Dr. O’Brian earned the Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA, having earned the B.A. in anthropology from UCLA and the M.A. from California State University.  Dr. O’Brian has conducted research in Chiapas, Mexico, on Maya women’s household and economic work.  She is particularly interested in why women retain traditional dress and under what conditions such dress changes.  In 2006, Dr. O’Brian was one of twenty-four faculty selected nationally to participate in “Maya Worlds,” a traveling institute about ancient and contemporary Maya society.  Dr. O’Brian has published papers on women’s work, including “Rosa:  Weaving Women into Life” and “Who Weaves and Why? Weaving, Loom Complexity and Trade”.  Dr. O’Brian joined the EC faculty in 2000. 

She teaches numerous anthropology courses including Peoples of Latin America and Anthropology of Gender, and also participates in both the Freshman Studies and the Women’s Studies programs.  She is the faculty sponsor of Lambda Alpha, the anthropology honor society, and Culture Club, the campus anthropology club.


Dr. Mark Pitner
Assistant Professor of Asian History
Tel: 7351181
Email: mpitner@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 202
Dr. Pitner's Personal Website

Having earned his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Dr. Pitner has taught at the University of Tennessee, the University of Washington, and Cornish College of the Arts before coming to Elmira College. He has also spent numerous years working with the East Asian art collection at the Seattle Asian Art Museum as a Blakemore Curatorial Fellow (2004-2008), where he continues to act as a consultant. Dr. Pitner has lived in China, Taiwan, and Japan, most recently as a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan (2008-2009), experiences which enrich his courses and will form the core of a series of term III travel courses to Asia.

Dr. Pitner has written on developments in Ruism (Confucianism), the history of natural science in China, and is currently working on a number of projects that explore the role of place in the intellectual history of China. His courses cover a range of regions, time periods, and topics in Asian Studies from broad surveys in Asian History to specialized courses in Japanese and Chinese history and literature.


Dr. William Pruitt
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice
Tel: 7351908
Email: wpruitt@elmira.edu
Office: Gillett Hall 9
Dr. Pruitt's Personal Website

I was born in Nashville, Tennessee (and still have much family in the area), but I grew up mainly in Connecticut where my family moved when I was 6. I attended the University of Hartford graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice. After working for a year at a small law firm in their real estate and estate planning area, I attended law school at Syracuse University graduating cum laude in 2006. After passing the bar exam in New York state, I worked for the judicial branch in Connecticut for several months. I then moved to Boston to attend Northeastern University where I obtained my Ph.D. in Criminology and Justice Policy in 2011.

I joined the faculty at Elmira College in 2012. I teach courses from Introduction to Criminal Justice to Due Process and beyond.


Dr. Robert Shephard
Professor of History
Tel: (607) 735-1939
Email: Rshephard@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 204
Dr. Shephard's Personal Website

Dr. Shephard has been teaching European History at Elmira College since 1987, including courses on the Holocaust and on British, Russian, and women’s history, and seminars on Renaissance Italy, Tudor England, the French Revolution, and European Totalitarianism. 

His research interests focus on early modern British political culture, and he has published articles in the Journal of Modern History, the Sixteenth Century Journal, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and Sex and Sexuality in the Pre-Modern West.   Dr. Shephard has been a Regional Visiting Fellow at Cornell University and is currently the vice president of the International Sidney Society.  He received the Gerald R. Rubio Award in 2005 for his article “The Political Commonplace Books of Sir Robert Sidney.” 

Dr. Shephard is also the faculty advisor to the campus chapter of Amnesty International.  He earned the Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School after completing the undergraduate degree at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.


Dr. Christopher Terry
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Tel: (607) 735-1938
Email: cterry@elmira.edu
Office: Gillett Hall 19
Dr. Terry's Personal Website

Dr. Terry earned the Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Syracuse University in 2009. He teaches courses in experimental and quantitative research methods, cognitive processes, and adult development and aging. He also enjoys teaching introductory psychology and offering courses on special topics related to attention, memory, and cognitive aging.

His research interests focus on multitasking and divided attention, with a special interest in task switching and the way individuals develop strategies for managing competing tasks over time. Dr. Terry’s other research interests include the perception of health information and its impact on health-related behaviors, such as alcohol and tobacco use.

As a recent graduate from Syracuse University, Dr. Terry completed an appointment as a University Teaching Fellow and was a recipient of the Certificate in University Teaching. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, camping, running, and skiing.

 


Dr. Jim Twombly
Associate Professor of Political Science
Tel: (607) 735-1702
Email: jtwombly@elmira.edu
Office: McGraw Hall 206
Dr. Twombly's Personal Website

Dr. Twombly earned degrees from Slippery Rock University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His Ph.D. included specialties in American Politics and Public Policy.

Dr. Twombly’s courses include Congress, The Presidency, Political Parties, State and Local Government, Public Policy, and others. His research interests include: behavior of government officials, policy implementation, the presidency, political parties, and political volunteers. He has co-authored articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, American Politics Research, Politics and Policy, and Policy Studies Journal, and a book chapter in Presidential Leadership and Civil Rights Policy. He is also the author of the recently published text on the American Presidency: The Progression of the American Presidency: Individuals, Empire, and Change (from Palgrave Macmillan). Dr. Twombly plans to start on a second book on unicameral state legislatures this summer.

Dr. Twombly has run for public office and held a variety of political party offices. He is the author of The Progression of the American Presidency: Individuals, Empire, and Change. Dr. Twombly is a member of the American Political Science Association and currently serves as the American Politics Section Chair for the New York State Political Science Association, he has consulted with party organizations, written official speeches, designed campaign literature, and developed strategies for political campaigns. He currently serves as Political Analyst for WENY-TV and has appeared on many of their news programs, including being on location for their coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. He has recently been interviewed by CNNRadio.com on unicameral state legislatures and The New York Times on aspects of New York State election law. Dr. Twombly has made numerous appearances before local groups including the Chemung Valley Historical Society, the Rotary Club, and the League of Women Voters.

Dr. Twombly is an avid reader (particularly of science fiction) and a fan of the New York Mets. He also serves as the faculty adviser to the EC College Democrats and the male a Capella group - A1 and the Sauce.