New faculty members attended an orientation, organized by the Office of Academic Affairs, last Tuesday in the ED Collabitat. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)
The University of Missouri–St. Louis is opening the 2026-27 academic year with 21 new faculty members.
“We’re delighted to welcome these talented new faculty members to the UMSL community,” said Steven J. Berberich, UMSL’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. “Their expertise and passion will make a meaningful difference in the lives of our students, inside and outside the classroom, while strengthening our university and benefiting our region.”
Alice Hall, the associate provost for faculty affairs, led the Office of Academic Affairs in organizing a daylong orientation last Tuesday in the ED Collabitat. New faculty members had a chance to hear from Interim Chancellor Chris Spilling, Provost Berberich and representatives from the Center for Teaching and Learning, Student Advocacy and Care, Health, Counseling and Disability Access Services, Student Outreach and Support, Academic Integrity and Student Conduct, and University Marketing and Communications. There were also panel discussions featuring UMSL students and early-career faculty members.
Find out more about each new faculty member below.
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Art and Design
Danielle Ridolfi, assistant teaching professor
Ridolfi is a designer, illustrator and visual culture scholar who received an MFA in illustration and visual culture from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in clinical psychology from Kent State University. She comes to UMSL after teaching in the Communication Design and Children’s Studies programs at WashU. She writes and illustrates children’s picturebooks with major publishers, including HarperCollins and Viking, and is represented by Aevitas Creative Agency. She has also worked as a graphic designer for several St. Louis-based agencies. She is interested in how design shapes social constructs, like race, gender and childhood. She teaches courses at UMSL in graphic design and typography.
Department of Biology
Alyssa Oplt, assistant teaching professor
Oplt earned a PhD in molecular genetics and genomics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024. She previously graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago with a specialization in genetics in 2018. Her work focuses on ovarian cancer and chemoresistance mechanisms. Before coming to UMSL, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University, working on CAR-T cell immunotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia. She then spent a year as a faculty member at St. Louis Community College, teaching introductory biology. Oplt is passionate about cancer health disparities, particularly in women’s health, and developing new methods to overcome chemoresistance.
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Joanne DeCaro, assistant professor
DeCaro is a punishment and reentry scholar, who uses her past training in visual journalism and digital humanities to tell the narratives of the incarcerated using multimodal techniques. She is a founding member of the community archives PrisonPandemic, Mourning Our Losses and Lifer Records. She received her PhD from the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. She employs mixed-methods research and is a trained oral historian. Her dissertation on lifers and the re-entry process in Southern California was based on 53 oral history interviews and five years of ethnographic observation with hundreds of participants. She is also currently the co-lead on a project on end-of-life care in the California Department of Corrections and a pilot study on a CBT intervention for parolees with adjustment disorders. Her research interests include trauma and incarceration, life and long-term sentences, aging and death in prison, moral injury and moral emotions, trauma-informed care, social and psychological aspects of reentry and ethics of carceral research.
Claire Greene, assistant teaching professor
Greene is returning to UMSL, where she completed her PhD in criminology and criminal justice in 2022. Her dissertation was titled “‘Cameras Don’t Kill People’: Community-based Organizations and the Expansion of Surveillance Systems in St. Louis, Missouri.” Her research focuses on policing and technology, participatory and community-based surveillance, digital/online crime-prevention initiatives and groups, community perceptions of safety and community-engaged research.
Department of Sociology
Dante Miller, assistant teaching professor
Miller completed his PhD in sociology last spring at UNLV. His dissertation examined how Black House of Representatives candidates framed economic issues from 2018–2022 and the resulting implications for addressing economic inequality. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Northern Iowa. During his time at UNLV, he contributed to a Student Gambling Survey with the university’s International Gaming Institute. That work proved instrumental in reshaping how universities in Nevada address student gambling issues. He plans to continue his collaborative work with IGI in his new role at UMSL.
