BSOS Professors — ‘They’re Just Like Us!’

BSOS faculty and staff don’t just pore over research papers and PowerPoint presentations. In their free time, our community members pursue interests and passions that might surprise their students and colleagues.

They Enjoy the Great Outdoors!

Evan Ellicott, GEOG Associate Research Professor

Ellicott is a firefighter type 2 with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Forest Service Wildland Fire Crew. Through a Cooperative Agreement with the USDA Forest Service, he and his fellow crew members volunteer to deploy to different parts of the country to fight wildfires from late June-early September, though he says, “I've learned a bit about structure fires since the interface is often crossed.”

Ellicott got started as a volunteer firefighter while attending the University of Albany in upstate New York, where the nearby Albany Pine Bush ecosystem relies on periodic planned or “prescribed” fires to maintain the system's health. He started studying the ecosystem and—after taking several courses and a physical fitness test—volunteering to put out the prescribed fires nearly 30 years ago.

Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development  
Kathryn Hopps, Former BSOS Program Director for Experiential Learning

Telhami and Hopps are a husband and wife duo who apply their extracurricular talents to their 1940s Silver Spring home’s one-acre garden. Telhami enjoys designing the layout and hardscape features of their garden, while Hopps enjoys selecting, planting, and maintaining the variety of flora that resides there.

More than half of the garden is groomed with increasingly native species of plants, and there is minimal lawn. The paths and patios are made with flagstone, and the stairs and walls separating the different tiers of the garden are made of local Carderock stone to match the stone walls of the house, which Telhami also enjoyed expanding and redesigning from the inside out after the couple bought the home in 1997.

“Since I work on very stressful issues, the garden and the design provide essential meditative refuge. And thanks to Kathryn’s green thumb and relentless maintenance, there is always something to appeal to the senses, whatever the season,” Telhami says.

They Learn New Things!

Joseph Richardson, Professor of African-American Studies, Medical Anthropology and Epidemiology

Richardson, who also co-directs the University of Maryland’s Prevent Gun Violence: Research, Empowerment, Strategies & Solutions (PROGRESS) Initiative, uses some of his free time to be a student again—this time to study winemaking.

Richardson says he always had an interest in wine and winemaking, and that that interest really grew the more he and his wife, a chef, visited vineyards together. He started taking classes on winemaking at Northern Virginia Community College’s Sterling campus in 2017, where he commuted to from his Charles County, Md. home until Covid halted classes. Later, he decided to commute even farther to take Saturday classes at Piedmont Virginia Community College so he could ultimately work toward their winemaking certification. He’s already taken classes on canopy management and spraying, and earlier this year started another class on soil prep and planting.

“The ultimate dream is to have my own wine label,” Richardson says.

They Stay Active!

GVPT Professors Kathleen Cunningham and Sarah Croco

Cunningham and Croco work out, together. The pair, who knew each other in graduate school because they had the same research interests, became close friends when Cunningham joined Croco in working at UMD—so much so that when Croco first attended Kensington, Maryland’s Black Belt Martial Arts Center (BBMAC), she told Cunningham she should join her soon after.

That was almost eight years ago. Today, Cunningham and Croco both have their black belts. “I don't think either one of us ever saw a black belt in our future, but we put in the time and earned them together. That was a great feeling,” says Croco.

Both professors still go to BBMAC to train for one hour, three times per week. Cunningham is currently learning the Muay Thai style of kickboxing, and Croco is giving crossfit a try.

Stephen Brighton, ANTH Associate Professor

Brighton competes in ice hockey tournaments and plays roughly one game per week during the regular season with 25-65-year-old men from Maryland and Northern Virginia. He played recreational hockey growing up in Northeast New Jersey, and started playing again as an adult when he met other hockey dads during his son’s time playing with the Howard County Huskies.

