Curriculum Vitae
Last updated September 2026.
falmash@ccny.cuny.edu | nycdisabilityed.com
Research and Teaching Areas: History of U.S. urban education; disability studies in education; race and school segregation; parent and community advocacy in public schooling; archival, oral history, and spatial/digital history methods
Education
2025 Ph.D., Urban Education, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Dissertation: The Architecture of Exclusion: Disability, Race, and the History of New York City’s “600” Schools
Committee: Jan Valle (Chair), Stephen Brier, Susan Opotow, Judith Kafka
Outstanding Dissertation Award, Disability Studies in Education SIG, American Educational Research Association
2021 M.Phil., Urban Education, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
1999 M.F.A., Creative Writing, Sarah Lawrence College
1993 B.A., Writing and Literature, The New School for Social Research
1992 Certificate of French Civilization and Culture, Sorbonne Université, Paris
Faculty Appointment
2024–present Assistant Professor/Counselor (Tenure Track), Department of SEEK, The City College of New York, CUNY
Teach the New Student Seminar and provide academic counseling to a caseload of 150 undergraduates in SEEK, CUNY’s higher education opportunity program
Adjunct and Teaching Appointments
2025–present Adjunct Assistant Professor, Earth Science Teaching Residency, American Museum of Natural History
2024 Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Childhood, Bilingual, and Special Education, Brooklyn College, CUNY
2021–present Adjunct Assistant Professor (2025–present); Adjunct Lecturer (2021–2025), School of Education, College of Staten Island, CUNY
Ed.D. Program in Community-Based Leadership; dissertation chair and committee member
2020–present Adjunct Assistant Professor (2025–present); Adjunct Lecturer (2020–2025), Center for Worker Education, Division of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, The City College of New York, CUNY
2019–present Adjunct Assistant Professor (2025–present); Adjunct Lecturer (2019–2025), Department of Educational Foundations and Counseling Programs, Hunter College, CUNY
2019–2020 Mellon Humanities Alliance Teaching Fellow, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Book Manuscript
The Architecture of Exclusion: Disability, Race, and the History of New York City’s “600” Schools. Book manuscript in preparation.
Publications
Book Chapters
Almash, Francine, and Jan Valle. 2025. “Recovering the Past to Understand the Present: Cripping School Segregation in New York City.” In Cripping the Archive: Disability, History, and Power, edited by Jenifer L. Barclay and Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Almash, Francine. 2024. “Juntos Somos Mais Fortes: Acolhendo Representantes Parentais na Mesa de Discussão da Educação Especial” [Together We Are Stronger: Welcoming Parent Advocates to the Special Education Table]. In Programa de Educação Individualizada (IEP) para Alunos com Deficiência, edited by A. Borges, S. Camargo, and J. Valle. Brazil: Ampla.
Almash, Francine. 2019. “The Stories We Tell, the Stories That Tell Us.” In Key Concepts in Curriculum Studies: Perspectives on the Fundamentals, edited by B. Bolden, T. M. Christou, C. DeLuca, M. Ingersoll, H. Ogden, and J. Wearing. New York: Routledge.
Articles in Preparation
Almash, Francine, and Jan Valle. “Racial Categorization of Italian Immigrant Children in New York City Public Schools, 1889–1938.” In revision for submission.
Almash, Francine. “Delinquency, Disability, and Dis-Location: The Spatial and Social History of New York City’s '600' Schools for Socially Maladjusted and Emotionally Disturbed Youth.” In revision for submission.
Research Reports
Fancsali, Cheri, and Francine Almash. 2022. ASD Nest: Exploring Educators’ Perspectives on an Innovative Model for Autistic Students. New York: Research Alliance for New York City Schools, New York University.
Book Reviews
Martin, Kahdeidra M., and Francine Almash. 2022. Review of DisCrit Expanded: Reverberations, Ruptures, and Inquiries. Teachers College Record.
Public Scholarship
Almash, Francine. 2022. “New York City '600' Schools and the Legacy of Segregation in Special Education.” Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History, Gotham Center for New York City History.
Almash, Francine. 2017. “Students with Disabilities Denied Education, Pushed Out of School.” Left Voice.
Almash, Francine. 2010. “A ‘Welfare Queen’ Answers Back.” Truthout.
