2020-21 Fellows

Dr. Lezlie C. Cross

Lezlie C. Cross is an Assistant Professor at the University of Portland where she teaches theatre history, dramaturgy, playwriting, and directs for the theater program. Her published articles and book reviews appear in Theatre History Studies, Theatre Annual, Shakespeare Bulletin, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre and Theatre Survey as well as the book projects Women on Stage; Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom; and Performing Objects and Theatrical Things. Lezlie is also a professional dramaturg who works at regional theatres across America with three projects coming up at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Dr. David DeLyser

Dr. David De Lyser, Director of Choral Activities, Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Performing & Fine Arts Department, joined the University of Portland faculty in 2010. His conducting duties at the University include the UP Singers, UP Chamber Choir and music director for campus musical productions. He has previously conducted the UP Orchestra. He teaches composition, orchestration, conducting, music theory and fine arts courses. Outside of the University, he is the Artistic Director of the Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland and maintains a busy schedule of guest conducting and adjudicating. He holds graduate degrees in conducting and composition from the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Portland, and a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Business from Minnesota State University Moorhead. Dr. De Lyser is a published author and award-winning composer whose works have been commissioned, premiered and performed by professional, collegiate, community and high school performing ensembles across the country.

Dr. Lara Zuzan Golesorkhi

Dr. Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Global Affairs / Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Portland. Her expertise lies in migration, gender, civil and human rights. As a scholar, activist, educator, and migrant woman, she has advocated for migrant rights and gender justice at the European Commission, the European Parliament, the United Nations, as well as on the federal and state level in Germany. In 2015, she was a winner of the United Nations Academic Impact Global Diversity Contest and has since been internationally recognized for her contributions as a human rights defender. Dr. Golesorkhi is the "Knowledge Curator" of this year's PRF theme "Displacement and Justice."

Dr. Molly Hiro

Molly Hiro is Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Programs. She teaches and researches about race, feeling, identity, and social change in American literature, and she is a founding organizer of the Public Research Fellows program.

Dr. Jeffrey Meiser

Dr. Meiser in an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Global Affairs. He teaches a variety of courses in international security, foreign policy, military affairs, and American politics. He was previously an Associate Professor at the College of International Security Affairs in the Regional and Analytical Studies Department and Director of the South and Central Asia Program. He also held positions at University of California, Santa Barbara, The Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Mannheim. He has been a hip hop fan since 1988 and currently teaches the course The Politics of Hip Hop.

Dr. Susan Murray

Susan Murray is an associate professor in the Biology department at the University of Portland. Prior to joining the UP faculty in 2014, she was a post-doctoral fellow and research assistant professor at Oregon Health & Science University, where she also received her PhD in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Dr. Murray’s research focuses on understanding the signals that regulate the immune system, specifically those that impact T cell function. She enjoys working on these projects with undergraduate research students in her laboratory Dr. Murray teaches Introduction to Cell and Molecular Biology lab and lecture courses, as well as several upper division biology courses in her field. This semester (Fall 2020), she is a member of the team teaching an interdisciplinary course titled “Imagining our Future: Making Sense of COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and Climate Change.”

Dr. Anne Pitsch Santiago

Anne has been teaching at UP for nearly 17 years and focuses her classes on puzzles within the international system. Her courses focus on the Middle East, Africa, Democratization, International Law, as well as research methods. She has a strong social justice theme running throughout her courses. Her research has been focused on the continent of Africa, examining the relationships between government and the citizenry, how norms are established, and how economic development takes shape across the continent.

Dr. Sarina Saturn

I have a background in neuroscience and health psychology and focus on how our brains and bodies process emotional events. The core themes in my research focus on measurements of mental and physical health, social bonds, intergenerational trauma, healing, coping, and resilience. I am excited by the PRF opportunity to embark on more community research and outreach to complement my laboratory study of families that included biomarkers of epigenetics, stress, and nurturance with a focus on the oxytocin system.

Dr. Geneviève Brassard

Geneviève Brassard, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of English, where she teaches course ranging from College Writing and Thinking through Literature, to the British Literature II survey, Studies in Women Writers, Studies in Fiction, and Studies in Irish Writers. She has published articles and book chapters on Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Bowen, Rose Macaulay, Edith Wharton, and Janet Flanner, among other women authors, and her scholarly interests include women writing about the two world wars, and representations of sexuality and motherhood in interwar fiction.

Prof. Kowkie Durst

Kowkie Durst is a potter and ceramics instructor who lives and works in Portland on his urban farmette, where he has built a clay studio and an atmospheric kiln, grows food, and raises chickens.
Kowkie’s early interest in Archeology and Material Culture is reflected in his work with clay in the inspiration he takes from the history of Ceramics. And on the surface of his work, Kowkie uses playful drawings in an attempt to investigate contemporary social and political issues.
Kowkie earned an MFA in Ceramics from Pennsylvania State University and a BA from Tulane University. He was resident of the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana before moving to Portland. He exhibits his work locally and nationally. He teaches Ceramics at Portland Community College and the University of Portland.

Dr. Lora Looney

A graduate of Colorado College and the University of Chicago, Dr. Looney teaches Modern Spanish Peninsular Literature and takes groups on immersion programs to Spain. Her original research focuses on representations of the juvenile in Spanish Civil War and Postwar fiction and film in the context of silence and amnesia regarding Spain's past. She is currently developing a digital humanities website, spainremembers.info, to engage undergraduates in original theoretical frameworks exploring why the youth protagonist is a recurring Spanish cinematic and literary figure to tell Spain's Civil War and Postwar Dictatorship. Using newspapers, non-fiction research and fairy tales written for adults that represent the problem of hunger in Spain during the mid-twentieth century, Dr. Looney is currently reading and discussing these sources with seventeen undergraduates in her classroom.

Prof. Sara Sutter

Sara Sutter is a poet and professor in Portland, OR. Sara is the author of several poetry chapbooks and various essays. Her writing and teaching have received support from residencies in Washington and Iceland. Sara has helped to curate reading series along with various literary events in Portland. She is currently at work on an essay collection on the intersections of sexuality, trauma, and intergenerational healing.

Dr. Matthew Warshawsky

Matthew Warshawsky is professor of Spanish and currently serves as chair of the Department of International Languages and Cultures at UP, where he teaches all levels of Spanish, including courses on the Medieval and Golden Age eras and Jewish Latin America. He is the author of The Perils of Living the Good and True Law: Iberian Crypto-Jews in the Shadow of the Inquisition of Colonial Hispanic America (2016) and co-edited, with James A. Parr, Don Quixote: Interdisciplinary Connections (2013). His recent articles have appeared in Calíope: Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry and Journal of Jewish Identities.