Faculty
Global Studies Faculty
The faculty who teach in the Global Studies Department come from many different disciplines, but share a commitment to engaged student learning. Learn more about some of the faculty who teach in the program below.
Nuria Alonso García
Nuria Alonso García is a Professor in Global Studies at Providence College and directs the M.A. in Global Education u0026 TESOL and the M.Ed. in Urban Teaching. Her professional career has been dedicated to the study of second language acquisition (SLA), critical language pedagogies, curriculum development and teacher education. She entered the Applied Linguistics field as an undergraduate in Spain, and throughout her doctoral studies and extensive academic engagement in Latin America, Russia, United States and Western Europe, she has gained a more profound understanding and praxis of how language, identity and cultural constructs intersect. Her research focuses on how culturally responsive practices promote inclusivity in learning and how civic engagement and experiential learning support an ecology of education across borders and foster reciprocal partnerships. She has led community engagement projects in Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Nicaragua and collaborated with linguists and aspiring teachers from Russia during her Fulbright appointment at the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University Institute of Humanities, where she remains a visiting scholar.
Nuria Alonso García
Kara Cebulko
Kara Cebulko is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology with a joint appointment in the Department of Global Studies. Her current research focuses on how legal status and other forms of stratification shape the transition to and experience of young adulthood for 1.5- generation immigrants. She teaches courses on migration, borders, and globalization and is the author of one book, u003cemu003eDocumented, Undocumented, and Something Else: The Incorporation of Children of Brazilian Immigrants, and has published in a number of journals, including Sociological Quarterly, the Journal of Marriage and Family, The Journal of Family Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, Ethnicities, and Sociological Perspectives.
Kara Cebulko
Bilal Ibrahim
Bilal Ibrahim is an Associate Professor of Global Studies. He studies a flourishing tradition of theology, philosophy, science, and Sufism produced from 12th century and after across the Islamicate world. His current projects explore the critical transformations and interactions that develop between the rational sciences and religiousu or scriptural sciences, beginning with the pivotal role of the well-known theologian, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210). His current book manuscript is titled The Forgotten Tradition: Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the Expansion of the Islamic Sciences.
Bilal Ibrahim
Trina Vithayathil
Dr. Vithayathil is a professor of global studies and affiliated faculty in Asian
studies and women’s and gender studies at Providence College. She teaches
courses related to globalization, inequality, caste, and political economy. In her
courses, she incorporates her expertise as a sociologist and scholar of India
who does historically grounded research on social, political, and economic
processes that generate structural inequalities in the present.
She believes that global studies courses can introduce students to an entirely
different way of viewing the world and loves supporting students on their
journey to discover their role in addressing some the most complex
challenges that face our local and global communities. She is the author of
Counting Caste: Census Politics, Bureaucratic Deflection, and Brahmanical
Power in India (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and numerous research
articles.
Trina Vithayathil
Adjunct Faculty
Jim Tull
After serving for 12 years as co-director of Amos House, a Catholic Worker-inspired homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Providence, Jim began teaching courses in Community Service and Peace Studies at Providence College (PC) and Philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) in 1995 as he co-parented his young children, Sofia and Nelson. Jim has continued since then to teach Philosophy at CCRI (including at the state prison) and, since 2006, Global Studies at PC. During this time, he has facilitated workshops on cultural transformation, community building, systems thinking and deep ecology. In 2015, Jim co-founded a cooperative homestead and farm in Chepachet, RI. He is the author of Positive Thinking in a Dark Age: Essays on the Global Transition (Oct. 2016).
Jim Tull
Department of Global Studies
Office Hours: 8:30am-4:30pm
Feinstein 315
globalstudies@providence.edu
Dr. Trina Vithayathil
Department Chair
Office Hours: Mondays, 2:30-3:30pm
Feinstein 300
tvithaya@providence.edu
