Faculty and Staff

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.

Siska Brutsaert

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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.

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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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.