Ez-Zouhra Elmaaiden, PhD, is a visiting assistant professor of chemistry. A research and development scientist with multidisciplinary expertise in bioanalysis, preclinical research and formulation development, her work focuses on bioactive compound extraction, molecular biology workflows and cosmeceutical innovation. She holds multiple patents in extraction technologies and natural product development, bringing extensive experience in interdisciplinary project management, commercialization and graduate student mentorship.

Wan Ling Fahrer is a visiting assistant professor of , bringing more than two decades of experience across higher education, K–12 schools, museums and community-based arts learning. Her work centers on art education, museum and object-based learning, and inclusive approaches to contemporary art and pedagogy. She has held appointments at Hunter College, Queens College and the School of Visual Arts, plus museum education roles at institutions including MoMA, the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the Guggenheim and the New Museum. Fahrer has received the Keith Haring Scholarship Award and multiple outstanding art teacher awards from the NYC Department of Education, and previously served as president of the University Council for Art Education. She holds an MA in Art History from Hunter College and a BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

Marissa Galler, PhD ’26, is a clinical assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Public Health. With a clinical background spanning critical care, oncology and palliative care, her research focuses on nurse practitioner communication surrounding end-of-life conversations. An alumna of 91šú˛ú, where she earned her PhD, she also holds degrees and advanced certifications from Hofstra University, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Thomas Jefferson University and St. Luke’s Hospital School of Nursing.

Charleen Jacobs-Mcfarlane ’06, PhD ’23, is an assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Public Health. A nurse scientist, adult nurse practitioner and double alumna of 91šú˛ú, her clinical practice and research focus on health equity and rare disease care, particularly sickle cell disease. She previously served as a clinician-scientist and nurse practitioner at the Mount Sinai Center for Sickle Cell Disease, a postdoctoral fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a faculty member at Yale University and Columbia University. She earned both her BSN and PhD in nursing from 91šú˛ú.

Susan Kang ’14, MS ’15, DPT, is a clinical assistant professor of health and sport sciences. An 91šú˛ú alumna and former graduate assistant in the Human Performance Lab, Dr. Kang is excited to return to 91šú˛ú and join her colleagues in the exercise science program. Her professional experience spans clinical testing and a variety of rehabilitation settings, including acute care, sports, neuromuscular and cardiac rehabilitation. Through her private practice, Blueprint Performance Physical Therapy, she helps active adults return to the activities and goals that matter most to them. Dr. Kang holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in exercise physiology and earned her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree.

Kyungmin Lee, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences and sustainability director. Her research spans energy policy, climate policy, urban sustainability and community development, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Her recent work focuses on applying AI techniques to analyze public responses to environmental issues through large-scale image analysis. Dr. Lee holds a doctoral degree in energy and environmental policy, a master’s degree in environmental studies, and a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Louise Lee, EdD, is associate professor and founding program director of 91šú˛ú’s new Physician Assistant (PA) Program, to be housed within the College of Nursing and Public Health. Dr. Lee has worked as a PA educator for more than 26 years and as a clinically practicing PA in internal medicine and emergency medicine for nearly 40 years, holding leadership roles including department chair, program director, and director of didactic, clinical and research programs at universities across New England and New York. She has taught clinical medicine, patient assessment, and healthcare law and ethics, among other subjects. Dr. Lee holds a doctorate in education with a focus on higher education leadership, a master’s degree in healthcare administration and a bachelor’s degree in PA practice.

Yongjin Lee, PhD, is an assistant professor of health and sport sciences. Building on a decade as a K–12 physical education teacher and teacher community leader, Dr. Lee’s research examines how teacher and student reflection strengthens social and emotional development and informs curriculum design and instructional strategy. His recent work highlights physical education as a vehicle for building social awareness and responsible decision-making, and he is currently studying how artificial intelligence can support reflection among teachers and students to promote character and ethical growth.

Kathleen O’Connor is an assistant professor in the College of Nursing and Public Health. She is a PhD candidate at 91šú˛ú and a nurse practitioner and clinical researcher whose background spans pulmonary medicine, post-operative surgical care and nursing education. She previously served as an adjunct instructor at 91šú˛ú, a nurse practitioner and research coordinator at Northwell Health, and a clinical nurse at the Hospital for Special Surgery. O’Connor’s dissertation is focused on Rosemarie Rizzo Parse, PhD’s humanbecoming paradigm. She currently teaches pharmacology, fundamentals of nursing lab and health assessment lab at the undergraduate level, and her scholarly interests include nursing theory, competency-based nursing education and the human experience of isolation. She earned an MS from Pace University and bachelor’s degrees in nursing and kinesiology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Carlos Encina Oleart, PhD, is a visiting associate professor of sociology. A sociologist, journalist and organizational researcher, his work spans policy research, societal analytics, strategic communications and qualitative methodology. As a former investigative journalist and international correspondent for Chile’s La Tercera, he covered major national and global events, including human rights abuses during the Pinochet regime, the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis and international politics. He has advised multinational technology companies on strategic content and taught courses in criminology, gender studies, Latin American politics, the sociology of race and qualitative research methods.

Esi Quaidoo, PhD, is an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics. A registered dietitian nutritionist and public health researcher, her work spans clinical nutrition consulting, community health and dietetic practice. She previously served as a nutrition consultant at Mission Clinic Accra and worked as a researcher and educator at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds a PhD in Public Health from UMass Amherst, an MPhil in Human Nutrition from the University of Ghana and a BSc in Biochemistry from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology.

K. Lynn Robinson, PhD, is assistant professor of . She holds a PhD in Arts Administration, Education and Policy (concentration in art education) from The Ohio State University, began her studies at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a Master of Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University. She brings extensive experience in exhibit design and activation for arts institutions as a curatorial and archival assistant, and as a facilitator of community-based art and teacher development in arts integration. Her research expands the definition of educators to include caregivers exploring the arts and community-based interventions to support a “village” model for young Black learners and their caregivers, within and beyond formal schooling. She serves on the editorial review boards of Art Education, Visual Arts Research and the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, and as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education.

Jason Spencer, PhD, is assistant professor of communications, teaching and researching AI, emerging media, podcasting, virtual production and immersive storytelling, with a focus on how AI, XR and adaptive learning can support creative practice, personalized education and public communication. He earned his PhD from Texas A&M University, where his work in virtual production and AI-assisted education produced six intellectual property disclosures. His 20-plus years in film, TV and emerging tech include work with PBS, MTV Networks, Bravo, and documentaries by Blackside and Florentine Films, as well as teaching 1,800-plus students at Texas A&M, Prairie View A&M University, The Art Institutes and CUNY. Dr. Spencer’s current work explores how emerging tech can expand human creativity and learning while preserving human judgment, authorship and agency.

Sloan Vahldieck is an assistant teaching professor in the College of Nursing and Public Health. She is a nurse educator and adult nurse practitioner whose career reflects a deep commitment to clinical excellence, student development and community service. She has taught at 91šú˛ú since 2018; after discovering how much she loved teaching, Vahldieck returned to graduate school to pursue her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at 91šú˛ú. As an adult nurse practitioner at St. Francis Hospital, she provides comprehensive occupational health services, diagnostic interpretation and employee wellness support. Her earlier roles in the emergency department shaped her expertise in triage, quality assurance, interdisciplinary teamwork and high‑acuity patient care and developed her focus on initiatives that improve safety, strengthen clinical practice and enhance patient outcomes.

Eric Dean Wilson, PhD, is an assistant professor of English and faculty member in the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. He is the author of After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort (Simon & Schuster, 2021), a work of literary nonfiction weaving the science and history of Freon with reflections on living meaningfully in a warming world. His essays have appeared in The Baffler, Orion, Esquire, Time, and Evergreen Review, among other publications. He holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from The New School and a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center, and previously taught at Wagner College. He is currently writing a book-length work of literary nonfiction for Timber Press.

James Zahardis, PhD, is a visiting assistant professor of chemistry. He earned his doctorate at the University of Vermont and completed postdoctoral fellowships at both The University of Iowa and the University of Vermont. His research expertise centers on physical chemistry, with specializations in aerosols, mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy.

To learn more about the members of 91šú˛ú’s faculty, visit our Faculty Profiles.

The post Adelphi Welcomes New Faculty for 2026–2027 appeared first on Adelphi.

If you’ve answered yes to any, you might be in a parasocial relationship, according to Julianna Nails, a PhD student in clinical psychology at the 91šú˛ú Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology.

For the past several years, Nails has been studying the rise of parasocial relationships—or one-sided emotional connections between fans and public figures—in the age of social media. She wants to know what kinds of people are seeking out parasocial relationships with social media influencers, and what effects, if any, these relationships are having on their mental health.

At first glance, a parasocial relationship with an influencer might seem like a silver bullet for isolated young adults—a population wracked by a so-called global “loneliness epidemic.” Attachments to influencers allow feelings of intimacy to be accessed anytime, anywhere, with no risk of rejection. Nails was curious to learn more about the psychological consequences of these relationships. Can they really relieve loneliness? Or do they ultimately replace in-person connections and push people to isolate?

