Faculty Fellows

Passionate for ensuring success for all honors students, Dr. J.D. Bowers has over fifteen years of experience in honors education focused on the promotion of inclusion, societal issues, interdisciplinarity, the development of innovative courses, and student scholars and leadership programs.

He has taught honors courses focused on genocide, human rights, Black Studies, and history. His courses on genocide and mass atrocities (focused on Bosnia, Cyprus, and Rwanda, and the pursuit of post-atrocity justice) also include study abroad programs to sites within those countries as well as to Den Haag, Nederlands, to learn about the ICC and other international tribunals and judicial efforts.

True to the honors-approach that learning can be fascinating and fun, one of his most popular courses has been 'Cue and Soul: Black Food Culture in America, a class focused on the social, cultural, historical, and interdisciplinary dimensions of the food cultures.

Dean Bowers serves as a Faculty Fellow for the Honors College and lives in 5 Seminary Place alongside many of our students, sponsoring and engaging in College events, activities, and programming, as well as serving as a mentor for those students who value the intersectional dimensions of our living-learning community.

He grew up in both New Jersey (Surf City, LBI) and Pennsylvania (Northumberland), and he is an avid hiker, water sports enthusiast, and an avowed foodie of numerous cuisines and beverages.

In addition to his role as Dean, Dr. Bowers is a Professor of the Practice in Africana Studies and History in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, as well as a Faculty Associate at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers Global. He currently has two book manuscripts in progress on the unresolved Cyprus conflict and on the genocide in Bosnia.

Nationally, he is a founder and former Executive Director of the Council on Honors Education, an organization of over 130 land grant, public university honors colleges or programs, and involved in professional educator mentoring and leadership program development.

Prior to coming to Rutgers, his thirty-plus-year academic career has included time at Punahou School (Hawai’i), The Madeira School (Virginia), Northern Illinois University, and the University of Missouri. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in History from Indiana University and a B.A. in Government from The College of William & Mary in Virginia.

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Dr. Kristen Syrett is an Affiliated Faculty Fellow at the Honors College and a Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University. Prof. Syrett received her Ph.D. in Linguistics with a specialization in Cognitive Science from Northwestern University. She joined Rutgers in 2007 as a post-doc, supported by NIH NRSA funding, and joined the faculty in 2011. She directs the Rutgers Laboratory for Developmental Language Studies, where she and her fantastic research team of undergraduate and graduate students research how children acquire the meaning of words, and how children and adults rapidly interpret words and sentences as we communicate with each other. Her research has been funded by internal grants and the NSF. She has received awards for her research, teaching, and mentoring. Prof. Syrett teaches courses on language and cognition, language acquisition and development, pragmatics, and experimental pragmatics/semantics. She has advised 15 undergraduate honors theses since joining the faculty. Complementing her vibrant research program, Prof. Syrett is a passionate advocate for gender equity and diversity. She has given invited talks on this topic, has been hired as a consultant for organizations (including the NCAA), and has been quoted and featured in the media as an expert on diversity, gender, and inclusive language. She enjoys hiking, yoga, and a good workout, and often enlists her students to boost the motivation and accountability.

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Dr. Chloë Kitzinger is an Affiliated Faculty Fellow at the Honors College and Associate Professor of Russian at Rutgers University. She is currently serving as Acting Director of the Program in Russian and East European Languages and Literatures and is affiliated faculty with the Program in Comparative Literature. Dr. Kitzinger received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale, an M.A. in Russian from Middlebury College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to Rutgers in 2017, she was a Perkins-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Princeton Society of Fellows. Her research focuses on the Russian, European, and American novel and on narrative and literary theory; other academic interests include translation studies and science fiction. She is the author of Mimetic Lives: Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Character in the Novel (2021), as well as articles on Vladimir Nabokov, Andrei Bely, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Zora Neale Hurston, The Wire, and other topics. Dr. Kitzinger teaches courses cross-listed in Russian & East European, Comparative Literature, and English. Her most recent course was the Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar “What Is Happiness?: Fictional Explorations.”

