Kennedy serves as senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, and president of Waterkeeper Alliance. He is also a clinical professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School of Law’s Environmental Litigation Clinic and is co-host of Ring of Fire on Air America Radio. Earlier in his career, he served as assistant district attorney in New York City. He has worked on several political campaigns, including the presidential campaigns of Edward M. Kennedy in 1980, Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004.

Dr. James Payne, Chair of the Department of Economics, has been selected to participate in the competitive Fulbright Senior Specialists Program and recently received a Fulbright Senior Specialist grant in Economics at the Institute of Economics in Zagreb, Croatia. The Fulbright Senior Specialist program is designed to provide short-term academic opportunities for U.S. faculty and professionals. Specifically, the shorter grant lengths provide specialists greater flexibility to pursue a grant that works best with their current academic or professional commitments. Non-U.S. post-secondary academic institutions from around the world can submit a request for a senior specialist to visit their institution.

“I knew selection to the roster was competitive and was pleasantly surprised to have made the cut,” said Payne. “This will make my third visit to Zagreb. My first visit was in 1987 as a graduate student at Florida State University as part of a team of researchers developing a macroeconometric model of the Yugoslav economy. However, the political unrest and war in the region delayed my second visit until 2000.” The University of Zagreb (1669) is the oldest and largest university in southeastern Europe. 

John B. Pryor, Department of Psychology, received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University in 1977 and began teaching at Illinois State University in 1985. Pryor was the Director of the College of Arts and Sciences Research Office from 1995-1998 and was Acting Chair of the Department of Psychology in 1998-1999. He is a Fellow at the Association for Psychological Science and at the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. He has received 20 different awards and research grants totaling over 2.5 million dollars. Furthermore, he has published nearly 70 different papers in various academic publications and currently has seven different works in progress. “John is one of the most accomplished scholars in our department,” said Dr. David Barone, Chair of the Department of Psychology.

Pryor's two principal research interests include the study of stigma and sexual harassment. His research on stigma has influenced anti-stigma initiatives in many community-based HIV prevention organizations across the country. His research on sexual harassment has established his credentials as a consultant retained by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Justice, as well as law firms from Rhode Island to Hawaii. His sexual harassment research has been featured in PBS' Nova series.