Morse Fellows

Morse College is a vibrant community. We would love to count you among us. The Fellows meet a few times per semester at the Head of College’s house, to interact with friends from all parts of the University and from the broader community. Many play the role of Advisor for a student or two. We extend invitations to student functions such as performances and college-wide social events, welcome participation at intramural sports, provide dining privileges in the college at lunch or dinner, all so you can meet with students, faculty and friends. Please join us - we welcome you!

A (7) | B (10) | C (11) | D (5) | E (2) | F (3) | G (7) | H (3) | K (12) | L (4) | M (10) | N (2) | O (1) | P (7) | Q (1) | R (6) | S (15) | T (2) | V (3) | W (5)

Catherine (Cat) Balco

Professor of Painting, Hartford Art School/University of Hartford

Biography

Cat Balco is a painter and a Professor of Painting at the Hartford Art School/University of Hartford. She makes bright abstract paintings that evoke joy, freedom, and physical movement. As an educator, she is committed to helping students develop grounded, individualized artistic practices. She has a special interest in connecting art making to personal and cultural healing, and has founded a number of Arts in Healthcare initiatives that connect students to patients in hospices, nursing homes, and other healthcare environments. Cat also writes about art and culture. 

Contact Information:

catbalco@gmail.com
203-804-7007

Ruth Barnes

Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art, Yale University Art Gallery

Biography

Ruth Barnes received her doctorate from the University of Oxford, based on her research in eastern Indonesia. She also has an M.A. in Art History from the university of Edinburgh. Her dissertation was published as The Ikat Textiles of Lamalera. A Study of an Eastern Indonesian Weaving Tradition (Leiden, E.J. Brill 1989). She has written extensively on Indonesian weaving and related art forms. 
 
From 1990 to the end of 2009 she was textile curator at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, where she focussed on early Indian Ocean trade networks. She published Indian Block-Printed Textiles in Egypt. The Newberry Collection in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997) and co-authored (with Rosemary Crill and Steven Cohen) Trade, Temple and Court. Indian Textiles from the Tapi Collection (2002). Together with Mary Kahlenberg she co-edited Five Hundred Years of Indonesian Textiles. In January 2010 she left the Ashmolean and moved to Yale, where she now is the Thomas Jaffe Curator of Indo-Pacific Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. She is currently working on a comprehensive catalogue of the department’s collection of Indonesian textiles, to be published in conjunction with a major exhibition at the Yale Art Gallery in 2025.

Offers assistance in:

Academic advising for first-year students, Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen, Career advising, Connecting students to internships or other opportunities

Contact Information:

ruth.barnes@yale.edu

Melissa Barton

Curator, Drama and Prose, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library

Biography

Melissa Barton is Curator of Drama and Prose for the Yale Collection of American Literature, which includes the James Weldon Johnson Memorial Collection of African American Arts and Letters, at Beinecke Library. She is an alum of Morse, having received her BA in English from Yale; she earned her PhD, also in English, from the University of Chicago.
 
At the Beinecke, Melissa has curated exhibits including “Casting Shadows: Integration on the American Stage,” “Richard Wright’s Native Son on Stage and Screen,” “Gather Out of Star-Dust: The Harlem Renaissance and the Beinecke Library,” and, in 2022, “Brava! Women Make American Theater.” Her catalog Gather Out of Star-Dust: A Harlem Renaissance Album was copublished by Beinecke and Yale University Press.

Interests:

Melissa’s research interests include Black theater and performance and the conceptualization and status of archives in the humanities and information science. She loves teaching and spent several years teaching English at the secondary level, in both private and public schools, and she is happy to talk about those experiences with prospective teachers. She still holds a candle for theater production and ultimate frisbee, though increasingly only as a spectator for either. She lives in New Haven with her partner and their kids.

Offers assistance in:

Career advising

Contact Information:

melissa.barton@yale.edu

Beth Anne Bennett

Senior Lecturer of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Biography

Beth Bennett graduated from Yale (Morse Class of 1991) with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Math.  She has stayed at Yale ever since, earning her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 and subsequently rising through the research ranks and the non-ladder teaching ranks to her current position of Senior Lecturer.  Dr. Bennett teaches various courses in Engineering & Applied Science and Mechanical Engineering.  She enjoys meeting students (and other people as well!) and chatting about academic and non-academic pursuits.

Interests:

In her spare time, Dr. Bennett reads mysteries and spy novels, and she and her husband enjoy renovating their home, which is a never-ending source of interesting DIY projects.

Dr. Bennett would be happy to discuss Yale’s engineering and applied math programs, what engineering research involves (i.e., what to expect if you are doing a semester or a summer of research), and what to expect when applying to and attending engineering grad school. Conversations about what Morse was like 35 years ago are also welcome!

Offers assistance in:

Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen, Career advising

Contact Information:

beth.bennett@yale.edu

Attilio Bernasconi

Lecturer in Ethics, Politics and Economics

Biography

Attilio Bernasconi is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) postdoctoral fellow. He received his Ph.D. in Social Sciences (anthropology) in June 2022 at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. His thesis, titled “Thinking-Feeling the Margins: An Intersectional Ethnography of the Conflict Within the Colombian Pacific Rainforest” brings on the complex dynamics that characterize the relationships between guerrilla movement and the Colombian Pacific inhabitants. Attilio’s field of expertise includes the anthropology of the state and governance, with an emphasis on borderland areas where information, commodities, and people circulate – often illegally – at the margins of the state.  
 
