College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

Faculty and Staff

Visit our department pages below for listings and profile information on CAHSS faculty and staff.

CAHSS Faculty & Staff News

Have news to share?  We want to hear from you!  Complete this brief form:  https://bit.ly/cahssfsnews

CAHSS faculty and staff highlights submitted for 2023/24 include:

  • Carlos Tottress, Lecturer in Performing & Visual Arts (Music Discipline) is scheduled to receive an alumni award at the 2024 All Black Gala to be held February 25, 2024.
  • Hector Dionicio Mendoza, Associate Professor in Performing & Visual Arts (Visual & Public Art Discipline), recently had his 2021 piece "Familia Universal" (Universal Family) acquired by the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA.
  • Judy Cortés, lecturer in World Languages & Cultures, recently published "Introduction to Educational Interpreting and Translation." 
  • Rachelle Escamilla, lecturer in Humanities & Communication, was named the 2024-2025 Monterey County Poet Laureate.
  • Michelle Lewis, lecturer in Social Sciences and Global Studies, recently published her first book of cartoons, "Finding Joy: Love, Loss, and Laughter." 
  • Chris Carpenter, Cinematic Arts & Technology Media Production Specialist and lecturer, was recently selected for Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship award by the Television Academy Foundation in Hollywood. The foundation is the charitable arm of one of the organizations that produces the Emmy Awards and the Alex Trebek Fellowship award aims to support educators at minority-serving institutions.  

    Carpenter is one of just 12 professors selected from colleges and universities nationwide for the fellowship. He attended the Television Academy Foundation’s 2023 Media Educators Conference Oct. 25-27 in Los Angeles alongside his fellow recipients. 

  • Congratulations to the CAHSS 2023 UROC Mentor of the Year Nominees:  Danielle Burchett, Associate Professor, Psychology; Zurine DeMiguel, Assistant Professor, Psychology; Jennifer Dyer-Seymour, Professor, Psychology; Jennifer Lovell, Associate Professor, Psychology; Tim Orme, Assistant Professor, Cinematic Arts & Technology; Renee Penalver, Assistant Professor, Psychology; Christine Rosales, Assistant Professor, Psychology; Shannon Snapp, Associate Professor, Psychology, and Jill Yamashita, Professor, Psychology.
  • The CSUMB/Monterey Jazz Festival Partnership was featured on KSBW September 19 6 pm broadcast.
  • Enid Ryce, Professor, Cinematic Arts & Technology, was named Best College Professor in the Monterey County Weekly's 2023 "Best Of" edition.

Honoring Staff & Faculty Years of Service-2024

Congratulations to CAHSS staff and faculty celebrating service awards in 2024:

  • 25 Years
    • Juan Jose Gutierrez, Social Sciences & Global Studies
  • 20 Years
    • Stacey Malone, World Languages & Cultures
  • 15 Years
    • Mrinal Sinha, Psychology
  • 10 Years
    • Marco Barbosa, World Languages & Cultures
    • Patrick Belanger, Humanities & Communication
    • Christiana Graham, Humanities & Communication
    • Kristen LaFollette, Humanities & Communication, Performing & Visual Arts
    • Jennifer Lucido, Social Sciences & Global Sudies
    • Jay Luke, Psychology
    • Carlos Tottress, Performing & Visual Arts
  • 5 Years
    • Sara Cisneros, World Languages & Cultures
    • Rachelle Escamilla, Humanities & Communication
    • Christine Fernandez, World Languages & Cultures
    • Matthew Floriani, Performing & Visual Arts
    • Bryan Holbrook, Psychology
    • John Klein, Social Sciences & Global Studies
    • Kelly Medina-Lopez, Humanities & Communication
    • Araceli Mejia, Psychology
    • Adrienn Mendonca-Jones, Humanities & Communication
    • Nicholas Mullins, Humanities & Communication
    • Phuong Nguyen, Humanities & Communication
    • Ryoko Ohnishi, World Languages & Cultures
    • An Pham, World Languages & Cultures
    • Rebecca Pozzi, World Languages & Cultures
    • Amanda Pullum, Social Sciences & Global Studies
    • Laurel Recker, Humanities & Communication
    • Frederik Vermote, Social Sciences & Global Studies
    • Dustin Wright, World Languages & Cultures

Employees received their pins and recognition at the annual Staff and Faculty Appreciation Breakfast held at the University Center January 17, 2024.

