Department of Human Development and Women’s Studies

Professor Ashiabi, a child development specialist, thinks of himself as “the man from everywhere and nowhere in particular.” He was born and raised in Ghana; moved to Canada for his graduate education, and then left for Knoxville and the University of Tennessee, where in addition to focusing on his doctoral studies in child development/family studies and statistics, he became an avid college football and basketball fan. Dr. Ashiabi’s publications include articles in Children and Poverty, Adolescence, Early Childhood Education, Western Journal of Black Studies, and Canadian Journal of Development Studies. He serves as an ad hoc reviewer for Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Child Development, and Health Education and Behavior. Professor Ashiabi's research centers on the effects of poverty and material hardship on children and adolescents’ physical and social-emotional well-being. He teaches courses on child development, children in families and communities, cognitive development, language acquisition, and research methods.

Professor Bauer’s experiences as an immigrant from Germany and his years of travel in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia strongly influenced his decision to become a cultural anthropologist. He has done ethnographic fieldwork on migration patterns, family dynamics, cultural identities, and local politics in Spain and Mexico. His current research focuses on the effects of tourism on a rural community in the Spanish region of Galicia. Dr. Bauer was a Fulbright Fellow and received research grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and other agencies. He often presents his work at national conferences. His publications include articles in American Ethnologist, Ethnohistory, and Social Science History. Professor Bauer teaches courses that emphasize social and cultural aspects of human development

Steven Borish has multiple interests, including anthropology, biology, human language, and human evolution. Inspired by living in an Israeli agricultural commune and later a hippie commune in Northern California, he went on to study communal living in the alternative educational systems of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Borish is the author of many articles and several books including: Danish Social Movements in a Time of Global Destabilization, The Land of the Living: The Danish Folk High Schools and Denmark's Non-Violent Path to Modernization, and With Open Eyes: A Meeting with the Danish Folk High School. Borish, who speaks eight languages, held several teaching positions before arriving at CSUEB, including at Swarthmore College and the University of Stockholm. He has twice served as a Fulbright Scholar, once at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, and once at the University of Trondheim, in Norway. He has also done field research in East Africa, in Somalia, and in Israel, on an Israeli kibbutzim.

Christina Chin-Newman, a developmental psychologist, specializes in music and child development. A Bay Area native, she was just another Chinese American kid who grew up playing the piano and planning to go to medical school after graduating from UC Berkeley. Instead, she discovered that she loved the science of studying human behavior. She happily spent her days as a graduate student at Harvard and UC Santa Cruz learning about how cultural context affects human development, while also learning how to play the harp and the Indonesian musical instruments of a Javanese gamelan ensemble. Dr. Chin-Newman’s research on the development of musical talent has been published in Gifted Child Today, and Psychology of Music. She regularly presents her work at conferences such as the Society for Research in Child Development, and the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition. Dr. Chin-Newman teaches courses on child development, intimate relationships, social and emotional development, and cognitive development. She also coordinates the Alameda County Every Child Counts scholarship program for students studying Early Childhood Development at the Hayward Hills campus.

Lynn Comerford, a sociologist, grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts during the feminist revolution. She specializes in social theory and sociology of the family. Prior to finishing her dissertation (on gender inequality and child custody law), Comerford taught college-level courses at three medium-security prisons in New York. Her experiences led her to write an article (with Michael Huspek) entitled "The subversion of science: The new penology and the counter discourse of prison inmates" which appeared in Communication Theory. Since arriving at CSU East Bay, she initiated department-wide curriculum reform and developed four foundational courses for the department of Human Development/Women’s Studies. Her publications include articles on child custody, divorce mediation, lone-parent households, rape, and feminist theory. Her writings include work published in Contemporary Sociology, Human Systems, Journal of Marriage & the Family, Encyclopedia of Gender & Society, Battleground: Women, Gender and Sexuality (eds. Amy Lind and Stephanie Brzuzy), and Journal of Family Theory & Review (forthcoming).

emaxwell.davis@csueastbay.edu

Maxwell Davis began her career as a medical social worker, providing direct services to individuals, families and groups living with HIV/AIDS in a variety of community health settings. She later worked in research positions at the USC Center for Child Welfare and the Drew Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services, where her research examined alcohol use among HIV-positive ethnic minorities. She received an NIH dissertation fellowship for her analysis of "Gendered issues in Alcohol Abuse and Dependence among HIV-positive African Americans." After completing her graduate studies, Dr. Davis was a postdoctoral fellow in the NIMH AIDS Research Training Program at UCLA and taught as adjunct faculty in the MSW program at CSU Dominguez Hills. Dr. Davis is currently involved with a study by AIDS Project Los Angeles and CSU Dominguez Hills to examine the impact of the Medicare Part D prescription drug program on health care access and utilization among HIV-positive consumers in California. Informed by her experiences as an HIV/AIDS social worker, her research interests focus on HIV/AIDS and substance abuse, as well as health care disparities shaped by gender, sexuality, race, culture and socioeconomic status. Her academic interests also include interdisciplinary scholarship, qualitative and mixed research methods, community-based and participatory action research and the integration of critical theory into applied social science research.She has published scholarly articles and book chapters in Home Health Care Services Quarterly and AIDS Patient Care and STDs.

