Faculty

Dr. Clark D. Ausloos (he/him) is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling where his teaching, research, and clinical practice reflect a deep commitment to liberation, justice, queer and trans affirmation, and the empowerment of marginalized communities. Dr. Ausloos has extensive experience working with LGBTQ+ youth and families across school, community, and healthcare settings. His scholarship bridges counseling, education, and social justice, centering trauma-informed, affirming, and celebratory approaches to care. He has authored or co-authored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, delivered over 70 national and international conference presentations, and regularly consults with organizations such as Columbus Public Health, the Hunt Institute, and Rutgers University to advance equitable mental health practices. Dr. Ausloos’s contributions to the counseling profession have been recognized with numerous honors, including the Ohio Counselor of the Year Award (2020), the Professional Integrity and Leadership Award (OASERVIC, 2020), the Ned Farley Service Award (SAIGE, 2023), and the SAIGE Presidential Award (2024). In 2023, he was named the UNC Charlotte Robert Barret Distinguished Lecturer on Multicultural Issues in Counseling. Currently serving as President-Elect of the Society for Sexual, Affectional, Intersex, and Gender-Expansive Identities (SAIGE), Dr. Ausloos also holds leadership roles with ACA, NBCC, ACES, AARC, ACAC, and the Association for Counseling Sexology and Sexual Wellness (ACSSW).

Dr. Kathleen Battles is Associate Professor of Communication with a specialization in media studies. She also is the Graduate Director for the Communication Program. Her research focuses on the role of broadcasting in the creation of cultural discourses and maintenance of cultural norms. A specialist in media history, her book, Calling All Cars, involves an exploration of the relationship between developments in policing and the radio crime dramas of the Depression era. She is also the author of Sexual Identities and the Media 2015) and War of the Worlds to Social Media: Mediated Communication in Times of Crisis (2013). Dr. Battles also works on issues surrounding contemporary representations of gays and lesbians in the media, for which she received a grant from the GLAAD Center for the Study of Media and Society. She regularly teaches Media, Gender, and Sexuality.

Dr. Fabia Battistuzzi is Assistant Professor of Biology. Her research focuses on understanding when and how species have evolved and investigate the connections between their genetic innovations and variations in environmental conditions. Among all species, microbes span the largest duration of Earth history and are extremely metabolically and ecologically diverse. These characteristics make them a powerful resource to investigate evolutionary mechanisms over long (billions of years) and short (millions of years) timescales while tracing the origin of important ecological innovations such as pathogenicity and the origin of infectious diseases. She regularly teaches courses on genetics, evolutionary biology, and principles of evolutionary medicine. 

Dr. Kelley Borton is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Nutrition in the department of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences. She received her PhD at the University of Michigan, where she also received her training as a Registered Dietitian. Her research focuses on how weight and nutrition are discussed in the media, and relationships to eating behaviors that promote health, as well as unintended consequences such as disordered eating and weight stigma. Her research and practice interests include the prevention and treatment of disordered eating in marginalized populations such as members of the LGBTQIA+ community, those in higher body weights, and those living in rural communities. She also has a special interest in the the best use of weight-inclusive nutrition approaches when treating nutrition related diseases.

Dr. Rebekah Farrugia is Associate Professor of Communication with a specialization in media studies. She teaches a range of communication courses focusing on the relationship between media and culture. Her scholarship explores the politics and intersections of gender, community, and place in contemporary music genres such as electronic dance music and hip hop. In 2012, Dr. Farrugia published Beyond the Dance Floor: Female DJs, Technology and Electronic Dance Music Culture. Her current research project is an ethnographic project about a women-centered, community-based hip hop movement in post-bankruptcy Detroit. She regularly teaches Media, Gender, and Sexuality, and in Fall 2017 will be teaching Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Popular Music.

Dr. Joanne Lipson Freed (she/her), is Associate Professor and M.A. Program Director in the Department of English. She is the author of Haunting Encounters: The Ethics of Reading across Boundaries of Difference (Cornell UP 2017). Her current research explores how digital technology is changing the way we understand subjectivity and social belonging in the twenty-first century, and consequently reshaping the canonical form of the bildungsroman or coming-of-age novel. She regularly teaches courses on U.S. ethnic literature, postcolonial literature, gender and sexuality, and narrative theory.