Honors, Fellowships, and Grants
2026 Outstanding Dissertation Award, Disability Studies in Education SIG, AERA
2026 Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship, CUNY Archives ($5,000)
2026 Faculty Research Travel Award, The City College of New York ($950)
2025 Faculty Travel Award, Hunter College Research Foundation ($1,500)
2024 Faculty Travel Award, Hunter College Research Foundation ($1,500)
2022–2023 CUNY Humanities Alliance Communications Fellowship ($27,000)
2022–2023 CUNY/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Archival Dissertation Fellowship ($15,000)
2022–2023 Proshansky Dissertation Fellowship, CUNY Graduate Center ($10,000)
2022 Cecile Insdorf Adjunct Faculty Advancement Fund ($1,500)
2021 CUNY Humanities Alliance COVID-19 Impact Project ($1,000)
2021 Applied History Fellowship, Rockefeller Archive Center and CUNY Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society ($1,250)
2018–2020 Mellon Humanities Alliance Teaching Fellowship ($52,256)
2018–2019 Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant, CUNY Graduate Center ($500)
Conference Presentations
“Racial Categorization of Italian Immigrant Children in New York City Public Schools, 1889–1938.” Paper, with Jan Valle (under review).
“Everything I’d Imagined College to Be: A Half-Century of Stories from SEEK and the Legacy of Education, Activism, and Access.” Workshop co-facilitator. Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, April 2026.
“Everything I’d Imagined College to Be.” Workshop co-facilitator. History of Education Society, Providence, RI, November 2025.
“Everything I’d Imagined College to Be.” Listening session co-facilitator. Oral History Association, Atlanta, GA, October 2025.
“From Proximity to Blackness to the Edge of Whiteness: Shifting Constructions of Italian American Racial Identity in New York City Public Schools, 19th–20th Centuries.” Paper, with Jan Valle. History of Education Society, Chicago, IL, November 2024.
“The New York City '600' Schools: Race, Disability, and Delinquency in Public Education.” Paper. History of Education Society session, Organization of American Historians, New Orleans, LA, April 2024.
“Not Those Children: ‘Disruptive’ Students in the Fight to Desegregate New York City Schools.” Paper, with Jan Valle. Chasing Equity: A Tribute to Norm Fruchter, New York, NY, February 2024.
“Not Those Children: ‘Disruptive’ Students in the Fight to Desegregate New York City Schools.” Paper, with Jan Valle. History of Education Society, Atlanta, GA, November 2023.
“The New York City '600' Schools: Race, Disability, and Delinquency in Public Education.” Paper. History of Education Society, Baltimore, MD, November 2022.
“Cripping the Social Studies Curriculum: Teaching to Fill Archival Silences.” Workshop co-facilitator. History of Education Society, Baltimore, MD, November 2022.
“Reimagining Integration: A Pedagogy of Disability as Transformative Praxis.” Workshop co-facilitator. Reimagining Education Summer Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University, July 2022.
“Crippin’ School Segregation: Reframing Equity for the 21st Century.” Paper. American Educational Research Association, Division F: History and Historiography, San Diego, CA, April 2022.
“Cripping the Social Studies Curriculum: Teaching to Fill Archival Silences.” Workshop co-facilitator. Culture Mapping: Archives & Afterlives, New York University, April 2022.
Invited Talks
“Teaching SEEK History and Civic Engagement in Troubled Times.” Living Histories: Teaching the CUNY Digital History Archive, CDHA Education and Outreach Committee, New York, NY, August 2025.
“Educational Segregation in NYC, School District 75: Where Racial Identity and Disability Meet.” Keshet Learning Series, May 2024.
“Collaborative Curriculum Project.” Plenary speaker, Reimagining Education Summer Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University, July 2022.
“Beyond Disability: Universal Design in the Community College Classroom.” New Faculty Colloquium, LaGuardia Community College, September 2019.
“Disability in New York City Public Schools.” Mellon Humanities Alliance Professional Development Seminar, LaGuardia Community College, November 2018.
Digital and Public History Projects
Summer 2026 Faculty Fellow, Archives and Open Knowledge Faculty Fellowship, CUNY Archives
Finding Fred Francis: an archival research and open pedagogy project recovering the largely undocumented history of disability activism at CUNY, centering Fred Francis and the student disability rights movement of the 1970s–90s. Develops freely replicable lesson plans and public programming, built around the concept of archival silence, that connect CUNY’s disability history to the wider struggle for educational equity.
2025–2026 Co-facilitator, “Everything I’d Imagined College to Be”: SEEK oral history listening sessions and workshops
Collecting and sharing a half-century of stories from SEEK on education, activism, and access (Oral History Association; History of Education Society).
2018–present Creator and Director, NYC Disability Education Archive, nycdisabilityed.com
Public digital history project on disability, race, and segregated schooling in New York City. Features an interactive map tracing change over time; digitized primary source collection in development. Supported by a CUNY Graduate Center Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant.
