Faculty Fellows Program

Elizabeth A. Drummond

Elizabeth A. Drummond (Ph.D., Georgetown University) is an Associate Professor of History and affiliated faculty in Jewish Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts; she also directs the Secondary Teacher Preparation Program in Social Studies/History. Professor Drummond is a social and cultural historian of modern Central Europe, with a focus on national identity, nationalist mobilization, and the experience of national conflict in the German-Polish borderlands. More recently, she has begun a project focused on the Weimar artist Max Thalmann. She is also a member of the team that founded and maintains the interdisciplinary digital project the German Studies Collaboratory. Professor Drummond teaches broadly in modern European and world history and increasingly in public history. She is also a co-founder and co-coordinator of the German Studies Association’s Teaching Network and serves on the board of the Central European History Society. In 2022, Professor Drummond received the President’s Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award from LMU and a Teacher Eddy Award from the LAX Coastal Chamber of Commerce. She has previously served as chair and associate chair in the Department of History, chair of the BCLA College Council, and Faculty Senate President.

Jordan Freitas

Jordan Freitas is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. She attended Creighton University as an undergraduate and then completed her Phd with the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions research group at UC Berkeley. Her career in computer science has followed one primary fascination. When participation in data collection, management, and analysis is limited to the few who own a project or have narrow expertise, the reality of the subject being studied is oversimplified and then analysis results, taken as quantified truths, are missing crucial perspectives. She believes technology is at its best when facilitating the discovery and use of collective wisdom. Her current research focus areas are crowdsourcing and computer-supported collaborative work, with applications in neurodiagnostics and sustainable communities.

 

 

Katerina Zacharia

Katerina Zacharia is Professor and Chair of Classics & Archaeology. Her academic and professional work explores Greek ethnic identity formation, and cultural politics. She is the author of Converging Truths: Euripides’ Ion and the Athenian Quest for Self-Definition, and editor and major contributor for Hellenisms: Culture, Identity and Ethnicity from Antiquity to Modernity, and has published extensively on Greek drama, and on Greek cinema. An experienced dramaturge, she is an artistic associate for the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation in Athens (2006-present), and served as producing partner for the Stanford Repertory Theatre (2012-18), collaborating on theatrical performances and workshops. She produced, directed and wrote the short documentary Blessings and Vows (2018), and has collaborated in the writing of film documentaries and feature films. As Director of University Connections for the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, she has created a vibrant student internship program (2015-present). Prof. Zacharia is the recipient of the 2018 LMU President’s Fritz B. Burns Distinguished Teaching Award. She co-created and is currently at the implementation stages of Enthralled, a new conversation game for higher education.  As a CTE-OISS Faculty Fellow, she hopes to share her expertise in inclusive pedagogy, and advocate for internationalization in the curriculum by promoting cross-cultural exchange through local and global partnerships.

Katie Mouzakis

Dr. Katie Mouzakis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2013 from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In 2013, she began her independent career as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Fort Lewis College (FLC) in Durango, CO. There she established an undergraduate-driven and externally funded research program focused on the structure and function of RNAs in the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) frameshift sites. In 2018, she moved to LMU to continue her undergraduate-driven HTLV-1 research as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2021, she was awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. She has received several awards, including a FLC New Faculty Teaching Award in 2017, a Research Corporation for Science Advancement Cottrell Scholar Award in 2017, and an LMU Ascending Scholar Award in 2021.

Leon Wiebers

Leon Wiebers is an award-winning costume designer with productions in the United States, 0ff-Broadway, and internationally.  He was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Research Award to South Korea examining traditional dress.  Recent credits:  13 Fruitcakes, an original musical/opera for LaMamma, ETC, Seoul Performing Arts Festival and the Edinburgh Festival, Oslo for Pioneer Theatre, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime at St. Louis Rep and Cincinnati Playhouse; The Music Man at Glimmerglass Festival, Royal Opera in Oman; Gypsy and The King and I at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre; Empire, Man Of LaMancha at LaMirada Performing Arts;  other companies: the Hollywood Bowl; California Music Circus for over 10 years and 20 productions, San Francisco Opera Center, English National Opera, Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, the National Theatre of Korea.  He is a member of United Scenic Artists, 829, a board member and President-elect of the Costume Society of America, and a full professor at Loyola Marymount University where he serves as Chair of Theatre and Faculty Senate President. 

