Office of the Provost
Office of the Provost

2026 Faculty Bios

Faisal Alzawaideh

Dr. Faisal Alzawaideh is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. With more than fifteen years of experience in language instruction, translation, and cultural consultancy across Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, he teaches the department’s intensive Arabic language sequence at Georgetown.

Prior to joining Georgetown, Dr. Alzawaideh taught Arabic at Indiana University Bloomington, where he received the Arabic program’s 2024 Outstanding Associate Instructor award, and held teaching appointments at the University of Huddersfield, Fahad bin Sultan University, Tafila Technical University, and Qassim University. He is also an accomplished Arabic–English translator and interpreter across academic, legal, NGO, and healthcare contexts.

Dr. Alzawaideh is interested in Arabic pedagogy and the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language, and his research lies at the intersection of interpersonal pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and digital communication. He earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington, and holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and a B.A. in English Literature from Mutah University. Outside of work, Faisal enjoys gaming, baking, and drawing.

Joshua Byun

Joshua Byun is an Assistant Professor of Security Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He specializes in questions related to American grand strategy. Byun is the author of The Adversary’s Veto: Rival Powers, Alliance Politics, and the Limits of Grand Strategy (Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2027). He is also co-author, with John J. Mearsheimer, of The Two-Leviathan Problem: Why Rival Hegemons Cannot Coexist (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2027).

Byun’s scholarship speaks to a wide range of issues that arise in debates surrounding grand strategy, including preventive war, the relationship between power politics and international norms, the performative uses of violence, and the making of political order. Some of his works have been published in outlets such as the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Texas National Security Review, Political Science Quarterly, Contemporary Security Policy, and the European Journal of International Security. Policy analysis and commentary based on these works can be found in journals such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Quarterly.

Byun’s research has been sponsored by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies, as well as the Center for East Asian Studies and the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago, among others. 

Byun holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in International Studies and Political Science, summa cum laude, from Korea University. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He has also held the Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Global Innovation Program Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, and the Hans J. Morgenthau Predoctoral Fellowship at the Notre Dame International Security Center. Before beginning his academic career, Byun served as the interpreter to South Korea’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Matthew Caulfield

Matthew Caulfield is an incoming Assistant Professor of Strategy, Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in the McDonough School of Business. He received his PhD from the Wharton School, where he was a Platt Fellow in Business Ethics.

Matthew’s main research interests are in philosophical business ethics and nonmarket strategy. He has published on topics in market ethics, corporate social responsibility, rights theory, and corrective justice in journals such as Academy of Management Review, Business Ethics Quarterly, and Journal of Business Ethics. He was previously the Media Director for the Society for Business Ethics and a Representative-at-Large for the International Association for Business & Society. He currently serves on the editorial review boards of Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business & Society.

He has also done work on voting technology markets, which Politico profiled. Outside of work, Matthew is a classically-trained singer and enjoys practicing oratorio and cantata works.

Sungwoo Choi

Sungwoo Choi, Ph.D., is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Science at Georgetown University. Before joining Georgetown, he served as an Assistant Professional Researcher and Lecturer in the Department of Metabolic Biology and Nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught courses in metabolism, nutrition, and laboratory science. He previously served as a Research Assistant Professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Choi studies how the body responds to changes in food intake, energy availability, aging, and metabolic stress. His research focuses on how the liver and fat tissue adapt to these changes and communicate with other parts of the body. He is particularly interested in the biological signals that help maintain organ function and restore metabolic balance when it is disrupted by disease, with potential implications for metabolic disease, age-related decline, and liver cancer.

Dr. Choi is committed to teaching and mentoring the next generation of biomedical scientists and health professionals. He looks forward to building an interdisciplinary teaching and research program and contributing to the Georgetown community.

