HSS Student Expo 2026

Monday, April 27, 2026

9:30–10:30 a.m.: Humanities and Social Sciences Dean’s Office: Student Faculty Mentorship

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

A panel of four faculty-student mentorship pairs reflecting on the transformative impact of their mentoring experience.

Participating Students and Faculty 

• Manuel Martinez Valdez and Professor Carla Espana
• Dima Muhieddine and Professor Rosamond King
• Julia Krzysztalowicz and Professor Lauren Mancia
• Lina Mazioui and Dean Philip Napoli

Hosted by Dean Philip Napoli

9:45–10:45 a.m.: History: BC Archives Open House

BC Archives & Special Collections, 1st Floor, Library

Come visit the Archives’ reading room and learn from BC History students about how book history can provide a window into the history of education, religious change, government and politics, science, and globalization and cultural encounters–and get to see these 300-500-year old books up close and in person! BC archivists and student interns will also be on hand in the Archives & Special Collections exhibition space to answer questions as you explore the new exhibition on the History of Baseball in Brooklyn.

Participating Students

• Archer, Osei
• Benecke, Trinity
• Black, Captain
• Bodzin, Emma
• Brown, Camden
• Calabretta, Ollie
• Celenza, Nicole
• Cozier Williams, Sarah
• Devaux, Delphine
• Drepaul, Caleb
• Garcia Prada, Ian
• Gonzalez, Jason
• Hamburger, Abagail
• Mahoney, Sara
• Markan, Saveliy
• Molfetta, Matthew
• Russell, Jameila
• Santucci, Angelo
• Schilling, Daniel
• Smith, Aidan
• Tanachion, Kenneth
• Troiso, Anthony
• Yascaribay, Jocelyne
• Ye, Matthew
• Zambrano, Helen

Hosted by Professors Colleen Bradley-Sanders, Marianne Labatto and Lauren Mancia

11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.: English: “Ethnographic and Literary Discourse: Constructing a Real Audience for Student Work”

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

The 2026 HSS Expo provides a platform to further legitimize student writing. English 1012 students will present works-in-progress from a 10-page research assignment. Essentially, the research paper reflects a summative assessment, and 1012 students engage in constructing discourse, including pairing texts, taking intellectual risks, and negotiating what “can be said” to a real audience.

Participating Students 

• Hajer Alshame
• Rosemary Garcia

Hosted by Professor Dorell Thomas

11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.: Africana Studies: Caribbean Political Systems – Poster Presentations

3105 James Hall – Outside Africana Studies Department Office

By examining major states in the Greater Caribbean such as Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Jamaica, other Commonwealth Caribbean nations, and selected territories which are still in a territorial, dependency, or colonial status such as Puerto Rico, students seek to understand the Caribbean not only as a geopolitical space, but also as one where present-day political and economic systems are shaped by (either directly or in resistance to) the legacies of colonialism, African slavery and the plantation system, intervention, as well as ongoing global economic, environmental, and ideological influences

Participating Students 

• Elizabeth Ajasin
• Deeraj Jageshwar
• Joselyn Zainos
• Aaliyah Martin
• Shamel Petrie
• Ronique Prince-Adams

Hosted by Professor Aleah Ranjitsingh

12:30–2 p.m.: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship: New Perspectives on Classical and Contemporary Political Issues in Literature, Philosophy and Society

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

MMUF fellows will present their long-term projects spanning Classical Antiquity and women’s magic to Latinx families in community schools, Latina caregivers, Plato’s feminism, the gothic novel, and older generations of immigrants in hostile environments.

Participating Students

•  Julia Fernandez
•  Sergio Hidalgo
•  Manuel Martinez
•  Karina Fernandez
•  David Ortiz
•  Mashiat Sultana

Hosted by Professor Bernardita Llanos

2:15–3:30 p.m.: Philosophy: The Ethics and Politics of Green Infrastructure and Urban Forests: The Urban Sustainability Tree Inventory and Analysis of the Brooklyn College campus.

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

Students from Prof. Menser’s Environmental Ethics class will talk about the tree inventory and related research conducted by last year’s Urban Sustainability Capstone class re: the BC campus, update its progress and evaluate parts of this sustainability work from multiple moral and political perspectives.

Participating Students 

• Carina Allesandro
• Adrian Gonzalez
• Radiyah Hanif

Hosted by Professor Michael Menser

2:15–3:30 p.m.: English: Literary Campus Nature Walk

Library – Outside Front doors

Rain location: 3150 Boylan Hall

Experience the Brooklyn College campus through the lens of the environmental humanities! The students of ENGL 3281: Literature and the Environment will lead a “literary campus nature walk” that brings you outside to focus your attention on the overlooked presence of the natural world here on campus.

