Course Coordinator Bios
COURSE COORDINATOR BIOS
Danielle Balsamo, MS
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College Now Course Coordinator:
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Danielle Balsamo is a Professor of Health Science for CUNY at Kingsborough Community College in the department of Physical Education. Mrs. Balsamo worked as a professor at CUNY Brooklyn for over a decade in the department of Kinesiology and has recently joined Kingsborough Community College. Mrs. Balsamo has worked on various laboratory research studies including body composition testing and C02 max testing under the direction of the late Dr. Dunbar. She is a licensed American Red Cross lifeguard instructor including CPR/AED & first aid instructor. |
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Boran Beric
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College Now Course Co-Coordinator: BSS 1Email: Boran.Beric@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:PhD Candidate, ABD Graduate Center (CUNY) |
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Boran Beric, CUNY Ph.D. candidate is a graduate of University of Split, Croatia (B.A. Philosophy), University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (M.A. Philosophy) and the Graduate Center of CUNY (M.Phil, Philosophy). His research interests include, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Moral Psychology, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology. |
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Jessica Corbin
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College Now Course Coordinator: HUM 1Email: Jessica.corbin@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Piano Performance, Duquesne University, B.M. |
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Bio: Jessica Corbin is a Lecturer of Music in the Communications and Performing Arts Department at Kingsborough Community College, where she teaches courses in both music and musical theatre. She previously taught at Marymount Manhattan College and Western Connecticut State University, as well as F.H. LaGuardia HS for Music and Art and Performing Arts. She’s been a member of the C4 Ensemble: The Choral Composer/Conductor Collective in Manhattan, both as a soprano and conductor. She was the Founding Artistic and Executive Director and Conductor of BVS Women’s Choir (now Brooklyn Treble Choir) in Brooklyn for 19 years. She performs regularly as a singer-songwriter, and is the recent past Chair of Musical Theatre of Region 1 of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. |
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Dr. Libby Garland, Ph.D
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College Now Course Coordinator: POL 63 and HIS 68Email: libby.garland@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:B.A. , Yale University M.A., |
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Dr. Libby Garland is an Associate Professor of History in Kingsborough Community College’s Department of History, Philosophy and Political Science. She is also on the faculty of the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. |
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Erika Gershuni
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College Now Course Coordinator: BusinessEmail: Erika.Gershuni@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:BA; Accounting | Information Systems, Queens College (CUNY) |
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Erika Gershuni is a Lecturer in Kingsborough Community College's Department of Business. Her degrees include a BA from Queens College (CUNY) and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. |
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David Goldberg
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College Now Course Coordinator - Culinary and Tourism and HospitalityEmail: david.goldberg@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:MA in Language and Literacy – City College |
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David Goldberg is an Associate Professor of Culinary Arts at Kingsborough Community College since 2014, where he teaches Culinary Concepts, Food Safety and Sanitation, Introduction to Professional Food Service, Baking and Pastry, Patisserie, Artisan Bread Baking, and Internship. David is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including two PSC CUNY Foundation research grants, and a President’s Faculty Innovation Award. His article entitled, "CD-19 Teaching Brief: “Do you Deliver?” Teaching a Culinary Arts Internship course in Brooklyn as New York City became the COVID-19 Epicenter." Was published in 2020 in Gastronomica. David earned his MA in Language and Literacy at City College. |
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Marisa Joseph
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College Now Course Co- Coordinator: SD 10 & SD 11
Email: marisa.joseph@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology, Brooklyn College (CUNY) |
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Marisa Joseph is the Director of the Center for Career Development & Experiential
Learning at Kingsborough Community College. A product of the CUNY system, she earned
her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and Master of Arts Degree in Industrial/Organizational
Psychology from Brooklyn College. Marisa has four years of experience in Human Resources,
specifically in recruitment, and over 15 years of experience in Career Services. |
