Full-time Faculty
Dr. Andrew Miller, Chair, spent six years working as an assistant director in the Hollywood film and television industry before completing his Ph.D. in Cultural and Critical Studies. His credits include work on the popular 1990s television series, Beverly Hills 90210, and Oliver Stone’s film, The Doors. In addition to his recent article in the Journal of Popular Culture, Dr. Miller is currently writing a book on the cultural history of the American sports film, and has recently produced an educational DVD for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York.
Email: millera@sacredheart.edu
Dr. James Castonguay has been with the Department of Communication since 1999, and has published on film, television, and digital culture in American Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Global-e, the Velvet Light Trap, Discourse, the Hitchcock Annual, and Bad Subjects, as well as several anthologies and encyclopedias. He is a recipient of Sacred Heart University's Marian Calabrese Outstanding Faculty Award, and has served as the Information Technology Officer and Webmaster for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Dr. Castonguay is a contributing writer to the human rights magazine Witness, and is writing a book about the media and the war on terror.
Email: castonguayj@sacredheart.edu
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb has been a professor at Sacred Heart University since 1976. He is the editor of the Hitchcock Annual, the George Herbert Journal, Hitchcock on Hitchcock (Univ. of California Press), Framing Hitchcock (Wayne State University Press), Hitchcock: Interviews (Univ. of Mississippi Press), and Roberto Rosselini's Rome Open City (Cambridge University Press). A multiple recipient of Sacred Heart's scholarship award, Dr. Gottlieb's collection of Welles's writings is forthcoming, and he has published essays on Hitchcock, Welles, Eisenstein, Capra, Herbert, Milton, Marvell, Vaughan, Sterne, and Austen, among others. Email: gottliebs@sacredheart.edu
Dr. Debbie Danowski is the author of four popular books about weight loss and food addiction and an associate professor of Media Studies. Her latest book is The Emotional Eater’s Book of Inspiration: 90 Truths You Need To Know To Overcome Your Food Addiction (Avalon/Marlowe). Her other books include Why Can’t I Stop Eating? (Hazelden 2000) co-authored with Dr. Pedro Lazaro, Locked Up For Eating Too Much (Hazelden 2002), and The Overeater’s Journal (Hazelden 2004). Additionally, Dr. Danowski has written more than 100 articles for national and local publications, including First For Women, Woman’s Day and Seventeen Magazine, and served as a contributing writer for Fairfield County Home magazine. As a pioneer in the food-addictions field, Dr. Danowski was recently asked to serve on the International Advisory Board for the newly created Food Addiction Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering research and advocacy in the food-addiction area. Dr. Danowski holds a Ph.D. from Capella University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she researched eating behavior in American film, a Master’s degree in Public Communications from Syracuse University, and a Bachelor of Science in business administration from Sacred Heart University.
Email: danowskid@sacredheart.edu
Dr. Sara Ross joined the Communications faculty in 2006 after serving as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Hartford, where she taught both film and video production and media studies courses. She has taught at the University of Rochester and at Southern Methodist University, and completed her PhD in Film from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has published articles in Camera Obscura, Film History, Aura, Modernism/Modernity, and several anthologies. Her research interests include silent film, romantic comedy, and the development of female characters in Hollywood. In addition to teaching these areas, Dr. Ross also teaches several CMS production courses, including screenwriting and digital film and video production.
Email: rosss2@sacredheart.edu
Prof. Gregory J. Golda is the owner and designer of Construkt Media Studios a multimedia production company specializing in audio and video production as well a graphic, web and theater design. He also serves the university as the Coordinator of Multimedia Productions on campus. Prof. Golda is a recipient of SHU's Joseph Grau Action for Justice Award and was a finalist for the Marian Calabrese Outstanding Faculty Award. Prof. Golda serves as the Faculty Advisor to the Media Students Association (for which he was twice awarded the Advisor of the Year at the Campus Life Leadership Awards) and WHRT, the student campus radio station.
