Professor of Kinesiology Scott McLean was recognized as a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Associate Professor of Art History Allison Miller gave a presentation, titled “The Gaze of Animals in Western Han Bronze Sculpture,” on May 9 at the “Same and/or Other? Animals in East Asian History” workshop, organized by the Chinese Animal Studies Network. The workshop was held at the Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies at the University of Münster, Germany from May 8-10.

Associate Professor of Art History Allison Miller gave an invited lecture (in Chinese) at the University of Science and Technology of China (中国科学技术大学) in Hefei, Anhui Province, titled “Rediscovering Early China’s Polychrome Bronzes” (中国早期青铜器彩绘的再发现), on May 6.

Academic Success Coordinator Jennifer Frias founded a chapter of Alpha Alpha Alpha (Tri-Alpha), a national honor society for first-generation college students. The Southwestern University chapter, Mu Omega, was officially chartered on May 1. The purpose of Tri-Alpha is to promote academic excellence and provide opportunities for personal growth, leadership development, and campus and community service for first-generation college students. First-generation faculty and staff who are inducted into Tri-Alpha serve as mentors. The first cohort, Alpha, inducted 30 students, seven staff members, and three faculty.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle, Ph.D., was quoted in North Carolina’s Shelby Star newspaper, in an article titled “How did Gardner Webb University score on Forbes’ list of universities in poor financial health?” about formulas used to estimate college closures. The article can be read here, with a subscription.

Professor Emeritus of Music Kiyoshi Tamagawa has an article in the forthcoming issue of the International Suzuki Journal  (June 2025). “Origins of the Suzuki Violin School Repertoire” demonstrates that many of the pieces included in Shinichi Suzuki’s renowned sequence of violin instruction books were compiled from instruction books and string repertoire already in circulation in the early twentieth century, for which other musicians were responsible. The mostly German sources reflect Suzuki’s study as a young violin student in Berlin and were largely unacknowledged when the first published Suzuki Method  volumes appeared in the 1950s. By tracing the editorial paths of three particular compositions from Books 2 and 3, Tamagawa shows how the versions in Suzuki’s method are substantially altered from the original works, and in at least one case, misattributed.

Kinesiology alumni Corban Ruiz’s ’23 “fun” COVID student research project turned independent study with Associate Professor of Kinesiology Ed Merritt, which morphed into a research assistantship data management role for biology major and kinesiology minor Iliana Hernandez ’27, was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science. The paper, “Age of Anaerobic, Aerobic, and Skill-Based Olympic Athletes 1988 – 2024” provides insight into the development of and, potentially, the onset of age-related declines in human metabolic systems. The good news for most of us is that there has been at least one 65-year old who has competed in the Olympics since 1988 in a non-equestrian event! The paper can be read here.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi was selected to the Marketing Management Association (MMA) Board of Directors to serve a three-year term. In this role, Debika will have the opportunity to help shape the strategic direction of the organization and contribute to the continued growth and success of future marketing scholars, including service related to doctoral student consortiums and editorial/review work for conference proceedings and affiliated journals.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 has been invited to be the mezzo-soprano soloist with the European American Musical Alliance (EAMA) in Paris, France for the month of July. Altobello will be one of four singers to workshop and perform international new works in collaboration with the EAMA’s composition program. Composition faculty Philip Lasser, Benjamin C.S. Boyle, and Abbie Betinis will lead the month-long intensive. More information is available here.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 has been invited to be the mezzo-soprano soloist in W.A. Mozart’s “Requiem” with the Texas Bach Festival, under the direction of Dr. Barry Williamson. The concert will be held on Sunday, June 29 at 3:00 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Georgetown. More information is available here.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello’s voice student, mezzo-soprano Kaley Williams, has been doing wonderful things on the operatic stage in Central Texas. In the summer of 2024, Ms. Williams performed as a young artist with the Classical Music Institute Festival (CMI), partnered with the San Antonio Opera. The festival was led by Dr. Christopher Besch and featured selections from Spanish operas, canción líricas, and zarzuelas. In the fall of 2024, Ms. Williams performed in the ensemble with Georgetown Palace Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd, directed by Kristen Rogers. In March 2025, Ms. Williams performed the roles of “Tara” and “Tattooed Man” in Tyler Mabry’s new opera Ray Bradbury with One Ounce Opera in Austin, directed by Matt Smith. This summer, Ms. Williams will perform in Gilbert & Sullivan Austin’s production H.M.S. Pinafore, directed by Carol Brown, and conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Jones-Ragona. Ms. Williams began her vocal studies with Professor Altobello in the fall of 2022.

