Peter H. Hansen

Peter H. Hansen

Professor of History
Director of International and Global Studies
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 107
Phone: +1-508-831-5481
Peter H. Hansen is Professor of History and Director of International and Global Studies at WPI. In this role, responsibilities include enhancing the curricular components of WPI’s global programs, exploring new partnerships, and advising students in global projects. International and Global Studies brings together faculty from the arts and sciences, business, and interdisciplinary studies to enrich students' experience of global engagement on campus and around the world. ... View Profile
W.A. Bland Addison

W.A. Bland Addison

Associate Professor of History
Co-Director, Morocco Project Center
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 238
Phone: +1-508-831-5190
I believe it is important for American students to understand the philosophical and intellectual foundations of their way of viewing the world and how those cultural perspectives are different from other peoples of the world. Therefore, I teach a variety of courses about Western and non-Western civilizations: Introduction to European Cultural History (HI1322), Topics in the Western Intellectual Tradition (HI3323), and Topics in Comparative Civilizations (HI3342). ... View Profile
Ulrike Brisson

Ulrike Brisson

Associate Teaching Professor of German
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 333
Phone: +1-508-831-5742
Coming from a family with a long teaching tradition going back at least to her great-grandfather, teaching has always been fundamental to Professor Brisson’s well-being. Being a German professor at WPI in particular has been a great privilege because the students are motivated, hardworking, and eager to learn. She feels that teaching German language and culture is particularly important at an engineering school with a strong focus on environmental technology and sustainability for a number of reasons. ... View Profile
Fabio Carrera

Fabio Carrera

Teaching Professor-Interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Salisbury Labs 113
Phone: +1-508-831-6059
Fabio is the director of the Venice and Santa Fe Project Centers, as well as the founder and director of City Lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory dedicated to Urban Technology and Information Systems. In addition to a number of scientific papers, his work has been repeatedly featured in National Geographic magazine (most recently in the August 2009 issue), MIT’s Technology Review magazine, the Smithsonian magazine, Wired, New Scientist and Science. He was also featured on BBC Radio and in a National Geographic video completely dedicated to his work in his hometown of Venice, Italy. ... View Profile

Daniel DiMassa

Assistant Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 106
Daniel DiMassa is a scholar of German literature and culture from the eighteenth century to the present. His research interests center on the intersection of literature, religion, and aesthetics in the wake of the Enlightenment, with a particular interest in how literary texts participate in religious and mythical enterprises. His articles have appeared in German Quarterly, Religion and Literature, and the Goethe-Jahrbuch. He's finishing a book manuscript that charts the significance of Dante as a poetic muse among German Romantics, Idealists, and Neo-Romantics. ... View Profile
Holger Droessler

Holger Droessler

Assistant Professor of History
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 018
Holger Droessler is a historian of 19th- and 20th-century U.S. history, with a special focus on imperialism, capitalism, and the Pacific Ocean. His book manuscript, "Coconut Colonialism: Samoa and the Making of the Global South," argues that the globalization of Samoa at the turn of the 20th century was driven by a diverse group of people working on and off the islands. He has published on a variety of topics, including labor history, Pacific history, environmental history, and global hip-hop. His teaching ranges from modern U.S. ... View Profile
Wen-Hua Du

Wen-Hua Du

Assistant Teaching Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 108
Phone: 508-831-5076
Wen-Hua Du is an assistant teaching professor of Chinese in the Department of Humanities and Arts. Prior to joining WPI, she worked as a senior lecturer and coordinator of the Chinese Program at the Pennsylvania State University and visiting assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her expertise is in the areas of language teaching, curriculum design, and program development. Her research interests include culture teaching and learning, language learning strategies, and pedagogy of Chinese as a foreign language and Chinese as a heritage language. ... View Profile
Laureen Elgert

Laureen Elgert

Associate Professor
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: Salisbury Laboratories
Phone: +1-508-831-5452
Laureen's interest in environmental studies grew as she traveled through Southeast Asia and South America, noticing that local resource users' idea of environmentalism often bore little resemblance to familiar interpretations. She has since been particularly interested in the environment-development nexus, examining how politics shapes global environmental policy that can, and often does, have profound impacts on local livelihoods. ... View Profile
John Starosta Galante

John Starosta Galante

Assistant Teaching Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 234
John Galante’s scholarly interests are primarily in Latin American history, international history and global studies. His teaching and research focuses on international migration and the patterns of homeland connection and receiving-country adaptation associated with migratory movement. His professional experience in the energy sector informs his teaching on the history, geopolitics and global market dynamics of energy. He has particular expertise on South America and the Southern Cone, where he has worked, conducted fieldwork and travelled extensively. View Profile
J. Scott Jiusto

