Emerson Welcomes 17 Full-Time Faculty This Fall

Seventeen full-time faculty members will join six departments, plus the Institute, this semester. Among them are a Broadway veteran, a National Book Award winner, a former writer for The Sopranos, and marketing professionals who have worked with multinational corporations. The list includes familiar names who are joining full-time, as well as a number of Emerson alumni.  

School of the Arts

Gail Burton, an affiliated faculty member since 2014, joins the Department of Performing Arts as Artist-in-Residence, teaching applied theatre and theatre studies.   An activist as well as an educator, Burton uses theatre methods to empower communities to implement social change. She was a leader of the Boston Busing/Desegregation Project, initiated the Creating Innovative Resources for Community Life and Education Collaborative, and was the founding director of the New Freedwoman Project. Burton holds an MA in Education from Goddard College, and has advanced training from the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, where she studied with Augusto Boal.

Shaun Clarke MFA ’12 joins the Department of Visual and Media Arts (VMA) as an assistant professor, teaching film and video production. Clarke focuses on music and dance video, and his work has been exhibited in Boston’s “30 Under 30” Festival, the Miami International Film Festival, the DC Shorts Film Festival, and the Maryland International Film Festival, in addition to festivals abroad. He also works as a director of photography for commercial and cable programs. Clarke most recently taught at Texas A&M University (Corpus Christi), where he was an assistant professor of media production. Two years ago, he served a one-year appointment at Emerson as an Artist-in-Residence.

Diane DiCroce is on a one-year appointment as an Artist-in-Residence, teaching musical theatre in the Department of Performing Arts. She is a performer, who was in Les Miserables on Broadway, and a director. She holds an M.Mus. from the Boston Conservatory, and has taught at a number of institutions, most recently at Pace University.

Novelist Julia Glass joins the Department of Writing, Literature, and Publishing (WLP) as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, teaching fiction writing in the MFA program. Glass’ debut novel, Three Junes (2002), won the National Book Award. She has also won the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Ames Memorial Essay Award, the Nelson Algren Fiction Award, and the Binghamton University John Gardner Fiction Award. Her short fiction has been published in The Washington Post Magazine, the Southampton Review, the Bellingham Review, and the Chicago Tribune; and her essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Rhapsody, and Condé Nast Traveler. She has received fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and holds a BA from Yale University.

Nadine Grant will teach costume design as an Artist-in-Residence in the Performing Arts Department. Grant comes to Emerson from Western Illinois University, where she taught costume design, designed University Main Stage productions, and supervised costume design for all of the University’s theatre and dance productions. She has extensive design credits in her native Canada, including work at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where she lists “sweet-talked Christopher Plummer” as one of her many accomplishments.  She received an MFA in Costume Design and Technology from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and an MS in Elementary Education from Niagara University.

Adele Lee joins WLP as assistant professor of early modern literature. Lee comes to Emerson from the University of Greenwich, London, where she was a Senior Lecturer teaching courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature and drama, and world literature. She has co-edited a collection of essays on London in literature, scheduled for publication in 2017. Her journal articles have appeared in the Literary London Journal and Early Modern Literary Studies. Lee’s monograph, “The English Renaissance and the Far East: Cross-Cultural Encounters,” is slated for publication by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press later this year. Lee earned her BA, MA, and PhD from Queen’s University, Belfast.

Sandra Lee will teach screenwriting as a VMA Artist-in-Residence. She has written several screenplays, and has directed both short and feature films. She has won Best Short Script at the Beverly Hills Film Festival and the European Independent Film Festival. She has worked as the TV Literary Department coordinator with ICM Partners, and as a development executive with Wendy Fineman Productions, in addition to positions at Columbia Pictures and Miramax Films. Lee taught at Baylor University for the past two years. Before that, she was an associate professor and department chair at Regis University’s Colorado Film School. She earned an MFA from Chapman University, where she also worked as the NCAA pitching coach for the softball team. 

Mark Saraceni, an affiliated faculty member for the past two years, also joins VMA as an Artist-in-Residence teaching screenwriting. Saraceni has a number of writing credits in film and television, including The Sopranos, JAG, The X-Files, The Practice, and Law and Order. He also has contributed to seven animated TV series, including Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toons, Taz-Mania, Batman, and Little Mermaid. He holds a BS from Syracuse University, and is completing an MFA in Screenwriting at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

School of Communication

Lynn Conners MSSP ’97 goes from part-time to full-time Clinical Instructor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD), where she also coordinates undergraduate field placements and supervises the Thayer Lindsley Program for deaf and hard-of-hearing children at the Robbins Center. Conners earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut before entering Emerson’s graduate CSD program. After graduation, she worked with children under 3 through the Cambridge-Somerville (Mass.) Early Intervention Program.

