People and Places: April 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.
Roman Hladio ’23 is a recipient of a full scholarship from the prestigious New York State Summer Writers Institute, where he will work closely with acclaimed novelists Mary Gaitskill and Adam Braver this summer. Hladio’s fiction borrows from both speculative and realistic literary traditions to explore displaced characters within an ever-changing world. Hladio was nominated for this award by Assistant Professor of English Mari Christmas.
Associate Professor of Chemistry Mark Ams and student research collaborators Peter Verardi ’22, Raina Semenick ’23, Sarah Maue ’23, and Joe McAuliffe ’24 presented their research progress at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Diego, California, from March 19 to 24. Their presentations focused on drug design and self-replicating molecules.
Oxford University Press has accepted Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies Carl Olson’s manuscript entitled “Playing in Emptiness: An Introduction to Zen Buddhist Discourse” for publication. The book examines the notion of play in Zen Buddhism by including discussions of the language of koans, teaching methods that use beatings, violence, shouts, and finger raising, the philosophy of the master Dogen as a form of play, topics such as madness, the erotic and humor, and the Japanese fine and martial arts.
Professor of Political Science and Robert G. Seddig Chair in Law and Policy Brian Harward presented “Public and Interbranch Contestation over Trump’s Unilateralism: The Case of Immigration Policy” at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Political Science Association in Chicago.
He and his co-authors use survey data from the Cooperative Election Study (CES) in 2020 to consider the effects of public sensitivity to unilateral efforts focused on the DACA program within weeks of the 2020 presidential election. A series of matching analyses were performed and found that those who supported President Trump’s action to repeal the DACA program were more likely to have approved of his job performance and to have declared an intent to vote for him in the 2020 presidential election.
Professor of Political Science Shannan Mattiace has published (with co-author and collaborator Joseph Klesner, Kenyon College) an essay on the best works published in Mexican Politics, along with 70 annotations of these works, for the Library of Congress’ Handbook of Latin American Studies, Volume 75. The Handbook is published every two years; Mattiace has edited the Mexican politics section since 2013.
Class Dean for 3rd & 4th Year Students Jonathon May co-authored an article in the Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice titled “Development, Implementation, and Delivery of a Remote Burnout Prevention Elective Course in an Accelerated Doctor of Pharmacy Program During COVID-19.” A link to the article can be found here.
Fenn Kathman ’23 presented their research project entitled “Effects of Race and Gender on Perceptions of Exonerees: An Intersectional Approach” at the annual American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) conference in Denver. Kathman, a member of Professor Lupita Gonzalez (Psychology) and Professor Rosita Scerbo’s (World Languages & Cultures) Intersectional Culture and Psychology lab, conducted this research as part of the URSCA Summer Research Program with Professor Christopher Normile (Psychology) in summer 2022. They investigated how the race and gender of a wrongfully convicted exoneree might influence people’s perceptions of the exoneree and their willingness to support reintegration services (e.g., subsidized housing, job training, etc.) for exonerees.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Christopher Normile, along with several colleagues at other institutions, recently presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society in Denver. The paper, entitled “Miranda Decisions Influence Perceptions of Suspects and Interrogations,” explored how one’s Miranda decision-making during an interrogation may lead to negative consequences for a suspect regardless of if a suspect chooses to invoke or waive their rights to silence or a lawyer. This project was done in collaboration with Mary Catlin (George Mason University), Dr. Kyle Scherr (Central Michigan University), Bradley Bellafaire (Central Michigan University), and Dr. Kimberley Clow (University of Ontario Institute of Technology).
Normile and his colleagues also presented a poster at the same conference entitled “The Influence of Suspects’ Decision-Making on the Investigation Process.” In this study, they found that suspects’ decision to informally and formally cooperate with law enforcement influences extralegal perceptions of the suspect, investigative decisions, and overall guilt judgments.
The Science section of the New York Times ran an article covering the research of Assistant Professor of English John MacNeill Miller and alumna Lauren Fugate ’20. The piece, “The Starling and a Tall Tale,” ran on the front page of the section on April 11. It reported on their findings and placed their research in the larger context of debates about the starling’s ecological, economic, and human costs in the American landscape.
Mike Crowley, journalism instructor, faculty adviser to The Campus, and a reporter for The Meadville Tribune, was a finalist in four categories for the Golden Quill awards given by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania:
- News Feature: “Couple marks one-year anniversary of daughter’s death”
- Traditional Feature: “Dixon reflects on life of educational leadership”
- Science/Environment: “Mystery surrounds water-level drop at Woodcock Creek Lake”
- Sports: “Flow State: Journey Brown reflects on playing career, looks at future”
Winners in the competition will be announced on May 24 in Pittsburgh.
Visiting Assistant Professor Gaia Rancati and Assistant Professor Michael Michaelides and five undergraduate students from the Department of Business and Economics presented their research at the Penn State Behrend Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research Conference. The students were Arigun Bayaraa ’22, Nabil Agag ’22, Thi Thu Thao Nguyen ’23, Khalid Mohamed ’22, and Raymond Englert ’22.
Englert won first prize for his research, “Analyzing Manufacturing Employment Decline in Western Pennsylvania.” Nguyen won second prize for her research, “Customer Experience in Coffee Stores in Vietnam: A Multidisciplinary Investigation.”
Three Environmental Science & Sustainability (ESS) students presented their comprehensive thesis projects at Sigma Xi on April 23. The picture is (left to right) Emily Clarvit ’22, Megan Swing ’22, and Grace Hemmelgarn ’22.
Clarvit’s project was titled, “Impacts of spatial resolution on land cover mapping: A watershed-scale case study” with Chris Shaffer (GIS Manager/Instructor). Swing’s project was titled “The sustainability of certified organic coffee in Costa Rica” with Professors Beth Choate (ESS) and Barbara Riess (World Languages & Cultures).
Hemmelgarn’s project was titled “Juvenile drift of round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus) in the French Creek watershed as a means of range expansion” with Professor Casey Bradshaw-Wilson (ESS). Hemmelgarn won first place in the environmental science presentation category for her oral presentation.
Associate Professor of History Guo Wu was invited in 2021 to join an online resource project of global historiography launched by Bloomsbury Press, titled “Bloomsbury History: Theory & Method.” In the section of “Key Thinkers” that introduces 30 historians and historiographers from around the world, Wu contributed a 7,000-word long essay that critically examines the modern, nationalistic historiographical thinking of Liang Qichao, an eminent Chinese reformer and thinker of the early 20th century, and his contribution to the rise of modern Chinese historical theory and method, as well as how his historiography has been received at home and abroad. The essay went live on April 27, 2022, and is available here.