Faculty

Marvin Astrada has completed a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations at Florida International University, a JD at Rutgers University Law School, and an MA and CAS at Wesleyan University. His teaching and research programs focus on law and society, constitutional law and theory, and international relations.
Presently, he is a Research Associate at the Federal Judicial Center, Washington, DC. He is responsible for the design and conduct of social scientific and legal qualitative/quantitative research projects pertaining to all facets of the administration of justice in the federal judiciary. Samples of recent projects
include social scientific and legal research pertaining to mass incarceration, the efficacy of federal reentry/diversionary programs, habeas corpus in the federal arena, and the role of media in complex criminal litigation.

Dr. Astrada has taught introductory and advanced courses in law, international relations, and political science, has presented his research at professional conferences, and published his research in the fields of law and society and international relations.

Seth Borenstein teaches journalism and society at New York University's Washington DC campus. He also is a national science writer for The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, covering issues ranging from climate change to astronomy. He is the winner of numerous journalism awards, including the National Journalism Award for environment reporting in 2007 from the Scripps Foundation and the Outstanding Beat Reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists in 2008 and 2004. He was part of an AP Gulf of Mexico oil spill reporting team that won the 2010 George Polk Award for Environment Reporting and a special merit award as part of the 2011 Grantham environment reporting prizes. He was part of a team of finalists for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Columbia space shuttle disaster. A science and environmental journalist for more than 25 years, covering everything from hurricanes to space shuttle launches, Borenstein has also worked for Knight Ridder Newspapers' Washington Bureau, The Orlando Sentinel, and the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. He is the co-author of three out-of-print books, two on hurricanes and one on popular science. He has flown in zero gravity and once tried out for Florida Marlins (unsuccessfully).

Recent stories can be read here: http://tinyurl.com/sethap

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Phone: 202-641-9454

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Ross Brater is an economist in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  He joined the Division shortly after he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in industrial organization and microeconomic theory.  He enjoys teaching courses on microeconomic theory, industrial organization, sports economics, and current issues.  While at Ohio State, he received the Economics Department's L. Edwin Smart Graduate Associate Teaching Award and its Departmental Citation for Excellence in Teaching.     
 
His current research interests include topics in theoretical industrial organization, with current focus on two-sided markets and consumer rewards programs.  He also holds an M.A. in Economics from The Ohio State University and a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Ron Christie, founder and President of Christie Strategies LLC, is a veteran senior advisor of both the White House and the Congress, brings years of government relations and media experience.

Previously, Christie served as Vice President of Navigators Global LLC - a strategic consulting and communications firm. He previously served as Executive Vice President and Director of Global Government Affairs at Ruder Finn and Of Counsel at the Washington D.C. law firm Patton Boggs, LLP. From 2002 to 2004, he was Acting Director of USA Freedom Corps and special assistant to President George W. Bush. He began service at the White House in 2001 as deputy assistant to Vice President Cheney for domestic policy, advising the Vice President on policy initiatives in healthcare, budget, tax and other policy areas.

Prior to joining the Vice President's staff, he briefly served as counsel to U.S. Senator George Allen (R-VA). He previously served as a senior advisor to former House Budget Committee Chairman and current Ohio Governor John Kasich from 1992-1999.

Christie served as a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for the Fall 2011 term. He was appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University in 2014. He also teaches The Business of Lobbying at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business He was appointed last year to the advisory board of the Georgetown University Institute of Politics.

Additionally he has also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford College as well as an adjunct professor at The George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management and was a visiting assistant professor of Political Science at Haverford College in 2009 and 2011. He has also served as a guest lecturer at University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

Justin Evans holds a PhD from the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, and an MFA in fiction from Otis College. He has previously taught humanities at Villlanova University and George Mason University. His primary research interest is the relationship between philosophy and literature in the twentieth century. He writes essays about social matters, literary criticism and fiction. He is working on a volume of fictions and essays, 'The Philosophers Bench.' The missing apostrophe in 'philosophers' is, he regrets, not a typo.

Alicia L. Gleason earned her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from George Mason University, where she was a teaching fellow. She writes short stories, flash fiction, and is at work on her first novel. Her fiction was awarded an Honorable Mention for the Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Contest, and has appeared in Cleaver Magazine and Oblong.
 
Alicia has taught writing and literature classes at George Washington University, and George Mason University. She finds that her work as a professional writer (or perhaps more accurately, as a professional reviser of her drafts) serves as a helpful model for students as they develop writing habits and techniques that acknowledge the power of revision. Alicia earned her BA from Colgate University and is TEFL certified.  

