Faculty Scholarship Showcase

Debra Curtis, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Faculty Fellow | Sociology and Anthropology

Dr. Curtis is drawn to aspects of the human condition that for too long have been regarded as taboo among academics. Subjects such as love, death, madness, and sexuality, while taken seriously by some, continue to remain on the margins of the academy. For the past 10 years, her research has focused on the relationship between sexuality and economics, by asking how the economy shapes the sexual landscape of a society.

In 2003, Dr. Curtis conducted fieldwork on Nevis, a small island society, which was once an agrarian community, and now has become increasingly influenced by consumer culture. In 2009, she published “Pleasures and Perils: Girls’ Sexuality in a Caribbean Consumer Culture” (Rutgers University Press).

Kasey Diserens Morgan, Ph.D.

Adjunct Lecturer | Sociology and Anthropology

Kasey Diserens Morgan is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She is a broadly trained anthropological archaeologist who studies community heritage initiatives and the uses of the past in a small Maya community in Mexico. She has a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, a MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Archaeology and Spanish from Cornell University.

Donna Harrington-Lueker, Ph.D.

Professor | English, Communications, and Media

A former magazine writer and editor, Donna Harrington-Lueker is a specialist in print culture and book history. Her research interests include 19th century print culture, the radical or alterna­tive press; women and the media; and global media systems. Her work has appeared in Book History, 19th Century Studies, Journalism History, and the Keats-Shelley Jour­nal. She is the au­thor of Books for Idle Hours: 19th-Cen­tury Publishing and the Rise of Summer Reading.

Dr. Harrington-Lueker received her bachelor’s degree from Merrimack College in North Andover, M.A., and her master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. She has worked as a magazine editor in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco and freelanced from the Providence, R.I. area.

Nathaniel R. Kitchel, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor | Cultural & Historic Preservation

Dr. Kitchel is an anthropologically trained archaeologist specializing in the study of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene populations of the Americas. His current research focuses on the New England region and the Canadian Maritime Provinces, exploring the manufacture and transport of stone tools to understand how humans came to settle previously uninhabited landscapes.
Dr. Kitchel also has a strong interest in Andean archaeology, and recently embarked on a collaborative project in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Peru, exploring social and technological change in high altitude environments through the Holocene.

James G. Mitchell, Ph.D.

Professor | Modern Languages

James G. Mitchell, Ph.D. graduated from Goucher College (Towson, MD) in 1996 with degrees in biochemistry and French. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in Romance Studies with a specialization in Second Language Acquisition from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) in 2001. Since 2001, he has been employed as a professor at a variety of institutions from large state universities to small liberal arts colleges. Since 2006, he has been at Salve Regina University where he is currently Professor of French, Italian, and Linguistics. His overarching research specialization is second language acquisition, specifically aspects of classroom acquisition and second language pedagogy.

Laura O'Toole, Ph.D.

Professor (Retired) | Cultural, Environmental, and Global Studies

Laura O’Toole retired as Professor of Sociology and Senior Faculty Fellow for Community Engagement in May, 2022. She has taught in the areas of Gender and Intersectionality, Work and Organizations, and Food Studies at Salve Regina University and previously at Guilford College and Roanoke College. She is active in numerous community organizations and has recently published on integrating public sociology and community engagement in the undergraduate curriculum. She wrote the successful application that was awarded a 3-year Davis Educational Foundation grant to support campus and community engagement in 2016. O’Toole continues to teach part time in her areas of specialization at Salve.

Heather Rockwell, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor | Cultural and Historic Preservation 
& Cultural, Environmental and Global Studies

Dr. Rockwell’s research focuses on Paleoindigenous Communities, the earliest indigenous people of New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Her current field research is in northern Maine at the Munsungun Quarries site, a quarry and campsite utilized by indigenous people for thousands of years. This location serves as both scientific research station and classroom as she strives to create hands-on learning opportunities for her students by including them in her field work. In addition, Dr. Rockwell has developed a local field project which invites students to investigate the history of Aquidneck Island through archaeological projects on campus.