Congratulations to President's Award Nominees

Congratulations to Danielle Burchett, Justin Matthews, and Sara Salazar-Hughes, who were among the faculty nominees for the 2023/24 President's Award.  CAHSS extends a big congratulations to the Faculty Award Winner Danielle Burchett!

Honoring Staff & Faculty Years of Service-2023

Congratulations to CAHSS staff and faculty celebrating service awards in 2023:

  • 20 Years
    • Stacey Malone, World Languages & Cultures
    • Wendy Rutledge, Humanities & Communication
    • Ernie Stromberg, Humanities & Communication
  • 15 Years
    • Angelica Muro
  • 10 Years
    • Ajit Abraham, Humanities & Communication
    • Olivia Davalos Walle, Humanities & Communication
    • Kyle Livie, Humanities & Communication
    • Lanier Sammons, Music & Performing Arts
  • 5 Years
    • Jacques Beval, Social, Behavioral & Global Studies

Employees received their pins and recognition at the annual Staff and Faculty Appreciation Breakfast held at the University Center January 18, 2023.

Congratulations to President's Award Nominees

Congratulations to Armando Arias, Justin Matthews, and Sara Salazar-Hughes, who were among the faculty nominees for the 2022 President's Award.  CAHSS extends a big congratulations to the Faculty Award Winner Armando Arias!

CAHSS Faculty & Staff News

Have news to share?  We want to hear from you!  Complete this brief form:  https://bit.ly/cahssfsnews

CAHSS faculty and staff highlights submitted for 2022/23 include:

  • CAHSS Dean Juanita Cole received the 2022 Cavanaugh Award for Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA).  In the Awards for Outstanding Administrative Leadership in Higher Education category, the Cavanaugh Award for Leadership in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is named for two long-time AAUA members, academic leaders, and nationally-recognized advocates for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Christine K. Cavanaugh and John C. Cavanaugh. The award recognizes innovative and extraordinarily effective higher education administrative leadership in policy, programming, hiring, or mentorship to create and maintain institutional cultures of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

  • Chris Carpenter, Cinematic Arts & Technology Media Production Specialist and lecturer, was recently elected to the Board of Directors for the Monterey County Film Commission.
  • After a two-year successful film festival run, fulcrum, an award-winning short animated film by Timothy David Orme, Cinematic Arts & Technology Assistant Professor of Animation and SFX, was released online February 22, 2023, with a write-up on Short of the Week by Jason Sondhi, who called the short expansive in meaning, modest, meditative, yet suffused with wonder.  The 8-minute experimental short features sound design by Music & Performing Arts Associate Professor of Recording & Technology Lanier Sammons.   

    The film won a prestigious Jury Award at the 2022 Thomas Edison Film Festival, and was referred to by the programmer, Jane Steuerwald, as a "master film."  The film then went on to win awards at numerous other festivals, including Best Animation awards at the Dam Film Festival, the Arizona International Film Festival, and Liverpool Underground.  

    Direct link to film: https://vimeo.com/801009844
    Link to write-up by Short of the Week: Fulcrum by Timothy David Orme |
    Experimental Short Film (shortoftheweek.com):  https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2023/02/22/fulcrum/

  • HCOM Professor David A. Reichard will participate in a webinar conversation with lawyers and judges who came out in the 1970s and advocated for equal rights for LGBT people. The panel will also feature a discussion of nonbinary, transgender, and people of color who are continuing the legacy of LGBTQ+ activism in today's law schools. The event is sponsored by the Spectrum Institute and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, and will be held October 11. To learn more about the project, visit https://lgbtlegalhistory.com/.  August 18, 2022
  • Patrick Belanger, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, HCOM, recently published a journal article on local California condors and local environmental NGOs.  Read the article on MDPI's journalism and media journal.     
  • Congratulations to HCOM Assistant Professor Daniel Summerhill on being chosen for a 2022-2023 Baldwin For The Arts Residency.  The fellowship consists of exclusive use of a private studio and all accommodations on a four-acre retreat located 60 miles north of New York City, a safe and nurturing space  to create system-changing work, and gather with other Global Majority Artists who are writing, composing and creating visual work.  
  • The Monterey Weekly/Monterey NOW featured an article on electronic dance music (EDM) solo debut track, "Secant," by Lanier Sammons, Music & Performing Arts Associate Professor, including a link to the music video, a collaboration with Tim Orme Cinematic Arts & Technology Assistant Professor.  Article here from the Monterey Weekly/Monterey County NOW:  https://bit.ly/mwelectronicdance

