Congratulations Corner
There are many successes on our campus in which we can take pride. This section highlights the impressive accomplishments throughout our academic institution. If you have an accolade or achievement, please send it to Mary Kate Allen at mallen@georgiasouthern.edu to be included in the next newsletter.
These are the celebrated achievements of faculty and staff within Academic Affairs for March 2023.
Publications
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Jeff Jones has a manuscript forthcoming in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. The title of his manuscript is “COVID-19 travel policies for people from China and discrimination.” This work addressed the problems with imposing COVID travel restrictions on travelers originating in China.
College of Arts and Humanities’s Dr. Kurt Knoerl’s article “‘A Ticklish Craft’: Viewing Britain’s Empire from Inside a Birch-bark Canoe in the Eighteenth Century” published in The Mariner’s Mirror in August 2022 was awarded Honorable Mention for the Charles Dana Gibson Award for best article on North American maritime history published in a peer-reviewed journal by the North American Society for Oceanic History.
Dr. Sue Ellen DeChenne-Peters from the College of Science and Mathematics published a paper titled “Length of course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE) impacts student learning and attitudinal outcomes: A study of the Malate dehydrogenase CUREs Community (MCC).” This peer-reviewed paper has been published by PLOS ONE.
Drs. Kwaku Nti and Kurt Knoerl from the College of Arts and Humanities gave presentations on Ghana’s maritime culture and Georgia Southern University graduate student museum work at the Willow Hill Heritage and Renaissance Center on March 11,2023.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Karl Peace is soon to have his 15th book published. The title of his book is, “Statistical Analytics for Health Data Science with SAS and R.”
College of Education’s Dr. Antonio P. Gutierrez de Blume co-founded and co-leads The International Group on Metacognition (IGM), which spans 15 countries, three continents (North American, South America, and Europe), and two languages (Spanish and English) to date. The IGM was co-founded (Summer of 2020) and is co-led with Dr. Gutierrez de Blume and Dr. Diana Marcela Montoya from Colombia. The very first publication of The IGM will very soon be published online, first in the journal Metacognition and Learning (Impact Factor [IF] 2.704; 5-Year IF: 4.170). This study, involving 1,461 university students from 11 Latin-American countries and Spain, presents findings from the development of an international protocol to measure both subjective metacognition and objective metacognitive monitoring using a standard international Spanish. Further, it provides the first comprehensive cross-cultural analysis of how Spanish-speaking university students experience metacognitive phenomena.
Dr. Julia Griffin from the College of Arts and Humanities published three poems in Classical Outlook, two in Lighten Up Online, one in Snakeskin, and the usual flood in Light. Apparently her article on Shakespeare in The Cambridge Companion to Plutarch is now out, but she is not holding her breath since this book has been supposedly in production since 2012.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Drs. Gulzar Shah, Bettye Apenteng, Kristie Waterfield, and Hani Samawi were recently published in Healthcare. The citation is as follows:
Shahin Z, Shah GH, Apenteng BA, Waterfield K, Samawi H. A Nationwide Study of the “July effect” Concerning Postpartum Hemorrhage and its Risk Factors at Teaching Hospitals across the United States. Healthcare. 2023; 11, 788.
Dr. Larisa Elisha from the College of Arts and Humanities had two books published by Carl Fischer Music – one of the most prestigious and oldest international music publishers, founded in 1872: Advanced Scale Studies for Violin and Advanced Scale Studies for Viola (February, 2023).
College of Education’s Dr. Hui Jin recently had a paper accepted:
H., Shin, H-J., Cisterna, D. (in press). Systematic validation in science learning progression research. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education.
Drs. Gulzar Shah and Tilicia Mayo-Gamble from the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health were recently published in the Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism. The citation is as follows:
Siddiqa M, Shah GH, Mayo-Gamble TM, Zubair A. Determinants of Child Stunting, Wasting, and Underweight: Evidence from 2017 to 2018 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey. Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism. 2023; Article ID 2845133, 12 pages, 2023.
