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 (9) | C (10) | D (5) | E (2) | F (3) | G (7) | H (3) | K (12) | L (4) | M (10) | N (2) | O (2) | P (7) | Q (1) | R (6) | S (16) | T (2) | V (3) | W (5)

Janie Cole

Research Scholar at the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM)

Biography

Dr. Janie Cole (PhD University of London) is a Research Scholar at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music and Visiting Professor in Yale’s Department of Music, an Affiliate of the Yale Council on African Studies, Research Officer for East Africa on the University of the
Witwatersrand and University of Cape Town’s interdisciplinary project Re-Centring AfroAsia (2018-), and a Research Associate at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (2022-). Prior to this, she was a Senior Lecturer (adjunct) at the University of Cape Town’s South African College of Music for nine years (2015-23). Her specialty research areas are three-fold, focusing on musical practices, instruments and thought in early modern African kingdoms and Afro-Eurasian encounters, transcultural
circulation and entanglements in the age of exploration; the intersection of music, consumption and production, politics, patronage and gender in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy and France; and music and the anti-apartheid struggle in 20th-century South Africa and musical constructions of Blackness, apartheid struggle movement politics, violence, resistance, trauma, and social change. Her current work centers on early modern musical culture at the royal court in the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia and intertwined sonic
histories of entanglement with the Latin Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean world. She is the author of two books, as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. Fellowships include The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies (2005-06) and awards the Janet Levy Prize from the American Musicological Society (2010), the Author Grant Award from the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors Association of South Africa (2015), and the Claude V. Palisca Fellowship Award in Musicology from the
Renaissance Society of America (2020). She is currently the founding Discipline Representative in Africana Studies (2018-) at the Renaissance Society of America, cofounder of the International Musicological Society Study Group Early African Sound Worlds,
and the founder/executive director of Music Beyond Borders (www.musicbeyondborders.net).

Offers assistance in:

Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen

Contact Information:

janie.cole@yale.edu

Bonnie Collier

Law Librarian

Biography

Bonnie Collier was the librarian for American History at Sterling Memorial Library before becoming the Associate Director for Yale Law Library, and currently is the Director for the Yale Law School Oral History Project.

Interests:

Ms. Collier’s interests include historical research and historiography, Connecticut history, women and the law, trends in publishing and libraries, nature and changes in scholarly communication.

She is passionate about running a program at Ingalls Rink to teach inner city kids from the Wexler-Grant school how to ice skate, and she would love help from Morse students!!!! Skaters or non-skaters needed !!!!! (Wednesdays at 2:30)

As a former competitive figure skater, she is happy to meet and talk with students juggling elite sports and academics.

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
Happy to assist students who think that they might like to incorporate oral history into their research and writing. Can also provide some advice to students studying or writing Connecticut history.

Contact Information:

bonnie.collier@yale.edu

Drew Collins

Associate Research Scholar at the Yale School of Divinity

Biography

Drew Collins is a lecturer, assistant director of the Christ and Flourishing program, and Associate Research Scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at the Yale Divinity School and a lecturer of humanities at Yale University. He is author or editor of three books, including Unique and Universal Christ: Refiguring the Theology of Religions, The Joy of Humility, and What is the Good life? He lives in Guilford, with his wife Mary and three children, Agatha, Archie, and Wilfred.

Interests:

I play the guitar (and a tiny bit of mandolin) and love seeing live music, especially improvisational music like jazz and certain rock and roll bands. I love to ski, both x-country and downhill, and to fly-fish.

Offers assistance in:

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

Contact Information:

drew.collins@yale.edu

Rebecca Cramer

Associate Director and Program Manager, International Development

Biography

Rebecca is a member of Yale’s international development team, and in this role she works with Yale donors in the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. Before coming to Yale in 2014, Rebecca spent 9 years as an educator, serving in the Peace Corps (Chad and South Africa) and AmeriCorps (Philadelphia and Tucson) before teaching high school English at the American School of Kinshasa, DRC. She earned a BA in anthropology and English from the College of William and Mary and a MA in bilingual and multicultural education from the University of Arizona. Outside of work, Rebecca is involved in a number of community organizations including serving as chair of the Whalley-Edgewood-Beaver Hills Community Management Team and a member of the leadership of Friends of Beaver Ponds Park.

Interests:

Learning languages, swimming, hiking, gardening, making art, African literature.

Contact Information:

rebecca.cramer@yale.edu

Matthew Croasmun

Associate Research Scholar, Yale Center for Faith & Culture

Biography

Matthew Croasmun is Associate Research Scholar and director of the Life Worth Living program at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture at Yale Divinity School and lecturer of Humanities at Yale University. He also serves as faith initiative director at Grace Farms Foundation and as a pastor at the Elm City Vineyard Church. He is author or co-author of five books, including The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans, For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference, and Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most.

Interests:

I love playing and writing music. Soccer, basketball, and squash keep me active. 

Offers assistance in:

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

Contact Information:

matthew.croasmun@yale.edu

David Cundy

President of Design Trust

Biography

David Cundy is a poet, poet, author, artist and designer, and the designer of the Yale Arms shield. His latest books are Inappropriate Anagrams (Hymnself Publishing, 2017) and More Inappropriate Anagrams (Hymnself, 2018), collections of anagrammatic poems and portraits introducing his invented poetic form, Shenanagrams. David’s premiere children’s book, Animals Spell Love (Godine, 2017), features typographic illustrations of animals spelling the word for “love” in sixteen languages. David is president of Design Trust, a corporate identity and communications consultancy, and was recently president of the Guilford Poets Guild and vice president of the Connecticut Poetry Society. A graduate of Yale’s MFA program in graphic design, David has taught and lectured at Yale, Fairfield, Parsons and Pratt.