Kiran Nasir Gore is a lawyer and educator with more than a decade of experience advising governments, corporations, and non-profits in how to manage business deals, mitigate risk, and resolve their inevitable disputes. Her experience spans many industries, including retail, technology, finance, international development, pharmaceuticals, natural resources, energy, and transport. 

Kiran’s past positions include serving as a Senior Associate in the Washington, DC office of Three Crowns LLP, a global law firm focused on international dispute resolution; and before that, as an Associate in the New York office of DLA Piper LLP, one of the world’s leading large law firms. Early in her career, Kiran worked in the legal department of Michael Kors, USA Inc., a publicly traded luxury goods company.

In addition to her work with NYU students, Kiran is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, where she teaches substantive law courses and practical skills to both JD students and foreign LLM students. Kiran has a BA from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and a JD from Brooklyn Law School.

Dave Gottesman is the CountyStat Manager for Montgomery County, Maryland (pop. 1,004,709), in the Office of the County Executive. CountyStat is Montgomery County's performance management and data analytics team designed to drive accountability, transparency, and the strategic use of data to monitor and improve the performance, effectiveness, and efficiency of County services. Prior to joining Montgomery County, Dave served from 2008 to 2012 as the Director of Budget and Performance Management for the Town of North Hempstead, New York (pop. 230,000). He is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada and served on their Committee on Governmental Budgeting and Fiscal Policy from 2011 to 2017.

Dave holds an MPA in Public and Nonprofit Management from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, a BA in Journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Certified Public Manager designation from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s Institute for Regional Excellence. He is currently a Local Government Fellow with Results for America.

Jesse J. Holland is the author of Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther?, 2019 NAACP Image Award outstanding fiction novel finalist, and The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slavery Inside The White House, which was named as the 2017 silver medal award winner in U.S. History in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and one of the top history books of 2016 by Smithsonian.com.

Jesse is also the author of, Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Finn's Story and Black Men Built The Capitol: Discovering African American History In and Around Washington, D.C.

Jesse is a Race & Ethnicity writer for The Associated Press, as well as a former White House, Supreme Court and Congressional reporter. Holland is also the weekend host for C-SPAN Washington Journal.

Holland graduated from the University of Mississippi with a Liberal Arts degree with an emphasis in journalism and English. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College in 2012 and was awarded a doctorate of humane letters from Lemoyne-Owen College in 2018.

He was named Visiting Distinguished Professor of Journalism Ethics at the University of Arkansas in 2016 and teaches journalism ethics at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies. He also teaches digital narrative; research and reporting; and creative nonfiction at Goucher College in Towson, Md.

He is currently working on three books: editing a Black Panther short story anthology for Marvel Entertainment and Titan Books; writing a Green Lantern young adult comic book for DC Comics; and writing a nonfiction novel about Freedman’s Village, a now-destroyed African American town near Washington, D.C. that was founded by the former enslaved men and women of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

John Ifediora is Director and Editor-in-Chief at the Council on African Security and Development, and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. He is an economist and International Human Rights lawyer with expertise on public policy analysis, law and economics, and development economics. In recent years he lectured widely in his fields of specialty at American University in Washington, DC, and various universities in the United States, Europe, and Africa; and has served as a consultant to governments in Africa, and to state governments in the United States. In 2019 he established and continues to direct two Dakota Wesleyan University offices in Nairobi and Abuja. In previous years he consulted for the World Bank on its Human Capital Project in Africa, advised the Wisconsin Department of Revenue on its Tax Incidence Study, served as a special consultant to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and advised the Illinois State Senate on the economic impact of the state lottery on the economy of Chicago. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of Dakota Wesleyan University until 2019. Professor Ifediora has authored and co-authored six books, and published articles in economics, International law, and public policy, and is a frequent panelist and speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Constituency for Africa (CFA), both in Washington, DC. He remains very active in development programs in Africa, and has been featured in national and international media such as the BBC, National Public Radio (NPR), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Channels Television, The Guardian, The Tribune, and The Daily Sun Newspapers.

Victoria Kiechel has 20 years of professional experience in architecture, education, and sustainable design. A practicing architect, she works for the Cadmus Group, Inc., an environmental consultancy, and is a faculty member of the Global Environmental Politics Program, the School of International Service, American University (AU), in Washington, DC. In 2010, she was the inaugural recipient of AU’s Most Innovative Green Teacher of the Year award. At Cadmus, Vicky has worked for the US Green Building Council to develop and support the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating Systems; advises the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) ENERGY STAR commercial and industrial branch; leads consulting and review teams for buildings seeking LEED certification; and manages sustainability initiatives for clients as diverse as the Smithsonian Institution and state and local governments. Her architectural design work focuses on small-to-medium scale residential and institutional projects. For the Washington, DC Capitol Hill School Libraries Project, she designed the library for Maury Elementary School.

