Faculty

Tatiana Abatemarco is an interdisciplinary scholar and educator who works in environmental humanities and sustainable food systems. She uses an ecofeminist frame to explore grassroots, holistic approaches to food justice.

Barbara Alfano brings a background in journalism, translation, and short-story writing in Italian to her study of 20th- and 21st-century Italian fiction.

Jen Allen is a pianist, composer and author. She frequently performs in New York, the Northeast US and in venues throughout the world, as the leader of her own groups or as a member of other creative music ensembles.

Joseph Alpar's research focuses on the anthropology of music in Turkey and the Middle East, and the relationships between music, spirituality, modernity, marginalization, social expression, and identity.

A standout among his many books and essays, Benjamin Anastas’ novel An Underachiever’s Diary has been called “the funniest, most underappreciated novel of the ’90s.”

David Anderegg has informed and comforted millions of parents with his books and writings on children and the mind, backed by extensive research and a longtime psychotherapy practice.

Kenneth Bailey's work focuses on public-making: inviting artists, academics and activists to imagine new public infrastructures, habits and atmospheres as a strategy for social change.

When natural disaster strikes, its effects are not experienced outside of history: Lopamudra Banerjee’s work brings together issues of the environment and development to explore how the poor experience such events in disproportionate ways.

Dr. Christopher Barsotti, MD is the founding CEO of the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine (AFFIRM), a community practice emergency medicine physician who serves patients in rural western Massachusetts, southern Vermont and upstate New York, and a certified 4-H youth rifle instructor.

Barry Bartlett creates ceramic sculptures that take on questions of conflict, evolution, warfare, suburban sprawl, kitsch, and commemoration.

Susan Basterfield is a collective entrepreneur, catalyst, author and educator based in New Zealand. She traded corporate life for a deep dive into alternative livelihood and the future of work.

Michael Bisio returned to New York in 2006 after spending 30 years on the West Coast and quickly became an integral part of the New York City creative music community. Since 2009, he has been bass instructor at Bennington College and a member of the Matthew Shipp Trio.

J Blackwell’s recent works are called Neveruses (never•uses). Neveruses are lumpish, androgynous painting-objects comprised of scavenged plastic bags and colored fibers such as wool yarn and silk thread. These hybrid devices are neither useful nor redundant, although both are implied.

Thomas Bogdan’s vocal performance, in genres ranging from old music to new, avant-garde multimedia performance and cabaret, has received wonderful reviews from critics around the world.

David Bond teaches on the environment and public action. Trained as an anthropologist, Bond studies oil spills and their imprint on environmental science and governance. His work shows how toxic disruptions can fix vital relations with new forms of knowledge and care.

Shawtane Bowen is a writer, actor, and producer. He is a founding member of Astronomy Club, the first all-Black house team at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater in New York. Their series, Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show, debuted this fall on Netflix to much critical acclaim. 

Colin Brant’s luxurious, color-drenched, paintings and drawings present an inquiry that is both reverent and skeptical, offering examinations of landscape as personal, politicized, and perpetually evolving historical space.

Digital-chamber-punk bands, nine-piece rockestras, 21st century medieval quartets: Kitty Brazelton’s ability to create new genres as a composer, performer, singer, and instrumentalist is rooted in a study of even the most traditional forms of music.

Carly Briggs’ mathematical research in algebraic combinatorics involves using combinatorial objects to encode information about complex structures. In the classroom, she uses collaborative, active learning methods to make mathematics inclusive and accessible.

Nicholas Brooke creates music across disciplines, from collages of recordings with live theater, to home-built instrumentariums inspired by gamelan. He has received Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and New Music USA fellowships and premieres at the Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto, and MASS MOCA.

An inorganic chemist, John Bullock investigates the reaction pathways and mechanisms of short-lived species generated at electrodes. He is also interested in reforming the undergraduate chemistry curricula by de-emphasizing traditional boundaries between sub-disciplines within the field.

Akiko Busch’s writings—books and essays in publications ranging from Metropolis to The New York Times—weave together design, culture, and nature to address things like the geography of the home, citizen science, and the lives of objects.

Edward Cameron is a specialist in human rights and climate change. For more than two decades he has advised governments, companies, philanthropies, international organizations and global non-profits on emissions reductions and resilience. In Spring 2020, he authored a book on how to reinvent a low-carbon, resilient and inclusive economy in response to COVID-19.

Brian Campion facilitates all programs and initiatives connected to state and federal policy; he also serves as a Vermont State Senator.

A dramaturg, theater historian, and author of American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Maya Cantu specializes in twentieth-century American theater.

