February 07, 2022

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

Awards and Honors

Susan Bell, PhD, professor of sociology, won the 2022 Reeder Award from the American Sociology Association’s Medical Sociology Section. The Reeder Award is given annually for Distinguished Contribution to Medical Sociology and recognizes scholarly contributions, especially a body of work displaying an extended trajectory of productivity that has contributed to theory and research in medical sociology; teaching; mentoring; and training, as well as service to the medical sociology community broadly defined.

Brian Daly, PhD, department head and associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, was elected as an at-large board member of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology for a three-year term.

Pam Geller, PhD, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, was elected to serve a second three-year term on the Executive Council of the National Network of NICU Psychologists.

Elizabeth Kimball, PhD, assistant professor of English, received an Honorable Mention for the 2022 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Outstanding Book Award in the Monograph category for Translingual Inheritance: Language Diversity in Early National Philadelphia.

Nic John Ramos, PhD, assistant professor of history, was awarded the 2021 Stanley Jackson Prize, which goes to the best paper published in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences the previous three years, for his article “Pathologizing the Crisis: Psychiatry, Policing, and Racial Liberalism.”

Jen Schwartz, PhD, teaching professor of psychological and brain sciences, was elected President-Elect of the Association of Psychology Training Clinics. This will be a six-year commitment of two years as President-Elect, two years as President, and two years as Immediate Past President.

Grants and Contracts

Travis Curtice, PhD, assistant professor of politics, transferred a grant from the Folke Bernadette Academy to Drexel, to support his research “How Coethnic and Gender Biases Affect Citizen-Police Interaction in Fragile and Violent Contexts.”

Naomi Goldstein, PhD, professor of psychological and brain sciences; Amanda NeMoyer, JD, PhD, assistant research professor of psychological and brain sciences; and Zoe Zhang, PhD, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, received a grant from the United Way for their evaluation of a new city-wide initiative to expunge criminal records of juveniles and adults.

Susan Rutkowsky, PhD, associate teaching professor of chemistry, was selected as a recipient of a Vernier Software & Technology 40th Anniversary Grant. This grant consists of $1,000 in Vernier technology equipment, a one-year subscription to Vernier Graphical Analysis Pro and three hours of virtual professional development.

Publications

The Academy of Natural Sciences published The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Special Publication 24: Diatoms of Montana and Western North America: Catalog and Atlas of Species in the Montana Diatom Collection, Volume 1. The work is authored by Loren Bahls, PhD, with a foreword by Associate Professor of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science Marina Potapova, PhD. Potapova also reviewed the publication, Research Assistant Kyle Luckenbill laid out the volume, and Professor of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science Jon Gelhaus, PhD handled copy editing with help from Drexel co-op student Lauren Tuffy on the 17-page taxonomic index.

Brian Andrews, a graduate student in physics; Reinhard Schweitzer-Stenner, PhD, professor of chemistry; and Brigita Urbanc, PhD, professor of physics, co-authored “Do Molecular Dynamics Force Fields Accurately Model Ramachandran Distributions of Amino Acid Residues in Water?” in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Richard Astro, PhD, provost emeritus and distinguished professor of English, published a new book, A Tidal Odyssey: Ed Ricketts and the Making of Between Pacific Tides (Oregon State University Press).

Evangelia Chrysikou, PhD, associate dean for research and associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, authored “Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Over the Prefrontal Cortex in Depression Modulates Cortical Excitability in Emotion Regulation Regions as Measured by Concurrent Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: An Exploratory Study,” which was published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Bob Conrow, a doctoral student in biodiversity, earth and environmental science, and Jon Gelhaus, PhD, professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Wing interference patterns are consistent and sexually dimorphic in the four families of crane flies” in ZooKeys.

Mary Ebeling, PhD, associate professor of sociology, published “Data Solidarity in the Commons” on the Political Determinants of Health Collective’s blog in the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo. 

Anne Erickson, PhD, assistant teaching professor of English, published "P.D. James: Narratives Bubbling to the Surface," in Critical Essays on English and Bengali Detective Fiction, edited by Debayan Deb Barman (Rowman and Littlefield). Erickson also published "Liminality in Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008)" in The Graveyard in Literature: Liminality and Social Critique, edited by Aoileann Ní Éigeartaigh (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).