Associate Professor of Art History Allison Miller gave an invited lecture (in Chinese) at Guangxi University for Nationalities (广西民族大学), titled “Rediscovering Early China’s Polychrome Bronzes” (中国早期青铜器彩绘的再发现) on April 28.

John H. Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was invited to give two talks at Indiana University Indianapolis (formerly IUPUI). She was the keynote speaker at the award ceremony for the IU Indianapolis High School Math Contest, and also gave a talk at the mathematics department colloquium. Both talks were on her research using mathematical perspective and projective geometry to analyze art.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby first authored “Fabrication of Microgel-Reinforced Hydrogels via Vat Photopolymerization” in the journal ACS Macro Letters with Abhishek Dhand and the Burdick Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. The manuscript is the culmination of his pre-tenure sabbatical and demonstrates for the first time that micron-sized hydrogels can be incorporated at high densities in complex resin-printed geometries. The work can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz and SU alumnae Rebecca Ramirez ’24 and Laura Carrasco Torres ’25 published an article titled “Centering community in fugitive pedagogy: Pláticas with Chicana Ethnic Studies teachers” in Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social. This article analyzes the impact of censorship legislation (Senate Bill 3, passed in 2021) on middle and high school Mexican American Studies teachers.

Sociology and feminist studies double major and race and ethnicity studies minor Emily Dimiceli ’25 has been accepted into the 2025 American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Honors Program. As a part of the program, she will present her capstone research paper, titled “‘Obama was voted president by white people’: Predictors of Americans’ Perceptions of Racism,” at this year’s ASA annual meeting in Chicago, IL.

On April 23, as a member of the American Physiology Society, Associate Professor of Kinesiology Ed Merritt met with staff in the Washington, D.C. offices of Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John Cornyn, Representative Lizzie Fletcher, and Representative Vincente Gonzalez, to discuss the importance of science research and education funding, highlighting the negative impact proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) will have on Texas’, and the country’s, health and education outcomes.

Biology major and kinesiology minor Iliana Hernandez ’27 presented research findings from the recently completed clinical trial “Exercise Training Adaptations in Middle-Aged Adults With and Without Post-Exercise Peanut Consumption” at the American Physiology Summit in Baltimore, MD on April 26. Co-authors on the study are kinesiology major Erica Otto ’25, Southwestern alumni Matthew Bierwirth ’24, Rachel Chiella ’24, Barrett Knapp ’24, and Zachary Moon ’24, and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Ed Merritt.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle, Ph.D., presented on “Advisor AI: Providing Personalized, Holistic Support to Students Throughout Their Academic Journey” at HERDI (Higher Education Research and Development Institute) Innovate in San Antonio, TX on April 29. More information can be found here.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle, Ph.D., was one of three presenters on a webinar for career advisors and counselors titled, “Transforming Student Success with Personalized, Holistic, and Intentional Support.” More information can be found here.

Professional Academic Advisor Jenny Terry Roberts ’95 received the Organization Advisor of the Year Award for her work with SU’s chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, the gender-inclusive national service fraternity. APO was founded 100 years ago on the principles of leadership, friendship, and service; the Alpha Gamma Kappa chapter was chartered at SU in 1991. Jenny joined in her first semester as a student at Southwestern and loves helping current students keep it going strong. Additional awesome SU APO Advisors include Faculty Advisor Debika Sihi, Community Advisor Paul Ford ’00, and Scouting Advisor Scott Roberts ’94.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello’s voice student Will Mallick ’24 has been taking the musical theatre stage by storm in Austin. In October 2024, Mallick performed “Will Hanks” in a professional workshop of Mr. Hanks, A New Musical, written by Lane Rockford Orsak, composed by Francis McGrath, and directed by Laura Galt. In December 2024, Mallick performed “Apprentice Scrooge” in A Christmas Carol  at ZACH Theatre, directed by Dave Steakley. In February and March 2025, Mallick understudied and performed the role of “Bob Gaudio” in Jersey Boys  at ZACH Theatre, directed by Cassie Abate. In March and April 2025, Mallick performed as an “ensemble member” in Company with Roustabout Presents, directed by Adam Roberts. Currently, Mallick is performing the lead role of “Pigeon” in ZACH’s children’s musical production Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, directed by Nat Miller. This summer, Mallick will perform the title role “Conrad Birdie” in Bye Bye Birdie  at TexArts, directed by Kimberly Schafer. Will Mallick began his vocal studies with Professor Altobello in the fall of 2020.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes contributed to a published roundtable review of Jack Snyder’s book Human Rights for Pragmatists  for H-Diplo and the Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum. It can be read here.

