Welcome to the Community, New Faculty!

Peter Schwarzer, Ph.D., MBA
Visiting Assistant Professor of Business-International Business

It’s been a decade since Dr. Schwarzer last called the United States home. Born and raised in Germany, he’s lived and worked—as an analyst, consultant, systemic coach, academic, and researcher—in five countries on three continents. Most recently, he lived in a small mountain village in France, with a population of 4,000. He’s since moved to Harlem with his wife, to be near their three grown children, and is teaching International Business and Macroeconomics for both MMC students and in Northeastern’s New York City Scholars program. Dr. Schwarzer is multilayered: Curious about corporate culture and team dynamics, he’s also a drummer, skilled cook, and father of an actor, making him a natural fit for 71st Street.

What are your first impressions of the MMC community?
I just went through onboarding for new faculty, and one thing they kept repeating was that students come first. That emphasis—particularly in the midst of the current transition—says a lot about the community. It also reflects what I really like about Marymount, which I’m sure they’ll work hard to maintain even after the merger: the focus on students as people and not just numbers. I’ve taught college at every level—in bachelor’s, master’s, and executive programs—and the most dysfunctional schools were always the ones where students were just statistics. Here, when I met with students, I saw how they interacted with each other and with us as professors. There was a personal connection, and that’s something I’d like to be a part of.

Many in our community will find it interesting that your son’s an actor. What have you gleaned from his journey?
He’s 24, and he’s had a couple of gigs—a feature film and some commercials. Like many aspiring actors, he also has a day job on the side. I always found the acting exercises he used while learning his craft fascinating. I’m a systemic coach, and a lot of what we do in coaching is similar to what actors do. We push people to ask the same questions that actors ask themselves—how do I show up? How do I step out of my role? What does it even mean to be in role and out of role? Learning to be self-aware is something that actors do quite a bit, and it’s tremendously valuable in everyday life.

What are you most excited about as you start?
My ambition is always to show students how my class connects to their lives. At first, you might think, ‘Macroeconomics? No way will this ever relate to my life.’ But economics is how things hang together. For example, this country wouldn’t have a railway system if it hadn’t been for the opium trade in the 18th and 19th centuries in Asia, and how the money flowed. For some in the Northeastern crowd, a lot of these old Bostonian families, this is how they made their first fortunes; in New York, it’s how families like the Astors and the Delanos (FDR’s ancestors) began to amass wealth and influence. I don’t know everything, but I can hopefully make students curious enough to start researching and making those connections themselves.

What do you like most about NYC?
You’ve got the world here. Everything you could ever want to see or not see is here. I lived in Munich, Germany, for a while, and someone explained Munich perfectly to me—they said it’s an open-air museum, so people get nervous when they see graffiti. But New York is a real city, with all the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I think it’s a fantastic place.

September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month. What does that mean for you?
I’m a leukemia survivor, so it’s close to home. I’m only alive because of a bone marrow transplant. One of my goals is to help my students become aware of the opportunity to register as a bone marrow donor. With transplants, finding matches for people with mixed ethnic backgrounds is difficult, and since we have a diverse student body, our population could make a difference. I’m working with DKMS, an international Bone Marrow Donor Center, and Student Development and Activities to register students and increase awareness. We’ll have a table in Carson this month where students can get information. Look for it and stop by.

David Via, MBA
Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing

Professor Via, who holds an MBA from Babson College, comes to MMC with deep experience in global marketing. He specializes in digital and social media marketing and brand strategy, development, and management—skills he’s carried into the classroom as a Visiting Professor of Music Business at SUNY Potsdam and an Adjunct Professor of Business at Southern New Hampshire University. This semester, he’s teaching Entertainment and Society and Entertainment Marketing to MMC students and NYC Scholars.

What drew you to the College?
As one who has spent his career on the corporate side of the fence, it was a great opportunity to teach full-time. Years ago, I did my undergraduate work at a small, liberal arts university. I think MMC’s smaller, more intimate class sizes surrounded by the energy of New York City is something that faculty, staff, and students can all get excited about.

How have you heard the MMC community described?
The word that quickly comes to mind when speaking with and overhearing conversations among faculty and staff is “caring.” You can tell that there is a deep, deep sense of commitment and responsibility that MMC faculty and staff recognize. They are truly committed to making the students’ experience as fulfilling as possible. I’d have to say, for the students, the first word that comes to mind is “inquisitive.” I was very impressed by the questions the incoming students posed at our Business student and faculty gathering. College is a great place to be inquisitive, and it seems to be part of MMC’s DNA.

Is there a topic or class exercise you’re looking forward to sharing?
There isn’t really a single topic or exercise, but above all, I’m looking forward to blending my industry experience with academic studies. I think I can help students connect the dots between their college world and the world that exists beyond. One exciting thing that we’ll do to deliver on that experience is have a few guests from the media and entertainment industry meet with the class over the course of the term.

Do you live in NYC, or will you be commuting in?
I live on Long Island, out in Suffolk County on the north shore. I’ve lived on Long Island for 20 years and have really enjoyed its access to the city. I come to the city for baseball games, Broadway shows, orchestra concerts, and other events. Sometimes I come just to walk around and people-watch.

