Community-Engaged Scholarship Fellows

Ellen Andrews. Durham Office Director/Mid-Atlantic Regional Director, Church World Service Durham.

Ellen Andrews hopes to support the development of evidence-based best practices to promote productive and fulfilling experiences for community organizations and the students who engage in these opportunities. Through her work in the Church World Services (CWS), she has partnered with various university service-learning initiatives for over a decade, including Duke Service Learning.

Ann Brewster. Research Scholar, Social Science Research Institute (SSRI).

Ann Brewster has spent most of her career working with community and youth in schools and youth-serving organizations. Her expertise and interests are around Educational Psychology, Social Work, and pedagogy, and she also mentors undergraduate and graduate students through scholarly projects.

Esko Brummel. Asst. Dir. of Education, Initiative for Science & Society. Program Manager, Root Causes.

Esko Brummel has worked in University Service-Learning offices for four years, adapting curricula to include service-learning best practices and trust-building in the community. Moreover, he has worked with Root Causes the past two years, gaining a new perspective of community engagement from the “other side.” There, he managed collaborations between Root Causes and service-learning courses and practicums and collaborated on research grant applications.

Daniel Corpening. Director of Field Education, Office of Field Education – Divinity School.

As the director of field education at the Duke Divinity School, Daniel Corpening facilitates approximately 250 service-learning internships each year. Many of their partners align with the focus areas of the Strategic Plan: Community, Education, Employment, Housing and Health, and their partnerships’ core is helping communities thrive. He is grateful for the opportunity to develop wonderful relationships with transformative partners.

Michele Easter. Assistant Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine.

Michele Easter is a sociologist and health services researcher focusing on people with mental illness or substance use disorders who are also involved in the criminal legal system.  She engages with various stakeholder groups in the Durham community about improving outcomes for this population, despite a fragmented system and frayed safety net.  A current focus is using existing data from Duke health records and criminal justice records to identify opportunities for breaking negative cycles of repeated incarceration and health crises. As part of this fellowship program, she will learn from local health and service system stakeholders about the problems they see, the solutions they favor, and gauge interest in research collaboration. She has been involved in a variety of research and evaluation projects designed in collaboration with stakeholders, on topics such as gun violence prevention and law enforcement-assisted diversion. She uses quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods in her research.

Bethzaida Fernandez. Senior Lecturer, Romance StudSenior Lecturer, Romance Studies, Trinity School of Arts & Sciences.

Bethzaida has been teaching service-learning courses for some time. Since 2014, she has taught the advance Spanish course titled: Bridging Cultures: Latino Lives and Experiences in NC (Span313) every fall. In this course, students engage with local Latinx communities through service learning, guests’ visits, and small trips to community events and local gathering places. Most of the students’ work has been in the role of tutoring, and she has ensured a steady relationship with all community partners.

Sarah Komisarow. Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics, Sanford School of Public Policy.

Dr. Komisarow is an applied microeconomist with research interests in the economics of education and education policy. She has co-led research in partnership with StudentU, a community organization that provides education and support services to disadvantaged middle- and high school- students in Durham. As part of this work, Dr. Komisarow provided technical and subject matter expertise to measure the effects of StudentU programming on student educational outcomes. She is currently working on a project with Chicago Public Schools, and during her fellowship tenure she hopes to foster a deeper relationship with Durham Public Schools.

Nancy Lauer. Lecturing Fellow & Staff Scientist, Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. Nancy Lauer completed her PhD in Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and is currently part of the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. Her PhD research focused on water quality and radioactive contamination, partnering with community members to understand the effect of industry on their environment. At the Clinic, she works on a wide range of environmental policy issues on behalf of non-profit clients, successfully contributing to the passage of a new regulation on testing water for lead and receiving the Roy Family Award for Environmental Partnership and the Mutual of America Community Partnership Award for it.

Erin Nguyen. Director, Iglesia Emanuel Learning Center.

As the director for the Iglesia Emanuel Learning Center, Erin Nguyen is interested in pursuing the connection between community-based tutoring and student learning outcomes. There, 23 bilingual learners have been greatly supported through one-on-one tutoring in literacy and math, effectively restarting that learning center. She previously led a group of students on a service-learning project in Haiti and was a K-5 English Language Development teacher, leading professional development around best practices for culturally responsive teaching.

Deb Reisinger. Associate Professor of the Practice, Romance Studies, Trinity School of Arts & Sciences, Duke Global Health Institute.

Deb Reisinger has taught a service-learning course on refugee resettlement for 9 years, in partnership with CWS and World Relief. She co-authored “Community-Based Language Learning,” a methods book to provide a framework for community engaged teaching. Moreover, she co-authored a study on transformative learning in community-engaged courses, showing that students experience moments of transformative learning. She believes that working in tandem with community partners can lead to outcomes that can benefit all.