Participating Students 

• “BC Aesthetics” — Jacqueline Floyd, Haikeda Hilliman, and Brianna Maddocks
• “An Exploration of the Lily Pond” — Maya Jodah, Dyce Chanel Joseph, and Maylene Rodriguez
• “Surviving Memory Through Art” — Liriana Huseinovic, Jacklyn Mashiyakhova, Sebastian Samayoa Melendez, and Rina Zhao
• “’This compost which feeds the fig tree under the feet of Jesus’: A BC Eats Garden Project” — Annalise Grekalski, Nour Sulaiman, and Thammy Sylvain

Hosted by Professor Sophia Bamert

3:45–4:45 p.m.: Africana Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Diverse Perspectives on the African Diaspora

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

Students through their presentations showcase possibilities and multiple dimensions of Africana Studies research from historical inquiry to social/political analysis to practical, transformative application.

Participating Students 

• Ronique Prince Adams – “Education as Ideological Outreach: Soviet Influence in the Caribbean Through Academic Exchange”
• Aaliyah Martin – “Deconstructing the paradox: Haitian Bodies, Blackness and Labor”
• Apollo Boissiere – “Who We’ve Always Been”

Hosted by Professor Aleah Ranjitsingh

5–7 p.m.: Various HSS Departments – Individual Student Research Projects

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

Participating Students

• Jehiah Alleyne – English: Relation and Tragedy. This paper investigates the structure of Richard II’s imagination and manner of attention to illuminate how his very mode of inhabiting the world lays the foundation of his tragedy. The fundamental claim is that certain tragedies do not arise from mistakes in action, but from how characters imagine and attend to reality.
• Moussa Toni Cisse – Philosophy: “Asking the Right Question in the Right Context: Why Abelard is a Nothing Grower”
• Ifeoma Ezike – Political Science: Women In Politics During The Civil Rights. This presentation explores the leadership and activism of women during the Civil Rights era, highlighting how their contributions shaped the movement in ways that are often overlooked. Women played crucial roles as organizers, educators, and community leaders, challenging both racism and sexism simultaneously.
• Jaden Gyamfi – Political Science: Mellon Program
• Angelina Lambros – History: “Between Reform and Revolt: The August 1991 Coup and the Transformation of the Soviet State-Society Relationship in the 1980s ”. My senior honors thesis examines how evolving state-society relations in the 1980s Soviet Union contributed to the failure of the August 1991 coup and the collapse of the Soviet system. Focusing on the effects of Glasnost and Perestroika, it argues that shifting public attitudes and increased civic engagement shaped widespread resistance to the coup, ultimately undermining Communist Party authority.
• Kathleen Saint-Amand – Political Science: Money, Power, Respect: Structural Violence and the Issue of Security Within the South Sudanese Civil War (2013-2020). My presentation will be on the South Sudanese Civil War, which will outline the security dilemmas both the government and anti-government forces faced, and how structural violence was used against the peoples of South Sudan. After a brief overview of the war and what would bring it to an end, I will attempt to answer this question: Was there a pragmatic and politically strategic explanation for the 7-year long civil war?
• Ajadah Simms – Political Science: Memory Refracted: On the intersections of Identity, Community Building, and Political Movement in the Narratives of West African Migrants. This slides presentation aims to condense research surrounding the layered complexity of migratory aspiration and belonging, culminating in a theory of how memory and identity situate politics within transnational communities. Taking after an interdisciplinary outlook, it will explore the role of narrative, language, perception, and the concept of space –and space making– outlining nascent contemplations on the dynamic between how African migrants view and are being viewed along the journey.
• Gabbie Spektor – Philosophy: Reframing Death
• Carmine Tepedino – Philosophy: Cruel Optimism, Wishful Thinking, and the Ethics of Pediatric Precision Oncology. When a child has cancer and treatment options run out, parents are often encouraged to enroll them in experimental trials — but is that always the right call? This presentation examines when hope becomes harmful, and what medicine owes dying children beyond the pursuit of a cure.
• Matthew Tuggle – History: Gandhi and Swadeshi, 1901-1909. Most commonly associated with the mass mobilizations of the 1920s and 1930s, Mohandas Gandhi began his struggle against the British colonial government decades earlier in South Africa. Far from his home in Gujarat, Gandhi’s development as a political leader was nonetheless profoundly influenced by events in India at the turn of the twentieth century. This presentation will examine the impact on Gandhi of the Swadeshi Movement, a nationalist upheaval that shook the state of Bengal after its partition by the British colonial government in 1905 and that prefigured many Gandhian techniques of resistance.”
• Brent Thomas Whiteside – English: Memory, a Resonant Tableau. This research examines the relationship between poetry, memoir and memory through live, embodied practice. Combining spoken text, voice, and sound, the work explores how memory is shaped, recalled, and re-experienced in real time.

