
Current Faculty and Staff
Lourdes Albuixech
Associate Professor - Spanish, Director of Graduate Studies
Lourdes Albuixech received her Ph.D from U.C. Riverside in 1997. A native of Spain, Dr, Albuixech specializes in Spanish Literature of the Middle Ages (especially Late Middle Ages), the Early Modern period, and in Spanish Women Writers. Dr. Albuixech ...read full profile >>
Mont Allen
Associate Professor - Classics and Art History, Classics Advisor
Mont Allen is an art historian & archaeologist of the ancient Mediterranean world. His research interests include Greek and Roman funerary sculpture, ancient sculptural tools and techniques, Greek mythology, Roman painting, Late Antique religions, intellectual ...read full profile >>
Kimberly Berger
Assistant Lecturer, American Sign Language
Kimberly Berger fell into the Deaf World while finishing her bachelor’s degree in 1991. It was her very first American Sign Language class at SIU that launched her passion for ASL and the people who use it. Its art, literature, politics and cultural ideals ...read full profile >>
Mary Bricker
German Advisor, German Section Head; Associate Professor - German
Mary Bricker earned her doctorate from the University of Illinois. Her research spans eighteenth- to twentieth-century German literature and includes fairy tales, German theater, M.M. Bakhtin, and Jewish Studies. Her teaching areas include German language and literature, Holocaust literature, German theater, and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.
Francesca Dennstedt
Assistant Professor - Spanish

Office: Faner 2021
Phone: 618-453-5429
Email: francesca.dennstedt1@siu.edu
Dr. Francesca Dennstedt received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, where she also completed a certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her main areas of research are twentieth-century and contemporary Mexican literature ...read full profile >>
Brianna Janssen Sánchez
Assistant Professor, School of Education and School of Languages & Linguistics

Office: Faner 2423
Email: brianna.janssen@siu.edu
Brianna Janssen Sánchez received her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2015. Dr. Janssen Sánchez, an alumna of SIU (B.A. FLIT/Spanish 2007, M.A. Spanish 2009), specializes in foreign language teaching methodology, instructional technology in ...read full profile >>
David Johnson
Professor of Classics
My primary research interest these days is Socratic literature, particularly Xenophon's Socratic works. For the last 100 years or so Xenophon's works have often been ignored, while Plato's works have been studied ever more intensely. I am convinced that ...read full profile >>
Jennifer Smith
Professor of Spanish; Spanish Section Head and Advisor
Dr. Jennifer Smith received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature from Indiana University. Her main areas of research are late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iberian literature and culture, with a special focus on medical discourses on gender ...read full profile >>
Satoshi Toyosaki
Professor - Japanese Advisor, Director of International Studies
Satoshi Toyosaki Associate Professor, Director of International Studies, Japanese はじめまして! I am an associate professor in the Department of Languages, Cultures, and International Trade. I also ...read full profile >>
Shu-Ling Wu
Associate Professor - Chinese, Chinese Advisor, East Asian Section Head, FLIT Director
Shu-Ling Wu received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literatures from the University of Hawaii in 2011. She has taught at the University of Hawaii, Kapiolani Community College in Hawaii, the Defense Language Institute, and West Point. Her research specialization is in ...read full profile >>