Vanessa Corcoran

 Dr. Vanessa Corcoran is the Director of the Catholic Studies Program and Assistant Teaching Professor at Georgetown University. She has expertise in medieval religious history, devotional practices in the Catholic Church, and the religious and cultural influence of the Virgin Mary. Among her publications, Dr. Corcoran has written “The Keys to Two Marys: Popes and the Women of Scripture” for The Cambridge History of the Papacy (2025), and her writing has also been featured in The Guardian, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, America Magazine, Commonweal Magazine, and The National Catholic Reporter. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s Degree in Medieval History from the Catholic University of America, and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the College of the Holy Cross. Prior to her appointment as Director of Catholic Studies, Dr. Corcoran was an advising dean in the College of Arts & Sciences at Georgetown from 2018 to 2026. 

Nives Dolšak

Nives Dolšak holds a Joint Ph.D. from the School of Public & Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political Science, Indiana University, Bloomington. Prior to joining Georgetown University, she served as the Stan and Alta Barer Professor in Sustainability Science and the Director of the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle. 

Her research examines institutional challenges in governing common-pool resources at multiple levels of aggregation. In collaboration with Professor Elinor Ostrom, she has published two books: The Drama of the Commons (The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council’s Committee on Human Dimensions of Global Change), and The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptation (the MIT Press). She has published in leading journals in environmental studies, public policy, and nonprofit studies. From 2019 through 2025, with Aseem Prakash, she maintained a byline in Forbes.com and contributed over 150 commentaries.

At the University of Washington, she taught courses in Environmental Policy, Climate Governance, International Organizations and Ocean Management, Economic Development and the Environment, Research Design, and Policy Analysis. Between 2012 and 2018, she also served as a visiting professor at the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.  

Professor Dolšak served on the Washington Coastal Marine Advisory Council and on the Science Panel of the Puget Sound Partnership. She is the recipient of the University of Washington’s College of the Environment Outstanding Community Impact (2018) and the Outstanding Teaching Faculty (2013) awards. 

Iuliana Ene

Iuliana Ene joins Georgetown University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. Her research explores how fungal pathogens adapt to the human host and survive antifungal treatment. Her laboratory studies the genetic and phenotypic diversity within fungal populations, including how genome plasticity and communication between fungal cells shape drug tolerance, resistance, and host adaptation. By uncovering the mechanisms that allow fungi to persist under stress, her work aims to identify new vulnerabilities that could guide the development of improved antifungal therapies.

Before joining Georgetown, Ene led the Fungal Heterogeneity Group at Institut Pasteur in Paris. She previously held a research faculty position at Brown University and was a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. She earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Aberdeen (UK) and undergraduate degrees in Biochemistry and Psychology from Brown University.

Peter Fanone

Peter Fanone (COL ‘15) is Program Director of Theatre for 2026–2027 and Assistant Teaching Professor of Public Speaking and Performing Arts at Georgetown University.

A multi-hyphenate theatre artist and educator, he has taught courses in acting, Shakespeare, voice and dialects, public speaking, and devised performance to students of all ages, including public speaking at Georgetown this past year and coursework developed for A.C.T.’s Citizen Artist Program and Young Conservatory. 

His training includes an MFA in Acting from the American Conservatory Theater, with additional study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Yale School of Drama. 

As a performer, his work spans Off-Broadway and regional theater, including productions at A.C.T.‘s Geary Theater, and screen credits for Prime Video and Apple TV. 

As Executive Producer, Speechwriter, and Head of Business Operations, he has also guided the strategy and growth of political commentator and activist Michael Fanone’s platform.

Akira Horiguchi

Dr. Horiguchi holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Statistics from The Ohio State University, as well as a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Before joining the faculty, they gained research and teaching experience as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University and as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Davis.

Their research interests focus on Bayesian statistics, nonparametric inference, regression trees, uncertainty quantification, explainable AI (XAI), large language models (LLMs), and flow cytometry.

Oren Kessler

Oren Kessler is an author, journalist, and historian based in Washington and Tel Aviv, and this year’s Aaron and Cecile Goldman Visiting Israeli Professor at the Department of Government. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he was previously Arab affairs correspondent for The Jerusalem Post and an editor and translator at Haaretz English.

His first book, Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict, was named winner of the 2024 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, among the Wall Street Journal‘s 10 Best Books of 2023, a Booklist best book of the year, and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award (Writing Based on Archival Material) and the American Library Association’s Sophie Brody Medal.

