Faculty Profiles
Tennille Allen, Ph.D.
Professor, Sociology, College of Education and Social Sciences
allente@lewisu.edu
Tennille Nicole Allen, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Lewis University. In addition to these roles, she directs Lewis’ African American Studies and Ethnic and Cultural Studies Programs. Her primary teaching and research interests are in the intersections of race, class, gender, identity, and place. Her current research includes projects on cultural memory and creative practices in the intersections of race, place, and mass incarceration. She is the author of works on African American intimate relationships, social networks, food inequalities, erasures and absences of Black women as founders of a sociology of gender, the sociological contributions of Zora Neale Hurston, as well as African American cultural and creative practices. She has conducted community-based participatory research projects focused on youth of color in the Chicagoland region and their perceptions and experiences of race, racism and community through an arts-based youth participatory action research project; community memory archival work in Joliet, Illinois; and the ways African American girls and women living in Joliet and Chicago understand and create resilient and resistive practices as well as space and joy in their lives. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Sociology from Northwestern University.
Karen Davis, Ph.D. (she/her)
Assistant Professor, Philosophy, College of Humanities, Fine Arts and Communication
kdavis9@lewisu.edu
Dr. Karen Davis teaches General Education courses in Philosophy (and particularly loves teaching Philosophy for Self Care) and upper division courses for Philosophy and Philosophy of Law majors (such as Ancient Philosophy, Applied Ethics, and Senior Capstone). She also teaches in Lewis’s Prison Education Program and facilitates a Philosophy Club with the students at Sheridan Correctional Center. Dr. Davis’s research interests range from ethics, aesthetics, and philosophical hermeneutics, to applied hermeneutics and prison arts and education. Her work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Aesthetic Education, Journal of Applied Hermeneutics, and IJFAB: International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics.
Courses taught for WGST:
PHIL 22500 Philosophical Issues in Race and Gender
Mary Fisher, Ph. D. (she/her/hers)
Associate Professor, Education, College of Education and Social Sciences
fishermm@lewisu.edu
Dr. Fisher is Co-Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Lewis.聽 She received her doctorate in Special Education from the University of Virginia. Her teaching and research focus on promoting the full participation of all children and youth in their neighborhood schools and communities irrespective of assigned disability status. She is particularly interested in the intersection of disability and gender where her focus is on creating space for the voices of girls and young women as their schools and communities rethink problems of disability visibility in school curriculum and social and built spaces.
Courses taught for Women’s and Gender Studies:
SOCI-38800 Women’s Studies Capstone Seminar
Ana Roncero-Bellido, Ph.D. (She/her/hers)
Assistant Professor, English Studies
aroncerobellido@lewisu.edu
Dr. Roncero-Bellido is Co-Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Lewis. She earned her Ph.D. in English Studies with a concentration in Latinx Literatures, Rhetoric and Cultures from Illinois State University (2017) and a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her scholarly interests include Latinx feminist literatures, transnational feminisms, life writing, and feminist pedagogies. Through her teaching, she aims to empower students to embrace their diverse forms of knowledge to create a diverse learning community.
Her work appears in journals such as Chicana/Latina Studies; The Journal of Multimodal Rhetorics; The Routledge Handbook of Latinx Life Writing or the edited collection Feminist Pedagogy, Practice, and Activism: Improving Lives for Girls and Women.
Courses taught for Women's and Gender Studies:
Eng 22102 Latinx literatures & experience
Eng 315 US Latina/o literatures
ENG 335 Latin American literatures
Eng 336 Women Writers
Eng 346 Ethnic & Immigrant literatures
Karen Trimble Alliaume, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Professor, Theology, College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Communications
alliauka@lewisu.edu
Karen Trimble Alliaume is Professor of Theology.聽 She has been a past Director or Co-Director of the Women’s Studies Program from 2001-2022.聽 She received her doctorate in theology and ethics from Duke University in 1999, concentrating on feminist and liberation theologies and interdisciplinary work in literature, feminist theory, and women's studies. She spent 2008-2009 as a Research Associate and Visiting Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Theology in the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, and was selected for the Lilly Fellows Program Summer Seminar on Gender and Christianity at Seattle Pacific University in 2010.
Courses taught for Women's and Gender Studies:
THEO 23600: Women and Religion
Kami Tsai, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Assistant Professor of Psychology; Director, Human Resource Management Program; Department of Psychology, College of Education and Social Sciencesktsai@lewisu.edu
Dr. Tsai is a faculty member in the Psychology Department. She specializes in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, applying psychological principles to the workplace. She has an interest in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at work and has earned both a Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion in HR Management from the HR Certification Institute and an Inclusive Workplace Culture Specialty from the Society for Human Resource Management. A DEI area of particular interest is Women and Leadership, and a course centering on that topic is under development.
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