Tessa Anderson

Adjunct Faculty

PSYC 3341 - H1: Social Psychology

Master of Science

Ryan Babcock, M.F.A.

Associate Lecturer and Gallery Director - Art

 ART 1100 - H9: Introduction to Art

MFA, Idaho State University (2003)

BFA, University of Idaho (1998)

Dr. Lawrence Behmer

Assistant Professor, Experimental Psychology

PSYC 3303 - H1: Psychology Research Methods

BA (2008) University of Portland

MS (2010) Western Washington University

PhD (2014) Washington State University

Postdoc (2014-2017) Brooklyn College of CUNY

Research Interests: I use EEG and TMS, as well as big data tools such as Amazon Mechanical Turk and computational modeling to investigate important questions about how learning, memory, and cognitive control intersect with our ability to plan and execute complex motor behaviors, such as playing a musical instrument. Specifically, I am interested in the serial order problem (how we successfully plan and execute actions in the correct order), the underlying cognitive processes which allow us to understand another person’s actions (associative sequence learning, mirror neurons), motor imagery, and the neural circuits involved skilled action sequencing. My research program is interdisciplinary, intersecting with computer science, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience, with distinct clinical and commercial applications for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

Andy Christensen

Associate Lecturer - Communication, Media, and Persuasion and Assistant Director ISU Bengal Debate

COMM 1101 - H1: Fundamentals of Oral Communication

M.A. Communication, Idaho State University

Professor Christensen is recovering from over two decades in captivity as senior management for one of the nation's top resorts, after which he sought to pursue his lifelong dream of teaching at the university level [he simply doesn't have the patience, or vocabulary, to work in a pre-collegiate setting]. As a member of the Bengal Faculty, he brings to the classroom a background of leadership, team building, passion, straight talk, and humor. Christensen values the desire to learn as well as to teach, and celebrates the notion that there really must be a better hobby than political criticism.

Dr. Darci Graves

Gender and Sexuality Studies Program Director/Assistant Professor of Social Work

SOC 2201 - H1: Introduction to Gender & Sexuality Studies

MSW - Boise State University, 2011

Ph.D. in Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education - Washington State University, 2019

Specialties: Anti-Poverty Social Work Practice, Social Policies on Poverty and Homelessness, U.S. Gun Culture, Qualitative and Arts-Informed Research Methods

Dr. Alan Johnson

Professor of English and Fullbright Program Advisor

HONS 1101 - 02: Honors Humanities I

PhD English, University of California - Riverside (1998)

Dr. Johnson's expertise is in postcolonial literature and theory, with an emphasis on India, his birthplace. JHe teaches a variety of other courses besides his specialty, such as postcolonial ecocriticism, the novel, major figures (Rushdie, Naipaul), Hindi (or Bollywood) film, literary theory, comparative literature, writing about literature, religion and literature, honors humanities, and first year writing. In 2010 he was a Fulbright-Nehru lecturer in India, focusing on globalization and the place of literature, and  traveled throughout India for research, conferences, and talks.  His current project is an interdisciplinary study of depictions of forests in Indian literature (mostly in English, some in translation). His interdisciplinary interests have taken him to conferences and talks in the U.S. (such as ASLE and RMMLA), India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, England, France, and Canada, as well as, most recently, two literary festivals in India (Bengaluru and Hyderabad).

Dr. Mark McBeth

Professor - Political Science and Director - MPA Program

POLS 1102 - H1: Introduction to Political Critical Thinking

D.A. Political Science, Idaho State University

Dr. McBeth has been on faculty in the Department of Political Science since January, 1995. His research focuses on public policy and environmental policy. 

In 2011 and 2015, he was recognized as an "Outstanding Researcher" at Idaho State University. In 2005, he was named "Distinguished Teacher" at ISU. He was named a “Master Teacher” in 2001.

Dr. Jennifer McDonald

Assistant Lecturer, Experimental Psychology

PSYC 1101 - H1: Introduction to Psychology

B.A. (2011) California State University Channel Islands

M.S. (2014) Idaho State University

Ph.D. (2018) Idaho State University

Research Interests: Accurate Interpersonal Perception of Values, Mindfulness, and Positive Psychology

Dr. Erin Rasmussen

Professor, Experimental Psychology

PSYC 4445 - H1: Learning and Behavior

B.S. (1994), Utah State University;

M.S. (1999) and Ph.D. (2001), Auburn University.