Raised in Rochester, New York, and Tel Aviv, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Toronto and a Master’s in Government (Diplomacy and Conflict Studies) from Reichman University.

Kessler’s work has appeared in media outlets including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Politico.

Salomé Loera

Dr. Salomé Loera is an Assistant Professor at the Georgetown University School of Nursing and an Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist with more than a decade of experience in acute and critical care nursing. She maintains clinical practice at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus, a Level I Trauma Center, where she supports system-wide quality improvement, evidence-based practice, and nursing excellence initiatives across a large integrated health system.

Dr. Loera’s clinical expertise spans critical care, neuroscience, cardiovascular care, and acute care nursing. Throughout her career, she has led multidisciplinary initiatives focused on improving patient outcomes, advancing quality and safety, supporting nurse development, and translating evidence into practice. Her work has contributed to improvements in the care of patients with complex acute and critical illnesses and has been recognized through honors including the Virginia Nurses Foundation 40 Under 40 Award and the Iams Memorial Quality Leadership Award.

As a nurse educator, Dr. Loera is committed to preparing future nurses to provide compassionate, evidence-based care while developing the clinical judgment, ethical foundation, and leadership skills necessary to address the complex healthcare needs of individuals and communities. She has taught undergraduate and graduate nursing courses and has contributed to curriculum development, competency-based education, and innovative teaching strategies that promote active learning and professional formation.

Dr. Loera is published in peer-reviewed journals and has presented nationally and regionally on topics including critical care nursing, neuroscience nursing, quality improvement, evidence-based practice, nurse well-being, and healthcare innovation. Her scholarship reflects a commitment to advancing nursing practice and improving outcomes for patients, families, and healthcare systems.

She earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Northern Michigan University and her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Johns Hopkins University, where she specialized as an Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Rahma Maccarone

Rahma Maccarone is a scholar of Hispanic and Atlantic Studies specializing in the intersections of race, religion, slavery, and the African diaspora in the Atlantic world. She earned her Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies from Georgetown University, where her research examines the intellectual and literary traditions of West African Muslims enslaved in the Americas and the role of Islamic epistemologies in shaping Black Atlantic histories.

At Georgetown, Rahma has taught undergraduate courses in Spanish language, Latin American literature and culture, and Spanish for Business. Her teaching emphasizes communicative language instruction, critical inquiry, and interdisciplinary approaches that connect language learning with history, culture, and social justice. She is also an Associate Editor for the Latin America and Caribbean Islamic Studies Association (LACISA), where she contributes to promoting scholarship on Islam in Latin America and the Caribbean through open-access academic initiatives.

Her current book project, The Black Atlantic in Arabic: Afro-Islamic Intellectual Traditions and the Making of Atlantic Knowledge, investigates how enslaved West African Muslim intellectuals drew upon Afro-Islamic systems of knowledge to articulate distinct understandings of race, freedom, and political community across the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americas. Through Arabic and Ajami manuscripts, autobiographical writings, and transatlantic archival sources, the project reconceptualizes the Black Atlantic as a multilingual and multireligious intellectual space shaped not only by the forces of slavery, racial capitalism, and Euro-Christian frameworks of knowledge, but also by the intellectual practices and epistemologies cultivated and transmitted by West African Muslim scholars, revealing Afro-Islamic thought as fundamental to the making of Atlantic knowledge.

David McKenzie

David McKenzie will be joining Georgetown as the Edmond Villani Professor of Economics. He comes after a 21-year career at the World Bank, where he was Lead Economist in the Development Research Group, and is Director of the 2027 World Development Report. Prior to this, he was an assistant professor of Economics at Stanford University from 2001-2005. He received his B.Com.(Hons)/B.A. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and his Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University. His main research focuses on enterprise development, jobs, migration, and methodology for use with data from developing countries. He has published over 150 articles in journals including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, the Journal of Political Economy, Econometrica, AER Insights, Science, PNAS, and all leading development journals.  He is an avid runner, having completed 25 marathons and one 50-miler, and is frequently found on the trails and waterfront near Georgetown.