Mairead Sullivan

Mairead Sullivan is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Professor Sullivan’s research and teaching interests include feminist and queer theory, feminist methodologies, critical health studies, and identity based health politics. Dr. Sullivan spent a number of years working in women’s and LGBT public health before pursuing doctoral work. Sullivan holds an M.S.W. in Research Social Work (emphasis in public health) from Boston University and a Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Emory University. In addition to being widely published in the field of LGBT public health, Sullivan Sullivan’s has published work in differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, Journal of Homosexuality, Journal of Lesbian Studies, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Women’s Studies Quarterly, among others.  Most recently, Prof. Sullivan is the author of Lesbian Death: Desire and Danger Between Feminist and Queer (University of Minnesota Press, 2022).

At LMU, Dr. Sullivan’s leadership includes co-chairing the University Core Curriculum Committee, sitting on the strategic plan “Learning for Justice, Inclusion, and Transformation” spotlight implementation team, and membership in the Teach Towards Justice collaborative.

Mandy Korpusik

Mandy Korpusik is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Loyola Marymount University. She received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and completed her S.M. and Ph.D. in Computer Science at MIT. Her primary research interests include natural language processing and spoken language understanding for dialogue systems. Mandy used deep learning models to build the Coco Nutritionist application for iOS that allows obesity patients to more easily track the food they eat by speaking naturally. This system was patented, as well as her work at FXPAL using deep learning for purchase intent prediction. She is currently collaborating with eBay on a research project using deep learning to predict customer purchase intent.

 

 

Michael Noltemeyer

Michael Noltemeyer is a Writing Instructor in the Core Curriculum, an adjunct instructor in the Systems Engineering graduate program, and the Faculty Fellow in the Academic Resource Center. He also works with the Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program, A Community Committed to Excellence in Scientific Scholarship (ACCESS), and the First to Go Program. A former Faculty Fellow in the Center for Teaching Excellence and a winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, Michael earned a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico. Before coming to LMU in 2019, he taught college composition, creative writing, technical and professional writing, and literature at the University of New Mexico, Southern New Hampshire University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He has also spent over a decade working for Fortune 500 companies and Fast 500 startups as a freelance writer, editor, and marketing consultant, in which capacity his work has been published in almost every liquor store in the country.

Shirin Mollah

Shirin Mollah earned a Ph.D. in Economics at Claremont Graduate University specializing in health, labor, and applied econometrics. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Economics Department. With her background, she takes an interdisciplinary approach when teaching Introductory Economics. She enjoys teaching students from several majors and collaborating with colleagues from other departments. Most recently, she was a Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Her research examined the effects of policies implemented during the pandemic and the labor market. She is currently a faculty representative on the College Council and held past positions on the Faculty Senate. She is excited to work with the Ethnic and Intercultural Services Office, where students and faculty have the opportunity to connect to discuss ideas and achieve their goals. In her free time, she enjoys running, field hockey, traveling, and anything in the sun.

Yu Li

Yu Li is Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Her research centers on linguistic landscape with a focus on social semiotics, intercultural communication, and transcultural and translingual pedagogy. Her first book, The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, was published by Routledge in 2020. It offers a culturally rich study of the Chinese script, integrating a broad range of disciplinary perspectives on how the Chinese writing system shapes personal and social identities in and beyond Asia. Her current project examines the global use of the chop suey typeface invented in 1880s’ America to represent Chineseness. She teaches a broad array of courses in Chinese cultural history, linguistics, and language, including Global China, The Chinese Writing System, Chinese Calligraphy, and Chinese Food Cultures. She coordinates the Chinese program, co-organizes the interdisciplinary China Studies Group on campus, and serves on the Faculty Senate. She is committed to building and transforming global-local communities through education and research and is excited to be working closely with colleagues, students, and other members of the LMU community as part of the Global-Local Affairs team.