September 25, 2019

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

Grants

Kelly Joyce, PhD, professor of sociology, and her Drexel colleagues across six Colleges and Centers were awarded a $1.038M National Institutes of Health grant for the project “SCH: INT: Smart and Connected Health for Newborn Ventilation.” The team will investigate the creation and use of smart textiles to monitor infants’ respiration while they are in emergency transport, such as an ambulance.

Jocelyn Sessa, PhD, assistant professor of department of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, and Andrew Fraass, PhD, research associate in the academy’s invertebrate paleontology department, were awarded a $370K grant from the National Science Foundation for their project “Extending Ocean Drilling Pursuits [eODP]: Microfossils and Stratigraphy.”

Kelly Underman, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, is co-investigator on a research team that received a $150K Stemmler Fund Award from the National Board of Medical Examiners for their study “Standardized Patient Assessment of Communication Skills: A standardized examinee audit study of gendered and racial differences.”

In the Media

Jason Orne, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, was quoted in the article “Will Midtown Village leave the Gayborhood Behind?” in Curbed Philly.

Presentations

Gabriella Ibieta, PhD, associate professor of English, presented her paper on the work of Nicolás Guillén Landrián, “Censored and Reconfigured: A Cuban Film from the 1960s,” at the MLA International Symposium “Remembering Voices Lost” at the Universidade Católica in Lisbon.

Mimi Sheller, PhD, professor of sociology, gave an invited talk at Aarhus University in Denmark and an invited plenary session at a workshop on infrastructural futures at University of Manchester in England.

Publications

Kelly Joyce, PhD, professor of sociology, and Melanie Jeske, MS science, technology and society ’19, co-authored the peer-reviewed article “Revisiting the Sick Role: Performing Regimes of Patienthood in the 21st Century,” accepted into Sociological Viewpoints.

Alisa Melekhina, BA philosophy ’11, published the book “Reality Check: What the Ancient Game of Chess Can Teach You About Success in Modern Competitive Settings” with an independent publisher.

Sheila Sandapen, PhD, associate teaching professor of English, published the essay “Girl Rebooted: Transforming Doctor Who’s Sarah Jane Smith from Sidekick to Hero” in the book “Buffy to Batgirl: Essays on Female Power, Evolving Femininity and Gender Roles in Science Fiction and Fantasy.” She also presented her paper “An Ungolden Silence. Danger, Detours, and Damnation in Narnia”at the 24th Biennial Congress of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature in Stockholm, Sweden.