Research Interests: Dr. Rasmussen's research interests are broadly in the area of behavioral economics and behavioral pharmacology. Specifically, she has two laboratories (animal and human) that are dedicated to examining behavioral economic and neural correlates of behaviors and decision-making involved in obesity. Her animal work is centered around how dopaminergic, endocannainoid, and opioid neurotransmitter systems affect the value of food reinforcement in diet-induced and genetic rodent models of obesity. Her human work focuses on behavioral economic factors that influence food-based decision-making related to obesity. She recently was awarded a three-year research grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the relations among food insecurity, obesity, and food impulsivity.

Sarah Robey

Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies - Twentieth-Century U.S. History; History of Science and Technology; History of Energy

HIST 2291 - H1: Introduction to Research

Ph.D. Temple University

Research Interests: History of nuclear science and technology; history of energy; history of the Cold War; citizenship; 20th-century American cultural history; civil defense, disasters, and emergency management.

Dr. Evan Rodriguez

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

PHIL 2260 - H2: Philosopy of Life and Death

PhD, Philosophy and Classics (2016), Yale University

BA, Philosophy and Classical Culture & Society (2008), Haverford College

I received my PhD from Yale’s Philosophy and Classics program in 2016, after first falling in love with both subjects in the liberal arts context at Haverford College. My work uses philosophical and philological tools to help us understand ancient texts, to put them in conversation with modern problems, and to put us in conversation with each other.

Dr. Jeremy Thomas

Department Chair/Associate Professor of Sociology

SOC 1101 - H1: Introduction to Sociology

Ph.D., Purdue University, 2012

M.S., Purdue University, 2007

M.Div., Asbury Theological Seminary, 2002

Specialties: Religion, Sexuality, Deviance, The Body

Lewis Thomas, M.A.

Senior Lecturer - Anthropology

ANTH 2237 - H1: People and Cultures of the World

M.A. Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Thomas has carried out extensive research in Burma (Myanmar) since 1996. Doctoral research was funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Illinois, and focused on the development of tourism in Burma (Myanmar) and related processes of social change. Other research interests include globalization, post-colonial theory, and the anthropology of Mormonism.

Dr. Matthew VanWinkle

Associate Professor - English

HONS 1101 - 01: Honors Humanities I

Ph.D. English, Boson College
ISU Master Teacher Award, 2020

As his long elegy for his friend Hallam draws to a close, Tennyson reflects both on his strengthening appreciation for their altered bond, and on the limits of that appreciation: “Strange friend, past, present, and to be; / Loved deeplier, darklier understood.” These lines read vividly, poignantly, in themselves; they also speak to something daunting but vital about working on literature from an increasingly distant historical moment. In pursuing my work on nineteenth-century British poems and fictions, I often feel my admiration of them deepen, feel that I am coming to know something of them that an initial glance cannot fully recognize or appreciate. At the same time, however, I feel that this understanding remains at least partially in the shadows, and that to acknowledge the incompleteness of even the most acute insight is to pay an indispensable respect to a difference I might otherwise be tempted to remake into a resemblance.

Tennyson’s evocative lines also provide a model for how I have recently begun thinking about neo-Victorian fictions: late twentieth and early twenty-first century narratives set in the Victorian era, exploring a kind of self-reflexive historicity involved in the construction or reconstruction the Victorian past. Do we imagine the Victorians imagining the past in the same ways that we imagine them as the past? Or have the dynamics of historical recollection changed between their era and ours? One strand of my recent work considers the implications of both the points of contact and points of departure that the answers to these interrelated questions might provide.

Dr. Maria Wong

Professor, Experimental Psychology

PSYC 2225 - H1: Child Development

B.S.S. (1983), Chinese University of Hong Kong

M.A. (1985), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ph.D. (1993), University of Chicago

Postdoctoral fellow, Institute for Social Research (1995-1997) and Addiction Research Center (1998), University of Michigan

Research Interests: My research interests focus on understanding risk and protective factors of important developmental outcomes, including substance use, suicidal behavior and resilience (the ability to do well in spite of adversity). My recent projects examine the effects of sleep and self-regulation (regulation of affect, behavioral, and cognitive processes) on physical and mental health.

Dr. Xiaomeng "Mona" Xu

Associate Professor, Experimental Psychology - Director of Experimental Training

PSYC 2205 - H1: Human Sexuality

B.A. (2005) New York University

M.A. (2007) and Ph.D. (2011) Stony Brook University

Postdoctoral Training (2011-2013) Alpert Medical School, Brown University and the Miriam Hospital

Research Interests: Dr. Xu's research focuses on close relationships (especially romantic relationships), behavioral health (e.g. physical activity/sedentary behavior), and teaching/mentoring.