Valerie Leiter

Val Leiter teaches courses on medical sociology, research methods, and sociology of childhood and youth—these topics dovetail with her research on children and youth with disabilities, medicalization, and gender and health. She received the Irving K. Zola award for Emerging Scholars in Disability Studies in 2004 for her work on "Parental Activism, Professional Dominance, and Early Childhood Disability." Her first book, Their Time Has Come: Youth with Disabilities on the Cusp of Adulthood, was published in 2012, a result of her William T. Grant Foundation Scholars project on the “Transition to Adulthood Among Youth with Disabilities.” The Sociology of Health & Illness: Critical Perspectives (9th edition), co-edited with Peter Conrad, was also published in 2012.

She is active in the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the American Sociological Association, where she has multiple leadership positions, including membership on ASA’s Committee on Professional Ethics and the Editorial Advisory Board of Social Problems. On campus, Val is the Co-Chair of the Institutional Review Board, Co-Director of the Public Health program, and a member of the steering committee for the Master in Public Policy program.

Val mentors several students each year on their independent research projects. Right now, she is working with Sidney Jean (Public Health) on her senior thesis on women’s body images, Renata Bule (Public Health) on her senior thesis on health care for refugees and asylees, Mary Harrington (Public Health) on the role of faith and spirituality in medical care, Sarah Hewitt (Master in Public Policy) on calorie count menu policies, Youjin Kim (Sociology) on youth culture in Korea, and Danielle Funk (Master in Gender and Cultural Studies) on STDs among women who have sex with women.

Val is also a dedicated student of Iyengar yoga, learning from multiple teachers in the Boston area.

Judy Beal

Dr. Beal has had many leadership roles in her 40 years as a nurse. She currently serves as Professor and Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Simmons College with responsibility for three nationally accredited academic programs. Prior to coming to Simmons in 1983, Dr. Beal taught at Boston University and Skidmore College. Dr. Beal has been a leader in nursing education since 1978. 

At Simmons she has been instrumental in building early innovative models of academic practice partnerships locally and then globally. In Boston, the unique model of "hospital as client” with the hospital financing the academic progression of employees in RN- BSN and RN-MSN programs grew from 1 partnership 5 years ago to 8 partnerships. With foundation funding, she partnered with the University of Cairo to replicate an accelerated second degree BSN program for unemployed university graduates. This effort significantly advanced workforce capacity and elevated the level of professional nursing practice in Egypt. With academic and practice partners in Saudi Arabia and with philanthropists in Bangladesh and Israel she is further replicating these programs.

As a RWJ Executive Nurse Fellow from 2008-2011, she created a national forum on academic-practice partnership by successfully engaging a national association to identify this issue as a strategic priority. She developed and co-led the AACN-AONE Task Force on Academic-Practice Partnerships. This group has significantly elevated the conversation on and strategy for developing academic-practice partnerships.

She has served as president, secretary, director and chair in many organizations including: Sigma Theta Tau International, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the Massachusetts Association of Colleges of Nursing (MACN), Massachusetts Association of Registered Nurses (MARN), and Yale University Alumni Association. Most recently, she has served as a two term elected board member and is the newly elected secretary of AACN, secretary and vice president of MACN, chair of the MARN Nominations Committee, and co-lead of the RWJF Massachusetts Action Coalition.

Dr Beal is widely published with more than 100 peer reviewed articles. Her well- funded program of research focuses on role development of neonatal nurse practitioners and for the past 15 years on the development of a model of clinical nurse scholars. She is sought after as a regional and national speaker. Dr. Beal is on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing as well as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Pediatric Nursing, the Journal of Professional Nursing, and Research in Nursing and Health. Dr. Beal is the Vice President of the MA Association of Colleges of Nursing, where she is active in the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Nursing and Allied Health Initiative. 

Dr. Beal received her BSN from Skidmore College, her MSN from Yale, and DNSc from Boston University. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the National Academies of Practice.

James Corcoran

James Corcoran, an associate professor in the Department of Communications, is the author of two books on domestic terrorism. The first, Bitter Harvest: The Birth of Paramilitary Terrorism in the Heartland, examined the rise of the anti-tax movement in rural America embodied by extremists groups such as the Posse Comitatus. NBC-TV turned the book, which was based on Corcoran's Pulitzer Prize nominated coverage of the murders of three U.S. marshals by a militant tax protest group, into a made-for-television movie, starring Rod Steiger, entitled "In the Line of Duty: Manhunt in the Dakotas." Bitter Harvest received the Gustav Meyers Center's award for Outstanding Book on the subject of human rights and the Golden Pen Award. Penguin Press reissued it with a new foreword in 1995 following on the Oklahoma City bombing. A third edition was reissued in 2005.

His second book, Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat, was co-authored with Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Written after the Oklahoma City bombing, it traced the growth and impact of hate groups, militias, and racist demagogues.