Ed G. Smith College of Business
Department of Information Systems and Technology
Raghvendra Singh, assistant professor
Singh comes to UMSL after earning his PhD in Management Science and Systems from the University at Buffalo. His research examines how organizations and technology leaders, including chief information security officers, respond to emerging challenges in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and digital risk, with a broader interest in how technological change reshapes leadership, decision-making and organizational practice. His work is grounded in close engagement with practitioners and aims to connect rigorous scholarship with consequential real-world problems. Singh’s research has appeared in academic and professional outlets, including Information Systems Journal and Communications of the ACM, and has been presented at information systems conferences. He is especially interested in developing research that is theoretically meaningful, practically relevant and attentive to the evolving challenges organizations face in a digital world.
College of Education
Department of Education Science and Professional Programs
Nicole Angieri, assistant teaching professor
Angieri is stepping into a faculty position after completing her PhD in counselor education and supervision from UMSL last spring. Her dissertation was titled “Stories of our Ancestors: Exploring Perceptions and Experiences of Family History Knowledge and its Impact on the Mental Health of Older Black Adults.” Angieri also holds a master’s degree in counselor education from Missouri Baptist University and a bachelor’s in contemporary studies from Fontbonne University. She has worked as a licensed professional counselor and has specialized in supporting individuals who are 55 years and older and have a history of traumatic experiences or are currently experiencing major life transitions as they navigate anxiety, depression, grief or loss. She is also skilled at supporting individuals who are caring for an aging adult.
Department of Educator Preparation and Leadership
Kmt Shockley, professor
Shockley joins UMSL as the Sanford N. McDonnell Endowed Professor of Character Education and co-director of the Center for Character and Citizenship. He previously held faculty appointments at the University of Houston, Howard University, Morgan State University and George Mason University. His scholarship spans educational leadership, Africana Studies and African-centered education, with particular attention to the educational experiences and development of Black children and communities. An accomplished scholar, educator and community-engaged researcher, Shockley’s work examines how culture, identity, leadership and educational institutions shape teaching and learning. At UMSL, he will explore connections between African-centered educational thought, character development, citizenship and transformative approaches to education.
College of Optometry
Dr. Tonya Bourn, assistant clinical professor
Bourn received her Doctor of Optometry Degree from the University of Missouri-St. Louis after earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from Illinois College. She also trained at the University of Western States in Nutrition and Functional Medicine and at the Institute for Functional Medicine. She has been an independent practitioner and owner of clinics in central Illinois since 1997 and has displayed a passion for helping patients achieve and maintain functional vision throughout their lives. Over the years, her clinical interests have included pediatrics, binocular vision disorders, vision-related learning challenges, dry eye disease and refractive surgery. After nearly three decades in private practice, Bourn is returning to her alma mater, where she is dedicated to fostering a supportive learning environment for students. She encourages intellectual curiosity, lifelong learning and compassionate patient care while helping prepare the next generation of optometrists. She is a member of American Optometric Association, the Institute for Functional Medicine and the St. Louis Institute of Integrative Medicine.
Dr. Kasey Chan, assistant clinical professor
Chan earned a Doctor of Optometry degree from the SUNY College of Optometry and also holds a bachelor’s degree in public health science from University of Maryland, College Park. For the past two years, she’s served as a primary care resident at the St. Louis VA Medical Center.
Dr. Robert Ensley, assistant clinical professor
Ensley graduated from the UMSL College of Optometry in 2013 and went on to complete the cornea and contact lens residency program the following year. He returns to UMSL as a clinical professor after 12 years in private practice in Louisville, Kentucky, where he specialized in fitting specialty contact lenses on irregular and diseased cornea patients. Ensley is a Fellow of the American Academy of Optometry and the Scleral Lens Education Society. He served on the board of the Scleral Lens Education Society, including a term as president from 2023-2024. Additionally, he is a Gas Permeable Lens Institute Advisory Board Member and has authored multiple articles on the topic of contact lenses for industry publications. He is looking forward to sharing his knowledge and clinical experience with future optometrists and colleagues at the College of Optometry.
Pierre Laclede Honors College
Ashleigh Elser, assistant teaching professor
Elser is a scholar of religion who received her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2017. Before coming to UMSL, she taught courses in Hebrew Bible and Religious Studies at Saint Louis University, Hampden-Sydney College, and Valparaiso University. She has received both research and teaching fellowships from the Wabash Center, the Louisville Institute, the Lilly Foundation and the New York Public Library. In the Honors College, she will teach interdisciplinary seminars and the first-year Cultural Traditions program. Her scholarly research focuses on the history of biblical interpretation and she is currently working on a book about the storied reception history of ravens in biblical literature.
