School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-100 of 277 Results
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Karen Ajluni
Academic Operations Mgr 1, Philosophy
BioKaren Ajluni is the Director of Finance and Operations in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies within the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S) at Stanford University. Previously, Karen worked for six years as the Finance Manager in the Physics Department, also within H&S. Before coming to Stanford, Karen worked for four years at Santa Clara University, most recently as Assistant Dean of Administration and Finance in the School of Education and Counseling Psychology. Prior to that she was the Operations and Administration Manager of the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. Karen has been employed in non-profit and educational administration for over 25 years, and has experience with a wide variety of organizations, including Downtown College Prep High School, the Girl Scouts of Northern California, EHC Lifebuilders, Futures without Violence, and Project Match. She received a B.S. in Psychology from Santa Clara University and a Masters in Public Administration from San Jose State University. Karen lives in downtown San Jose with her husband and three children.
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Mathew Ayodele
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2022
Ph.D. Minor, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Workshop Coordinator, History DepartmentBioMathew Ayodele is a PhD student in the Department of History at Stanford University. His research interest focuses on the Colonial and Postcolonial Histories of Africa, particularly the religious, gender, and medical history in West Africa. He is primarily interested in interrogating the social history of medicine, medical pluralism, Christian missionaries' interplay, and reproductive health in colonial and postcolonial Nigeria. Mathew is also interested in women's sports history within the context of gender, religion, and media politics in the late 20th century in Nigeria.
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Erica Cao
Lecturer, Music
BioErica Cao received her PhD from the University of Cambridge Centre for Music and Science and is a resident psychiatrist at San Mateo County. She seeks to understand and address social determinants of behavioral health through development and characterization of arts-based strategies through qualitative, mixed-methods, and community-engaged approaches. As part of this work, she examines the impacts of a collaborative songwriting model she developed, Music Corps, on, for example, interpersonal measures of empathy, social connectedness, and community engagement across social service and clinical settings. Trained in psychology and ethnomusicology, she has conducted fieldwork and organized songwriting workshops with social service organizations in NYC. She continues this work in community mental health settings and with San Mateo County. She co-founded Humans in Harmony, a 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit which organizes collaborative arts projects with community members. Her interests are in community-engaged research, health services implementation, and health equity.
Education
MD, Columbia University College of Physicans and Surgeons
PhD, Music, Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge
BA, Psychology; Certificate Program, Musical Performance, Princeton University
Publications
Cao, E. L., Blinderman, C. D., & Cross, I. (2021). Reconsidering empathy: An interpersonal approach and participatory arts in the medical humanities. Journal of Medical Humanities, 42, 627–640.
Cao, E. L., & Gowda, D. (2018). Collaborative songwriting for health sciences interprofessional service learning. Medical Education, 52(5), 550.
Cao, E. L., Lotstein, M., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2014). Similarity and families of musical rhythms. Music Perception, 31(5), 444–469.
Courses taught:
Music in Psychic and Social Life (MUSIC 110, ANTHRO 112, TAPS 110), Winter 2025, Spring 2026
CV: https://tr.ee/XawH03MPUg -
Marina Del Cassio
Ph.D. Student in History, admitted Autumn 2022
Workshop Coordinator, History DepartmentBioMarina Del Cassio is a Ph.D. student in the Stanford Department of History and holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School. She is currently working on a legal and cultural history of wildfire and land burning in long-nineteenth-century California. Her interests more broadly lie in American legal history, indigenous history, environmental history, and history of capitalism. Before coming to Stanford, she represented tribes and municipalities in environmental law matters and clerked at the Ninth Circuit and the California Supreme Court.
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Stephen Choy
Asst. Director of Finance and Administration, Philosophy
Current Role at StanfordAssistant Director of Finance and Operations: Department of Philosophy & Department of Religious Studies
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Kai Dowding
Undergraduate Student Services Officer, History Department
BioAs the undergraduate student services officer for the Department of History, I oversee student degree progress in the major and minor and work closely with the director of undergraduate studies, director of honors and research, and our intrepid peer advisors to plan and carry out undergraduate programming. I also schedule the department’s curriculum in collaboration with the vice chair. I enjoy getting to know each student as they journey through the major or minor, and am always happy to chat with students about their interests and plans, both within Stanford and beyond.