Staff Instructor in Spanish Noelia Cigarroa-Cooke and Professor of Spanish Carlos de Oro presented the paper “El monstruo político como una alegoría crítica en el cine latinoamericano contemporáneo” at the 2025 Secolas Conference in Mexico City, Mexico from April 24-26.

Assistant Professor of History Soojung Han presented the paper “Changes to Diplomatic Relations through Marriage Alliance Systems in Middle Period China (304-907)” at the T’ang Studies Society Conference, hosted by the T’ang Studies Society and the Elling Eide Center in Sarasota, FL.

Herman Brown Chair and Professor of Communication Studies Valerie Renegar returned to Postira, Croatia last week for the 7th Days of Ivo Škarić rhetoric conference. She presented a paper titled “The Weight of Stigma,” co-authored with Kirsti Cole of North Carolina State University. This international conference featured rhetorical scholars from 10 countries across three continents.

Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin was an invited participant at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies 30th Anniversary Symposium. Selbin was invited by the Center’s Director, Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, and Professor of Government Steven Levitsky to interact with former Chilean President (2006-2010; 2014-2018) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2018-2022) Michelle Bachelet Jeria, former Member of the National Assembly of Venezuela Maria Corina Machado (2011-2014), and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo (1994-2000). It was also an opportunity for Selbin to reconnect with an old friend, Dora María Téllez, Nicaragua’s famous Comandante Dos, who, since her 2023 release as a political prisoner, has been the Richard E. Greenleaf Distinguished Chair in Latin American Studies at Tulane University and is currently the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at Harvard.

At formal ceremonies on April 22, six seniors were named to the “5 Points of Pirate Pride,” the undergraduate hall of fame for the most well-rounded leaders. Inductees are: Emily Dimiceli, Charlie Fournier, Bodhi Hassell, Luke Marx, Sophia Trifilio, and Madi Vela. Their formal portraits will be enshrined in the McCombs Center as role models for future classes.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse presented a paper titled “Living In Contemporarity: Towards an afro-fem ethic of sufficiency” and participated in a closed workshop on MJ Alexander’s book Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred  at the philoSOPHIA Conference held at Texas A&M University in College Station on April 10.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol published an article with her colleague Dr. Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, titled “Teaching Writing Skills Alongside the Writing Process: Interactive Writing in the Prekindergarten Classroom.” The article was published in The Reading Teacher  and highlights case study findings alongside practical tips for implementing interactive writing in primary grades. The article can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira coauthored the forum essay, “Centering Latin America: gender politics, attacks on higher education, and lessons of resistance from Brazil,” with Dr. Raiana Carvalho of Furman University. The piece, published in the National Communication Association’s journal Communication Education, argues that by centering Latin America, and Brazil in particular, we hope to disrupt the hegemonic narrative that foregrounds the United States as the primary spreader of anti-higher education conservative ideologies. Instead, we offer evidence that these far–right attacks are transnational in nature, and that Latin America is at the center of both the articulation of such conservative ideas as well as of the organized resistance to such ideologies. The essay can be found here.

Sociology students and faculty members attended the Southern Sociological Society annual meeting in Charlotte, NC from April 9-12. Five sociology seniors presented their capstone research: Catherine Angell presented “Presidency or Penitentiary: Exploring Americans’ Attitudes Towards Felons’ Right to Vote;” Isabella Bahamon presented “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Choice: Predicting Americans’ Attitudes Towards Abortion Rights,” which won the 2025 Odum Award for Best Undergraduate Paper; Emily Dimiceli presented “‘Obama was voted president by white people’: Predictors of Americans’ Perceptions of Racism;” Mary Kate McAdams presented “‘It seems like the system has a few favorites’: Factors that Affect American Attitudes about Racial and Economic Bias in the Criminal Justice System;” and Chelsey Rocha presented “‘DEI is just racism against white people’: Americans Attitudes About Anti-DEI Bills in Higher Education.” In addition, faculty and students presented on their collaborative research projects. Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez and environmental studies major Sarah Ventimiglia ’25 presented their co-authored study titled, “Hashtag Blessed: Performances of White Femininity and Consumption on TikTok.” Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe presented her collaborative study (with co-authors Dr. Reginald Byron of the University of Denver, Brigit Reese ’24, and Carson Maxfield ’24) titled, “Residents of Color in non-Predominantly White Neighborhoods: Are They More Likely to Worry about Racialized Surveillance Than White Residents?”

