Honors Faculty

Catherine Batsche

Catherine Batsche is the Associate Dean for the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences (BCS). She is a strong advocate of undergraduate research and initiated the Undergraduate Research Certificate for students in BCS as well as the Summer Research Institute in Behavioral Health funded by NSF (along with Drs. Boothroyd, Stiles, Gum, and Moore). She is a tenured faculty member in the Department of Child and Family Studies and is a school psychologist. She teaches Advanced Research Methods for the Honors College.

Barry Berger

Professor (Emeritus) of Psychology, the University of Haifa (Israel). - B.Sc. (1962) University of Maryland in Psychology and Zoology; MA (1964) Bryn Mawr College in Comparative Psychology; PhD (1968) Bryn Mawr College in Psychopharmacology. Member of the Department of Psychology, University of Haifa (Israel), from 1972 until retirement in 2008. Currently serving as Chair, Department of Psychology Academic College of Emek Jezreel (Israel).

Other positions at the University of Haifa have included: Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Mathematics; Dean of Research; Dean of Students; Chair, Department of Psychology; and Head, Department of Overseas Studies, Head of the Graduate Program in Psychobiology; and Director of the Ray W. Wolfe Research Institute for the Study of Psychological Stress.

Professor Berger has held adjunct or visiting appointments at Kent State University, University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana) and at the University of South Florida. Professor Berger was recently appointed to the International Scientific Advisory Committee – Taglit / Birthright. Professor Berger has approximately seventy publications in scientific journals and books as well as abstracts of research presented in international scholarly conferences.

He lives in Qiryat Tivon, Israel, is married to Beverly, father to Chaim, Lisa, and Micha, and grandfather (Sabba) to Noa, Assaf, Maya, Hila, Idan, Yuval, Shai,Tamar, grandchild # 9, expected momentarily!

Phillip Bishop

Philip Schuyler Bishop was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1977. He moved to Jacksonville and was primarily educated in Florida. In 1994, his brother and he started an Internet Service Provider in Jacksonville called First Coast Online. They sold the business two years later and started a video game company named Virtual Sports Players Network, designing a 22 player football game. Sadly due to budget limitations, the game never made it past beta-testing. Following this, Philip attended the University of North Florida for his Bachelors Degree in Philosophy, with a minor in Literature. Upon receiving his Bachelors, Philip applied for graduate studies at the University of South Florida for his Masters and Doctors Degree in Philosophy. While at the University of South Florida, he focused on Pragmatism, Ancient Greek philosophy and Ancient Chinese philosophy. Philip was granted a full scholarship from Mr. and Mrs. Hicks titled the Neil Grey Scholarship for his time at the University of North Florida. He currently is the faculty adviser to the student organization called F.L.I.T.E. and he collaborated with this organization to finish his first grant with the Intercultural Agency. He has traveled to mainland China, Taiwan, Macau, Greece, Honduras, Belize, Mexico and throughout the Caribbean islands.

Steven Burgess

Currently working on his Ph.D. in the Philosophy Department at University of South Florida, where he received his M.A. in 2009. B.S. in Philosophy and Mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2006. His primary research interests are in early modern philosophy and continental philosophy. His dissertation, titled Nietzsche and Heidegger on Descartes' Atomism of Thought, is an investigation into the nature of units of thought in Descartes' philosophy. He has presented papers on Descartes, Heidegger, and Nietzsche at international conferences and the first chapter of his dissertation is being published in the journal Society and Politics in the fall of 2012.

David Cheely

David Cheely is an Adjunct Instructor with the Honor’s College. Originally from Michigan, he earned a BA in Philosophy from Michigan State University, an MA in Philosophy from the University of South Florida, and is currently working on his PhD at USF. His dissertation focuses upon the socio-political ramifications of narrative approaches to Self Identity interpreted through the theoretical framework of Martin Heidegger. While at USF, he has taught Philosophy of Sport, Philosophy of Religion, Introduction to Philosophy, Ethics, Medieval Philosophy, and Critical Thinking.

