NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) is pleased to announce that seven new faculty members will be joining the Trailblazer community for the College’s fall semester: Eunice Uhm, Mariah Hepworth, Omotara Adeeko, Carter J. Carter, Darren Johnson, Amy Shapiro, and Kara Corlew. 

 

New faculty members include: 

 

Dr. Eunice Uhm joins MCLA's Fine and Performing Arts Department as an assistant professor of art history and museum studies. She specializes in modern and contemporary art, with a transnational focus on the United States and East Asia. Her work examines the conditions of migration and the diasporic aesthetic subjectivities in the works of contemporary Japanese and South Korean art from the 1960s to the present. She has previously taught courses on modern and contemporary art with a focus on race and transnationalism, and Asian and Asian American art. She has organized panels and presented her work on Asian American art at national conferences such as CAA. Her essay, "Contradictions and Continuity: Constructing Asian American Political and Aesthetic Subjectivities in the Work of Ruth Asawa," is forthcoming (Verge: Studies in Global Asias, University of Minnesota Press). She recently co-curated an online exhibition on the Korean diaspora, titled I Am Here/You Were There: Archiving Transnational Memory Within the Korean Diaspora (https://www.iamhere-youwerethere.com/). Beyond her academic research and curatorial work, she is an active member of numerous grassroots community organizations for Asian Americans and immigrant rights, and she is involved in immigrant rights campaigns such as Love has no borders: A call for justice in our immigration system. Dr. Uhm received a doctorate in the history of art from the Ohio State University and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and Kalamazoo College. 

 

Mariah Hepworth joins MCLA's History and Political Science Department. She fell in love with history as an undergraduate at Seattle University, where she graduated summa cum laude with departmental honors. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University, specializing in modern America with additional expertise in the First World War, American cinema, and popular culture. Her current manuscript examines the critical role commercial war films have played in shaping the public's collective understandings of war and the nation's foreign entanglements. Mariah has taught courses in American military, political, social and cultural history, courses ranging from History of the American Soldier to History of American Celebrity. Each of her courses foreground race, class, and gender as primary categories of analysis. Mariah lives in Shelburne Falls with her two cats, Arthur and Donna.   

 

Omotara Adeeko joins MCLA's Mathematics Department as an assistant professor of economics. She obtained her bachelor's degree (2011) in Economics from Redeemers University, Nigeria, and her master's degree in economics at Eastern Illinois University in 2014. Adeeko completed her doctoral degree in economics in 2021 from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her doctoral work focused on the estimation of cost efficiency, scale economy, technological progress, and total factor productivity in developing economies. Adeeko's current research focuses on the specific and accurate methods for forecasting prices of commonly consumed grains or legumes in Nigeria using different models that include autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), artificial neural networks (ANN), seasonal decomposition of time series by loess method (STLM), and a hybrid model that combines these three models. 

 

Carter J. Carter joins MCLA's Psychology Department as an assistant professor of clinical psychology. He will teach courses on abnormal psychology, clinical theory and practice, and qualitative research. Dr. Carter is a graduate of New York University (B.A.), Simmons University School of Social Work (MSW), the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis (certificate in psychoanalytic psychotherapy), and Smith College School for Social Work (Ph.D.). Dr. Carter's work—as a psychotherapist, scholar, teacher, and activist—addresses the causes and effects of violence, abuse, discrimination, and bigotry. He brings an active interdisciplinary research program to MCLA that studies different forms of racially-motivated aggression, from mass shootings to workplace discrimination, and he will be involving students in this research. Dr. Carter will also maintain a part-time private practice in psychotherapy and clinical supervision, geared primarily towards fellow queer people of color. A leader in the field of psychoanalysis, Dr. Carter is a Member-At-Large of the Board of Directors of Division 39 (Psychoanalysis & Psychoanalytic Psychology) of the American Psychological Association, and Associate Editor at the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society. He lives on a working farm in the Franklin County hilltowns, where he writes the recipe column for the local newspaper—"Larder Ardor with Carter Carter."   

 

Darren Johnson joins MCLA's English/Communications Department as a professor of journalism and supervisor of the Beacon newspaper and WJJW, MCLA's radio station. He has a depth of experience, having taught journalism courses most recently for the University at Albany and has managed student newspapers in the SUNY system, as well as started an independent student newspaper in the New York Metro region called Campus News. Three years ago, Johnson purchased a struggling 180-year-old newspaper in his hometown and has made it journalistically and financially sustainable again. His writing has appeared in scores of newspapers, from small weeklies to The New York Times, and he once was a New York Press Association Writer of the Year. He is a regular speaker at College Media Association and Associated College Press conferences. His master's degree is in Writing and Literature from Southampton College of Long Island University.  

 

Amy Shapiro joins MCLA's Business Department this year after teaching as a visiting assistant professor of marketing for the last four years contributing to Entrepreneurship Studies. Shapiro was raised in North Adams in her family business and serves in community economic development for Western Massachusetts. After receiving a master's degree in business administration from Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Shapiro developed and grew a business assistance program that supported hundreds of business owners as the Business Development Director with the Franklin County Community Development Corp. – a non-profit that assists businesses to start, stabilize, grow, and obtain financing throughout western Massachusetts. She has been influential in developing the state's professional field of business assistance providers. Early in her career, Shapiro pursued community economic development interests and later co-owned a retail & manufacturing ceramic business. She has two grown daughters, enjoys creative projects of all kinds, and outdoor activities, and resides in Ashfield, Mass. 

 

Kara Corlew joins MCLA's Biology Department to teach health sciences as an assistant professor. She is a Radiologic Technician and holds a bachelor's degree in Radiologic Science from MCLA. Corlew has served more than 12 years with the Army Reserves. Recently, she worked for Carlos Otis Clinic-Stratton Mountain Urgent Care as a full-time Radiologic Technologist as well as per-diem at Rutland Regional Medical Center in Diagnostic Imaging. She enjoys mentoring, teaching, and building the skills of others. Corlew lives in South Londonderry, Vt., where she spends time outdoors with her children and dogs.