Councilors

Please consider joining the council. Here is a current list of the National Councilors for Arts and Humanities:

Chair: Amy Woodbury Tease
Norwich University

I am a Professor of English, Chair of the Department of Global Humanities, and Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Curriculum at Norwich University. My research and teaching interests are in the areas of Interdisciplinary Humanities, undergraduate research, modernism, and surveillance studies. I am also the Director of the Norwich Humanities Initiative, an interdisciplinary, university-wide program focused on the design and implementation of integrative, team-taught courses at Norwich, supported by a Humanities Connections Implementation Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and an Implementation Grant from the Davis Educational Foundation.

 Vice Chair: Jesse Guessford 

Secretary: Melodie H. Eichbauer

Florida Gulf Coast University

I am a medievalist specializing in legal and ecclesiastical history from c.1000 to c.1500. My research interests focus on legal pluralism and the evolution of legal principles. I am particularly interested in the dissemination of legal knowledge; interpretation of law; and how social, political, and intellectual developments and trends shaped both during the height of the medieval period. By examining the larger processes linking law to the world in which it functions, my hope is to show new ways of thinking about current issues. I have published articles in legal history journals and have published edited volumes with Ashgate (now Routledge) and Brill. I was also a fellow for the American Council of Learned Societies from 2016 to 2018.

Kodjo Adabra
State University of New York- Geneseo

Margaret Cassidy 
Adelphi University

Jamie Gilbert
Central Washington University

Jamie Gilbert holds two B.A.’s in Psychology and IDS of Social Sciences (Law & Justice, English, & Public Relations) along with two Masters in Education (Non-Profit Leadership) and ITAM (Structures of Data Analytics), and she will be finishing her Doctorate in Education in Organizational Leadership with an emphasis on organizational development later this year. Gilbert’s graduate research focused on college students on the Autism Spectrum. However, she has since expanded her research focus which includes millennial student engagement in university research in regard to grit and creativity. She also conducts research for communication team dynamic interventions and studies the impact of visual marketing on sustainable organizational growth. Along with being a full-time lecturer in both Public Relations and Non-Profit Leadership(IDS program), Gilbert also helped found and advises the university club Students With A Purpose (SWAP), a multidisciplinary student club from four colleges: the College of Arts and Humanities, College of the Sciences, College of Education and Professional Studies, and the College of Business. During their first year as a student organization, the student leadership team was thrilled to be accepted to present at NCUR. Gilbert’s passion truly lies in mentoring college students in research. May 2020, Gilbert was awarded CWU Mentor of the Year for her work mentoring research students. This is her fourth nomination and the first time the award went to an NTT, and rarely has it been awarded to a professor in the Arts and Humanities.  Gilbert truly is the happiest when she is working with her students as she loves being able to witness first hand those “aha” moments that truly are the first steps in further developing their critical thinking skills pushing them further into graduate programs and sustainable careers.
Term Ends: 6/30/2023

Gossard, Julia M
Utah State University

Michelle Hayford
University of Dayton

Michelle Hayford, Ph.D. is the Director of the Theatre, Dance, and Performance Technology Program at the University of Dayton. Michelle holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.  Her original creative scholarship combines her passions of creating live plays with utilizing the craft of theatre as a necessary response to community and civic engagement.  Previous original works include the original musical Spectacle (2018), Sustenance (2016) created in collaboration with the Hanley Sustainability Institute, Dog Wish (2013) commissioned by The Humane Society of the United States and Suit My Heart (2011) created in collaboration with Footsteps to the Future, a foster youth non-profit.  Michelle is the co-editor and co-author of Performing Arts as High Impact Practice (Palgrave, 2018).
Term Ends: 6/30/2024

Gretchen Braun
Furman University

Gretchen Braun is Associate Professor of English and Co-Director Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Furman University in Greenville, SC. She serves faculty editor of Furman Humanities Review, an undergraduate research journal with a thirty-year history.

Her own research is focused on Victorian literature and culture and has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including ELH, Genre: Forms of Discourse and Culture, Victorians, and Studies in the Novel. She is completing a book manuscript on nervous disorder and the prehistory of psychic trauma in Victorian fiction

Term Ends: 6/30/2025

Kevin Kaufmann
Term Ends: 6/30/2024

Ian F. MacInnes
Albion College

I am an English professor and a scholar of early modern British literature. I’m interested in animal studies, ecocriticism, and poetry. I have published on topics ranging from horse breeding and geohumoralism in Henry V to invertebrate bodies in Hamlet. I have worked with undergraduate students who are writing for the Map of Early Modern London (MoEML), and I am the U.S. Agent for Pedagogical Partnerships for this digital humanities site.

Diana McClintock
Kennesaw State University

Diana McClintock has a Ph.D. in Art History from Emory University (1998). Before joining the faculty at Kennesaw State University (2006) she was an Associate Professor of Art History at the Atlanta College of Art (1997-2006), and before that she taught at Emory, and at several colleges and Chapman University in Southern California. Prior to entering academia she was Curator of Education at Laguna Art Museum (Orange County, CA), and a museum educator at the Municipal Art Gallery (Barnsdall Art Park) in Los Angeles, experiences that inform her approach to her discipline today. Her focus is interdisciplinary ‘Engaged Scholarship’ that brings her work down from its ivory tower to integrate scholarly activity with community involvement. She has developed several Service Learning projects to provide active learning experiences and hands-on application of academic concepts to real-life situations for her students.
Term ends: 6/30/2022

Alexa Sand
Utah State University

I am an art historian specializing in manuscript illumination and small-scale arts of the later Middle Ages, particularly in France and French-speaking parts of Europe between about 1200 and 1400. I am interested in connections between reading, visual art, self-awareness, piety, and gender. My work appears in wide variety of art-historical and interdisciplinary journals, and my 2014 book, Vision, Devotion, and Self-Representation in Late Medieval Art was published by Cambridge University Press. An example of my scholarship can be found in the open-access online journal Different Visions.
Term Ends: 6/30/2022

Chad Spigel
Trinity University

I am an Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Co-Director of the Mellon Initiative for Undergraduate Research in the Arts and Humanities at Trinity University. My research focuses on ancient Jewish history and I have published in the areas of ancient synagogues, Jewish worship practices, and archaeological methodology, and I am currently working on an open-access database of unpublished archaeological data from several sites in Roman and Byzantine Palestine. Over the years I have had several undergraduate students work with me on research projects and we have co-presented the results of our research at professional conferences.
Term Ends: 6/30/2023

Ellen Stockstill
Term Ends: 6/30/2024

Allison Upshaw
Term Ends: 6/30/2023

Tanya Walker-Bethea
Term Ends: 6/30/2024

Eugenia Oi Yan Yau
Term Ends: 6/30/2025

The Arts and Humanities Division of the Council on Undergraduate Research