Curriculum and Open Educational Resources
2025 Teaching SEEK History and Civic Engagement in Troubled Times, lesson for Living Histories: Teaching the CUNY Digital History Archive
2021–2022 History of Disability Rights in NYC, middle and high school curriculum, New York City Civil Rights History Project, Teachers College, Columbia University
Sociology of the Family, open educational resources (zero-textbook-cost) course, Center for Worker Education, CCNY
Teaching Experience
Asterisk (∗) denotes an original course design. Institutions: CCNY = The City College of New York; CWE = Center for Worker Education, CCNY; CSI = College of Staten Island; AMNH = American Museum of Natural History.
History and Foundations of Education
Social, Historical, and Philosophical Foundations of Education (graduate), Hunter College
Social Foundations of Urban Education (undergraduate), Hunter College
Educational Foundations (graduate, co-taught)∗, AMNH Earth Science Teaching Residency
Educating America∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Sociology of Education: School and American Societies∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Disability Studies and Inclusive Education
Inclusion: Principles in Practice∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Disability Narratives∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Literature∗ (undergraduate), LaGuardia Community College
Inclusive Education and Teaching Students with Special Needs (undergraduate), Brooklyn College
Children, Families, and Social Policy
Childhood Poverty∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Children and Public Policy∗ (undergraduate), CWE
Sociology of the Family∗ (undergraduate, OER), CWE
Doing Social Research (undergraduate), CWE
First-Year and Community-Engaged Teaching
New Student Seminar∗ (undergraduate), CCNY SEEK
Curriculum, Standards, and Assessment for Community Engagement∗ (doctoral), CSI
Doctoral Teaching and Mentoring
Writing the Dissertation Proposal∗ (doctoral), CSI
Dissertation chair (1) and committee member (4: 2 completed, 2 in progress), Ed.D. in Community-Based Leadership, CSI
Research Experience
2022 Economics for Racial Justice: A Qualitative Study on the Teaching of Social Class to Young Children (PI: Debbie Sonu, Hunter College, CUNY)
2017–2018 Landscape Analysis of NYC Special Education Reforms (PI: Cheri Fancsali, Research Alliance for New York City Schools, NYU)
2017 Nice White Parents podcast, Serial Productions / The New York Times
Education Policy and Public Leadership
2026 Borough Assembly Member, The People’s Money participatory budgeting, NYC Civic Engagement Commission
2022–2024 Member (NYSED appointee), Blue Ribbon Commission on New York State Graduation Measures
Statewide commission whose recommendations led New York State to phase out Regents exams as a graduation requirement and adopt the Portrait of a Graduate framework.
2022–2023 Co-President and District 75 Representative (elected), Citywide Council on Special Education
Elected advisory council to the NYC Department of Education, bound by the Open Meetings Law. Led monthly public meetings; passed resolutions on special education policy; served as liaison between families of students with disabilities and DOE leadership; advocated for inclusive practices.
2021–2025 Member, Education Council Consortium
2021–2022 Member (CCSE appointee), Citywide Council on High Schools
2020–2021 Member, District 20 Community Education Equity Council
Service
Professional
2025–present Education and Outreach Committee, CUNY Digital History Archive
2023–2024 Co-Chair, Presidential Taskforce on Access and Inclusion, History of Education Society
College and University
2025–present Education Policy Committee, The City College of New York
2025–present General Education Committee, The City College of New York
2024 Committee on Course and Standing, The City College of New York
2021–2024 Hunter Campus Action Team, Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY)
2021–2022 Curriculum Committee and Executive Committee, Ph.D. Program in Urban Education, CUNY Graduate Center
School- and Community-Based Education Experience
2011–2012 Lead Teacher, English Language Arts, YWCA of New York City Out-of-School-Time Program, P.S. 188, Brooklyn
2007 Pre-Service Field Placement, James Baldwin High School, New York
2006 Pre-Service Field Placement, Charles H. Houston School, Brooklyn
1997–1998 Teaching Artist, Teachers & Writers Collaborative, New York
Professional Development
Creating Inclusive and Supportive Online Learning Environments, Association of College and University Educators (ACUE)
Open Educational Resources (OER), CUNY OER Initiative
Online Teaching Essentials, School of Professional Studies, CUNY
Autism and Universal Design, Project REACH, CUNY Autism Network
Implicit Bias Training for Families, Community Education Council District 20
Professional Affiliations
American Educational Research Association (AERA); History of Education Society; Organization of American Historians; Oral History Association; Disability History Association; Society for Disability Studies; CUNY Disability Scholars Network