Rules of University Conduct Committee

Dr. William Hunnicutt is the Associate Director of the Carleton Laboratory in the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics. He completed a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Will oversees research and teaching operations within the Carleton Lab, and conducts research in the area of cementitious materials, with a specific interest in construction materials used in nuclear power plants and their degradation due to radiation, as well as experimental measurement of nano- to millimeter scale mechanical properties.

A much-lauded translator of modernist and contemporary German-language literature, Sen. Susan Bernofsky holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Washington University and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton University. Her many translations include three novels and four collections of short prose by the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, as well as Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. She is the author, most recently, of Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser (Yale, 2021), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. She is a Berlin Prize, Cullman Center, and Guggenheim fellow. Past awards include the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, the Modern Language Association's Lois Roth Award, and the Hermann Hesse Translation Prize. Her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck's novel The End of Days (2014) won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize, the Ungar Award for Literary Translation, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. Her translation of Yoko Tawada's novel Memoirs of a Polar Bear (2016) won the inaugural Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. Her most recent published translation is Tawada's novel Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel (2024). She has recently completed a new translation of Thomas Mann's monumental novel The Magic Mountain, forthcoming from W.W. Norton in early 2027.

Sen. Sean Eren is an M.Arch candidate at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP). Before coming to Columbia, he received his BFA in Jewelry and Metalsmithing at the Rhode Island School of Design, and then worked for two years in New York City as a design engineer for David Yurman. Sean is particularly interested in strengthening student power within Columbia's decision-making processes and in pursuing popular student demands on university functions, transparency, and institutional ethics within one of the few remaining democratic campus structures.

Reesa Venterea (she/they) is a Columbia College student in the Urban Studies and Public Health departments and is pursuing a minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She is a Mexican-Italian-American from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and brings this lens into her focus on affordable housing, immigration reform, and anti-surveillance methods within urban spaces. In 2025, she was named an Oslo Human Rights Scholar and a PBS 20-under-20 journalist. At Columbia, Reesa works with the Housing Equity Project to redistribute resources to the West Harlem neighborhood affected by Columbia’s historical and ongoing gentrification. She also works closely with the Columbia University Tenants' Union to address Columbia's role as a landlord and collective access to fair housing conditions. Reesa additionally works at the Columbia School of Social Work’s Center for Justice, focused on post-incarceration educational resources and alternative approaches to justice. She is a violinist interested in all genres of music, performing in a Mexican folk music/Mariachi group, Afro-Cuban and Brazilian ensembles, and a Bluegrass band.

A Columbia College alumna with a 14-year connection to the University, Sen. Rebecca L. Xu is a second-year CSSW student specializing in psychedelic-assisted therapy. Her research explores the therapeutic role of music in psychedelic care, complemented by a clinical practicum at CUIMC’s outpatient interventional psychiatry department.

Prior to graduate school, Rebecca spent a decade establishing housing stability for refugee and immigrant communities. Drawing from her background in community advocacy, equity building, and navigating complex institutional issues, she brings a grounded approach to serving her peers and advocating for student needs across the University.

Having served as CSSW Student Union Treasurer, Rebecca combines hands-on student leadership with deep institutional knowledge. As a University Senator, she leverages this experience to advocate for cross-campus resource equity, strengthen student support systems, and bridge Morningside, CUIMC, and the broader NYC community to ensure every student is supported and empowered.

Sen. Michael B. Gerrard is Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School, where he teaches courses on environmental and energy law.  He founded and directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, which now has 16 lawyers and is the leading academic center on climate change law in the world.   He is a former Chair of the Faculty of Columbia’s Earth Institute and now holds a joint appointment to the faculty of its successor, the Columbia Climate School. Before joining the Columbia faculty in 2009, he was partner in charge of the New York office of the Arnold & Porter law firm.  He practiced environmental law in New York City full time from 1979 through 2008. He was the 2004-2005 chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Environment, Energy and Resources.  He has also chaired the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association, and the Environmental Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.  

