Our People
Wade Green
Dr. Green serves as continuing assistant professor and clinical education coordinator for the Master of Athletic Training Program. He has both clinical and didactic experience in the areas of orthopedics, rehabilitation, primary care, and diagnostic ultrasound. He has published in the Journal of Athletic Training Education on parallels between primary care and the athletic training practice. He is also a practicing clinician for the past 18 years in college/university, multi-specialty orthopedics, performing arts, and occupational health settings.
Our People
Julie K. Bartley
As a Professor in the Department of Environment, Geography, and Earth Sciences (EGE), Julie K. Bartley teaches courses in the Geology and Environmental Studies programs. With a background in chemistry and geology, Professor Bartley brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of the Earth’s past and present. As a teacher, she strives to know her students as individuals and to inspire interest in the Earth’s past and care for its future. She has also held significant leadership roles at Gustavus, including serving as chair of EGE, as the project director for the Inclusive Excellence Project, and as Associate Provost and Dean of Sciences and Education.
Professor Bartley’s expertise lies in interpreting ancient environments, with a particular focus on the Precambrian. Her research explores how microbial communities shaped and were shaped by the environments in which they lived. She and her students study the fossil record and the chemical signatures left by life hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago. At Gustavus, she actively involves students in this discovery process, supervising numerous undergraduate research projects that range from evaluating stromatolites in Minnesota to analyzing the Martian surface signs of habitability.
Students who collaborate with Professor Bartley might conduct fieldwork, perform laboratory analyses, analyze imagery, work with databases, or some combination of these. In the classroom, Professor Bartley teaches a wide array of courses taken by students across campus. Her teaching philosophy is characterized by a commitment to effective and inclusive instruction and a firm belief that every student is equipped to succeed. Whether a geology major, a general education student, or a first-semester Gustie, students can expect to take an active role in class, have many opportunities for hands-on experiences, and be challenged to grow as they learn.
Beyond her teaching and research, Professor Bartley serves Gustavus and the broader scientific community in many ways. She recently served as the Faculty Shepherd for the Nobel Hall of Science renovation and addition project and has co-chaired the Nobel Conference. She is a trained facilitator for two national programs: the ADVANCEGeo Partnership, which aims to improve workplace climate in the geosciences, and the Traveling Workshop Program, whose workshops help strengthen geoscience departments.
As the curator of the Chester Johnson Geology Museum, Professor Bartley regularly shares her passion for geology with K-12 students and the public. Whether leading fossil collecting field trips or presenting to local community organizations, she enjoys helping others see the landscape as a "time machine." Her dedication to service was recently honored with the Gustavus Faculty Service Award.
Outside of her professional life, she has served as the chair of a local charter school board and remains an active member of several professional societies, including the Geological Society of America, the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, and the Association of Women Geoscientists.
Our People
Stephanie Otto
A graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College herself, Stephanie was delighted to return to her undergraduate alma mater as a professor. Stephanie teaches courses both within and beyond the Exercise Physiology major, and she finds student mentorship to be among the most rewarding aspects of her work. Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the concept of vocation, emphasizing the integration of academic learning with personal purpose. She is committed to helping students discern how their skills, values, and passions can be meaningfully applied in service to others, preparing them not only for professional success but also for lives of purpose and engagement. Research is intentionally embedded within the Exercise Physiology curriculum at Gustavus, and she regularly serves as a faculty mentor for multiple student-led, independent research projects. These projects are frequently presented at local, regional, and national conferences across the country.
Her scholarly interests focus on the relationship between physical activity and bone mineral density. Most recently, she published an article in the International Journal of Fitness titled “Step Count, Calcium Intake, and Bone Mineral Density Among Women Using Depo-Provera.”
Stephanie is an active presenter and attendee at national meetings of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), where she has earned Fellow status. She has also served on the ACSM Women, Sport, and Physical Activity Committee.
Our People
Christine Nessler
For more than twenty years, Christine Nessler worked as a marketing and public relations professional across government, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors. As a former entrepreneur and franchise owner, she has experience building brands from the ground up and maintaining a strong community presence. Beyond the business world, creative writing is her primary passion. As a freelance writer, she contributed articles to various regional publications. Her short stories and essays are featured in Half and One online literary journal and The Motherly Collective.
In 2024, Nessler joined the faculty at Gustavus. Students in her courses gain hands-on experience and the practical skills necessary to thrive in the workplace by applying classroom concepts to real-world community and business projects. In Nessler’s marketing courses, her favorite part of the semester is watching the students gain confidence as they serve as consultants for local business clients. As they develop strategic marketing plans, students also develop communication, project management, and leadership skills. Similarly, in Introduction to Management, her students build their own business from the ground up. According to Nessler, watching their final business plan presentations makes her optimistic about their futures as business and community leaders.