Interests:

David’s interests range widely among the arts, including film (the “seventh art”), avant-garde literature and music.

Offers assistance in:

Career advising
Mentoring in the graphic arts, poetry and literature.

Contact Information:

david.cundy@designtrust.com

Maiani da Silva

Violinist; Lecturer, Yale School of Music

Biography

Maiani da Silva is a contemporary violinist, performer, arranger, and educator.  She is a member of the four-time Grammy-winning sextet Eighth Blackbird, co-founder of performance-art duo The Furies, as well as Lecturer at Yale’s Department of Music and a Trotter Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of Oregon (2023). She has premiered concertos with the Cincinnati Symphony and the U.S. Navy Band, premiered staged works by David Lang/Anne Bogart, and has also collaborated with Bang On a Can All-Stars, Electric Earth Concerts, Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, Wild Up, Louis Andriessen, Viet Cuong, Ted Hearne, Nina Shekhar, Childish Gambino, George Lewis, Taylor Mac, Julianna Barwick, Joe Hisaishi, and more. 
 
Maiani studied under the tutelage of Irina Muresanu at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and Mela Tenenbaum in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Other mentors include Lenny Matczynski, and Andrew Mark. Maiani is also an Artist in Residence and Fellow at Yale University’s Morse College. 
 
Maiani was born in Bahia, Brazil, grew up in Los Angeles, and also lived in Boston, Paris, Mexico City, and San Francisco before settling in woodsy Connecticut. Maiani also enjoys in-person philosophical debates, traveling the world, and reading about evolutionary biology, paleoanthropology and primatology. Listening to 90s slow-jams and Motown always lifts her spirits.
 

Rana Dajani

Professor of Molecular Biology

Biography

Rana is a molecular biologist, social entrepreneur and global thought leader. 
 
Rana Dajani is a professor of molecular biology at the Hashemite University in Jordan. Her area of expertise is epigenetics and biomarkers of trauma among refugees. Through her leadership, she has introduced national and regional stem cell laws and presided over numerous scientific boards and United Nations councils, most recently as the President of the Society for the Advancement of Science and Technology in the Arab World.
 
Rana Dajani is currently a visiting professor at the systems awareness center at MIT and a Morse fellow at Yale University and a Radcliffe fellow at Harvard University.
 
A tireless supporter of building indigenous research capabilities in the developing world and creating a mentoring program to support women scholars in STEM that was recognized by the National Academy of Sciences. Her 2018 book Five Scarves: Doing the Impossible — If We Can Reverse Cell Fate, Why Can’t We Redefine Success? challenged global policy makers to address ongoing inequities in education and employment, while also putting forward a new paradigm for measuring success in an evolving world.
She is the founder of We Love Reading, a grassroots initiative to create changemakers in underserved communities by fostering a lifelong love of reading. A recipient of the UNESCO International Literacy Prize, We Love Reading has established more than 4,000 locally run libraries in over 60 countries.  
 
Rana has also been recognized as a Fulbright fellow, Eisenhower fellow and Ashoka fellow and by joining the list of the 100 most influential Arab Women and receiving the Jacobs social entrepreneur award. Nansen UNHCR refugee award, and the Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award from the World Economic forum.

Offers assistance in:

Career advising
I can advise in the following areas: Interdisciplinary, intercultural research and career advise

Contact Information:

rdajani@hu.edu.jo

Stephen Darwall

Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy

Biography

Stephen Darwall is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale, many years after being a Morse frosh in 1964. He graduated as a Philosophy major after playing in the Band and managing the men’s swimming team. He went on to the University of Pittsburgh for his Master’s in Philosophy and then taught at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until 1984. It was then on to the University of Michigan where Professor Darwall taught for 24 years, served as department chair for 8, and as Director of the Honors Program in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. In 2008 he joined Yale. He is deeply interested in moral philosophy and its history, and is focused on questions around the nature of moral obligation and well-being.

Interests:

Prof. Darwall is happy to have lunch or dinner with interested students.

Offers assistance in:

Advising and mentoring for upperclassmen, Career advising, Serving as a reader for students preparing CVs and job or fellowship applications

Contact Information:

stephen.darwall@yale.edu

Edward A. Dennis

Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, the Graduate Division, and the Chancellor I Endowed Chair at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD)

Biography

Dr. Dennis received his B.A. from Yale University (1963) and was a member of the first class that graduated from Morse College. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and carried out postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School. He received a Doctorate in Medicine (hon) from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and a Doctorate (hon) from the University of Lyon INSA in France. Dr. Dennis started as Assistant Professor at UCSD and served two different times as Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Prof. Dennis’ has over 425 publications and his career research focus has been on the structure, function, mechanism, and inhibition of the enzyme phospholipase A2 as well as on signal transduction, inflammation, lipid metabolism, eicosanoid action, metabolic diseases and especially developing the lipidomics field.  He also served as Chair and President of the Keystone Symposia, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Lipid Research, and Director of the LIPID MAPS Lipidomics Consortium.
 
Dr. Dennis served as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA) as well as on the Board of Directors of the Yale Alumni Magazine and the Yale Alumni Fund and on the Alumni and Development Affairs Committee of the Yale Corporation. He also served on the University Council (2004-2013) including the Committee on Engineering, the Committee on Technology Transfer, and the Committee on West Campus Development. He was the recipient of the Yale Science and Engineering Association Meritorious Service to Yale Award (2004) and the Yale Medal (2008).