Email: goldag@sacredheart.edu
Affiliate Faculty
Joe Alicastro is a 30-year veteran producer of NBC News, where his assignments included all political coverage from 2000 through 2007. As NBC’s Rome bureau chief, Mr. Alicastro traveled extensively around the globe covering breaking news, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the breakup of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, the Gulf War, and the liberation of Kuwait. Nominated seven times, he is the winner of three News & Documentary Emmy Awards. He currently works with Vision Project as senior producer and Associate Director. In addition he helped launch the Broadcast Journalism program at the New York Film Academy in 2008 where he also continues to teach. Prof. Alicastro teaches beginning and advanced multimedia news production at Sacred Heart.
Email: alicastroj@sacredheart.edu
Richard Falco is the President of Vision Project, an organization dedicated to the development of documentary photography, investigative journalism and education. As a photographer, he has done assignments on four continents in over thirty-five countries and has worked for many major publications, including: Time, Life Magazine, Newsweek, Geo, New York Times, US News & World Report, to name a few. There are two published books of Mr. Falco’s work, Medics: A Documentation of Paramedics in the Harlem Community and To Bear Witness/ September 11. In addition teaching digital photojournalism at Sacred Heart, Prof. Falco has taught at the New School for Social Research, SUNY, and the School of Visual Arts, and directs all of Vision Project's educational programming.
Email: falcor@sacredheart.edu
Martha Griffin received her bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science from Ohio University and an MBA from Columbia University. In addition to her primary careers as a public relations manager and journalist, Prof. Griffin has taught journalism, public relations and general communications courses at several institutions of higher learning during the past decade. As a public relations professional, she has served in a senior manager-level capacity for a Silicon Valley-based marketing and technology firm, Wilson McHenry Company, whose client base included both start-ups and established companies. Prior, she organized and led the public relations department at a marketing communications agency where she coordinated her efforts with the advertising teams in integrated marketing campaigns. She continues to work as an independent consultant. As a journalist, Griffin worked nationally for a syndicated television business news show, “Today’s Business” and in local television in Rochester, New York for the ABC-TV network affiliate. Previously, she also worked for two newspapers, notably The Sandusky Register and the Baltimore Sun. Prof. Griffin has been teaching media studies at Sacred Heart for 10 years.
Email: griffinm@sacredheart.edu
Joanne Kabak received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College and her master’s from Columbia University. She has been a freelance journalist for more than fifteen years. Prof. Kabak's articles have been published in Newsday and Consumer Reports Money Advisor, among many other publications. She also collaborated on four books and established Clarity Communications to focus on business writing. She has been a leader in several networking projects for entrepreneurs and writers, and her articles have won awards from Connecticut Women in Communications. Prof. Kabak is the faculty advisor for The Spectrum, SHU's weekly student newspaper and teaches beginning and advanced courses in journalism and media studies at SHU.
Email: kabakj@sacredheart.edu
Robert Lisak is a photographer based in New Haven and has taught both traditional and digital photography courses at SHU for the past sixteen years. He is a member of the American Society of Media Photographer (ASMP) and has an MFA in photography from the Yale School of Art. Prof. Lisak has done a wide range of work for commercial, architectural and non-profit clients, as well as pursuing his personal work for the past twenty-five years, which has been featured in many group and solo exhibitions.
Garret Maynard was born and raised in Connecticut, and began his career in the film industry in 1982 when he attended UCLA's School of Film & Television. He then graduated in 1987 from USC's School of Cinema & Television. After working nine years in Los Angeles, he returned to Connecticut to establish The Gary-Paul Agency, a literary agency and production company. He has since produced three award-winning films, and in 2005 was nominated for an Emmy in Cinematography. Prof. Maynard is a partner in Nutmeg Pictures, a Connecticut-based film production company for which he co-wrote and directed the comedy feature FILMCAMP. Mr. Maynard has taught media studies at SHU for twenty years. Email: maynardg@sacredheart.edu
Mike Reynolds, has been teaching at Sacred Heart University 10 years. When not teaching, he freelances as an advertising and PR writer, and video/live event producer for clients as diverse as Unilever, Bayer, and Seiko. Prof. Reynolds holds a BA in Humanities from Loyola University of Chicago and a Master of Fine Arts in Theater from the Catholic University of America. He has served on the Board of Education in Meriden, Connecticut.
Email: reynoldsm@sacredheart.edu
Full-time Staff
Kris Singhaviroj serves as the Department of Communication and Media Studies' studio and equipment manager.
Email: singhaviroj@sacredheart.edu.