FIT Appoints New Full-Time Faculty

FIT has appointed nine faculty members to full-time positions. Their areas of expertise range from advertising design to energy research to textile development and marketing.

Classroom faculty include Dr. Amanda Greatens, assistant professor, Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing; Christine Lyons, assistant professor, Exhibition Design; Thomas McManus, associate professor, Advertising Design; Dr. Theanne Schiros, assistant professor, Chemistry; Dr. Jennifer Schloming, assistant professor, Mathematics; Dr. Mario Valero, assistant professor, Spanish; and Dr. Min Zhu, assistant professor, Textile Development and Marketing.

Dr. Amanda Greatens comes to FIT with 14 years of experience in cosmetics marketing, including three spent as the owner and founder of her own color cosmetics company. She previously served as vice president of marketing for Key West Aloe. Greatens earned her PhD in pharmaceutical science from the University of Cincinnati and her BS in biology from Butler University.

Christine Lyons has been teaching visual presentation and exhibition design part time in the undergraduate and graduate programs at FIT since 2008. She is also the director of the graphics department at Lee H. Skolick Architecture + Design Partnership. Lyons received a master’s degree in communication design from Pratt Institute and her BA from the University of Vermont.

An award-winning creator of ads, Thomas McManus was art director on the advertising team that won the $100,000 MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) Kelly Awards Grand Prize in 1988 and 1990 for its Absolut Vodka campaign. Before joining FIT, McManus was an adjunct professor at Parsons the New School for Design, teaching advertising and interactive concepts. He holds a BFA from Pratt Institute.

An expert on energy research, Dr. Theanne Schiros formerly was an associate research scientist at the Columbia University Energy Frontier Research Center. She developed the curriculum and course materials for a sustainable energy master’s program at Columbia and a certified distance-learning program for West African engineers. Schiros received her PhD in chemical physics from Stockholm University, her MA in physics from Hunter College, and her BA cum laude in art history and American studies from Fordham University. D

r. Jennifer Shloming has been teaching part time in the Science and Mathematics Department at FIT since 2006. She also taught a summer course in pre-calculus at Brooklyn College. Shloming earned her PhD and MA in mathematics education from Teachers College at Columbia University and her BA magna cum laude from the honors program in sociology at Cornell University.

FIT alumnus Dr. Mario Valero taught Spanish conversation part time at FIT before becoming a temporary fulltime assistant professor in fall 2013. He has been an instructor at Kean University and a teaching fellow and guest lecturer at Columbia University. Valero holds a PhD and an MPhil in Latin American and Iberian cultures and an MA in Hispanic studies from Columbia University, an MA in art market: principles and practices from FIT, and a BA in economics from Universidad de Carabobo in Venezuela.

Dr. Min Zhu formerly was principal of Inversion, LLC, a company that provides fashion products with air filtration function. Before that, she was section manager, technical administration, for Tal Apparel Ltd. in Hong Kong, where she conducted a series of training sessions on textile fundamental theories and new technology development. Zhu received a PhD in textile chemistry from Donghua University, Shanghai, an MBA from Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MS and BS in textile chemistry from Xi’an Polytechnic University in Xi’an, China.