Patricia Drew, a sociologist, was raised in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from college, she moved to rural Bluff, Utah to volunteer in Americorps VISTA. As she worked with schoolchildren, she became interested in how social institutions and locations help to shape individuals' lives. She further developed sociological interests in gender, sexuality, social psychology, and health during her graduate studies at Portland State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In her research, Professor Drew has examined the development of weight loss surgery and related identity transformation among surgery patients. She has also studied gendered messages in contemporary sex education films. She has published in Research in the Sociology of Health Care, The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality and Women and Therapy. She has frequently presented her work at annual meetings of the American Sociological Association and the Pacific Sociological Association. Professor Drew teaches courses on women’s studies, gender development, embodiment and the life course.

Professor Jiansheng Guo, a developmental psychologist, specializes in child language development. He was born, raised and educated in Beijing, China and spent his late-teens living in a yurt in Inner Mongolia as a shepherd during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Dr. Guo’s research interests include child developmental pragmatics with particular interest in language and cognition, language and culture, language and emotion, and language and gender. He teaches courses on child development, cognitive development, language development, and social development. The author or coauthor of over 20 articles and book chapters, Prof. Guo’s publications include articles in Journal of Pragmatics, New Zealand Journal of Psychology, and Journal of Asian Pacific Communication. He is currently completing a 40-chapter, co-edited book on crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language which is under contract with Taylor and Francis Group. Prof. Guo regularly presents his research at international conferences, including International Congress for the Study of Child Language, International Pragmatics Conference, and Conference of the International Association of Chinese Linguistics. He also coordinates the Contra Costa First 5 Early Childhood Development scholarship program at the Concord campus which offers full tuition to over 20 CSUEB students annually.

A Social Anthropologist by training, Patricia “Pat” Guthrie
focuses on several research areas:
African-Americans, life history, South Carolina Sea Islands, online teaching and learning, feminist studies, kinship and the family, religion/spirituality, and homelessness. Currently Pat is interested in researching some area of African American Women and the tradition of quilting. To prepare herself for the research Pat is now taking quilting classes. She has served as Human Development department chair since 2004. Her major publications include: "Catching Sense and the Meaning of Belonging on a South Carolina Sea Island," in African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas; "Mother Mary Ann Wright: African American Women, Spirituality and Social Activism," Women & Therapy, Vol. 16, No.2/3; Catching Sense: African American Communities on a South Carolina Sea Island, Greenwood Publishing Group; and "The Impact of Perceptions on Interpersonal Interaction in an African-American/Asian American San Francisco Housing Project," The Journal of Black Studies. Pat teaches “Girls and Women Across the Lifespan” (HDEV 3304) and “Senior Research Seminar II.” For more information about her, please see http://class.csueastbay.edu/faculty/pguthrie/pguthrie.html

Professor Keri O’Neal, a specialist in adolescent development, has a soft spot for rebellious teenagers. Her research interests focus on adolescent risk-taking behaviors, prevention and intervention programs, and gender. After finishing her doctorate, Keri spent two years as a post-doc at the Center for Developmental Science, University of North Carolina, where she continued her research on the developing adolescent. Born in Massachusetts, Keri was raised in Arizona and although no longer a resident she remains loyal to the Arizona Cardinals and Phoenix Suns. Keri’s publications include articles in Children and Poverty, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Community Psychology, and Developmental Psychology. She teaches courses that emphasize the developing adolescent, cross-cultural human development, and gay and lesbian development.

Xeno Rasmusson, the son of an artist and musician, spent his formative childhood years in Greenwich Village, New York City, where his parents were active in the counter-culture folk scene. His interest in neuroscience began as an undergraduate and continued through graduate school. Dr. Rasmusson’s expertise in age-related brain changes was developed during six years of post-doctoral research at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, National Institute on Aging, and the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging. He has published work on cognitive and brain changes in aging and Alzheimer’s in journals such as: Neurology; Psychiatry Research; Brain and Cognition; Applied Cognitive Psychology; Brain Injury; Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition; and the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society; among others. At CSUEB, Dr. Rasmusson is on the advisory board for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and lectures for them regularly. He has also served as Director of Liberal Studies, Chair of Faculty Affairs Committee, Chair of Committee on Research, and actively participates in student recruitment and advising, including current membership in the University Undergraduate Advising Council. Since arriving at CSUEB in 1998, Dr. Rasmusson has taught 20 different courses for the Department of Human Development. His teaching and research interests include risk factors for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, lifelong learning, and healthy aging. 

HDEV - Lecturer Faculty Members (not available for student academic advising)

Lecturer
MI 3087; (510) 885-3170; vibha.chandra@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
Online Only; carmen.davis@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
MI 4003 (510) 885-7537; lori.felton@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
KPE 121; (510) 885-2961; afshin.gharib@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
MI 3087; (510) 885-7536; lisahand@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
MI 4003; (510) 885-7536; peter.hoag@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
MI 4003; (510) 885-7536; richard.sprott@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
Online only; karen.sutton@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer
MI 4003; (510) 885-7536; farid.younos@csueastbay.edu

WOST- Lecturer Faculty Members (not available for student academic advising)

Lecturer

MI 4039; (510) 885-2843; donna.barnes@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer

beth.belzer@cuseastbay.edu

Lecturer

MI 3087; (510) 885-3170; vibha.chandra@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer

MI 3087; (510) 885-4512; ericka.huggins@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer

Online only; dina.jarrah@csueastbay.edu

Lecturer

MI 3087; (510) 885-4512; judy.williams@csueastbay.edu

Faculty with No Teaching/Advising Responsibilities

Professor Emerita (with no teaching or advising responsibilities)

Professor Emerita (with no teaching or advising responsibilities)

Professor Emeritus (with no teaching or advising responsibilities)

ivan.kovacs@csueastbay.edu