A photograph by Tim Fitts, adjunct assistant professor of English, is featured as the cover art for the most recent issue of The New England Review.

Elizabeth Kimball, PhD, assistant professor of English, published “Humanities at Work” on the National Humanities Alliance Foundation’s Humanities for All blog.

Miriam Kotzin, PhD, professor of English, has a novel titled Right This Way under contract to be published later this year by Spuyten Duyvil. Kotzin also published three poems in the December 2021 issue of Offcourse: “Kabul,” “116 Plan B” and “Lessons"; a microfiction piece titled “Nothing Matters” in 50 Give or Take; and the poem “Museum Gallery 32” in the January-February issue of Electrica Magazine.

Hyunmin Lee, PhD, associate professor of communication, and Janna MacPherson, a doctoral student in the Communication, Culture and Media program, published “How does it depend?: A systematic review of the contingency theory of accommodation in communication scholarship” in Public Relations Review.

Lee also published “Navigating the COVID-19 pandemic in the contingency framework: Antecedents and consequences of public’s stance toward the CDC” in Public Relations Review.

Lynn Levin, adjunct associate professor of English, published the satirical short story "Student Rebellion" in The Satirist.

Harriet Levin Millan, associate teaching professor of English, published the poem “Waterfall” in the anthology Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose, published by New Rivers Press. Additionally, several poems by the Iranian poet H.E. Sayah that Millan co-translated with student Kamyar Kamyar were included in the anthology Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and its Diaspora, published by Green Linden Press.

Keli O’Connor, a current MFA in creative writing student, is publishing an eyecare guidebook, The Optimal Tech: The Beginner’s Guide to Optometric and Ophthalmic Teching (Nova Science Publishers). In addition, her medical case report “Relative Preservation of the Extramacular Retina in LCA5-LCA” has been accepted and will be published in the American Journal of Ophthalmology Case Reports in early spring.

Nick Perez, a current MFA in creative writing student, had a story accepted for publication in the spring edition of Woven Tales Press magazine.

Marina Potapova, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Diatoms.org: supporting taxonomists, connection communities,” published in Diatom Research.

Don Riggs, PhD, teaching professor of English, published a review of Jennifer Schacker’s Staging Fairyland: Folklore, Children’s Entertainment, and Nineteenth-Century Pantomime in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.

Diane Sicotte, PhD, professor of sociology; Kelly Joyce, PhD, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of sociology; and Arielle Hesse, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow, authored “Necessary, Welcome or Dreaded? Insights on low-carbon energy transitions from unionized energy workers in the United States,” which has been accepted for publication in Energy Research & Social Science.

A review of Feeling Medicine: How the Pelvic Exam Shapes Medical Training by Kelly Underman, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, appeared in Gender & Society.

Bill Vargo MFA ’21, adjunct assistant professor of English, published an essay titled “A New Color” in Open Minds Quarterly.

Scott Warnock, PhD, associate dean of undergraduate education and professor of English, co-authored “Global Efforts to Professionalize Online Literacy Instructors: GSOLE’s Basic OLI Certification” in Composition Studies.

Jason Weckstein, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Phylogenetics and host-specificity of the mega-diverse louse genus Myrsidea (Amblycera: Menoponidae),” published in Systemic Entomology.

Presentations

Brenda Dyer, director of modern languages and associate teaching professor of French, and Kathryn Dettmer, adjunct instructor of French, presented a manifesto entitled “Best Practices for Teaching Modern Language Inclusively for Learning Differences” at the Modern Languages National Convention.

Jon Gelhaus, PhD, professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, participated in a panel titled “Restoring the Drama of the Diorama” at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Analía Hernandez, political science major, presented research on voter ID laws at the 2022 Southern Political Science Association conference.

Kelly Underman, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, appeared on The Annex podcast to discuss social forces shaping medical training and other topics.

Brigita Urbanc, PhD, professor of physics, presented “Do MD simulations capture instrinsic conformational propensities of amino acid residues in water?” at the 17th Theoretical Chemistry Symposium at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Kolkata, India.

In the Media

To view media mentions, visit In the Media.