Students can find the Honors Center at the Claire T. Carney Library, Room 212. Students can also locate the Honors Program Director and Cindy Pisapia to ask any questions about the Honors Program.

   Honors Program Staff

Avery Plaw

Director of the University Honors Program; Associate Professor of Political Science

Office: Library Room 215; LARTS Room 399J

Professor Plaw specializes in political theory and international relations, with a particular focus on strategic studies. Before arriving at the UMass Dartmouth he received a two-year fellowship from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) to pursue research at New York University. He published a book in 2008 entitled Targeting Terrorists: A License to Kill? in Ashgate’s Ethics and Global Politics series, and he's currently co-editing a collected volume entitled the Metamorphosis of War (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press). He has also edited a collected volume concerned with managing the challenges of philosophical and cultural pluralism entitled Frontiers of Diversity: Explorations in Contemporary Pluralism (2005).  Prof. Plaw has published 14 peer reviewed articles and chapters, and in 2008 he won the American Political Science Association’s Wilson Carey McWilliams prize. His book Targeting Terrorists was short-listed (with two other books) for Best Book of the Year in International Relations by the Canadian Political Science Association. He was selected for a 2009 Chancellor Award for Research and he has received a Joseph P. Healey Grant, in collaboration with Professor Brian Williams of the History Department, from the University of Massachusetts.

Email: aplaw@umassd.edu
Telephone: 508-999-8840

Robin Robinson 

Associate Director of the University Honors Program; Associate Professor of Sociology 

Office: LARTS Room 393A

Professor Robinson’s work in the US and UK includes a social history of the transportation and transformation of 5000+ convict women and girls shipped from Britain to the American colonies in the 17^th and 18^th C, sold as unfree labor, and economic and social legacies of their bondage; this project is in collaboration with Professor Barry Godfrey, University of Liverpool.  At the University of Manchester, Professor David Gadd and she are working within psychoanalytic constructs of annihilation anxiety and crime, and with Dr. Jo Deakin, women’s desistance from crime. Work with Professor Loraine Gelsthorpe at University of Cambridge approaches, psychoanalytically, questions of gendered perceptions of community care for girls in England and Wales, contrasting liberal reforms and concerns about moral dangers of the 1960s/70s with policy about girls and care in the 2000s, compared to concurrent policy changes and political dynamics in the US. She has consulted and lectured in Ireland and the UK on matters of vicarious traumatization amongst anti-violence workers.  Recent studies, publications, conference papers and other work explore relational violence amongst rural adolescents, vicarious traumatization amongst domestic violence workers, a call for policy reforms in state practices concerning marginalized violent girls, and holistic approaches to teaching about trauma. Other work in progress includes literary case studies for critical analysis of gendered human rights discourses, and expectations of girls’ behaviors as they relate to gendered dynamics of virtue and personhood.

In addition to extensive academic service, Professor Robinson is active in many public service roles that include board memberships in health, youth advocacy, and other non-profit agencies and organizations.

Email: rrobinson@umassd.edu
Telephone: 508-999-8788

Brian Ayotte

Communications Director of the University Honors Program, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Office: LARTS Room 347

Professor Ayotte is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He is also an adjunct faculty member of Center on Aging at Hebrew SeniorLife, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. His research focuses primarily on the role of individual characteristics and interpersonal relationships in health and health behaviors throughout the life span. Prof. Ayotte has published over 16 peer reviewed articles and contributed to several book chapters.

Email: bayotte@umassd.edu
Telephone: 508-999-9206

Cindy Pisapia

Administrative Assistant for the University Honors Program

Office: Library Room 214

Cindy Pisapia has been at UMass Dartmouth for 25 years. During that time, she has worked for the College of Visual and Performing Arts, the Center for Marine and Science Technology, and for the last 14 years, she has worked for the Honors Program.

Email: cpisapia@umassd.edu
Telephone: 508-999-8820, Fax: 508-910-6541

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  Honors Council Student Directors

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  Coordinators for Colleges

College of Arts and Science

Humanities

Cristina Mehrtens
Associate Professor, History and Women's & Gender Studies Departments
Office:  Liberal Arts 312
Phone: 508-999-8303
cmehrtens@umassd.edu

Social Sciences

Elizabeth Richardson
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Office: Liberal Arts 387A
Phone: 508-910-6954
erichardson@umassd.edu

Natural Sciences

Guillermo Paz-y-Miño-C
Assistant Professor, Biology
Office: Science and Engineering, Room: 331 A
Phone: 508-999-8226
gpazymino@umassd.edu

Charlton College of Business

David Burke
First Year Coordinator and Full Time Lecturer, Decision and Information Sciences
Charlton College of Business, Room: 321
Phone: 508-999-8844 
dburke1@umassd.edu

College of Engineering

Amit Tandon
Professor, Physics
Office: Science and Engineering, Room: 208A
Phone: 508-999-8357 
atandon@umassd.edu

College of Nursing

Kristen Sethares
Associate Professor and PhD Program Director, Adult Nursing
Office: Dion, Room: 308 B
Phone: 508-999-9148 
ksethares@umassd.edu

College of Visual and Performing Arts

Deborah Carlson
Professor, Artisanry
Office: Star Store (715 Purchase Street, New Bedford), Room 223
Phone: 508-999-8916
dcarlson2@umassd.edu

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