Outside of the classroom, Nessler serves on the Board of Directors for the Harry Meyering Center, volunteers as a reader of creative nonfiction for The Good Life Review, and cheers on her three kids at their various activities.
Our People
Marcia Bunge
Marcia J. Bunge, PhD, is Professor of Religion and holds the Drell and Adeline Bernhardson Distinguished Endowed Chair of Lutheran Studies. Bunge earned her BA in Music and English from St. Olaf College (Phi Beta Kappa) and her MA and PhD.in Theology from the University of Chicago. She also studied at the University of Tübingen and conducted research in Germany as a Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow. Before coming to Gustavus in 2013, she was Professor of Humanities and Theology at the Honors College of Valparaiso University. Since 2014, she has served as an Extraordinary Research Professor at North-West University in South Africa.
Bunge’s teaching and scholarship have addressed issues in theology, social and environmental ethics, women’s studies, childhood studies, and inter-religious studies. A central focus of her scholarship is conceptions of and commitments to children in diverse religious traditions. She has published numerous articles and six books on the subject, including The Child in Christian Thought (Eerdmans, 2001) and Children, Adults, and Shared Responsibilities: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2012). From 2013–2017, she served as a core collaborator in the interdisciplinary “European Childhoods” project at the University of Oslo and co-edited one of its volumes, Nordic Childhoods 1750–1960: From Folk Beliefs to Pippi Longstocking (Routledge, 2018).
Related to her scholarship on children, Bunge has also written extensively on moral and spiritual formation and Lutheran perspectives on education and vocation. She is co-editor of So that All May Flourish: The Aims of Lutheran Higher Education (Fortress, 2023), translator of selected writings by the German theologian and educator Johann Gottfried Herder, and co-founder of the Gustavus Academy for Faith, Science, and Ethics. From 2023–2025, she contributed to the “Character Development, Ethical Education, and Value Transmission” project co-hosted by Emory University and Heidelberg University.
Drawing on her areas of expertise, Bunge has contributed to academic and advocacy initiatives around the world and secured more than $4.5 million in research, institutional, and civic engagement grants. She lectures widely, has served on international editorial boards and academic committees, and co-founded the Childhood Studies and Religion Program Unit of the American Academy of Religion. Her advocacy work includes child-focused projects, such as Georgetown University’s “Collaborative on Global Children's Issues,” and justice-related initiatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the World Council of Churches, and faith-based organizations. As a Lutheran theologian and holder of the Bernhardson Chair, she also cultivates relationships between Gustavus and other ELCA-affiliated institutions in the United States and abroad.
Bunge’s collaborations have connected her with colleagues and initiatives across six continents and reflect her enduring commitments to interdisciplinary inquiry, inter-religious engagement, and the flourishing of people and the planet.
Our People
Andrew Evenson
Andrew Evenson ’09 has been a Professor in the Business and Economics Department at Gustavus since January 2025. After many years of practicing law and working in public accounting (International Tax – Transfer Pricing), Andrew made the transition to higher education and finds great satisfaction in returning to his alma mater and helping students prepare for careers and life.
Since Fall 2023, Andrew (“Big E” to his team) has been an assistant coach with the Gustavus Men’s Golf Team. Andrew was a member of the team when he was a student at Gustavus and is so thrilled to be back with the program and supporting student-athletes. His focus in supporting the team is to get to know each player, highlight their strengths, and encourage each player to take satisfaction in making improvement over time.
Andrew has a passion for finding effective ways to explain the principles and processes of accounting so that students can explore the rewarding careers available to them. Through training staff, informing clients, and assisting student-athletes in his various prior roles; he discovered that different methods work for different audiences, but when you find the right mix of instruction, it is very satisfying to open doors for greater exploration, communication, and progress.
Andrew’s accounting career got started as a 2009 accounting major (History minor) graduate from Gustavus. While at Gustavus, he learned fundamental concepts and applied them through modeling and team projects. His professors were very helpful in one-on-one meetings helping him when he felt stuck or guiding his team when they were running into issues. He appreciates that the professors presented varied challenges and held him to high standards because that process gave him the confidence and skills to tackle the difficult tasks and projects of his career.
After graduating from Gustavus, Andrew attended William Mitchell College of Law (now known as Mitchell Hamline School of Law) in St. Paul, MN and received his Juris Doctor degree from there in the spring of 2012. The experience expanded his research, investigation, and learning skills while also giving him the opportunity to work with professors, visiting professionals, and fellow students who provided him with a network of support and wisdom.
