Faculty Biographies

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Kristina Berdan

Facilitator

Kristina Berdan has been a teacher in Baltimore City Schools for nine years.  She graduated from Towson University’s Master of Arts in Teaching Program after earning her B.S in Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland.  Currently on a leave of absence from the city school system, she is devoting herself full time to the Stadium School Youth Dreamers, Inc., a non-profit organization created by some of her students  in 2001.   She bases most of her work on the Principles of Social Action as developed by the Centre for Social Action out of DuMontford University in England.  She has attended numerous trainings with the Centre for Social Action, has done presentations about the Youth Dreamers at social action conferences, and was on an editorial team to produce a publication about teachers’ experiences with social action in the classroom (Writing for a Change:  Boosting Literacy and Learning through Social Action, Jossey-Bass, 2006).  She has served on the board of Youth As Resources with three other teenage Youth Dreamers, earned her National Board Certification in 2000, and received the B-More Fund Award in November 2006.  She teaches artists in the Teaching Artist Institute sponsored by the Arts Education in Maryland Schools Alliance, Maryland State Arts Council, and Young Audiences of Maryland. She teaches teachers through the Towson University Arts Integration Institute, and she is a part-time faculty member in the MICA MA in Community Arts Program.

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Lenore Blank-Kelner

Exploring the Effects of Colonization Through Drama

Since 1981 Lenore Blank Kelner has directed her own educational theatercompany, InterAct Story Theatre. She is an actress, theater director, playwright,educator and author. She has been a presenter with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and for The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts for 26 years. Lenore has conducted staff development workshops and demonstration lessons for teachers throughout the United States and abroad. She is the author of three books including: The Creative Classroom (13th printing) and her newest book co-authored with Rosalind Flynn, A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension published by Heinemann. Lenore frequently works as a consultant for the Maryland State Department of Education. She was awarded the 2004 Creative Drama Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education and was nominated for the Governor’s Arts Awards for 2005-2006.

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Letty Bonnell

Afro-Portuguese Ivories

Dr. Bonnell is an Assistant Faculty member in Fine Arts and Curator of Visual Collections at Loyola College. Her teaching areas are African, African-American, and modern women artists. Her research interests include Yoruba bone and ivory carving from southwest Nigeria.

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Thomas Cohen

The Missionary Church in the Portuguese Empire, 1500-1800

Dr. Cohen is an Associate Professor and Curator of the Oliveira Lima Library at The Catholic University of America. He earned his Ph.D. in 1990 at Stanford University. His research interests include Colonial Brazil, the Luso-Brazilian world, and Latin America.

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Gilberto Campello

Afro-Brazilian Percussion: Samba

Gilberto Campello was born in Recife, Brazil. Since childhood, he was influenced by the folkloric music of this area of Brazil, well-known by its tradition in percussion resulting from the fusion of the Native Brazilian, Iberian and West African cultures.

Mr. Campello studied drum set and percussion at the Conservatorio Pernambucano de Musica with M. Chiappetta and A. Barreto. He performed in many folkloric music groups such as Maracatu Nacao, Frevo, Zabumba traditional and Afoxe. As a member of the Brazilian ensemble Sa Grama (sagrama.com.br) he recorded five CDs as well as several movie, documentary, television specials and theater soundtracks. He also appears on the latest releases of the new Northeast Brazilian Rock and folklore fusion bands. Mr. Campello was also first percussionist of the City Concert Band of Recife, which releases its own Carnival music recording every year.

In 2003, Mr. Campello studied at the world-famous Instituto Superior de Artes (Havana, Cuba) with a grant from the ASCHBERG Foundation/UNESCO, to research the common roots between Cuban and Northeastern Brazilian music. Currently, he is studying modern techniques for frame drums in world music with N. Scott Robinson.

He has performed in concert halls such as Auditorio Che Guevara in Casa de las Americas (Havana, Cuba), Sala Funarte (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC and the Brazilian Embassy. Since his arrival in Washington, DC, Mr. Campello has been an active performer and recording artist, appearing as a guest musician with many Latin Jazz ensembles. He currently teaches Brazilian percussion at the Latin American Folk Institute (www.lafi.org), and gives workshops and masterclasses about Brazilian percussion and folklore. He is a resident artist of The Washington Performing Arts Society Artist Residencies program (www.wpas.org). Gilberto is currently studying with master drummers Glen Velez and N. Scott Robinson, and offers lessons on many types of frame drums including pandeiro, tar and riq.

