Faculty & Staff

Myra Armstead

Lyford Paterson Edwards and Helen Gray Edwards Professor of Historical Studies/Senior Adviser to the President

B.A., Cornell University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Chicago. Specialization: U.S. social and cultural history, with emphasis on urban and African American history. Fellowships: Danforth-Compton, Josephine de Karman, University of Chicago Trustees, and New York State African-American Research Institute. Frederick Douglass Award, Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History (Sullivan County, New York, chapter). Author of Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America (2012); Mighty Change, Tall Within: Black Identity in the Hudson Valley (2003); “Lord, Please Don’t Take Me in August”: African Americans in Newport and Saratoga Springs (1999). Speaker in the Humanities, New York Council for the Humanities (2003–11). Member, New York Academy of History (since 2006). NEH Fellow/Schomburg Center Scholar-in-Residence (2014–15). At Bard since 1985.

Margaret Becker

Margot Becker is an artist, weaver, and educator based in Hudson, NY. Through tactile processes she explores sense of place, the natural environment, and the connection between the individual and the communal subconscious. Her work has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston. Margot Becker has attended residencies at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, ACRE, Mildred’s Lane, Rabbit Island and AZ West. She received her BA in studio art from Bard College in 2009 and her MFA from California College of the Arts in 2020 where she was awarded the Edwin Anthony & Adelaine Boudreaux Cadogan Scholarship and the Toni A. Lowenthal Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in Textiles.

Rachel Ephraim

M.F.A., Columbia University

Rachel Ephraim received her M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University and a B.S. in Film and Television from Boston University where she studied screenwriting. While in grad school, Rachel worked as a reader in the fiction department of The New Yorker and as the managing editor at The Park Slope Reader. Her work has been published in The Washington Square Review, The Barcelona Review, and the Apple Valley Review. Before teaching at Bard, Rachel taught for Writopia Lab, a non-profit that fosters joy, literacy, and critical thinking in teens from all background through creative writing.

Tate Klacsmann

M.F.A., Northern Vermont University

Tate Klacsmann is a council member for the Society of American Graphic Artists. His art work is included in the permanent collections of the Albany Institute of History and Art, The Smith College Museum of Art, and flat files of Zea Mays Printmaking.  He completed an MFA at Northern Vermont University, a Masters of Art History at University of Glasgow, and BA at Yale University. He has been teaching art and art history for more than ten years at schools including: Northern Vermont University, Augusta University, SUNY Columbia Greene, and Bard Early College – Hudson Valley and has been a visiting artist or lecturer at the Hotchkiss School, Springfield College, and New River Community College. 

Jamal Neal

Jamal Davis Neal, Jr. (He/They)

Jamal is a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School and UConn School of Social Work where they graduated with a Master of Divinity in 2024 and Master’s of Social Work in 2022 as a part of their joint-degree program.

He first taught at Bard for Citizen Science during Winter Intercession 2024. They’re looking forward to developing relationships with new students as they figure out their independent and autonomous lives in this time and space beyond high school and other pre-Bard commitments.

Outside of Bard, Jamal is looking to practice psychotherapy as an LMSW in the nearby area and looks forward to their coming ordination as a minister in the American Baptist Churches USA.

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz is a Visiting Instructor in the Humanities at Bard College, teaching Language and Thinking (L&T) and First Year Seminar (FYSEM). Antonio graduated from Bard College in 2018 with a BA in Economics, specializing in macroeconomic policy and the economic history of Latin America. After graduating from Bard, he attended Yale Divinity School where he earned his Master of Divinity degree in 2023. During his time at Yale, Antonio’s research focused on the Hebrew Bible; in particular, how biblical narratives of violence were used to construct communal identity in ancient Israel, and surrounding ancient West Asian cultures. In addition to his teaching role, Antonio is also a Program Associate in the Office of the Dean of the College, working directly with the Associate Vice President for Academic Initiatives and Associate Dean of the College, Nicholas Alton Lewis, on building a climate of inclusion and community at Bard College. Outside of academia, Antonio is a practicing Buddhist, and an avid soccer fan.

Matthew Park

Director, Bard Early College Hudson Valley and the Bard Sequence

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in African History, Michigan State University, B.A. History and Secondary Education, The College of New Jersey.

