Meet Us

After years of living all over the country (Maryland, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Connecticut, and New Jersey) with a few different countries (Scotland and France) thrown in for good measure, Patricia Armstrong has finally settled down in Nashville, where her perfect day includes going to Arnold’s for lunch, Las Paletas for a late-afternoon popsicle, and the Station Inn for some smokin’ bluegrass! A specialist in seventeenth-century French literature with a Ph.D. from Yale University, Professor Armstrong has taught introductory, intermediate, and advanced French at Yale, Princeton, and Vanderbilt. She particularly enjoys teaching writing, which she most frequently does as an instructor of French 201w, and advising students as they take on intellectual challenges at Vanderbilt.

 

A Pensacola, Florida native, Charles Edward Bowie, moved to Nashville in 1998 to complete a Master's of Theological Studies program.  In 2002, he continued his education in the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt with a focus in Ethics and Society and Cultural Studies, culminating in his Ph.D. in 2008.  He is a former athlete and remains an athlete at heart who monitors all sporting events and fan reactions to such events.  He loves watching and participating in sports, working out, reading novels, movie going, dancing (although he is not great at it, it's comic relief), walking dogs and, most of all, playing with children.  As a CASPAR Pre-Major Adviser he encourages students to reach within and explore widely.  His greatest joy is watching students mature and become independent researchers/thinkers.  The dish he misses most is mom's veggie lasagna.

 

As a geologist, Lily Lowery Claiborne has traveled the world to study volcanoes and the rocks they create, but she loves nowhere quite as much as her native Tennessee.  Growing up in Kingston, a small town in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, she headed off to the University of the South in Sewanee, TN to pursue a B.A. in English and Spanish aimed at a career as a writer and linguist.  Geology 101 changed everything, and she has spent the last 10 years trekking the wilderness to study the earth, culminating in a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt in 2011.  Her undergraduate experience inspires her to strive to make science accessible to students of all backgrounds and interests and to encourage students to explore widely during their college career.  On the weekends, if she’s not playing or watching sports or enjoying the outdoors, you’ll find her in the kitchen, trying a new recipe with something she grew in her back yard.

 

After teaching high school physics and math and coaching cross-country and track in the exotic locales of Asunción, Paraguay and Bell Buckle, Tennessee, Jeff Edmonds decided to come to Vanderbilt to think hard about the relation between education and democracy. He received his Ph.D. from the Philosophy department in 2009. Since then, he has lectured in philosophy, teaching general logic as well as writing courses on topics ranging from environmental ethics to the nature of the self to the meaning of democracy. An avid runner, you might find Jeff roaming the streets of Nashville in his quixotic quest to run a marathon in less than two and a half hours. New to CASPAR, he is excited to help students explore the wide range of possibilities that intellectual life at Vanderbilt offers.

 

Davon W. Ferrara completed his Ph.D. in Physics at Vanderbilt (2011) in the area of nanoplasmonics - which basically means he shines light on really tiny gold shapes to see what color they are and whether or not he can make them change color in strange ways.  (Yes, like most scientists, he’s easily amused.)   A firm believer in the value of a liberal arts education, Davon loves talking with students and colleagues on just about any subject, and he encourages students to take advantage of their time in college to take a variety of courses and seek out unique experiences.  In his free time, he has a wide variety of interests, especially movies of all genres and ballroom/swing dancing.

 

A native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, Andrea Bradley Hearn came to Nashville in 2001 to do a Ph.D. in English at Vanderbilt specializing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British literature. A lecturer in the English department since 2005, she’s taught writing courses in crime fiction, commodity culture, the Great War, poetry, and the romantic comedy; she’ll be teaching a First-Year Writing Seminar on Jane Austen in the spring. She’s been a faculty pre-major adviser since 2007. She loves to read mysteries, gardening memoirs, and children’s books with talking animals. Her favorite food is her mother’s chicken-fried steak.

 

Leslie Hiatt came to Vanderbilt in 2006 to study disease diagnostics in an effort to understand tuberculosis infection and improve the speed at which detection could occur, especially in developing nations. Completing her Ph.D. in chemistry in January of 2011, she taught Chemistry courses for non-science majors at a couple of Nashville area universities. Coming back to Vanderbilt in a role where she can encourage students to grow and become passionate participators in their own fields of interest was an irresistible opportunity. Leslie’s a bit of a daredevil and loves anything outdoors: kayaking, skiing, attempting gardening (even if only produces a couple of raspberries and tomatoes!), traveling, running with her dogs and playing soccer with her old chemistry comrades.

 

Rachel Nisselson has yet to leave the world of education. The year after college took her to Dijon, France, where she taught English to university students. She then spent the next four years teaching French and Spanish at the high school level. She has thoroughly enjoyed working at CASPAR since completing her Ph.D. in French literature at Vanderbilt in 2010. Outside of her academic pursuits, Professor Nisselson enjoys anything that gets her out of her desk chair. You’ll often find her on the squash courts or cruising around town on her bike.

 

 

A native of Natchez, MS, Anna Catesby Yant is a Southern belle who doesn’t mind getting a little dirty.  She recently completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Vanderbilt; her dissertation research focuses on the relationship between architecture, power and social change. She is a Maya archaeologist and no, she is not at all like Indiana Jones. During the fall, she loves to watch LSU football and in the spring, it’s “crawfish time”.  In her spare time, she can usually be found chasing around a husband, two dogs and a toddler.

   

 

After taking his Ph.D. in philosophy at Vanderbilt, Scott Zeman is now in his third year as a pre-major adviser in CASPAR. Philosophically speaking, he's interested in the relation between "primitivity," aesthetic valuation, and the development of forms of culture. He enjoys bittersweet films but especially if they're terribly long and scattered with sly moments of joy. In his free time, Scott runs way too much as an ultimate Frisbee player and will happily complain to you about this or that nagging injury even if you don't want to hear it.