Zohreh Mirsharif

Zohreh Mirsharif is an Assistant Teaching Professor in Persian Studies & the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Georgetown University. Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, she holds a Doctorate in French Literature, which she obtained through a shared diploma between Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran and Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Dr. Mirsharif is recognized for her student-centered, communicative approach to language instruction, with expertise in both French and Persian studies.

Outside of the classroom, she enjoys exploring culinary practices, working on puzzles, knitting, and incorporating culture into her academic work.

Mathis Moerke

Mathis Mörke is an Assistant Professor of Finance (tenure-track) at ESCP Business School in Paris and will be visiting Georgetown University in Spring 2027, where he will teach Quantitative Investment Strategies. He received his PhD in Finance summa cum laude from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, and holds a Master of Science in Quantitative Finance from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Economics from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. During his doctoral studies, he was a visiting PhD student at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Before entering academia, he worked as a quantitative analyst for an asset management boutique and as a quantitative risk consultant in Zurich.

His research focuses on asset and derivatives pricing and machine learning. His work has been published in the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among others, and has been presented at leading conferences including the WFA Annual Meeting and the SFS Cavalcade. Before joining ESCP, he held an International Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of St.Gallen, where he taught courses on financial markets, derivatives, and derivatives modeling in Python. At ESCP, he teaches corporate finance, advanced option pricing, and stochastic calculus at the master’s level.

Kelly Sewell Nagel

Kelly Sewell Nagel is a strategic advisor, educator, and senior real estate executive with more than 20 years of experience across mixed-use, multifamily, retail, and institutional platforms. She is known for helping leaders and organizations navigate complexity with clarity, structure, and forward momentum.

Kelly is Professor of the Practice and Head of Real Estate at Georgetown University’s Steers Center for Global Real Assets in the McDonough School of Business. She leads the build-out of the real estate vertical across the undergraduate, MBA, and MS-GRA programs, working alongside Center leadership to translate strategic vision into curriculum and operational execution. She teaches courses including Real Estate Finance and the Real Estate Clinic: Multifamily.

Kelly is also the founder of Residy, where she advises senior executives, founders, and boards at moments of inflection. Her work includes executive and leadership coaching and strategic advisory support, often with leaders navigating growth, transition, or misalignment between role, system, and personal values.

Kelly is deeply engaged in leadership roles within the Urban Land Institute. She currently serves as Chair of the Urban Development and Mixed-Use Council (UDMUC) Bronze Product Council, Chair of the ULI Washington Project Awards Jury, and Senior Advisor to ULI Americas’ Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI). She previously served as Chair of ULI Americas for WLI and NEXT, as well as Chair of WLI Washington, and is a ULI Trustee.

Prior to Georgetown, Kelly spent a decade in volunteer leadership with the Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, including a year as Advisory Board Chair and as founding Chair of the Nominating and Governance Committee.

Previously, Kelly served as Head of Residential at EDENS, a leading retail REIT, and as Head of East Coast Investments at AIMCO, a national apartment REIT, overseeing development, redevelopment, and acquisitions. Her work today sits at the intersection of capital, leadership, and systems, helping people and organizations move forward with coherence and intention, particularly in moments of transition where clarity, alignment, and disciplined judgment are essential.

Marcia Fanti Negri

Marcia Fanti Negri is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Portuguese in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Georgetown University. She holds a B.A. in Portuguese and English Language and Literature, an M.A. (2014), and a Ph.D. (2022) in Linguistics from the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), as well as a Ph.D. in Literary, Cultural and Linguistic Studies from the University of Miami (2025). Her research spans Applied Linguistics and Literary and Cultural Studies, focusing on Brazilian contemporary literature, women’s writing, migration, gender, Portuguese language teaching, language assessment, and the Celpe-Bras proficiency examination.

Before joining Georgetown, she taught Portuguese and Spanish at the University of Miami and at Ransom Everglades School in Miami, FL. She taught Portuguese language and Lusophone culture courses at the Middlebury College Summer Language Schools. She also served as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Miami and as a Visiting Lecturer in English and American Literature at UFSCar. Her scholarship examines language, identity, and migration in the Lusophone world, with particular attention to contemporary Brazilian women’s writing.

