Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

Justin Brown

E-mail: justin.brown@northwestern.edu

Justin Brown is a Weinberg College Adviser and a Professor of Instruction in the Department of Neurobiology.  He completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA where he earned a B.S. in Physiological Sciences.  He then completed his graduate degree at Stanford University where he earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and conducted research on the biology of pain perception.  After completing his graduate degree, he began working as a college professor.  He has instructed diverse courses including cellular and molecular neuroscience, systems and behavioral neuroscience, the neurobiology of homeostasis, neuro-anatomy, human anatomy, human physiology, freshman seminars, and study abroad.  He joined Northwestern University in 2018 as a teaching faculty in the Neurobiology Department and joined the Weinberg Advising Office in 2024.  As an academic adviser, he is committed to helping students succeed in college.  Outside of the classroom, you’ll find him exploring the outdoors or enjoying a run with friends.

Rosemary Bush

E-mail: rosemary.bush@northwestern.edu

Rosemary Bush is a Weinberg College Adviser and Assistant Professor of Instruction in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Her research focuses on how plants and their environments have shaped one another through Earth’s history, developing proxy tools using living plants and then reconstructing plant ecology and paleoclimate from fossils from a variety of different places and times. As an instructor, she enjoys teaching topics in paleobiology and environmental science. Her interests generally lie at the intersection of ecology and history, and spare time is usually spent keeping up with the permaculture and native species gardens around her 100-year-old Chicago bungalow. She received her BA in Environmental Biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and her MS in Plant Biology and Conservation and PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Northwestern.

Noah Chaskin

E-mail: noah.chaskin@northwestern.edu

Noah Chaskin (they/them) is a Weinberg College Adviser and Assistant Professor of Instruction in English. Dr. Chaskin’s research focuses on the relationship between femininity and narrative form in eighteenth-century literature, from the perspectives of queer theory and disability studies. Their work can be found in Women’s Writing, Modern Philology, and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture; their most recent book chapter, “Ill Femininities and the Problem of Protagonism in Jane Austen’s Novels,” is forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Disability and Literatures in English, 1700-1900. Dr. Chaskin teaches “Introduction to Disability Studies in Literature,” a theory and methods class designed to increase student confidence reading and writing about theoretical texts. Dr. Chaskin has participated in AccessibleNU’s Universal Design in Learning workshops and is invested in accessible course design. Off-campus, they can be found knitting, playing pool, and diving into ambitious cooking projects with varying degrees of success.

Brady Clark

E-mail: bzack@northwestern.edu

Brady Clark is a Weinberg College Adviser and Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Linguistics. He received a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. from the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University. Since joining the Northwestern University faculty in 2004, he has taught courses on syntax, meaning, historical linguistics, and the origin and evolution of language. His publications cover topics such as intonational meaning, the history of English syntax, the application of game theory to problems in several areas of linguistics, and theories of language evolution. Currently his primary areas of teaching and research interest are semantics and pragmatics.

Jaime Dominguez

E-mail: j-dominguez@northwestern.edu

Jaime Dominguez is College Adviser and Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Political Science. A native of California, he received his BA from the University of California at San Diego and his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007. His research interests include race and ethnicity, urban and Latino and minority politics. Professor Dominguez has taught at the University of Chicago, UIC, and DePaul University. In 2003 and 2004, he taught at Northwestern in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies. He is one of the principal architect’s of the Chicago Democracy Project (CDP), a thirty-year (1975-2005) online political database that provides citizens, community groups, and religious organizations with information on campaign finance, electoral outcomes, government contracts, minority appointments and levels of public employment for the City of Chicago. In addition, the CDP also provides links to demographic, economic, and other demographic information of interest to the public. Professor Dominguez is currently working on a second grant to expand the CDP to twenty five major cities as well as a pilot project that examines the state of Latino politics in Chicago. Of particular interest is how Latino heterogeneity and population growth is redefining traditional political and race relations between blacks and whites. He is author of “Illinois Latinos and the 2004 Elections: The Waiting Game Continues,” in de la Garza and DeSipio’s Latinos and the 2004 Elections (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007).