Dr. Steven Elisha from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Cello in the 21st Century: A Panel Discussion on Pedagogy and Creating Pathways to Student Success – “FOUNDATION AS THE BEDROCK OF TECHNICAL FREEDOM,” at the 2023 American String Teachers Association National Conference, Orlando, Florida, March 15-18, 2023. He also conducted the Georgia Southern Symphony Festival Orchestra Concert during the 2023 Strings at Southern Chamber Music Festival, Performing Arts Center, Statesboro Campus, February 19, 2023. The program featured the winners of the 2023 Georgia Southern Symphony Concerto Competition. In observance of Black History Month, the program included an overture by Joseph Bologne, “Chevalier de Saint-Georges” (ca. 1739-1799). Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major was also performed.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Gulzar Shah and one of his former students were just published in Substance Use Misuse. The citation is as follows:
Nguyen T, Shah G, Barefield AC. The Influence of E-cigarette Warning Labels on Youths’ Use Intentions – A Mediation Analysis of Role of Perceived Harm [published online ahead of print, 2023 Mar 2]. Subst Use Misuse. 2023;1-8.
Drs. Hani Samawi and Jingjing Yin from the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health were recently published in the Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics. The title of their work is “Net benefit of diagnostics tests for multistate diseases: an indicator variables approach.”
Drs. Bettye Apenteng and Joseph Telfair from the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health were recently published in Women and Health. The title of their manuscript is “Social ecological approach to factors influencing perinatal mental health service provision among providers in Bulloch County, GA.” The lead author is a former DrPH student.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Gulzar Shah had an editorial published ahead of print. The complete citation is as follows:
Shah GH, Alamian A. COVID-19, Health Inequities, and Behavioral Health Issues Facing Children. Int J School Health. 2023; 10(1) doi: 10.30476/intjsh.2023.97844 1281
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Drs. Isaac Fung and Jingjing Yin have recently been published in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. One of Dr. Fungs’s former students, Dr. Kamalich Muniz-Rodgriguez, is the lead author. The citation is as follows:
Muniz-Rodriguez K, Schwind JS, Yin J, Liang H, Chowell G, Fung ICH. Exploring social media network connections to assist during public health emergency response: A retrospective case-study of Hurricane Matthew and Twitter users in Georgia, USA. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2023; 17: e315.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Drs. Gulzar Shah, Jeff Jones, Linda Kimsey, and Hani Samawi were recently published in Informatics. The title of their manuscript is “Effectiveness of Telemedicine in Diabetes Management: A Retrospective Study in an Urban Medically Underserved Population Area (UMUPA).” The lead author is a former DrPH student and the work she completed as part of her dissertation. The full citation is as follows:
Ward LA, Shah GH, Jones JA, Kimsey L, Samawi H. Effectiveness of Telemedicine in Diabetes Management: A Retrospective Study in an Urban Medically Underserved Population Area (UMUPA). Informatics. 2023;10:16.
Dr. Ho Tung from the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, in collaboration with a DrPH Student (Dr. Randall Ford), received notice their manuscript has been accepted for publication in Gerodontology. The title of their manuscript is, “Incident edentulism and number of comorbidities among middle-aged and older Americans.“
Dr. Christopher E. Hendricks from the College of Arts and Humanities published a scholarly article entitled, “The Jumbal: Cookies, Society, and International Trade,” in the national journal Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 52 (2023): 369-82.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Drs. Isaac Fung and Kelly Sullivan have recently had a paper published in the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Feb 2023 issue. The lead author is one of Dr. Fung’s former DrPH students, Dr. Sylvia Ofori. The citation is as follows:
Ofori SK, Schwind JS, Sullivan KL, Chowell G, Cowling BJ, Fung ICH. Age-Stratified Model to Assess Health Outcomes of COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies, Ghana. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2023;29(2):360-370. doi:10.3201/eid2902.221098.
