Faculty & Staff Directory

Robin Reese, associate professor of theatre arts at Penn State Altoona, is a professional actor, director and playwright. She holds her masters of fine arts degree from the Actors Studio Drama School where she was the Teaching Fellow and received voice and acting scholarships. She is a recipient of new theatre and performance grants from the DIA Center for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Bread and Roses Community Fund. She served as a Panelist for the PA Council on the Arts, Inter-Disciplinary. Robin is a proud member of Actors Equity Association and has appeared off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and in regional theatres, playing classical, contemporary, musical theatre and experimental roles. She has traveled the United States and Italy performing her own written performance pieces. Her company affiliations include: Executive Artistic Director of The Women's Ensemble Theatre Company in Philadelphia, Co-Founding Director of Drunken Lotus Productions and Managing Director for New Legends Productions. As a director, Robin is a recipient of Merit Awards for Distinction in Directing from The Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival for her Penn State Altoona productions, "The Tempest," "Medea," and "Big Love," which was also selected to be fully presented at the Region II Festival in 2009. New York City directing credits include: "Othello," "Troilus and Cressida," "Rosemary with Ginger," and the Actors Studio premiere workshop reading of her own play "The Inquisition," with Tony Award winning actress Carlyn Glynn. Robin directed Robert Auletta's adaptation of "The Persians" for New York City's Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute/New York University and directed her own play "Mamma Was an Andalusian Jet Skier" at The Players Club in NYC. Robin is also a successful playwright and screenwriter. In 2008, she was named a Semi-Finalist for the prestigious O'Neill Playwright's Conference. In 2007, she was selected as one of five national playwrights to compete in The Cardboard Box Collaborative's SPEED THE MUSE competition, and her play, "Fungible," was performed at The Philadelphia Fringe Festival. Robin's one-act play, "The Inquisition," was produced at The Looking Glass Theatre in NYC. Robin has directed locally for Cresson Lake Playhouse.

Technology Support Specialist at Penn State Altoona since 1998. Family guy and father of two sons. Christian musician, worship leader. Interested in technology, sports, music & good TV shows.

Helen Rentz, instructor in Curriculum and Instruction, serves as the University’s Supervisor of Student Teachers. A thirty-four year veteran teacher, she earned her Master’s Degree in Developmental and Remedial Reading from Penn State as well as a Reading Specialist Certificate along with additional credits in C&I. In 1995, she was the recipient of the Altoona Area School District CARE Award for her commitment to excellence in teaching.

Grant A. Risha received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Penn State in 2003. His primary research interests are reactive flows/combustion, fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and propulsion. He has performed research on the enhancement of hybrid rocket solid fuel performance by introducing nano-sized energetic particles, solid propellant airbag combustion, pyrotechnic igniter characterization, solid, hybrid, and bi-propellant rocket combustion, diffusion flame combustion, aluminum/water combustion, and solid fuel pyrolysis.

Syed Rizvi, Assistant Professor of Information Science and Technologies, received his doctorate in Modeling and Simulation from the University of Bridgeport in 2010. His research interests lie at the intersection of computer networking, network security and modeling and simulation. Recently, he has been working on security issues in rogue access point detection, cognitive radios for wireless communications, and modeling and simulation of nano-networks. In the past, he has done research on the design, analysis, implementation, and comparisons of algorithms in the areas of wireless/multiuser communications, wireless sensor networks, information security, and parallel/distributed systems. He has authored and coauthored over 70 technical refereed and non-refereed papers in various conferences, international journal articles, and book chapters in research and pedagogical techniques. He is also an affiliate member of the Wireless and Mobile Communications lab at the University of Bridgeport.

Laura Rotunno received her MA and Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri at Columbia. Her research and teaching interests include nineteenth-century British literature, the novel, narrative theory, cultural studies, and genre and gender studies. "The Long History of 'In Short': Mr. Micawber, Letter-Writers, and Literary Men," an article that foregrounds her interest in nineteenth-century correspondence customs, appears in Victorian Literature and Culture. Her book "Postal Plots in British Fiction 1840-1898: Readdressing Correspondence in Victorian Culture" is forthcoming from Palgrave.

Nicholas Rowland got his Ph.D. from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, Department of Sociology in the Sociology of Technology with a minor study in Cultural Studies. He joined the faculty of Penn State Altoona in Fall 2007 as an Assistant Professor of Sociology. He teaches 9 or more contact hours per semester and conducts research year-round. His teaching responsibilities include: SOC 001 (Introductory Sociology), SOC 005 (Social Problems), SOC 424 (Social Change), and STS 200 (Contemporary Topics in Science, Technology, and Society). Each spring he also team teaches a core course in Environmental Studies (ENVST 200) and has recently contributed to an innovative new course on preparing interns for internships (INTSP 370). In addition, Dr. Rowland routinely offers independent study credit (SOC 296 or SOC 496) to students serving as research or teaching assistants or those interested in conducting their own research projects.

Dr. Rowland contributes to the Penn State Altoona community in a number of ways: his student-centered courses advance one of the college’s most popular minor studies, the sociology minor; for the past two years Dr. Rowland has participated in interdisciplinary teaching with colleagues in Environmental Studies; he oversees a growing handful of interns in collaboration with Tom Shaffer; he works closely with undergraduates outside of the classroom, presenting with them at conferences, aiding them in preparation for the Penn State Altoona Undergraduate Research Fair, editing and writing professional manuscripts with them, and conducting research with them; he continues to prepare manuscripts for publication and has remained active with regard to the regular delivery of conference presentations; and, over the last two years, Dr. Rowland’s service to the college and broader university has been enhanced. Above all, he sees himself as a “teacher-scholar” and shares the view that teaching, research, and service, when carefully coupled, are synergistic endeavors.

Dr. Ryoo's research interests include information assurance and security, software engineering, and computer networking. He conducts extensive research in software security, network/cyber security, security management (particularly in the government sector), software architecture, architecture description languages (ADLs), object-oriented software development, formal methods, and requirements engineering. He also has substantial industry experience working with Sprint and IBM in architecting and implementing secure, high-performance software for large-scale network management systems. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Kansas in 2005.