Sheila Donohue

E-mail: spdonohue@northwestern.edu

Sheila Donohue, Professor of Instruction in English and College Adviser, joined the Northwestern University faculty in 1998. She received her MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she was the Randall Jarrell Fellow and served as poetry editor and production manager for The Greensboro Review, one of the nation’s oldest literary magazines. Following a two-year Wallace Stegner Writing Fellowship at Stanford University, she was named the Jones Lecturer in Poetry and for several years taught creative writing to Stanford undergraduates. She currently teaches primarily fiction and poetry in the undergraduate creative writing program, as well as in the School of Professional Studies’ undergraduate and graduate programs. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize and several nominations for a Pushcart Prize, Donohue’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Michigan Quarterly Review, Seneca Review, Poetry Magazine, Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, The New England Review, TriQuarterly, and Epoch. She has traveled to 16 European Union countries and Great Britain, 3 former Eastern Bloc nations, 2 Asian countries, and Oaxaca, Mexico. A native of western Massachusetts, she now lives in Chicago.

Myrna García

E-mail: myrna.garcia@northwestern.edu

Myrna García is a Weinberg College Adviser and an Associate Professor of Instruction in Latinx Studies. García holds a doctorate in ethnic studies from the University of California, San Diego, and a master’s degree in education from Fordham University. She studied Latin American Studies as a first-generation college student at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. García teaches courses on topics including Latinx Chicago, im/migration, and knowledge production. In 2021, García received the Daniel I. Linzer Award for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Equity. Moreover, she has a rich record of community engagement.  García has collaborated with Mudlark Theater to create curriculum and programming for Latinx youth. She is currently on the advisory committee for the Aquí en Chicago project at the Chicago History Museum. She thoroughly enjoys teaching, advising, and mentoring students.

Shelby Hatch

E-mail: slhatch@northwestern.edu

Shelby Hatch (she/her/hers) is a scientist focused on the intersections of chemistry, sustainability, and social justice. Shelby is a Weinberg College Adviser and an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Chemistry. She has taught a variety of undergraduate chemistry courses - introductory lab classes, first year seminars, courses for non-scientists, and a capstone laboratory course for chemistry majors - plus firesides on the chemistry of beer & the chemistry of chocolate. Her research involves environmental justice and Youth Participatory Science, which centers and involves students in the entire research process, from creation of a hypothesis through disseminating results once data has been collected and analyzed. Since 2017, she has been a lead collaborator on a National Science Foundation grant Teachers and Students Synergistic Learning Through Youth. Shelby studies the distribution of heavy metal contamination in Chicago in relation to where low socio-economic status and communities of color are located. She enjoys teaching undergraduate chemistry courses that incorporate sustainability and environmental justice into the curriculum. Shelby is also very passionate about teaching in the Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP). She developed a course and compiled an open educational resource textbook for her NPEP chemistry courses, has taught at Stateville Correctional Center, and looks forward to teaching at Logan Correctional Center in the fall of 2022. She received her BA from The College of Wooster and her PhD from The University of Rochester.

Michael Maltenfort

E-mail: malt@northwestern.edu

Michael Maltenfort is a Weinberg College Adviser and Assistant Professor of Instruction in Mathematics. He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Cornell University, and his doctorate, also in mathematics, from the University of Chicago.  Following graduation, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya.  He then returned to Chicago, where he briefly taught at DePaul University and Loyola University before joining the faculty at Truman College, where he taught from 2002 to 2013.  He loves the mathematical aspects of the Rubik’s Cube and related puzzles, and he also uses his mathematical talent when calling square dances:  he has been an enthusiastic square dancer for decades and has been a square dance caller since 2002.

James O'Laughlin

E-mail: j-olaughlin@northwestern.edu

James O'Laughlin is an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Cook Family Writing Program and a WCAS College Adviser. He has been named to the Associated Student Government (ASG) Faculty Honor Roll and has received the Distinguished Teaching Award from Northwestern’s School of Professional Studies. He has taught a wide range of courses, including: first-year seminars on environmentalism and on postcolonialism and writing in Ireland; modes of writing; reading and writing fiction; reading and writing creative nonfiction; and intermediate composition. 