Presentations & Accolades
The Center for Irish Research and Teaching’s Associate Director, Dr. Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, presented two talks during the 2023 Savannah Irish Festival. Each attracted an audience of approximately 200 people. The first lecture, “Savannah’s Irish Neighborhoods: An Irish-American Sense of Place,” discussed research Dwyer-Ryan is conducting in association with CIRT’s Savannah Irish Neighborhoods Project, as well as the Inquiry Program’s walking-trail app initiative. (A joint venture between CIRT and the Honors College, the Inquiry Program engages undergraduates from multiple disciplines in primary-source research.) The second lecture, “Yankee Doodle Paddy: George M. Cohan and Irish-American Popular Culture,” explored aspects of Dwyer-Ryan’s research project centered on the role of Irish and Jewish Americans in American popular entertainment and “ethnic patriotism.”
Dr. Maxine Bryant and Professor Amir-Jamal Toure from the College of Arts and Humanities have an article that was published in the 2nd Annual NCBS AnnualReport: The Largely Ignored Influence of Gullah Geechee Culture Throughout the Diaspora.
College of Education’s Dr. Nancy Remler presented at the USG Teaching and Learning Conference on March 28. KEYS to Teaching Success: OER to Support Georgia’s Preservice Teachers shares recently collected data revealing the impact of this open educational resource designed to align with Georgia’s Georgia InternKEYS rubric. A Georgia Southern OER hero, Nancy is also a featured faculty member during Georgia Southern Libraries’ Open Education Week celebration.
Dr. Christopher E. Hendricks from the College of Arts and Humanities published a scholarly article entitled, “The Jumbal: Cookies, Society, and International Trade,” in the national journal Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 52 (2023): 369-82.
College of Arts and Humanities’s Norton Pease’s painting Wonder Breed will be included in the COSO 2023 Biennial at the VAE Raleigh, NC. The exhibition will run April 7 – June 30, 2023, at 228 Fayetteville St., Raleigh, NC. The COSO Biennial will celebrate its 10th Anniversary, bringing together 29 artists from seven states. The COSO Biennial higlights what artists in the regional South are currently thinking, discussing, and doing work about.
Dr. M. Jared Wood from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Milling Around in Scriven” at the Georgia Academy of Science conference; an update on Georgia colonial era (1760s-1780s) findings from his recent archaeology field school courses in nearby Screven County.
Jessica Hines from the College of Arts and Humanities collaborated with NYC fashion designer, Tyler McGillivary, to produce a clothing line featuring images from Hines’ work, Spirit Stories. The images feature a natural rainbow that appears yearly in winter over the water of a wetland where Hines lives and photographs. Its presence is due to organic plant oils and organisms that create a monomolecular film, similar to the phenomenon that gives rise to the colors seen on a soap bubble.
College of Education’s Drs. Karin Fisher and Kania Greer presented at National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference in Savannah with high school students from Atlanta who found Karin through one of her research/publications. [Grossberg, A.*, Fisher, K., Greer, K., Sankuratri, A.*, Caiello, S.*, & Gupta, A.* (2023, March). Supporting inclusion/accommodations for students with disabilities in STEM extracurriculars: A FIRST robotics needs assessment. [Multiple paper session]. National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference, Savannah, GA, United States.] Dr. Karin Fisher and VIP student Edie Greer presented a poster at the Council for Exceptional Children Annual Conference and Expo, Lexington, KY.
College of Arts and Humanities’s Matthew Hashiguchi’s documentary, “The Only Doctor,” was selected for a World Premiere Screening at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival on April 27, and a Preview Screening at the Atlanta Film Festival on April 23 at the The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Atin Athikari’s students presented data from an assignment in his Environmental & Occupational class at the 14th Conference on Environment and Health. One, Kingsley Kalu, was selected as a winner of a student paper award for his poster presentation. The title of the poster was “Associations Between Atmospheric Ozone, P.M.2.5 and Incidence Rates of Adult Diabetes.”
Drew Swanson from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “A Crop of Wild Game: Deer Propagation in the United States, 1900-1940,” at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History in Boston, MA, March 25, 2023.