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Dr. Joanna Maulbeck
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College Now Course Coordinator EducationEmail: Joanna.Maulbeck@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Global Affairs and Urban Education, Rutgers University, Ph.D. |
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Joanna Maulbeck is a Lecturer (Doctoral Schedule) in the Education Program at Kingsborough Community College. Before coming to Kingsborough, Joanna taught at Concordia College, Rutgers University, The College of New Jersey, and City College. Joanna also has experience teaching Pre-K through Grade 2 in South Africa, Mali, and the United States. She is co-founder of Deep Roots School, a nature school, located in NJ. She has earned a B.S. in Elementary Education and Child Psychology from The College of New Jersey, a M.S. in Global Affairs from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in Global Affairs/Urban Education from Rutgers University. Joanna is passionate about child-centered, holistic learning, as well as equity and diversity in education. Her research investigates ways to advance social justice through education, particularly through curricular and systemic reforms. |
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Robert S. Nelson
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College Now Course Coordinator: MCM 30Email: Robert.Nelson@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Master of Library and Information Science, Queens College
Master of Arts, Long Island University
Bachelor of Arts, Saint Francis College
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Robert S. Nelson is an Adjunct Assistant Professor for the Department of Communications & Performing Arts at Kingsborough Community College and the senior School Media Specialist at Fort Hamilton High School. For nearly 30 years, Mr. Nelson has served the students of New York City as an educator specializing in media and information literacy. For over a decade, he has been teaching College Now courses in Media and Film. In partnership with full-time faculty in the Communications and Performing Arts department, he has worked to develop Open Education Resources (OERs) for both MCM 30 and MCF 40 bringing the program closer to its goal of zero textbook cost. |
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Dr. Mary Ortiz, PhD
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College Now Course Coordinator: SCI 1Email: mary.ortiz@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:PhD Rutgers, The State University of NJ and UMDNJ |
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Dr. Mary Ortiz is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College. Her degrees include a B.S. in Biology & Mathematics from Wagner College, as well as a M.S. and a PH.D in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University. Before coming to Kingsborough Community College in 1993, Dr. Ortiz was a Research Scientist in Biomedical Engineering and Computer Operations at NY City Technical College and The College of Staten Island. She has also worked as a Thesis Advisor and Mentor for the Graduate Physician Assistant Program at Wagner College/ SI University Hospital. |
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Nympha Pierre
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College Now Course Coordinator: SD 10/11Email: nympha.pierre@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:CUNY Brooklyn College, MAT Science |
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Nympha Pierre works as a Career Specialist in the Center for Career Development & Experimental Learning and in the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) at Kingsborough Community College. Ms. Pierre also taught SD 11 for several years. She has extensive experience working with students from diverse populations and regularly facilitates career readiness workshops for Kingsborough ASAP students. |
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Bryan Powers
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College Now Course Coordinator: MCF 40Email: Bryan.Powers@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:MFA in Film- City College Of New York |
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Professor Bryan Powers (Media Arts), as a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), just completed another year as a member of the selection panel for the 2021 GSA BAFTA Student Awards, watching and judging over 120 short films from this year’s 650+ submissions. BAFTA notes, "The GSA BAFTA Student Awards is an annual event celebrating the works of the next generation of talented and innovative storytellers from around the globe. Professor Bryan Powers (Media Arts), as a member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), just completed another year as a member of the selection panel for the 2021 GSA BAFTA Student Awards, watching and judging over 120 short films from this year’s 650+ submissions. BAFTA notes, "The GSA BAFTA Student Awards is an annual event celebrating the works of the next generation of talented and innovative storytellers from around the globe. "The most rewarding thing about watching and judging the short films in the BAFTA
Student Awards is that the films are produced by a new and upcoming generation of
talented filmmakers from the best film schools around the world,” says Bryan. "The
diverse narratives and distinct perspectives featured in the films are always inspiring.
