Faculty and Staff

Siska Brutsaert

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Randy Cornish

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Colin Harte

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Colin Harte earned his PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Florida’s School of Music. He earned his Masters in Educational Leadership from CUNY-Hunter College. He received his Masters in Ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick. As a NYC Teaching Fellow, he received a Masters in Education from CUNY- Lehman College while teaching band, general music and percussion ensemble at a Bronx, public school. He graduated from Bard College with a Bachelor of Arts in music performance. He currently teaches a world music curriculum for the Bard High School Early College-Bronx where he teaches student percussion ensembles, keyboard lab, world music courses, and music technology courses. As a professional pianist, vocalist and percussionist, he is also active in the New York jazz, Latin and Irish traditional music communities. He wrote An Bodhrán: Experimentation and Innovation, which was published by the Indiana University Press. He has published in The Journal of Historical Research in Music Education, ICTM-Ethnomusicology Ireland, SAGE Encyclopedia of Ethnomusicology, Smithsonian Folkways, New Hibernia Review, Folk Music Journal, Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana, and the Bardian. He has presented at numerous conferences including the Society for Ethnomusicology, American Conference for Irish Studies, Brazilian Studies Association National Conference, International Conference for Traditional Music-Applied Ethnomusicology, the Suncoast Music Education Research Symposium, amongst many others. He is a Fulbright Distinguished Teacher who was awarded Fulbright grants to India, Peru, and Ireland.

Quincee Robinson

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Quincee Robinson holds a B.A. from the University of Southern California, and a M.A. from Teachers College, Columbia University. She oversees recruitment efforts at BHSEC Bronx, organizing open houses and school tours. She provides guidance and support to students, parents, and middle school staff during the high school admissions process.

Andrew Alger

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Dr. Alger specializes in the modern history of the Middle East, the history of forced migration, and urban history. He earned his Ph.D. in History from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2020 as well as B.A. and M.A. degrees in Middle East Studies from the University of Chicago. In 2012-2013, he was a Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) fellow at the American University in Cairo. From 2014 to 2023, he taught history and Middle East studies at Queens College, and he has taught Arabic since 2009. His current project is a translation of Abbas al-Baghdadi’s Lest We Forget Baghdad in the 1920s, a study of Iraq’s capital city that incorporates folklore and the conventions of memoir into a history of urban development.

Hamza Benbellout

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Mr. Benbellout’s first Masters came from the University of Montpellier in Physics and Engineering in 2012. From there, he’s earned another Master from Cergy Paris Université in Theoretical Physics in 2016 and most recently, a Masters in Science Education from the City College of New York with a Teacher’s Certification in Physics 9-12 grade in 2023. He has taught Physics and Chemistry for 3 years equally in the Paris region and New York public systems. Hamza’s recent publication can be found in APS, Phys. Rev. D 99, 084027 (2019) – Structure and thermodynamics of charged nonrotating black holes in higher dimensions (aps.org)

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Karen Benezra

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Karen Benezra earned her B.A. in Spanish from Bard College (2004) and Ph.D in Hispanic Studies from Cornell University (2013). Dr. Benezra is a specialist in 20^th Century Latin American literature, visual art, and critical thought and brings 16 years of experience teaching Hispanic language, culture, and literature to BHSEC-Bronx. She is the author of Dematerialization: Art and Design in Latin America (University of California Press, 2020) and editor of Accumulation and Subjectivity: Rethinking Marx in Latin America (SUNY Press, 2022). She has also published scholarly articles and interventions in English and Spanish in journals including diacritics, Res Publica, ARTMargins, and the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, among others. Dr. Benezra’s current research concerns the idea of biological and social reproduction. Informed by her work in the field of psychoanalysis, it asks how desire changes the way we think about exploitation and historical transformation.

