Archives
New Faculty Faces
Name: Robert Knopf
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Theatre & Dance
Academic
Title: Professor and Chair
Academic Degrees: B.A.,
Oberlin College; J.D., Duke University; M.F.A. in directing, University
of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ph.D. in dramaturgy, University of Michigan
Areas of Special Interest: Directing, avant-garde drama,
silent film comedy, theater and film
I intend to direct a production of "The Exonerated," a recent play constructed from interviews with people who were convicted of murder and put on Death Row only to be completely exonerated by newly discovered evidence. What affects me most about this play is the simple stories of human beings forced into inhumane conditions for reasons beyond their control. I think this resonates with a lot of things happening around the world and in America.
Name: Gino Biondini
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Mathematics
Academic Title:
Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: Laurea, theoretical
physics, University of Perugia, Italy; Ph.D., theoretical physics,
University of Perugia
Areas of Special Interest: Applied
mathematics; in particular, nonlinear partial differential equations
with applications to optics
In the last few years, I have been working on methods and tools to estimate the reliability of optical fiber communication systems-calculating their failure rates, etc. More recently, I have also started to study equations that have applications to water waves.
Name: Amy Christine Graves
School: College of Arts
and Sciences
Department: Romance Languages and Literatures
Academic Title: Assistant Professor
Academic
Degrees: B.S., Georgetown University; M.A., University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill; D.E.A., Centre d'Études supérieures de
la Renaissance (Tours); Ph.D., University of Chicago
Areas of
Special Interest: 16th-century French literature, history of the
book and material culture, propaganda and polemics, wars of religion
(Protestant and Catholic Reformations), historiography
I love the classroom energy (involved with teaching) and discovering the renewed relevance of old texts with students. I love early music, old books and road trips. I am an Antiques Roadshow junkie! My long-range plans include a book on how polemical discourse and satire use kitchen language and metaphors, tentatively entitled "La Cuisine et la controverse."
Name: Hwagyun Kim
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Economics,
Academic Title:
Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: B.A., Seoul National
University, South Korea; Ph.D., University of Chicago.
Areas
of Special Interest: Financial economics, money and banking,
international economics and time series econometrics
My dissertation, "Common and Idiosyncratic Fluctuations of Interest Rates from Various Issuers: A Dynamic Factor Approach," examines different interest rates in an attempt to integrate term structure, credit structure and monetary policy.
Name: EunHee Lee
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Linguistics
Academic Title:
Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: Ph.D., linguistics, the
University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Areas of Special
Interest: Semantics
I am also the director of the Korean Program. If you are interested in Korean language/culture, please take our classes.
Name: Debra Street
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Sociology
Academic Title:
Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: B.A., University of
West Florida; M.Sc., Florida State University; Ph.D., Florida State
University
Areas of Special Interest: Political economy;
social gerontology; comparative social policy, particularly pensions,
health policy, taxation and long-term care policy, and political
sociology.
I spent more than 15 years in Florida and have been asked by many people why, after living there, I would move back to the Buffalo area. I grew up right across the border in Fort Erie. Aside from observing that blizzards tend to be much less destructive than hurricanes, I also would note that summers in Florida can be every bit as depressing as winters in Buffalo! I love snow.