Faculty

Brian Komei Dempster is a professor of rhetoric and language and a faculty member in Asian Pacific American Studies at the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also serves as Director of Administration for the Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Studies. He has been at USF since 2001 and received the Distinguished Teaching Award (along with Ronald Sundstrom) in 2010. At the university, he has taught various courses in the Rhetoric and Language Department and has instructed creative writing...

Leslie Dennen is the director of the Writing Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Language. She received her Masters degree in Teaching English as a Second Language and Certificate in Composition from San Francisco State University. She received her Doctorate in Education from USF in 2007. Her dissertation investigated how student engagement in on-campus activities affected student identity and beliefs about their learning process. Her article "Writing Center for...

Nathan Dennis is Assistant Professor in the Art History & Museum Studies program and also teaches in the MA in Museum Studies program at USF. Nathan specializes in late-antique and medieval art and architecture, particularly of the Mediterranean and Near East, including the material and visual traditions of Western Christian, Byzantine/Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and Islamic cultures. He received his PhD in the History of Art from Johns Hopkins University, writing his dissertation on the...

Jennifer A. Dever is Professor in the Department of Biology. She received her PhD from Texas Tech University. Professor Dever studies the genetics of threatened and/or endangered populations of vertebrates, including crocodiles and foothill yellow-legged frogs. She employs molecular markers to assess the genetic structure of these populations, with the goal of species conservation. Several graduate and undergraduate students are collaborating with Professor Dever on this research. Watch her NPR...

Stephen Devlin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and is the director of the Master’s in Data Science program (MSDS). He has also served as department chair and director of the undergraduate data science program. Stephen has a bachelor’s degree from Manhattan College in New York, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland. He was a C.L.E. Moore Instructor at MIT before moving to the University of San Francisco. His research interests...

Steven I. Doctors, PHD maintains a project management practice (The CM+ Group, LLC) in the San Francisco Bay Area. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and both a Master of Science and PhD in Architecture from the University of California (Berkeley). He has been teaching architectural history, theory, and professional practice in the Department of Art + Architecture since 2007. His research interests include the history of architectural practice, design theory and...

A native of County Donegal in the north of Ireland, Cathal Doherty is a Jesuit priest of the Irish province. Prior to joining the faculty at USF in the academic year 2015-16, he previously taught at Boston College and University College Dublin, Ireland. A linguist turned theologian, he completed doctoral degrees in theology (Boston College) and theoretical linguistics (University of California, Santa Cruz). His main research interests lie in dogmatic, especially sacramental theology, in...

David Donahue, the new director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Services and the Common Good, is also joining the School of Education as an affiliated professor of education. Prior to USF, he was at Mills College for 23 years as a faculty member in the School of Education, working in teacher education and the doctoral program, and most recently was interim provost. He is the recipient of Mills College’s two highest teaching awards: The Sarlo Award and the Metz Chair. His research...

Eve-Anne Doohan joined the faculty at USF in 2004. She studies the communication of married couples, with a particular interest in relational history narratives and their connection to marital and individual outcomes. She is also interested in beliefs people have about marriage. Her current research focuses on how married couples make the decision to have children. Her work has been published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Communication, and the Western Journal of...

Brian Dowd-Uribe is an Assistant Professor in the International Studies Department at the University of San Francisco. His current research explores the social, agro-ecological and economic dimensions of food, agriculture and water policy, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. Specifically Professor Dowd-Uribe’s research examines whether and to what extent transgenic crops benefit small farmers in Burkina Faso, the role of decentralized water governance committees in mitigating...