Columbian College of Arts and Sciences
Dr Greg Squires
Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration
Sociology, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration
Gregory D. Squires is a Research Professor and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at George Washington University. Currently, he is a member of the Fair Housing Task Force of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Social Science Advisory Board of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council. He has served as a consultant and expert witness for fair housing groups and civil rights organizations around the country including HUD, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and many others. He also served a three-year term as a member of the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board and as a Consumer Funded Representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as well as a member of the Wisconsin and DC Advisory Committees to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He has testified before Congress as well as state and local legislative committees on a variety of civil rights issues. In 2012 he served as Chair of the Governing Board of the Urban Affairs Association. Editorial board memberships have included City & Community, Social Problems, Journal of Urban Affairs, Journal of Intergroup Relations (where he served as editor for three years), and Shelterforce. In 2022 he was appointed as a community development columnist for Social Policy a quarterly magazine on “Organizing for Social & Economic Justice.”
Dr. Hiromi Ishizawa
Associate Professor of Sociology
Sociology
After graduating from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professor Ishizawa spent two years as a post-doctoral research associate at the Minnesota Population Center (MPC) at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests are in the areas of social and family demography, immigration, sociology of language, and urban sociology. Her research focuses on the understanding of how immigrants integrate into American society. In particular, her work emphasizes the influence of context, such as family and neighborhood, on the process of integration. She has published work that examines many aspects of immigrant integration, including minority language maintenance, civic participation, health, sequence of migration within family units, intermarriage, and residential settlement patterns among minority language speakers. In addition, she conducts research on another immigrant destination country, New Zealand. Her work focuses on residential segregation and patterns of ethnic neighborhoods among recent immigrant groups and the indigenous Maori population. Additionally, her research project examines life satisfaction among immigrants in Japan.
Dr. Phyllis Ryder
Deputy Director of the Writing Center, Associate Professor of Writing
University Writing Program
Through both scholarship and teaching, Phyllis Ryder investigates what it means to write for social change, focusing particularly on what mindsets and material conditions are necessary for truly transformative university-community partnerships. She collaborates with DC nonprofit leaders, former students, and librarians on much of her research. Her 2011 book, Rhetorics for Community Action, offers a theory for conceptualizing public writing in democracy as well as practical guidance for developing first-year writing classes with a service-learning focus. Her work has been published in Rhetoric Review, JAC, Reflections, and Community Literacy Journal, among others.
Dr. Imani Cheers
Associate Professor of Media and Public Affairs
Media and Public Affairs
Imani M. Cheers is an associate professor of digital storytelling and the Interim Senior Associate Provost for the Undergraduate Education Office of the Provost. She is also the Director of Academic Adventures for Planet Forward. Dr. Cheers received her B.F.A from Washington University in St. Louis an M.A. in African Studies and a Ph.D. in mass communication and media studies from Howard University. Dr. Cheers is an award-winning digital storyteller, director, producer, and filmmaker. As a professor of practice, she uses a variety of mediums including video, photography, television, and film to document and discuss issues impacting and involving people of the African Diaspora. Her scholarly focus is on the intersection of women/girls, technology, health, conflict, agriculture, and the effects of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Cheers is also an expert on diversity in Hollywood, specifically the representation of Black women in television and film. She is the author of The Evolution of Black Women in Television: Mammies, Matriarchs, and Mistresses (Routledge/Taylor & Francis, 2017). Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation and the International Reporting Project. Dr. Cheers is also a regular contributor to international outlets including BBC, CGTN America, and CTN Canada, offering insight into American race relations and popular culture. In 2017, she was awarded GW’s Graduate Mentoring Award and in 2019 the Staub Excellence in Teaching Award.
Dr Jameta Barlow
Assistant Professor of Writing and Health Policy Management
Undergraduate Advisor for the Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Assistant Professor of Writing and Health Policy Management
Jameta Nicole Barlow, PhD, MPH, a Charlottesville, Virginia native, is a community health psychologist and an assistant professor of writing at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. Dr. Barlow utilizes decolonizing methodologies to disrupt intergenerational trauma, chronic health diseases, and structural policies adversely affecting Black girls' and women's health. She has spent nearly 22 years in transdisciplinary collaborations with physicians, public health practitioners, researchers, policy administrators, activists, political appointees, and community members in diverse settings. Dr. Barlow holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in English from Spelman College, a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Maternal and Child Health from George Washington University, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Psychology from North Carolina State University. Certified as an Emotional Emancipation Circle Facilitator, Dr. Barlow is a 2015 AcademyHealth/Aetna Foundation Scholar in Residence Fellow and a 2016 RAND Faculty Leaders Fellow in Policy Research and Analysis. Her writings on Black girls and women's health, intersectionality, and restorative health practices in psychology and public health research appear in various publications. Her most recent work, the Saving Our Sisters Project (www.savingoursistersproject.com), is focused on Black women's mental health and well-being.