Dr. Rebecca Mercado Jones specializes in critical/cultural communication. Her research focuses on how economic, political, and geographical encroachments influence the way women narrate their life course. She uses ethnographic and life history interviewing research methods to understand how women speak about home, identity, and embodiment in a variety of cultural contexts. She teaches courses such as Multicultural Communication, Race and Communication, Introduction to Communication Studies, Performance Communication, Family Communication, and Cultural Theory. Dr. Mercado Jones completed her undergraduate education at Central Michigan University, where she was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. She obtained a master's degree in Communication Theory and Research, a Women and Gender Studies Graduate Certificate, and a doctorate specializing in Rhetoric and Public Culture from Ohio University. When she is not doing "school" work, she likes to travel and dance.

Dr. Angela Kaiser is Associate Professor of Social Work. Her research focuses on social capital in organizations and communities, grassroots organizing, capacity building in organizations and communities, and culture and civic participation. She has published articles on topics including experiences of low-income housing and homeownership and race, ethnicity, and relationship dynamics in faith-based organizations. She regularly teaches courses on social welfare policies, multicultural social work practice, and Intro to LGBTQ Studies.

Andrea Knutson is Associate Professor of English, specializing in early American literature and culture. She teaches courses on early American women writers, literary histories of transgression and civil disobedience, the environmental humanities, and Indigenous histories and politics. She has published and presented on New England Puritanism, Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mary Moody Emerson, and Henry James and co-edited a special issue on "Fugitive Environmentalisms" with Kathryn Dolan for the Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association. Her current research is a study of Barbados in the 17th century that considers the ways the island's histories of colonialism and slavery, environmental history, and sugar economy produce the natural-historical tropes of Richard Ligon's True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados, which serve as emblems of ecstatic consumption that disrupt the narrative of empire and economy. She is also serving as an adviser for The Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly Edition, a digital project making the journals of this influential early American woman available online. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, it's hosted by the Women Writers Project.

Dr. Laura Landolt is Associate Professor of Political Science. Her research focuses on human rights, foreign policy, international relations, and the Middle East. She has published numerous articles on Middle East politics, gender and development, foreign aid, social movements, and NGOs/INGOs. She regularly teaches courses at the intersection of political science and feminism, including Gender and International Relations.

Dr. Heidi Lyons is Associate Professor of Sociology. Her research focuses on family, population, social demography, sex and gender, quantitative and qualitative methods, intimate dyad, and life courses. She has published articles on young adult casual sex behavior, identity, and peer relationships and adolescent girls' sexual behavior. She regularly teaches courses in Human Sexuality, Population and Society, Sociology of the Family.

Dr. Karen Miller is Associate Professor of History. She is a specialist in modern American political history, broadly concerned with how public policy is formed at the national level. She is currently writing a history of Detroit during World War II; this study focuses on how the growing population of Detroit reacted to industrial and social policies implemented during the war.  She regularly teaches courses at the intersection of history and gender studies, including Women in Modern America.

Dr. Mark Navin is Associate Professor of Philosophy. His research focuses on topics in social and political philosophy, ethics, and bioethics, including ethical questions surrounding vaccination and vaccine refusal, and ethical and political questions about food, gender, and international ethics. His book, Values and Vaccine Refusal: Hard Questions in Epistemology, Ethics and Health Care, was published in 2016. He regularly teaches courses in philosophy of law, global justice, ethics, and health care. Read publications by Dr. Mark Navin.

Dr. Valerie Palmer-Mehta is Professor of Communication (with an emphasis in rhetorical studies) in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University. Her research investigates the discursive strategies women employ to influence and transform public culture, intellectual traditions, and everyday practices. She seeks to identify and assess the creative methods by which women question entrenched orthodoxies and establish new paradigms and values--and the level of resistance they receive when doing so. Her research has been published in a variety of journals such as International Journal of Communication; Communication, Culture, & Critique; Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; and Women's Studies in Communication.