Andrew Cencini has developed software and services used by millions of people every day, working in the technology industry, where he helped build Bing, as well as SQL Server and other products. He serves as VP of engineering and cofounder of Vapor IO, a data center startup based out of Austin, TX.

Noah Coburn is a political anthropologist who focuses on Afghanistan and South Asia, studying violence, governance, and how people negotiate the overlap of politics, power, and culture.

Rabbi Michael Cohen, a longtime environmental activist, has written extensively on the impact of ecological issues on the Middle East peace process.

7-string guitar player, NEA grant recipient and Grammy-nominated producer who has produced and performed with some of the biggest acts in the business.

Terry Creach directs Creach/Company, which tours throughout the United States and Europe, and his work as a choreographer has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts.

The work of astronomer Hugh Crowl addresses questions of how the massive collections of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter that we call galaxies assemble. How do galaxies form and evolve? Specifically, how do environmental conditions such as the flow of gas in and out of galaxies affect that process?

Annabel Davis-Goff is a novelist, screenwriter, essayist, social justice advocate, and a driving force behind Bennington College’s Incarceration in America and Prison Education Initiatives.

Alisa Del Tufo's career has been dedicated to making impact at the nexus of practice and policy; individual and community change; intellectual pursuit and activism with the goal of ending violence in the lives of women and girls addressing racism and other deep social challenges. She has founded three organizations: Sanctuary for Families, CONNECT, and Threshold Collaborative.

Elena Demyanenko was a member of Trisha Brown and Stephen Petronio Dance Companies, which premiered original choreography at Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York Live Arts, and other venues. She is the recipient of New York Live Arts and EMPAC Dance Movies commissions and a Jerome Robbins Fellowship.

Thorsten Dennerline produces paintings, drawings, and artists’ books. The main focus of his work originates from an interest in poetry, which has led to collaborative projects with writers in book form, and in paintings and drawing projects that explore the poetic possibilities of the landscape.

The acclaimed poetry of Michael Dumanis weaves together memories of childhood, diaspora, and dislocation.

Judith Enck is senior fellow and visiting faculty member in the Center for the Advancement of Public Action. She is the President of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator, appointed by President Obama.

Marguerite Feitlowitz is the author of the internationally acclaimed A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture and four volumes of literary translation, many essays, fiction, and criticism.

Janet Foley applies her expertise in inorganic chemistry to study the effects of pollutants in Vermont groundwater, to understand the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs, and to explore the photochemistry and medicinal applications of gold compounds.

Pianist whose performing career has taken her from The Kennedy Center to tours of Europe, Japan, and South America

Mariam Ghani is an artist, writer, and filmmaker. Her work looks at places, spaces and moments where social, political and cultural structures take on visible forms, and spans video, sound, installation, photography, performance, text and data. 

Michael Giannitti has extensive professional experience as a lighting designer and educator. He has designed lighting at many of the most prestigious venues around the country and has taught abroad as a two-time Fulbright Specialist Grant recipient.

Manuel Gonzales is the author of The Miniature Wife and Other Stories, which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and the John Gardner Prize for Fiction, and the novel The Regional Office is Under Attack!

Levi Gonzalez is a dance artist whose work highlights the porous boundaries between audience and performer, and employs a queer corporeal logic to resist narrow definitions of knowledge and experience.

Internationally acclaimed jazz musician and theorist Milford Graves has been the recipient of honors including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Down Beat International Award, and the Critics Award. Photo credit: Noa Ben-Amotz

Tiago Gualberto is an Afro-Brazilian visual artist who incorporates themes in his work such as the relationship between memory and history, the social uses of language, and narrative erasure. He maintains a deep interest in the politics of overcoming barriers in Brazil for artists.

Camille Guthrie’s most recent book of poetry, Articulated Lair, engages with the life and work of one of the great artists of the 20th century, Louise Bourgeois, in her continued interest in ekphrasis—writing poetry in response to visual art.

Amber Hancock is a physical organic chemist investigating in the photochemistry of organic free radicals. Her work aims to build capacity for environmentally benign synthetic methods by revealing the factors governing reactivity using experimental kinetic and computational techniques.  

A scholar of contemporary Spanish fiction, Sarah D. Harris's research and teaching interests include sequential art, twentieth and twenty-first century Peninsular film, trauma, collective memory and forgetting, migration, monstrosity, and gender and identity studies.

John Hultgren's work explores the theoretical and ideological foundations of environmental political struggles.

Yoko Inoue’s multidisciplinary art practice anthropologically examines complex relationships between people and objects, the commodification of culture, and the assimilation and transformation of cultural meaning and values. Using ceramic medium she explores the socio-political and economic implication of products and globalization.