Dr. Matthew Park oversees the Bard Sequence and Bard Early College Hudson Valley. He previously taught courses in African history, literature, and film at BHSEC Newark from 2012-2021 and served as the Program Chair of Second Year Seminar for Bard Early College.

Sarah Passino

Sarah Passino is a poet, artist, and educator. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Rona Jaffe Foundation, Poet’s House, The Center for Book Arts, and by the 92nd Street Y’s Rachel Wetzsteon Poetry Prize. She has been published by The Brooklyn Rail, DIAGRAM, Berkeley Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, Boston Review, Wendy’s Subway, and Company Gallery. Her book Versioning Sappho Versioning came out with Stereoverse in 2021 and a series of her drawings and daybook poems is forthcoming at the Opalka Gallery, curated by Nancy Shaver and the artist collective, Wolf Tones. Sarah earned an MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University, an MA in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a BA in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught at Vanderbilt University, Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in partnership with American Baptist College and abolitionist leaders inside, with worker’s centers and community arts organizations, at Bard’s Microcollege at the Brooklyn Public Library, and at the Yale School of Art. She is a contributing editor at Ugly Duckling Presse and arts educator at Dia Beacon.

Andrew Rieser

Andrew Rieser received his M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1999). He is coeditor of the Dictionary of American History (third ed., 2002), author of The Chautauqua Moment: Protestants, Progressives, and the Culture of Modern Liberalism (2003), and lead author for the Cengage U.S. history textbook The Enduring Vision (tenth ed., 2024). He has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at SUNY Geneseo (2001-2003) and Professor of History at Dutchess Community College (2003-Present). He currently serves as a member of the Board of Education of the City of Poughkeepsie School District.

Jeff Roda

Jeff has written scripts for many movie studios and TV networks including DreamWorks, Paramount, Universal, HBO, CBS, and Warner Bros, and has been named to the Hollywood Screenwriting Black List three times. He did the production rewrite on the Universal Pictures comedy Pitch Perfect, and was also a producer on the Sony Pictures feature Love Liza, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival. His directorial debut, 18 TO PARTY, premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival in October 2019. He has written articles about film for The Atlantic Wire and taught screenwriting at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

Michael Tibbetts

BS, Southeastern Massachusetts University; PhD, Wesleyan University. Teaching assistant, Peterson Fellowship, Wesleyan University. Adjunct lecturer, postdoctoral fellow, University of Michigan. Recipient, National Science Foundation grant (2008), to study transmission of anaplasmosis from ticks to people. Member of Sigma Xi, Genetics Society of America, American Society of Microbiology. Professional interests: cellular events that lead to appropriate spatial organization of subcellular material. Faculty, The Master of Arts in Teaching Program. At Bard since 1992.

Erika van der Velden

Erika van der Velden earned her BA at Bard, where she studied psychology and music. She holds a Masters of Science in clinical psychology from Antioch University New England, and a Masters of Music Education from Longy School of Music. Erika has taught psychology and music in the Bard Sequence and Bard High School Early College Cleveland since 2014. She has also served as Director of Advising at BHSEC Cleveland and Director of Accessibility at Bard College. In addition to teaching, she also works as an executive function coach for high school and college students.

Dumaine Williams

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Stony Brook University, B.A. Biology, Bard College.

Dr. Dumaine Williams (Vice President and Dean of the Early College) oversees academic programming across the Bard Early College campuses and promotes the Sequence’s academic quality and integration with the broader Bard network. Dr. Williams was previously the founding principal of Bard High School Early College Newark and Bard High School Early College Cleveland.

Mike Wood

Matt Zembo

BA SUNY Albany: MA War Studies, King’s College London; PhD War Studies, King’s College London (in progress)

Matt has taught at the college level for twenty years and is an Associate Professor of History and Military History at Hudson Valley Community College. His areas of personal research are: 18th Century Military Affairs, British Army of the American Revolution, Modern Military History. He is a regular consultant for New York State Parks and Historic Preservation on battlefield analysis, exhibit writing, and curatorial research related to Military History. He has also worked as an archeologist in Upstate New York and in Greece.

Forthcoming Publication (2024): Claiming the Land: A Critical Reassessment of the Sullivan Clinton

Campaign of 1779 (Rowman and Littlefield).