Bryan Norton

Bryan Norton is a Jesuit priest and incoming assistant professor in the Department of Classics. He met the Jesuits at St. Ignatius High School in  Cleveland, OH. He entered the Order after completing his undergraduate studies at Williams College. As a Jesuit, he has taught at Xavier University (Cincinnati, OH) and studied theology abroad (Paris, France). He then earned his Ph.D. in Classics from Washington University in St. Louis. In his academic research, Bryan works on archaic Greek poetry, with a particular interest in epic and lyric verse. He explores how these traditions of song respond to the problem of death through the construction of memory. In his free time, Bryan enjoys baseball, cribbage, and guitar.  

Aseem Prakash

McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy. Aseem  Prakash studies environmental policy, climate governance, NGOs and nonprofits, and voluntary/private regulation. He secured a B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Then he worked as a manager in the marketing department at Procter & Gamble India. After completing a Joint Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), Indiana University, Bloomington, he joined the faculty of the School of Business at The George Washington University. From 2002 to 2026, he served on the faculty of the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Professor Prakash founded the Environmental Politics and Governance (EPG) network. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and an elected member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences. He has served as an International Research Fellow at the Center for Corporate Reputation, University of Oxford, and on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Environmental Change and Society.

His awards include: The American Political Science Association: (1) 2025 John Gaus Award for “lifetime of exemplary scholarship in the joint tradition of political science and public administration,” (2) 2024 Public Policy Section’s Excellence in Mentoring Award, (3) 2020 Elinor Ostrom Career Achievement Award in recognition of “lifetime contribution to the study of science, technology, and environmental politics; The International Studies Association: (1) 2023 Environmental Studies Section’s Distinguished Scholar Award which “recognizes outstanding scholars whose long history of excellent research and teaching has had a substantial impact on fields associated with international relations and environmental issues,” (2) 2019 Distinguished International Political Economy Scholar Award that recognizes “outstanding senior scholars whose influence and path-breaking intellectual work will continue to impact the field for years to come,” as well its (3) 2018 James N. Rosenau Award for “scholar who has made the most important contributions to globalization studies.” The European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on Regulatory Governance: 2018 Regulatory Studies Development Award that recognizes a senior scholar who has made notable “contributions to the field of regulatory governance.” In a recent ranking by Research.com of the best researchers in each discipline (political science), Professor Prakash was ranked 34th in the United States and 61st in the world. With Nives Dolsak, he maintained a byline in Forbes.com (2019-2025), and contributed over 150 commentaries.

Guided by Georgetown’s Jesuit tradition and the principle of cura personalis, Dr. Loera strives to foster learning environments that honor the dignity, potential, and unique experiences of every student. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes clinical excellence, reflective practice, service, and the development of nurse leaders who are committed to advancing health and caring for others with competence, compassion, and integrity.

Adrian Vladu

Adrian Vladu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. His research focuses on the mathematical foundations of optimization. He views optimization as a common lens through which problems across computer science and mathematics can be understood. Drawing on tools from analysis, convex geometry, and linear algebra, he designs faster algorithms for problems in discrete and continuous optimization. His recent work includes advances in interior-point methods, linear programming, graph optimization, and optimization methods for machine learning.

Before joining Georgetown, Adrian was a researcher at CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research). He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT and subsequently held a postdoctoral position at Boston University, as well as visiting appointments at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley.

Markus Wahl

Markus Wahl was appointed as a DAAD Visiting Professor at the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University in August 2026. Previously, he was a research assistant from 2022 to July 2026 at the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, and from 2017 to 2021 at the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart. In his current project, he examines the transfer of knowledge regarding the concepts of body, gender, and health through migration between Brazil and Germany from 1850 to 1950. Recently, he completed his habilitation project, in which he examined the experiences of patients with alcohol dependence in the socialist health system of the German Democratic Republic. He earned his Ph.D. in 2017 at the University of Kent with the dissertation “Treatments of the Past: Medical Memories and Experiences in East Germany”, which was published by Routledge in 2019.

