Our Board - New York State English Council

NYSEC Executive Board

Board Members by Region, click here

Hudson Valley Region
Lydia Adegbola
Michelle Bulla
Vincent Fino
Christine Furnia
Bridgette Gallagher
Beatrice Lopez, Ed.D.
Janet Matthews
Christopher Mazura
Sara Taveniere Moy
Holly Spinelli

Long Island Region
Lawrence Butti
Vivett Dukes
Deirdre Faughey
Victor Jaccarino
Louisa Kramer-Vida
Elizabeth Morphis
Michelle Peterson
Felicia Prince
Jeff Yagaloff

North Country Region
Dan Tusa

Lydia Adegbola
Board Member
Social Media-Twitter

Lydia Adegbola Bio

Lydia Adegbola is in her 19th year as an educator. She spent the first 15 years of her career as an English Teacher and Assistant Principal serving students and families in the New York City Department of Education. She is currently the English department chair of New Rochelle High School. Her academic background includes a Master of Arts in School Building Leadership and a Bachelor of Arts in Secondary English Education from New York University. Lydia is honored to work alongside an amazing team of English teachers who work tirelessly to prepare students for the demands of college, careers, and citizenship. Her strongest desire is to provide the instructional leadership needed to cultivate the critical literacy skills students need to thrive in the 21st century and beyond. Lydia firmly believes that we can use literature to help students read the world and have a profound impact on their lives, both now and for generations to come.

Michelle Bulla
President
SED Liaison

Michelle G. Bulla Bio

Michelle G. Bulla is a 20+ year high school English teacher at Monroe-Woodbury High School in Orange County, where she also serves as 9-12 English Department Chair. She is on the Executive Board for the New York State English Council (NYSEC), serves on the NYSED English Language Arts Content Advisory Panel, and worked on the new revision of the state standards.

Lawrence Butti
Business Administrator

Vivett Dukes
Board Member

Vivett Dukes Bio

Vivett Dukes is a career educator, writer, facilitator, keynote speaker, and activist who cares deeply about those who are systematically disenfranchised. She has over 20 years of experience in classrooms across Long Island and the New York City Department of Eduacation as an English teacher, literacy specialist, and Teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

Vivett is committed to social and educational justice, and is particularly well-versed in the nuanced intersection of literacy, social emotional learning, and authentic classroom community building as they directly and indirectly relate to genuinely caring student / teacher relationships, home-school relationships, and the ever-growing school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects the Black community.

Deirdre Faughey
Board Member
Social Media-Instagram

Christine Furnia
Vendor Liaison

Christine Furnia Bio

Christine Furnia has been a secondary English/ELA teacher for 24 years, teaching every grade 7-12 at some point, except 9th. She received her undergraduate degree in English from Manhattanville College, and her Master’s of Science in Curriculum from Western Connecticut State University. Currently, she is the Teacher in Charge of the ELA Department at Van Wyck Junior High School in the Wappingers district where she teaches 7th and 8th grade. In 2012, Christine received her National Board Certification, and strives to continue to grow professionally, particularly in the area of technology integration. She became a member of the NYSEC Executive Board in 2016 where she serves as the assistant editor to the NYSEC News newsletter. Christine loves to travel with her four high school and college-aged daughters, and most recently visited Thailand and Japan.

Vincent Fino
Board Member
Awards Co-Coordinator

Vincent Fino Bio

Vincent Fino serves as Assistant Principal at Carmel High School in Carmel, NY. Prior to taking a role in administration, Vincent was an 8th-Grade English Language Arts teacher at Valley Central Middle School in Montgomery, NY. He is also a Teacher Consultant with the Hudson Valley Writing Project. In his free time, Vincent enjoys reading, traveling, and running.

Bridgette Gallagher
VP High School
Social Media-Instagram

Victor Jaccarino
VP Administration

Louisa Kramer-Vida
VP College

Louisa Kramer-Vidal Bio

Louisa Kramer-Vida, Ed. D. received her doctorate from Hofstra University in Literacy and Educational Administration. Louisa also has a P.D. in Literacy, a C.A.S. in Educational Administration, an M.A. in Literacy and a B.A. in English and History. Louisa retired from Pre-K- 12 education. She was an elementary classroom teacher, a high school English teacher, a K-12 literacy specialist, and had a variety of building and district office administrative positions, mostly in the areas of curriculum/instruction and personnel. Louisa adjuncted for many years and after “retirement” she became a full time professor of literacy. Louisa was promoted to Chair of the Department of Special Education and Literacy, held a stint as Acting Dean, and is now the Associate Dean of LIU Post’s College of Education and Information Technology. Louisa has published 39 peer and non-peer reviewed articles in such publications as Language Arts and The Language and Literacy Spectrum, and has presented approximately 109 times on the international, national, regional, state, and local levels. Louisa has served on the NYSEC Board in many capacities, twice as President, and has been the treasurer of LILAC (the Long Island Language Arts Council, a NYSEC affiliate) for over 15 years.