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Henry Duval (Quint) Gregory

Tracking the Spoils of the Santa Caterina: Recovering Portugal's Role in the Diffusion of Culture Between Europe and Asia

Since graduating with a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Maryland in 2003, Quint Gregory has lectured repeatedly for the Honors Program at Maryland, offering a popular course exploring the cultural impact of temporary exhibitions in the United States. Dr. Gregory has lectured for the National Gallery of Art Teaching Institute and the Smithsonian Associates and has recently co-organized the occasional meeting of the Historians of Netherlandish Art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. As Coordinator of User Services for the Visual Resources Center in the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Dr. Gregory oversees the transition to digital instruction and within that paradigm innovates instructional tools.

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Catherine Hays-Zabriskie

The Wide World of Wikis: Exploring Pedagogical Applications of Collaborative Website Development

Catherine Hays Zabriskie is the Associate Director of Academic Technology for the College of Arts and Humanities. She supports ARHU faculty in their use of technology in teaching and research. Catherine coordinates the College's Digital Technology in the Arts and Humanities learning opportunities for faculty. In addition, Catherine is available to meet with faculty for individual project consulting and software tutoring. She coordinates the Undergraduate Technology Apprenticeship program for the College as well as other projects such as the Visual Literacy Toolbox.

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Stephen Koziol

Evaluation and Assessment

Dr. Koziol is Professor and Chair of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maryland. He joined the faculty in 2003. His teaching and research interests include English teaching methodology, research and design in teacher education, teacher performance -assessment, and policy in teacher education.

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Fabio Melo

International Angola Capoeria Foundation Workshop

Fabio Melo started learning capoeira in his hometown Itapeva in 1996 under Contra-Mestre Beto Tucano from Grupo Cordao de Ouro. In 1998, he came to the United States for the first time for a year. In Washington, D.C., he met Mestre Cobra Mansa and started to train with him. Back in Brazil in 1999, he decided to stay with capoeira . Without many angoleiros around his hometown, he trained for a year by himself and went to the 5th International Capoeira Angola Conference in August 1999 hosted by Mestre Valmir of ICAF-BA. The experience of meeting so many Mestres and people from all over the world all together to celebrate the spirit of resistance that lives within capoeira Angola in the place that we call the motherland of Angola made him sure that that was the path that he wanted to take. In 2000 he came back to Washington, D.C. to participate in the 6th International Capoeira Angola Conference and decided to stay in the States to learn from Mestre Cobra Mansa. The support of Mestre Cobrinha and his students made Fabio feel like he was home. In 2003, during the 9th International Capoeira Angola Conference hosted by Mestre Jurandir in Belo Horizante, Minas Gerais, he received his title of Treinu in capoeira angola. He has participated in many conferences and encounters during his time in the States. He has also worked in projects teaching capoeira for children and adults and currently teaches capoeira angola at The George Washington University and at the International Angola Capoeria headquarters.

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Lisa Pegram

Conceptismo vs. Culteranismo: Poetry in the Everyday Classroom

Lisa Pegram is a poet, songwriter and arts educator. This DC native has 10 years experience in custom designing innovative and successful arts programming for such organizations as Smithsonian, Studio Theater, DC Writers Corps since 1998, beginning as a teaching artist and becoming Program Director. Pegram was also 3-time Head Coach of the DC team for the YouthSpeaks National Teen Poetry Slam Festival. Her poetry and essays have been published in Bum Rush the Page (Random House, 2001), Beyond the Frontier (Black Classic Press, 2002), and Beats Rhymes and Life (Random House, 2007). Onstage she is lead vocalist “Lady Pcoq.” Her music has been featured, among many places, at The Kennedy Center, Fete de la Musique of the French Embassy, DC Hip Hop Theater Festival, and the London International Festival of Theater. She currently balances her pursuits as a songwriter with leading writing workshops, arts-integration teacher trainings, and residencies in the education departments of both the Sackler-Freer and Corcoran Galleries of Art. Awards: 1999 DC Mayor’s Arts Award “Outstanding Emerging Artist.” Grants: Artist Fellowship & City Arts Project Grants (DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities). Memberships: United States/United Kingdom Exploratory Arts Partnership.

