People

Honors Program Staff

Avery Plaw

Associate Professor of Political Science; Director of the University Honors Program
Ph.D. McGill University

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 Professor of Sociology and Crime and Justice Studies ; Associate Director of the University Honors Program

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

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

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

Cindy Pisapia has been at UMass Dartmouth for 24 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 13 years, she has worked for the Honors Program.

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