His EPE class — “Ethnographies of Struggle” — focuses on inequalities related to the historical spatially uneven development of the capitalist mode of production, environmental racism, structural violence, and the construction of gender in armed groups. His teaching links these social struggles to the ones an anthropologist is confronted in her/his fieldwork, and which are related to questions of access, positionality, engagement, race, and gender. 

Offers assistance in:

Academic advising for first-year students, Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen

Contact Information:

attilio.bernasconi@yale.edu
203-410-6825

Hannah Black

Assistant Director of Leadership and Communications, Berkeley Divinity School; Research Fellow, Jonathan Edwards Center

Biography

Hannah grew up in Southern California and had a first career as a dancer at Disneyland. She went on to earn an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in theology at the University of Cambridge. Now, she is the Assistant Director of Leadership and Communications at Berkeley Divinity School, the Episcopal seminary at Yale. She is also a Research Fellow at Yale Divinity School’s Jonathan Edwards Center, where she is collaborating on a book project.

Interests:

Hiking with my dog, traveling, crafting.

Offers assistance in:

Academic advising for first-year students, Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen

Contact Information:

hannah.black@yale.edu

Frederick Bland

Architect, Partner Emeritus (former Managing Partner), Beyer Blinder Belle, NYC

Biography

Frederick Bland is a 1968 graduate of Yale (Morse College) and 1972 Yale School of Architecture graduate. Got married in the chapel at base of Harkness 54 years ago! (still married… to the same Barnard grad). Have lived in New York (Brooklyn Heights) for 50 years with a weekend house in nearby Stony Creek where I have an extensive collector’s garden. Highly involved in New York civic affairs: Vice Chair of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, former Chair of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, etc. For 30 years Professor Adj in the NYU Art History Department, teaching about the future of cities. A current Cultural Companion at IRIS, New Haven. Advisory Committee of the Marsh Botanical Garden at Yale. 

Offers assistance in:

Academic advising for first-year students, Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen, Career advising, Connecting students to internships or other opportunities, Serving as a reader for students preparing CVs and job or fellowship applications
I can be most helpful in areas of architecture, urban design, and planning.

Contact Information:

fbland@bbbarch.com
646-325-6551

Henry Bolanos

Retired Lecturer- SEAS

Biography

Henry Bolanos, retired VP of R&D for US Surgical Corporation, is named on Over 120 US patents in the Surgical and other Fields. He was responsible for the creation of state of the art surgical instruments: Endoscopic Clip Appliers and Endoscopic GIA devices used in Laparoscopic Surgery. He has a BSME from CCNY, and a Masters in Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.

His career has spanned both National and International corporate assignments. He is currently a Consultant on Creativity and New Product Development, and is a Lecturer at Yale University and a Visiting Professor at The University of Virginia and The University of Auckland, in New Zealand.

Mr. Bolanos has also serves as an Expert Witness in Patent and Product Liability litigation and he is the author of 5 books on Creativity and New Product Development.

Mr. Bolanos also conducts Seminars in Creativity and New Product Development for both Groups and Corporations.. He currently serves on the Board of an on-line Computer Company and is Chairman of a company in New Zealand, EverEdge IP, Ltd.

Contact Information:

hbolano@hotmail.com

Alexandria Brackett

Clinical Librarian at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library

Biography

Alexandria Brackett is a clinical research and Education librarian at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library. She provides in-depth reference, information, research, and consultation services for clinical professionals and users in the health sciences community, including literature searches in support of systematic reviews, research, grants, and clinical practice. She received her MLIS from the University of Oklahoma and her MA in English from Oklahoma State University. See her profile page for a detailed biography: https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/alexandria-brackett/?tab=bio

Interests:

Alexandria enjoys reading books, doing puzzles, and playing with her dog, Monty.

Offers assistance in:

Academic advising for first-year students

Contact Information:

alexandria.brackett@yale.edu
(203) 785-3226

Michael Brenes

Biography

Michael Brenes is Interim Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and Lecturer in History. His research interests include 20th-century United States foreign policy, political history, and political economy. He is the author of For Might and Right: Cold War Defense Spending and the Remaking of American Democracy (University of Massachusetts Press, 2020).
 
In addition to his academic articles and book chapters, his work has been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politico, Dissent, The Baffler, Boston Review, The Nation, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
 
He is at work on several projects. He is writing a history of the War and Terror from the presidency of Bill Clinton to the present. In addition to his project on the War on Terror, he is co-writing a book with Van Jackson titled The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy, to be published by Yale University Press. He is also co-editing two volumes with Daniel Bessner, one on the relationship between domestic politics and U.S. foreign policy (to be published by Palgrave MacMillan), and the other on the history of Cold War liberalism.

Interests:

Cold War foreign policy, American political history, archives and archival research. He is also a runner, musician, and enjoys travel and good food.

Offers assistance in:

Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen, Career advising, Connecting students to internships or other opportunities, Serving as a reader for students preparing CVs and job or fellowship applications

Contact Information:

michael.brenes@yale.edu