Trip McCrossin is a Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Honors College. He is a Teaching Professor in the Philosophy Department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. Educated at the University of Michigan and Stanford and Yale Universities, he works in various ways on the history and legacy of the Enlightenment in philosophy, literature, and popular culture. In addition to classes in Philosophy, he leads seminars in the Byrne and Honors Programs regularly as well. 

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Dr. Nicole A. Burrowes is a Faculty Fellow in Residence at the Honors College. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University. Her scholarship focuses on African Diaspora Studies, with a specialization in Caribbean and African American history. She is an affiliate with the Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies, Africana Studies, and the Center for Latin American Studies. Dr. Burrowes was named a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians and has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Department of History at Brown University, and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She obtained her in doctorate in Latin American and Caribbean History and African Diaspora Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2015. For ten years, she supported underrepresented undergraduates to pursue graduate studies through the Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Summer Institute in Harlem, where she served as Assistant Director. She also has worked with communities for transformative justice for over two decades. 

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Douglas Cantor holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago with specializations in Urban Politics, American Politics, and Public Law. He also holds a M.A. in Legal Studies from the University of Baltimore, a B.A. from Rutgers University in Political Science, and an A.A. in Journalism from Brookdale University. He has taught at Northern Illinois University, California State University – Long Beach, and Loyola Marymount University. Within the Public Law and Urban Politics realms, his research interests include municipal reform, water politics, privatization, and Constitutional law. At Rutgers, Dr. Cantor’s course offerings include Law and Politics, Urban Politics, Law and Society, Constitutional Law, Courts and Public Policy, as well as seminars on topics such as Water Politics and Housing Segregation.

His book, Term Limits and the Modern Era of Municipal Reform published with Routledge Publishing in the Spring of 2024. His next book, Pipe Dreams: The Politics of Lead and Water in U.S. Cities, is set to publish in 2026.

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Kristen W. Springer is Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006; MA, Yale University, 2000; MPH, Emory University, 1997; BS, University of California at Santa Cruz). Professor Springer’s scholarship focuses broadly on gender and health, prioritizing the intersection of social and biological influences. Her current research explores how the anti-transgender legislative climate harms health access for transgender youth, with a particular focus on how youth of color are affected. Other recent areas of research include: 1) experimental studies of biosocial reactions to masculinity threats; 2) conceptual and methodological interventions for how to best research gender and health using biosocial and intersectional frameworks; and 3) quantitative analyses on masculinity ideals, socioeconomic status, marriage, and men’s health. She has published in journals including American Journal of Sociology, American Journal of Public Health, Gender & Society, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Marriage and Family, Social Science & Medicine, and Social Science Research. Professor Springer’s research has also been featured in national and international news sources including ABC News, LA Times, The New York Times, US News & World Report, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. She teaches classes on research methods, family, gender, and biosociology.

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_{Photo by Andreas Eggenberger}

Anette Freytag is a Professor for the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University (Doctor of Sciences, ETH Zurich 2011 with ETH Medal for Outstanding Scientific Research; Mag. phil. University of Vienna 1998, Cand. phil. University of Vienna 1994). Dr. Freytag’s research investigates designed landscapes from the 19th century to the contemporary practice with a focus on topology, phenomenology, and walking. In 2019, she co-founded the Arts Integration Research Collaborative (AIR), which prioritizes creative placemaking to foster spatial justice through projects that seek safe access to nature for all. Currently, she works on a manual on walking in suburbia that addresses planners, policy makers, and legislators. Dr. Freytag is the author of The Landscapes of Dieter Kienast (J. B. Jackson Book Prize 2022), and The Gardens of La Gara (European Garden Book Award 2019), other books, and numerous papers. Her research was funded by the Rutgers Research Council, the Volkswagen Foundation, the Lucius and Annemarie Burckhardt Foundation, the Christoph Merian Foundation and private donors. Apart from her work in academia, Anette Freytag founded the research bureau ville.jardin.paysage in 2001 and delivered a number of highly regarded studies that contributed to the inscription of architectural ensembles on the UNESCO World Heritage list or on National or Regional Heritage lists. She teaches classes on Landscape History and Theory; The Power of Walking and Listening; Theories in Landscape Architecture, The Total Work of Art – When Art and Life, House and Garden Become One; Music, Sound, and Landscape (a co-taught Byrne Seminar).