CAPA-Spelman Symposium Speakers

Dr. Wandeka Gayle is a Jamaican writer, a visual artist, and an assistant professor of creative writing at Spelman College. She has been awarded writing fellowships from Kimbilio Fiction, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Zora Neal Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation, and the Martha’s Vineyard Creative Writing Institute. She received her Ph.D. in English with a Creative Writing (Fiction) concentration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her collection of short stories, "Motherland and Other Stories" is forthcoming from Peepal Tree Press in July 2020. Other writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rumpus, Transition, Interviewing the Caribbean, and other journals.

Dr. Gundolf Graml is a professor of German Studies and assistant dean for global learning at Agnes Scott College. In addition to overseeing Agnes Scott's Center for Global Learning, Graml designs and teaches faculty-led study abroad courses to places such as Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Peru. In his current role, he also creates and facilitates annual faculty-development workshops on curricular planning, risk management, and inclusive teaching for faculty-led courses. Graml has presented numerous papers and published articles on the historical connections between tourism and national identity as well as on Austrian and German film. He has shared his experience in the areas of study abroad and curricular planning at national and international conferences such as NAFSA, AACU, AIEA, and WISE.

Dr. Elaine Meyer-Lee is associate vice president for global learning and leadership development at Agnes Scott College. She heads an innovative program that prepares students to lead in a global society through a curriculum and co-curriculum focused on these themes, supported by a personal Board of Advisors and integrated through a digital portfolio. In addition to teaching, she has led, taught, assessed, published, and presented widely on intercultural leadership, and diversity/inclusion in higher education for over 17 years, since earning her doctorate in human development and psychology from Harvard. She has won grants, including a Fulbright in France, consulted with many other colleges, and served on several national boards, including as the immediate past president of NAFSA.

Dr. Tinaz Pavri is division chair for social sciences and education at Spelman College, director of the Asian Studies Program, and a professor in political science. Her area of expertise includes conflict resolution and globalization, particularly in the South Asian context. She has published numerous articles, book chapters, and two books on these topics. She has served as Principal Investigator on numerous grants, most recently Spelman’s $1.2m grant, the Career Pathways Initiative. Dr. Pavri has served as president of the Georgia Political Science Association (GPSA), was awarded the college’s Presidential Award for Scholarship, and has received the Donald T. Wells Award for Outstanding Service to the GPSA.

Dr. Alix Pierre is a senior lecturer in the African Diaspora and the World program and director of cultural orientation at Spelman College. His research focuses on the representation and visualization of Black bodies, voices, thoughts and aesthetics across media in a transnational context. In addition to published articles and book chapters, he is the author of "L'image de la femme résistante chez quatre romancières noires : vision diasporique de la femme en résistance chez Maryse Condé, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Toni Morrison et Alice Walker" (Presses Académiques Francophones : 2014). Since 2015, he has been collaborating with the Miami-based art collective Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator. As the scholar-in-residence he has co-managed International Cultural Exchanges to Guadeloupe (2015, 2017, 2019), Jamaica (2017), Surinam (2016) and Belize (2018). Dr. Pierre is a graduate of Florida State University and l’Université de la Sorbonne.

Dr. Angelino Viceisza (pronounced: Vee-Say-Za) is a Professor of Economics at Spelman College and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research examines the microeconomics of poverty and wealth creation, particularly in developing countries. Dr. Viceisza's research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Economic Inquiry, Experimental Economics, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and Small Business Economics. He has received funding from agencies such as the Kauffman Foundation, the National Science Foundation, USAID, the Sloan Foundation, the US Department of Education, and the World Bank.