Faculty Stories

  Colin Powell School faculty member Iris López, Director of CCNY Latin American and Latin@ Studies program, quoted in the Refinery29 article ‘In Puerto Rico, A History of Colonization Led to an Atrocious Lack of Reproductive Freedom   When birth control pills hit the U.S. market in 1960, it heralded a new age of sexual autonomy for women. “Freedom in a tablet,” as it’s been called, liberated women from becoming pregnant when they didn't want to and gave them more control over their reproductive choices. But in Puerto Rico, where women were used as subjects for birth… Read More »


Economics Professor Prabal De has just published, “Beyond race: Impacts of non-racial perceived discrimination on health access and outcomes in New York City.” Using a representative dataset from one of the most populous and diverse cities in the US, this research investigates whether individuals report experiencing discrimination while seeking health care not only due to their race/ethnicity, but also because of their other attributes such as age, gender, type of insurance, and immigration status, the latter group being termed collectively as non-racial discrimination. His… Read More »


Business and Economics Alumni of CCNY Remembers Lecturer Len Trugman Len Trugman was a family first guy; you knew about that from the moment you walked into his classroom. He loved to show photos of his grandchildren discuss the accomplishments of his children. To some he was Professor, to others Sir, to me he was Truggy.   When I signed up for Principles of Management with Truggy, it was just another class. Over the semester back in 2010, he was kind enough to let me get to know him.  He was full of truths about life.… Read More »


Outside of his work as an academic advisor at the Colin Powell School, Herbert Seignoret is helping preserve the history of New York City’s first settlement of African-American property owners. An alumnus of the Colin Powell School’s Anthropology program, Seignoret is the Associate Director of the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History and previously served on the advisory board of the Seneca Village Project. Can you share something about your background? I came to the United States from the Caribbean island of… Read More »


Colin Powell School students are forward-thinking, engaged, and ready to guide our country out of troubled times. As students at CCNY, they find their voices and gain the skills, hands-on experience, and connections that will empower them as civic and global leaders. These were central points made by Dean Andrew Rich as a recent guest on the podcast “From City to the World”, hosted by CCNY President Vince Boudreau. Also on the show was Mohammed Alam, a former Colin Powell Fellow who is now Vice President of Young Democrats of… Read More »


What brought you to City College and the Colin Powell School? I decided to retire from 16 years of trading, portfolio management, and derivatives research. I thought I could try teaching. I reached out to Professor Kevin Foster and made a pitch to him that I could teach students to develop their second-level thinking. The whole idea of second-level thinking is to stop thinking of the obvious and instead think what average people don't think and see what average people don't see. What current projects are you working on at the… Read More »


As the state's chief physician, Dr. Zucker leads initiatives to combat the opioids crisis, strengthen environmental health and end the AIDS epidemic in New York. Since his arrival at the helm of the NYS Department of Health, he has established a network of hospitals equipped to treat Ebola, implemented programs to address the threat of Zika and spearheaded efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Zucker oversaw the launch of the state's medical marijuana program and continues to update the program to accommodate evolving… Read More »


Assistant Professor of Anthropology Matthew Reilly was recently awarded a grant through the National Geographic Society to support his research in Liberia, where he is completing unprecedented excavations that bring to light little-known nuances of settler-native relations. We had the chance to sit down with Professor Reilly and learn more about his work in Liberia and in Harlem with CCNY students.  Tell us more about how your collaborative project in Liberia came about. The project stemmed from my original research on the… Read More »


If you had to answer the question, “Do you think that people are generally honest?” how would you answer or better yet, once answered, how would you measure this and what do you think the findings of your research would showcase? This is what Colin Powell School Economics Professor Matthew Nagler set out to answer through data research and fact-finding in 2013 about social capital and how it has a direct effect of fatalities. His findings lead to the Freakonomics live show, “Tell me something I don’t know” where he presented… Read More »


In a recent piece for The Nation, Political Science Professor Rajan Menon discusses the steady worsening of the opioid crisis in America. “Since 1999, 400,000 Americans have died from overdoses of opioids, including pain medications obtained legally through prescriptions or illegally, as well as from heroin. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) notes that prescription medications were involved in 218,000 of those fatalities.” Menon discusses the politics of the opioid crisis as well as its causes. Read the full article… Read More »


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Last Updated: 02/01/2020 00:41