Meet BSOS' New Teachers and Researchers

The College of Behavioral and Social Sciences is pleased to introduce a few of the talented new faculty members who are joining BSOS classrooms and labs for the 2024–25 academic year. 

Assistant Professor William Witheridge, ECON

William Witheridge is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on macroeconomics, international finance and monetary economics. 

Witheridge is Australian and holds a Ph.D. in Economics from New York University. He previously worked for the OECD Chief Economist and Prime Minister’s Department in the Australian Government. Witheridge is a John Monash Scholar. 

Witheridge will teach a Ph.D. course on Topics in International Finance, and participate in the International Finance Research Workshop for Ph.D. students.

Assistant Professor Cassandra N. Phetmisy, PSYC

Cassandra N. Phetmisy is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland in College Park. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Rice University in 2024. 

Phetmisy's research is centered on the influence of critical contextual (non-work) stressors on employee effectiveness and wellbeing. A core question she answers through research is: “How does stress influence employees’ well-being, goal pursuit, and work experiences?” She focuses on three central topics to address this question: (i) behavioral and psychological effects of financial stress and pay on employees, (ii) psychological processes that influence employee resilience, and (iii) health implications of employee stress.

Phetmisy will teach Industrial-Organizational Psychology (PSYC 361).

Assistant Research Professor Danielle Rappaport, GEOG

Danielle Rappaport is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland. Her research is currently funded by NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), a satellite mission providing global insights into the three-dimensional structure of Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. 
Danielle's research combines expertise in forest ecology, remote sensing, and nature markets to support the development of targets and strategies for ecosystem regeneration. She advances interdisciplinary applications of remote sensing data to study the socio-ecological opportunities, risks, and trade-offs between competing land use priorities. Danielle engages in research that provides decision-support for nature-based solutions by integrating a range of emerging space-borne, air-borne, and in-situ technologies. Her work, primarily focused on the tropics, has pioneered new scientific methodologies for combining optical, lidar, and acoustic data to monitor biodiversity and biomass recovery following human disturbance from fire and logging.

Danielle holds a Masters of Forestry from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Geographical Sciences from the University of Maryland, where she received awards from NSF and NASA for her scholarship.

Assistant Professor Giancarlo Visconti, GVPT

Giancarlo Visconti is an Assistant Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Visconti received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Visconti grew up in the south of Chile and completed undergraduate studies at Universidad Católica de Chile.
Visconti studies comparative political behavior and the political economy of developing countries, particularly in Latin America. Visconti is especially interested in topics related to crime, migration, and political attitudes.

 Visconti's work focuses on using and advancing methods for drawing causal inferences from experimental and observational data.

Visconti's research has been published, or is forthcoming, in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Behavior, and Electoral Studies, among other outlets. Visconti will be teaching courses on causal inference and advanced quantitative methods.

Assistant Professor Daniel Agness, ECON

Daniel Agness is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland. Agness is a development economist whose research focuses on urbanization, agricultural transformation, and social networks in East Africa; he has active projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. Agness received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics in 2024 from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to his Ph.D., Agness worked as a research manager at Innovations for Poverty Action - Kenya and Stanford University. 

Agness will be teaching ECON617: Topics in Development Economics in Spring 2025.

Lecturer Selena R. Price, CCJS

Selena R. Price is a Lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. 

She obtained her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Administration of Justice and Criminal Justice from Pennsylvania State University. She has over 20 years of field experience in the criminal justice field across all facets of the criminal justice system and has over 14 years of teaching experience at five different universities. Her scholarly work includes several articles in the area of corrections published in esteemed journals such as the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research, Advances in Sociology Research, and the Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology. Currently, she is co-authoring a corrections textbook titled “Inside Probation & Parole: Community Corrections for Current & Future Practitioners.” Throughout her career, she has taught 20 different criminal justice courses, with a particular focus on Corrections, Alternatives to Incarceration, Community Corrections, Offenders of Violent Crime, and Policing. Her research interests focus on corrections, specifically the experiences of incarcerated individuals and reentry.