Donna Cohen

Dr. Cohen is Professor and Program Director of the Violence and Injury Prevention Center in the Department of Aging and Mental Health Disparities, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, University of South Florida. She received her BS from Duke University and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. Before coming to USF in 1992 as Chair of the Department of Aging and Mental Health, Dr. Cohen was a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (1976-1981), Professor and Division Head, Geriatric Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center (1981-1986), and Professor, College of Public Health, and Deputy Director, University Center on Aging, University of Illinois at Chicago (1986-1992). Dr. Cohen specializes in the fields of aging, mental health, Alzheimer's disease, family caregiving, long term care, and violence. She has published seven books (several translated in other languages) and over 190 articles. Dr. Cohen's contributions have established guidelines and standards of health care practices in geriatric mental health, and she is a well-known advocate for policy reform at the national and state level. Dr. Cohen has testified in Congress on health care, long term care, Alzheimer's disease, depression and suicide and homicide-suicide, abuse and family violence, age discrimination, and veteran's affairs. Her current research foci are youth family caregiving, homicide-suicide/suicide/homicide, and long term care violence. Her latest book, An Integrated textbook of Geriatric Mental Health Care is being published by Johns Hopkins Press in 2011. And most important of all, Dr. Cohen has enjoyed teaching courses and seminars in the Honors College since 1993 and has chaired a large number of Honors Thesis committees.

Anthony DeSantis

With an M.A. in Humanities at Rollins College and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of South Florida, Anthony joined the Philosophy Department at USF as Postdoctoral Instructor in August of 2011 after having taught a variety of Philosophy, Humanities, and Religion courses at Valencia Community College and Pasco-Hernando Community College (and High School English Literature before that). His central research interests are in the history of early modern philosophy and philosophy of religion with a focus on the relations between philosophy, science, and theology in society. He has written several articles and book reviews for encyclopedias, professional journals and The Orlando Sentinel.

Emanuel Donchin

Emanuel Donchin received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965. Between 1965 and 1968 he was a research associate at Stanford's Department of Neurology and at the Neurobiology Branch at NASA-Ames Research Center. In 1968 he joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign as an Associate Professor. He remained at the UIUC till 2001, serving as head of the department between 1980 and 1994. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the UIUC and a professor and Department Chair in the University of South Florida Department of Psychology. His field of professional interest is cognitive psychophysiology.

Ali Elamin

I am from Lebanon in the Middle East, I came to the U.S. in 2000, finished my last two years of high school in Dearborn, Michigan. I then completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan - Dearborn, double majoring in Psychology and Philosophy, and minoring in History. I did one semester of Masters at Northern Illinois University, then transferred and finished my MA in Philosophy at Texas A&M University. I have been working on my PhD in Philosophy at USF ever since combining my interests in both Psychology and Philosophy, a I am focusing on a very psychologically-minded philosopher (Nietzsche) and ethics; so even though I am in the philosophy department, I study human beings in general, their drives, inclinations, true motives, good, evil, etc....

I have taught at the undergraduate level at several colleges, including Florida Southern College, and Hillsborough Community College - Plant City, and of course at USF. The classes I have taught are Ethics, Plato, Introduction to Philosophy, and Critical Thinking.

Johnny El-Rady

Johnny El-Rady is an instructor in the Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (CMMB) at the University of South Florida. He received his bachelor's degree in biology in 1988 from the American University of Beirut and his doctorate in molecular biology in 1996 from the University of Southern Mississippi. He teaches the following courses for CMMB: The Biology of Humans (BSC 1020); General Microbiology (MCB 3020C); General Genetics (PCB 3063); Public Health and Pathogenic Microbiology (MCB 5206); and Medical Mycology (MCB 5815). He also teaches the Major Works/Major Issues (IDH 4000) seminar course in the Honors College. He is proud of his multiple year nominations in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. He is prouder still of being voted one of the best five undergraduate teachers at USF in a 2004 survey of 1200 seniors, and of being nominated for the 2007 and 2008 US Professor of The Year award. He speaks fluent French and Arabic, and enjoys chess (a former Florida State Champion), soccer (a former All-District in Lebanon), and trivia (many appearances on quiz shows in Lebanon). He is married to Rosalie Reyes El-Rady, a nurse practitioner at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa. They have two boys, Tony (8 years) and Ziad (5 years), who are the reasons he is the most proud.