Since 1986, Gerrard has written an environmental law column for the New York Law Journal.  He is author or editor of fourteen books, two of which were named Best Law Book of the Year by the Association of American Publishers: Environmental Law Practice Guide (twelve volumes, 1992) and Brownfields Law and Practice (four volumes, 1998). Among his other books are Global Climate Change and U.S. Law (with Jody Freeman and Michael Burger) (3d ed. 2023); Threatened Island Nations: Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate (with Gregory Wannier, 2013); and Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (with John Dernbach 2019).
 

Sen. Marc Younker is a 3L representing Columbia Law School. Marc currently Marc co-chairs the University Senate Rules Committee and serves on the Student Affairs Committee. He is from West Orange, New Jersey, and earned his B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University, graduating magna cum laude. Outside of Columbia, Marc serves on the board of Garden State Equality, New Jersey's largest LBGTQ+ advocacy organization.

Sen. Liane Bdair is a student at Columbia College, studying economics and political science on a pre-law track. She serves on the executive board of Turath, the Arab Students Association, where she helps foster community and cultural pride among Arab-identifying students. Additionally, Liane’s Palestinian- American Background makes her deeply committed to equity, inclusion, and student advocacy. As a University Senator, Liane is focused on promoting shared governance, increasing transparency from the administration, and ensuring that student perspectives are meaningfully included in decision-making processes. With a new perspective and a dedication to building bridges between administration and student groups, she is passionate about amplifying voices that are often overlooked in university policy and governance conversations.

Sen. Joseph Slaughter specializes in literature, law, and socio-cultural history of the Global South (particularly Latin America and Africa). He’s especially interested in the social work of literature—the myriad ways in which literature intersects (formally, historically, ideologically, materially) with problems of social justice, human rights, intellectual property, and international law.

His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Public Voices Fellowship, Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award. His book Human Rights, Inc.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law (Fordham UP, 2007), which explores the cooperative narrative logics of international human rights law and the Bildungsroman, was awarded the 2008 René Wellek prize for comparative literature and cultural theory. His essay, “Enabling Fictions and Novel Subjects: The Bildungsroman and International Human Rights Law,” was honored as one of the two best articles published in PMLA in 2006-7. He was elected to serve as President of the American Comparative Literature Association in 2016.

His essays and articles include : “World Literature as Property” in Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics; “However Incompletely, Human” in The Meanings of Human Rights: Philosophy, Critical Theory, Law; “‘It’s good to be primitive’: African Allusion and the Modernist Fetish of Authenticity” in Modernism and Copyright; “The Enchantment of Human Rights; or, What Difference Does Humanitarian Indifference Make?” in Critical Quarterly; “Vanishing Points: When Narrative Is Not Simply There” in The Journal of Human Rights; “‘A Mouth with Which to Tell the Story’: Silence, Violence, and Speech in the Narrative of Things Fall Apart” in Emerging Perspectives on Chinua Achebe; “Master Plans: Designing (National) Allegories of Urban Space and Metropolitan Subjects for Postcolonial Kenya” in Research in African Literatures; “Introducing Human Rights and Literary Form; Or, the Vehicles and Vocabularies of Human Rights,” co-authored with Sophia A. McClennen, in Comparative Literature Studies; “A Question of Narration: The Voice in International Human Rights Law” in Human Rights Quarterly; “Humanitarian Reading” in Humanitarianism and Suffering: The Mobilization of Empathy through Narrative. Slaughter is a founding co-editor of Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development.

He is co-editing a volume of essays, The Global South Atlantic, that explores some of the many social, cultural, political, and material interactions across the oceanic space between Africa and Latin America that have made it historically (im)possible to imagine the South Atlantic as a coherent region. He is currently working on two monographs, “Pathetic Fallacies: Essays on Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and the Humanities” and "New Word Orders: Intellectual Property and World Literature," which considers the role of plagiarism, piracy, and intellectual property regimes in the globalization of the novel, as well the work the novel might do to interrupt globalization and to resist monopoly privatization of cultural and intellectual creations.

Jenny Mak is the Senior Associate Dean of Engineering Student Affairs and an Adjunct Professor of Professional Development and Leadership at Columbia Engineering. Dr. Mak provides leadership to the Engineering Student Affairs team, supporting Columbia Engineers and the school’s K-12 outreach efforts. She established Columbia Engineering's Graduate Career Placement (GCP) and Professional Development and Leadership (PDL) units.