MASS Anthropology student Jonathan Brown received the Outstanding Graduate Research Paper award in the Anthropology section of the Georgia Academy of Science conference, for his talk entitled “The Precontact Utilization of a Depressional Wetland at the Gresston Spring site (9DG152), Dodge County, GA.” Jonathan’s research touches on ancient use of water features by Native Americans in Georgia’s Coastal Plain.
Dr. Kathleen M. Comerford from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Eleonora, Giovanna, and Their Florentine Sons,” at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, March 10, 2023.
College of Education’s Dr. Betsy Barrow presented her paper, “Leveraging Technology to Engage Students in Discussions”, at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE) conference in New Orleans, LA on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. Betsy serves as a co-chair of the Social Studies Education SIG.
Two faculty from the Waters College of Health Professions, Drs. Li Li and Barry Munkasy, have noted a major challenge in the classroom as students not having easy access to tools that will help them analyze movement patterns and the joint forces accompanying human movement. With the awarding of a Student Technology Fee grant in the amount of $64,415.10, Li and Munkasy are planning to purchase the Ultium Portable Lab from Noraxon.
Dr. Larisa Elisha from the College of Arts and Humanities presented twice. First was a research session, “Initial positioning for Violin and Viola: Based on a Method of Natural Approach and Functional Movement,” at the 2023 American Teachers Association National Conference in Orlando, Florida (March, 2023). The second was a research session, “Intonation Issues on String Instruments – Correcting Them in the Classroom and Private Studio,” at the 2023 Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service Conference, Athens, Georgia (January, 2023).
College of Education’s Dr. Shelli Casler-Failing presented her most recent research, “Engaging in productive struggle: Pre-service teachers’ experiences in face-to-face vs. online methods classes” at the national conference for the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators held in New Orleans, LA. on February 2-4, 2023.
Dr. Kathleen M. Comerford from the College of Arts and Humanities organized the webinar “What Is Peer Review, and How Do I Survive It?” in the Renaissance Society of America’s Professional Development Webinar series. She has served as the founding chair of the Webinar Committee since October, 2021 and is completing her term in June, 2023.
Drs. Estelle Bester and Helen Taggart from the Waters College of Health Professions were awarded an Affordable Learning Georgia Grant from the USG in the amount of $14,999.30 to support Open Educational Resources in the school’s nursing research course, NURS 4113: Nursing Research, to improve the college affordability and success for USG students.
Dr. Amanda Konkle from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Marilyn Monroe, Murderess: How a Femme Fatale Role Shaped Monroe’s Star Persona” as part of the roundtable “Niagara’s Diamond Jubilee” at the Northeast MLA conference on March 25, 2023 in Niagara Falls. Dr. Konkle was also a featured speaker on a special feature on WRUU discussing Flannery O’Connor’s writing for O’Connor’s birthday.
Dr. Amanda Townley from the College of Education recently received funding of $10,000 from Georgia SeaGrant to provide teacher professional development in partnership with the UGA Marine Extension on Skidaway Island. This award will fund a three-day overnight professional learning excursion for regional teachers that will focus on coastal resilience and sustainability.
Dr. Michael Pemberton from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Challenging Misconceptions about Text Recycling” at the Association of College Research Librarians conference in Pittsburgh, PA, on March 18, 2023.
Christopher Smith from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Utilizing Zines for Multimodal Composition and Research Opportunities” at the Teaching and Learning Conference in Athens, GA, on March 27, 2023.
Danielle Peacock, MSN, RN and Kari Mau, DNP from the Waters College of Health Professions were awarded a Student Technology Fee grant in the amount of $208,000. Funds from the grant will be used to purchase software products from the Assessment Technology Institute to augment the academic preparation and undergraduate students in the School of Nursing at Georgia Southern University.
College of Arts and Humanities’s Dr. Ana Torres’s article “Hacia una deconstrucción de la novela Hostal Amor” was published in Argus-aArts & Humanities, vol. XII, no. 47 marzo, 2023, pp.1-13. Dr. Ana Torres specializes in issues of identity,race, and culture in contemporary literature of Latin America.
