Impact — Winter 2021

About the Authors

Richard Samuel Deese is a Senior Lecturer for the Division of Social Sciences at Boston University. He is the author of We Are Amphibians: Julian and Aldous Huxley on the Future of Our Species (2015), Surf Music (2017), and Climate Change and the Future of Democracy (2019). In 2020, he helped to convene the online symposium “How Democracy Survives: the Crises of the Nation State” in conjunction with the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and the Center for Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning at Boston University. His research interests include the history of science, global environmentalism, and transnational democratic movements since the end of World War Two.

Laura Driscoll PT, DPT, MS, Board Certified Clinical Specialist in Geriatric Physical Therapy is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at Boston University and practices clinically as an acute care physical therapist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She holds a master’s degree in Gerontology and is currently pursuing a PhD with a focus on the social determinants of health over the life course, specifically aging in the U.S. prison system. She has completed a Master Class for Inclusion Practitioners, with Dr. Kathy Obear, from the Center for Transformation and Change and holds an additional role of Director of Faculty Diversity and Inclusion for the College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College, at Boston University.

Lorena Fuentes is the Associate Director of the ESL pre-collegiate and undergraduate programs at UMASS Boston. Before becoming a program administrator, Lorena was a full time faculty member at UMASS Boston where she taught composition courses for seven years across all levels in undergraduate studies. She has also taught ESL from K-12 for close to eight years. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Higher Education Leadership.

Amar Kanekar is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator for Health Education and Health Promotion at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His fourteen years of teaching experience involves more than 30 different courses (undergraduate and graduate) in the areas of public health, health education and health promotion. Recipient of numerous teaching awards at the international, national and local levels, his pedagogical techniques involve online distance learning, hybrid, and face-to-face courses with web enhancement using instructional technology such as synchronous and asynchronous student interaction. His research areas of interest focus on adolescent health, measurement in health education, global health, online and hybrid pedagogy, and health behavior interventions. He is widely published in both national and international journals, and he currently serves on several public health education journals and committees.

Cathy Marie Ouellette is an Associate Professor and Chair of History and Director of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Muhlenberg College. She is an historian of gender, race, and identity in modern Brazil and her teaching centers on race, ethnicity, and gender across Latin America and the Caribbean. Her current research explores the impact of diversity courses and integrative learning on student development and global engagement. She most recently published an article in Inside Higher Ed offering insight into leadership and inclusion strategies during the pandemic.

Anchalee Panigabutra-Roberts is an Associate Professor and Head of Cataloging at University of Tennessee Libraries in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her past work experience has been in cataloging and metadata in academic libraries at American University in Cairo, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota and Cornell University, with a few full-time teaching positions. Her exposure to interdisciplinary studies came from her past experience as a subject librarian in education and women’s and gender studies. Her research interests include STEAM, knowledge domain mapping, researcher identifiers and linked data. ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9333-1102

Janea Snyder is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in Health Education and Promotion for the School of Counseling, Human Performance and Rehabilitation. She completed her Ph.D. at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas where she majored in Health Studies. Dr. Snyder serves as a state representative for the American Heart Association’s Southwest Affiliate Health Equity Committee, is a member of the Arkansas Coalition for Obesity Prevention (ArCOP) and serves as a board member for the University District Development Corporation. Dr. Snyder serves as a host for Community Development Minute an educational program for KUAR radio, which highlights the work of community development organizations like the University District Development Corporation (UDDC) in which she shares informative and health education related PSAs. She also serves as the coordinator for the Growing Healthy Communities initiative for the University District community of Little Rock. Dr. Snyder has served in the capacity of a reviewer for a variety of manuscripts for education and health related journals and has publications in both respected professions. Her research interests include health disparities, heart disease, online education, service learning, comprehensive sex education, obesity prevention, and community health.

Thomas A. Underwood, a Master Lecturer in the Arts & Sciences Writing Program at Boston University, is the author of Allen Tate: Orphan of the South and is coeditor of Blacks at Harvard: A Documentary History of African-American Experience at Harvard and Radcliffe and of The Southern Agrarians and the New Deal: Essays After I’ll Take My Stand. A recipient of the Arthur G.B. Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Boston University’s “highest teaching honor,” he is currently teaching in the Boston-London Program in the College of General Studies.

Jeanine Williamson is a Professor in the University Libraries at the University of Tennessee, where she is a research librarian for Engineering and Veterinary Medicine. She previously worked at the University of Rhode Island. She has been interested in the Biglan taxonomy of disciplines for many years.