Dr. Mak joined Columbia Engineering in 2003. Prior to joining the Dean's Office, she was the Executive Director of the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department at Columbia Engineering. Previously she was a Senior Consultant for Deloitte Consulting and a Technology Consultant for D. E. Shaw & Co.

Dr. Mak is a proud four-time graduate of Columbia University: Doctor of Education, Master of Arts, Master of International Affairs, and Bachelor of Science. She earned her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Columbia Engineering. Her research interests include the intellectual and ethical development of college students, adult learning, and leadership.

Janie Weiss is IT Manager of the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, a role she has held for over 30 years. She assists faculty, staff, and students with their IT needs, helping to advance the research enterprise. On the University Senate, Janie serves on the Rules Committee. 

Janie served previously as University Senator, representing Administrative and Support Staff (CUIMC). 

Sen. Jackie Dugard (BA, MPhil, PhD, LLB, LLM) is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR), where she is the outgoing Director of Graduate Studies for the Human Rights Studies MA (HRSMA) program. Prior to joining Columbia in July 2022, she was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa (2014-2022), where she is now a Visiting Professor of Law. With a background in law and social sciences, Jackie has published widely on social- and climate-justice. She is a Global Fellow at the Centre on Law & Social Transformation (University of Bergen, Norway), and an editor of the South African Journal on Human Rights.
Jackie has significant leadership experience - she was a co-founder and the first Executive Director of the non-governmental organization, Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), and the founding first Director of the Gender Equity Office (GEO) at Wits. As a human rights academic and practitioner, she is committed to governance accountability and improving the working conditions of non-tenure track faculty, as evident in her involvement in the organizing committee for the Contingent Faculty of Columbia University (CFCU-UAW)  unionization process currently underway for non-tenure track colleagues. 

Sen. Ciamac C. Moallemi is William von Mueffling Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, and Operations Division and the director of the Briger Family Digital Finance Lab at the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, where he has been since 2007. A high school dropout, he received S.B. degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1996). He studied at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a Master of Advanced Study degree in Mathematics (Part III of the Mathematical Tripos), with distinction (1997). He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University (2007). Prior to his doctoral studies, he developed quantitative methods in a number of entrepreneurial ventures: as a partner in a $200 million fixed-income arbitrage hedge fund and as the director of scientific computing at an early-stage drug discovery start-up. He holds editorial positions at the journals Operations Research and Management Science. He is a past recipient of the British Marshall Scholarship (1996), the Benchmark Stanford Graduate Fellowship (2003), first place in the INFORMS Junior Faculty Paper Competition (2011), and the Best Simulation Publication Award of the INFORMS Simulation Society (2014). Aside from his academic work, he has developed high Sharpe, short-term systematic trading strategies as a quantitative portfolio manager, and he regularly consults for fintech companies. He is currently a Research Advisor at Paradigm, a research-driven technology venture capital firm, and at Uniswap Labs, a developer of decentralized exchanges. His research interests are in the development of mathematical and computational tools for optimal decision making under uncertainty, with a focus on applications areas including market microstructure, quantitative and algorithmic trading, and blockchain technology.

Sen. Carlos Alonso is Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor in the Humanities in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures. Prior to serving as dean, he was Chair of the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. On the University Senate, Dean Alonso serves on the Committee on the Rules of University Conduct, and has served on the Commission on Diversity and the Honors and Prizes Committee. 

Dean Alonso received his B.A. from Cornell in Spanish and Latin American Literature and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin American literature at Yale. He is the author of Modernity and Autochthony: The Spanish American Regional Novel, and The Burden of Modernity: The Rhetoric of Cultural Discourse in Spanish America, and editor of Julio Cortázar: New Readings. He was the editor of PMLA and edited the Hispanic Review. While at Penn, Dean Alonso received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the university's highest award for pedagogical excellence.

Dean Alonso specializes in 19th and 20th-century Latin American intellectual history and cultural production and in contemporary literary and cultural theory. He has taught the graduate seminar on Literary and Cultural Theory and the course Theories of Culture in Latin America. Under his editorship, the department's Revista Hispánica Moderna received the 2009 Council of Editors of Learned Journals Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement.