August 13, 2019

We are pleased to recognize the recent grants, publications, presentations, awards and honors of the members of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Honors and Awards

Ann Campbell, MS science, technology and society ’19, received the 2019 Daphne Zepos Teaching Award, an award aimed at growing a team of cheese professionals who teach about the history, culture and techniques in cheese making. She will use her $5K scholarship to study the “living fossils” of cheese in Egypt, Greece and Sicily before beginning her doctoral program at the University of Indiana.

The Drexel Psychological Services Center, under the leadership of Jen Schwartz, PhD, associate teaching professor of psychology, was the 2019 Best of Philly pick for Affordable Therapy by Philadelphia magazine.

Three graduates of Drexel’s MS in Science, Technology and Society program are entering doctoral programs with full funding. Ann Campbell ’19 will study the history and philosophy of science at the University of Indiana; Bryant Mills ’19 will study sociology, environmental science and public policy at Michigan State University; and Jason Ludwig ’17 will study science and technology studies at Cornell University.

Lyndsey Snyder, BS biological sciences ’06, was awarded an inaugural Pennsylvania Teaching Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The highly competitive fellowship supports a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania plus a $32K stipend in preparation for a three-year STEM teaching commitment at a high-need Pennsylvania school.

Grants

Fraser Fleming, PhD, department head and professor of chemistry, Paul Gondek, PhD, visiting research professor of chemistry, Daniel King, PhD, associate professor of chemistry, and Drexel collaborators have received a $500K from the National Science Foundation for their project “Creative Interdisciplinary Research in Graduate Education” (CIRGE). The team will use the grant to develop and implement a Drexel graduate minor in creative, interdisciplinary research.

Evan Forman, PhD, professor of psychology (PI), and WELL Center co-investigators Meghan Butryn, PhD, associate professor of psychology, Adrienne Juarascio, PhD, assistant professor of psychology, and Stephanie Manasse, PhD, assistant research professor, along with Temple University Assistant Professor Donna Coffman PhD, received a $3.65M grant from the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for their project “Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Interventions for Obesity: Using a Factorial Design to Identify the Most Effective Components.”

Alison Kenner, PhD, assistant professor of politics, received $2K out of a $10K total grant for the Climate and Urban Systems Partnership for her project “Weather Ready Homes: Climate Change, Energy, and Your Health.”

Daniel Marenda, PhD, associate professor of biology (PI), and Jennifer Stanford, PhD, associate professor of biology (Co-PI), were awarded a $1.3M grant from the National Science Foundation for their project “Epigenetic Control of Steroid Hormone Signaling in Axon Pruning.”

Gwen Ottinger, PhD, associate professor of politics, received a $100K grant from the Valero/Benicia Good Neighbor Steering Committee for her project “Air Watch Bay Area.”

Jocelyn Sessa PhD, assistant professor of department of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, and Katy Estes-Smargiassi, collections manager of the invertebrate paleontology department, received a $124K grant from the National Science Foundation to digitize a portion of the invertebrate paleontology collection.

In the Media

Rebecca Clothey, PhD, director of global studies, was quoted in the Voice of America article “Film Depicts Uighur Diaspora's Struggle to Keep Identity.”

Presentations

The Center for Science, Technology and Society hosted its inaugural scholar-in-residence, Aimi Hamraie, PhD, of Vanderbilt University, for a talk on their book “Building Access: University Design and the Politics of Disability,” University of Minnesota Press.

Kathryn Innamorato, BS environmental science ’21, presented the results of her co-op research at the annual meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in Snowbird, Utah.

Nada Matta, PhD, assistant professor of global studies and modern languages and of sociology, organized panels at the annual conferences of the American Sociological Association and the Middle Eastern Studies Association.

Rick McCourt, PhD, professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, organized and moderated a symposium on plant and algae evolution titled “Green Land: Multiple Perspectives on Green Algal Evolution and the Earliest Land Plans” at the annual meeting of the Botanical Society of America in Tucson, Arizona.

Jocelyn Sessa, PhD, assistant curator of invertebrate paleontology and assistant professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, was an invited speaker in the College of the Atlantic's Climate Change Seminar Series in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Chloe Silverman, PhD, associate professor of politics, and Ann Campbell, MS STS ’19, presented at the American Philosophical Society’s “Be a Historian of Science” event at the Philadelphia Science Festival.

Publications

David DeMatteo, JD, PhD, associate professor of psychology and law, Kirk Heilbrun, PhD, professor of psychology, Alice Thornewill, JD/PhD candidate in law and psychology, and Shelby Arnold, PhD, clinical psychology doctoral alum ’19, co-authored the book “Problem-Solving Courts and the Criminal Justice System,” Oxford University Press.

Alison Kenner, PhD, assistant professor of politics, published “Emplaced Care and Atmospheric Politics in Unbreathable Worlds” in Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space.

Daniel Marenda, PhD, associate professor of biology, Sean O’Donnell, PhD, professor of biology and of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, and their labs have demonstrated that the main component in Truvia (Erythritol) kills subterranean termites, a key pest that affects residential and urban structures. They describe this in the paper, “Erythritol Ingestion Causes Concentration-Dependent Mortality in Subterranean Termites (Reticulitermes flavipes),” which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

Donald Riggs, PhD, teaching professor of English, authored the paper “Frank Herbert’s Dune and the Dune Series,” published by Oxford Bibliographies in American Literature, Oxford University Press.

Chloe Silverman, PhD, associate professor of politics, published “What Do Autistic People Want from Autism Research?”, a commentary on Jaswal and Aktar’s “Being Versus Appearing Socially Uninterested,” in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Cambridge University Press.