Deborah Keene
Associate Director, Foundations Coordinator
147 Blount Living-Learning Center | (205) 348-3334 | dakeene@ua.edu
Deborah Keene is an archaeological scientist who specializes in Southeastern U.S. prehistory. She started excavating with the Schiele Museum when she was 15 and went on to work for various private archaeological firms while an undergraduate and then graduate student. She worked as a principal investigator at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology after earning her Ph.D. She specialized in ceramic analysis, shallow geophysics, households, and subsistence strategies. After moving to Alabama, her focus changed from fieldwork to education. She uses her anthropological and scientific backgrounds to teach liberal arts courses for the Blount Scholars Program.
Kendra Abbott
Senior Fellow
Mary Harmon Bryant Hall 357 | (254) 653-7300 | kabbott3@ua.edu
Kendra is a professional nature photographer, educator and outdoor enthusiast. She is an ecologist and has focused on endangered species and conservation issues much of her career.
Seth Bordner
Senior Fellow
333 Ten Hoor Hall | (205) 348-5942 | seth.bordner@ua.edu
Seth Bordner joined the University in 2011 after finishing his doctorate at UNC Chapel Hill. Originally from central Pennsylvania, he is a first-generation college student who never took the sensible advice to get a real job. He teached the History of Philosophy sequence (PHL 211 & 212) in the philosophy department, along with regular sections of Intro to Ethics and Philosophy of Sport. His research is an eclectic mix of history of philosophy and contemporary applied issues in science and sports. Fall 2017 is his first semester teaching in Blount.
Toni Copeland
Senior Fellow
201 Oliver-Barnard Hall | (205) 348-1706 | toni.copeland@ua.edu
“But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” (E.B. White 1969).
Toni Copeland is a biocultural medical anthropologist interested in how biological, cultural, and social factors interact to influence health and illness. Her research as primarily been in Kenya and the American Deep South.
Andrew Dewar
Senior Fellow
221 Lloyd Hall | (205) 348-9928 | adewar@ua.edu
Andrew Raffo Dewar is a composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and arts organizer.
As a composer and performer of experimental acoustic and electronic music, his work has been presented throughout North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, and he appears on nearly two dozen commercially released recordings.
As a scholar, Dr. Dewar’s research interests include experimentalism in the arts, jazz and improvisation, music technologies, intercultural music, and 1960s intermedia arts. His writing has been published in the Journal of the Society for American Music, Leonardo Music Journal, Jazz Perspectives, the New Grove Dictionary of American Music (2nd Edition), Musicians and Composers of the 20th Century, and the Jazz Research Journal. He also has chapters published in Negotiated Moments: Improvisation, Representation and Subjectivity, edited by Gillian Siddall & Ellen Waterman (Duke University Press, 2016), and Experimental Music in Practice: Perspectives from Latin America, edited by Alejandro Madrid, Ana Minutti, Eduardo Herrera (Oxford University Press, 2017).
Dr. Dewar is an Associate Professor in New College and the School of Music.
Matt Feminella
Senior Fellow
263-B BB Comer Hall | (205) 348-9067 | mfeminella@ua.edu
Matt Feminella is an Assistant Professor of German in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics and the Fulbright Program Advisor for UA. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2016. When he isn’t teaching undergraduate and graduate German courses, Dr. Feminella spends his time researching eighteenth-century intellectual history and theater cultures.
Trudier Harris
Senior Fellow
University Distinguished Research Professor
Morgan Hall 108 | (205) 348-5065 | tharris13@ua.edu
Hank Lazer
Senior Fellow
138 Blount Living-Learning Center | (205) 348-8324 | hlazer@ua.edu
Hank Lazer has published twenty-five books of poetry, including Poems Hidden in Plain View (2016, in English and in French), Brush Mind: At Hand (2016), and The New Spirit (2005). He has two new books of poetry forthcoming in the fall of 2017: Thinking in Jewish (N20) and Evidence of Being Here: Beginning in Havana (N27). In January 2014, Lazer retired from the University of Alabama after 37 years in a variety of positions, including Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Executive Director of Creative Campus, and Professor of English. Lazer’s Blount / New College seminar is “Zen Buddhism and Radical Approaches to the Arts,” where students practice meditation and learn about some radical art forms. Lazer convenes a weekly meditation session (open to all) on Monday evenings, 5:15-6:00pm, at the Ferguson Center. He can be reached at hlazer@bama.ua.edu .
Richard Richards
Senior Fellow
335 ten Hoor Hall | (205) 348-5942 | rrichard@ua.edu
Richard Richards, professor and chair of the philosophy department, has been involved with the Blount Scholars program since its first year. His research is in the philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, and he has two books published by Cambridge University Press, The Species Problem: A Philosophical Analysis, and Biological Taxonomy: A Philosophical Introduction. He is finishing a third book with Cambridge, The Biology of Art.
Stephen Schwab
Senior Fellow
352 ten Hoor Hall | (205) 348-1238 | schwa008@ua.edu
Dr. Stephen Schwab, former (and retired) official at the Central Intelligence Agency, is now an adjunct assistant professor of history at The University of Alabama. Since 2009, he has been doing his best to inspire or, if necessary, “spook” young Blount Scholars into doing their best to succeed as undergraduates and later in life.
Stephen Tedeschi
Senior Fellow
224 Morgan Hall | (205) 348-5065 | satedeschi@ua.edu
Steve Tedeschi is an English professor at UA.
Claire Thompson
Senior Fellow
ten Hoor Hall | (205) 454-4954 | cethompson1@bama.ua.edu
Dr. Claire Thompson is an anthropologist who specializes in Southeastern archaeology. She enjoys bringing a cultural perspective to the Blount Foundations courses that she teaches.