Corcoran is a member of the United Nations' "Roster of Experts on Terrorism and Related Phenomena" and a recipient of the Bush Foundation Leadership Award, which is awarded annually to no more than 20 people who are considered of "substantial standing" in their fields. During his 10-year career as a journalist, which included work for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and Newsweek, Corcoran received more than 24 state, regional, and national writing awards.

Kathleen H. Millstein

Michelle Putnam

Dr. Putnam’s research focuses on the intersections of aging and disability, with particular emphasis on understanding how public programs and public policy meets the needs of persons aging with disability. Within this area, her work examines collaborations between aging and disability service providers and their capacity to serve the aging with disability population, long-term care and support needs of persons aging with disabilities, the role of activity portfolios in fostering well being among older adults, and the relationship of asset accumulation in fostering financial security and independent living among older adults and persons aging with disability. 

Dr. Putnam’s scholarship is both independent and done in collaboration with colleagues across institutions and disciplines, and when possible with direct stakeholders. Funders of Dr. Putnam’s research and/or research collaborations include the John A. Hartford Foundation, the AARP Foundation, National Institute of Aging, and the Productive Living Board of St. Louis County. She is frequently engaged to speak about aging with disability and public policy to research, practice, and policy audiences.

In addition to her research, Dr. Putnam actively participates at the national and international level in building bridges across the aging and disability fields of policy and practice. Most recently she is serving on the expert panel that drafted the Toronto declaration on bridging knowledge, policy and practice in aging and disability, a product of the 2011 Growing Older with Disability meeting at the Festival of International Conferences on Caregiveing, Disabiliity, Aging, and Technology held in Toronto, Canada. With the help of March of Dimes Canada, she coordinated a supplement issue of the International Journal of Integrated Care about bridging aging and disability and the rationale or and need for the Toronto Declaration. Dr. Putnam continues to coordinate the activities of that expert panel as they develop the entity, Bridging Aging and Disability International Network, to facilitate knowledge development, transfer, and translation between the fields of aging and disability. She was recently appointed as Editor of the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

Dr. Putnam is one of the few scholars in the field of social work studying aging with disability and is recognized for her leadership in this area. She has actively worked to build awareness of the distinctions between aging with long-term disability and incurring disability for the first time in later life as it relates to provision of supports and services and the overall experience of aging. Her work is both theoretical and empirical, but always related to public policy and the practical aspects of making aging and disability policies and programs work well for people aging with disabilities and their families. Dr. Putnam’s current interest in capacity building within aging and disability service networks directly stems from her prior work. She believes that building capacity to meet unique needs of aging with disability populations has potential to compliment and move current discussions focused on institutional systems change to also include discourse what individuals and their families need to live independently, engage in their community, and experience positive aging. 

Rong Tang

Rong Tang received her doctorate from the School of Information and Library Science, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She has taught evaluation of information services, technology for information professionals, library automation systems, digital information services and providers...

Marianne Williams

Anne-Marie Barron

Anne-Marie Barron PhD, RN, PMHCNS-BC, FNAP is Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Students and Curriculum in the School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Simmons College. Dr. Barron received her B.S. in nursing from Boston College, her M.S. in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her PhD from Boston College. Dr. Barron has taught across the undergraduate curriculum in a number of courses: Psychiatric Nursing; Leadership and Management; Nursing Research, and Caring at the End of Life. As well, she has integrated psychosocial content across the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Dr. Barron’s teaching, practice, and research interests are focused on meaning and illness and the understanding and alleviation of suffering. Her central goals in nursing education are to guide and support students as they develop perspectives and skills that enable them to offer healing presence in the lives of their patients.

Since 2006, Dr. Barron has served in academic leadership roles at Simmons. She has been in the roles of Associate Chair and Chair for Baccalaureate Nursing, President of the Simmons College Faculty Senate, and currently serves as Associate Dean.  

Dr. Barron currently practices part-time as a Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist on the Inpatient Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital where she consults with the staff on the psychosocial dimension of oncology care. Dr. Barron holds an appointment as Faculty Nurse Scientist at the Yvonne Munn Center for Nursing Research at Massachusetts General Hospital. The focus of her research agenda has been on understanding integrative interventions, with an emphasis on Therapeutic Touch, that promote caring and comfort, and address the management of distressing symptoms for oncology patients. 

Since 2009 Dr. Barron has had the privilege of consulting on nursing education in Bangladesh as part of a larger interprofessional initiative with Simmons and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital. The overall goals of the team’s work in Bangladesh are to elevate the healthcare of the people of Bangladesh and to enhance the education and image of nurses in Bangladesh.

Dr. Barron was recently inducted as a Distinguished Scholar in the National Academies of Practice. 

