Welcome New Faculty

Academic Year 2025-2026

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Teaching Focus:  Management

Research Focus:  Knowledge Leveraging

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Teaching Focus: My teaching focus includes Culturally Responsive Instruction, Structured Literacy, courses related to ESL and Bilingual Education Endorsements, and topics in Second Language Acquisition, Linguistics, and Language and Culture.

Research Focus: My research focuses on integrating criticality and reflection into the experiences of ESL and Bilingual educators. The aim is to inform best practices in multilingual education and enhance teacher professional development.

Recent Scholarship: Recent scholarship includes presentations on issues related to Social Justice in Education, focusing on language use, culture, and their impact in the classroom, and essays exploring educators' evolving expertise and strategies for fostering inclusive and equitable learning environments.

Creative Work: Collaborating with professional organizations on advocacy and professional development initiatives aimed at supporting ESL and bilingual educators, while also developing resources and strategies to enhance multilingual education practices.

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Teaching Focus:  My teaching emphasizes helping students develop confidence, critical thinking, and a sense of belonging in mathematics. I create space for students to share their reasoning while cultivating an inclusive classroom community. I teach First Year Studies courses in mathematics, including Mathematical Thinking, Quantitative Reasoning, and Algebraic Problem Solving.

Research Focus:  My research lies at the intersection of cognition and equity in mathematics education. I study how students—particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds—develop mathematical concepts such as rate of change. Grounded in radical constructivism and an anti-deficit perspective, my work highlights the strengths in students’ reasoning and connects their mathematical thinking to their cultural experiences and interests. The anti-deficit nature of my work is deeply tied to my identity as a third-generation Puerto Rican man, through which I have both personal and research-based insight into how deficit discourses impact Latine students across their educational journeys.

Recent Scholarship: 

Roman, C. O. (2025). The Role of Cultural Mathematical Caring Relations in Supporting Two Latina Undergraduates’ Rate of Change Development Within a Constructivist Teaching Experiment: An Anti-Deficit Investigation Bridging Sensemaking and Cultural Experiences (Doctoral Dissertation). Portland State University.

 Roman, C. O. (2024). Supplementing radical constructivism with an anti-deficit perspective: Centering the sensemaking of the oppressed. Accepted for publication in the 2024Proceedings of the 46th annual meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. Cleveland, Ohio.

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Teaching Focus:  Kinesiology, biomechanics, gross anatomy, musculoskeletal rehabilitation, oncology rehabilitation

Research Focus:  Oncology rehabilitation, Healthcare information

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Teaching Focus:  Neuromuscular, orthopedic, and geriatric physical therapy

Research Focus: Clinician burnout prevention and interprofessional education

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Teaching Focus: Biomedical Sciences

Research Focus: Clinical Cancer Research

Recent Scholarship:

Cyanotoxin exposure as a risk factor for liver fibrosis and steatosis. Brenda Y Hernandez¹, Xuemei Zhu¹, Ella Macatugal², Michelle Nagata¹, Keiko Garvin¹, Yvette C. Paulino², Lynne R Wilkens¹, Linda L Wong¹, Annette M. David², Laura Biggs^{2.  2025. (in review)}

Dr. Biggs is now serving as a teaching specialist in the biology program at Stockton University after 16 years as a faculty member at the University of Guam.  She specializes in teaching biomedical sciences in the Biology Program and spent the last ten years teaching Anatomy and Physiology, Human Biology, Pharmacology, Cancer Biology, Scientific Arguments, Scientific Writing, and other courses as needed.  Before moving to Guam, Dr. Biggs graduated Cum Laude from Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY with a B.A. in Biology and Secondary Education. She then pursued her Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from The University of Utah studying the ameliorative effects of antiepileptic drugs on hypoxia induced brain damage. During her time at University of Utah, she also conducted educational outreach, taught in the graduate program, and earned the Harold Wolf Excellence in Teaching award.  She maintained an active clinical research program studying betel nut and cyanotoxin links to cancer in Guam.  When not working she loves hiking, staying fit, and having fun with her kids.

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Teaching Focus:  Social movements, environmental sociology, Puerto Ricans and Latinos in the U.S.

Research Focus:  Anticolonial and ecosocialist social movements.

Recent Scholarship:

Gabriel, Ricardo. “Un Macetaso al Imperialismo: Puerto Rican Studies as a Weapon Against U.S. Imperialism.” CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Forthcoming).

Gabriel, Ricardo. “On the Importance of Puerto Rican Studies in Middle and High School, Post-Hurricane Maria.” In Caribbean Connections: Puerto Rico, 3^rd Edition, edited by Marilisa Jiménez García. Teaching for Change, 2020. https://www.teachingforchange.org/books/puerto-rico#contents

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Teaching Focus: anti-oppressive clinical practice and cultural humility

Research Focus: gender affirming mental and medical health, emerging adult mental health, and chronic suicidality

Recent Scholarship: 

Goldblatt Hyatt, E., & Haggerty, Z. Chapter 2: Social work and reproductive justice: A necessary fit. In Goldblatt Hyatt, E.D. (ed.). Social work and reproductive justice: A necessary fit. (2025). Oxford University Press.

Haggerty, Zan. "Queering a life worth living: A gender affirming care model for suicidal transgender emerging adults." Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services 36, no. 4 (2024): 487-504.

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Teaching Focus: Social Work Practice and Policy, Diversity, Oppression and Anti-Racism, Social Justice and Human Rights, Interpersonal Violence and Social Change, Birth and Reproductive Justice, Community Organizing

Research Focus: Power-Based Violence, Birth and Reproductive Justice, Obstetric Violence, Maternal Health Disparities, Radical Social Work 

Recent Scholarship:

Snyder, Simone. 2024. "Understanding the Experience of Birth Professionals Who Witness Obstetric Violence." Affilia.  https://doi-org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/ 

Snyder, Simone. 2024. "Getting to the Root: Bridging the Micro-Macro Divide Using the Critical Transformative Potential Development Framework." Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work 1 (2): 1-13. https://apsw-ojs-uh.tdl.org/apsw/article/view/24

Creative Work:

Snyder, Simone. Reclaiming Narratives. .

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Teaching Focus: Clinical Mental Health Counseling/Supervision

Research Focus: LGBTQ+ Population and 1st Generation Graduate Students

Recent Scholarship: Several presentations and a current qualitative project on the experiences of 1st generation counseling students

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