After serving two years as a temporary faculty member in the Department of Communication Studies, Owen Eagan MA ‘97 comes on full-time to teach Fundamentals of Speech Communication, Capstone in Communication Studies, and Capstone in Communication Management. Eagan is senior vice president for The Saint Consulting Group, an international management consulting firm specializing in land use politics, where he advises Fortune 500 companies on controversial development projects. In addition to his Emerson degree, Eagan has a BA from Clark University and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Laura Glufling-Tham moves from part-time to full-time Clinical Instructor in CSD, and also takes over as off-campus clinical coordinator. She has more than 20 years experience working with adults who have speech, language, and cognitive disorders as a result of acquired neurological problems. She currently supervises students who assess and treat adults at the Robbins Center. She holds a BS and MS from Northeastern University.

Caitlyn Jarvis is joining the Communication Studies Department full time, teaching Fundamentals of Speech Communication. A graduate of Colorado State University with a master’s degree in Communication Studies, Jarvis’ research explores the intersection of rhetoric and organizational communication in sports. Her master’s thesis, “The Season from Hell,” studied the NFL’s response to the league’s 2014 domestic violence scandals and the cultural consequences of their public relations campaign.

Brenna McCormick MA ‘06, an affiliated faculty member since 2009, is now Executive-in-Residence in the Department of Marketing Communication. She will teach in the new Business of Creative Enterprises major, including courses such as Introduction to the Creative Economy and Creative Thinking and Problem Solving. McCormick has 10 years of digital agency and consulting experience, most recently as director of expeditions and strategy at Terra Incognita Ventures//mediaman Innovation Lab, a business division of mediaman USA. Her past clients include Sperry Top-Sider, Cisco Systems Inc., EMD Serono, Pioneer Investments, Procter & Gamble, Keds, Jones New York: l.e.i; PVH: Calvin Klein, IZOD, and Reebok. In addition to her Emerson degree, she received a BA in American Studies from Boston University.

Also joining Marketing Communication as Executive-in-Residence, Mike McGuirk will teach courses that help students bridge the gap between the art and science of marketing. He has more than 25 years of analytic consulting experience, most recently as a partner at iKnowtion, and has directed teams at Epsilon and multiple startups. He has led analytic consulting projects for brands including General Motors, Harley Davidson, Dunkin’ Donuts, CVS Pharmacy, British Petroleum, McDonalds, OnStar, Extended Stay Hotels, Volvo, Cigna Insurance, Microsoft, and numerous not-for-profit organizations. He holds a BA from the University of Maine, and an MBA from Bentley University.

Michael Tucker returns to Emerson as a Visiting Executive-in-Residence in Marketing Communication, having taught courses in creative thinking and creative development since 2012. Tucker is an award-winning marketing strategist, copywriter, graphic designer, and musician. He has held senior management positions at Cabot Direct Marketing in Boston and Duffy & Shanley Direct in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1992, he founded The Tucker Group, an integrated marketing communications firm focused on small- to mid-size businesses and nonprofits. Tucker has participated in the start-up of Salary.com, KeySurvey.com, and EyeCity.com. He has a BA in Music Production and Management from Binghamton University (he plays saxophone, clarinet, flute, and bass guitar); and an MBA and an Advanced Professional Graduate Business Certificate from Argosy University.

Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies

Kaysha Corinealdi joins the Institute as assistant professor of world history. Her research areas include the study of modern empires, nationalism, race and ethnicity formation, and migration. Her current book manuscript explores Afro-Caribbean Panamanian transitional activism from the 1920s to the 1960s. She holds a PhD in History from Yale University.

Tylor Orme joins the Institute as assistant professor of cultural economics. His research analyzes the intersection of economics, copyright law, and the entertainment industry. Recent journal articles address the efficacy of government anti-piracy policies, as well as how the Internet has changed the business of the film industry. He holds a PhD in Economics from Suffolk University.

Thanks to Matthew Finn in the Office of Academic Affairs for biographies.