Jonathan Cantres

Joseph Danquah

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B.S., Mathematics, Buffalo State University; MSED, Mathematics, Lehman College. Math for America (MFA) Master Teacher Fellowship Grant for Outstanding Teaching, 2012 – Present; 2015 Sloan Award for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics; 2014 New York Times Teachers Who Make a Difference Honoree; 2008 Teacher Participant of the three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Mathematics Teacher Transformation Institutes (MTTI) Grant. Taught mathematics at Fordham University, Baruch College, DeWitt Clinton High School, and Bard High School Early College – Manhattan before joining Bard High School Early College – Bronx in 2024.

Michelle Lobato

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Ms. Lobato has earned a bachelor’s degree in American History from SUNY Purchase and a master’s degree in physical education and Sports Pedagogy from Manhattanville College. With about ten years of teaching experience, Michelle is passionate about wellness and helping others achieve a balanced, healthy lifestyle.

Outside of teaching, she enjoys practicing yoga, hiking, and exploring my creative side through painting.

Kurt MacMillan

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Kurt MacMillan (“Dr. Mac”) teaches 10^th grade global history and electives in Latin American history and historical memory at BHSEC Bronx. He earned a BA in History from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and an MA and PhD in History from the University of California, Irvine, where he composed a dissertation based on archival research in Chile, Ecuador, and Spain. Originally from the Jersey Shore, Dr. Mac taught college courses for nine years on the West Coast at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California State University, Fullerton, University of California, Irvine, and Northern Arizona University. His research and scholarship have been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and the Leslie Center for the Humanities at Dartmouth College. He has also worked for El Museo del Barrio and the Princeton University Art Museum and serves as a virtual docent for Holocaust Museum LA. His most recent project focuses on sites of Holocaust memory in Poland, Germany, Austria, and Latvia. Dr. Mac is thrilled to be a member of the BHSEC Bronx community and hopes to impart a deep interest in history to his students.

Nora Mahmoud

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Nora Mahmoud is a Special Education teacher at BHSEC Bronx. Nora is a New York City native with strong ties to her Tunisian roots. She is a graduate of the University for Peace’s Peace Education Program (Costa Rica, 2007), an MA from Columbia University Teacher’s College, and a B.A. in Sociology from Marymount Manhattan College. Nora has worked in various youth programs throughout NYC and abroad. Most of her work has been in youth development, peace education, and education for sustainability sectors. She has always been an activist at heart and considers herself a lifelong learner. She is a native English and Arabic speaker and speaks French and Spanish.

In her spare time, she loves spending time with her family, cooking, learning new languages, traveling, reading, swimming, and breathing in life!

Elizabeth Martin

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Dr. Elizabeth Martin is a historical archaeologist from New York City. She has worked in higher ed, professional archaeology, museum education, and the public schools for close to twenty years. Dr. Martin’s early work on marginalized outsider communities in the Northeast taught her to construct classrooms that help students explore and critique the historical narrative because it is through this type of experience that young adults find agency in their present and future lives.

Wynnter Millsaps

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Wynnter Millsaps is a proud long-time Bardian. She started her journey with Bard in 2014 as a Founding High School Student at BHSEC Cleveland. She became a First-Generation College Student in 2018 when she graduated with her AA. Wynnter would then go to Bard on a Full-Tuition “Early College Opportunities” Scholarship, and graduate from Bard College with her BA in International Relations in 2021. Wynnter is passionate about the Bard Early College model and took a gap year where she worked with the Bard Early College Hudson Valley campuses as a Site Coordinator as well as taught a course called “College Experience.” It was the work she did at BEC Hudson which helped her realized her joy of being in the classroom and working with high schoolers. Wynnter decided to get her Masters in Teaching Spanish Language from Bard College in 2023 and following the completion of her program she began her work as a founding faculty member at BHSEC Bronx.