Expertise
Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Nursing Education, Academic Leadership, Psychosocial Care of Oncology Patients and Families, Therapeutic Touch as a Complementary Nursing Intervention, Nursing Consultation

Elizabeth Metallinos-Katsaras

Ellen Grabiner

I am currently the Chair of the Communications Department at Simmons College, in Boston, Massachusetts. I was hired fourteen years ago as an instructor quite simply because of my immersion in what were then the newest media in the communications field: the world wide web, digital imaging, and digital video editing. I was hired with the hope that I would help to bring the department into the 21st century, both in terms of preparing the communications students for the world that awaited them, but also in terms of helping them to explore, articulate and question the tremendous changes in media that surrounded them.

Fast-forward fourteen years and we are all still reeling from the accelerating speed at which new media has evolved. There is not a corner in the developed world today that has remained untouched by this gargantuan moving target of change. As a department that understands communication as a discipline that not only utilizes media but also critiques it, at Simmons we have embraced an approach that emphasizes media convergence: we employ new media to observe, explore, question, track, and understand new media. At the same time, we encourage our students to inhabit a meta-space in which they can approach the study of new media through philosophical, theoretical, political, social, technological, and aesthetic lenses.

My work as an educator, mentor, and developer of curricular initiatives includes co-design and co-direction of Simmons’ interdisciplinary minor in Cinema and Media Studies, my pioneering work in the first learning communities as part of the Simmons Honors program, my development of courses in cinema and media theory, storytelling, digital cultures and communications technologies, and my design and leadership of an intensive January course at Simmons called the World Challenge. In this short course that occurs over intersession, students work together in self-guided, faculty supported teams to solve a pressing social/political/environmental problem and develop actionable solutions which they then present to potential funders. The World Challenge I co-taught with Professor Nanette Veilleux and Professor Laura Saunders of SLIS, was entitled, “Would I Lie to You?” and responded to the problematic of the role of media/information today. Many of the solutions the students developed relied on social media, including concepts for mobile apps to alter the ways in which we access and share information.

Alison Marshall

I am a Boston transplant from Denver.  I live in Boston with my husband and daughter.  I came to nursing via a winding road, but am so happy to have arrived.  I am a family nurse practitioner and work at a community health center and for the CDC.  I joined Simmons in 2014 and am so happy to be here!

Amy Pattee

After completing her master's in library science at Rutgers University, Amy Pattee worked as a children's librarian at public libraries in Ocean County and Burlington County, New Jersey. She received her doctorate in library and information science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She has published in journals related to library science and children's literature, and has contribute to professional journals School Library Journal and The Horn Book. Her most recent book, Developing Library Collections for Today's Young Adults, was published by Scarecrow in 2013. She teaches children's and young adult literature; you can read her blog at http://gslis.simmons.edu/blogs/yaorstfu/.

Amy Pattee's Curriculum Vitae

Jeannette Bastian

Jeannette A. Bastian is Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and the Director of the Archives Management concentration. She has taught at Simmons since 1999.  Formerly Territorial Librarian of the United States Virgin Islands from1987 to 1998, she received her MLS from Shippensburg University, an M.Phil in Caribbean Literature from the University of the West Indies (Mona) and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include archival education, memory, community archives, and postcolonialism.

She is widely published in the archival literature and her books include West Indian Literature, An Index to Criticism, 1930-1975 (1981) Owning Memory, How a Caribbean Community Lost Its Archives and Found Its History (2003), Archival Internships (2008), and Community Archives, The Shaping of Memory (2009). 

Jeannette Bastian's Curriculum Vitae

Susan Duty

After obtaining her doctoral degree in occupational epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2002, Dr. Susan Duty joined the nursing faculty in the nursing program at Simmons College. She is an associate professor and teaches across the baccalaureate, master’s and doctoral curriculums. She is also certified as an Adult Nurse Practitioner with specialization in Occupational Health.

In addition to her teaching responsibilities at Simmons, Susan works clinically at South Shore Hospital as a Nurse Research Scientist and is a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research agenda explores environmental exposures to plasticizers including phthalates and bisphenol A and works collaborative with students and multidisciplinary faculty on studies exploring Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization of people, pets and surfaces. She has many peer reviewed publications and has presented her work regionally, nationally and internationally. She has more recently extended her scholarly activity into clinical research translation aimed at reducing 30-day readmissions, enhancing mammography compliance, improving satisfaction with patient care and reducing hospital acquired adverse outcomes.

Grant funding has been secured from highly competitive National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, the National Institute for Environmental Health and Safety, as well as from the Simmons College President's Fund and from private foundations like the Passport Foundation and the New England Deaconess Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association.

Dr. Duty is a member of the Organization of Nurse Leaders Research Council. She also serves as a peer reviewer for many top tier journals. Dr. Duty received The Theresa LaPlante Award for Excellence in Administration from Sigma Theta Tau and is President of the Theta-at-large Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International.