Christopher Maggio is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. He teaches technical writing, business communication, first-year writing, and writing about literature. He is currently the Writing Proficiency Exam coordinator. His research interests include community writing and creative writing. He recently co-authored an article in the collection 'WPA Advocacy in a Pandemic.' When not teaching or writing, he enjoys exploring New England with his family.
Dr. Samantha Montano is currently an associate professor of Emergency Management at the Academy. Montano does research on a variety of topics related to emergency management including disaster volunteerism, the role of the nonprofit sector in disaster, the relationship between emergency management and climate change, and the intersection of gender and disasters. In addition to research, she does science communication work and emergency management policy advocacy.
Current courses: Introduction to Emergency Management and Emergency Management Policy
Education: Ph.D., Yale University -- Social Ethics
Ph.D. Miami University, Rhetoric and Composition, 2019 M.A. Miami University, Rhetoric and Composition, 2015 Certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Miami University, 2015 Dual B.A. Northern Kentucky University, English Literature; Philosophy, 2012 Perpetually curious of language, the material world, queerness, and place, Dr. Caleb Pendygraft is a Kentucky Appalachian who received his PhD in Rhetoric and Composition from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His book, Reading, Writing, and Queer Survival: Affects, Matterings, and Literacies Across Appalachia (UPKY, 2025), has been praised as a “trailblazing book” that “will undoubtedly have a lasting influence in how we think about literacy, queerness, and Appalachia,” and as an “unequivocally a groundbreaking and necessary book for our time.” His other work has appeared in Appalachian Journal, The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric, Bodies of Knowledge: Embodied Rhetorics in Theory and Practice, Journal of Appalachian Studies, and Storytelling in Queer Appalachia: Imagining and Writing the Unspeakable Other. Currently he is nearing the close of his memoir, titled Callin' Down the Spirit (forthcoming 2026), while starting another adventure co-editing a queer eco-spiritual collection of Appalachian voices. When he isn't teaching or writing, you can usually find him either barefooted, digging through his brambled garden, tending to the PendyCats, or visiting Atlantic sands thinking about the hills.
Education: M.A.,New York University; Ed.D., University of Massachusetts Amherst
Background:
Courses taught:
- Spanish I
- Spanish II
- Western Civilization (Social Science Department)
Education: B.A., University of Virginia; M.A., University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D., University of Southern California
Courses taught: English Composition, Introduction to Literature, Writers of the American South, American Literature II: Civil War to the Present, and Exploring African American Literature through the Blues
Dr. Anton L. Smith is an Associate Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy where he teaches courses in African American, American Literature, and first year writing. His current book project, In the Pursuit of Faith: Profiles in African American Literature, Religion and Spirituality, 1935-1965, examines how religiosity is negotiated, constructed, and contested through various symbolic resources including soul food, the blues, and nature.
B.A., Bridgewater State College Political Science and History; M.A., University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Political Science; Ph.D., University of Connecticut, Political Science, Retired US Army Reserve, Major, Retired Federal Bureau of Investigation Intelligence officer; Research Interests-Domestic and International Terrorism, and Violence in American society
A baptized non-denominational Christian
Bachelor of Science in Electronic Engineering from Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Applied Disaster and Emergency Studies from Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
Master of Science in Disaster Science and Management from University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware
Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with direction of Societal Risk Management from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, Illinois
Postdoc at Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Chapman University, Orange, California
Dr. Wang is currently serving as an Assistant Professor of Emergency Management at the Academy. His research topics include social vulnerability, hazard modeling, risk assessment, loss prediction, equivalency of hazard intensity, nowcasting of weather events, and media coverage of disasters. His methodological tools involve data science, machine learning, geographic information science, remote sensing, and qualitative approaches. Dr. Wang has been working on earthquake, flood, heavy rainfall, lightning, tropical cyclone, wildfire, and extraterrestrial hazard; as well as disaster risks within a multi-hazard context.
