Academic Affairs

Cassandra Borges, B.A. (Indiana), Ph.D. (Michigan), CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in Classics, a classicist and an inveterate Midwesterner, has just received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.  Cassandra’s research deals with classical scholarship in antiquity (primarily on Homer) and Greek papyrology.

Tristan Cabello, B.A., M.A. (Université Marc Bloch-France), M.A., Ph.D. (Northwestern),

Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Africana Studies, received his Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University in 2011.  His main areas of concentration are 20th Century US history, African American History and LGBT Studies.

Megan Cook, B.A. (Michigan), M.A. (New York), Ph.D. (Pennsylvania), Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in English, will teach courses on Middle English literature and Chaucer, as well as a freshman seminar. She received her Ph.D. in 2011, specializing in medieval and renaissance literature, and has previously taught at Pennsylvania University and Rutgers University.

Mariana Cruz, B.A. (Puerto Rico), M.A. (Texas Women’s). M.S., Ph.D. candidate (Cornell), Predoctoral Fellow in Education. Her dissertation research explores discursive representations of social and political identity, nationalism, and citizenship in education policy for Puerto Rico. Her areas of interest include feminist theory, cultural studies, Latino studies, and service-/community-based learning.

Lori Flores, B.A. (Yale), M.A., Ph.D. (Stanford), CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in History, is teaching courses this year cross-listed between the History, Latin American Studies, and Gender and Women's Studies departments about Latino/a history and and labor, gender, and immigration in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her dissertation research traces how Mexican Americans formed community with each other and Mexican immigrants, and mobilized politically for their labor and civil rights, in California's Salinas Valley during the post-World War II period.

Megs Gendreau, B.A. (Hampshire), M.A. (California-Santa Cruz), Ph.D. (California-Riverside), Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Studies and Philosophy, comes to Bowdoin from the University of California, Riverside.  Her research centers on environmental justice and political agency.  Megs will be teaching courses in continental philosophy and social and political philosophy.

David Howlett, B.S.E. (Central Missouri), M.A. (Missouri-Kansas City), Ph.D. (Iowa), Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Religion, is a historian of religion in North America and researches pilgrimage in the modern world and Mormon history and culture.  He serves on the board of editors for the Journal of Mormon History and has worked as a visiting assistant professor of religious studies at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

Lisa Mangiamele, B.A. (Colgate), Ph.D. (North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroscience has studied the neural basis of female mating preferences in Central American tungara frogs. She is a postdoctoral fellow working with Prof Richmond Thompson in the Psychology department, and funded in part  by the National Science Foundation, interested in researching the rapid effects of sex hormones on brain and behavior and in working with Bowdoin students in both the lab and classroom.

Aba Mbirika, B.A. (Sonoma State), M.S., Ph.D. (Iowa), Postdoctoral Fellow in Mathematics, was born and raised on the Upper West Side of New York City, finished his Bachelor’s degree at Sonoma State University in Northern California, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa in Spring 2010.  He is a combinatorial representation theorist, using combinatorial methods to study intrinsic properties of certain mathematical objects, such as the topological properties of an abstract algebraic variety, in which the particular combinatorial method he uses involves polynomial ring ideals generated by symmetric functions.

Nyama McCarthy-Brown, B.A. (Spelman), M.F.A. (Michigan), Ph.D. (Temple), CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance Performance, is originally from San Francisco, but comes to Bowdoin from Philadelphia, where she completed her Ph.D. at Temple University. Her current research interests include people of color in American concert dance, and cultural diversity in dance departments.

Desdamona Rios, B.A. (California State-Northridge), Ph.D. (Michigan), CFD Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology and Gender and Women's Studies. Her research examines diversity in higher education, socialization in academic settings, the influence of curricular content on gender and racial identity, feminist pedagogy, and the psychology of invisibility.

Trevor Rivers, B.S. (Western Washington), Ph.D. (Cornell), Doherty Marine Biology Postdoctoral Scholar, is interested in the role vision plays in the environment, especially in marine systems.  At Bowdoin, Trevor will be looking at how bioluminescence affects survivorship to predation in scale worms, as well as how man-made light pollution affects near-shore fouling community structure.

Rajarshi Saha, B.S. (Bates), Ph.D. (North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Ed Lorenz Postdoctoral Fellow in the Mathematics of Climate Change. After graduating from Bates College, he went to UNC Chapel Hill where he studied how the Earth's climate behaved in the past.  Raj is interested in understanding processes that take place in very long time scales.