Meet the Faculty Senate Officers for 2012-13

Saeid Moslehpour

Kathy McCloskey

Ellen Wetherbee

Saeid Moslehpour, Kathy McCloskey, and Ellen Wetherbee will serve as Faculty Senate chair, vice chair, and secretary, respectively, during the 2012-13 academic year.

All three will be serving their second terms in those offices, having been re-elected at the May 2012 Faculty Senate meeting. They will serve until May 9, 2013.

Find out more about them in the profiles below.


Saeid Moslehpour, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Architecture (CETA), has been re-elected chair of the Faculty Senate for 2012-2013.

Moslehpour became a faculty member at CETA in 2004. Before coming to the University of Hartford, Moslehpour was an associate professor at Troy University at UAE branch. In addition to his academic appointment, Moslehpour also was co-director of the Connecticut National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Grant Consortium until January 2012. He is a senior master engineer in the National Association of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and chair of the Northeast Section of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).

Moslehpour received his BS and MS at the University of Central Missouri and his PhD at Iowa State University.


Kathy McCloskey, professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been re-elected vice chair of the Faculty Senate.

McCloskey has been a professor in the clinical psychology doctoral program within the Graduate Institute of Professional Psychology (GIPP) since 2002. She recently published an edited book entitled Backs Against the Wall: Battered Women’s Resistance Strategies and a clinical training manual entitled A Sexuality & Gender Diversity Training Program: Increasing the Competency of Mental Health Professionals. In 2006, she was the recipient of the Psychotherapy With Women Award conferred by the Society for the Psychology of Women (Division 35) of the American Psychological Association (APA) for an article she co-authored concerning intimate partner violence. She also served three years on APA’s Committee for Women in Psychology and was selected as the organization’s representative to the United Nations 35th Anniversary Plenary of the Commission on the Status of Women. She currently is the newsletter editor for the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) and is a member of the Implementing Collective.

McCloskey also has provided clinical work within a variety of milieus. She served as a team leader for a multi-professional group providing general mental health services to inmates at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, Ohio’s only women’s prison. She also served as the clinical director for a batterer’s treatment program housed at the Wright State University School of Professional Psychology, providing training to doctoral-level psychology students in the area of domestic violence, and maintained a private practice until a few years ago. She also provided violence prevention services in the Hartford Public Schools and supervised GIPP trainees on-site. Her clinical and academic specialties include domestic violence, trauma, forensic populations, multicultural and diversity issues, and the training of doctoral-level clinical psychologists. As a licensed ergonomist (e.g., engineering/research psychologist), she worked as a civilian scientist for the United States Air Force for 10 years.

McCloskey received her PhD from Columbia Pacific University and her PsyD from Wright State University in Ohio, and she is a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology in Clinical Psychology (ABPP-CL).


Ellen Wetherbee, associate professor of physical therapy and academic coordinator of clinical education in the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions (ENHP), has been re-elected secretary of the Faculty Senate.

Wetherbee's interests are in orthopedic physical therapy and clinical education of physical therapy students. Prior to becoming a faculty member at the University of Hartford, she worked as a physical therapist for Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Associates and became a Board Certified Orthopedic Clinical Specialist.

She joined the University of Hartford faculty in 1996 and has developed research projects exploring the clinical education component of physical therapist students’ educational preparation. She is the primary author with colleagues from other New England physical therapy programs for an article, “Standards for Clinical Education: A Qualitative Study,” published in the Fall 2010 issue of the Journal of Physical Therapy Education. With colleagues Jon Nordrum from the Mayo Clinic and Scott Giles from Scorebuilders, Wetherbee published a research paper, titled “Effective Teaching Behaviors of APTA-Credentialed Versus Non-Credentialed Clinical Instructors,” in the Spring 2008 issue of the same journal.

Wetherbee received her BS from St. Lawrence University, MSPT from the University of Indianapolis, MEd from the University of Hartford, and DPT from Simmons College.