The level of the films’ production standards are quite impressive and often demonstrate
innovative use of the formal aspects of filmmaking to convey the themes and issues
they address." As a former BAFTA scholar, Bryan is excited to now be a part, however small, in BAFTA's mission to support other young student filmmakers. “This is something that I am very fond of,” Bryan says. |
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Prof Edy Rameau
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College Now Math CoordinatorEmail: Edy.Rameau@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Brooklyn College, MS in Mathematics, 2007 |
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Edy Rameau is an assistant professor of Mathematics at Kingsborough Community College since 2007. He thought as an instructor the GED Math and Science Program at Kingsborough for 10 years prior to becoming an Adjunct. He is currently a High school Calculus Teacher and a Dean at Midwood High School. He is an avid reader who specializes in Francophone Literatures and Mathematics History. |
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Dr. Rick Repetti, PhD
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College Now Course Coordinator: BSS1Email: rick.repetti@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:American Philosophy Practitioners Association |
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Rick’s checkered educational/life path affords him some experiential insight into some of our students’ challenges. In his youth, Rick lived for a decade in a NYCHA (NYC Housing Authority) public housing projects development in Astoria, Queens. Eight years after dropping out of F.D. Roosevelt high school in the last semester of his senior year and earning his G.E.D., Rick began college as a freshman at Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx (while working the midnight shift in a Manhattan law firm), he was a permit student for a semester at Hunter College in Manhattan, and then he transferred to Brooklyn College, where he earned his BA in philosophy with many honors, including summa cum laude, phi beta kappa, and alpha sigma lambda, the evening student equivalent of phi beta kappa. After another (work-related) year off from academia, Rick entered the PhD program in philosophy at the CUNY Graduate School, and soon began teaching part-time at Brooklyn college (while still working full-time in the law firm), then at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, and eventually at Kingsborough. Shortly before he earned his doctoral degree in philosophy, he was hired full time at Kingsborough, and since has moved up the ranks to Full Professor. Rick is a CUNY person through and through, and the two summers he taught outside CUNY, at Vassar College’s Exploring Transfer Program, were part of one of Kingsborough’s Honors Program’s off-campus initiatives. Rick occupies many pivotal roles in the life and governance of the university, the college, and his department, the Department of History, Philosophy & Political Science. Among many roles he has played over decades at Kingsborough since he started in 1996, Prof. Repetti is a member of the UFS, the University Faculty Senate, a union delegate in the PSC-CUNY, the Professional Staff Congress (CUNY’s faculty union), a member of the College Council, the chair of the Instructional Committee of the College Council, a member of the P&B (Personnel and Budget) committee in the Department of History, Philosophy & Political Science, and the college’s Grievance Counselor, successfully representing faculty in many formal grievances against the college. Prof. Repetti is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA), an APPA-Certified Philosophical Counselor, a Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Practitioner, a Certified Mindfulness Practitioner, a Certified Life Coach, and he trained for two years in Gestalt Psychotherapy, with clients, under supervision. Rick is a multiple-decades Meditation and Yoga practitioner and instructor. Prof. Repetti scholarly research is primarily on meditation and free will, and how meditation increases our agency while transforming our sense of self. Rick has numerous related publications and editorial roles. He is the editor of The Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation (Routledge 2022) and of Buddhist Perspectives on Free Will: Agentless Agency? (Routledge 2017), the author of Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will: A Buddhist Theory of Mental Freedom (Routledge 2019) and of The Counterfactual Theory of Free Will: A Genuinely Deterministic Theory of Soft Determinism (Lambert 2010), as well as author of dozens of articles and chapters on Buddhism, meditation, free will, philosophy of religion, philosophy of education, and on using fair-minded reasoning to combat political polarization. Rick is also on the editorial board of The Journal of Buddhist Ethics, The American Philosophical Association’s Newsletter on Philosophy in Two Year Colleges, and (formerly) the journal, Science, Religion & Culture. Prof. Repetti is also collaborating with Prof. John Vervaeke, University of Toronto philosopher, cognitive scientist, and author of the widely viewed YouTube video lecture series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”, and other colleagues, to create an international network of communities of practitioners of transformative wisdom-oriented practices, such as meditation and contemplation. Prof. Repetti is a co-founder of the CUNY Contemplatives Network (initially funded by a grant from CMind, the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society), a group of over 100 faculty members across CUNY who are interested in contemplative and meditative practices and pedagogies. The CUNY Contemplatives Network has held a number of conferences and lectures series at the CUNY Graduate Center. Rick is currently negotiating with Routledge / Taylor & Francis on the creation of a new journal, The Journal of the Philosophy of Meditation, for which he will be the editor-in-chief; he is also working on founding and directing a related professional organization, The Society for the Philosophy of Meditation. He is also