OFE Advisory Board

Kathleen Kelley is an Associate Professor of Dance and Technology whose creative research explores collaboration, mutual support structures, and feminist/queer modes of community. She is interested in the effects of technological enmeshment on the body, which leads her to create dance films, interactive installations, and live performance events that incorporate digital media. She is a 2019 Gibney Work Up resident artist, a Chez Bushwick Artist in Residence in 2018, and a 2015-2016 LEIMAY Fellow whose creative work has premiered in performance venues across New York and through video platforms such as NPR First Look. She serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Dance Education in Process, and mentors fellow artists in writing, production, and film development. She received an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BFA in Dance and BA in Psychology from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, where she was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2019.

Yolanda Alvarez is an Associate Dean of Students at Montclair State University. She holds an MA in Mental Health and Counseling from New York University and an MA in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University. She began her career at Montclair State in 2015 supporting enrollment management and student affairs functions for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences; she is currently managing a variety of functions within the Office of the Dean of Students. Yolanda has 20+ years of experience designing and implementing student development offerings that impact many and are critical to maintaining a thriving inclusive campus culture.

Dr. Jessica Bacon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Montclair State University, where she teaches classes on inclusive education and disability studies. Dr. Bacon received her Ph.D. in Special Education from Syracuse University in 2012. Dr. Bacon’s recent publications have investigated the impact of educational policy and standards-based reform movement on inclusive education, embedding disability studies in the K-12 curricula, and post-secondary inclusive programming for students with intellectual and developmental disability labels. She has integrated her research and service commitments by collaborating with community members who are parent-advocates, self-advocates, teachers, and students with disabilities in order to advocate for the inclusion of people with disabilities within schooling and community systems.

Danné E. Davis earned her Ph.D. from Boston College. With a concentration in curriculum and instruction, she is an associate professor of elementary education in Montclair’s Teaching and Learning department. Dr. Davis has published and presented various papers about diversity in teacher education. Currently, she is under contract with Cognella Publishing to write Disrupting Social Studies: Stories and Strategies for Classrooms. An LGBTQ+ ally, she conducts research and workshops on the integration of LGBTQ children’s literature in elementary contexts. Dr. Davis is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Association for Multicultural Education 2011 G. Pritchy Smith Multicultural Educator of the Year, 2012 Distinguished Faculty awardee for Excellence in Teacher Preparation from the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education and the NJ Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, and 2013 Faculty/Staff LGBTQ Ally of the Year. Dr. Davis is a creative who embraces lifelong learning.

Elaine Gerber is a medical anthropologist and disability studies scholar, and a former president of the Society for Disability Studies.  Prior to joining the Montclair faculty, she served for five years as the Senior Research Associate for the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) and taught in the graduate program in Disability Studies at the City University of New York. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and her B.A. from the University of Michigan. Her work examines the intersection between culture and the body.There are theoretical contributions and practical applications to her work.

Yanick Joseph, RN, MPA, MSN, Ed. D is an experienced leader in healthcare management with 30+ years in health care management and over 12 years in nursing education. My perspective of teaching is grounded in the constructivist framework of learning, the classroom dynamics I employ permit dialogue, self-direction, and inquiry which foster a higher degree of student engagement. I embrace instructional technology that can be used to authenticate the promotion of scholarship. I teach in the School of Nursing at the graduate and undergraduate levels. My area of research is in implicit bias in student nurses and my passion is in experiential learning and simulation. My signature strengths include: a vibrant, collaborative, ethical leader with exceptional communication and problem-solving skills, with the ability to engage and mentor students and high-performance teams. My clinical expertise lies in the introduction of nursing care principles and health assessment, women’s health, leadership, policy, team building/ coaching/ mentoring, and innovative customer relationship management.

Dr. Kirk McDermid is the Chairperson for the Department of Philosophy and was previously Chair of the General Education Committee. He has served on the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, the Institutional Review Board, the Committee on University Effectiveness, and on the Executive Board of the University Senate. He received his BSc at the University of British Columbia, his MSc at the University of London, and his PhD at the University of Western Ontario. He is trained in analytic philosophy, specializing in philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics. He regularly teaches the Gen Ed logic/critical thinking course that the university offers.

Dr. Ram B. Misra is Professor of Management and Information Systems in the School of Business. He earned an Executive MBA (Beta Gamma Sigma) from the Columbia School of Business and received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Texas A&M University. Prior to joining Montclair State University, Dr. Misra was an Executive Director at Telcordia Technologies (formerly Bell Communications Research). He has over 20 years of telecom industry experience that spans Bell Labs, and Bell Communications Research. He also has previous teaching experience as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University and the University of Houston.

Dr. Marylou Naumoff is part of the Communication and Media Studies faculty in the School of Communication and Media. She serves as the Coordinator of the Fundamentals of Speech Program and supervises the Public Speaking Resource Center. Her specialization is rhetorical studies.  Dr. Naumoff’s research focuses on American identity at the intersection of race and gender. Much of her work examines popular culture as a site of national discourse where citizens look to understand and construct American identity. She is currently working on a book manuscript that examines the impact of hip hop on American masculinity and national identity.