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Suraj Bajgain
Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology

I am visiting assistant professor of geology at Skidmore College. I love doing science and teaching. Some of my research interests are the formation and evolution of planets including Earth, deep volatile cycling of life essential elements, magma mobility, volatiles, and volcanic eruption. I employ atomistic simulations to study material properties at high pressure and temperature conditions of deep planetary interior to mimic the deep interior of present-day Earth as well as during the early stages of planet formation, i.e., magma ocean. 

I received my Ph.D. in 2016 from the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University. For my dissertation, I studied the magma with basaltic composition to understand (a) the effect of dissolved volatiles on the mobility and stability of magma at depth, (b) the effect of Fe and H2O in the atomic structure and density of melt, and (c) transport properties such as viscosity, diffusion, and electrical conductivity of silicate liquids.

After my PhD, I joined the department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University as a Postdoctoral Researcher. During my postdoc, I explored the properties of metallic melts with composition of iron/nickel and iron-light elements. This study provided an insight into the planet scale budget of life essential elements such as caron and nitrogen. This is important to understand the habitability of terrestrial planets, role of light element to assist the chemical convection and sustenance of geodynamo.
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I joined Lake Superior State University, Sault Ste Marie, MI as King Chávez Parks Visiting Professor of Geology and taught various geology courses with lab sections.

Maura Jasper
Visiting Assitant Professor of Art

Maura Jasper is a visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores the intersections of history, pop culture and mass media, and often functions as a bridge between art and non-art experiences. Much of her work is inspired by the lives of regular people, and she uses the trappings of forms not usually considered art – karaoke, aerobics instruction, weather reports – to reveal individual stories. Jasper received her MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 2008 in Interrelated Media. Her work has been exhibited and screened at venues such as Artist's Space, Vox Populi, and the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. She is the Artistic Director of That One Film Festival and a co-founder of the experimental media collective Death Factory. 

Thad Niles
Lecturer and ESL Specialist
for the Writing Center

Professor Niles has been an ESL specialist at Skidmore since 2010, teaching composition and coordinating the college's first intensive English program. Thad’s professional interests include the learning experiences of international students, academic literacies/English for Academic Purposes, Structural-Functional Linguistics/Genre Pedagogy, and new teaching grammars.

Joowon Park
Associate Professor of Anthropology

Dr. Joowon Park researches and teaches on the everyday experiences of violence, migration and refugee resettlement, transnationalism, and militarized landscapes. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and others. His book, , was published by University of California Press in 2023, and his peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Anthropology & Humanism, Asian Ethnicity, and Asian Journal of Peacebuilding. Dr. Park earned his PhD from American University in Washington, DC.

Bernie Possidente
Professor of Biology

Dr. Possidente's general research area is genetic analysis of behavioral mechanisms. His research focuses on the function of biological clocks in controlling circadian (daily-endogenous) rhythms using mice and fruitflies as model systems: manipulation of rhythms in mice and fruitflies with genetic, pharmacological, and photoperiod treatments in order to identify functional properties of circadian system components and their physiological mechanisms.

Rodrigo Schneider
Assistant Professor of Economics

I received my Bachelor’s degree in economics from Insper in 2010; my Master’s degree in economics from the University of Brasília in 2012; and my Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 and I have taught undergraduate courses in economics for more than 10 years. Teaching is my passion, and I'm particularly interested in teaching introductory courses and  being able to relate economics with classic works of literature and philosophy. My current research is focused on public finance, policy analysis, Latin American studies, and voting behavior and I have published in peer-reviewed journals related to my field, such as Economic Policy, Economics & Politics, Public Choice, Fiscal Studies, Economía LACEA Journal, Latin American Research Review and Latin American Politics and Society.