Leadership
Michael Rubenstein Director
Michael Rubenstein is Professor in English Department specializing in post-1945 Anglophone literature and culture; Irish Modernism; James Joyce; Film; and the Environmental Humanities. His most recent book is Pipeline Noir: Seeing Oil through Chinatown (University of Minnesota Press, 2025). His other books include Modernism and Its Environments (London Bloomsbury, 2020), co-authored with Justin Neuman and Public Works: Infrastructure, Irish Modernism, and the Postcolonial (Notre Dame: 2010), which received the Modernist Studies Association Prize for Best Book of 2010 and the American Conference for Irish Studies Robert Rhodes Prize for a Book on Literature. He is co-editor, with Sophia Beal and Bruce Robbins, of a special issue of Modern Fiction Studies on "Infrastructuralism" (2015). His current project, Life Support: Fictions of Energy and Environment, examines the figure of the pipeline (aqueducts, transmission lines, and oil pipelines) in a selection of postwar Anglophone film and fiction. He teaches classes in “British Cinema,” “The New Hollywood,” “Irish Modernism,” “Empire and Global English,” and “Energy Humanities.”
Erika Supria Honisch Associate Director
Erika Supria Honisch (PhD, University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Critical Music Studies in the Music Department and Affiliate Faculty in the History Department. Specializing in co-existence and conflict in the early modern world, she uses music and sound to provide new answers to longstanding historical and historiographical questions. Her articles appear in Journal of Musicology, Common Knowledge, Music & Letters, and Austrian History Yearbook, among others, and she sits on the editorial boards of the Yale Journal of Music and Religion and the Journal of the American Musicological Society. A champion of inclusivity in the academy, her work is informed by her South Asian and German roots. In 2022, she received the Stony Brook CAS Godfrey Award for Excellence in Teaching. At the HISB, Erika can be found working with our team of interns to spread the word about our events to their peers across campus, organizing opportunities for students to interact with leading Humanities scholars, and working with Mike and Adrienne to help make Humanities research accessible to every member of our campus community and beyond.
Adrienne Unger Program Coordinator
Adrienne Unger received her BA in English/Creative Writing and Literature from Long Island University-Southampton Campus, and her MFA in Creative Writing from George Mason University. Previously, she was the Administrative Coordinator at the Creative Writing and Literature program at Stony Brook Southampton. Her work for other organizations includes stints at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre Foundation of Maryland, the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, the Kennedy-Krieger Institute and the Baltimore Museum of Art. She was a Washington, DC staff reporter for Crain Communications Inc.’s Business Insurance Magazine and was a freelance writer for various publications including Jubilee, Black Engineers and NSBE Magazine. Adrienne’s poetry, essays and reviews have been published in several literary journals including The Southampton Review, Chautauqua, Mystery Tribune, Harvard Review, FLARE: The Flagler Review (Fall 2015), Oberon, Alehouse, Linden Avenue Journal, Fifth Wednesday Journal, Passager, The Scene and Heard and Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine.
Graduate Staff
Hannah Waterman Graduate Assistant
Hannah Waterman is a Ph.D candidate in Critical Music Studies at Stony Brook University. Her dissertation, “Harmonic Cosmology in Early Modern Scientific Thought,” examines how sonic imagination shaped scientific inquiry in the seventeenth century, tracing epistemological intersections between music theory and natural philosophy. An alumna of the Cornell School of Criticism and Theory, she also uses critical theory to develop new analytical approaches to contemporary listening practices. Outside of her academic work, she is an active performer on the Baroque cello.
Isabel Keleti Graduate Assistant, In the Shadows of the Twin Towers
Isabel Keleti is a DMA student in Piano Performance whose interests include Czech music, sound studies, cross-cultural musical exchange, and ways of listening. A Fulbright grantee, she studied at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts and later received the Czech Center New York’s Gold Crystal Heart Award for her contributions to Czech music and culture. She recently presented at the 4th International Conference on Timbre and was named a finalist for the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Through In the Shadows of the Twin Towers, she looks forward to bringing her interests in music and sound to interdisciplinary research and programming.
