Bonne August, Ph.D., Provost, New York City College of Technology, Principal Investigator

Dr. Bonne August has served as provost and vice president for academic affairs at New York City College of Technology (City Tech) of The City University of New York (CUNY) since September 2006, having served as acting provost since February 2005. Previously, she was chair of the English Department and professor of English at Kingsborough Community College/CUNY, where she had been on the faculty since 1982. As the chief academic officer of the College, she oversees faculty members in 30 academic departments, providing guidance for the curricular and instructional development of City Tech's schools of Arts & Science, Professional Studies, and Technology & Design, as well as the Division of Continuing Education. Her professional interests and publications include work on poetry, women writers, writing assessment, portfolio assessment, and faculty development. Dr. August's most recent publication is a co-edited 2004 collection, titled Facilitating Collaboration: Issues in High School/College Professional Development. Other professional activities have included co-editing the Journal of Basic Writing and serving on the National Council of Teachers of English Standing Committee on Testing and Assessment, and the board of the Conference on Basic Writing. A member of the Executive Committee of the Association of Departments of English from 2006-2008, Dr. August served as its president for 2008. She co-chairs the Task Force to review and revise the New York State Standards in English Language Arts. Dr. August holds the Bachelor of Arts degree in English from D'Youville College in Buffalo, New York and received her MA and doctoral degrees in English and American Literature from New York University.

 

Pamela Brown, Ph.D., P.E, Dean of Arts and Sciences, Co-PI

Dean Brown is a chemical engineer, senior faculty member, and college administrator deeply committed to improving the lives of City Tech students and faculty. She is currently the PI of NSF Proposal # 0622493 titled Metropolitan Mentors: (MMNet): Growing an Urban STEM Talent Pool across New York City, 1/07-12/11 through which she has built an extensive professional network in STEM that includes opportunities for both students and faculty to do research across CUNY. This project includes development of interdisciplinary summer bridge courses for engineering technology and science students, undergraduate research opportunities, and mentoring by City Tech alumni STEM graduate students from across CUNY. Dean Brown has been the PI on six PSC-CUNY grants, an NSF WPA Workshop Chemistry dissemination grant, five American Chemical Society SEED grants as well as Project Director on three NYS Dept. of Education Perkins VTEA grants in 2005-6. As Co-PI, Dean Brown provides a leadership role in the sharing of qualitative and quantitative outcomes with City Tech faculty, chairs, and senior staff.

 

Delaram Kahrobaei, Ph.D., Co-Pl, Assistant Professor in Mathematics at City Tech

Kahrobaei completed her Ph.D. in Mathematics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Master's in Computer Science at CCNY, and Master's in Applied Mathematics at Claremont Colleges. Her research interests are in the areas of infinite combinatorial and geometric group theory with applications in theoretical computer science. Her work is attracting strong international interest and many invited talks. She has been appointed to the Doctoral faculty in Computer Science program at the CUNY Graduate Center since May 2008. She is in the editorial board of International Journal of computer science and mathematics and also the director of the center of Logic, Algebra and Computation . In Spring 2008, Dr. Kahrobaei and her colleague and Co-PI, Dr. Victoria Gitman, organized and presented the Second Annual New York Conference on Women in Mathematics, funded by NSF (see http://nywimn.net).
Link to her website : http://websupport1.citytech.cuny.edu/Faculty/dkahrobaei/

 

Victoria Gitman, Ph.D., Co-PI, Assistant Professor in Mathematics at City Tech

Gitman's research interests are mathematical logic, set theory, and models of arithmetic and computability theory. Along with Dr. Kahrobaei, Gitman is co-founder of the New York Women in Mathematics Network, aimed at promoting the participation of women in mathematics by establishing close ties between women mathematicians, encouraging cooperation in research, and supporting the next generation of women students in mathematics.

 

A.E.Dreyfuss, Project Manager for the ADVANCE-IT-CATAYLYST Grant

A.E. Dreyfuss is the Project Manager for the ADVANCE IT-CATALYST grant at the New York City College of Technology. She has extensive experience as a Project Manager on grant-funded projects, at City Tech, The City College of New York, and other CUNY campuses. She is also a Learning Specialist who trains the Peer Leaders who work with the Peer-Assisted Learning project at City Tech which is being piloted in Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and English courses. She has a Master's in Adult Learning from Teachers College, Columbia University, and is completing her doctorate.

 

Dr. Maria Pagano, Associate Professor of Psychology

Dr. Maria Pagano, an Associate Professor of Psychology, is a graduate of the City University of New York Graduate Center, and has an extensive background in empirical research; Dr. Pagano's research focused on the effects of visual blur on infant pattern preference behavior. She has collaborated with Dr. Marie Parnes for over 5 years and they have received funding to conduct quantitative research on the applications of the Learning and Studies Strategies to college students in need of remedial assistance in reading, writing, and mathematics. This research has led to several Association for Psychological Science presentations of their findings. Her preliminary data collection and analysis provided the cornerstone for the descriptive analysis of the IT-Catalyst grant proposal. Currently, Dr. Pagano and Dr. Parnes both oversee the administration of the Tenure-Track Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey at City Tech and will analyze and interpret the resulting data provided by COACHE. In the future, she will be responsible for the methods and analysis section of the IT-PAID grant application.

 

Dr. Marie Parnes, Associate Professor of Psychology in the Social Science Department

Dr. Marie Parnes is an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Social Science Department. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology / Learning Processes from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Parnes has an extensive background in empirical research. While completing her doctoral degree, she did research in the area of imitation and its relation to infant language acquisition. For the past five years, Dr. Parnes and her colleague Dr. Maria Pagano, have worked together and received funding to conduct quantitative research on the applications of the Learning and Studies Strategies Inventory to college students in need of remedial assistance in reading, writing, and mathematics. This research has led to several Association for Psychological Science presentations of their findings. Currently, they oversee the administration of the Tenure-Track Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey at City Tech and will analyze and interpret the resulting data provided by COACHE. They will also work together to gather and interpret institutional data obtained from City Tech's Office of Human Resources and from the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. In the future, they will be responsible for the methods and analysis section of the IT-PAID grant application.

 

Dr. Reginald Blake, Professor of Geophysics and director of the Black Male Initiative and liaison to NSF MRI activities

Dr. Reginald Blake serves on the Internal Advisory Board and is a liaison with Dr. Benjamin Flores at the University of Texas at El Paso, who serves on the IT START Advisory Board.

 

Dr. Janet Liou-Mark, Professor of Mathematics, Co-PI on the U.S. Department of Education Transfer of Learning from Physics and Mathematics to Engineering Studies

Dr. Janet Liou-Mark has connections to women's initiatives within the college and beyond. She recently founded Women in STEM, an interest group that includes both women students and faculty, and directs the college-wide Honors Program. She keeps these wider audiences apprised of project developments.

 

External Advisory Board

This board is comprised of individuals with broad experience and impressive qualifications in STEM research and gender issues. It includes Dr. Vita Rabinowitz, Provost and Vice President at Hunter College and Co-PI of Hunter's Gender Equity Project, Dr. Louise Hainline, Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, Brooklyn College, Dr. Benjamin Flores, Model Institutions of Excellence program director, University of Texas at El Paso, and Dr. Gillian Small, University Dean for Research, CUNY.

Internal Advisory Board

This board, also serving in an advisory capacity, is comprised of Ms. Gilen Chan, college attorney and AAO and a professional engineer by training, Dr. Janet Liou Mark and Dr. Reginald Blake, described above, and the Director of Institutional Research. They will monitor all project activities for compliance with program purpose and communicate to their constituencies the progress of the IT START project.