Andrew’s teaching methods present concepts in various ways so that students with different learning styles can be reached and to increase the chances that students can recall those concepts and apply those concepts with adaptability (i.e., regular interactive Q&A, stories and examples to bring concepts to life, and projects where the students get to practice applying the concepts and communicating with a team). He also administers examinations with problems that present various levels of difficulty so that students can show what they’ve learned, be proud when they succeed, and learn lessons when they don’t know the full or best answer.
Our People
Sean Easton
Seán Easton is a professor of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies (GLCS). His research and teaching are focused on three main areas: Representations of Ancient Greece and Rome in visual media, especially movies and television; epic poetry and later writers who adapt it from it (especially Shakespeare); and environmental thought, peacemaking and the conflict emotions in ancient Greece and Rome. He teaches courses in the following interdisciplinary programs: Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies (PJCS); Comparative Literature; Environmental Studies; Film Studies; and Sports Management. He has published articles and chapters on the Roman epic poet Lucan and the representations of Alexander the Great in Sohrab Modi’s film 'Sikandar' (India, 1941) and Oliver Stone’s 'Alexander' (USA, 2004), the Greco-Persian Wars in the '300' franchise films, Greek and Roman myth in John Frankenheimer’s classic 'Seconds' (1966), Terrence Malick’s epic 'New World' (2005), and George Nolfi’s adventure-romance 'The Adjustment Bureau' (2011).
Our People
Shu-Ling Wang
Dr. Shu-Ling Wang is an associate professor of Economics. She joined Gustavus in 2016 after a two-year appointment at The College of Wooster. Her teaching interests include Intermediate Macroeconomics, Money and Banking, International Finance, Public Finance, and Principles of Economics. As an active instructor in an interactive and interdisciplinary liberal arts environment, she enjoys developing and experimenting with innovative pedagogies to enrich students’ learning experiences. She also values mentoring undergraduate research that fosters critical and independent thinking. At Wooster, she advised several year-long senior independent studies, and at Gustavus, she offers writing-in-the-discipline courses in economics and mentors class-based research projects. In October 2023, her Money and Banking students’ paper titled “The Asian Crisis of 1997” won third place in the Economic Communication category of the Minnesota Economic Association (MEA) Undergraduate Paper Contest. In 2025, Dr. Wang served as a faculty panelist at the MAYDAY! Peace Conference at Gustavus, participating in the teach-in model addressing issues of peace, human rights, and social justice. More recently, she served on the Nobel Conference '63 Planning Committee (theme: AI and Human Agency).
Dr. Wang’s research focuses on Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics, and International Finance. She studies fiscal and monetary policy issues—such as fiscal stimulus, public debt, tax policy, income distributional effects, and monetary policy, using dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with representative or heterogeneous agents. Her papers have been published in the Journal of Macroeconomics, Review of International Economics, and Economic Modelling. She received the Mansergh Faculty Scientific Research Award at Gustavus in both 2022 and 2025. Her recent project examines the debt-financed stimulus effects in a high-debt economy without monetary independence, considering different schemes and speeds of debt adjustment in a two-sector New Keynesian model. Future projects will examine the redistribution effects between savers and hand-to-mouth agents of debt-financing policies. She regularly presents her work at the The Midwest Economics Association, Canadian Economics Association, Western Economics Association, and Liberal Arts Macroeconomics conferences.
In addition to her research, Dr. Wang actively contributes to professional service. She serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Macroeconomics, Economic Modelling, Contemporary Economic Policy, Cambridge University Press, and the Bulletin of Economic Research. She has also served on the steering and program committees for the Liberal Arts Macroeconomics Conference and was a member of the Board of the Minnesota Economic Association. In 2025 she served as a mentor and a panelist for junior women economists at the CeMENT workshop sponsored by the AEA at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Beyond academia, Dr. Wang is a mother of three children. She enjoys architecture, art, photography, and music. Her favorite architects include Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Zaha Hadid. She is also inspired by the works of Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Claude Monet. A musician herself, she plays the piano, violin, and pipa (a Chinese lute). Her favorite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach of the Baroque period.
Our People
Jeff Ford
Dr. Jeff Ford has been a visiting assistant professor of mathematics at Gustavus since 2016. He has taught almost every mathematics course offered at Gustavus. His research is in topology, dynamical systems, and mathematics education. Dr. Ford has supervised three honors theses, two interdisciplinary research projects, and six independent studies. He has co-authored two books in dynamical systems and one in linear algebra. He is committed to providing open access educational materials to students and encouraging teachers to use active and inclusive pedagogy. To that end, he has presented more than 20 times at conferences on active learning and alternative grading.
