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.” Email Michael Rubenstein.

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. Email Erika Supria Honisch.

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. Email Adrienne Unger.

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. Email Hannah Waterman.

Jesus Jimenez-Valdes IDEA Grad

Jesus Jimenez Valdes is 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 is examining 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.

Undergraduate Marketing Interns

Neha Arya

Neha Arya is a junior majoring in Globalization and International Relations on the pre-law track, with strong interests in international law, diplomacy, and trade law. She is drawn to the humanities because they reveal how human stories, values, and cultures shape legal systems, global conflict, and cross-cultural understanding. Through her work at the Humanities Institute, she hopes to build meaningful connections with others, learn from diverse perspectives, and contribute to thoughtful conversations that broaden her perspective. 

Kirsten Beltran

Kirsten Gayle Beltran is a senior at Stony Brook University, majoring in Media/Art/Culture with two minors in Filmmaking and Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality studies. She is passionate about communicating ideas, stories, and identities through art and bringing together knowledge, experience, and culture from different artists and scholars. She hopes to apply her skills in visual art, filming, and literature in the Humanities Institute's digital marketing initiatives, and is also excited to collaborate with the other interns and contribute creatively to projects.

Jessica Mai

Jessica Mai is a senior majoring in Business Management with a specialization in Marketing and a minor in Digital Arts. She is interested in the diversity of the humanities and how culture, history, and art play a role in shaping people’s identities. At the Humanities Institute, she hopes to learn more about different aspects of the humanities through events and other interns, as well as how to share them with other students through creative work.  

Madeleine Mak

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, with a particular focus on how systemic inequities impact marginalized communities. 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

Harmony McCauley is an undergraduate student majoring in Media, Arts, and Culture with a minor in Filmmaking at Stony Brook University. On campus, she is actively involved in several organizations, serving as a general body member of the Black Student Union and the SBU Film and Television Club. She also works as a photographer and videographer for Black World, a Black and Latinx campus media organization, and serves as the media chair for the upcoming Africana Studies Society. Through her work with the Humanities Department, she aims to strengthen her interpersonal and communication skills through personable interviews, cultivate a more inclusive perspective, expand her knowledge of SEO marketing strategies, and gain hands-on experience capturing spontaneous, on-site events.

Theo Woodard

Theo Woodard is a sophomore majoring in Political Science with a minor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Theo is particularly interested in working to make the world more accessible and equitable for all, with a broad goal of helping others; subsequently, they are very passionate about supporting those in their community and pursuing global justice efforts. Outside of the Humanities Institute, Theo also works as a research assistant for URECA in the Asian and Asian American Studies department, examining linguistic racism. They are incredibly excited to utilize the skills they will learn from their internship in future endeavours.