CAS Welcomes 12 New Faculty Members
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LaQuana Askew, PhD
Assistant Professor Professor Askew’s research is rooted in racial equity and justice, focusing on the structural disparities that shape the experiences of Black women in the criminal legal system, particularly within drug treatment courts. Using intersectional, Black feminist perspectives she uses mixed methods to examine access, outcomes, and lived experiences of Black women in treatment courts. As a research associate at the Correctional Management Institute of Texas (CMIT) at Sam Houston State University, she supported and led state and federally funded evaluations aimed at improving justice system policies and practices. She has published in Crime & Delinquency, The Prison Journal, Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Journal of Criminal Justice and the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice. Her broader research agenda advances justice-oriented, trauma-informed, and public health–centered solutions that are guided by a critical examination of the way that the criminal legal system disproportionately impacts Black communities. Askew earned her BA and MA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and her PhD in criminology and criminal justice from Old Dominion University. |
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Wesley Barnhart, PhD
Assistant Professor Professor Barnhart is dedicated to advancing the understanding of and treatments for eating disorders in minoritized and underrepresented populations using scientifically rigorous, transparent, and open science approaches. Barnhart’s research centers on clarifying the complex links between stigma, systems of oppression, and eating disorders. To this end, the EMBRACED (Elevating Minoritized Backgrounds in Research on Appearance Concerns and Eating Disorders) Lab, directed by Barnhart, will establish an empirical foundation for the inclusion of multicultural nuances (e.g., sexual minority, gender minority, and intraminority stress) in eating disorders evidence-based practice while also identifying high-risk subgroups for eating disorder symptoms to inform the development of personalized treatment targets in LGBTQ+ individuals. The EMBRACED Lab will help establish a global understanding of eating disorders through cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural partnerships, advancing the assessment, etiology, and intervention of eating disorders in all people. Prior to coming to Suffolk, Barnhart was an eating disorders track doctoral psychology resident at the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. Barnhart earned a BA in psychology and BS in neuroscience from Ohio State University and completed graduate training (MA & PhD) in clinical psychology at Bowling Green State University. |
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Jennifer Garfield-Abrams, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Garfield-Abrams is an urban sociologist whose research explores the intersections of culture, politics, and identity in changing cities and communities. She uses ethnographic, interview, and visual methods to investigate how local organizations and community groups respond to change, construct and challenge social and symbolic boundaries, and negotiate the cultural order amidst conflict. Garfield-Abrams also researches how partisanship and polarization manifest in participatory democratic spaces. One ongoing project is an ethnography of polling places, through which she examines how people perform bipartisanship in highly polarized times, how political tensions surface in ostensibly neutral spaces, and how such spaces shape civic life and community relations. A deeply committed teacher, Garfield-Abrams has designed and taught a wide range of core and elective sociology courses in diverse classroom settings and was twice named a finalist for the UMass Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of her excellence in teaching. She earned her BA from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and her MA and PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. |
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Stephanie Jirard, JD
Assistant Professor Professor Jirard is a legal scholar, practitioner, and educator with extensive experience in the law and particular expertise in media representations of law and justice, race and juvenile justice, and the death penalty. She has enjoyed teaching and helping students discover and unleash their true potential for more than two decades. Jirard’s teaching and research are informed by her diverse criminal legal system experience—including roles as a trial attorney, federal prosecutor, public defender, and a lieutenant in the US Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. She is a member of the Massachusetts Bar, Louisiana Bar, and US Supreme Court Bar. Before coming to Suffolk, Jirard was the recipient of the 2025 Blue Flame Award for Sustained Inspirational Teaching at Shippensburg University. She earned her AB from Cornell University, an MA in applied history from Shippensburg University, and a JD from Boston College Law School. |
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Heejae Lee, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Lee takes an interdisciplinary approach that bridges research and teaching, particularly across the areas of advertising, interactive technology, and digital storytelling. His research focuses on how media technology affordances and individual heuristics shape user perceptions, with applications in advertising, public relations, education, and entertainment. He employs experimental and survey methods to investigate how digital communication technologies, such as virtual influencers, extended reality, and video games, affect message persuasion and users’ behavioral intentions. His recent work has been published in journals such as Journal of Media Psychology, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, and Journal of Interactive Advertising. Lee received his BA in mass communications from Sogang University, and his MA in media studies and PhD in mass communications from Syracuse University. |
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Héctor Linares, PhD
Assistant Professor Professor Linares is a sociocultural and legal historian of the early modern Iberian world and is interested in the intersection of law, religion, imperial building, and race during the 16th and 17th centuries. His research explores the role of indigenous, Asian, and African descendants in Iberian aristocratic institutions. Linares takes an interdisciplinary approach, employing literature, theater, art, and architecture to address and embrace the silences of the archive. He has written dozens of scholarly publications in English and Spanish, and his work has appeared in many publications, including Renaissance Quarterly, the Sixteenth Century Journal, The Americas, and Tiempos Modernos. He has also edited five volumes on race, chivalry, nobility, political culture, and legal mobilization in the Spanish Empire. Linares earned his BA in history and MA in early modern history, as well as an MEd in teacher training and education, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He received his PhD in early modern global history from the Pennsylvania State University. |