A Student-Faculty Collaboration That’s Breaking New Ground

As an undergraduate, Nails researched the decline of college students’ mental health since the 1980s. “Today, college students are significantly more anxious and depressed than they were a generation ago,” she said, “and I suspected social media had something to do with that.” That hunch became a full-fledged research project once she entered 91šú˛ú’s PhD program and found a faculty mentor in Katherine L. Fiori, PhD, professor and associate dean at the Derner School.

For Dr. Fiori, a developmental psychologist who studies interpersonal relationships and attachments, parasocial relationships were a promising line of scholarly inquiry. When she was introduced to Nails through Derner’s research mentor matching process, she had already been thinking about today’s “phone-based childhoods,” which have supplanted the “play-based childhoods” of yesteryear. If children now grow up with ubiquitous access to social media platforms, she wondered, are they more likely to form unhealthy attachments with the people on platforms? Parasociality offered a compelling entry into further exploration.

While looking into the literature, Nails and Dr. Fiori discovered a gap: parasocial relationships specifically with social media influencers. “It’s such a big part of young people’s online experience today,” Nails said, “but it’s something that hadn’t been studied in depth before.”

Their work has been more collaborative than the student-faculty dynamic might connote. “I’ve really enjoyed working together,” Nails said. “This is a newer interest for Dr. Fiori, so while she’s able to give me a lot of guidance, we’re still brainstorming together. I’m not necessarily being directed by an authority.” Dr. Fiori agrees, saying she often feels like she’s “speaking with a colleague.”

Surveying Where, Why and How Parasocial Relationships Are Formed

Since beginning her doctoral training in 2024, Nails has developed several different research projects to answer her research questions. Most recently, she presented her findings at Adelphi’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference and the International Association for Relationship Research’s annual conference in Scotland.

For her master’s thesis, Nails created a research survey for people between the ages of 18 and 29 who follow influencers on any platform. Survey participants were asked about their connection with their favorite influencer—in particular, whether their opinions and values align with the influencer’s—as well as their other social relationships, social media usage and emotional well-being.

Nails and Dr. Fiori are still sifting through data from the survey, but they’ve already identified several trends. “There are a lot of ways in which people are ‘using’ influencers,” Dr. Fiori noted. For some, “fun” or “entertainment” was the draw. Others admitted they were finding real social support from their favorite influencer.

Though influencers create content about everything from politics to tech gadgets, travel and fitness, the most popular content niche among survey respondents was “day in my life.” In these videos, an influencer takes the audience through a regular day, often beginning with a morning routine and their OOTD (outfit of the day), then interpolating clips of meals, exercise, work, errands and socializing over a voiceover narration. The content is frothy, but the audience appeal is, inexplicably, enormous. “We’re working on figuring that one out,” Nails said. “Are ‘day in my life’ videos providing pure entertainment value? Are they aspirational? Or are people feeling an emotional connection there?”

The Parasocial Paradox

At first, Nails hypothesized that parasocial relationships would reduce feelings of loneliness. As more survey data came in, however, she saw evidence of the opposite: Young people who form parasocial relationships are actually lonelier than those who don’t. Still, like many hypotheses in psychology research, this one is still correlational, not causal. In other words, Nails and Dr. Fiori don’t yet know if parasociality is making people lonely, or if lonely people are simply more likely to pursue parasocial relationships.

“We know what the intention is,” Dr. Fiori said. “People seek out relationships because they want to feel less lonely. But the brain isn’t equipped to think about parasocial relationships as different from in-person relationships, even though they are.” She’s hesitant to believe that parasocial relationships can have the same benefits, although the reality is, she says, a little more complicated. “Some young people with supportive friends and family will use influencers for extra support. Some don’t, and these relationships are all they have. That drives very different outcomes.”

Only further research will tell if parasocial relationships really do cause loneliness. As Nails embarks on work for her doctoral dissertation, she’s hoping to discover evidence of causality between parasociality and negative mental health outcomes, such as anxiety and depression, among young people.

“Everything in Moderation”

For now, Nails doesn’t necessarily recommend doing a digital detox if you think you’ve formed a parasocial relationship with an influencer. Instead, she says, focus on the reciprocal relationships in your life—your networks through work, school or hobbies, the friends and family you talk to every day—and you might see that obsessive, one-directional attachment fade to casual interest. “So far, our greatest takeaway has been ‘everything in moderation.’”

The post Are You in a One-Sided Relationship With Your Favorite Influencer? Psychology Says It Might Be Making You Lonelier appeared first on Adelphi.