In the fall, Price will be teaching CCJS105: Criminology, CCJS418U: Community Corrections, and CCJS451: Crime & Delinquency Prevention.

Research Assistant Professor Juan Martin Dabezies, GEOG

Juan Martin Dabezies is an environmental anthropologist with an interdisciplinary profile, specializing in the study of human-animal relations, biopolitics, processes of heritage-making, and local ecological knowledge. 

At the University of Maryland, Dabezies works primarily within the TREPA Project, which aims to reduce security risks arising from the intersection of human-wildlife conflict and animal disease, focusing on South Africa and Mozambique. 

Dabezies is also a professor at the University of the Republic, Uruguay, where he leads a study group on human and non-animal relations. Dabezies also works on conservation, biosecurity, and public policy issues in Latin America.  

Assistant Professor Stacey Goebel Kane, HESP

Stacey Goebel Kane is an audiologist and hearing scientist specializing in pediatric auditory skill development. She earned her Au.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014. Kane practiced as a pediatric audiologist at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and as a research audiologist before beginning her Ph.D. coursework at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2018. She completed her Ph.D. in August 2024. 

Kane's research interests include perceptual, linguistic, and developmental factors affecting speech perception in children with hearing loss. 

She will be teaching HESP645: Pediatric Audiology and HESP411: Introduction to Audiology.

Assistant Research Professor Noah Triplett, PSYC

Noah Triplett is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Psychology and member of the Global Mental Health and Addiction Program and CESAR—the Center for Substance Use, Addiction & Health Research. 
He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Washington in 2024 and completed his Doctoral Internship in Clinical & Community Psychology at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Triplett's research applies implementation science and participatory research methodologies to advance health equity. He studies systemic and socioecological contributors to mental health inequities as well as strategies to increase access to evidence-based practices for mental health problems. He is particularly interested in building capacity for local clinical trainers and supervisors, studying how mental health supports can be delivered by non-specialists who are more embedded in the community, and advancing community-engaged and participatory implementation research. 

Triplett will be working within the Global Mental Health and Addiction Program and CESAR on several research projects related to increase access to and quality of mental health care around the globe. Triplett will be supporting trials across South Africa and Maryland, with particular interest in building out my own program of research that examines youth mental health and substance use across both settings.

Assistant Professor Jennifer Myers, HESP

Jennifer Rae Myers, Ph.D., MS, CCC-SLP, is a medical speech-language pathologist and neuropsychologist. With over 15 years of experience, she has worn many hats, including clinician, researcher, mentor, and even digital product manager. Jennifer's work broadly focuses on the use of digital health tools to address cognitive-communication health disparities, reflecting her commitment to advancing health equity within the evolving social landscape.

Myers research focuses on the promotion of digital health literacy and implementation to address cognitive health disparities. Current projects include the development of a culturally-sensitive machine learning-enhanced therapeutic music platform for older adults at risk for Alzheimer's disease, and the utilization of natural language processing to examine psychosocial factors of cognitive and communication health equity. 
Myers will be teaching a course on the Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech Mechanism.

Assistant Professor Ampson Hagan, ANTH

Ampson Hagan is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland, where he teaches courses on global health and humanitarianism. He was a Dean’s Research Associate Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Michigan State University from 2022–2024. Ampson completed his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022. Ampson’s work examines the alignment of humanitarianism with policing in West Africa. Some of Ampson’s work is published and forthcoming in African Studies Review, Transforming Anthropology, Current Anthropology, and
ACME.

In the fall, Hagan will be teaching ANTH265: Anthropology and Global Health. In the spring, Hagan will teach a seminar titled "Politics of Humanitarianism."

