Faculty Advisory Board

The Faculty Advisory Board members include key colleagues from the Provost’s Global Study Abroad (PittMAP) initiative; the School of Arts and Sciences (including Sociology and the World History Center); and professional schools including Business, Education, Law, Public Health and Public and International Affairs. The Board’s membership will rotate to new faculty every other year and in the future will include members from the Schools of Nursing and Social Work.

Faculty contributions ensure that the GSC continues to have an innovative impact on the University community by strengthening its internal programs, and encouraging the exchange of ideas and research through a support network of scholars. The Board provides valuable guidance and perspective as we advance toward our goals at the local, regional, national and international levels. Members are encouraged to promote our programs and those of partner departments, foster student involvement and share the vision of an internationally respected resource center with its doors open to all. Through our curricular initiatives, lectures and events, outreach efforts, and faculty funding opportunities, we work to serve our faculty partners and to develop a network that brings together academic perspectives within and amongst our affiliated schools and departments.

Faculty Advisory Board Member Biographies

ARTS AND SCIENCES

Professor Shalini Puri (English) works on postcolonial and cultural studies of the global south with a focus on the Caribbean. Her research spans memory studies, environmental humanities, feminism, marxism, nationalism, indentureship and slavery, fieldwork, the arts, and everyday cultural practices. She is currently working on a project entitled "Working On Water: Postcards from the Caribbean Anthropocene." She is a member of Pitt’s Race, Poetics, and Empire research group and a co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan series New Caribbean Studies. As a founding member of the Pitt Prison Education Project, she has taught a Literature and Writing courses in which Pitt students and incarcerated students study together at a state prison.

Professor Ruth Mostern (History) works on the History of China and World History. Her past and present teachings focus on the Silk Roads, Spacial History Methods, Environmental History, and the Medival World.

Professor Jacques Bromberg (Classics), his research takes place at the intersection of intellectual history and literary history, where authors and texts not generally assumed to be interested in systematizing and disseminating human knowledge in fact offer clues to the development of the earliest academic disciplines. Jacques Bromberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics and a specialist in ancient Greek literature and history. As the 2019-2020 GSC Faculty Fellow, Dr. Bromberg  convened a yearlong speaker series entitled "Classics and the Global" dedicated to highlighting the ways in which the study of antiquity can inform the study of globalization, and vice versa.

SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

M. Najeeb Shafiq is Professor of Education, Economics, and International Affairs. He holds appointments in the School of Education (primary appointment), Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (joint appointment), and Department of Economics (secondary appointment). As a comparative education economist, he adopts an interdisciplinary approach and advanced quantitative methods to explore the following topics: Education and social mobility in low- and middle-income countries, the social and non-monetary benefits of education (the effects of education on civic, moral, and political outcomes), Education reform (educational vouchers and privatization; early childhood education; higher education), and Human capital (labor market decisions and outcomes; educational gender gaps; child labor).

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH/ CENTER FOR PUBLIC HEALTH
 
Noble A-W Maseru 
is a Professor of Health Science at the School of Public Health. Dr. Maseru's research focuses public health policy issues associated with the socioeconomic development of municipalities as is relates to social determinants of health; the Health in All Policies perspective and the public sector’s role in achieving health equity for its’ citizenry; Public health policy issues related to access to health and health care by medically underserved, vulnerable, ethnic, under resourced, and underrepresented populations; safety net services; Pitt Public Health programs to determine diversity issues, initiatives as it relates to underrepresented groups including faculty, staff and students. 

JOSEPH M. KATZ GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

CB Bhattacharya is the H.J. Zoffer Chair in Sustainability and Ethics at the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. He is a world renowned expert in business strategy innovation aimed at increasing both business and social value. His research and teaching focuses specifically on how companies can use underleveraged “intangible assets” such as corporate identity, reputation, corporate social responsibility and sustainability to strengthen stakeholder relationships and drive firm market value. Prof. Bhattacharya is the founder of the Center for Sustainable Business as well as the ESMT Sustainable Business Roundtable, a forum with more than 25 multinational members, aimed at discussing opportunities and challenges in mainstreaming sustainability practices within organizations. 

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Professor Müge Finkel has a focus in gender equality and public administration, Finkel is a co-director of the Gender Inequality Research Lab (GIRL) and has offered her expertise around the world. She was a Social Development Specialist for the Middle East and North Africa region, consulted for the International Food Policy Research Institute, and worked on gender-focused studies in Yemen, Egypt.

Professor Paul J. Nelson has been working for 13 years as a policy analyst and research consultant for several non-governmental organizations, Nelson is an expert on economics and the developing world. Currently, his courses focus on development, human rights, NGOs, food security, and religion and development.

SCHOOL OF LAW

Professor Mary Crossley's scholarship has focused on issues of inequality in the financing and delivery of health care, encompassing topics ranging from how health insurance coverage effectively discriminates against unhealthy people to how hospitals’ community need health assessments can be tools for addressing racial health disparities. She has published broadly, in journals including Columbia Law Review, Notre Dame Law Review, and Michigan Journal of Race and Law. Crossley's scholarly interests are reflected in a seminar that she has developed on Health Justice, and she has also taught courses in Health Law and Policy, Bioethics & Law, Health Care Compliance, Family Law, and Torts.