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Janet Zhan, a Business Manager in the Rutgers University–New Brunswick Chancellor's Office, oversees the day-to-day financial needs of the Honors College and provides overall administration and coordination of all financial functions for the college. Prior to joining the college, Janet served as an Associate Director of Financial Reporting at Syneos Health and previously worked as an auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Janet is a CPA and has 15 years of experience in finance and accounting. She received her accounting degree from Rutgers Business School in New Brunswick.

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Shan L. Reeves is a licensed clinical social worker who earned his M.S.W. from Rutgers School of Social Work and found his calling in direct practice. Shan has a passion for human connection and understanding people’s perspectives, while assisting them to find their truth. At the base of his therapeutic approach is that everyone has their story and truth which has cultivated their current being. From that mindset, he believes that people ages 18-25 are learning to apply all of the skills (i.e. emotional regulation, deductive reasoning, financial management, cultural norms, etc.) they acquired in childhood in an effort to forge their future. It is his hope to assist as many people as he can in understanding their truth so they can become assertive and innovative yet flexible and humane leaders of the future.

Justin Kelley is the Assistant Vice President (AVP) for Student Affairs at Pratt Institute, where he leads the student life thematic area, which includes all student-facing programs and services. Before joining the Pratt Community in June of 2022, Justin served the Rutgers- NB community for nearly 11 years as the Associate Dean of Students within the Division of Student Affairs. He is pursuing his Ph.D. in higher education with the School of Graduate Studies at RU-NB. His research focuses on university systems and services and a sense of belonging for college-age students with autism.

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Ariel Chun is responsible for providing academic support to current students enrolled in the Honors College. Prior to joining the Honors College, he served as a Student Success Advisor for Middlesex College, and worked in various offices at Rutgers during his undergraduate and graduate career, including the Asian American Cultural Center, Center for Organizational Leadership, Graduate School of Education, Office of Graduate Student Life, and Rutgers Global. He earned both his Ed.M. in College Student Affairs and B.S. in Public Health with a minor in Health and Society from Rutgers University. He is committed to helping students identify and achieve their academic and postgraduate goals.

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Gabrielle Ignotis supports development efforts at the Honors College by assisting with engagement strategies, stewardship communications, and events and logistics. Through close collaboration with Sharon Cocuzza, Associate Vice President for Development, she also supports other units across Rutgers-New Brunswick. Previously, Gabrielle held positions in development, events, and communications at the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters and served as a Human Resources Coordinator at Easterseals New Jersey. She earned her B.A. in Communication, with a specialization in Leadership in Organizations and Community, from Rutgers and is pursuing a graduate degree in Information and Library Science.

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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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Sharon Cocuzza leads development efforts at the Honors College and oversees a team of development professionals from seven other units: the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, School of Engineering, Graduate School of Education, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, School of Social Work, School of Management and Labor Relations, and Division of Student Affairs. She brings 25 years of advancement experience in higher education and healthcare development to the Honors College. Prior to this role, Sharon held development positions at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers Mason Gross School of the Arts and Princeton Medical Center. Her career began at Rutgers in the Division of Student Affairs. Sharon holds a B.A. in Telecommunications and an M.A. in Organizational Communication from Ball State University.