Tammy Krygier is an Egyptologist specializing in the art, archaeology, culture, and language of the ancient Egyptians. She earned her MA and Ph.D. in Egyptian Art and Archaeology from The Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in Archaeology and Ancient History from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Her doctoral research was on faience and glass from the ancient Egyptian palace site of Malqata. Her current research interests include images of women in ancient Egypt and the symbolism of cats in ancient cultures. Tammy has taught at Johns Hopkins, McDaniel College, and most recently at Hood College. Her courses include: Egyptian art and archaeology, ancient history, religion, art history, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, castles in cultural context, and world archaeology. Passionate about experiential learning she has led short-term study abroad trips to Egypt, England, France, Germany, Ireland, and Wales. Themes for these trips and the companion courses have included: Egyptian Archaeological Sites and Museums; Egypt Out of Egypt: Egyptian Art in London, Paris, and Berlin; and most recently- Castles and Crowns: Ireland, Wales, and England. While she considers teaching her first professional priority, her other duties have included undergraduate academic advising, mentoring independent research projects, serving on faculty committees, and developing new courses. Her work over the last few years with the First Year Programs at Hood College has included both teaching first year seminars and advising first year students. Tammy sees the main goal of her teaching to help students learn to think critically and open their minds to other cultures, and in particular, the cultures of the past, through study of material culture, art, and texts.

Dr. McGarry is  a working professional who has enjoyed careers in both academia and for-profit and not-for-profit institutions.  She is currently a Senior Consultant to the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census where she is engaged in supporting the development and testing of the 2020 US Census.  In her capacity as a Senior Consultant, she identifies, monitors, and reports on the more than 5,000 technical requirements to ensure a reliable and comprehensive 2020 Census.  Reliability affects the proposed use of not only the internet for Census survey response but also the use of mobile devices and analysis and reporting.  Additionally, Dr. McGarry consults with the DC government on the institution and design of their enterprise architecture development.

In addition to her professional activities, she teaches at the George Washington University in the graduate programs.  Courses she teaches are Systems Development Life-cycle, Program Management, Telecommunication, and Technology and Society.

In her personal life, she races sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay and spends a lot of money on her 36’ C&C for cruising around the Bay. She also fosters Cocker Spaniels.

Amy Mortimer teaches the Meaning of Leadership for the Global Leadership Program. She currently works at Opportunity@Work, a start-up nonprofit organization that aims to build an inclusive hiring marketplace. Previously, Amy worked for over twenty years as a public policy consultant at ICF. She managed operations for the Housing and Community Development Group and supported projects at Federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Department of Education. Among her proudest moments were support of disaster recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy as well as her contributions to training professionals nationwide to combat childhood lead-poisoning. Amy began her professional journey as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching high school in the Southern African nation of Lesotho. She currently volunteers for Amigos de las Americas, a youth leadership organization. Amy has a B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University and a Masters in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management.

Michael Ulrich became Director of NYU Washington, DC
after over eleven years at the University of Maryland.  For most of that time, he directed study abroad and taught several short term courses for premedical students in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and Cape Town.  In the most recent national rankings, Maryland was #17 for study abroad participation among doctoral institutions, up from #43 when he began his oversight of the program.  NYU is #1 in this ranking.  Prior to his tenure at Maryland, Michael was on the biology faculty at Elon University where his duties included co-chairing the department, teaching biology and interdisciplinary courses and developing new study abroad programs.  He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from Washington University and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa with a BA in biology.  While in graduate school, Michael's first international experience was in El Salvador during their civil war volunteering at an orphanage and later in Jamaica performing similar service. 

In Washington DC, he mentors a student through Jan's Tutoring House and lives in Columbia Heights with his husband Paul, their AussieDoodle Boomer, and their elderly cat Bunny.

John Volpe received his Ph.D. degree in economics from New York University, where he was a teaching fellow.  He has held executive-level positions in the corporate, trade association, foundation, think-tank, consultancy, and academic arenas.  Dr. Volpe has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in finance and economics at New York University, Georgetown University, George Mason University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, and Catholic University, among other institutions.  He has published extensively, mainly in the area of public policy, made numerous presentations to academic institutions, businesses, associations, and corporate groups, and consulted for a number of government agencies (including the Departments of State and Labor, and the U.S. Agency for International Development), associations (including the Employment Policies Institute, and the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy), think tanks (including Stanford Research Institute, the National Planning Association, the International Trade and Investment Center, and the Center for International Private Enterprise), and domestic and international corporations (including TRW and Diageo).