DALLAS TWP. — Misericordia University recently awarded tenure and promotion to seven members of the faculty. Those tenured and promoted to associate professor are Soumendra Nath Banerjee, Ph.D., business; Jennifer M. Black, Ph.D., history and government; Michele L. Brague, Ed.D., teacher education, and Jeffrey D. Stephens, Ph.D., physics. In addition, Patrick L. Hamilton, Ph.D., English; Steven J. Tedford, Ph.D., mathematics, and Amanda Mordavsky Caleb, Ph.D., who holds a joint faculty appointment in English and medical and health humanities, were promoted to professor.
Dr. Banerjee holds a Ph.D. and a M.A. in economics from Clark University. The Dallas Twp., resident also holds an M.A. in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a B.S. in economics from the University of Calcutta, both in India. He previously served as assistant professor at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, and a visiting instructor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Misericordia faculty in 2015. He has taught courses in macroeconomics, microeconomics, money and banking, economics of sports, principles of finance, and business ethics, among others.
Dr. Banerjee is co-author of “Cities Versus Suburbs: The Post 2000 Dynamics of Population and Employment in U.S. Metro Areas,” published in a recent issue of Applied Econometrics and International Development.
A Shavertown resident, Dr. Black holds a Ph.D. in American history and visual studies from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Arts degree in public history and a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from Western Michigan University. She teaches classes in United States history, women’s history, visual culture and public history. In 2016, she was honored by the City of Pittston for her direction on a series of projects by students in the Summer Research Fellowship Program to help the Greater Pittston Historical Society preserve the region’s history.
Since joining the Misericordia University faculty in 2014, Dr. Black has presented her research on American advertising and trademarks at nine national conferences. She has published three articles and book chapters, including a 2017 feature article in Winterthur Portfolio: A Journal of American Material Culture that examined how people in the past responded to advertising imagery.
Dr. Brague of West Wyoming holds a bachelor’s degree from Keene State College, a master’s in education from Plymouth State College, and her Doctorate of Education in educational leadership from Wilkes University. A member of the faculty since 2004, she also serves as director of student teaching and field placement, student teaching supervisor, and practicum supervisor. She teaches classes in math, social studies and science methods, professional practices, curriculum development, and early childhood education.
Dr. Brague previously taught at the elementary level in schools in New Hampshire, and holds certification in elementary education and other disciplines in New Hampshire, California, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Dr. Stephens, the program director for computer science, also teaches and advises in the Department of Physics. The Dallas resident holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in physics from Lehigh University, and his Bachelor of Science in physics from Lebanon Valley College. He joined the faculty in 2014, having previously taught at Lord Fairfax Community College. He teaches a variety of courses, including computer organization, physical science, and algebra-based and calculus-based physics, as well as physics introduction and related laboratory courses.
Dr. Stephens serves as a reviewer for The Physics Teacher, and has made numerous research presentations at American Physical Society and American Association of Physics Teachers meetings.
Dr. Caleb of Dallas joined the Department of English in 2010. In addition to teaching, she currently serves as chairperson of the Medical and Health Humanities Program, which offers an interdisciplinary approach for students who are interested in the humanities fields, as well as health care and medicine. Dr. Caleb also serves as coordinator for the Bachelor of Arts to Master of Arts program that offers students a seamless transition into the master’s degree program in English literature at the University of Reading in Reading, England.
Dr. Caleb holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature and gender studies from Davidson College, and received a master’s in 19th-century studies and a doctorate in English literature from the University of Sheffield, England. Her academic interests include Victorian literature, cultural materialism, and the history of medicine, science and public health.
Dr. Hamilton was named to the faculty in 2006 and specializes in contemporary Chicano/a and U.S. multi-ethnic literatures, as well as the study of race/ethnicity in comics and graphic novels. He is the author of “Of Space & Mind: Cognitive Mappings of Contemporary Chicano/a Fiction,” which explores the ways in which Chicano/a novelists challenge the ways people think about the position of Chicanos/as within U.S. society. He also has published on Los Bros Hernandez, “The Walking Dead,” and “Westworld.”
The Kingston resident received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and his M.A. from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.
Dr. Tedford of Mountain Top holds both a doctorate and Master of Arts degree from Binghamton University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from Marist College, all in the field of mathematics. He joined the faculty of Misericordia in 2008 as a visiting professor, was named assistant professor in 2009, and currently serves as department chairperson. At Misericordia, he has taught courses in statistics, mathematical reasoning, analytical geometry, calculus, discrete mathematics, analysis, and set theory and logic. His area of special research interest is combinatorics, including graph theory and polynomial invariants of graphs and greedoids.
For more information about Misericordia University, please call 570-674-6400.
