People and Places: March 2022
People & Places is published monthly during the academic year by the Office of College Relations. It reports on the professional activities of members of the College community and highlights student achievement.
Senior Environmental Science and Sustainability major Grace Hemmelgarn ’22 presented her thesis work with Assistant Professor of ESS Casey Bradshaw-Wilson at the joint conference meeting of the Keystone Coldwater Conference and the PA Chapter of the American Fisheries Society in State College. Hemmelgarn’s project was titled “Juvenile drift of round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) in the French Creek watershed as a means of range expansion” and highlights the movement of juvenile round gobies downstream for the first time in this body of water. The significance of these findings helps inform management decisions and conservation in the area regarding aquatic invasive species.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Ryan M. Pickering’s article “Structures of Inequity: Teaching Privilege and Oppression With a Tower-Building Activity” was recently published by the journal Teaching of Psychology. The article explores the use of experiential learning activities to teach privilege and oppression within the classroom and describes a self-designed activity Pickering uses in his junior seminar on the Psychology of Power.
Professor of Business & Economics Steve Onyeiwu co-authored a report on “Harnessing Gender Potential for Productive Capacities Development: A Comparative Study of Rwanda and Tanzania.” The report was published by the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) as part of its policy research papers on coherent strategies for productive capacity development in African least developed countries. The report argues that building women’s productive capacities is not only good economics but also fosters a more inclusive and equitable economic development process. The report can be accessed here.
Associate Professor of History Guo Wu was invited to write a book review for a new historical monograph published in Taiwan in 2021, titled “Hu Shi’s Frustration: The Political Choice between Authority and Freedom” (in English). The review will appear in The Chinese Historical Review, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2022. Wu expanded and converted this English-language book review into a long research essay of 12,000 Chinese characters and the article, titled “The Ambiguity and Wavering of Hu Shi,” will appear in the April issue of The Twenty-First Century Bi-Monthly, the Chinese University of Hong Hong’s leading Chinese-language journal of academic research and critical inquiries.
Wu also presented a paper entitled “Neglect and the Failure of Communication: The Lecture Tours of Abbot Taixu to Europe and America, 1928-1929” to the Zoom conference “Modern Buddhism and Globalization,” organized by Peking University on March 19-20. The conference was part of the Peking University Center for Buddhist Studies’ large research project: Studies of Buddhist Source Materials Outside of China During the Republican Era.
Victoria Smith ’23 directed a show written by Professor Emeritus of Psychology Joshua Searle-White at the Meadville Community Theater that showed between March 11-13. It also featured Alex Martin ’24 and Mycah Quevillon ’25 as actors and Kaki Lynch ’23 as stage manager. This is the first time a student-led piece was presented at the theater.
Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies Carl Olson had 23 essays published in Hinduism and Tribal Religions (Springer 2022), edited by Panjak Jain and others. The editors received contributions to the two-volume work from scholars of Hindu culture from around the world.
Eight student musicians from the Allegheny Wind Symphony were selected to perform with the 74th Annual Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band, held at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, February 25–27. Students representing 19 colleges and universities came together for the oldest continual band festival in the United States. Representing Allegheny College were Megan Kresse ’22, Erika De Graef ’22, Natalie Lisle ’22, and Danielle Studer ’22, clarinet. Also participating were Simone Robinson-Stevens ’24, alto saxophone, Jordan O’Reilly ’24, trumpet, Seth Bobyak ’22, trombone, and Lynnsey Winchell ’22, tuba. Accompanying them to the festival were Julie Hepler, assistant professor of music, and Lowell Hepler, professor of music and director of bands. The conductor for the festival was Richard Heidel, director of bands at the University of Iowa.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Sarah Stanger and six students in her Healthy Families Lab presented two research posters in early March at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in New York City showcasing research done in the lab during the past two years on how families are coping with the COVID pandemic. One project was titled “Associations Between COVID-19 Family Financial Hardship, Parenting Stress, and Child Psychopathology.” Student authors were Ella Swan ’23 and Grace Connelly ’23. The other project was titled “Teaching Adaptive Coping During a Pandemic: Factors Associated with Parent Coping Suggestions.” Student authors were Sasha Eager ’22, Sarah Brammell ’23, Claire Henderson ’23, and Lainee Swanson ’24. Both of these posters won 2022 Psi Chi EPA Regional Research Awards, and Ella Swan and Sasha Eager each gave a presentation at the conference in acceptance of the awards.
Professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability Richard Bowden and colleagues at Oregon State, University of Toronto, University of Michigan, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences presented the paper “Responses of Soil Organic Matter Molecular Biogeochemistry to Altered Detrital Inputs are Determined by Site-specific Ecosystem Properties: A Comparison Across Temperate Forests” at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The work, employing a cross-site comparison, including Allegheny’s Bousson Forest, found that climate change-induced alterations to forest soil chemistry are complex and not easily predictable, but rather are contingent upon site-specific ecosystem properties.
Pictured are Katie Brozell ’23 and Kaitlyn Royal ’24 collecting soil samples at Allegheny’s Detritus Input and Removal Treatments experiment at the Bousson Environmental Research Reserve.
Professor of English and Director of Writing Alexis Hart and her team of international (US, Ireland, Oman) co-researchers presented an on-demand session titled “Pursuing Social Justice in Higher Education: Learning from Students about Their Decision Making over Their [Writing] Lives and Futures” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, held virtually from March 9–12.
Last September, Frederick F. Seely Professor of English Christopher Bakken participated in the 7th World Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece, just before beginning his service as Fulbright Scholar at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. While working on his own creative projects, Bakken taught two classes during the 2021/22 winter semester—a creative writing workshop and a seminar on U.S. Women Poets since 1950.
In December, he offered two formal talks. The first, “Notes from a Hellenized Barbarian,” which was delivered as part of the Problematics Seminar organized by the Department of English at Aristotle, asked him to discuss the ways that poems from across the span of his career work in conversation with Greek poets (including Cavafy, Karyotakis, Ritsos, Elytis, and Patrikios). The second, offered as a large online workshop for the Transparent Windows series in Thessaloniki, focused on the craft of the poetic line. Bakken has recently published or has new poems forthcoming in Los Angeles Review, Poetry Northwest, The Hopkins Review, Salamander, and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Professor of Geology Rachel O’Brien co-authored a poster at the Geological Society of America Northeastern Section meeting in March. The poster, titled “Characterization of Subsurface Glacial Deposits in NW Pennsylvania using Non-Intrusive Geophysical Methods,” represents a two-year research project in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Geological Survey and the City of Corry, PA. Three alumni have worked with O’Brien on the project: Colin Danch ’20, Garrett Rademacher ’06, and his father, Greg Rademacher ’80. The work identified possible aquifer systems to serve as a new public water supply source for the City of Corry.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing and Neuromarketing Gaia Rancati was invited to be a judge at the American Marketing Association International Conference for the Undergraduate Research Competition in Chicago on March 17. At this competition, students from American universities present their most innovative marketing research papers.
Rancati’s publication, “Applying Implicit Association Test Techniques and Facial Expression Analyses in the Comparative Evaluation of Website User Experience,” was selected by neuromarketing academics and practitioners as one of the top 10 publications in the field in 2021. Based on the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the study developed a Brand Association Reaction Time Test (BARTT) and applied it to the user experience of websites. The work received an award and was subsequently included in the Neuromarketing 2022 Yearbook, published by the Neuromarketing and Business Association.