Wynnter works primarily with Student Support Services, she coordinates the usage of the Learning Center which is the primary space where students receive tutoring support both during and after school. She also runs a weekly “College Experience” workshop for the Year One’s where she helps plan things like College Visits, meetings with College Admissions Counselors, and student leadership workshops. She is also an adjunct professor for Spanish and teaches two Introductory classes. In this full circle moment of her life, Wynnter is excited for the opportunity to work with the founding students at BHSEC Bronx as they establish their school community, since this is something she has a little bit experience with herself.

Andres Orejuela

Sascha Russel

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Dr. Russel earned a BA in Biology from Brown University, a MA in Science Education from NYU, and a PhD in Genetics from Harvard University where she did basic research and published research papers in cell and developmental biology using the fantastic model organism C. elegans. She has also worked with variety of other model systems including the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the budding yeast S. cerevisiae, bacteria including wild isolates of bacteria and E.coli (the workhorse of molecular biology) as well as in vitro cell free systems to answer questions in other topics in biology such as circadian rhythms, cellular asymmetry, prions, and impacts of food source on longevity.

She has enjoyed teaching biology in many different contexts and formats including mentoring students in university research labs, BioBus.org, college prep program DDC @ Columbia, outreach at fairs, many NYC high schools, mentoring new teachers, collaborating with scientists who are interested in education, and with ScienceSuitcase.org – always with an emphasis on brains-on and hands-on learning.

She aims to empower her students to understand and appreciate the science behind everyday life; science, and biology in particular, really is everywhere! She is motivated by the desire to inspire and encourage talented young people to make the world a better place by pursuing medical and STEM paths further.

Dr. Russel is thrilled to be a part of this community and proud to contribute to the building of this of this amazing Bard Early College High School as founding faculty. She teaches Introductory College Biology and Health.

In her free time she likes to refurbish and reuse old things, forage for wild foods like mushrooms, cook and eat delicious food, go to art shows, music and theatrical performances in NYC, and enjoys spending time with friends and family.

Elizabeth Scheer

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Nadim Silverman

Mr. Silverman specializes in speculative fiction, the literature of South Asia, and creative writing. He earned his M.F.A. in creative writing from the SUNY Stony Brook as well as a B.A. in Urban Studies and Visual Art from Brown University. His short stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Magazine, BULL, and more. He is a proud BHSEC alum.

Rosie Uyola

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Haitian, born and raised in Moscow, Dr. Rosie Jayde Uyola emigrated to the U.S. in 1991 and attended Rutgers University at age 16, embodying Bard’s belief that many young people are ready and eager to do serious college work during high school. In addition to having 20 years of high school teaching experience, Rosie simultaneously taught undergraduate students at Rutgers University and graduate students at Fordham University over the past decade. They hold a B.A. in Economics, M.Ed. in Educational Technology (concentration: Computer Science), M.A. in American Studies, and a Ph.D. in American Studies. Rosie’s publications include “Memory and the Long Civil Rights Movement,” in The Seedtime, the Work, and the Harvest: New Perspectives on the Black Freedom Struggle in America (University of Florida Press, 2018), “The Digital City: Memory, History, and Public Commemoration,” Ácoma International Journal of North-American Studies, Italia (2015), “Home Sweet Home – Race, Housing, and the Foreclosure Crisis,” in The War on Poverty: A Retrospective (Lexington Books, 2014), “Race, Empire, and the Rise of the Mortgage Industrial Complex,” The Newark Experience Digital Archive (Rutgers University Libraries, 2013), and “Women in the Black Freedom Movement,” School Series Production of Harriet Tubman, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC, 2008).

Rosie has been appointed as a founding faculty member at Bard-Bronx, following interdisciplinary teaching at Bard-Newark (World History, College Financial Literacy, Bard Seminar, LGBTQIAA++ in the African Diaspora, and Introduction to Indigenous Studies). They are the president of the New York Metro chapter of the American Studies Association (NYMASA) and an NEH fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem this summer. Dr. Uyola’s expertise and research interests include memory, commemoration, public art, and oral history. They find joy in filmmaking, cooking, travel, theatre, and playing music.

Arundhati Velamur