Faculty & Staff Directory

Laura Palmer’s research concerns mechanisms of action of volatile anesthetics,
signaling pathways in the regulation of protein synthesis, and translational control of
gene expression. She teaches courses in introductory biology, cell and molecular
biology, and genetics.

Lucas Passmore, instructor in engineering,
recently completed his doctorate at Penn State in
Engineering Science and Mechanics. His research
interests include electronic materials, reliability, and
health monitoring using dynamic data analysis. He
also participates in engineering education research.
In addition, Lucas has spent the last several years
teaching a variety of mechanics courses to both
engineering and engineering technology students.

Kristen Pearson, Coordinator of Student Field
Placements, holds a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education/ECE from Penn State and a master's degree from Towson University
in Human Resource Development-Educational
Leadership with a school principal certification. She taught
Kindergarten, First and Second grades in St. Mary's County, MD, and
has also served as a Preschool Director/classroom teacher before coming to Penn State in 2009.

Kristen also teaches Educational Psychology 14 and ECE 479 at Penn State Altoona.

Lee Peterson received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in creative writing and her BA from Oberlin College in women's studies and English literature. Her poetic, research, and community interests center around issues of human rights, the experiences of women and girls in wartime, and trauma and recovery. She has published and presented her work widely and taught at the graduate, undergraduate and community college level. In 2004, Peterson held the position of Emerging Writer in Residence at Penn State Altoona, where she is now Instructor of English, teaching in the areas of academic, creative writing, literature, and women's studies. She also tutors students individually as the campus Writing Specialist.

Sandra Harbert Petrulionis received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Georgia State University; she specializes in 19th-century American Literature and the literature of slavery and abolition. She is the author _To Set This World Right: The Antislavery Movement in Thoreau’s Concord_ (2006), the editor of _Thoreau In His Own Time_ (2012) and Thoreau’s _Journal 8: 1854_ (2002), and the co-editor of _The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism_ (2010) and _More Day to Dawn: Thoreau’s Walden for the 21st Century_ (2007). In addition to Thoreau, she has also published on Herman Melville, Louisa May Alcott, and other American writers and reformers. She is currently working on two projects: a digital edition of Mary Moody Emerson’s manuscript Almanacks, which she is co-editing with Noelle Baker and in collaboration with the Brown University Writers Project, and which is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is also underway in the research for a cultural biography of 19th-century activist, author, and editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Dr. Pinter teaches Introductory Psychology, Social Psychology, Research Methods, Personality, and Social and Personality Development. As a social psychologist, Dr. Pinter's research interests generally refer to how the actual or implied presence of others affect how people think, feel, and behave. His specific interests relate to the study of unconscious attitudes, inter-group conflict, and self and memory. In recent work, Dr. Pinter has attempted to improve understanding of unconscious or implicit self-esteem, the effect of guilt-proneness in inter-group competitiveness, and the role of information stability in people's tendency to fail to remember negative social information about themselves.

Jamie Piperato is the Assistant Coordinator for the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. She completed a bachelor’s degree at SUNY Cortland in Kinesiology. She is currently completing a master’s degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Student Affairs. During her undergraduate career, Jamie, has had lots of experience in Residence Life and Housing, Student Life, as well as Multicultural Life and Diversity.

In 2008, Attorney Probst accepted the position of Program Coordinator for the criminal justice program after serving as a lecturer in the program for ten years. Her areas of interest include criminal law, constitutional law, criminal procedure and courtroom procedures and she has also proudly served as both the educator and attorney coach for the Penn State Altoona Mock Trial teams. In 2005, Attorney Probst was awarded the Outstanding Lecturer Award by the Penn State Altoona Student Government Association. Ms. Probst is an accomplished attorney in the Commonwealth with extensive background in criminal, juvenile, family and estate law and is admitted to practice in all courts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the federal court system and presently still serves as Guardian Ad Litem representing children's interests in dependency actions in Blair County.

Attorney Probst is active both on campus and in the in community with various organizations. Presently, she serves as academic advisor to students, faculty advisor for the Criminal Justice Organization, Penn State Altoona Faculty Senator, member of the University Hearing Board for the Judicial Affairs office, member/treasurer of the Blair County Bar Association Board of Governors, and Chairperson of the Unauthorized Practice of Law of the Blair County Bar Association.

Nicholas Pyeatt, assistant professor of political science, earned his doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In his dissertation, entitled “Ideology and Candidate Emergence: Entrants Against Congressional Incumbents,” he explores the direct and conditional effects of ideology on candidate behavior. His research interests include U.S. congressional nominations, candidate entry behavior, congressional behavior and representation, Canadian and European elections, race and representation, and macro politics.