J. Scott Jiusto

Associate Professor
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Project Center 205
Phone: +1-508-831-5393
My teaching, research, and community engagement is integrated through my participation in WPIs Global Projects Program, where I help students prepare for and conduct projects in places such as London, Venice, Puerto Rico, Denmark, Washington and Worcester. Through the WPI Cape Town Project Centre (2007-15), my work was an exercise in Shared Action Learning (SAL), which as described to students and others is a way to think about and engage in partnerships for sustainable community development. ... View Profile
Robert Krueger

Robert Krueger

Associate Professor
Director, Environmental and Sustainability Studies
Director, Worcester Project Center, UK
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: SL 223C
Phone: +1-508-831-5110
Robert Krueger is a human geographer whose scholarship and teaching focus on creating sustainable, socially just, improvements to development projects in the global north and south. His work has taken him around the world. He has worked in countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, on issues of economic development and institutional change. His scholarship and teaching challenge conventional notions of economic development, economy-environment relationships, and social change. ... View Profile
Aarti Smith Madan

Aarti Smith Madan

Associate Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 003
Phone: +1-508-831-6587
Aarti Smith Madan is an Associate Professor of Spanish & International Studies in the Department of Humanities and Arts at WPI. Her research centers on the ways spatial practices inform the production and consumption of literature, film, and art in Latin America. In her recently published monograph, Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative: National Territory, National Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), Professor Madan unearths the literary roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. ... View Profile
Ingrid E. Matos-Nin

Ingrid E. Matos-Nin

Associate Teaching Professor of Spanish
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 05
Phone: +1-508-831-5356
One of the most rewarding pleasures of teaching at WPI is the diversity of cultures you find in and around campus. So, besides teaching Spanish, I make my goal to broaden my students’ knowledge of Hispanic countries and to promote cultural understanding inside and outside the classroom. I teach the importance of understanding different lifestyles and ways of expression in other parts of the world-differences that we can find in each of the Hispanic countries. ... View Profile
Stephen M. McCauley

Stephen M. McCauley

Assistant Teaching Professor
Co-Director, Global Lab
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Global Lab, Foisie Innovation Studio 225
Phone: +1-508-831-6164
Steve is a geographer whose work focuses on exploring how cities change and how urban futures can be inclusive, green and resilient. His broad substantive interests include eco-city planning, energy system innovation, climate change preparedness, community participation in environmental decision-making, and citizen science approaches for environmental planning. His work is published extensively in academic journals and he has worked with advocates, city planners and grassroots organizations in the US and internationally. ... View Profile
R. Creighton Peet

R. Creighton Peet

Teaching Professor
Director, Namibia Project Center
Director, Hong Kong Project Center
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Salisbury Labs 331
Phone: +1-508-831-6730
After spending many years working in international development and humanitarian assistance, as well as in international social and environmental education, and anthropological field research, Creighton Peet joined WPI in 2000 as part of its Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division. He loves teaching at WPI and sharing what he has learned over the years through its project-based curriculum. This style of teaching is a way of learning for him, directly and indirectly, and it satisfies his own research interests in the sustainable management of natural resources, especially water. ... View Profile
Geoffrey Pfeifer

Geoffrey Pfeifer

Associate Teaching Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: SL 327b
Phone: 508-831-4931
Professor Pfeifer’s research focus in philosophy is on contemporary continental philosophy, social and political philosophy, global justice, and development ethics. He teaches philosophy courses, international studies courses, and for the Great Problems Seminars program. In addition to a number of chapters in edited collections, Professor Pfeifer's work can be found in journals such as Human Studies, The European Legacy, Crisis and Critique, Continental Thought and Theory, and Current Perspectives in Social Theory. ... View Profile
Michael J. Radzicki

Michael J. Radzicki

Associate Professor
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: Salisbury Labs 310C
Phone: +1-508-831-5767, +1-508-831-5296
Professor Radzicki is an economist, creator of WPI’s program in system dynamics, and co-creator of WPI’s program in trading and investment system development. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Notre Dame and his training in system dynamics computer simulation modeling from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, he is a certified Rapid-I Predictive Analytics Analyst. Professor Radzicki’s research focuses on predictive analytics, simulation science, and the application of techniques from these areas to problems in economics, finance, and management. ... View Profile
Kent J. Rissmiller

Kent J. Rissmiller

Dean ad interim, Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division
Director, Washington Project Center
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: 240 Foise Innovation Studio
Phone: +1-508-831-5019, +1-508-831-5296
Kent Rissmiller completed studies in political science at Muhlenberg College (AB) and Syracuse University (PhD). Along the way, he also completed a JD at the University of New Hampshire Law School, where he worked in the Energy Law Institute. Professor Rissmiller also worked for three years as an attorney for the Public Service Commission of Nevada, where he was involved in setting rates and policies for electric and water utilities. At WPI, Professor Rissmiller teaches government, law, and public policy. He also directs the Pre-Law program and oversees the Law and Technology minor. ... View Profile

