Founding ORCA faculty (clockwise from lower left): David Jeruzalmi, Christine Li, Renata Miller, Kevin Foster
David Jeruzalmi is professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and chair of the City College Faculty Senate. He is a creator and co-director of ORCA, as well as the director, since 2017, of a National-Science-Foundation-supported Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) at City College. His research on DNA replication and nucleotide excision repair has been funded by the NSF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research, and the Medical Foundation, and has appeared in Cell, Mol Cell, Nature, NSMB, and NAR, among other publications.
Christine Li, professor of Biology, is a creator and co-director of ORCA. She has served as Acting Executive Officer of the Ph.D.-granting Biology department at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and as Acting Dean of the City College Division of Science. She has directed a National-Science-Foundation-supported Research Experience for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) at City College, and she has an extensive and distinguished track record of mentoring and outreach. Her research on the function of genes that have been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and on the role of neuropeptides in modulating behavior has appeared in Genetics, Science, and Nature Neurosci, among other publications. She is currently managing two NIH grants.
Kevin R. Foster is associate professor of Economics and Business and, as associate dean of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, is responsible for supporting students through advising and career development, budget planning, and faculty development. He publishes in areas of finance, environmental entrepreneurship and macroeconomics.
Renata Kobetts Miller is professor of English deputy dean of Humanities and the Arts, is responsible for supporting faculty research, creativity, and pedagogy, and for developing new curricular initiatives. She was PI for the NEH CARES grant, “Retention and Professional Development of Adjuncts in a Covid-19 Instructional Environment” and co-PI for an NEH Hispanic-Serving Initiatives Grant. The author of two books on Victorian literature and culture, she teaches and writes she is working on two long-term projects: one on the rise of disciplines, interdisciplinarity, and the Victorian novel; and the other on the Independent Theatre Society as a source of innovation in fin-de-siècle culture.
Adriana Espinosa is Assistant Professor of Psychology, and founder and Principal Investigator of the Applied Research in the Health and Adaptation of Minority Populations (ARHAMP) research laboratory at The Colin Powell School, CCNY. She was Associate Director of the Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) program at CCNY for 8 years. In this capacity, she led multiple administrative aspects of the academic program, and expanded the program’s quantitative curriculum and research. Her research considers the intersection between sociodemographic, environmental, and psychological determinants of health among minority groups, including Hispanic or Latinx, Black/African American and immigrant populations.