Assistant Research Professor Louis M. Wasser, START 

Louis M. Wasser is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Unconventional and Asymmetric Threats Division of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), working in the Geospatial Research Unit. Trained as a political scientist (Ph.D., Yale 2019), Wasser’s doctoral work and related research focused on the intersection of violent conflict, nonviolent resistance, and institutional politics including elections, exploring trade-offs and synergies between these strategies by both center-seeking and secessionist movements. He is currently involved in a number of projects at START, including one on the security implications of climate change and another on the potential malign uses of geospatial technologies. Prior to graduate school,  Wasser worked as a Cairo-based journalist, and he joined START in 2024 after working on migration-related issues as a policy consultant. 

Wasser will be teaching BSST633: Research Methods in Terrorism and Counterterrorism in Spring 2025.

Lecturer David Shar, PSYC

David spent nearly two decades in leadership and management roles, both as a serial entrepreneur and for a fortune 500 company. David is passionate about work, leadership, and the changing role of HR within organizations. 

His role as a scientist/practitioner translator has also taught him that “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” As a speaker, trainer and consultant, David helps organizations integrate evidence-based interventions in a practical way.
David earned his B.S. in Human Resource Management from Colorado State University and his MPS in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland. In addition, he is a Society for Human Resource Management – Senior Certified Professional. 

David is currently pursuing his doctorate in Business Psychology from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology where he is studying the relationship between burnout and meaningful work.
Shar will be teaching courses on Talent Development, Organizational Change, and Practicum for the Industrial/Organizational Psychology MPS program.

Assistant Professor Alejandro (Alex) Flores, GVPT

Flores' research employs a wide range of quantitative/qualitative methods and data sources to examine how people's past experiences with government shape their ability to relate to, access, receive care from, or feel understood by government. Alongside his own scholarly pursuits, Alex will also focus his efforts in collaborative roles with the GVPT Research Lab and the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement to further give nuance to how inclusivity in American politics functions in practice. 

Alex earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Before joining UMD, he was a postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab. He is a first-generation scholar and a former Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow. His investigative advances were made possible by the support of the Social Science Research Council, the School of Humanities, Arts, and the National Science Foundation. This work has appeared in Journal of Political Communication, Public Opinion Quarterly, and has been featured on NPR and Bloomberg News.

Assistant Professor Cady Gonzalez, ANTH

Cady Gonzalez is a cultural anthropologist whose research examines state processes, urban design and environmental change. Her long-term, ethnographic fieldwork explores the relationship between water and waste infrastructure and the politics of urban renewal and beautification in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. She completed her PhD at University of Florida in 2023 and her research has been supported by a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship and Foreign Language and Area Studies grants. 

This spring, she will teach "Introduction to Cultural Anthropology" and "Political Ecology." She is excited to teach future courses on the anthropological study of infrastructure, design, and the relationships between environment, health and society.

Associate Research Professor Nataliia Kussul, GEOG

Nataliia Kussul is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland. She holds a Doctorate in Control Theory and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Institute of Cybernetics in Ukraine. Her expertise lies in remote sensing (both optical and radar), GIS, risk analysis, and machine learning, particularly deep learning for land cover classification, disaster management and agricultural monitoring. 

Kussul has led and participated in numerous high-profile international projects, including NASA's Land Cover/Land Use Change program, the European Space Agency's Sen2Agri and WorldCereals projects, as well as World Bank initiatives on land transparency. She has also been involved in Horizon Europe projects focused on essential variables and Sustainable Development Goals assessment. Her work centers on developing innovative methods for satellite data processing, risk assessment for natural disasters such as floods and droughts, agricultural monitoring, and sustainable development at various scales. 

At UMD, she will contribute to NASA Harvest by focusing on conflict impact assessment and efficient recovery using AI and physics-informed models. Additionally, she will lead projects on land use change and sustainable development modeling.

