Office and People Directory

Kimberly Byrd

Biography

Professor Kimberly Byrd is an instructor in the Richard P. Stiller School of Business at Champlain. She was born in the Republic of Panama and lived there until she was 18 years old. Her family owns several businesses including a construction company, a property management company, a personal training company and a landscaping company.

She received her bachelor’s degree in accounting with honors. She then tackled the Certified Public Accountant exam and passed. She worked for several years in the business world and decided to take on the challenge of a master’s degree in accounting. She felt the best option for her to accomplish this goal was online classes due to her workload, family schedule and many responsibilities. She knows personally what a sacrifice it is to make the commitment to attend college while having so many other obligations. She also graduated with honors from her master’s program.

She loves being a student and learning about the ever-changing accounting field. She knows personally how important and reassuring it is to have an instructor who is there for you and wants you to succeed. She has been in the accounting profession for over 28 years and had been teaching accounting online for over 16 years. She has worked in private, public, governmental, and non-profit organizations. She has also worked for several accounting firms.

She says she enjoys Champlain because she has a true passion for teaching and finds it rewarding to interact with students on both a professional and personal level. She says she enjoys having students from all over the country and collaborating with them to make the most out of their learning experience at Champlain.

Distinctions & Awards

Francine Page Excellence in Teaching Award

Favorite Quote

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

—Thomas Jefferson

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David Cambio

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Javier Canessa

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Ariana Cano

Biography

Dr. Ariana Cano was born in Caracas, Venezuela, an upbringing constantly surrounded by adventures to El Avila and Morrocoy National Parks; the two “outdoor” environments that first introduced her to adventure, camping, and environmental protection. At age 11, Ariana’s family moved to the United States. She went on to attend Florida State University where she pursued a B.S. in Political Science and a B.A. in English. With the lack of environmental education in her repertoire, Ariana decided to pursue a Master of Science at the University of Vermont. She studied the effects of community supported agriculture and the impact these have on people’s attitude towards local food systems. She obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Social Psychology at the University of Vermont.

Ariana’s main passion is teaching about social justice and sustainable development. She has had the opportunity to teach at different colleges and lead groups internationally to learn about efficient efforts to grow sustainable communities. She loves teaching and coaching people on how to become better environmentalists, as well as getting outdoors and enjoying nature. Ariana is a firm believer of grassroots movements, social justice, and political action. She also sits on the Board for Registration of Voters of her current city and constantly emphasizes the importance for people to get out and vote and be involved in the political system.

In her free time, you can find Ariana biking (either mountain or road because bikes are just awesome), playing volleyball, kayaking, and swimming. In the winter, she misses the warmth of the tropics but gets by snowboarding.

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Veruska Cantelli

Biography

Veruska Cantelli received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Before joining the Core Division at Champlain College, she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Global Communication Strategies at the University of Tokyo. Veruska is a writer, a translator, and a scholar with a focus on Transnational Feminist Studies and Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies. Among her works are the two volumes Mediterranean: Migrant Crossings (UpSet Press, 2018) and Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War (Zubaan Books in 2023). As a Senior Editor for Warscapes Magazine she curated several retrospectives with particular attention to decoloniality, migration, and food and activism. She studied modern and contemporary dance at the Mary Anthony Dance Studio and the Trisha Brown Dance Studio in New York and has performed with the Human Kinetics Movement Arts. She is serious about Lazio, the soccer team that brought football to the city of Rome in 1900.

Publications & Abstracts

BOOKS AND BOOK CHAPTERS
2023 (Forthcoming) Insurgent Feminisms: Writing War. Zubaan Books (Co-editor)

2021 – Lettere Rivoluzionarie. Diane di Prima, Le Lettere, Translator and Editor

2020 – “Resistant Recipes: Food, Gender and Translation in Migrant and Refugee, Narratives” in The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism. Eds. Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian, Routledge, (Co-writer)

2018 – Mediterranean, Warscapes and UpSet Press, (Co-editor)

2011 – In Danger, San Francisco: City Lights Books. Ed. Jack Hirschman Translator of literary essays by Pier Paolo Pasolini

ARTICLES
2020 – “The Dance of Bones: Tomioka Taeko’s Stage of Reprobates”Otherness: Essays and Studies, Centre for Studies in Otherness, Aarhus University

2017 – “The Maternal Lineage: Orality and Language in Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Sayings” Journal of International Women’s Studies, Volume 18, Issue 1

2016 – “Student-Centered Teaching: Writing Through Passion” Komaba Journal of English Education, Volume 7, University of Tokyo, co-author

2015 – “The New Paladins of the Humanities: A Warning” Warscapes, June 28th

2015 – “The Bundle on my Back” in Warscapes an in-depth conversation with writer Cristina Ali Farah. January 2015

2013 – Editor and Translator of “Narrating Absences, Narrating History” on the photographs of desaparecidos by Argentinian artist Gustavo Germano, Warscapes, August 2013

2013 – Curator of the Retrospective Food on hierarchy of taste and consumption of “otherness,” Warscapes, June 2013

2013 – Curator of the Retrospective Visas on migration, surveillance and militarization of space, Warscapes, March 2013

2013 – “Eye on Honduras” a conversation with historian Dana Frank on the human rights crisis after the coup, Warscapes, January 2013

2012 – Curator of the Retrospective Uncertain Borders on the work of Gloria Anzaldùa, Warscapes, October 2012.

