Study Groups

Fall 2009 Study Group Leader Bios

Marilyn Blumsack (B.A., M.A., M.Ed.,Tufts University) Director of the Tufts Osher LLI for more than eight years was a teacher/administrator in the Medford Public Schools for almost 30 years.

Jayson Brodie (B.S., Tufts University School of Engineering; MBA Boston University) spent 40 years in the military industrial complex. His interests in finance and an affinity for Tufts provided the impetus to become a study group leader in 2002 for a course titled "Basics of the Stock Market". Jayson is the Chair of Osher LLI Executive Board.

Sam Brown is a graduate of Tufts University and Boston University. He is retired from a career in industry that involved living in Europe plus extensive European and Far Eastern travel that instilled in him a fascination with different cultures and world events. As a constant newspaper reader, study groups that involve current events are what drew him to the Osher LLI 6 years ago.

Dottie Burstein (B.S., Mercer University) for many years has been interested in the intersection of composers' personal and musical lives, in particular, those of the Romantic era of the 19th century. As an undergraduate she was inducted into the honorary music fraternity Sigma Alpha Iota.

Ann Butler (B.A., Northeastern University; M.A., Boston College) is an independent scholar with an abiding interest in Irish women writers. Her many international and national presentations focus on the great Irish writer Una Troy.

Brad Clompus * received a B.A. in English from Grinnell College, the M.F.A. in English (poetry) from the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, and has pursued Ph.D. studies in English and American Literature at Tufts University. He has published essays and poetry widely, in such journals as West Branch, Sonora Review, Tampa Review, Willow Springs, and Natural Bridge - and is author of poetry chapbooks: Trailing It Home (Main Street Rag Publications, 2007) and Talk at Large (Finishing Line Press, 2008). Brad has taught at Tufts University, Bentley College, and Baruch College and has been on the faculty of the Arlington Center for the Arts since 1996.

Neil Cohn * is currently a Ph.D. student in Cognitive Psychology at Tufts University. His B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, focused on Japan and Buddhism and he studied in Japan at Tsuru University. He also holds an M.A. in Social Science from the University of Chicago. His work can be found online at www.emaki.net and at his blog www.thevisuallinguist.com

Hildy Cummings (B.A., English, Case Western Reserve University; M.A., English, Mount Holyoke College; Ph.D. studies, English, University of Wisconsin). After teaching literature at Eastern Connecticut State University for several years, she became a curator and the education director at the William Benton Museum of Arts at The University of Connecticut. She has curated exhibitions, taught courses and given lectures, and produced educational materials for, among others, the Getty Center, Weir Farm Historical Site, the Florence Griswold Museum, and the New Britain Museum of American Art, all focusing on American art. Recently, she curated and wrote the catalogue for the first museum devoted to Charles Ethan Porter, a 19th-century African-American painter from Connecticut.

Nancy Doherty (B.A., Kent State University; M.E., Boston State College) was a Library Media Specialist for the Somerville Public Schools for 29 years. She has been a District Coordinator and Instructor for the AARP Driver Safety Program since 2003.

Dorothy Dudley (M.A., English and American Language and Literature, Harvard University) was the recipient of several N.E.H. research/study grants. At Stanford University, the Dickens Project at U.C. Santa Cruz, and University of Kent, Canterbury, England, she indulged her interest in all things Dickensian. Now, frequent visits to the U.K. help her continue that quest. Currently, Ms. Dudley is a course assistant in literary criticism and theory at Harvard and a charter member of The Dickens Fellowship, Greater Boston Chapter. She continues her seventh year as an Osher LLI study group leader.

Sylvia Feinburg (Tufts University; B.S. in Art Education, Massachusetts College of Art; M.Ed. in Child Development and Early Education, Tufts University; Ed.D. in Child Development, Harvard University.) Ms. Feinburg has been involved in drawing and painting all her life. Her undergraduate work was in art education, and her graduate work followed in child development. Early work teaching art to children was followed by many years at Tufts in teacher education, child development, and early childhood education. She has always emphasized the expressive, personal aspects in the learning process in teaching both children and adults and enjoys helping others to find the excitement and satisfaction in art expression. Ms. Feinburg has lectured extensively throughout the United States and is proud to have been the recipient of two awards for excellence in teaching from Tufts University. This past winter she taught a drawing course in Sarasota, Florida and continues to paint on a regular basis.

Ken Fettig is a graduate of Tufts (E52) who also holds degrees from MIT (MS 53) and Harvard Business School (MBA 57). He worked in management positions for Texas Instruments, Jostens, and Bangor Punta Corporation before starting his own company, Cornell Concepts, from which he retired in 1991. Since that time he has served as an international tax consultant. Ken has been a member of the Tufts Alumni Council since 1993 and was a founder of the Osher/Tufts Lifelong Learning Institute in 2000. He has led over a dozen courses including The Crusades, World Wars I and II, and Darwin.