Silvia Fiore

Education: Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh; Post-doctoral work, Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy; Fulbright Research Fellow, University of Rome.

Research and Publications: Professor Fiore has published four books, numerous refereed articles and book chapters in English and Italian, and has presented over 200 papers at scholarly conferences worldwide. She has received several grants and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Humanities award for $65,000 for her work on Niccolo Machiavelli. Currently she is writing on the education of women in the Italian Courts, Machiavelli's use of imagination, the humanities in contemporary society, and the concept of genius in the early modern period.

Teaching: Professor Fiore specializes in classical, medieval, and early modern comparative and interdisciplinary literary studies. She has received several teaching awards from the State of Florida and USF as well as the Professorial Excellence Program Award in recognition for her accomplishments.

Manoug Manougian

Manoug Manougian is Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Center for Mathematical Services in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of South Florida. He received his PhD in 1968 from the University of Texas at Austin and came to USF in 1976. He chaired the Department of Mathematics from 1974-1984.

Professor Manougian is the co-author and associate producer of a four-hour long documentary examining the history of genocide and man's inhumanity to man. The Genocide Factor: The Human Tragedy was produced by Media Entertainment and distributed by PBS stations. In 2002 the series received the Gold Special Jury Award for best television documentary at the Houston International Film festival. It continues to be shown on PBS and History International.

William Marshall

Dr. Marshall has been a faculty member in the USF College of Medicine since 2005. He is currently an Associate Professor of Surgery and Psychiatry and Vice-Chair for Finance and Administration of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of South Florida. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida and Associate Professor of Marketing in the College of Business at the University of South Florida where he has been a faculty member since 2003. He completed an MBA and a Masters Degree in Technology Entrepreneurship at the University of South Florida from 2001 – 2005.

Dr. Marshall attended Johns Hopkins University and graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He trained in General Surgery at the University of Alabama – Birmingham and completed his Fellowships in Vascular, Thoracic, and Cardiac Surgery at the University of Iowa. He was a faculty member in the Department of Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis and managed a private practice of Cardiac, Thoracic, and Vascular Surgery for fifteen years.

Dr. Marshall has taught in the award-winning Technology Entrepreneurship Masters Degree Program at the University of South Florida, in the College of Medicine, and the USF Honors College over the last 9 years.

Dr. Marshall has managed his own consulting company (now M&B Associates, LLC) in the areas of technology assessment, intellectual property assessment, clinical peer review, and basic, translational, and clinical research since 2004.

John Omlor

John Omlor was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He played in his high school marching band and in a New Jersey drum and bugle corps before he went off to college in Florida. He attended the University of Tampa as an undergraduate in the late 1970’s, where he majored in English and philosophy and minored in drama and creative writing. Afterwards, he did graduate work in both philosophy and literature and finally received his Ph.D. from USF in 1991 in English, specializing in 19th and 20th century literature, critical theory, and film. He teaches Acquisition of Knowledge and Arts and humanities courses for Honor, in addition to Honors freshman English. He tries never to teach the same course the same way twice. Honors has been a source of great pride and honest joy for him.

David Schenck

David P. Schenck received his BA from Ripon College (1964) in biology, his MA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1968) in French, and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University (1971) in medieval French epic poetry. He has been at USF since 1974, first as a professor of French. But in 1980 his interests began to turn to the field of biomedical ethics. He has received training in that field from the University of Virginia (1986) and from Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics and Center For Clinical Bioethics (1993-2002). He is today Professor of English where his interests continue to be of an eclectic nature. He currently teaches half-time in world literature and half-time in biomedical ethics. His teaching in biomedical ethics includes courses in 'Spirituality and Medicine' in the Department of Religious Studies and an Honors seminar in 'Biomedical Ethics' in the Honors College. Dr. Schenck provides service to the medical community, serving on the ethics committees of both St. Joseph's Hospital and the James A. Haley Veterans' Administration Hospital. He also has a joint appointment in the USF Department of Otolaryngology's Head and Neck Surgery Program where he serves as that department's ethicist. His research interests in bioethics include communication issues between head and neck surgeons and their terminal patients as well as health disparities in the field of oral cancer. In 2005 he was the Principal Investigator on a study of oral cancer in migrant farm workers in eastern Hillsborough County, along with Tapan A. Padhya, M.D. of the Department of Otolaryngology's Head and Neck Surgery Program. They will continue their work in this challenging field in an effort to develop an intervention program designed to reduce risky behaviors that may cause oral cancers in this disadvantaged population.