Andrew Rivers

E-mail: ajrivers@northwestern.edu

Andrew Rivers is a Weinberg College Adviser and Associate Professor of Instruction in Physics and Astronomy. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Portland in 1993 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of New Mexico in 2000. Andrew's Ph.D. research included a large scale radio astronomy survey of the so-called "Zone of Avoidance": a large region of the sky containing few visible external galaxies due to obscuration by dust near the disk of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Looking for hidden galaxies using long wavelength radio waves which pass through the dust unobscured, Andrew discovered approximately 20 previously unknown nearby galaxies. Andrew joined the Northwestern University Physics department in 1999 and has since taught a variety of courses in physics and astronomy including the introductory physics sequence, Modern Cosmology and Ideas of Physics. In his free time, Andrew enjoys spending time with his wife Carolyn and his Pekinese puppy "Boo". Leisure activities include tinkering with Linux, attending obscure art films and reading nonfiction from diverse fields.

Deborah Rosenberg

Phone: 847-491-8916
Office Location: 1908 Sheridan
E-mail: deborah-rosenberg@northwestern.edu

Deborah Rosenberg is a College Adviser and Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She received her BA from Wesleyan University with majors in English and Spanish. Deborah earned her PhD in 2004 from the University of Chicago, where she wrote a dissertation on the role of the picaresque novel in Spanish national identity formation. She joined Northwestern in 2005 and has taught many courses in the department, including language courses at various levels and first-year seminars on Spanish and Latin American literature. In her free time, Deborah likes to travel and try out restaurants around Chicago with her family.

Fay Rosner

E-mail: f-rosner@northwestern.edu

Fay is a College Adviser and Associate Professor of Instruction in French, teaching second-year language courses, the French writing workshop, and a freshman seminar on Proust and the arts. She also serves as a Faculty Fellow in the College of Community and Cultural Studies. Before completing her PhD in French at the University of Chicago, she directed the Office of Career Services at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Fay holds a B.A. in French and B.S. in psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana. She enjoys going to chamber music concerts at Northwestern and singing in the Northwestern Music Academy chorus.

Bill Savage

E-mail: b-savage@northwestern.edu

Besides his work as a College Adviser, Bill Savage is Professor of Instruction in the Department of English.  His research currently focuses on Chicago literature, history, and culture, ranging from writers like Nelson Algren to the deeper political significance of hot dog stands. His latest book project was an annotated edition of George Ade’s The Old-Time Saloon.  He has published book reviews, op ed essays, and other writing in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, Crain’s Chicago Business and many other publications with “Chicago” on their mast-head, and he chronicled the 2016 Cubs World Series Championship season for ESPN.com. He won the Distinguished Teaching Award from Northwestern's School for Professional Studies in 2004, and has been named to the Associated Student Government Faculty Honor Roll several times, including in 2020 for his “The Chicago Way” course.  He also works as a Series Editor for Chicago: Visions + Revisions, a series of new non-fiction books about Chicago from the University of Chicago Press.  He is a lifelong resident of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood. “Chicago” is his favorite word.

Elizabeth Smith

E-mail: eliz.smith@northwestern.edu

Elizabeth Smith is a College Adviser and Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Anthropology Department. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991 with a double major in Anthropology and Comparative Literature and a certificate in African Studies. While working at the Social Research Center at the American University in Cairo for three years, she began an MA in Anthropology. She went on to receive her MA (1999) and PhD (2006) in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University. Prior to coming to Northwestern, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California-Berkeley (2006) an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont (2006-13). Professor Smith’s research and publications address the roles of race, ethnicity, and gender in nostalgia about Nubians in Egyptian popular culture. She has written about race and media images of Nubians, peoples’ identification with archaeological sites in nostalgia for Nubia, and how photographs of Nubia circulate in Egypt and globally.  More recently, she began research on the use of induced lactation in orphan fostering in Egypt. Professor Smith is an improvisational fiber artist and restores vintage sewing machines.