Alanna Irving is an innovator and entrepreneur exploring bossless leadership, participatory open source software, cooperative governance, social enterprise, and collaborating with money, and co-authored the book Better Work Together.

Jon Isherwood is a sculptor who has pioneered high-tech CNC technologies, led international projects, and designed opportunities to investigate the sites where the intellectual and physical become visually entangled.

Kirk Jackson is an actor/director with four decades of experience on and off Broadway and regionally. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, he has assisted Ivo van Hove on multiple productions in New York City and, recently, began to direct operas.

As the artistic director of the Dorset Theatre Festival, a host of the LAByrinth Theatre Company’s workshops at Bennington, and a member of the famed Actor’s Studio, Dina Janis has studied, worked with, and supported some of the most talented actors, writers, and directors working in theatre today.

Blake Jones studies the underlying mechanisms of development, sociality, learning and memory in free-living animals. His research integrates theories and techniques from climate-science, ecology, physiology, genetics, and cognitive neuroscience.

John Kirk teaches classes in the history of American and Celtic traditional music in addition to mandolin, fiddle, banjo, ukulele, mountain and hammered dulcimers, and traditional music ensemble.

Jonathan Kline’s artwork straddles the divide between photography’s contemporary, hybrid, and digital nature and its most traditional and original forms

Celebrated playwright Sherry Kramer believes every play is created in the audience, and her classes are a treasure hunt to discover how a play shapes our experience and how it makes things matter.

Paul La Farge writes novels, short stories and essays which mix genre and ‘literary’ elements, and explore the expressive power of form. He has published four novels, a hypertext, and a collection of imaginary dreams.

How do social factors shape our use of language, and how does language use in turn impact our construction and perception of society? A sociolinguist, Thomas Leddy-Cecere addresses these questions through his research in Arabic and contemporary American English.

Pianist who has taught and performed through the United States and Italy, and prizewinner of the American National Chopin Competition and the New York Leschetizky Society.

Ginger Lin, a native of Taiwan, has 30 years of experience teaching at the cross-section of language, literature, history, and philosophy.

Jen Liu is a New York-based visual artist working in video, performance, and painting, on topics of national identity, economy, and the re-motivating of archival artifacts. She is a 2017 recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship in Film/Video, as well as the NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship in Digital/Electronic Art.

Mary Lum’s paintings, collages, and wall works, which have been praised by critics and exhibited widely, draw attention to the overlooked but subliminally powerful architecture of modern life.

Vanessa Lyon's teaching and research range from early Renaissance to modern and contemporary visual culture with a focus on European painting. She is especially interested in cross-cultural exchange, the intersectionality of gender, race, and theology in early modern visuality, and the legacies of the 'Old Masters' in subsequent art and its histories.

Jim Mahoney has mentored students in physics and computing for over thirty years in topics ranging from cosmology and chaos to cryptology and microcontrollers. His interests include simulations, data analysis, internet technologies, and the digital arts.

Amie McClellan is a cell biologist who utilizes baker’s yeast with a very serious goal in mind: to explore how “molecular chaperones” participate in helping proteins attain and maintain their structure and function, and how this relates to human diseases that arise when this process goes awry.

Jesse McDougall is an author, a Co-Founder and Director of Regenerative Agriculture at Regenerative Food Network, Inc, and farmer at Studio Hill—a regenerative 4th-generation family farm in southwestern Vermont. He is also an holistic management accredited professional and a Savory Institute Hub Leader.

Andrew McIntyre’s mathematical research concerns problems in geometry related to mathematical physics. His teaching is student centered and historically driven.

Catherine McKeen is a philosopher whose research focuses on ancient Greek thought, gender, and politics. 

A combined interest in LGBTQ studies, comparative literature, film studies, and Eastern European culture is at the center of Alexandar Mihailovic’s writing and teaching. Among other subjects, he writes and teaches about artificial intelligence in literature and popular culture, postcolonial women writers and filmmakers, and Russian Jewish literature.

Farhad Mirza is an interdisciplinary artist.

Kathryn Montovan uses mathematical modeling and analysis to understand complex ecosystem interactions and to discover the potential evolutionary causes of insect and animal behaviors. Her teaching is based on active learning techniques and is focused on engaging students of all levels in authentic mathematical inquiry.

Josef Mundt is a mathematician whose interests lie in the visualization of data, building mathematical confidence and connections, and helping others think of mathematics as an art form.

Brian Michael Murphy is a media archaeologist, poet, and essayist. In his work, he examines how media technologies, from taxidermy to digital photography archives, represent and reshape human experience.