Angel A. Rivera

Associate Professor of Spanish
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 016
Phone: +1-508-831-5779
Professor Rivera has been conducting research on 19th- and 20th-century Spanish Caribbean literature and theories related to the exploration of limits or borders (i.e., the edges or places where multiple cultures touch or come into contact). He has been exploring how Caribbean traditional modes of representation have been restructured to significant changes in cultural, literary, and historical contexts. ... View Profile
Jennifer Rudolph

Jennifer Rudolph

Professor-Arts, Communications, and Humanities
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 408B
Phone: +1-508-831-6739
Jennifer Rudolph's main area of research is modern Chinese political history.  While her first book dissects institutional change in late imperial China, in her second, she explores identity politics in the Taiwan Strait. In it, Rudolph explores co-optations of a 17th-century pirate-merchant Zheng Chenggong. Through the centuries, Zheng has lived on, with regimes ruling, or desirous of ruling, Taiwan portraying him as a traitor, Confucian god, Chinese nationalist, Japanese nationalist, and the Moses of Taiwan. ... View Profile
Khalid Saeed

Khalid Saeed

Professor
Director System Dynamics Program
Director System Dynamics and Innovation Management Program
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: Salisbury Labs 312-D
Phone: +1-508-831-5563, +1-508-831-5296
Khalid Saeed is professor of economics and system dynamics. Widely recognized for his work on computer modeling and experimental analysis of developmental, organizational, and governance-related issues, he has written two books and numerous articles and book chapters on a variety of developmental and management agendas, including sustainable economic development, infrastructure planning, political economy, supply chain management, and system dynamics modeling. ... View Profile

William San Martín

Assistant Teaching Professor
Humanities & Arts
Office: Salisbury Labs 008
William San Martín is a global historian and STS (Science & Technology Studies) Scholar interested in the intersections of knowledge, expertise, environmental change, and public policy. He specializes in science-policy interface, environmental and animal studies, international development, race and justice, and U.S.-Latin American relations. William received his B.A. (2006) and M.A. (2011) in History from the Universidad Católica de Chile. ... View Profile
Ingrid K. Shockey

Ingrid K. Shockey

Associate Teaching Professor
Director, India Project Center
Co-Director, New Zealand Project Center
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Project Center, 209
Phone: +1-508-831-6635
Ingrid Shockey is an environmental sociologist whose work focuses on natural literacy and the interplay of human-wilderness boundaries--an interest sparked by a summer job she once held at Yellowstone National Park. From there, her research concerns have grown to include the extent to which people rely on substitutions for authentic experiences in the wild. This includes tracking diminishing environmental literacy and documenting dynamics in how knowledge and perception of nature determine the depth of our engagement with the environment. ... View Profile
Gbetonmasse Blaise Somasse

Gbetonmasse Blaise Somasse

Assistant Teaching Professor
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: 100 Institute RD
My research is policy-oriented and focuses on development from the perspective of applied economics and policy evaluation. From my experience as economist and development practitioner in West Africa, I came to realize that as long as actual or potential growth is lagging, promoting economic and social development can be extremely challenging. That is why my research focuses on how economic theory and empirical analysis can provide insights to improve growth and development strategies. ... View Profile
Patricia A. Stapleton

Patricia A. Stapleton

Assistant Professor
Social Science & Policy Studies
Office: 100 Institute RD
Phone: 508-831-4832
Professor Stapleton’s research focuses on food regulation, particularly the role of technology in food safety and security. Her interest in agricultural biotechnology regulation and the differences between the American and European approaches to risk assessment and management for genetically modified organisms were the foundation of her doctoral research. She has continued this work on agricultural biotechnology regulation in the European Union, as well as expanded her focus to include how biotechnology regulatory frameworks impact food production and trade. ... View Profile
Steven S. Taylor

Steven S. Taylor

Professor & Interim Dean
Foisie Business School
Office: Washburn Shops 215
Phone: +1-508-831-5557
My research is focused in two areas: Organizational aesthetics takes seriously the idea that management is as much an art as it is a science, and applies art-based scholarship and practice to management and organizations. Reflective practice is the ability to analyze our own actions and learn from that how to be more effective, ethical, and artful as managers and leaders. At the heart of my work as a researcher and teacher, is my own practice as a playwright. My plays have been performed in England, France, Poland, Canada, New Zealand, Italy, and the USA. ... View Profile
Seth Tuler

