As the college begins the 2021-22 academic year, it welcomes 12 new full-time faculty members, who are eager to share their research and knowledge with their students.
New full-time faculty members
Arthur Maerlender
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
B.S., Western Michigan University
M.A., Western Michigan University
M.A., University of Notre Dame
Ph.D., University of Notre Dame
Professor Maerlender joins Saint Anselm College as an associate professor in the Psychology Department. He has spent several years focusing his research on traumatic brain injury and has worked in developing concussion surveillance programs. In some of his past work, he founded the New Hampshire Advisory Council on Sports Concussions and was a founding member of Big Ten-Ivy League Traumatic Injury where he is now the Emeritus Research Director. Prior to Saint Anselm, he has taught individual courses in undergraduate psych and graduate neuropsychology classes. He comes to Saint Anselm eager to teach his students in his General Psychology, Intro to Psychology and Learning and Memory courses.
Melissa Brodeur
Clinical Faculty, Department of Nursing
B.S.N., University of New Hampshire
M.S.N., University of Maryland at Baltimore
Professor Brodeur is a clinical faculty member of the Nursing Department. She comes to Saint Anselm with more than 25 years of nursing experience. After having worked in staff development as a clinical nurse educator and specializing in occupational health, she is eager to bring her knowledge to the classroom. She will be teaching NU449, Community Health Nursing, where she is excited to educate her students about the positive impact they can have on their community while connecting them to underserved and unseen populations. Her clinical background includes medical surgery, intermediate cardiac care and management of a coronary care unit.
Sandra Cereola
Associate Professor, Department of Economics and Business
B.S., New Hampshire College
M.B.A., James Madison University
Ph.D., Virginia Commonwealth University
Professor Cereola joins Saint Anselm College as an associate professor in the Department of Economics and Business. She is a licensed CPA in the state of Virginia, earned her MBA from James Madison University and her Ph.D. from Virginia Commonwealth University. Professor Cereola will be teaching Financial Accounting, Accounting Information Systems and Cost Accounting. Prior to Saint Anselm College, she spent more than 20 years at James Madison University where she taught classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Professor Cereola is an active member of Beta Alpha Psi, an accounting honors society where she serves as the Atlantic Coast Chapter Advocate. She also works with the American Institute for Certified Public Accountants as an academic champion.
Alexandra Locking
Assistant Professor, Department of History
B.A., Washington and Lee University
M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Locking received her Ph.D. in medieval European history, and recently finished a postdoctoral program at the University of Chicago where she worked in their History of European Civilization sequence. Professor Locking has a published article on “The Life of Christina of Markyate,” a twelfth-century English anchoress who escaped an unwanted marriage along with other published articles. She is currently writing her first book, “A New Senate of Women: Elite Laywomen and the Reformation of Latin Christendom, c. 1050-1115,” which looks at the roles of powerful laywomen as religious reformers and cultural trendsetters. Professor Locking focuses her research on how religious beliefs and ideas about gender roles influenced people’s decisions and she is eager to bring this knowledge to the classroom. She will be teaching pre-modern history courses this year, including Origins of European Civilization and The Early Middle Ages in fall 2021, and The Crusades and Ancient Greece in spring 2022.
Michael Huelsman
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science
B.A., Transylvania University
Ph.D., University of Kentucky
Professor Huelsman is joining the college in our Department of Computer Science for his first faculty position since finishing his Ph.D.. Professor Huelsmans’ research interests include preference representation, reasoning, aggregation, and learning.
Krystal Pimentel
Clinical Faculty, Department of Nursing
B.S.N., Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
M.S.N., Rivier University
Professor Pimentel joins the Nursing Department full-time after teaching clinical as an adjunct for pediatrics at the college last year. Professor Pimentel will be teaching students in their pediatric course, both lecture and clinical at the surrounding hospitals. After graduating from MCPHS, she began her nursing career in a long-term facility for children with neurological disorders before moving into an acute care setting on a pediatric inpatient floor. Professor Pimentel is excited to share her love for pediatric nursing with her students and is eager to join the atmosphere and environment of Saint Anselm that she loved so much last year.
Emily Dix
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
B.S., Haverford College
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Professor Dix will be teaching general psychology, social psychology, and a seminar course on the Science of Prejudice & Prejudice Reduction in the Psychology Department. In the future, she plans to teach additional courses on research methods, the psychology of gender, and social psychological interventions. During graduate school, Professor Dix was a member of the Devine Prejudice and Intergroup Relations Lab. In her doctoral training, she focused on conducting experimental research on the underlying causes of ongoing racial and gender prejudice and on strategies on reducing prejudice. She has been given a grant by the National Science Foundation which will allow her to begin research with a collaborator at NYU that will examine the interpersonal dynamics of cross-race conversations about racial bias. Professor Dix is eager to share with her students her expertise in developing and testing evidence-based interventions to reduce prejudice and its negative consequences.