  • SBGS Professor of Political Economy Angie Tran was the featured local author in the Monterey Herald Things to Do-Books section for her latest book, “Ethnic Dissent and Empowerment.”
  • SBGS Assistant Professor Chrissy Lau published a new book entitled "New Women of Empire: Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America" with the University of Washington Press in the Summer of 2022
  • SBGS Professor Angie Tran and Lecturer Lorenzo Covarrubias were awarded a Russell Sage Foundation Grant in the amount of $50,000 for their research on H-2A Mexican Agricultural Guestworkers.
  • Congratulations to Dr. David Vila Diéguez. A special issue of ALCESXXI, Journal of Contemporary Spanish Literature & Film, edited by Dr. David Vila Diéguez, focusing on Music and Social Movements in Spain has just been published: https://alcesxxi.org/revista4/mobile/index.html Their article is entitled: ¿Vuelta a las trincheras?: El declive del estilo en la música como elemento de movilización política.

  • Dr. Stephanie Anne Johnson, Professor, VPA, continues her theatre lighting design work with Shotgun Players, Aurora Theatre, and Altarena Theatre. She has been interviewed for KPFA radio for her 40 + year career as designer and artist.
  • Dr. Stephanie Anne Johnson, Professor, VPA, has been appointed to the Bayer West Berkeley Fund Grant Committee representing the West Berkeley community and The City of Berkeley in the distribution of funds from The Bayer Pharmaceutical Company. 
  • Dr. Stephanie Anne Johnson, Professor, VPA, will have Ancestor's Grove: A Space Journey return October 13-15 with an expanded vision of the work on display in Oakland.  Ancestor’s Grove: A Space Journey was created by African American lighting designers/visual artists/scientists, Stephanie Anne Johnson and Kevin Myrick. It is a creative manifestation of our exploration of outer space, African ancestral practices, and sustainable resources. We have chosen the baobab tree, one of the oldest and tallest organisms on earth whose symbolic and medicinal qualities are a unique part of our African legacy as a totemic object. Ancestor’s Grove: A Space Journey is an Afro Futurist vision of the intersection between legacy, nature, technology, and the bond between humans and the spirit world. They commissioned an artist from South Africa to create the masks that are suspended from the limbs. Ancestor’s Grove: A Space Journey was created specifically for the Lake Merritt Autumn Lights Festival and won an Oakland Parks & Recreation and Youth & Development award in 2021. Sections of the installation were shown in The Art of the African Diaspora satellite exhibition in February, 2022. They return on October 13-15 with an expanded/exploded vision of the work.
  • VPA Associate Professor Hector Dionicio Mendoza's work was recently praised in the November 5 Art Review of The Wall Street Journal.  While a subscription is required to read the article, CSUMB students, faculty and staff may do so for free through the Library portal.
  • WLC hosted 2022 Japanese Language Proficiency Test in CAHSS 504 December 4, 2022.  This is one of only 17 testing locations in the United States.
  • WLC Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Linguistics Dr. Rebecca Pozzi presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) conference at Stanford University. October, 2022.
  • The Monterey Bay World Language Project (MBWLP) recently celebrated 25 years of supporting language and culture learning in the tri-county region with a gathering of past participants and supporters in November at Bayonet & Black Horse Golf Course. Project Director Dr. Yoshiko Saito-Abbott is Professor of Japanese in the School of World Languages and Cultures and currently serves as the Professional Development Director of the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ). 

CAHSS Faculty and Staff 2021/2022 News

Looking for information from 2021/22?  Please click here to visit the archive page.