Faculty members retiring
2024 marks the completion of the final year of teaching for the Trinity College faculty members listed below.
WENDY C. BARTLETT
Professor of Physical Education and Head Women’s Squash Coach
Wendy Bartlett led the women’s squash team for four decades, taking the Bantams to 12 College Squash Association (CSA) Howe Cup National Championship final matches and four Howe Cup victories, in 2002, 2003, 2014, and 2024, the latter after a perfect 17–0 season. Trinity remains the only women’s NESCAC champion in league history, winning every season since the inaugural championship in 2007. Bartlett was inducted into the CSA Hall of Fame in 2019 and was honored as the NESCAC Coach of the Year in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2023. In addition, Bartlett served as the head women’s tennis coach for more than 30 years. Prior to Trinity, she was director of racquet sports at the Fox Chapel Golf Club in Pittsburgh. Bartlett earned a B.A. in history and political science from Rollins College and an M.A. in physical education from Central Connecticut State University.
DANIEL G. BLACKBURN
Thomas S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Biology
Daniel Blackburn served as the Thomas S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Biology at Trinity from 2007 to 2023. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, he earned an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in zoology at Cornell University. After working as a research associate at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine, he joined Trinity’s biology faculty in 1988. Blackburn taught courses in zoology, histology, evolution, and electron microscopy and served for 10 years as chair of the Biology Department. He obtained NSF funding to construct Trinity’s Electron Microscopy Center and collaborated in founding a new organization in science education. His research has focused on reproductive specializations in reptiles and fishes, and he has published more than 120 papers in the literature, many of which were co-authored with Trinity undergraduates doing research in his lab. In 2015, he was awarded the Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence.
ADRIENNE FULCO
Associate Professor of Legal and Policy Studies
Adrienne Fulco, a Trinity faculty member since 1983, served as director of the Public Policy and Law Program for 20 years in addition to teaching courses that focused on the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. She also served as the faculty coordinator of the legal studies minor and often advised students interested in attending law school. Some of her recent courses included “The Supreme Court and Public Policy,” “Title IX: Changing Campus Culture,” and “Law, Gender, and the Supreme Court.” She has presented her works at professional conferences in the United States and abroad and has served as a political commentator for local and national media. Her most recent publications, which focus on the religion, law, and public policy, have appeared in the Journal of Church and State and Connecticut Law Review. Fulco earned a B.A. from Boston University and a Ph.D. from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
ADAM J. GROSSBERG
Adam Grossberg, a Trinity faculty member since 1986, earned a B.A. from The College of Wooster and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His teaching focused on microeconomics, econometrics, and labor economics. While his research on labor economics includes widely cited articles on maternal labor supply and on the consequences of legal minimum wages, his greatest joy at Trinity has come from his personal relationships with colleagues and the more than 3,500 students who enrolled in his classes.
SAMUEL D. KASSOW ’66
Charles H. Northam Professor of History
Sam Kassow is an internationally recognized scholar of Russian and Soviet history, modern European history, and the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. After graduating from Trinity with a B.A. in history in 1966, he went on to earn an M.S. from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Princeton University. During his more than 50 years on the Trinity faculty, he helped develop the Guided Studies program (now the Humanities Gateway Program), served as chair of the History Department, and directed the Jewish Studies Program. He received the Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence in 2005 and the Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence in 2013. Kassow has authored numerous works, including the book Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, which was made into a movie and translated into eight languages.
ANTHONY M. MESSINA
John R. Reitemeyer Professor of Political Science
Anthony Messina, who taught at Tufts University and the University of Notre Dame before coming to Trinity in 2008, earned a B.A. from Assumption College, an M.A. from Drew University, and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in political science. In his courses, he aspired to expose students to sophisticated yet accessible analyses of contemporary political problems and questions; his research focuses primarily on the politics of ethnicity and immigration within contemporary Europe. Messina authored Race and Party Competition in Britain (1989) and The Logics and Politics of Post-World War II Migration to Western Europe (2007) and edited or co-edited six books, including The Politics of New Immigrant Destinations: Transatlantic Perspectives (2017). His latest co-authored book is Immigration, Security, and the Liberal State: The Politics of Migration Regulation in Europe and the United States (2024).
JOHN PLATOFF
John Platoff was a performing pianist, studying in New York and at the Aspen Music Festival, before earning a Ph.D. in music from the University of Pennsylvania. At Trinity he taught courses on classical music, music theory, the psychology of music, and the Beatles and ’60s rock and roll. Platoff’s teaching helped students develop the skills of both musicians and historians. As musicians, his students learned to understand what composers of the past created: how their music works and what purposes it serves. As historians, his students grappled with the profound differences between the circumstances of people living in the past and those of our own time. Platoff frequently enriched his classes with live concerts, and he organized a campus-wide “Guerrilla Mozart” event to celebrate the 200th anniversary of The Marriage of Figaro. In 2016, Platoff received Trinity’s Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence.
RICHARD PRIGODICH
Scovill Professor of Chemistry
Richard Prigodich earned a B.A. in chemistry from Lake Forest College. For several years, he worked with deaf-blind children and students with learning disabilities before returning to chemistry, later earning a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Wesleyan University for his research on reactive organophosphorus compounds. Before joining the Trinity faculty in 1985, he was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in the Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Department at Yale University, where he used nuclear magnetic resonance to investigate protein-ligand interactions. He was drawn to Trinity by its teacher/scholar paradigm, which provided the opportunity to reinforce the lessons taught in the classroom with experience in the research laboratory. More than 30 of the many students who collaborated in Prigodich’s research program went on to receive M.D.s and Ph.D.s. His research interests still center on the interactions between proteins and the other biomolecules that they bind by using a variety of physical chemical techniques.
MIGUEL RAMIREZ
Ward S. Curran Distinguished Professor of Economics
Miguel Ramirez, a native of Chile and a naturalized U.S. citizen, earned a B.A., an M.S., and a Ph.D.—all in economics—from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A Trinity faculty member since 1985, he held visiting positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Haverford College, Vanderbilt University, Wesleyan College, and Yale University, where he currently offers a seminar in international trade and finance. His teaching interests lie primarily in the areas of Latin American economic development and international finance and open economy macroeconomics. His research is dedicated primarily to analyzing the challenges and opportunities that Latin American nations face as they attempt to stabilize and reform their economies in an increasingly globalized world. He also has published work in leading journals in the history of economic thought, such as the Journal of the History of Economic Thought, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, and Contributions to Political Economy.
PAULA RUSSO
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Paula Russo earned a B.S. from Syracuse University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University, all in mathematics. In 1987, after working as a lecturer at DePaul University, a research associate at Michigan State University, and an acting assistant professor at the University of Washington, she joined the Trinity faculty. Since then, she has served as chair of the Mathematics Department, interim director of the Aetna Quantitative Center, and founding director of the Science Alliance, now the Trinity Science Center. She also served in the College’s administration as the director of corporate and foundation relations and as the vice president for administration, a position in which she led the College’s master planning process and its decennial reaccreditation. Russo’s course list included all levels of calculus and statistics, two levels of analysis, and numerous major electives. In 1993, she received the College’s Dean Arthur H. Hughes Award for Achievement in Teaching.