Beatrice Lopez, Ed.D.
Social Media-Twitter

Beatrice Lopez Bio

Perceiving every experience as an opportunity for gaining knowledge, growth, and self-reflection, Dr. Beatrice Lopez defines herself as a life-long learner and an agent for social change. Dr. Lopez’s professional experience includes twenty-one years teaching and serving within a school leadership capacity in New York State public schools. Currently, she serves as Humanities Chairperson at Isaac E. Young Middle School in New Rochelle, supporting adolescent literacy development. In addition, as an adjunct assistant professor, Dr. Lopez teaches in the Curriculum and Teaching Program at the Hunter College Graduate School of Education and has taught the Culturally Responsive Leadership graduate course at the College of Saint Rose. Dr. Lopez’s mission as a professional has been to help ignite the transformation of lives through equity-based educational practices that cultivate and sustain high-quality literacy learning experiences for all students.

Janet Matthews
Friends of Excellence
Coordinator

Chris Mazura
Board Member
President-Elect

Elizabeth Morphis
Board Member
Co-Editor for Voices of NYSEC Blog
Awards Co-Coordinator

Elizabeth Morphis Bio

Elizabeth Morphis is an Assistant Professor of Childhood Education and Literacy at SUNY College at Old Westbury. She is also the Coordinator of the Literacy Education Graduate Program. Elizabeth earned her doctorate in Literacy from Teachers College, Columbia University, where she researched bilingual writing practices in a French-English second grade classroom. Prior to earning her doctorate, Elizabeth taught elementary school in Buffalo, New York and in New York City, she also taught the child actors on the 30th Anniversary Tour of Annie, and she worked as a Content Specialist at Sesame Workshop. Elizabeth is the creator of the website, The Literacy Teacher’s Life, a website and blog for pre-and-inservice teachers that focuses on strategies for the B-6 classroom and for life outside of the classroom.

Michelle Peterson
Past-President
VP Elementary
NCTE Liaison

Felicia Prince
Board Member
VP Middle School

Sara Taveniere Moy
2021/2022 NYSEC Fellow
Business Secretary

Sara Taveniere Moy Bio

Sara Moy is an Assistant Principal at FDR High School in Dutchess County. Sara is an avid reader who loves to travel in her free time, especially to the beach. She is a member of the Executive Board for the New York State English Council and also sits on the Board of Directors for the Hyde Park Educational Foundation. She holds an undergraduate degree from SUNY Oneonta in Adolescence Education and English and a Master’s Degree in Literacy Education from SUNY New Paltz. She completed a program in Educational Leadership through Stony Brook University.

Holly Spinelli
Board Member
Co-Editor for Voices of NYSEC Blog

Holly Spinelli Bio

Holly Spinelli is an advocate for equality through anti-racist, anti-bias, and anti-oppressive facilitation within and beyond the classroom. She began her full-time teaching career as an English educator, academic advisor, and students’ rights activist at City-As-School High School (M560) in New York City. In 2011, she received the Alice Trillin Teaching Award For Social Justice Work in New York Classrooms. Holly continues to cultivate community-inspired work as an English teacher at Monroe-Woodbury High School in Central Valley, New York, and as an adjunct instructor in the English Department at SUNY Orange County Community College. She is an Academy for Teachers fellow and an active member of the National Council of Teachers of English Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English.

Her writing has appeared in the Bread Loaf Teacher Network Journal, EdWeek blog, Faculty Forward Network blog, The Art of Breaking Up (HitRECord.org and Harper Design), Maps We Forgot to Bring (Workhorse), If Only They Were Hungrier (Workhorse), NCTE blog, and The Huffington Post.

In her free time, Holly enjoys writing, running, backpacking, and grooving to music that moves her soul.

Dan Tusa
Recording Secretary

Jeff Yagaloff
Board Member

Jeff Yagaloff Bio

Jeff Yagaloff is the English Chair (7-12) for Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District. He earned his undergraduate degree from Skidmore College and his master’s degrees (secondary education for English and Educational Leadership) from Long Island University / CW Post. Jeff taught junior high school English in Queens, New York and then high school English in Commack, New York.

After earning his administrative degree, he served as English Chair for Glen Cove schools before obtaining his current position of English Chair (7-12) in Plainview-Old Bethpage. He takes great joy in working with various educational stakeholders to promote engaging instruction for all types of learners in a safe, warm, and challenging environment. Jeff is a proud family man, a lover of music (playing percussion in bands), and a plant-based diet proponent.