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Phyllis Peres

Tales of Travel--the Literature of Portugal and Brazil

Dr. Peres is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies. She is also an Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese with research interests in African and African-Brazilian Literatures and Cultures, Trans-Atlantic Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Brazilian Film, and Latin American Studies.

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Valeska Populoh

Written on Cloth: Textiles as Cultural Record

Valeska Maria Populoh is a visual and performance artist and teacher living in Baltimore, MD. She has a B.A. in international affairs from American University and a B.F.A. and M.A.T from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

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Alfredo Ratinoff

Tile-Making (Azulejos)

Alfredo Ratinoff was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he trained in ceramics with his master Teodolina Garcia Cabo starting at the age of eleven. He then studied at the National School of Ceramics and also studied drawing and painting at the National Art Academy.

Alfredo specialized for many years in large scale installations of tile and mosaic murals and his works are in many private collections all over the United States and have been exhibited at the Museum of the Americas at the Organization of American States, The N.A.S.A Headquarters in Washington D.C, The AT&T Headquarters in Oakton ,VA, Barnes & Noble Corporation in Rockville, MD and New York, N.Y, Strathmore Hall Art Center, Bethesda, MD, The Target Gallery at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Alexandria, VA and the South Florida Art Center in Miami Beach, FL. He also has the distinction to be in the permanent collection at the Embassy of Argentina in the office of the ambassador. In 2004 Alfredo created a stained glass piece for the mausoleum of the renowned Cuban singer Celia Cruz in Bronx, N.Y commissioned by Hispanic TV host Cristina Saralegui.

Alfredo Ratinoff is currently a faculty member for the Art Department for ceramics and mosaics at The Smithsonian Institution as well as the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. He was also selected by the Education office from the Embassy of Italy to work in the 2004 summer program at Georgetown University teaching mosaic workshops sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment of Humanities in Washington D.C. He serves also as a curator for the art committee at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. Alfredo currently resides in Hyattsville, MD where also has his private studio. setstats

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Alison Sandman

Cartography--Mapping the Hispanic Atlantic

Alison Sandman, Assistant Professor of History, received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the B.A. from Harvard University.

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Barbara Sommer

Magic and the Supernatural

Barbara A. Sommer, Associate Professor of History at Gettysburg College, received a Ph.D. in History from the University of New Mexico in 2000 with a minor in Anthropology, a M.A. in Art History from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in History from Colorado College.  She has published articles on the Indian slave trade and sexual witchcraft and society in Portuguese Amazonia in The Americas, Journal of Latin American Studies, and Colonial Latin American Historical Review.  She has two essays forthcoming in edited volumes: “Wigs, Weapons, Tattoos, and Shoes: Getting Dressed in Colonial Amazonia and Brazil” in The Politics of Dress in Asia and the Americas, ed. Mina Roces and Louise Edwards (Sussex Academic Press); and “The Native Nobility of Late-Colonial Pará” in The Native Peoples of Colonial Brazil, ed. Hal Langfur (University of New Mexico Press).  Dr. Sommer is currently preparing a paper on cannibalism for the Latin American Studies Association meetings to be held in Montreal in September and continuing work on her book manuscript, Colonial Indians of Amazonia: Politics and Society in Directorate Pará, Brazil.  She has received research funding from the Fulbright Commission, Gettysburg College, the Fundação Luso-Americana (Lisbon), and the John Carter Brown Library (Providence, RI). 

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Victor Vicente

Musical Exchange along the Portuguese Trade Routes

Dr. Vicente is a specialist in Lusophone and Turk-Islamic musical traditions. He currently teaches at the University of Maryland and at Montgomery College.

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Daryle Williams

The Portuguese Empire--Trading Networks, Expansion, and Power
The Crossroads of Atlantic Culture--Fine Arts in Brazil and Portugal

Daryle Williams is author of the Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930-1945 (Duke University Press, 2001), 2001 winner of the American Historical Association's John Edwin Fagg prize. He has also authored several articles and book chapters on twentieth-century Brazilian cultural history. Recent research has examined the cultural politics of World Heritage in the Southern Cone and humanities computing. His current major project, "The Blackness of Beauty," examines the fine arts and Brazilian slave society.
Williams has held grants and fellowships from the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship Program, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. From 2002-2004, Williams served as associate director of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora.
Williams is currently Associate Editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review. He also serves as the department's Director of Graduate Studies.