Emotional Imprint™
Our Educational Team

Marshall Alcorn is Professor of English and Human Sciences at George Washington University. He was Excutive Director of APCS from 1995 to 2004. He is author of Narcissism and the Literary Libido: Rhetoric Text, and Subjectivity, and Changing the Subject in English Class: Discourse and the Constructions of Desire, which won the Ross Winterowd Award in the 2002. He is Chair of the Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities and is on the faculty of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

Suzanne Amro is a full time high school teacher who specializes in the instruction of Ethics and Religious Culture. She teaches a course with the same title aimed at future teachers at Concordia University. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Education from McGill University and is now completing her Master’s Degree in Theological Studies at Concordia, where her focus is on Applied Ethics with an emphasis on the practice of dialogue. In May 2011, she presented on a Peace Education panel at a CIES conference (Comparative & International Education Society). She has recently become involved with the Montreal Dialogue Group and Compassionate Listening training. She has been published in the Concordia journal, Word in the World, and she has contributed to an ongoing interdisciplinary project on Frankenstein involving several universities.

Mark Bracher is cofounder of APCS, founding editor of PCS, and director of the Center for Literature and Psychoanalysis at Kent State University. His research attempts to articulate pedagogical and other interventions into the psychological roots of social injustice. Publications include Lacan, Discourse, and Social Change: A Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism; The Writing Cure: Psychoanalysis, Composition, and the Aims of Education; and Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation.

Melissa R. Brand, Psy.D. has worked for 18 years in education—teaching students of all ages, from preschool to graduate school. She began her career working with children with autism in the public schools. Six years later, she pursued her doctorate in school psychology with the goal of having a greater, systems level impact on children. Subsequently, Dr. Brand has developed and implemented a number of interactive prevention, social skills, and advisory curricula for schools across the country. Through her work in prevention, she has trained hundreds of faculty members, who, in turn, have taught thousands of children how to effectively articulate their emotions, improve communication, develop self-esteem, cooperate, problem-solve, engage in dialogue, stay healthy, avoid alcohol tobacco and other drugs, self-advocate, prepare for college, and lead with the goal of improving their selves, their schools and their society. Currently, Dr. Brand is a licensed psychologist and consultant in private practice in Philadelphia. She received both her masters and doctorate in school psychology from The Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Writing from Bard College and Post-Baccalaureate in Special Education from Kean University, She is New Jersey Certified in School Psychology, Special Education and Elementary Education.

Victoria Grinman, LMSW is a licensed social worker. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Social Work from Adelphi University and her Master of Social Work from Columbia University. Victoria works at The Summit School in Queens, NY, which is one of the few schools that specialize in educating children experiencing emotional challenges and learning disabilities, as well as high functioning autistic spectrum disorders. She provides individual and group therapy, and she leads social skills and emotional intelligence groups for this special needs population of students. Victoria is a PhD candidate at Adelphi School of Social Work. Her research interests include therapy options for special needs children, and support and neurobiology education for parents of students with developmental and mental health disorders.