College of Humanities and Social Sciences
ARIEL ALVAREZ
Assistant Professor, Political Science and Law
alvareza@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 4188
Office Location: Dickson Hall 372
Dr. Alvarez is an Assistant Professor in the Child Advocacy and Policy Program at Montclair State University. Last year was a busy year for Dr. Alvarez, as he completed both his J.D. and Ph.D. at two different universities in two different states. Dr. Alvarez received his doctorate from the School of Public Administration and Affairs at Rutgers. His dissertation title was Litigation Strategy and Public Sector Reform: The Case of New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services. Dr. Alvarez has published several articles in research journals. He also has engaged in many pro bono services such as assisting in providing help for children in Haiti, volunteering for Ronald McDonald’s House Charities and providing comprehensive services to the homeless through the Miami Rescue Mission. Dr. Alvarez’s current research interests focus on child policy and public sector reform.
CHRISTOPHER DONOGHUE
Assistant Professor, Sociology
donoghuec@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 7227
Office Location: Dickson Hall 312
Dr. Donoghue’s research has focused mostly on turnover among nurses and the quality of care in American nursing homes. His dissertation examined inequalities in nursing home care that are related to payment type (Private Pay vs. Medicaid). He has also explored topics such as the social construction of disability, emerging adulthood, ethnic and racial social distance, and multicultural education. His research has been published in many peer-reviewed journals on health policy and aging, such as The Gerontologist, Research on Aging, The Journal of Applied Gerontology, Health Care Management Review and The Journal of Health and Social Policy and in social science and education journals such as Disability and Society, The Social Science Journal, and The College Student Journal.
Since 2009, he has studied social psychological interventions in elementary and middle school education. Dr. Donoghue's most current work is on bullying victimization, reporting tendencies and coping behaviors. In addition, Dr. Donoghue serves as a volunteer consultant on School Climate and Bullying Needs Assessments and Program Evaluations for several schools in the area. In this capacity, he conducts public forums for parents, workshops for teachers, and presentations for school administrators.
ELAINE HITCHCOCK
Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders
hitchcocke@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 7072
Office Location: 1515 Broad Street, Bloomfield, NJ
Dr. Hitchcock earned her doctorate in Speech-Language Pathology at New York University. She has an active research agenda in phonology, focusing on phonological development, including investigating the use of traditional and spectral biofeedback approaches to intervention and voicing acquisition. She has worked as a speech language pathologist since 1994. In 1996, Dr. Hitchcock founded The Voice Center at St. Joseph’s Medical Center. Two years later, Dr. Hitchcock took a position at Montclair State University as the Clinic Director of the Communication Disorders Center. In 2003 she became a part-time faculty member in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at MSU.
CHRISTOPHER MATTHEWS
Professor, Anthropology
matthewsc@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 3063
Office Location: Dickson Hall 130
Dr. Matthews comes to MSU from Hofstra University where he was Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Public Archeology. His interest in archeology emphasizes the participation of the community with a special attention to issues of power, social justice, and race/ethnicity. He has been the recipient of a number of grants and a Visiting Professor at prestigious institutions such as Columbia and Harvard. He has a steady publishing record of monographs, edited volumes and journal articles. His most recent work has dealt with issues of poverty and race.
JEFFREY MILLER
Assistant Professor, English
millerje@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 7412
Office Location: Dickson Hall 356
Dr. Miller, a Milton scholar, is an Assistant Professor in the English Department who comes to Montclair with publications in Milton Studies and a book collection from Oxford University Press. A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Miller has taught several different courses in Milton, as well as Race and Gender in Shakespeare, and the English Bible, among others. Dr. Milton’s primary scholarly investigations focus on how typology and how Milton’s writing process itself was crucial to the shaping of some of his most radical ideas. Dr. Miller’s research also includes attention to John Selden, the 17th century English jurist and comparative studies of early modern Catholic and Jewish writers. Dr. Miller will teach Renaissance Literature, English Literature I, and Honors, among other courses.
MEGAN MORAN
Assistant Professor, History
moranm@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 7541
Office Location: Dickson Hall 429
Dr. Moran is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at Montclair State University. Upon completing her doctorate at Vanderbilt University in 2008, she accepted a two-year Visiting Assistant Professorship at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Since then she has served as a tenure-line Assistant Professor at Queensborough Community College, CUNY. Her area of specialization is the social and cultural history of the early modern Mediterranean World, with a particular research focus on issues related to family, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance Italy. Dr. Moran has articles in two peer-reviewed journals currently in press, one about preserving family memory in early modern Italy and the other about forming family networks in 16th century Italy. She is currently working on two article-length projects about life in early modern Florence, one about female friendship, and the other, prostitution. In addition, she is working on a monograph-length manuscript about gender and family ties in early modern Italy, having secured a Mellon Research Fellowship and a CUNY Research Award to help support work on this long-term project.
ZSOLT NYIRI
Assistant Professor, Political Science and Law
nyiriz@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 4238
Office Location: Dickson Hall 202
Dr. Nyiri is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Law. He is a political scientist who, as Director of the German Marshall Fund, has been responsible for the design, implementation, supervision, and analysis of surveys in more the thirty European countries. Most recently he specialized in transatlantic security, European immigration and integration, global governance and the relationship between public opinion and public policymaking. He is recognized for developing innovative methodologies for polling hard to reach Muslim populations in Europe in the aftermath of the London bombings of 2005 as well as for development of Flash Eurobarometer surveys conducted for the European Commission. He served as part of a five-member expert panel for the European Science Foundation's office of European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST). He has published on European politics, integration and governance in books and refereed journals including Political Research Quarterly, Harvard International Review, and Foreign Policy.
SVETLANA SHPIEGEL
Assistant Professor, Sociology
shpiegels@mail.montclair.edu
ext. 5263
Office Location: Dickson Hall
Dr. Shpiegel is an Assistant Professor in the Child Advocacy and Policy Program at Montclair State University. She recently completed her doctorate in Social Work at Rutgers. Her dissertation topic was Resilience among youth transitioning out of foster care: Cumulative risk and protection and their relationship with positive adaptation. She has taught Research Methods at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Rutgers, where she also served as a teaching assistant. Given her status as a newly minted Ph.D. – she defended her dissertation in July. Dr. Shpiegel already has published three peer-reviewed journal articles with yet another in press. She has presented her research at professional conferences throughout the United States and worked at Cornell University as a Summer Research Institute Trainee. Dr. Shpiegel’s research interests include risk and resilience among vulnerable populations, adolescents transitioning out of foster care, and international child advocacy.