Assistant Research Scientist Timothy Clancy, START

Timothy Clancy is an Assistant Research Scientist at START specializing in studying wicked mess problems, including violence and instability, as complex systems. For over 30 years Timothy has helped stakeholders in all manner of organizations understand their wicked mess problems and work towards resolving them. This included prior work at IBM where he was the Chief Methodologist of Lean, Six Sigma, and Agile supporting Fortune 50, government, and military clients to navigate their own wicked messes in strategy, business models, and enterprise transformation. It was during this role, while working at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, that Timothy began applying these tools to national security problems. This work led to a deployment as a civilian to Afghanistan supporting counter-roadside bomb efforts. It was in Afghanistan that Timothy first encountered systems thinking and computer simulation methods such as system dynamics capable of mathematically modeling the wicked mess problems he'd encountered throughout his career. 

This led to a career change after returning from abroad, and Timothy completed his MSc in Simulation Science & Insurgency Dynamics and then a Ph.D. in the System Dynamics of the Lifecycle of Violence and Instability of Non-State actors, both at WPI. 

Clancy's current research topics include understanding violent radicalization as a system, the terror contagion hypothesis for public mass killings, the emerging-state actor hypothesis for asymmetric and irregular warfare conflicts, and advancing methods for modeling social complexity through computer simulations integrated with AI.

Assistant Professor Nathan Cheek, PSYC

Nathan Cheek is a social psychologist with broad interests in prejudice, inequality, and judgment and decision making. Cheek studies the biased beliefs people hold about others, with a particular focus on the biases that help explain why we neglect those already facing marginalization and other disadvantages, such as people in poverty and people who experience sexual harassment. Cheek's work on decision making focuses on how we interpret the meaning and importance of our choices, as well as why we sometimes find decisions overwhelming and all-consuming. Cheek is also interested in the applied implications of social psychological theory, with an emphasis on social justice and public policy. Cheek received a Ph.D. from Princeton University and is joining UMD after two years on the faculty at Purdue University.

At UMD Cheek will be teaching introductory social psychology at the undergraduate level and social cognition at the graduate level. Cheek's lab’s research will explore how people make sense of their own and others’ choices and experiences, including people’s biased beliefs about poverty and misunderstandings about sexual harassment.

Assistant Professor Evan Hart, PSYC

Assistant Research Professor Ali Zarringhalam, GEOG

Ali Zarringhalam is an Assistant Research Professor in the department of Geographical Sciences at UMD. Zarringhalam's background is in Computer Science and Mathematics, and he received his Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire in operator theory. Following graduation, Zarringhalam spent over four years as a Data Scientist at Regrow Ag, a startup focused on promoting agricultural conservation practices at global scale through remote sensing. 

Zarringhalam's research focuses on improving algorithms to create annual forest canopy height and biomass estimates derived from the ICESat-2 lidar dataset across the boreal forests. Zarringhalam is currently collaborating with Professor Laura Duncanson on her NASA ABoVe funded project, which focuses on mapping biomass and canopy height across the boreal region and biomass flux analysis. Zarringhalam will also be working on another NASA-funded project related to mapping heights in the US.

Lecturer Emilia M. Guevara, ANTH

Emilia M. Guevara is a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology with expertise in medical anthropology, global health, labor, occupational health, im/migration, rural health, and disability, focusing on racialized, underserved, and vulnerable populations in the Americas. Guevara’s research is committed to assisting and transforming the lives of the oppressed or disadvantaged; to raising the visibility of racial and ethnic health disparities; to developing collaborative solutions for ensuring health equity for racial/ethnic minorities; and to providing critical insight into the individual and social experiences of illness and the social, environmental, economic, and political forces that shape health outcomes.

Guevara graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2023.

Guevara will be teaching  ANTH 210: Introduction to Medical Anthropology and Global Health, ANTH 265: The Anthropology of Global Health, and ANTH 323: Plagues, Pathogens and Public Policy.

Published on Mon, Sep 23, 2024 - 1:09PM