Dr. Alesia Moldavan from the College of Education published a manuscript in The STEAM Journal titled “Creative Learning with Music and Mathematics: Reflections on Interdisciplinary Collaborations. She also presented conference sessions at the Research Council on Mathematics Learning (Las Vegas, NV) and the National Science Teaching Association (Atlanta, GA) and a poster at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention and Expo (Louisville, KY).
Dr. Jessica Eisner from Research Services presented a poster on the impact of Covid-19 and higher education at the 2023 Annual Georgia Association of Women in Higher Education (GAWHE) Conference at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Separately, she also presented a paper virtually at the Jaypee Business School in Noida, India, and discussed the advancements in management and technology during and since the Covid-19 pandemic.
College of Education’s Dr. Alisa Leckie and Dr. Taylor Norman hosted the National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference – Over 1300 attendees, 100 different sessions that inspired, engaged, re-energized and connected educators, social workers, counselors and all other types of adults that support youth.
Dr. Finbarr Curtis from the College of Arts and Humanities gave a public lecture titled “Bickering among Our Sects: Religious Freedom and Catholic Identity from Al Smith to the Roberts Court” at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He was also interviewed by the Religious Studies Project for a podcast titled: “Spitting on the Sacred: Politics and Redefining Profanation.”
Dr. Bill Eaton and Dr. Robert Higgerson from the College of Arts and Humanities will present “Wither Cartesian Bodies: The Threat of Cartesian Pythagoreanism,” at the Emile du Chatelet Workshop in the Philosophy of Physics at Duke University.Dr. Dan Larkin presented “Why god(s) Why? Understanding Divine Dispensation in the Meno” with Julian Rome at the Collaborations Conference at SIU Carbondale.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Drs. Raymona Lawrence and Nandi Marshall have completed their training to receive the Certified Diversity Executive (CDE) credential. A CDE is a trained senior executive who manages or oversees large scale and complex equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts at an organization. Their focus is to remove systematic barriers to inclusion, lead culture change and transform the brand.
Dr. Mori-Kolbe from College of Arts and Humanities presented at 25th Southeast Conference for Languages, Literatures, and Film, which washeld at Western Carolina University at Asheville, NC on March 10, 2023. Her presentation was about the“implementation of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) in a university foreign languageclass.” Dr. Mori-Kolbe also presented at Annual Conference of American Association of Teachers of Japaneseheld in Boston on March 16, 2023.
College of Education’s Dr. Charles Hodges presented as part of the Digital Education online invited Lectures Series of the Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning program at the University of Strathclyde School of Education in Glasgow, UK. The Zoom presentation was titled: Instructional Technologist, Instructional Designer, Learning Designer, etc., and Teacher: What are these roles and how are they connected?
Dr. Lisa Dusenberry from the College of Arts and Humanities presented “Telling Stories, Crafting Mindsets: Using Picture Books to Embody Computational Thinking” at The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture in Louisville, KY on February 24, 2023.
Appointments
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Gulzar Shah was invited and has accepted an invitation to represent the JPHCOPH and serve on the ASPPH Public Health Workforce Taskforce. This potentially high-impact initiative is funded by CDC’s award for “Public Health Leadership and Education, Advancing Health Equity and Data Science (PH LEADS).”
On March 7, 2023, Dr. Kendra R. Parker from the College of Arts and Humanities accepted an appointment as an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at The Huntington Library in San Marino, CA. She will be an in-residence fellow this summer, accessing the Octavia E. Butler archive.
Dr. Jessica Eisner from Research Services was awarded the opportunity to join the GAWHE 2023 cohort of the Leadership Development Academy in partnership with the University of North Georgia.
College of Education’s Dr. Karin Fisher was invited to participate in a Georgia Department of Education Speech Language Pathologist Recruitment Workgroup.
Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health’s Dr. Joseph Telfair was asked to serve on the National Hispanic Health Foundation – Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Public Health Program (NHHF RRDPHP) Advisory Committee as a designee of APHA. This initiative is to increase awareness of need and to develop best practices/tools to recruit and retain a diverse workforce in the public health sector.
Last updated: 3/29/2023