November 3, 2021

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

Rebecca Clothey, PhD, associate head of global studies and modern languages, was elected president of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies.

Clothey’s paper “Implementing effective internships: A case study of work integrated learning in a Chinese undergraduate university,” published in the journal Frontiers of Education in China and co-authored with Jin Li, Henan Construction University, and Brian McCommons, a doctoral candidate at Drexel University, was awarded “Best Research in Education” (2021) by the Henan Province Education Department.

Grants and Contracts

Naomi Goldstein, PhD, professor of psychological and brain sciences and director of the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab, and Leah Brogan, Ph.D., Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellow in the Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab, were awarded a $41,585 supplement to the previous $159,427 award for their work titled “Supplement to Developing and Implementing a Graduated Response Technical Assistance Model in Juvenile Probation Across Pennsylvania: An Emerging Leader Fellowship.” Goldstein and Brogan were also awarded a $29,394 supplement to the previous $201,012 award for their work titled “State Supplement to Supplement to Developing and Implementing a Graduated Response Technical Assistance Model in Juvenile Probation Across Pennsylvania.”

Goldstein and Zoe Zhang, PhD, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, were awarded an $846,480 grant from the National Institute of Justice for their project “Reducing School Violence and Enhancing School Safety: Implementing and Evaluating the Positive School Safety Program for School Climate Staff.”

Additionally, Goldstein was awarded a $65,000 supplement to the previous $100,000 award from the US COPS Office via the School District of Philadelphia for her work titled “School Training Safety in Trauma-Informed and Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.”

Amy Slaton, PhD, department head and professor of history, was awarded $523,913 over five years as a Senior Researcher on the NSF INCLUDES Alliance project “Engineering Plus: Partnerships Launching Underrepresented Students,” based at Northeastern University. The award includes support for a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of History.

Michael Vogeley, PhD, professor of physics, was awarded a $234,263 grant from the John Templeton Foundation for his project “What Stretches the Fabric of the Cosmos? Probing Fundamental Physics in Cosmic Voids Using Artificial Intelligence."

Elizabeth Burke Watson, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, is part of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN), which was awarded Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) funding by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office to support its project “Supporting Regional Implementation of Integrated Climate Resilience: Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast (CCRUN) Phase III.”

Publications

Travis Curtice, PhD, assistant professor of politics, co-authored “Opportunistic Repression: Civilian Targeting by the State in Response to COVID-19,” which was published in International Security. The study was covered by Public Radio International.

Tim Fitts, adjunct assistant professor of English, published three new pieces of short fiction: "Gigi" in The Big Windows Review, "Joe's Car" in The Indicia Review (page 45); and "Travco" in Midway Journal.

Jordan Hyatt, PhD, JD, director of the Center for Public Policy and associate professor of criminology and justice studies, co-authored “A Dose of Dignity: Equitable Vaccination Policies for Incarcerated People and Correctional Staff During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” which was published in California Law Review. The study was covered by Crime Report.

Johannes Krause, graduate student in biodiversity, earth and environmental science, and Elizabeth Burke Watson, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Emerging sensor platforms allow for seagrass extent mapping in a turbid estuary, from the meadow to ecosystem scale,” which was published in Remote Sensing.

Stephen Mason, graduate student in biodiversity, earth and environmental science, Vaughn Shirey BS ’17, and Jon Gelhaus, PhD, professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, authored “Responses from bees, butterflies, and ground beetles to different fire and site characteristics: A global meta-analysis,” published in Biological Conservation.

Nada Matta, PhD, assistant professor of sociology and of global studies and modern languages, had her article “Middle-Class Employees in the Egyptian Uprising of 2011” accepted for publication in Critical Asheville, North Carolina Historical Studies. Her article “Egyptian Capitalism and the Rise of Labor Unrest in the 2000s” was also accepted for publication in Politics and Middle East Science (POMES), Labor and Politics in the Middle East Studies Series.

Michael O’Connor, PhD, professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Frequent Drivers, Occasional Passengers: Signals of Symbiont-Driven Seasonal Adaptation and Hitchhiking in the Pea Aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum,” which was published in Insects.

Gwen Ottinger, PhD, associate professor of politics, and her lab Fair Tech Collective has released a new database, The Benzene Report, that includes fenceline benzine measurements from all U.S. refineries, as reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency starting in 2018. An API is available to access the data, or users can generate a spreadsheet with the data that interests them on the website.

Gordon Richards, PhD, professor of physics, was the lead author of “A Novel Test of Quasar Orientation,” published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Elizabeth Burke Watson, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “The status and future of tidal marshes in New Jersey faced with sea level rise,” which was published in Anthropocene Coasts.

Current MFA in Creative Writing student Rachel Weaver (Lord)’s new book of poetry, Fragile Hearts Club, is being published by Nymeria on December 7.

Jason Weckstein, PhD, associate professor of biodiversity, earth and environmental science, co-authored “Loss of forest cover and host functional diversity increases prevalence of avian malaria parasites in the Atlantic Forest,” which was published in Journal for Parasitology.

Presentations

Rebecca Clothey, PhD, associate head of global studies and modern languages, delivered a presentation on “Uyghur Students in Higher Education in the US: Trauma and Adaptation Challenges” at the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies conference, in Philadelphia, on October 24.

The Entomology Department staff hosted a dozen activities over three weeks of Bugfest – including exhibiting collections, remote and in person programming, and face-to-face displays and interpretation at Science Live (Aug 14-16). Some highlights included a celebration of a century of cicada collections; short films produced with John Hutelmeyer; Science in the Wild program at Rushton Woods Preserve in Newtown Square; panel discussions on “Insects in Decline” and “Summer Bugging”; television interviews; and Science Live events outside the auditorium. The Entomology Department team – Jon Gelhaus, PhD, curator and chair; Jason Weintraub, collection manager; Greg Cowper, curatorial assistant; and Isa Betancourt, curatorial assistant – worked closely with Bugfest lead Karen Verderame and her team planning the activities during the months preceding the big event.

Naoko Kurahashi Neilson, PhD, associate professor of physics, delivered a public lecture, “A New View of the Universe from the Earth’s South Pole,” for the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics. 

Marilyn Piety, PhD, professor of philosophy, will be chairing two sessions at the 2022 annual meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association in April. In addition, her presentation “What Boredom? Who’s Immortality?” at the Symposium of the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying at Deakin University (Australia) in July of this year is available to view online.

Diane Sicotte, PhD, professor of sociology, and Amanda McMillan Lequieu, PhD, assistant professor of sociology, co-hosted a very successful fall colloquium for the Department of Sociology titled “Ending Environmental Racism: Understanding Social Forces, Fighting Local Battles.” Taking place over four hours with three speakers, the colloquium had more than 100 Zoom attendees from many of the colleges at the University and from across the country.

In the Media

Nada Matta, PhD, assistant professor of sociology and global studies and modern languages, appeared on “Latest Flare-Up in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” an interview with WRFI Community Radio for Ithaca in June.

To view additional media mentions, visit In the Media.

Do you have a recent accomplishment that you would like to see listed in our next update? Email Gina Myers, content coordinator, at gmm94@drexel.edu.