Kathleen Hicks is Director of Online Programs, Department of English. Her expertise is online education and American lit. She is associate editor for Steinbeck Review and President of the International Steinbeck Society.

Sarah Gavac (PhD at University of Wisconsin, Madison 2020 — Psychology) Research explores how people respond to threatening situations, with a recent focus on how students respond to stressful class material.

Liesel Sharabi is an associate professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. She studies interpersonal relationships, communication technologies, and their intersections.

Joris Van Ouytsel, an associate professor at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, studies the impact of AI and digital media on interpersonal relationships, with the aim of enhancing internet safety.

Welch specializes in qualitative methods, political economy, global social change, social theory, Indigenous studies, world-systems analysis, rural sociology, class inequality, racism, culture, time.