Hosted by Dean Philip Napoli

 

Tuesday April 28, 2026

11 a.m.–12:15 p.m.:  Communications Arts, Sciences, and Disorders: Novel approaches and empirical methods in speech-language-communication research

411 Samuel and Bernice Gottlieb Room, Library

This symposium of five presentations by undergraduate and graduate CASD students will explore interdisciplinary questions and best practices in speech-language-communication research. The talks will provide the audience with a selection of novel approaches and methods that help us to answer timely questions about memory, mental health, language, and culture in monolingual and bilingual children and adults.

Participating Students

• Nasanya Brown
• Stephanie Snipe
• Lizbeth Lopez
• Aya Ibrahim
• Judyta Majewska
• Kylie Galvin
• Kelly Takhalov

Hosted by Professor Klara Marton

11a.m.–12:15 p.m.:  History: Senior Thesis

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

Humanities and Social Sciences students in the Scholars Program senior thesis class will share their ongoing research.

Participating Students

• Cobe Liu: Evaluating Command and Control Systems for Taiwan Strait Defense: Adapting Maven, Lattice, and Indigenous Capabilities
• Sabrina Zami: Disability Representation in Children’s Literature and Its Relationship to Society
• Joseph Bruccoleri: Effective Tax Rates and Actual Rates Across Three Flagship Industries
• Alyssa Puglisi: How a People’s Medium Defined by Rebellion Became a Marketing Weapon Facilitating Gentrification and Exclusivity

Hosted by Professor KC Johnson

12:30– 2 p.m.:  Alumni Panel: Bridging Passion with Purpose

411 Samuel and Bernice Gottlieb Room, Library

• Vincent Abruzzo ’09 – B.A. Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Principal Software Engineer, Head of UX/UI, Dreadnode
• Dylan Campbell ‘18 – B.A. Journalism – Senior Producer at NYT Games
• Lisa Sheridan ’23 – M.A. English Language and Literature, Marketing Communications Writer, CUNY School of Professional Studies and Adjunct Lecturer, CUNY Brooklyn College
• Nicole Lebenson Angulo ‘09 B.A. History and English Literature – J.K. Watson Fellow, Deputy Chief of Organization Development at AFS Intercultural Programs, AFS Intercultural Programs

Hosted by Professor Jason Frydman

12:30–2 p.m.: History: Performing Medieval Asceticism

Brooklyn College Lily Pond
Rain location: Art Gallery, Boylan Hall basement

20 students from HIST 4006 will reperform the behaviors of medieval stylites, anchorites, hermits, and pilgrims. They do this in order to better understand why medieval people engaged in such extreme ascetic behavior (as cultural critique? as knowledge-making? as discovery?); and in order to better teach you, the audience, how such seemingly-weird and archaic behavior actually can teach us something about how to live in a symbiotic community and how to productively critique human society in 2026.

Participating Students

•  Adams, Justice
•  Calabretta, Ollie
•  Curran, Lucy
•  Fardin, Kyia
•  Genao, Karina
•  Georges, Roody
•  Krzysztalowicz, Julia
•  Lin, Jin
•  Mahoney, Sara
•  Mazioui, Lina
•  Montemurro, Alexandra
•  Paperman, Samuel
•  Perkins, Ashanti
•  Snow, Adelaide
•  Tanachion, Kenneth
•  Troiso, Anthony
•  Valentin, Paola
•  Zambrano, Helen

Hosted by Professor Lauren Mancia

12:30–2 p.m.: Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies Chile Study Abroad Reflections: Diasporas and Memory

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

During the January 2026 Winter Session, thirteen CUNY Students (10 from Brooklyn College and 3 from Baruch College) traveled with Prof. Carla España for the Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies Study Travel Seminar course: “Immigrant Communities in Latin America: Diasporas in Chile” through the Brooklyn College Study Abroad Program. Students will present on Chilean history, different diasporas, and the role of memory through embodied experiences from immigrant communities, community artistic expressions, and institutions that honor historical memory and human rights.