His recent publications include the article “The Treatment of Alcoholism That Should Not Exist: Addiction, East German Doctors, and Western Methods in the German Democratic Republic,” published in Medical History in 2025.

Allison Ward-Seidel

Allison Rae Ward-Seidel, Ph.D., (Assistant Teaching Professor of Education Inquiry and Justice, Georgetown University College of Arts and Sciences) earned her Ph.D. in Education Psychology-Applied Developmental Science at the University of Virginia as an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Fellow (2025). She earned a Master of Education in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education (2017), a Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Arkansas (2010), and a Bachelor of Science in Childhood Education from the University of Arkansas (2009). 

Ward-Seidel’s professional career began as an elementary school teacher in Springdale, Arkansas. She taught first grade and fourth grade for six years there before moving to Dallas, Texas to help open a charter school and then pursue further graduate education. After a year in Cambridge/Boston for a master’s degree, she moved to New Jersey to work with Anne Gregory, Ph.D., at the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (2017-2021). There she was a research project manager for a $3 million federally funded randomized control trial study of restorative justice in New York City public schools. Forever grateful for what she learned in four years working with Anne Gregory, Francis Huang, Ph.D., and Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility in NYC, she then went on to pursue her Ph.D., studying how school conditions can support sociopolitical development (i.e., awareness and analysis of social injustice, agency and efficacy to dismantle systems of oppression, and action to make the world a better more equitable place). In the past year she worked as a postdoc with Mike Lyons, Ph.D., studying systemic supports to address disparities in youth mental health and the connection with sociopolitical development. 

Ward-Seidel continues to study sociopolitical development in school settings. Specifically, she is interested in social-emotional, ethnic-racial identity, and critical consciousness development among adolescents and pre-service teachers with aims toward social justice in education. Ward-Seidel’s research aims to (a) investigate the context, process, and outcomes related to sociopolitical development (i.e., critical awareness, social efficacy, a commitment to equity, and taking action for justice), and (b) understand and implement the school conditions that promote sociopolitical development alongside mental wellbeing and academic success among all youth.

Outside of work, I love to dance! I taught dance fitness (i.e., Zumba) for several years in Charlottesville, Virginia after falling in love with the social dance scene (e.g., salsa, bachata, kizomba) in New York and New Jersey. I live for group fitness, and I am eager to find an active gym community in DC.

Janet Wulf

Dr. Janet Wulf serves as an Assistant Professor in the Berkley School of Nursing at Georgetown University. She completed her graduate education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, earning an MS in Nursing and a Doctor of Nursing Practice. During her tenure at UMB, she taught across BSN and MSN entry-into-practice programs and directed the master’s entry into nursing program, leading major curriculum redesign and advancing a holistic admission process.

With 18 years of experience spanning critical care nursing, palliative care, and nursing education, Dr. Wulf brings clinical expertise and thoughtful pedagogical practice to her work in both clinical and classroom settings. Her teaching centers on developing nurses who are clinically proficient, reflective, and grounded in human-centered care. She is particularly interested in helping students connect classroom learning with nursing practice and in cultivating the personal and professional resources needed to act with skill and compassion in the face of suffering. Dr. Wulf is dedicated to preparing emerging nurses to recognize and address inequity to improve the health of all patients and to shape the systems that they will work in.

Seok Wun Au Yong

Seok Wun (Shiila) Au Yong (she/they) is an incoming Assistant Teaching Professor with a joint appointment in the Disability Studies Program and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University.

Their scholarship sits at the intersections of feminist disability studies, transnational feminism, queer theory, and critical refugee studies. Their work explores how disability, race, language, gender, and migration shape experiences of belonging and freedom, particularly in Southeast Asia. Their teaching is grounded in principles of disability justice, emphasizing personal, inclusive, and empowering learning environments that recognize students as knowledge producers and value multiple forms of participation and expression.

Dr. Au Yong earned their Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education and Certificate of Advanced Study in Women’s and Gender Studies from Syracuse University. They also hold an MFA in Film as a Fulbright Scholar. Outside of work, they enjoy biking and chasing sunsets with a camera in hand.