Regular Faculty
Advisory Committee
Mary Christianakis
Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A., UCLA; M. Ed., UCLA; M.A., Loyola Marymount University; Ph.D., UC Berkeley
Mary Christianakis is a professor of language, literacy, and culture. She studies literacy development, language, and discourse from a critical sociocritical perspective.
Caroline Heldman
Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A., Washington State University; M.A., Ph.D., Rutgers University
Caroline Heldman specializes in the presidency, media, gender, and race in the American context.
Affiliated Faculty
Bevin Ashenmiller
Associate Professor, Economics
B.A., Princeton University; Ph.D., UC Santa Barbara
Bevin Ashenmiller is an Environmental Economist whose research falls into three areas: recycling, evaluation of environmental programs, and energy and climate policy.
Phillip M. Ayoub
Associate Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs
B.A., University of Washington; M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ph.D., Cornell University
Phillip Ayoub's research bridges insights from international relations and comparative politics, engaging with literature on transnational politics, gender and politics, norm diffusion, and the study of social movements. Read his Oxy Story profile.
Erica Ball
Mary Jane Hewitt Department Chair in Black Studies; Professor of Black Studies
B.A., Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D., The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Erica L. Ball is a historian who specializes in nineteenth and twentieth-century African American history.
Alexander F. Day
Associate Professor, History & Asian Studies
B.A. Colby College; M.A., Ph.D. UC Santa Cruz
Alexander Day studies the intellectual, social, and cultural history of peasants, food, and agrarian change in China. He teaches Chinese, East Asian, and world history. Read his Oxy Story profile.
Allison de Fren
Associate Professor, Media Arts & Culture
B.A., Grinnell College; M.F.A., New York University; Ph.D., University of Southern California
Allison de Fren teaches new media theory and practice.
Sharla Fett
Professor, History
B.A., Carleton College; M.A., Stanford University; Ph.D., Rutgers University
Sharla Fett teaches courses on early U.S. and African American history, including the Atlantic World, Slavery and the Antebellum South, U.S. Women’s History, and Collective Memory and Slavery’s Legacies. Read her Oxy Story profile.
Nina Gelbart
Professor, History; Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women's Studies
A.B., Harvard University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago
Nina Gelbart is Professor of History and Anita Johnson Wand Professor of Women's Studies at Oxy. Before joining the History Department, she first started teaching in the Core Program at Oxy in 1975,…
Susan Grayson
Professor, Spanish and French Studies
A.B., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA; Ph.D., Wright Institute Los Angeles Attestation d’études, Université de Bordeaux
Grayson has taught the 18th- and 19th-century French novel, French feminism, women's studies, literary criticism, and French grammar and composition at all levels.
Laura Hebert
Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs
B.A., University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee M.A., University of Oregon Ph.D., University of Denver
Hebert's research interests center on gender, human rights, international law, and international organizations, with a geographic emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and a thematic focus on gender-based violence.
Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa
Associate Professor, Religious Studies & Asian Studies
B.A., Victoria University of Wellington; Ph.D., Australian National University
Areas of specialization: Buddhism in Tibet, the East and South Asian Himalayas, and beyond.
Maryanne Horowitz
Professor, History
A.B., Pembroke College, Brown University; M.A.T., Harvard University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Cultural historian Maryanne Horowitz teaches courses on Rise, Fall and Rebirth: Europe since the Enlightenment; Humanities from the Renaissance to the Present; Europe and the Middle East from Antiquity to 1700; Ancient Athens and Renaissance Florence, and Renaissance to Revolution! She welcomes interest in changing views of women, gender, and sexualities, and of human rights.
Mary J. Lopez
Professor, Economics
B.A., UC Riverside; M.A., Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Please send questions for the department chair to econ@oxy.edu.
Professor Lopez is a labor economist. She specializes in immigration and immigration policy, Latino entrepreneurship, and poverty.
Heather Lukes
Associate Professor, American Studies
B.A., UC Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., UCLA
Heather Lukes teaches courses on queer theory, queer color critique, queer L.A., and psychoanalysis.
Amy Lyford
Arthur G. Coons Professor in the History of Ideas
B.A., Pomona College; M.A., Boston University; Ph.D., U.C. Berkeley
Amy Lyford’s research centers on twentieth-century American and European artistic practices, with a special interest in the histories of photography and sculpture.
Viviana MacManus
Assistant Professor, Spanish and French Studies
B.A., Occidental College; Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Viviana Beatriz MacManus’s research and teaching focuses on Latin American and Latinx feminist theory, literature, film, and cultural studies.
Malek Moazzam-Doulat
Resident Assistant Professor, Critical Theory and Social Justice
B.A., Occidental College; Ph.D., State University of New York, Stony Brook
Prof. Moazzam-Doulat teaches courses on social and political philosophy.
Richard Mora
Associate Professor, Sociology
B.A., Harvard College (Sociology); M.A., University of Michigan (Education); M.A., Harvard University (Sociology); Ph.D., Harvard University (Sociology & Social Policy)
Dr. Mora teaches courses on masculinities, youth cultures, education, immigration, violence, & social inequality
Clair Morrissey
Associate Professor, Philosophy
B.A., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Clair Morrissey is a moral philosopher who specializes in practical ethics and political philosophy.
Jennifer Piscopo
Associate Professor, Politics
B.A., Wellesley; M.Phil, University of Cambridge; Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Jennifer Piscopo teaches classes on gender and global politics, Latin American politics, Latino/a politics, and elections.
Julie Prebel
Associate Professor, American Studies; Director of Writing Center & Programs
B.A., UC Berkeley; M.A., Cal State San Francisco; Ph.D., University of Washington
Julie Prebel teaches courses in writing/composition, rhetorical theory, and cultural studies.
Erica Preston-Roedder
Resident Assistant Professor, Philosophy
B.A. Stanford University; M.S., UNC Chapel Hill; Ph.D., New York University
Erica Preston-Roedder specializes in applied ethics. She also has interests in philosophy of race/gender, public philosophy, and philosophy of psychology. In recent work with Occidental College, she…
Lisa Sousa
Professor, History
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., UCLA
Sousa specializes in the histories of colonial Latin America, indigenous peoples and languages of Mexico, and women, gender and sexuality.
Eileen Spain
Carl F. Braun Professor of Chemistry
B.S., Sonoma State University; Ph.D., University of Utah
Eileen Spain teaches physical chemistry II (quantum mechanics and spectroscopy) and nanochemistry.
Kristi Upson-Saia
David B. and Mary H. Gamble Professorship in Religion
B.A., University of Washington; M.Div., Princeton Theol. Sem.; Ph.D., Duke University
Areas of specialization: late ancient Mediterranean religions; dress and performativity; history of medicine, health, and healing
Yurika Wakamatsu
Assistant Professor, Art and Art History
B.A., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; A.M., Harvard University; Ph.D., Harvard University
Yurika Wakamatsu teaches East Asian art history, including pictorial narratives, woodblock prints, comics and anime, and gender and visual culture. Read her Oxy Story profile.