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Vincent Mastantuno, BS ’19, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Mastantuno is a Suffolk alumnus whose teaching is informed by his interests in macroeconomics, industrial organization, economic growth and innovation, and the economics of risk and time. His goal as a teacher is to make economics engaging and relevant, focusing on a balance of cohesive storytelling and responsiveness to student's diverse interests. He strives to create a classroom where all students feel welcomed, challenged, supported, and encouraged to think critically. His research leverages a combination of empirical evidence and economic modeling with an emphasis on microfounded preferences to examine macroeconomic trends and their policy implications. The majority of his active research revolves around relating behavioral assumptions to mathematical ones, or vice versa, and often involves drawing large numbers of pictures and diagrams. In 2023, Mastantuno received the Stanford Calderwood Student Teaching Award. He earned his BS in economics from Suffolk University, as well as his MA and PhD in economics from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was the Eric D. Bovet Endowed Fellow from 2021—2025. |
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Sarah O’Dor, PhDAssistant Professor Professor O’Dor is a neuropsychologist who specializes in the assessment of children, adolescents, and young adults with developmental, psychological, and medical diagnoses. O’Dor came to Suffolk from MGH, where she was a staff psychologist and the director of research at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Pediatric Neuropsychiatry & Immunology Program. In this position, she provided professional developmental and research mentorship to undergrads, post-bac students, and psychiatry residents. As an educator, she draws on her clinical experiences, particularly from time spent providing assessments and treatment recommendations for young adults with diverse learning needs. Her research utilizes neuroimaging, randomized control trials, and neurocognitive assessments to better understand and treat neuropsychiatric disorders in children. She has authored and co-authored many peer-reviewed publications and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Michael A. Jenike Young Investigator Award presented by the International OCD Foundation. O’Dor earned her BA from Boston College and PhD from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She completed an internship and post-doctoral fellowship at MGH/Harvard Medical School and is licensed to practice in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. |
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Leilane Menezes Rodrigues, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Rodrigues’s research is grounded in two decades of award-winning frontline investigative journalism and is driven by a commitment to media as a tool for liberation. She investigates the critical intersections of journalism and social justice, focusing on media representations, social media consumption, and digital harm reduction strategies for historically minoritized groups. A central area of this inquiry explores alternative media ecologies—particularly Black media throughout the global African diaspora—as vital sites of resistance and community affirmation. She employs qualitative approaches, including critical discourse analysis, participatory action research, and interviews, to explore these themes. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the transformative principles of Black feminist thought and critical pedagogy, which converge on a central belief: that education is a practice of liberation. Rodrigues earned her BA from Centro Universitário de Brasília in Brazil, as well as an MA from the Universidade do Porto in Portugal and a PhD from Michigan State University. |
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Sean Stewart, BArch/MArchAssociate Professor and Chair Professor Stewart draws on extensive experience as a practitioner working for some of the most dynamic design firms in the Boston/Cambridge area. As a professor and department chair he works to bring the best out of students by teaching them professional skills that prepare them for lifelong careers and a lifetime of civic engagement. He is an advocate for interdisciplinary design education that emphasizes curiosity, collaboration, sustainability, fundamentals, drawing, and critical thinking. He manages a department of incredible faculty and works diligently to guide each to their strengths in order to foster success for Suffolk art & design students and programs. He enjoys utilizing his diverse design, communication, management, leadership, academic, and business expertise to make a difference in and contribute to the success of students and faculty alike. Stewart’s work has been featured in national publications like Architectural Record and Contract magazine. Before coming to Suffolk, he served as a faculty member and chair in Wentworth Institute of Technology’s interior design department, and later provided leadership on capital projects for both Harvard University and Babson College. He earned his bachelor of architecture degree from Boston Architectural College, and his master of architecture from San Francisco Institute of Architecture. |
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Rosalynn Vasquez, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Vasquez’s teaching is informed by extensive industry experience and study in public relations. Her research primarily centers on exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the public relations industry and higher education, through research related to sustainability, ethics, leadership, and pedagogy. She has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Public Relations Research, Public Relations Review, Public Relations Inquiry, Journal of Public Relations Education, Public Relations Journal, Sustainability, Science Communication, and Corporate Communications: An International Journal. As a former PR practitioner, she worked in corporate, agency, and nonprofit for 15 years and serves as an active member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA), and the Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE). Vasquez earned her bachelor of science in journalism from Texas A&M University, an MBA from the University of Dallas, and a PhD in media & communication from Texas Tech University. |
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Madeline Williams, PhDAssistant Professor Professor Williams is a historian of disability and of the United States. Her work positions disability as both a kind of lived experience and as a powerful framework for analyzing politics and culture. She researches and teaches about disability as fundamentally intersecting and interacting with race, class, gender, sexuality, and more. Her current book project, Disability Democracy: Blind-Led Organizing and the Making of Modern America, tells the story of a crucial early chapter in the long history of social movement building around disability. Alongside her research, Williams engages in conversations about the promise of disability frameworks and practices for the pursuit of more just educational spaces and societies. Her work has been supported by research and funding bodies including the American Historical Association (AHA); the Center for American Political Studies (CAPS); the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History; the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM); and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She holds a BA from Swarthmore College and a PhD from Harvard University. |
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Greg Gatlin
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Andrea Grant
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617-573-8410