Seth Tuler

Associate Professor-Interdisciplinary
Co-Director, Bangkok Project Center
Co-Director, Boston Project Center
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Project Center 211A
Phone: +1-508-831-6444
Seth has been part of the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division since 2002, as teacher, advisor, and co-director of project centers. He is the co-Director of the Bangkok Project Center and co-Director of the Boston Project Center, where he enjoys exposing students to contemporary problems in environmental and public health policy making and challenging them to apply insights emerging from research to practical applications. He loves share his curiosity with students about the ways that people are impacted by different technological and natural systems. ... View Profile
Richard F. Vaz

Richard F. Vaz

Director, Center for Project-Based Learning
Professor of Interdisciplinary and Global Studies
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Co-Director, Bangkok Project Center
Interdisciplinary & Global Studies
Office: Center for Project-Based Learning, 157 West Street, 1st floor
Phone: +1-508-831-5344
As Director of WPI’s Center for Project-Based Learning, I work with colleagues across campus to help advance project-based learning at colleges and universities around the nation and the globe. We also support project-based learning here on the WPI campus. Most of my scholarly and professional activity centers around experiential and international education. Through my involvement in organizations such as the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the American Society for Engineering Education, I work to promote WPI’s approach to undergraduate education as a national model. ... View Profile

Associated Faculty

Name Title Department Email
Melissa Belz

ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, COSTA RICA PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies mbelz@wpi.edu

Esher F. Boucher-Yip

 ASSOCIATE TEACHING PROFESSOR Humanities & Arts efboucher@wpi.edu
Mohamed Brahimi INSTRUCTOR/LECTURER Humanities & Arts mbrahimi@wpi.edu
Nicola Bulled

ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, CAPE TOWN PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies nbulled@wpi.edu
Fabio Carrera

ASSOCIATE TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, VENICE PROJECT CENTER

DIRECTOR, SANTA FE PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies carrera@wpi.edu
Corey Denenberg Dehner ASSOCIATE TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, WORCESTER COMMUNITY PROJECT CENTER

CO-DIRECTOR, MASSACHUSETTS WATER RESOURCE OUTREACH CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies cdehner@wpi.edu
Emily Douglas PROFESSOR AND DEPARTMENT HEAD Social Science & Policy Studies emdouglas@wpi.edu
Michael Elmes PROFESSOR Foisie Business School mbelmes@wpi.edu
Katherine Foo ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR Interdisciplinary & Global Studies kfoo@wpi.edu
Dominic Golding

TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, NANTUCKET PROJECT CENTER

DIRECTOR, LONDON PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies golding@wpi.edu
Robert Hersch

INSTRUCTOR

DIRECTOR, GREECE PROJECT CENTER

CO-DIRECTOR, ALBANIA PROJECT CENTER

CO-DIRECTOR, SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies hersh@wpi.edu
J. Scott Jiusto ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Interdisciplinary & Global Studies sjiusto@wpi.edu
Courtney Brooke Kurlanska ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR Interdisciplinary & Global Studies cbkurlanska@wpi.edu
Ingrid E. Matos-Nin ASSOC. TEACHING PROFESSOR Humanities & Arts imatos@wpi.edu
Svetlana Nikitina ASSOC. TEACHING PROFESSOR Humanities & Arts svetlana@wpi.edu
Oleg Pavlov ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Social Science & Policy Studies opavlov@wpi.edu

R. Creighton Peet​

TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, NAMIBIA PROJECT CENTER

DIRECTOR, HONG KONG PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies cpeet@wpi.edu
Michael J. Radzicki ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Social Science & Policy Studies mjradz@wpi.edu
Khalid Saeed

PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR SYSTEM DYNAMICS PROGRAM

DIRECTOR SYSTEM DYNAMICS AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

 Social Science & Policy Studies saeed@wpi.edu
Aaron Sakulich ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Civil & Environmental Engineering arsakulich@wpi.edu
Ingrid K. Shockey

ASSOCIATE TEACHING PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR, INDIA PROJECT CENTER

CO-DIRECTOR, NEW ZEALAND PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies ishockey@wpi.edu
Alexander D. Smith

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

DIRECTOR OF THE SSPS EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS LABORATORY

 Social Science & Policy Studies adksmith@wpi.edu
Elisabeth "Lisa" Stoddard ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR Undergraduate Studies eastoddard@wpi.edu
Andrew Trapp ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR Foisie Business School atrapp@wpi.edu
Seth Tuler

ASSOCIATE TEACHING PROFESSOR

CO-DIRECTOR, BANGKOK PROJECT CENTER

CO-DIRECTOR, BOSTON PROJECT CENTER

 Interdisciplinary & Global Studies stuler@wpi.edu
Nicholas Williams ASSISTANT TEACHING PROFESSOR Interdisciplinary & Global Studies newilliams@wpi.edu