8/28/19
NORTH ADAMS, MASS. — MCLA is pleased to announce that nine new faculty members will
be joining the MCLA community for the College’s fall semester. Katelyn Born, Margaret
Clark, Alyssa Dufresne, Linda Lippacher, Michaela Petrovich, Clio Stearns, Xin Shen,
Joshua Uhalt, and Julie Walsh will all bring their expertise to the MCLA community.
Read more about our new faculty members:
Dr. Katelyn Born graduated with a B.S. in community health sciences from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2009. She then earned her M.S. in kinesiology (2015) and Ph.D. in health behavior and health education (2018) from the University of Texas, Austin. Her research interests include methods for promoting a sufficient level of physical activity to realize significant improvements in health. Specifically, she is concerned with how stress impacts physical activity behaviors. She will be joining the Biology Department at MCLA this fall. Other interests include spending time with her dog, Leo, doing anything outside, and watching sports.
Dr. Margaret Clark’s work focuses on the social and emotional development of the child and how families, educators, and policy makers can foster that growth. She teaches courses in the ethics and foundations of schooling, program development for early childhood education, and leads the student teaching seminars for early childhood students. Dr. Clark’s professional interests are focused on research and projects that nurture the healthy development of young children and provide support to the adults that care for and educate them. She is interested in how early childhood educators, and the care that they provide, are both visible and invisible in the current educational, political, and sociocultural environment. She is currently exploring and writing about a pedagogy of transformative care, the practices in which the care provider, the child, and the social learning site are all continually transformed during the learning process. In addition to her research, Clark advises nonprofit organizations, philanthropic foundations, and public policy initiatives that promote prenatal care for families and children, the social and emotional development of young children, and literacy initiatives both in and outside of the classroom setting.
Alyssa Dufresne comes to MCLA from Southern Vermont College as an assistant professor in radiologic sciences. She received her B.S. in radiologic sciences from Southern Vermont College and a M.S. in educational technology from the University of Central Missouri. Her teaching interests are in patient care and radiographic positioning. She is interested in becoming certified within either Ultrasound or MRI.
Linda Lippacher attended North Country Community College’s radiology program in Saranac Lake, N.Y. After graduating, she remained in Saranac Lake, working at the Adirondack Medical Center in the departments of diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine and mammography. She is noted as being one of the first nationally registered mammographers and one of two radiologic technologists certified as a clinical breast examiner. During this time, she did extensive research on breast cancer treatment for premenopausal women with tamoxifen treatment. After completion of both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she became the administrative director of medical imaging at Adirondack Medical Center. After 18 years of service she left the hospital to become the program director of Radiological Sciences at North Country Community College. In 2003, she began the radiologic technology program at SVC through a collaboration with Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. During her time at SVC, she was recognized by the JRCERT as a site visitor for accreditation and the program was noted by multiple sources as being one of the top Radiology programs in the nation. After the closure of SVC, the radiologic sciences program was transferred to MCLA.
Michaela Petrovich spent the last two years as visiting assistant professor of scenic and costume design at the University of Redlands in California. In addition to teaching costume and scenic design courses, Petrovich also created a topics theatre course, Designing Fantasy, and co-taught an intensive studio course with a media and visual cultures colleague, Designing Science Fiction: The Franchise-Doctor Who, with former BBC costume designer June Hudson as artist in residence. Prior to entering academia, Michaela was the staff costume design associate at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Michaela earned her MFA in costume design at the University of Washington and her B.A. in Costume Design: History, Theory, Praxis through the Johnston Center for Integrative Studies at the University of Redlands.
Dr. Clio Stearns received her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the University of New Hampshire in 2017. She has taught in the education departments at Smith College, UNH, and Westfield State University. Prior to that, Clio taught elementary school for over a decade, in the U.S. and in eastern Russia. Dr. Stearns is the author of “Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning: Psychodynamic and Cultural Perspectives” (Lexington Books, 2019) and has published extensively on affective classroom life.
Dr. Xin Shen has joined MCLA as an assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Department of Computer Science. He holds a B.S. in optical information science and technology from Xidian University in Xi’an, China; a dual M.S. in electronics and communication engineering from Xidian University, and an M.S. in engineering from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. Dr. Shen also has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn. His teaching experience focuses on electrical circuits, signals and systems, digital imaging processing, and optics. His research interests are in computational imaging, three-dimensional imaging and display.
Dr. Joshua Uhalt comes to MCLA as a visiting assistant professor in the psychology department. He started his education at Bakersfield Community College, which he used as a launching point to transfer to the University of California, Bakersfield. From there he obtained master’s degrees in philosophy and psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Uhalt completed his Ph.D. in social psychology at New Mexico State University. His research focuses on religiosity and spirituality, platonic friendships, and tolerance and acceptance.
Julie Walsh is the clinical coordinator for the radiology program at MCLA. Walsh was an assistant professor at Southern Vermont College for 11 years. She has taught radiographic positioning, advanced imaging and computed tomography. She received her associate’s degree in radiology from Gateway Community College, her bachelor’s degree in human development from the University of Connecticut and her master’s in adult education from Park University. She has also been a technologist at area hospitals and ski resorts. As a classroom instructor, Walsh loves to see the connections students make from the classroom to the clinical site. Walsh holds certifications in radiography, mammography and computed tomography. She is a JRCERT site visitor and a member of the ARRT and ASRT.