2012 – “Gloria Anzaldúa’s Poetics of Borders” Warscapes, October 2012 issue

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William Carrigan

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Tomas Castrejon

Biography

Tomas currently works for a large Financial Institution, where he has held several leadership roles in Incident Management, Digital Forensics, Security Operations, Privacy, Cybercrime, and Identity and Access Management. Tomas also served as the Minneapolis Cybersecurity leader for PwC and as the National Digital Forensics Practice Leader for Deloitte. Tomas earned an MS degree in Digital Forensics Management and an MS in Legal Studies, with a concentration in cybersecurity, compliance, and privacy.

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Kaitie Catania

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Jane Catton Beattie

Biography

As a native of Canada, Ms. Catton moved to Vermont in 1992 and brings over 35 years of health care and administrative experience. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree as well as two Master’s degrees; one in Health Care Administration and one in Organizational Leadership. She is a Board Certified Nurse Executive and holds additional certification in Health Care Quality.
Ms. Catton’s previous work experience has included senior leadership positions in health care in both Canada and United States. She has worked in a variety of hospital, academic and community based health care settings, both as a registered nurse in Critical Care and Oncology, and as an administrative leader. She served as Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Nursing Officer at Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans Vermont where she held progressive leadership roles over the span of 13 years. Currently she serves as the CEO of Age Well, Vermont’s largest designated Area Agency on Aging.
Ms. Catton has been active in supporting local health care partnerships and organizations, including advancing health reform initiatives through the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) within her local Health Service Area. She is passionate about opportunities to build collaborations that support primary community based care models, through transitions of care and coordination systems, which support our population health goals for our communities.
Ms. Catton lives in St. Albans with her husband and two dogs. She enjoys traveling, cycling the rail trails of Vermont and spending time with their 5 children; 2 who live locally and 3 who live out of state.

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Niels Caul

Biography

Dr. Niels Caul graduated with a PhD from University College Dublin in 2022. He has previously presented papers at the James Joyce Symposia in Dublin and Trieste, the James Joyce Italian Foundation Conference in Rome and the 2021 International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures. He has curated literary exhibitions for Museum of Literature Ireland and more recently “Revolutionary Dublin’s Literary Networks: C.P. Curran, Helen Laird and James Joyce’s Ulysses” for University College Dublin Special Collections.

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Tara Chasnoff

Biography

Tara is thrilled to be working at Champlain College Student Health Center and feels passionate about empowering and educating college students to take charge of their health. She comes to Champlain with over 15 years of nurse practitioner experience which includes working in two other university student health centers. In addition, she continues to work at the Community Health Centers of Burlington where she has been delivering primary care for the past 12 years. Tara was born and raised in Brooklyn but has lived in Burlington for the past 16 years where she is raising her two fabulous daughters and her feisty Havanese. She loves yoga, reading, dance, and long hikes in the Adirondacks.

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Wei Kian Chen

Biography

Wei Kian Chen received his Bachelor of Science, Master of Science, and Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1996, 1998, and 2005, respectively.

His research interests are Association Mining, Classification, Data Mining, Database, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition, Software Engineering and others.

He is an active member of ACM, IEEE, SIGCSE and CCSC. In addition, he is also a member of the International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines (Upsilon Phi Epsilon) and the Honor Society for International Scholars (Phi Beta Delta).

Distinctions & Awards

2020 Edward R. Lyman Professorship

Publications & Abstracts

• Predictive high-level feature representation based on dictionary learning
• Applying software engineering in CS1

Professional & Academic Affiliations

• Association for Computing Machinery
• Special Interest Group Computer Science Education
• Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
• Upsilon Pi Epsilon International Honor Society for the Computing & Information Disciplines
  
• Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars

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Kati Christoffel

Biography

Kati Christoffel graduated from the University of Maine at Presque Isle with her B.F.A. in watercolor painting and B.S. in Athletic Training while competing on the cross country ski team. She then commenced a decade of backpacking, adventure, outdoor seasonal work, art making, and as much cross country skiing as she could cram into the time left. Ready to settle down a bit, but not settle, she joined the Champlain College Conference and Events Center in 2025.

Hobbies

I love cross country and telemark skiing, hiking, backpacking, sailing, painting, needle felting, cooking, reading, and telling my cats how perfect they are.

Favorite Local Eateries and Things to do in Vermont

I love the ice cream at Champlain Chocolate, and you can find me cross country skiing at Sleepy Hollow all winter.

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Spencer Clark

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Diana Clayton

Biography

Diana is the Medical Director of the Student Health Center at Champlain College. She enjoys creating environments where individuals thrive and feel motivated to be their best selves, and applies this energy to her work with patients as well as staff. When not in her office, she is usually playing on the lake or the mountains that surround her home.

What are your hobbies?

Downhill skiing, running, cooking, and design

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