Our People
Tiffany Grobelski
Dr. Tiffany Grobelski is a human geographer who works at the intersection of energy geography and peace studies. Her research (and much of her teaching) is focused on energy conflicts, social movement-led energy transition, and how grassroots movements build positive peace. Tiffany earned her PhD in Geography and a graduate certificate in Socio-Legal Studies from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her doctoral research examined how Polish environmental advocates mobilize administrative law. Immediately after graduate school, Dr. Grobelski served as an asylum officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In that role, she adjudicated hundreds of humanitarian protection claims and gained extensive experience in non-adversarial, trauma-informed interviewing.
She has since received training in Conflict Management and Mediation from the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Grobelski's recent projects focus on energy conflicts in Minnesota. She is actively involved in the Peace & Justice Studies Association, as well as the Energy & Environment Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.
Dr. Grobelski is passionate about creative, effective teaching and sharing best practices with colleagues. She and geographer colleagues have received national attention for their approach to designing world geography classes. Dr. Grobelski has also convened a Working Group on Teaching Energy Geographies, which has international membership; the group aims to create a durable space for energy geography educators to build community and collective expertise.
Selected Publications:
- "Pipelines and Peacebuilding: Conflicting Sovereignties and Environmental Knowledge Creation along Line 3." In Handbook of Environmental Conflicts. Edward Elgar Publishing. (2026)
- “Changing the Coal Status Quo through Scalar Practices: The Anti-Smog Movement’s Contributions to Polish Energy Transition.” Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 43 (7): 1369–90. (2025)
- (with Anna Versluis, and Jesse McClelland) “Discovering Geography through Doing Geography: Project-Based Learning in an Introductory Undergraduate World Geography Course.” Journal of Geography 122 (2): 31–42. (2023)
Our People
Laura Triplett
Dr. Laura D. Triplett began her Gustavus career in 2008 with a faculty appointment in geology. Now established in the department of Environment, Geography and Earth Sciences, she teaches courses related to earth surface processes, environmental geochemistry, hydrogeology and climate change. She has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications on topics as varied as reconstructing past water quality conditions in lakes and rivers, quantifying impacts of invasive species on freshwater geochemical cycling, and creating state-wide landslide susceptibility maps. In all her research, Dr. Triplett seeks out collaborations with community stakeholders. And, Dr. Triplett has involved Gustavus students in almost all aspects of her research program from designing preliminary studies, to executing major multi-year projects funded by external foundations and government agencies, to presenting findings at national scientific conferences.
Our People
Lisa Ortmann
Lisa Ortmann, PhD is the Grace and Bertil Pehrson Endowed Professor and Associate Professor of Education at Gustavus. Dr. Ortmann’s education courses prepare future teachers across the grade levels and content areas to build a deep understanding of how children and adolescents learn to read and write, and the research-based methods of teaching literacy for all students. She was awarded the Innovation in Teaching Award from the Kendall Center for Engaged Learning for her “Literacy Histories” project, where education majors critically examine their own experiences of learning to read, write, and use language, identifying the ways their history shapes their teaching. She teaches a First Term Seminar course called “For the Love of Books!” where first-year students follow their curiosity as readers, reflecting on the value of literacy in their lives as citizens of a free and democratic society. Together, students build a reading community that sustains their values, shapes their identities, and expands their worldviews.
Dr. Ortmann’s scholarly work informs, and is informed by, her teaching and professional activities at the College and in the state. Her research areas include teachers’ uses of culturally responsive teaching practices and diverse literature, the instructional methods that support literacies of multilingual adolescent learners, and the impact of instructional coaching models to enhance teaching. Recent peer-reviewed publications include a co-authored study with a former Gustie student, “Developing Responsive Disciplinary Literacies for Student Teaching in Social Studies” in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and a state-wide study, "Surveying the Landscape: Minnesota's English Language Arts Teachers' Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom" in The Minnesota English Journal.
Dr. Ortmann’s professional service is in partnership with teachers and schools both locally and nationally. She is an engaged collaborator with Saint Peter and Mankato educators to design and facilitate real-world teaching opportunities for Gustie education majors at all stages of the four-year program. She serves the state of Minnesota as the Intellectual Freedom Chair for the board of the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English where she provides professional development to English Language Arts teachers across the state. She was selected to serve as a This Story Matters Teacher Corp Member on the National Council of Teachers of English to develop book rationales for teaching diverse literature. She consults and provides guidance on statewide reading initiatives for the Minnesota Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, and for the English Language Arts 2020 Standards development project with the Minnesota Department of Education.
In her moments of free time, you can find Dr. Ortmann outdoors at the lake or in her garden, reading a novel, running with her yellow lab Harley, or cheering loudly at her daughter’s performances and games. She is a passionate educator, who has found a home at Gustavus due to the life-long relationships that are built on campus. Mentoring new teachers into the profession is one of the greatest gifts of her career, especially when they return to campus with their own students.