What would you recommend to your new students as can’t-miss NYC experiences?
While some might think it to be a bit campy, there are some traditional tourist must-dos that every student should be sure to experience. Fight the crowd and see Rockefeller Center at Christmas. Go to the Empire State Building and One World Trade Center. Visit the 9/11 Memorial and take a Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan Island.

Can you share one fun or interesting fact about yourself?
The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I toured with an organization called America’s Youth in Concert. It was a 50-voice choir and a 50-piece wind ensemble. There were two students selected from each state, and I was selected to represent Illinois as a percussionist. We rehearsed for a week in New Jersey and did a concert at Carnegie Hall before embarking on a three-week tour, performing in London, Paris, Innsbruck, Florence, Venice, and Rome. I also played drums for a burlesque show, but that’s another story for another time.

Omar Robles, Ph.D., MBA
Visiting Assistant Professor of Business - Economics

Dr. Robles comes to MMC with an impressive educational pedigree—he received his Ph.D. from Harvard and has taught there as well as at Georgetown and Berkeley—but he is no ivory-tower academic; he understands very well the challenges that new college students face, especially those who are the first in their families to attend college. This semester, Dr. Robles is teaching four sections of Microeconomics and one section of Macroeconomics to both MMC students and NYC Scholars.

What drew you to MMC?
The staff and faculty here are so committed to the actual learning of the students, so their growth is amazing. I really appreciated the focus on the students and especially that there’s a large proportion of them who are first-generation. As someone who was also first generation to college, I understand that this is a critical point in their lives. I appreciate the hardship that can come with that and the fish-out-of-water experience that they may be having. I think it’s something that can be overcome with the right attention and the right focus. I feel like I can relate to that more than someone who hasn’t had to do that themselves.

How do you get your students excited about studying economics?
Economics is a form of thinking. It is a logic system. It’s about assessing what’s valuable to you. Do you get emotional benefit, moral benefit from your decisions? Are your decisions meeting your values? I want my students to come away with an understanding of that thinking, that logic, so they can apply it elsewhere in their lives to help themselves.

Do you do any professional work outside of the classroom?
I’m an expert witness for commercial litigation. These are cases involving the life sciences industry. For every case, I write a report outlining my opinion, and I get deposed, which means I sometimes travel to Delaware, where many of these cases are argued. Since most cases are settled, I don’t actually enter a courtroom that often.

Due to this consultancy role, I’ve learned so much about the way life sciences, like drugs and medical devices, are regulated that I’ve actually ended up teaching a class at Berkeley on regulation.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself?
I’m not at all an athlete, but I’ve taught myself tennis so that I could play with my daughter, who is a nationally ranked tennis player. We change the rules a bit, though, so that she gets a decent practice in when she plays me.

Paul Smith, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Originally from Montana, Dr. Smith now calls the Upper West Side of Manhattan home. He studied psychology as an undergraduate and received a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics / biophysical chemistry from Columbia. He has taught at Fordham, New York Institute of Technology, and St. Joseph’s, among other institutions. This semester he is teaching General Chemistry for Engineers to NYC scholars and the laboratory component of General Biology to MMC students.

What are your first impressions of the MMC community?
I’ve noticed that many people have been here for a long time. I’ve met faculty and administrators who have told me they’ve been here for 17 years, for 22 years, and that spoke to me. It means something that people come here and stay here. There’s collegiality.

What’s your approach to teaching freshmen students?
I very much enjoy science, but I’ve always had a leaning toward the interpersonal and to the joy of learning. I try to communicate that as much as I can to my students, which is why I call myself an educator more than a scientist.

My approach from the outset is to be welcoming, to encourage a growth mindset. It’s not about where you’re at; it’s about keeping going, having grit. Failures are our opportunities to learn. As a person who studied psychology, I think about the emotional aspects of chemistry: it can be a stressful thing to learn, it has its own language, much of it may not make sense, and you may not like it. But let’s get through it together the best we can.

Do you do any professional work outside of the classroom?
I’ve always been a computer nerd, and so I do some freelance projects related to AI. I’m just now wrapping up some work with a veterinary organization that wants to use AI in medicine. We’ll develop tools that, for example, transcribe a vet’s speech during a session to text, format that text into medical notes, identify a diagnosis, produce a standard of care, and then evaluate if that standard of care was followed. That way, the organization can ascertain system-wide which clinics are following the standard of care and thus providing better service to the animals under their care.

What advice would you give your new students about NYC?
There’s something here for everybody. Take the opportunity to explore, but don’t feel obliged to listen to anyone’s opinion. Central Park is wonderful, but maybe you’re not an outdoors person. All these museums are great, but maybe that’s not your thing. Find your thing, whether it’s a jazz club or art gallery or thrifting. There is something here for you, and you don’t have to feel pressured by others to find out what that is.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself?
I race cars, but this needs some explanation lest you think I have a place in Monaco. I race in a series called 24 Hours of Lemons—not to be confused with the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. In 24 Hours of Lemons, the cars can only cost $500. I have a piece-of-junk hatchback that has been beaten up to death. I, along with some teammates, including a couple of my former students, hammer it together, get it running, and then go race it on professional-level racetracks.