Steven Specter

Dr. Specter received his BA in Biology (1969) and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology (1975) from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, in Experimental Immunology and then served as Director of Clinical Virology at the same institution. Dr. Specter joined the faculty of the University of South Florida College of Medicine in 1979 as Assistant Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He became a Professor in 1991. Dr. Specter was appointed Co-Director of Curriculum and Medical Education in July, 1997, then Associate Dean for Pre-Clinical Education in 1998, he was appointed Associate Dean for Student Affairs in May, 2001 and for Admissions in 2002. He established the Annual Clinical Virology Symposium in 1985 and continues to Chair this internationally renowned conference. He has served as Chair of the Clinical Immunology Division of the American Society for Microbiology, was Editor-in-Chief of the Cumitech series for the American Society for Microbiology, was President of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology, and is President of the Florida Branch of the American Society for Microbiology. His research spanned the fields of retrovirus induced immune deficiency and effects of abused drugs on the immune system. He is the author of more than 175 original scientific publications, review articles and book chapters and has edited a dozen books. Dr. Specter’s awards include 2 outstanding teaching awards (1991, 1996), the Theodore and Vanette Askonas-Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award by the University of South Florida in 1997, a Professorial Excellence Program award in 1998, and the PASCV Diagnostic Virology Award (2004). Dr. Specter received an Award from CDC as Principal Investigator for a project on Capacity Building Assistance for Global HIV/AIDS Microbiology Laboratory Program Development in September 2005.

Sheila Woodward

Dr. Sheila C. Woodward is Visiting Professor at the Honors College of the University of South Florida, teaching distance learning classes, one on South Africa and another on global issues in racism. She is Chair of Music Education at the University of Southern California. She is a native of South Africa and earned her Ph. D. in music education from the University of Cape Town in 1993 and a Performer’s Licentiate in Organ from the London Royal School of Music. Dr. Woodward served two terms on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) from 2004 - 2008. She served on the ISME Early Childhood Music Education Commission from 1996 – 1998, four of those years as the chair, and on numerous other professional boards in both the USA and South Africa. Dr. Woodward’s research focus is Music and Wellbeing. She explores this from before birth to adulthood, with studies on the fetus and neonate, the premature infant, the young child, at risk youth, the juvenile offender and the adult musician. She has published numerous articles, in addition to chapters in Elliott’s Praxial Music Education: Reflections and Dialogues (Oxford, 2005) and in Malloch and Trevarthen’s Communicative musicality: Narratives of expressive gesture and being human (Oxford, 2009). She has won grants to bring numerous South African musicians to the USA to work alongside American students and faculty.

Benjamin Young

Benjamin Scott Young received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Philosophy from the University of South Florida and his B.A. in Psychology and Philosophy from Eckerd College. He has taught numerous courses at the University of South Florida Honors College including: Hermeneutics of Love, Friendship, and the Self; Seminar in Applied Ethics; Acquisition of Knowledge; Leadership, Influence, and Seduction: A Phenomenological Account; and Work and Play: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives. He has also taught courses in Ethics, Existentialism, Philosophy of Religion, Science and Society and Philosophy in Film and Literature at the USF Department of Philosophy as well as Phenomenology at New College of Florida. His primary research interests are in Phenomenology, Ethical Theory, Postmodern Theory, Philosophy of Time, and the Phenomenology of Improvisation.

Dr. Young is fascinated by the question: “What is the good life for a human being?” He currently addresses this question by investigating the role that moral judgments play in the way that we account for ourselves within the postmodern context. His present research examines how the particular language on the basis of which we make non-calculative moral judgments (e.g., judgments between better or worse, noble or base, deep or shallow) affects the way we focus our attention and how we experience the quality of our performance within particular practices (e.g., the practice of being a professional, or a musician, or a family member). He is particularly interested in disclosing how it is practically possible for an individual to explicitly participate in the production of non-calculative moral language even as one is guided by that same language in everyday life.