Dr Jordan Potash
Associate Professor of Art Therapy
Art Therapy
Jordan S. Potash, Ph.D., ATR-BC, REAT, LPCAT (MD) is a registered, board-certified, and licensed art therapist, as well as, a registered expressive arts therapist. He has worked with clients of all ages in schools, clinics, and community art studios in the U.S. and Hong Kong. Jordan is primarily interested in the applications of art and art therapy in community development and social change, with an emphasis on reducing stigma, confronting discrimination, and promoting cross-cultural relationships. He also advocates for a broad approach to art therapy that increases client access to services by focusing on therapy, prevention, and wellness applications. Jordan is an active member of the American Art Therapy Association; he is the current Editor in Chief of Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association and past chairperson of both the Multicultural and Ethics Committee. While living in Hong Kong for 8 years, Jordan co-founded the Masters of Expressive Arts Therapy at The University of Hong Kong, the first degree of its kind in Asia. In addition, he taught and led workshops in China, Thailand, Korea, and Israel.
Dr Manuel Cuellar
Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Literatures and Cultures
Romance, German & Slavic Languages
Manuel R. Cuellar focuses on Mexican literary and cultural studies with an emphasis on race, gender, and sexuality. He holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. His research engages questions of performance, especially as they concern dance, indigeneity, and Afro-mestizo imaginaries in Mexico, combining ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, and studies of contemporary and classical Nahuatl, Mexico’s most widely spoken and written Indigenous language. Another area of related interest, reflected explicitly in his teaching and ongoing research, is US Latina/o/x Studies with a focus on community-engaged learning.
Dr Michelle Kelso
Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs
Sociology: Human Services and Social Justice
Professor Kelso’s research focuses primarily on the fate of the Roma during the Holocaust in Romania. Social justice and the exploration of (in)equalities are the foundations of her research. She is particularly interested in the intersection of memory, marginalization, and contemporary education policy. Recently, Dr. Kelso has also begun exploring gender in the workplace as well as EU migration. With a strong belief in public sociology, Dr. Kelso integrates her scholarship with public discussions and policy programming. In 2017, she began a research project focusing on memory and commemoration of the Holocaust in post-Soviet spaces with a concentration on Ukraine. Dr. Kelso has extensive international experience both as a researcher and consultant. She consulted for the Council of Europe, USAID, non-profits, Holocaust compensation programs, as well as the Romanian government. She has been the recipient of several prestigious national awards, including a Fulbright Core Fellowship to Romania in 2016-17, and two prior Fulbrights in 2004 and 1994. Dr. Kelso was a Charles H. Revson Foundation Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009, where she researched the Romani experience in Romanian-run camps in the occupied Soviet Union during WWII. She speaks Romanian and French, and has studied Romani, Spanish, and is beginning Russian.
Dr Tara Scully
Director of the Sustainability Minor Degree Program; Co-Director of Sustainability Initiatives; Teaching Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Biological Sciences
Tara A. Scully is the Director of the Sustainability Minor Program and an Assistant Professor of Biology at the George Washington University. At GW, she regularly teaches introductory biology and sustainability courses and laboratories to non-science majors. She teaches seven different courses, four in biology for non-science majors which are lab and service-based, and three signature courses in the sustainability program. The Biology of Nutrition and Health; The Ecology and Evolution of Organisms; Food, Nutrition, and Service; Understanding Organisms through Service Learning; Introduction to Sustainability; Culminating Experience in Sustainability, and World on a Plate by Chef José Andrés. Dr. Scully received her MS, specializing in forensic science research with a concentration on fiber evidence, and a Ph.D. with a research focus on developmental biology from George Washington University. She has authored many research articles along with the book: Discovering Biology in the Lab: An Introductory Laboratory Manual as well as Why We Eat Food. Dr. Scully works with many different DMV area community partners on topics ranging from nutrition to invasive species. Her service and instructional work have resulted in her being awarded the university-wide Faculty Engagement Award 2016 from the Honey W. Nashman Center for Civic Engagement and Public Service and the 2019 Morton Bender Teaching Award.