a Fellow of CMind, and a member of the Heterodox Academy, a national organization devoted to advancing viewpoint diversity in academia. Rick’s primary professional aspirations revolve around bringing “philosophy to the people”: practices that bring the tools of philosophical practice to the general public, such as philosophical counseling, philosophical fellowship, philosophy cafés and podcasts, philosophical tabling events (“Ask a Philosopher” booths in public spaces), leading public meditations, etc. Rick has been leading weekly meditation sessions for the entire college community (faculty, staff, and students) through the KCTL, the Kingsborough Center for Teaching and Learning, since 2007. Many of those meditations are video recorded and are available for personal use at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gwiv7n6zstnqlem/AAD_CIah0CXzHTcXQsXKo7dha?dl=0. Rick is also an advisor to a tech start-up company developing a decentralized, validated-knowledge repository on the blockchain, an alternative to centralized information networks, biased journalism, and various forms of misinformation. For more information about Prof. Repetti, see: https://www.rickrepetti.com/about-me. |
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Paul Ricciardi, MS
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College Now Co-Coordinator: HUM 1 and THA 50Email: paul.ricciardi@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:MF.A. in Dramam, Trinity Repertory Company Rhode Island College |
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Paul Ricciardi is an Associate Professor of Theatre in the Department of Communications and Performing Arts at Kingsborough Community College, where he teaches Acting I, Acting II, Voice and Articulation, Play Analysis and Introduction to Theatre. At Kingsborough Community College, he has also directed numerous productions including, Fabulation, The Hot L.Baltimore, Blood Wedding, The Solo Performance Festival, Antigone, An Evening of Tennessee Williams 1-Acts, The Children’s Hour, Detroit ’67 and As You Like It. Paul is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including two PSC CUNY Foundation research grants, a President’s Faculty Innovation Award, four NY State Council on the Arts grants, a Kennedy Center National Teaching Artist Award and the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion. Paul is a designated Linklater Voice Teacher and he works regularly as an actor, solo performer and voice/speech/dialect coach. His article entitled, “I Want to Do That- an exploration of mentor relationships in the voice and speech community” was published in 2012 in the Voice and Speech review. Paul is the Director of the Ancram Opera House, a professional non-profit theatre In the Hudson Valley of New York, where he produces and directs the, “Real People Real Stories” program. Paul earned his MF.A in Acting from Trinity Prep. |
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Lili Shi, Ph.D
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College Now Course Co- Coordinator: SPE11 and SPE21
Email: lili.shi@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Howard University, Ph.D. in Communication Studies, 2010 |
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Dr. Lili Shi is an assistant professor of communication studies at Kingsborough Community College since 2010. She teaches Intercultural Communication, Public Speaking, Listening and Speaking Skills, and ESL with a critical focus on language, gender, identity, and space. She has been an engaging instructor for Kingsborough’s various Learning Communities, Civic Engagement, Writing Across Discipline initiatives, NEH-funded CUNY programs such as “Building Asian American Studies across Community Classrooms” (2016-2018), and “Bridging Cultures to Form a Nation” (2012-2014). Dr. Shi’s scholarly research focusses on transnationalism and diaspora in Brooklyn Chinatowns. She has published in China Media Review, Journal of Motherhood Studies, and many other book chapters. She has presented at various conferences nationally and internationally, and is a recipient of the CUNY Diversity Professional Development Fund grant, PSC-CUNY research grants, and the Waterhouse Family Institute Research (WFI) Grant for the Study of Communication and Society at Villanova University, 2016-2018. Dr. Shi is also on the editorial board of Women Studies Quarterly (WSQ). She guested the special issue “Asian Diasporas” of WSQ in Spring 2019. She is a 2021-2022 fellow at the Committee on Globalization and Social Change at the Graduate Center of CUNY. |
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Theodore Timmins
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College Now Course Co-Coordinator: SD 10 & SD 11
Email: ted2gc@gmail.com Education:B.A.- History, St. Francis College |
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Theodore Timmins had been a guidance counselor in the Department of Education for over 40 years, specializing in College and Career counseling. He is a state licensed mental health counselor and Nationally Board Certified. He has worked as an on-site coordinator for College Now and has been an instructor for the SD 10/11 courses for over 20 years. He is now working as a Course Co-Coordinator. |
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Shamika Weekes, MS
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College Now SD10/SD11 Course CoordinatorEmail: shamika.weekes@kbcc.cuny.edu Education:Walden University, MS Psychology |
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Shamika Weekes works as a Career Advisor in the Center for Career Development & Experimental Learning at KCC and is an Instructor for SD 11. She has also worked as an Adjunct Service Learning Advisor for the department’s Service Learning Program. Ms. Weekes has worked with Coney Island Alliance through KCC Workforce Development & Continuing Education, facilitating career readiness workshops for Coney Island residents. Prior to coming to KCC, Ms. Weekes worked for 12 years in social services, mental health & counseling, with several of those years working directly with youth and families at risk. |
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