Victoria DiBona
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
B.A., Rutgers University
B.S., Rutgers University
Ph.D., Rutgers University
Professor DiBona specializes in neuroscience. While receiving her Ph.D., she mentored undergraduate students while researching the regulation of microglia, the resident immune cell of the brain. After graduate school, Professor DiBona continued her research. She worked a post-doctorate position in the NIH-funded IRACDA INSPIRE program at Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School where she used zebrafish to study neuroimmune interactions with advanced imaging techniques following toxicological exposures developmentally. She comes to the Biology Department ready to share her enthusiasm in the classroom, teaching the course “Exploring the Natural World” to non-biology majors. In spring of 2022, she will be offering a new neurobiology course where students will get to measure an action potential of a worm and control a lab partner's arm while learning about the nervous system. She will be starting her own zebrafish lab on campus to assist her in expanding her post-doctorate studies.
Amy Rohlfing
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
B.S., University of Iowa
Ph.D., Harvard University
Professor Amy Rohlfing graduated from Harvard University with her Ph.D. in microbiology and immunobiology. Professor Rohlfing fell in love with biology and chemistry from high school courses which led her to receive her B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Iowa. During her time at Harvard University’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. Program she began studying infectious diseases. After graduate school, Professor Rohlfing moved to Tufts Medical School where she was involved in a postdoctoral training studying the bacteria Clostridioides difficile which causes serious gastrointestinal infections and is the leading cause of hospital acquired infections within the United States. She also completed the Tufts IRACDA program, a four-year, NIH-funded program that provides postdoctoral scholars with training in pedagogy, course design, grant writing and inclusive teaching practices. She will be teaching General Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics for Healthcare and Microbiology for Majors.
Braima Salaam
Assistant, Department of Psychology
B.A., University of Ghana
M.S., University of Ghana
Ph.D., Northern Illinois University
Professor Braima Salaam received his Ph.D. from Northern Illinois University. He is a developmental psychologist and studies the developmental mechanisms linking contextual risk and parenting factors to psychological adjustment in African/Black adolescents. His work primarily focuses on resilience and risk. He is also interested in cross comparison of adolescents’ development in how varying social and cultural contexts influence the function of risk and parenting factors on adjustment. He joins the Department of Psychology at Saint Anselm where he will be teaching Adolescent Psychology and Child Growth and Development during the fall 2021 semester.
Carrie Scott
Clinical Faculty, Department of Nursing
B.S., Lesley College
M.S.N., Rivier University
Professor Carrie Scott graduated with her M.S.N. from Rivier University. She will be joining our Nursing Department. Her professional career began more than 35 years ago when she worked as a special educator in early intervention and as a preschool educator. She has been a nurse for 15 years in the area of pediatrics and maternity. With a strong interest in maternal/child and the developing family, she is excited to share her experiences with her students in the classroom in her Pediatric Nursing course.
Inés Vañó García
Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures
M.A., The Graduate Center (CUNY)
Ph.D., The Graduate Center (CUNY)
Professor Inés Vañó García received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the Graduate Center, CUNY. We welcome her to the Department of Modern Languages & Literature. She focuses her research on the political history of the teaching of Spanish in the United States. With an interest in digital humanities and open digital pedagogy, she pursued the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy Certificate in 2019. This led her to participate in interdisciplinary initiatives that have deepened her knowledge in digital research and pedagogy. She was a participant in the Pressing Public Issues initiative from 2018-2019 that led her to design a public-facing course where students created a digital project called Linguistic Landscapes: Unpacking language hierarchies. Professor Inés Vañó García received the Graduate Center Award for Excellence in Teaching and currently serves on the editorial collective of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy.
Chelsey Twombly
Clinical Faculty, Department of Nursing
B.A., Saint Anselm College
B.S., Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science
M.S., Rivier University
Professor Twombly is a graduate of the class of 2010 from Saint Anselm College. With over 10 years of experience in the mental health field she is eager to be back on the hilltop to bring her knowledge and experience to her students and inspire compassionate care to those with mental health needs. She will be teaching Mental Health Nursing this semester where she will share her experience of working in an inpatient treatment setting where she provided compassionate care to those dealing with mental illness with her students. We are excited to have her back on the hilltop with us!
Amy Wilson
Clinical Faculty, Department of Nursing
A.S., Santa Rosa Junior College
B.S., Rivier University
M.S. Rivier University
Professor Wilson has been a registered nurse for 25 years with most of her practice being in critical care. She is eager to join the Department of Nursing and teach the next generation of nurses about a profession she loves and respects. She will be teaching Transition to Professional Practice, Nursing Fundamentals and Nursing Clinical. We are excited to welcome Professor Wilson to the community!