Mina Nishimura is a Tokyo-born dance artist whose works focus on ever-changing relationships between internal landscapes and external forms. Buddhism-influenced philosophies and butoh-based principles are reflected across her somatic, performance and choreographic practices. Nishimura is a 2019 recipient of Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award.

Vivian Nixon is a writer and poet. She has been writing about social justice in Newsmax, USA Today, New York Times, The Hill, and San Francisco Bee and elsewhere since 2004. A Pen America Justice Writing Fellow, Nixon holds an MFA, from Columbia University School of Arts and is Executive Director of College & Community Fellowship. She recently co-edited, What We Know: Solutions from Our Experiences in the Justice System (The New Press).

Carol Pal is a historian who works on the intellectual history of early modern Europe. A former auto mechanic and pastry chef, she now focuses on the histories of science, medicine, the Republic of Letters, and knowledge production—with an emphasis on how women were always part of the picture.

Nathaniel Parke is a regional freelance cellist and is also on the faculty of Williams College.

Aysha Peltz’s ceramics blur the lines between utility and art, as the material properties of clay itself—the way it swells, fissures, and tears under its own weight—create a certain kind of poetry.

Michael Philipp is Chairman of Ambata Capital, a family owned investment firm that believes businesses should act as a positive force for change in the communities, industries, and environments in which they operate. Phillipp has 25 years of experience in the global financial services industry. He is also Chairman of Regenerative Food Networks, Inc and Co-Chair of the Bhutan Foundation.

Kyle Philipp - CEO of Regenerative Food Network, Inc. has over 20 years experience working with innovative companies in the finance, energy and technology sectors. His focus has been working across disciplines to implement holistic solutions and constantly pushing businesses to be a positive force for change for their employees, communities, and the environment.

Ann Pibal’s widely recognized and highly acclaimed paintings have been exhibited extensively, in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Senem Pirler is an intermedia-sound artist whose interdisciplinary work crosses over into sound engineering, sound art, video art, performance, and installation. Pirler’s recent work has been exhibited at EMPAC, Roulette, BAC, Montalvo Arts Center, Mount Tremper Arts, and Collar Works. Her work has been recognized by grants, residencies, and awards including most recently PACT Zollverein residency, Signal Culture residency and The Malcolm S. Morse Graduate Research Enhancement Award to honor the work of Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening in 2018. Pirler earned her M.M. in Music Technology from NYU Steinhardt, and her Ph.D. in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Jonathan Pitcher is a scholar of Latin American literature, philosophy, and history whose research interests exceed any one discipline: identity, exile, film, politics, travel, art, architectural ideology, puppetry, and the aftermath of the Boom, to name a few.

Prazak teaches anthropology and African studies, specializing in economic development and cultural change in East Africa, using multidisciplinary research strategies to address globalization, inequality, culturally-based ways of knowing, gender-based violence, and politics of the body.

Jean Randich is an award-winning director, writer, and librettist specializing in new works, musical theatre, opera, and re-envisioned classics. She is cofounder and co-artistic director of Collider Theater in New York City.

Sue Rees has exhibited her set designs, animations, installations, and video works worldwide and has worked collaboratively with choreographers, directors, and musicians in the United States, Europe, and India.

Choreographer, dancer, and visual artist Dana Reitz weaves movement and light scores that continually shift perception of time and space. Often performed in silence, they reveal musical nuance. She has collaborated with Jennifer Tipton, created works for Mikhail Baryshnikov, and toured extensively.

Isabel Roche is a scholar of 19th-century French literature. She previously served as Provost and Dean of the College, and was Interim President for the 2019-20 academic year.

Jennifer Rohn has appeared in theatre productions on and off Broadway, in the United States and Europe, and in films and television, collaborating extensively with the renowned director Robert Wilson.

Noëlle Rouxel-Cubberly teaches French language through the lenses of French film, historical correspondence, and other aspects of French cultural life.

Lauren Ruffin is a thinker, designer, and leader interested in building strong, sustainable, anti-racist systems and organizations. She's interested in exploring how we can leverage new technologies to combat racial and economic injustice.

Kerry Ryer-Parke performs in a range of musical styles, from oratorio, opera, and early music to folk, jazz, and rock, in addition to directing the Bennington Children’s Chorus and Bennington Voice Workshop.

Bridging intergroup relations literature in psychology with intersectionality theory that originates in feminist studies, Özge Savaş’ scholarship examines how and when people feel they “belong” in groups, institutions, and nations.

Charles Schoonmaker is an Emmy Award-winning costume designer for theatre, dance, opera, and television.