Brighton currently competes as a forward on the team he co-founded in 2018, the “Lagerheads,” at the Piney Orchard Ice Arena in Odenton, Maryland and at The Gardens Ice House in Laurel, Maryland. The team’s name is appropriate considering each team in the league typically assigns a person to bring in beer for all the players so that they can “stay hydrated” after the game.

“The beer afterwards is good, but the time we spend together is better,” he says.

They Make Music!

Ralph Dubayah, GEOG Professor 
Mary Shelley, BSOS Director of Research Data Science

Dubayah plays a stringed instrument you may have never heard of before: the hurdy gurdy gurdy, or in French, a wheeled violin (vielle à roux). The hurdy gurdy was a popular instrument in 13th-16th century folk music—Dubayah’s favorite kind of music to listen to, and perform with his band, Tower Green (towergreenband.com).

Tower Green was co-founded by Dubayah and Shelley—his wife, who plays the bass and the recorder—in 2010. Originally, the band used electric instruments and recorded a few electric albums, Mirth and Play and Noontide, both available on Apple Music.

In 2020, Tower Green became an entirely acoustic band. Their acoustic albums, Tudor Masque and Faire Play, are available upon request, or at one of their in-person performances at venues across the Mid-Atlantic such as the New Deal Café in Greenbelt, Maryland Meadworks in Hyattsville, the Virginia Renaissance Faire, and the Maryland Renaissance Festival, among others.

“It’s so much fun to play together at faires,” says Dubayah about performing with Shelley. “We like to joke that the band has been our marital project for many years now.”

John Shea, ECON Associate Professor

Shea plays the alto saxophone in a jazz sextet called the Chalice Messengers, who play dixieland, swing, bop, fusion, and Latin jazz—plus the blues and R+B—and give two or three concerts per year.

Where Shea devotes even more of his time to music is as an entirely virtual indie rock performer under the name “Unca John,” which is what his nephew used to call him. Shea writes his own songs and the arrangements, fills in all of the vocals, plays the saxophone and the drums, does all of recording and mixing himself, and uses a synthesizer program to add in guitar and keyboard sounds as needed.

Shea has released one Unca John album, "Midlife Crisis Vanity Project," which is available on  Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services, as well as on Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

“I hear musical ideas in my head all the time. I love that I am able to write these down, work them up into compositions and then share them with the world,” says Shea

Amelia Branigan, SOCY Assistant Professor

Branigan started playing the flute when she was 10, but it wasn’t until she started playing the Irish tin whistle in high school and, eventually, the Irish flute in college, that she discovered her beloved pastime.

Mick Moloney, a renowned Irish musician and folklorist who was teaching a class on Celtic music during Branigan’s undergraduate years, sparked Branigan’s interest in Irish music and its distinct culture, in which music is traditionally played in casual “sessions” in bars and homes versus on a stage.

Today, Branigan plays in sessions in the DMV area, and occasionally in sessions when she is in new cities for conferences or research collaborations.

“One can find Irish music sessions in many different cities across many different countries, and it’s a fun way to meet people in new places,” she says.

Joseph Barnet, PSYC Lecturer

Barnet is a guitarist for the DMV-based rock/pop band Shrimpin’ with the Grits. Though Barnet has played guitar for the last 20 years and grew up with the band’s bass player, the band didn’t officially establish until spring 2024—not long after Barnet told his friend that he would be returning to the area for his current position at UMD.

The band plays a wide variety of music, and covers artists including Tom Petty, the Beatles, Blondie, Ellie Goulding, and Olivia Rodrigo. They practice around once per week, and perform at venues like Black Ankle Vineyard in Mount Airy, Hank Dietle's in Rockville, Creek Lodge Bar and Grill in Rockville, and Java Nation in Rockville, Maryland.

“I kept playing guitar throughout graduate school and into my first academic position at another college, but I did not collaborate with other musicians,” says Barnet. “It's amazing to be able to play music with other people who share the same desire and passion for their instruments.”

Collage by Tom Bacho

Published on Tue, May 27, 2025 - 11:46AM