Senior Marketing and Outreach Interns
Neha Arya is a junior majoring in Globalization and International Relations with a minor in Korean Studies and interests in global governance and arbitration. Last semester, she found her HISB internship especially rewarding through her work on the Undergraduate Takeover project, which broadened her perspective by allowing her to hear professors from across the university discuss the humanities figures who shaped their ways of thinking. This fall, she hopes to expand her involvement in communications, event support, and projects that amplify humanities scholarship on campus.
Kirsten Gayle Beltran is a Media/Art/Culture major interested in pursuing digital marketing as her future
career. She writes of her experience as an HISB intern last semester: “what I found
rewarding as a HISB intern was the series of collaborative efforts we put together
during our Undergraduate Takeover; it was not only fun, but also uplifting to be inspired
by one another while learning new skills and different perspectives. I hope to be
more involved on campus through the Humanities Institute again in addition to pursuing
my passion for media and communications.”
Jessica Mai is a senior majoring in Business Management with a specialization in Marketing and a minor in Digital Arts. My career goals are to do creative work in the entertainment/music industry. During the HISB internship last semester, I was able to work with the other interns to create content and help plan an event, which I hope to continue doing this semester with both new and returning interns.
Madeleine Mak is a senior majoring in Sociology, with a concentration in Africana Studies and minors
in Writing and Rhetoric and Health, Medicine and Society. She is interested in the
intersection of healthcare policy, society and social justice. Currently, she is working
on her Sociology Honors Project, where she is researching human trafficking, pedophilic
behavior and the systemic factors that contribute to its presence. Collaborating with
HISB faculty and her fellow interns, Madeleine hopes to bridge her passions and background
in community engagement with HISB’s mission of showcasing humanities scholarship.
Harmony McCauley is a Media/Arts/Culture major and minoring in Filmmaking. She is the social media
chair of the Africana Studies Society and an archivist on Black World. Throughout
her time with the Humanities Institute she has proactively engaged with Stony Brook
University’s campus, conducting in-person and online interviews with scholars and
event leaders, catering to a variety of audiences. She has collaborated with peers
and mentors to organize and manage a multitude of on-campus events and projects. She
looks forward to further collaborations with peers and campus organizations on instagram
reels, graphic designs, and video production.
Theo Woodard is a current sophomore majoring in Sociology with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and
Sexuality Studies. They are particularly interested in working to make the world more
accessible and equitable and they are passionate about supporting their community
as well as pursuing global justice efforts in regions such as The Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Sudan, Cuba, and Palestine. They are excited to utilize the skills they
learned last semester to continue supporting and promoting the Humanities Institute
as it grows and evolves.
Marketing Interns
Sasha Lovitz is a senior, majoring in Biology and Sociology with minors in Asian and Asian American
Studies and Writing and Rhetoric while on the Pre-Vet track! She is passionate about
global health, animal welfare, and public health. She is excited to intern with the
Humanities Institute because it combines her interests in writing, social media, and
interviewing while allowing her to highlight the diverse research and unique experiences
of the Stony Brook community.
Sam Madlangbayan is a junior pursuing a major in Journalism with a minor in Filmmaking. She enjoys
exploring the cultural and historical contexts that shape her favorite pieces of literature,
music, and film. Through interning at the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook, she
aims to use her background in journalism to showcase humanities scholarship.
Torian Smith is a double major in Business Management (Marketing Specialization) and Psychology,
and is minoring in Africana Studies. During his time at HISB, he hopes to promote
the wonderful world of the humanities in his own unique way to students who haven't
had the opportunity to interact with this field much. His interests include going
to the gym, reading, watching TV shows and movies, and playing video games.
Past Student Leadership
Jesus Jimenez-Valdes IDEA Grad, 2024–2026
Jesus Jimenez Valdes was a Ph.D. candidate in Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University,
specializing in eighteenth-century Spanish-American travel writing. In his dissertation,
he examined the tensions between scientific observation and imperial politics in Enlightenment
scientific expeditions. He has presented his research at conferences including LASA,
NeMLa, and IILI. His research has been supported by competitive fellowships including
the IDEA Grad fellowship, which enabled his collaboration with the Humanities Institute
at Stony Brook, the Guiliano Fellowship for international archival research, and LACS
research grants. He co-edited a special issue on printed news in the Hispanic Monarchy
(2021) and organized a three-part lecture series featuring leading scholars Jorge
Cañizares-Esguerra and Mariselle Meléndez in 2023. Email Jesus Jimenez-Valdes.