Participating Students

• Nicholas Goriah
• Miguel Figueroa
• Amira Perez
• Amaya Roman
• Danish Saleem
• Gisell Sánchez
• Mashiat Sultana
• Valerie Sukhdeo
• Leila Tazi

Hosted by PRLS Professor Carla España and Brooklyn College International Programs and Study Abroad

2:15–3:30 p.m.:  Linguistics: Applied Linguistics in Action: Examining Language and Identity

411 Samuel and Bernice Gottlieb Room, Library

Although our life trajectories are seemingly unconnected given the diversity of our backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, it is nevertheless possible to find a common thread that unites us all. In this panel, we examine the role of language in our lives and explore how language shapes our life experiences. By embracing yet transcending our differences, we engage in a broader discussion about language, culture, contact, and identity.

Participating Students

• Mandy Francois
• Trecey Cunningham

Hosted by Professor Simanique Moody

2:15–3:30 p.m.:  Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies: Latinxs and Urban Institutions

Woody Tanger Auditorium, Library

Three undergraduate students will present their research projects focusing on Urban Institutions and the Latinx Experience, addressing advocacy and/or leadership. They will include issues of equity and social justice vis a vis Latinx communities. Their research will be based on information from books and a questionnaire.

Participating Students

• Alma Cabrera: Latinx Perspectives on Authority and the Justice System
• Sierra Smith Vásquez: Leadership Development Among Latinx Youth in NYC Public Schools
• Amira Pérez: Economic Disadvantages and Latinx College Students

Hosted by Professor Maria Perez y Gonzalez

Humanities and Social Sciences Week

April 27–May 5

April 27, 9:30 a.m.– 7 p.m.  and April 28, 9a.m.–5p.m.

HSS Student Expo – Presentations of research conducted by HSS students, Woody Tanger, Library

April 28

• 12:30 p.m.–2 p.m.: Alumni Panel: Panel of HSS Alumni and where they are now, 411 Library

April 30

• 12:15–2 p.m.: Patrice Rankine delivers Costas Lecture (Theme: Icarus, African American Experiences), Gold Room, Student Center
• 5:30 p.m.: Mellon Mays Undergrad Recruitment event, 411 Library (hybrid)

May 2

• 11 a.m.: Historical Society Walking Tour, Lower East Side (meeting Essex & Delancy)

May 5

• 12:30–2:30 p.m. HSS Student Club Presentations, Tow Atrium Plaza

May 7

• 12:15–2 p.m. Sprague and Taylor Annual Lecture, Lottocracy: Democracy without Election, Alex Guerro, guest lecturer. Woody Tanger Auditorium

Open Classes

April 29, 9:30–10:45 a.m., Boylan 3156
HIST 3044/Mancia. Early Modern Religious Transformations and their Historical Effects; class will be a student debate about the Trial of Galileo.

April 29, 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m., James Hall 3111
JUST/CLAS/RELG 3022/Brodsky. Searching for God

April 30 11 a.m.–12:15 p.m., Boylan 2307
ENGL Nadell/Bamert. Career Explorations for Humanities Majors

May 4, 9:30–10:45 a.m., Boylan 3156
HIST 3044/Mancia. Early Modern Religious Transformations and their Historical Effects; class will be a discussion of society and the supernatural after the Reformation.

May 4, 12:25–2:05 p.m., Boylan 1112
HIST 4006/Mancia. Colloquium in History: Performing Endurance, Medieval Hermits, Stylites, Anchorites and Pilgrims; class will be on comparing contemporary performance artists (Linda Montano) to medieval ascetics.

May 5, 9:30–10:45 a.m., Boylan 3113

CASD 1178 Anatomy and Physiology of Speech and Swallowing. An introductory and functional background in the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory, phonatory, articulatory and deglutitive systems; introduction to speech and swallowing disorders. STEM variant course – Satisfies Pathways Required Core Life and Physical Science.

May 5, 2:15–3:30 p.m., 208RE
CAST 3020/Williams. Steelpan and Community

May 6, 9:30–10:45 a.m., Boylan 3156
HIST 3044/Mancia. Early Modern Religious Transformations and their Historical Effects; class will be a discussion of the Puritans and the founding of the United States as a legacy of the Reformation

May  6, 12:25–2:05 p.m., Boylan 1112
HIST 4006/Mancia. Colloquium in History: Performing Endurance, Medieval Hermits, Stylites, Anchorites and Pilgrims; class will be on comparing contemporary performance artists (Teching Hseih and Marina Abramovic) to medieval ascetics.