Tim Schroeder applies physical and chemical principles to understand interactions between deep-Earth and shallow-Earth systems. His courses are based on the idea that geology begins as an observational science, but that understanding Earth observations requires a physical sciences context.

Eileen Scully is an award-winning scholar of American diplomacy and international history. Her recent work explores historical understandings of human trafficking and international customary law on the coming, going, and staying of destitute, physically disabled migrants.

Susan Sgorbati, the director of the Elizabeth Coleman Center for the Advancement of Public Action, is a professional mediator and educator whose creative research has led to collaboration across disciplines ranging from dance improvisation to biology to visual arts, as both an artist and a driver of social change.

Stephen Shapiro’s research on early-modern French literature and culture focuses on aristocratic memoirs, the history of sexuality, culinary culture, and the history of the city of Paris. He is currently looking at the development of a modern gay culture in 18th-century Paris.

Allen Shawn’s work as a composer and pianist comprises a large catalogue of orchestral and chamber music, chamber operas, songs, piano music, and music for ballet, theatre, and film; he is also celebrated for his writings on Arnold Schoenberg and Leonard Bernstein, as well as his compelling memoirs.

Donald Sherefkin is an architect whose projects range from urban loft renovations to rural retreats to sacred spaces, extending from the heart of New York City to New England.

Elizabeth Sherman is known for her work on amphibians and, more recently, on coral reefs and climate change; she collaborates with student researchers in her study of how animals work — both individually and as part of larger ecosystems.

Rotimi Suberu’s research on Nigerian government and politics and international relations have prompted invitations to consult for the Nigerian government, the World Bank, the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and the Forum of Federations.

Megan Tabaque is a theater artist who cut her teeth in realism of the Chicago theater scene and thereafter in the experimental punk dens of Austin, Texas. Her playwriting aesthetic often imposes the spectacular on suburban subcultures and explores multi-ethnic identity. She is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers. 

Anne Thompson is an artist whose curatorial practice focuses on political critique, site specificity and activities that move beyond institutional spaces.

David Thomson is an interdisciplinary artist working in the fields of music, dance, theater and performance. He initiated The Sustainability Project as a platform for research to create and expand resources and the discourse surrounding ideas of financial, artistic, and personal empowerment in the performing arts community. 

Justin Vasselli’s work as a software engineer focuses on utilizing iOS technology to create efficient and enjoyable educational experiences for language learners.

Paul Voice is a scholar of moral and political philosophy with interests in problems of justice, liberalism, and pluralism.

Debbie Warnock's work draws upon sociology, education, and social statistics to investigate how underrepresented students access and experience higher education.

Emily Waterman is an applied developmental scientist who aims to improve the lives of adolescents and young adults by preventing sexual and dating violence.

Elizabeth White is a multidisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Phillip B. Williams is the author of Thief in the Interior, winner of the 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a 2017 Lambda Literary award. He received a 2017 Whiting Award and 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. Phillip is the co-editor in chief of the online journal Vinyl.

Bruce Williamson is a jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist/recording artist who has collaborated and performed with such luminaries as Bobby McFerron, Fred Hersch, Julie Taymor, and Mark Rylance in a variety of genres, and whose work has been featured in Academy Award-winning film scores.

Michael Wimberly is a composer, percussionist, and music producer who has recorded and toured throughout Europe, Africa, and the Americas. He is the driving force behind Power of Drum, an alternative arts program whose mission is to make music education accessible to all youth worldwide.

Kerry Woods is an ecologist whose recent work includes long-term studies of old-growth forests, landscape ecology of the Taconic Mountains, and collaborative biogeographic analyses of global temperate forests. His work has been supported by NASA, NSF, US Forest Service, and the Mellon Foundation.

Mark Wunderlich is author of three critically acclaimed books of poetry, and his poems, interviews, reviews, and translations have appeared in journals such as Slate, The Paris Review, and Poetry, and in more than 30 anthologies. His most recent book, God Of Nothingness, is forthcoming from Graywolf in 2021.

Born in Niigata, Japan, Kota Yamazaki was first introduced to butoh under the teaching of Akira Kasai, then graduated from Bunka Fashion College (Tokyo) with BA in Fashion Design. He is a recipient of Bessie Award 2007, FCA Award 2013, NYFA Fellowship 2016, and Guggenheim Fellowship 2018.

Ikuko Yoshida teaches Japanese language and culture, and her research interest areas are second language acquisition, pedagogy, critical thinking in foreign language learning, technology, and Japanese aesthetics. She is a certified instructor of ikebana—traditional Japanese flower arrangement.

David Zicarelli ’83, is a software designer and entrepreneur practicing in the area of artistic and organizational creativity.