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James Flynn
Ph.D. Student in Classics, admitted Autumn 2023
Master of Arts Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2024
Classics Greek Prose Tutor, ClassicsCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsJames Flynn is a PhD student in Ancient History. He focuses on the political, economic, and religious history of ancient Greece, and on connections with other contemporary societies, particularly ancient India. He is interested in the role of religion in legitimizing political institutions from a comparative perspective, and in the subordination of religion to political authority in the Greek poleis. For his undergraduate thesis at Brown, he compared trends among Hellenistic philosophers and Indian ascetics of withdrawal from society. For his Master’s capstone project at Yale, he wrote about the historical impact of climate change on 1st century BCE South Asia. He is concurrently pursuing a second MA in religious studies, with a focus on Indian religions, and he studies the languages Sanskrit and Pali in addition to Latin and Greek. He is interested in using epigraphy and papyrology for historical sources. He is also interested in applying social scientific methods to large, cross-cultural datasets, looking for long-term trends in ancient history.
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Debra Fong
Academic Staff Hourly, Music
BioViolinist Debra Fong is Concertmaster of the Peninsula Symphony, Associate Concertmaster of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Second Violinist of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. She spends her summers as a first violinist with the Grammy Award-winning Santa Fe Opera Orchestra.
Also dedicated teacher, Debra is a Lecturer in Music at Stanford University, teaching violin and chamber music, and she maintains a private violin studio. She is a faculty coach for Young Chamber Musicians, a guest conductor for the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, and a judge for several annual young artist concerto competitions. Debra is a former violin faculty member at The College of William & Mary, The Music Institute of Chicago, and New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School.
Debra received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Violin Performance with Honors and Distinction from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, where she studied with Eric Rosenblith, James Buswell, Eugene Lehner, and Louis Krasner.
Debra has been a featured chamber musician at Toronto Summer Music; Bay Chamber Concerts in Maine; Grand Teton Music Festival; Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival; Yellow Barn Chamber Music Festival in Vermont; Sarasota Music Festival; and Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in Connecticut. She has been a guest artist with the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Chicago Chamber Musicians, North American New Music Festival in Buffalo, NY, and the New Music Festival at Santa Clara University. Debra is an avid proponent of contemporary music and has worked closely with composers such as Olivier Messiaen, Thomas Adès, Joan Tower, Bright Sheng, and Kaija Saariaho.
Debra's discography includes recordings with The Santa Fe Opera, indie pop vocalist Vienna Teng, Stanford Chamber Chorale, composer John Luther Adams, Mannheim Steamroller, and she has performed on numerous film soundtracks.
Debra plays a Giuseppe Rocca violin kindly on loan from Stanford University’s Harry R. Lange Instrument Collection. In her leisure time, Debra enjoys reading modern fiction, practicing yoga, playing word games, and seeking out excellent coffee. -
Rosaley Gai
Ph.D. Student in Japanese, admitted Autumn 2020
EAH Workshop Coordinator, East Asian Languages and CulturesCurrent Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on depictions of food and eating in modern Japanese literature and media. In particular, I am interested in how material studies, food discourse, and reader reception intertwine in fiction. Aside from my dissertation, I also work on material food studies, meat-eating in Japan, and lineages of transpacific "fusion" food in the 20th and 21st centuries. I am also a wagashi (Japanese sweets) maker and lead workshops at Stanford on occasion.
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Zach Haines
Ph.D. Student in Music, admitted Autumn 2022
Renaissance Music Project Assistant, MusicBioZachary Haines is a PhD student in Musicology at Stanford University. He is both an active scholar and performer as a baritone, with research interests in the vocal repertoires of the late Renaissance and early Baroque.