Jaimy George is a Teacher-Naturalist at Mass Audubon's Boston Nature Center. She works with teachers to weave science and nature exploration into elementary school classrooms in the Boston area. She also explores the natural world and sings goofy and fun camp songs with school age children during the nature center's school and vacation week programs. Jaimy received a Master's degree in Environmental and Forest Biology from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 2005.

Emily Huston * is a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and received her B.A. from Tufts in 2005. She just returned from a three month trip to Somalia which was part of her inspiration for this course. Prior to attending Fletcher, Emily worked resettling refugees in Denver and Boston. She has lived and worked in France, Switzerland, students at Osher.

Jane Katims (B.A., University of Wisconsin; M.Ed., Lesley College) has been teaching writing and literature courses at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, has written and produced radio programs for WGBH and WBUR in Boston and won a Peabody Award. Jane has been with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute as a study group leader since 2001.

Dr. Emre Kayhan * (Ph.D. Fletcher School; Tufts University) Emre studied political science and international law in Turkey. In 1999, he received a full scholarship to study abroad and continued studying international relations at Harvard University. As a graduate student at the Fletcher School he wrote his master's thesis on Greek-Turkish relations and his doctoral thesis which focused on the Caspian Dispute in the Caucasus. Emre has taught two courses here at Tufts University; "Turkish Foreign Policy and Identity" (Experimental College Fall 2004) and "US Foreign Policy in the Middle East" (Political Science Spring 2005) and "The History of Islam" for Osher in the Fall of 2007.

Erin Kelly is the Education Coordinator at Mass Audubon's Boston Nature Center. She works with the Teacher-Naturalists to create public programs, exhibits and family events that connect surrounding neighbors to the Boston Nature Center. weave science and nature exploration into elementary school classrooms in the Boston area. She also spends summers as the Center's camp director, singing songs, acting silly and playing plenty of tag games. Erin received a Master's degree in Environmental Education from Antioch of New England in 2007.

Jenna Kubly * (B.A. Bethel College; M.A. University of Colorado at Boulder; Ph.D. Candidate in Drama, Tufts University.) Jenna has been studying the First World War for over a decade. She wrote her master's thesis on J.M. Barrie and British theater in the war, and has presented on this topic, including at the "First World War and Popular Culture" Conference. She has co-taught and served as a teaching assistant for several theater courses at Tufts, and is an alum of the Graduate Institute of Teaching (GIFT.) She is currently writing her dissertation on vaudeville in America during this era.

Linda Jarvin, Ph.D. is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Education at Tufts University, and director of its Center for Enhancing Learning and Teaching (CELT). She received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Individual Differences from the University of Paris V (France) and her postdoctoral training at Yale University, where she is still a research affiliate. She has extensive experience with curriculum planning and development, designing and implementing professional development opportunities for K-12 and college teachers focusing on curricular materials designed to enhance students' memorization of information, and has contributed as co-author for a number of educational achievement and abilities assessments, among which are those piloted on a nationwide level as potential instruments augmenting the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and the Advanced Placement (AP) exam. Dr. Jarvin also has extensive experience designing, implementing, and managing large-scale educational and cognitive assessment programs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Fred Laffert, Jr. (B.S., Tufts; M.S. Engineering Management, Northeastern) spent most of his working life in the manufacture of semiconductors. He has an abiding interest in history in general and the civil war in particular. Fred led Osher LLI study groups on The Life of Lincoln, The Silk Road, China and Its Outlook, and American Expansionism, Civil War Repressible or Irrepressible, Reconstruction and has a considerable following.

Meron Langsner * MA in Performance Studies, NYU, Tisch School of the Arts; MFA in Playwriting, Brandeis; Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Drama and Dance, Tufts University. In 2008 he was one of three writers nationally to take part in the inaugural National New Play Network Emerging Playwright Residency which he fulfilled at the New Repertory Theatre. His plays have been performed around the country and overseas as well as published by Applause Theatre Books and Lamia Ink. He has taught at Tufts, Emerson, Boston University and the N Y Film Academy's Summer Institute at Harvard.

Fran Lanouette (B.A., M.A.,Tufts University) was a teacher of Latin for 36 years before her retirement in 2006. An Osher LLI study group leader twice, Fran is currently serving as the Chair of the Curriculum Committee.

Eleanor Lintner has been an opera lover since she first saw La Traviata at age 18. Since then she has spent much of her vacation time visiting opera houses in America and Europe. During that time she has attended many lectures, studied the lives of the composers and heard many anecdotes. She is eager to hear new work (and also revivals of works that are not included in "the repertoire.") and she feels that beautiful singing is indeed one of life's graces.

Rachel Mansfield * (BA in Theatre and Rhetoric, Bates College; MA in Drama, Tufts University) is a Ph.D. candidate in Drama at Tufts University. Her research interests include burlesque, 19th and early 20th century American drama and performance, literary adaptation, film studies, Jacobean city comedy, and George Bernard Shaw. She has co-taught and served as a teaching assistant for several film and theatre studies courses at Tufts and was the "Burlesque in Boston" study group leader. She is currently researching and writing her dissertation on Multicultral theatre arts projects in Canada.

