USF Welcomes New Full-Time Faculty

College of Arts and Sciences
Xiaomara Cornejo
Performing Arts and Social Justice, Theater Concentration
Cornejo holds a PhD in theater and performance studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She focuses on street and protest theater, radical theater history in the Americas, political puppetry, and circus.

Sisi Dong
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Dong holds a PhD in educational psychology from Florida State University. She specializes in researching home learning environments and how they influence child cognitive development.

Nate Imai
Assistant Professor
Architecture
Imai holds a master’s of architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He focuses on issues of land ownership, urban development, and the public realm in his academic work and design firm, Studio Imai Conway. He has taught at Texas Tech University, the University of Tennessee, Woodbury University, and Harvard University.

Thomas Kurtz
Professor
Performing Arts And Social Justice, Music Concentration
Kurtz holds a doctorate of musical arts from the University of Texas at Austin and is dedicated to community music instruction at all levels. He emphasizes queer studies in his research and music education.

Megan Polanin
Assistant Professor
Psychology
Polanin holds a PhD from Loyola University Chicago. Before teaching at USF, she served as co-director of clinical training at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, where she supported students pursuing graduate training in psychology and social work. She helps caregivers of children with disabilities to become community advocates.

Meredith Protas
Associate Professor
Biology
Protas holds a PhD in genetics from Harvard University. She researches the genetic basis of eye and pigment loss in freshwater crustaceans (Asellus aquaticus) and studies the implications of her findings for similar phenotypes in other species, with the goal of determining the genetic changes responsible for eye and pigment loss.

Narayan Sankaran
Assistant Professor
Neuroscience
Sankaran, who holds a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Sydney, is both a neuroscientist and a neuroethicist. His scientific research is about how the mechanisms of the human auditory system enable complex aural perception; his ethical research is about the socioethical implications of emergent neurotechnologies. Before teaching at USF, Sankaran completed postdoctoral fellowships at UCSF and UC Berkeley.

School of Law
John Rumel
Visiting Professor
Law
Rumel holds a JD from UC Law San Francisco. He taught law at the University of Idaho, Gonzaga University, and Santa Clara University before coming to USF. He serves as the general counsel for the Idaho Education Association (Idaho’s teachers’ union), which informs his expertise in K-12 education law, public sector employment, and labor law.

Elena Liveris
Visiting Professor
Law
Liveris, who holds a JD from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, teaches legal research and writing in USF’s School of Law. Her teaching specialty is class actions and complex litigation within employment law. Before joining USF, she was a litigator and a writing instructor for the law schools of Santa Clara University and UC Berkeley.

Laura Cisneros
Visiting Professor
Law
Cisneros, a PhD candidate at UC Santa Cruz, teaches constitutional law and theory. Her academic focus is on how court interpretation of the Constitution has changed over time.

Daniel Devoy
Visiting Professor
Law
Devoy holds a JD from Golden Gate University School of Law, where he served as associate professor and founding director of the Veterans Legal Advocacy Center. In addition to teaching law at USF, Devoy serves as a temporary judge for San Mateo County’s Superior Court.

School of Nursing and Health Professions
Heather Bollinger
Assistant Professor
Nursing
Bollinger holds an MSN in health care systems leadership from USF. Her expertise is trauma nursing and disaster coordination.

Susie Curtis
Adjunct Professor
Nursing

Kelly Fox
Nursing
Fox holds a doctor of nursing practice from Yale University. She emphasizes nurse-led models of care in both her teaching at USF and board membership positions at various health care corporations.

Kristen Lombard
Nursing
Lombard holds a PhD from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. She teaches courses on psychiatric-mental health, quality improvement, health policy, and leadership to graduate nursing students.

Dorinda Mercado
Clinical Skills Lab Coordinator
Nursing