School of Engineering
Young-Ji Byon, professor
Byon specializes in transportation engineering. He completed his BASc, MASc and PhD degrees at the University of Toronto. He did postdoctoral research at Universidad de Chile and University of Calgary. He was assistant professor, associate professor and founding associate chair of the Civil Engineering Department at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, UAE, for 11 years and successfully led its initial ABET accreditation. He is currently an ABET program evaluator for the American Society of Civil Engineers. For the past three years, he was a professor and founding Director of a general engineering program at Northwestern College in Iowa. His research interests include autonomous vehicles, traffic optimization and urban spatial analysis. He has 80 publications, including 60 journal publications with over 3,000 citations and h-index of 29 on Google Scholar.
Julian Rene Cuellar Buritica, assistant teaching professor
Cuellar Buritica is completing his PhD in engineering science at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He also earned a master’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Universidad de Ibagué in Colombia. Cuellar Buritica has worked as an adjunct faculty member at Greenville University and was a course instructor, research assistant and teaching assistant at SIUE. He has expertise in industrial automation and control and programming of devices and systems by using C, C++, MATLAB and LabVIEW.
John McEnery, assistant teaching professor
McEnery holds a PhD in civil engineering from Clemson University and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology. He previously served as an adjunct instructor in the UMSL/Washington University Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program and has been the principal engineer for McEnery Water Resources, LLC, with more than 35 years of experience as a water resources engineer, modeler, researcher, instructor and designer.
School of Social Work and Psychological and Brain Sciences
Laurie Brockhaus, assistant teaching professor
Brockhaus is serving as the BSW program director at UMSL. She earned her MSW with a specialization in clinical practice at Saint Louis University and also holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Illinois State University. Prior to joining UMSL, Laurie taught undergraduate and graduate social work courses at Saint Louis University, first as adjunct faculty and later as assistant clinical professor. Her professional interests include trauma-informed clinical social work practice, somatic and mindfulness-based mental health interventions, and trauma-informed, student-centered social work education. Outside of higher education, Brockhaus co-founded The Oxygen Project, a St. Louis nonprofit that provides trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness programs in schools and youth organizations to support mental health and social-emotional learning.
Trecia Davis, an assistant teaching professor
Davis is serving as the assistant director of field education in the School of Social Work and Psychological and Brain Science. She is a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Equal Shares Parenting with more than a decade of experience working in direct practice and school administrative leadership to help children and families thrive. Davis earned a master’s degree in social work from Washington University in St. Louis and also holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She is passionate about the social work profession and launched Super Social Workers to provide a platform to connect, support and empower social workers.
Missouri Institute of Mental Health
Rebecca Preston, assistant research professor
Preston is serving as the clinical lead for the Early Psychosis Care (EPC) Center at MIMH. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from Hofstra University and completed postdoctoral training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her work focuses on improving early identification and treatment of psychosis through statewide training, coordinated specialty care implementation, quality improvement and outcomes evaluation. She develops evidence-based trainings for behavioral health providers and community partners and collaborates with state agencies to strengthen early psychosis services across Missouri. Preston is committed to translating research into practical strategies that support individual recovery and provide families, natural supports and communities with information and resources to better understand psychosis and support recovery.
University Libraries
Ren Iverson, access services librarian
Iverson began working as an access services librarian in May after more than a year as the daytime circulation manager at University Libraries. Iverson holds a master’s in library and information science from the University of Missouri–Columbia. Before coming to UMSL, Iverson spent four years at the working at the Olin Library at Washington University in St. Louis.
Stephanie Atkins Sharpe, institutional repository and business librarian
Sharpe holds a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Southwestern University. She brings more than 25 years of experience working in university library settings with her to UMSL. She began her career as an information services librarian at Ball State University, spent six years as the assistant circulation librarian at the University of Illinois, nearly nine years as the head of access at Washington University and more than eight years at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she finished as the associate deans for the School of Medicine Library.
Michelle Thole, education librarian
Thole completed her library studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in May 2025. She has taught a range of secondary social sciences topics and been a librarian at Greenville University in Illinois. She is excited to build connections with the students and faculty at UMSL.
