As a new academic year begins, Clark University is welcoming new tenure-track faculty members who bring to their classrooms a wealth of expertise in economics, chemistry, history, game design, management, languages, education, and sustainability. Their research is wide ranging — from the economics of inequality to the environmental humanities, Agile management, and interactive media design for business.
Moshi Ul Alam
Assistant Professor, Economics
Moshi Ul Alam is a labor economist who examines the economics of discrimination and inequality, as well as policies that address these issues. His current research focuses on how to optimally redistribute resources across different locations to address inequality. He also is co-authoring a study on how the spatial distribution in school quality affects disadvantaged children and exploring ways to improve school-choice mechanisms to enhance welfare. In other work, Alam has demonstrated how reducing information disparities about managers’ mentorship abilities can help break down glass ceilings for women advancing to managerial positions. He earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and holds a master’s from the Indian Statistical Institute and bachelor’s from Jadavpur University, India.
Elizabeth Bafaro
Assistant Teaching Professor, Chemistry
Elizabeth Bafaro is a biochemist who is passionate about undergraduate education. Prior to joining the Clark faculty, she taught general chemistry and experimental biochemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for six years. Through her teaching, she aims to make connections between theory and practice by designing laboratory experiments that enable students to explore chemical principles and engage in the scientific process. Before beginning her teaching career, Bafaro’s research focused on the biochemical characterization of membrane proteins using genetic engineering, protein expression and purification systems, and structural techniques, including X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. Bafaro earned her doctorate in microbiology and chemical engineering from the University of Alberta and her bachelor’s in biochemistry from the University of Guelph.
Nathan Braccio
Assistant Professor, History
Nathan Braccio’s teaching and research focus on Indigenous history, colonial American history, and environmental history, specifically the cultural negotiations among Northeastern Indigenous peoples and the New England colonists in the 1600s and early 1700s. Prior to coming to Clark, he taught at Lesley University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Utah State University. His current book project, “Creating New England, Defending the Northeast: Contested Algonquian and English Spatial Worlds, 1500–1700,” investigates the different ways Algonquian-speaking peoples and Puritan colonists marked, described, and mapped the landscape of present-day New England. He has published articles and digital projects on both Indigenous mapmaking practices and the absence of mapmakers among the Puritan colonists. Braccio’s next project explores the culture of agrarian violence in colonial America. He earned his doctorate from the University of Connecticut and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from American University.
Elliot Epstein
Assistant Teaching Professor, Becker School of Design & Technology
Elliot Epstein teaches about and researches game development, Agile project management, level design, level scripting, documentation, game design, project management, and production. He started his career working on everything from triple-A Xbox titles to military simulations and mobile games. He is a co-founder of SqueePlay, Inc., which makes casual games and business applications. Epstein earned his master’s in digital media and interactive entertainment from the University of Central Florida and a bachelor’s in psychology from Boston University.
Christina Gerhardt
Henry. J. Leir Chair and Professor, Language, Literature, and Culture
Christina Gerhardt’s research and teaching focus on the environmental humanities. Recently, she was the Barron Professor of Environmental Humanities at Princeton University and a senior fellow at the Rachel Carson Center at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. She is the author of “Sea Change: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean,” which was named by New Scientist as one of the best popular science books of 2023. Gerhardt is editor-in-chief of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, and has held visiting positions at Harvard University, the Free University in Berlin, Columbia University, and the University of California at Berkeley, where she taught previously and is a permanent senior fellow. She earned both a doctorate and master’s in German studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a bachelor’s in French studies from the University of San Francisco.
Jessica Glazier
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Jessica Glazier is a social and developmental psychologist whose research challenges norms and common assumptions that people hold about social categories (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.), such as that gender is binary, that racial categories are discrete, or that everyone experiences sexual attraction. Glazier’s work borrows from the methods and theories of social, developmental, and cognitive psychology, as well as feminist and LGBT studies, to explore the implications of these and other assumptions and to characterize the experiences of people who defy assumptions about social categories (e.g., transgender, multiracial, asexual people, etc.). Glazier was a postdoctoral research associate at Northeastern University and earned a master’s and doctorate in psychological science from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s from Albion College.
Jeremy Kauffman
Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Professional Studies
Jeremy Kauffman is a certified project management professional, scaled Agile framework program consultant, and certified scrum master with more than 15 years of experience in corporate project management and project management office leadership. He received the 2023 Semita Vitae Award from the School of Professional Studies for being a conscientious, supportive, and inspiring mentor to advisees. Kauffman previously taught at Bryant University and Daniel Webster University, was director of technology at the Waters Corporation, and served as a project manager at Boston Scientific, among other roles. He earned his MBA in information systems from the University of Massachusetts and a bachelor’s in international business from Bryant.
Eman Lasheen
Assistant Professor, Sustainability and Social Justice
Eman Lasheen is an urban planning lecturer, researcher, and practitioner with more than 10 years of international experience spanning the U.S., Middle East, and Europe. Her research lies at the intersection of international development and climate change planning, with a special interest in urban resilience, food and water policies, sustainable development, and environmental justice. Lasheen earned her doctorate in urban and regional planning and development from MIT, a master’s in urban risk and resilience from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a bachelor’s in architectural engineering from Cairo University.
Mengliu Lu
Assistant Teaching Professor, Becker School of Design & Technology
Mengliu Lu is a 3D artist focusing on modeling, texturing and animation. She worked as a 3D artist and animator for White Snake Projects and developed new 3D assets for the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute. She specializes in 3D modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, and animation; her work includes in-game assets (both hard-surface and organic), characters, environment art, and animations. She earned her MFA in game and interactive media design from Clark University and her bachelor’s in game and interactive media design from Becker College.
Erin Nerlino
Associate Professor of Practice, Education
Erin Nerlino’s always-evolving research interests include the status of teachers’ voices and influence, teacher preparation, teacher leadership, opportunities for second-stage teacher growth, the relationship between policy and teachers’ work, and the impacts of teacher working conditions on teacher performance. She taught various grades and levels of English and language arts for 11 years at a public, regional high school in Massachusetts, and was a semifinalist for Massachusetts teacher of the year in 2023. She earned her doctorate in curriculum and teaching at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.
Hong Zhou
Assistant Teaching Professor, School of Business
Hong Zhou teaches finance and quantitative methods in business at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research focuses on corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and executive compensation. Her work primarily explores corporate governance structures — specifically, how firms leverage corporate social responsibility-related initiatives, and the relevant corporate outcomes. Zhou’s research work has been published in the International Journal of Managerial Finance, and she has presented her work at domestic and international conferences on finance, including the European Financial Management Association Annual Meeting, the Financial Management Association Annual Meeting, and the Southwestern Finance Association Annual Meeting. Hong Zhou earned her doctorate in finance from the University of Massachusetts Boston and a master’s in finance from the University of Maryland, College Park.
