Conn POSSE Mentors

Associate Teaching Professor, Hispanic Studies

Joined Connecticut College in 1992.

Education: B.A., Connecticut College, Class of 1985; Ph.D., Princeton University

Jessica Koehler graduated from Connecticut College in 1985 with a double major in Hispanic Studies and Economics. She attended graduate school at Princeton University and received a Ph.D in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Her specialization is Golden Age Spanish Literature and she is fluent in Spanish. She has taught at Connecticut College for over 20 years and loves teaching and mentoring students. Jessica has taught a large variety of courses during her years in the Hispanic Studies Department at Connecticut College ranging from 100-level language courses to 300-level literature and culture. She has also taught two first-year seminars and finds advising first-year students extremely rewarding. Jessica is thrilled to be a Posse mentor and is looking forward to meeting her students very soon.

Research & Instruction Librarian

Joined Connecticut College in 2013.

Education: B.A., Temple University, MLIS, McGill University

Andrew Lopez graduated magna cum laude from Temple University in Philadelphia in 2006 with a major in Philosophy and a minor in French, and he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He received the Janet Agnew Scholarship to attend the Graduate School for Library and Information Studies at McGill University, where he earned a Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) in 2008. In library school Andrew started indexing books and has been a freelance book indexer for almost 20 years, working with the University of Minnesota Press, Verso Books, Yale University Press, and Zone Books. At Connecticut College, Andrew is involved with the Africana Studies program, Fellowships and Scholarships, the Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts, the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment, and the Holleran Center for Community Action.

Professor of Anthropology

Joined Connecticut College in 2008.

Education: B.A., Portland State University, Cand. Mag., University of Oslo (Norway), Ph.D., City University of New York

Jeffrey Cole, Professor of Anthropology, was appointed Dean of the Faculty effective July 1, 2018; he had served as chair of the department of anthropology 2008-14 and as Associate Dean of the Faculty from January 1, 2015. The highest ranking officer after the president, the Dean of the Faculty is responsible for providing academic leadership for the College and its faculty. Food matters increasingly figure in Cole’s teaching and research. His earlier research explored varied aspects of migration, with a focus on Italy.
Cole is a fellow of the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment (GNCE) and has supervised individual studies and honors theses conducted by students in the GNCE and the Toor Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (CISLA).

Associate Professor of Economics

Joined Connecticut College in 2015.

Education: B.A., Boston University, M.A., University of Denver, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts

Most of Mark Stelzner’s research is focused on better understanding income inequality in the United States. He has conducted research on the evolution of labor laws during the Gilded Age and over the last forty years, the relationship between labor laws and inequality, the income shares of top earners in the late 1860s, the connection between support for workers and technological change, the evolution of antitrust administration since the 1960s, the link between inequality and politics, the connection between monopsony power and wage discrimination between like workers of different race, ethnicities, and gender groups, the degree to which Americans have overpaid for private medical care, the importance of slavery to the antebellum US economy, and the sources of productivity gains of enslaved workers during the same period. His work has been featured in the Economic Report of the President, the Economist, the Nation, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, the Center for American Progress, History, and other venues.