Five new full-time faculty announced
Pitt-Bradford has five new faculty members for the 2010-11 academic year.
They are Dr. Jamal Assad, visiting professor of petroleum technology; Dr. Jessie Blackburn, assistant professor of English composition; Dr. Mihaela-Christina Drignei, assistant professor of mathematics; Elizabeth W. Holihan, visiting assistant professor of business; and Brieanne R. Seguin, instructor of athletic training.
Assad has more than 18 years of academic and industrial experience in oil and gas. He has served as a visiting member of the faculty at California State University and was a co-director of the West Coast Geo-Technology Training Center in Bakersfield, Calif. He holds a doctorate in geophysics from the University of Houston.
Blackburn is the new director of the English composition program. She earned her doctorate in English, with an emphasis on composition, rhetoric and literacy, from the University of Arkansas. Before coming to Pitt-Bradford, she was the assistant writing program administrator for advanced composition at Arkansas.
Drignei comes to Pitt-Bradford via Allegheny College and Iowa State University, where she earned her doctorate in applied mathematics in 2008. Before coming to the United States, she was a high school math teacher in Romania. In her free time, she enjoys walking and jogging.
Holihan has experience in both the academic and business realms. She has taught marketing, management and statistics previously at Pitt-Bradford and also at St. Bonaventure University, Jamestown Community College and the State University of New York at Alfred. She was also a part owner of Lester Shoe Stores in Olean, N.Y., where she lives with her husband, Patrick, and Jack Russell terrier, Maddie.
Seguin is clinical coordinator for the athletic training program. A Port Allegany native, she completed her Bachelor of Science in kinesiology at the Pennsylvania State University and her Master of Science in applied physiology and kinesiology from the University of Florida. While completing her degree in Florida, she served as a certified athletic trainer for two different high schools with a total of 53 athletic teams.
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