Hal Miller-Jacobs (M.S., Ph.D. Tufts University) is an Engineering Psychologist by profession. He makes technology user-friendly, focusing lately on health care web sites and electronic medical records. He also attempts to make the Bible more accessible using interactive techniques such as role play based on Psychodrama principles. He teaches Industrial & Organizational Psychology at Tufts and has been on the Medford campus as a graduate student and faculty member for over 40 years.

Albert Muggia (B.A., Biology, Harvard University; M.D., Yale University) a former assistant professor at Tufts Medical School, he has always been interested in Literature and has been taking classes at Osher LLI for three years. He is a member of the Curriculum Committee and practiced medicine in Winchester and Medford for many years. Now retired, he hopes to get more involved giving courses.

Francis Murphy retired in December 2007 after a 49 year career as an engineer, manufacturing executive and Chief Financial Officer during which hewas fortunate to travel the world and make friends in many places. Frank now spend the summer and fall in Lexington, Massachusetts and the winter and spring in Naples, Florida with ample travel to other places sprinkled in. Participation in life long learning programs both at Tufts and Florida Gulf Coast University along with walking, golf and bike riding are keeping him intellectually and physically healthy. Everywhere he goes Frank is accompanied by his camera and is accumulating photographs to share from trips and especially of the southwest Florida wildlife.

Harold Musiker has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and has taught undergraduate, graduate, psychiatry and medical students. Harold worked with the Brown University Senior Learning program and has taught in the Tufts Osher LLI program.

Chuck Nicholas *(B.A., Anthropology, Harvard College, M.A., Ph.D. University of Michigan, English Language and Literature), spent his sixties immersed in the study of aging from the perspective of the humanities. He has developed the nation's most comprehensive annotated list of feature films about aging. There are now close to 200, and more are made each year. Six years ago he won a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Consultation Grant and last won an NEH Implementation Grant to bring The Elderquest in Today's Movies and Novels to 18 Lifelong Learning Institutes around the country. He currently lectures on The Elderquest and other aging topics and is working on a two year extension to the NEH Consultation Grant that will feature movies and novels on Gender and Aging.

Denise Pappas has led three memoir writing groups and a class on adoption in literature at Osher. A former trustee of the Winchester Public Library and a board member for the Norman Mailer Society, Denise is the proverbial "kid in the candy store" when surrounded by writers and books.

Deborah Peters has a degree in Music and in Nursing from Radford University in Radford Virginia. After several years in Virginia as a Nurse and owning her own Pizza Parlor she married and moved to Massachusetts. After spending many years in the Methuen School system Mrs. Peters attained a high proficiency in many computing areas by attending Northeastern University computer classes. She is the webmaster for several Methuen Town websites including the Junior Softball league. Mrs. Peters has been married to her husband for 24 years and has 3 children

Linda Roemer (Ph.D., Health Planning and Policy, Tufts University) has taught in and administered graduate programs in health management for over two decades, first at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, then Simmons College; the course she taught was Health Policy. She lived and worked overseas including two years with the African Medical and Research Foundation in Nairobi, Kenya and a great deal of her knowledge comes from activities on the boards of healthcare organizations including: Lexington, Brookhaven, Symmes Hospital; Choate-Symmes Health Care System; Massachusetts Hospital Association; VNA Care Network; Greater Boston Health Planning Council, and Massachusetts Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board. These volunteer experiences and what she has learned from her students who were mid-career health professionals has contributed greatly to her understanding of reform efforts.

Herb Rosenbluth B.A. Brooklyn College; M.S. CCNY is a retired high school English teacher with some experience teaching writing on the college level.

Constantine Samoylenko (BS in Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University; graduate studies in engineering at M.I.T and Northeastern University) a retired Mechanical Engineer was born in Russia, educated in Germany and the United States. Fluent in Russian he has a lifelong interest in Russian, European and US history. Constantine is a former member of Lexington Minuteman Company.

Hannah Simon (MSW and MS). Hannah worked for years in mental health as a therapist, instructor and manager and is an experienced group discussion leader. For the Tufts Osher LLI, she led study groups "Elderquest and Aging" and "The Tuft's Author Series." She is a member of the Curriculum Committee. She recently did a Lunch and Learn presentation on her family's experiences during the Holocaust.

Grace Talusan * a lecturer in English at Tufts says her journey as a writer began at Tufts with her inspiring professors. She went off to graduate school for fiction writing the University of California at Irvine, and then joined the faculty in the creative writing program at the University of Oregon. She used kernels and mysteries from family stories to write a novel. For more, see www.gracetalusan.com

Robert Weber (A.B., Economics, Princeton University; M.A.T. Harvard University; M.Div., Weston Jesuit School of Theology; Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, Temple University) is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and teaches at Massachusetts General Hospital's Centers for Psychoanalytic Studies and Group Therapy.

Judy Wessells (B.A. Religious Studies, Brown University; M.A. Community Education, Boston State College) retired from Tufts Health Plan after working there for 24 years, and started her own organizing business, Organize This!