Dr. Michele Parkhill Purdie is Associate Professor of Psychology at Oakland University. Her primary research interests concern the predictors and consequences of sexual assault perpetration and victimization, with a particular emphasis on childhood trauma, substance use, and emotion regulation. She has established a strong program of research that utilizes on both survey and experimental methodologies in examining predictors of past sexual aggression and the likelihood of engaging in sexual assault perpetration in the future.  She regularly teaches courses in social psychology, research methods, health psychology, and behavioral health. She is also the co-founder of the Violence and Abuse Resource Consortium at OU, which serves as a clearinghouse for university, local, state, and national anti-violence information. The VARC is a dynamic, collaborative resource connecting students, faculty, practitioners, and community members conducting anti-violence work. Thus, the VARC positions Oakland University as the heart of an important scholarly and community endeavor for compiling and sharing anti-violence information.

Dr. Phyllis Rooney is Professor of Philosophy. Her research focuses on feminist philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science, and logic. She has published numerous articles in the area of gender and argumentation, and her contributions have included specific arguments advancing the constructive understandings of reason, knowledge and science that feminist scholarship in a variety of disciplines has produced. She regularly teaches courses in Theories of Knowledge, Knowledge and Power, Philosophy of Gender and Logic.

Dr. George Sanders is Associate Professor of Sociology. His research focuses on sociology of religion, stratification, research methods, and theory. He has published numerous articles on the connection of religious institutions to capitalism, understandings of death and the contemporary U.S. funeral industry, and masculinity. He regularly teaches courses at the intersection of sociology and feminist theory, including Sociology of Gender and Queer Social Theory.

Dr. Robert Sidelinger earned his B.S. in mass communication from Towson University. He earned his M.A. in communication theory and research, and his Ed.D. in curriculum and instruction from West Virginia University. He teaches a variety of communication courses, including Interpersonal Communication, Nonverbal Communication and Instructional Communication. He also regularly teaches COM 4602: Sexuality and Communication for the LGBTQ Minor.

His research interests include interpersonal and instructional communication, and his work has been published in Communication Education, Communication Quarterly, Communication Research Reports, Communication Studies , and Human Communication. His current research focuses on student involvement in the college classroom, mate value and partner baggage, dating anxiety, and hurtful teasing in romantic relationships. See a sample of Dr. Sidelinger's research on mate value or on classroom connectedness. For further publication details, see below, or email Dr. Sidelinger for a full list of publications.

Dr. Sidelinger is an editorial board member of Communication Education and Communication Teacher. He also is on the editorial review board of Language and Communication Quarterly and the associate editorial board of Communication Studies.

Dr. Annie Sullivan (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Creative Writing, and Film at Oakland University. Her research examines the complex ways in which race, gender, cultural identity, and locality inform histories of media production. She regularly teaches courses that explore intersections of race and gender on screen, including Gender and the Horror Film and Black Women Filmmakers. She is currently completing a book that traces histories of Black broadcasting and community media activism alongside broader processes of urban development and social change in Detroit during the second half of the 20th Century.  With Lauren Herold, she has co-edited a forthcoming book entitled Local TV: Communities, Histories, Aesthetics for the Peabody Series at the University of Georgia Press.

Dr. Anja Wieden is Assistant Professor of German. Her research focuses on the narration and discourses of rape in postwar German literature. From 2010 to 2014, she worked both as program coordinator of German and faculty advisor for the summer study abroad program in Münster at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She teaches a variety of classes, ranging from beginning to advanced language, literature and culture as well as Business German.

Anne Zacharias is Associate Professor in the Kresge Library. She specializes in Social Sciences and Outreach. She provides library outreach to Oakland University and collaborates with its surrounding communities on events such as OU's African American Celebration and Poetry Slams. She also promotes diversity initiatives both in the library and campus-wide, and is liaison to Sociology & Anthropology, Social Work, Criminal Justice and Women & Gender Studies programs.