People
Department
Marc Palombo took the helm of the Buccaneer women's lacrosse program in 2017. Overall he has served in a coaching capacity with the team since 2013, the team's second year of existence. A resident of Sandwich, Mass, Palombo is the third head coach and winningest coach in program history.
“Marc has symbolized excellence in lacrosse both as a student-athlete and as a coach, and we are very pleased that he will be leading our women’s program in the years to come. He is greatly respected in both the lacrosse and Academy communities, and we look forward to watching him take this team to a higher level of success."
Palombo is no stranger to the Massachusetts Maritime lacrosse community, as he ranks as one of the top players in the history of the Academy’s men’s program en route to induction into the Buccaneer Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001. A three-sport athlete at Massachusetts Maritime, the Nahant, Mass native graduated in 1978 after leading the Colonial League in scoring on three occasions and earning all-conference accolades in each of his four seasons of play. Selected to play in the East-West Senior All-Star Game as a senior, Marc graduated as the school record-holder for goals in a season (33) and career (150) while also serving as team captain in both 1977 and 1978. His lacrosse jersey #28 was officially retired by the Academy in 1988.
Palombo excelled on the gridiron as well for fellow Hall of Famer Don Ruggeri, as he served as a captain on the Buccaneers’ first New England Football Conference championship squad as a senior and collected all-league honors along the way. Marc was also a two-year ice hockey captain and copped a pair of all-conference accolades during the winters of 1976-77 and 1977-78, and he was tabbed as Massachusetts Maritime’s Athlete of the Year following his senior year.
In three seasons, Coach Palombo has coached two second-team All-MASCAC players (Kianna Carpenter (2017) & Stephanie Hunt (2018)) and one MASCAC Rookie of the Year (Casey Sullivan (2018)).
Melissa Karam Panchley graduated from BMC Durfee High School in 1991 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Human Development from Boston College in 1995.
After graduating from college, Melissa went to work at the Fall River Housing Authority for six years where she was a Youth Outreach Worker, and then the Elderly Services Coordinator. When she decided to start a family, she went to work for the family business at Karam Financial Group, where she could do bookkeeping work from home while she raised her children.
In 2009, Melissa received a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
In 2011, Melissa transitioned into the role of Senior Property Manager for the adult communities managed by Karam Financial Group. In this role she is responsible for overseeing the management and physical plant of 304 apartment units on the Southcoast and Cape Cod, as well as 44 condominium units.
Melissa served on the Fall River School Committee from 2014-2017. During that time, she chaired the Finance Sub-Committee, as well as the Instructional Sub-Committee. She also served on the Superintendent search committee in 2016. After serving on the Fall River School Committee, she was the Treasurer for the New Durfee Ballot Action Committee, a ballot question committee in support of funding for a new Durfee High School.
Melissa has been involved in numerous organizations as a volunteer, such as the President of the Board of the Ninth Street Day Nursery and Vice President and Treasurer for the Friends of Saint Anne’s Hospital. She currently serves on the Fall River Area Chamber of Commerce’s Sub-Committee on Education, the Board of the Greater Fall River United Way, and Treasurer of the Durfee Hilltopper Athletic Foundation.
Melissa was born and raised in Fall River and currently resides in the city with her husband, Josh and two sons, Thomas and Christopher.
- PH.D in Interdisciplinary from Memorial University, Canada
- Master of Science in Maritime Economics from Erasmus University, Netherlands
- Capt. Ashok Pandey is a former shipmaster with a sea-career spanning more than two decades most of which was spent on ice. An avid researcher, his current areas of research interest include shipping route modelling in the Arctic using GIS and the e-navigation platform. He has spent the last ten years in academia and has lectured on various subjects including International Maritime Business, Supply Chain Management and Ship Chartering and Port Economics. He has commanded Cape size bulk carriers (ice-class) for almost a decade and specializes in high latitude navigation.
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
As an Appalachian Kentucky native, Caleb Pendygraft has spent his academic career interested in the intersections of reading, writing, mean-making, and identity. Particularly, he is curious about how we embody our literacies in places, and researches LGBTQ Appalachian literacy practices. His scholarly work explores how becoming literate involves a vast diversity of non-human agents. Making use of new materialist philosophies, his pedagogy and writing treats literacy as an active participatory force in our everyday life. His teaching repertoire is interdisciplinary, having taught a number of classes: American Culture; Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition courses both at the undergraduate and graduate levels; Literature; Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies; along with Business Communications and Technical writing. You can find his publications in KillJoy Magazine and Appalachia Journal. Recently, he has a coauthored chapter in Storytelling in Queer Appalachia (2020, WVU Press). He has two chapters in process. One which explores a theoretical concept he coins "embodied technologies" and another that examines new materialism in Appalachian LGBTQ Anthropocene literature. Outside the Academy, Caleb is a proud cat dad and loves to be out in nature.
- Courses Taught:
- EM-5120: Emergency Operations
- FM-5090: Emergency Preparedness
- Education:
- M.S. Emergency Management, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, 2014
- B.A. Geography & Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island
Greg Perry came to Buzzards Bay as the head men's soccer coach in 1993 and has been a fixture on the sidelines ever since, as he has shattered the school record for career wins along the way. Perry led Massachusetts Maritime to a 4-2-1 league slate in 2014 before falling to eventual conference tournament champion Fitchburg State in the semifinals, as the Buccaneers followed up another highly successful 2013 campaign that saw the program earn its first post-season victory with a MASCAC quarterfinal round triumph over Salem State.
Perry has garnered MASCAC Coach of the Year honors on three occasions, the last coming in 2013 when the Buccaneers recorded eight overall wins and knocked off rivals Bridgewater State and Coast Guard along the way.
A 1989 graduate of Westfield State, Perry was a four-year letterwinner for the Owls after a stellar high school career at Bridgewater-Raynham Regional. He has coached numerous all-conference and all-New England players over the past two-plus decades as well as NSCAA All-America and Buccaneer Hall of Famer Brendan Duggan ’06.
Perry, who resides in Marshfield, Mass., also serves as Massachusetts Maritime’s Assistant Baseball Coach and directs all athletics facilities operations for the Camps & Conferences Department.