Chloe Weiers, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Among her faculty colleagues, Dr. Weiers may have the best claim to familiarity with Northeastern; she graduated from NU in 2018 with a BS in mathematics and a BA in music. In April, she defended her thesis “Quadratic equations in wreath products of abelian groups” to earn a Ph.D. in algebraic cryptography from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. This semester, she will be teaching Quantitative Reasoning to MMC students and Calculus I for Engineers and Discrete Mathematics to NYC Scholars.

What drew you to MMC?
I went to grad school because I wanted to teach, and that’s what initially drew me to Marymount: I saw that the position was explicitly teaching-based, that it would be a full-time teaching load working closely with students. That was very appealing to me.

Is there an exercise or lecture topic you’re especially looking forward to teaching?
I’m most excited about my discrete math sections, because in my area of research—group theory—I work with discrete algebraic structures.

There will also be one or two lectures on cryptography. Teaching students about cryptography for the first time is always very exciting, because they’re learning how to do some classical ciphers, encrypting and decrypting by hand. After they’ve developed these techniques, they learn about RSA encryption, which is how much of our data is encrypted online.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself?
I play the flute. After I completed my undergrad degrees, I had to make a decision: take auditions to be a flutist or go to grad school. I ended up choosing the grad school path, but I play flute every day. I have a little flute studio set up here in my home. Now that I’m working in Manhattan, I’m hoping to take some auditions, find some musicians around the city, and perhaps even plan some chamber groups.

What are your first impressions of MMC students?
The class I have with MMC students is at 10 am and it’s online. I require students to have their cameras on. At other institutions I’ve taught at, the students would log on, and it would look like they were suffering. Not so with the MMC students. They’re very happy. Everybody turns on their cameras, and they’re waving at me and smiling. Sometimes in online classes, students kind of disappear into anonymity. But the MMC students are very enthusiastic. They’re asking a lot of questions and listening intently. It’s been great. I feel like I just won the lottery.

Joshua Uhalt, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology

A social psychologist who emphasizes student engagement and the real-world application of theory, Dr. Uhalt is teaching Intro to Psychology and Social Psychology to both MMC students and NYC Scholars. He’s already familiar with Northeastern, having taught at the university’s Boston campus two years ago. But he’s eager to learn his way around MMC—and NYC. Like many new students, Dr. Uhalt, who hails from Southern California and lives in Hartford, Connecticut, counts the fall semester as the start of his first true New York experience.

What drew you to MMC?
There were multiple factors, but ultimately, MMC’s student population brought me here. Last year, I taught at a private college in Connecticut where most students were very affluent, and I found it harder to connect with them—I think having students with different views and backgrounds makes for better classes. I enjoyed having that sort of diverse environment in Boston when I taught at Northeastern and at a community college in Hartford proper where I also teach. I started at community college myself, so supporting those students is a real strength of mine.

I felt that MMC, similarly, had a culture I could understand and relate to. After my interview, I asked some of the people on the hiring committee why they chose me, and they said they could sense my genuine care for the student body. I’m glad that came across.

The other factor is that I need health insurance because I’m having twins in October! Soon, I’ll have four kids under four, which is going to be a lot.

What are you most excited about as you start?
New York City is a great place to do social psychology work. There will be lots of opportunities for us to go out into the community and make interesting observations. I’m excited to take my class into the wild and apply some of the concepts we’ll be learning, and I hope they’ll be excited, too. MMC students seem very extroverted and eager to put themselves out there, which lends itself well to this type of work.

Can you share a fun or interesting fact about yourself?
I used to run marathons, but that was like—I’m doing the math in my head—60 pounds ago. It’s hard to run in New England. It’s not like Southern California, where you have idyllic weather. I’ve gotten more into the gym, and I think gym culture would be really fun to do research on.

Are you working on any current research you’d like to share?
I have a paper that’s under review right now. It’s a project I’ve been working on for a few years with a colleague, a former advisor. As a social psychologist, I do a lot of research on prejudice and discrimination, and when I was an undergrad, one of the core requirements for my school was to take courses on gender, race, and ethnicity—essentially a diversity requirement. My advisor felt that the courses weren’t doing their job of helping students have more of an open mind or apply what they learned in some way. So we developed the Tolerance and Acceptance (TNA) model to better understand how people relate to diverse groups, from immigrants and Muslims to LGBTQ+ individuals and people with criminal records.

The model looks at how students score in two key areas: stereotypes and social distance—for example, whether they’d accept someone from a certain group as a neighbor or doctor. We hope to use this measure in courses that have a psychology or diversity component to gauge where students start and, by the end of the course, where they finish. That way, we can assess if the class is actually helping them become more introspective. I’m really excited about it and what it could do.

As someone new to the city, what are you most looking forward to in NYC?
The food. I’m trying to go somewhere new every time I commute in. There are so many great places around, I just want to try them all. And I’m taking recommendations!

Published: September 14, 2025