Spanish minor Jessica McCutcheon ’28 presented a research paper titled “Cerrando Brechas: Desafíos de Salud Mental para los Inmigrantes Hispanos” at the Latin American and Latinx Studies Symposium held at Rollins College on April 4. Jessica’s paper addresses one of the most urgent and often overlooked public health issues in the U.S.—the systemic barriers to mental health care for Hispanic immigrants. At a time when mental health disparities are deepening, her research brings critical attention to the cultural, linguistic, and structural challenges affecting one of the fastest-growing populations in the country. Her participation in the symposium was sponsored by Endowed Professor of Spanish Carlos de Oro, who mentored Jessica in preparation for her presentation.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez has been nominated for the 2025 Texas Music Teachers Association Outstanding Collegiate Teaching Achievement Award. This prestigious honor recognizes exceptional achievement in collegiate-level instruction in music performance, composition, theory, history, or any combination of these disciplines. Dr. Hourez was elected to represent the Central Texas region and was nominated alongside six other distinguished faculty members from across the state. The results will be announced in early June.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer gave a plenary talk on April 11 at the Infinite Possibilities 2025 conference held at the Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation at the University of Chicago. Her talk was titled “It Takes a Village(r)” and called for the audience to examine who is in their lives, who they are responsible for, and to think about adding to their community.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer was the local invited speaker at the Math For All Austin conference on April 5. She spoke about how we can find interesting geometry all around us if we keep our eyes open for cone points in a talk titled “Embracing Hyperbolicity.”

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross published an article titled “No quiero ser mamá: Non-motherhood in Pronatalist Spain” in Letras Hispanas. This article analyzes how a graphic novel portrays a woman’s decision to not become a mother and the pushback she receives through her visual narrative. Read the article here.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala (LB) published the article “Caste-Attentiveness” in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, the #1 ranked journal in communication studies. In this article, LB refuses caste as an “India-specific” problem and places it alongside anti-indigeneity, anti-Blackness, and settler colonialism as a global system demanding unrelenting critical attention. Read more here.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey gave a talk at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 national meeting in San Diego on her recently published work with chemistry graduate Lexi Fantz ’21 on low energy chlorophylls in cyanobacterial light-harvesting.

Chemistry majors Jodi Glenn-Millhouse ’25, Kaiden Salaz ’25, Annalina Slover ’26, and Carolyn Waldie ’26 presented posters on their research on how photosynthetic diatoms adapt their light-harvesting under light and magnesium stress at the American Chemical Society Spring 2025 national meeting in San Diego. Their presentations resulted from research done with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed provided a pre-UIL clinic for five choirs at Copperas Cove High School. The all-day clinic involved over 15 pieces. A Sweepstakes Award-winning program, Copperas Cove High School has a professional staff of two full-time high school teachers and an accompanist.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma was awarded the inaugural American Society for Environmental History (ASEH) Research Fellowship at the just-ended ASEH annual conference in Pittsburgh. He also presented his forthcoming paper, “Farming the God’s Way: Rethinking Fertilizers and Hybrid Seeds in African Grain Production in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1950s to 1970s.”

Spanish major Maricruz Zacharias ’25 presented a research paper titled “Danzas aztecas: la representación ceremonial de las creencias” at the Latin American and Latinx Studies Symposium held at Rollins College on April 4. Maricruz studied how through the performative nature of dance rituals, the choreographic patterns were used to convey stories, spiritual beliefs, and communal values. Her paper comes from the independent study she is doing this semester with Associate Professor of Spanish María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Cadena, who mentored Maricruz to present at the Symposium.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce and sociology major Chelsey Rocha ’25 presented “Intersectionality, Accessibility, and Fraudulent Behavior: Feminist, Qualitative Methodology and Emerging Virtual Recruitment” at the Southern Sociological Society (SSS) Annual Conference in Charlotte, NC. Dr. Ponce and Chelsey’s presentation wrestled with accessible recruitment practices for diverse stepfamilies while protecting the data from interested respondents misrepresenting their qualifications for the study.

Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin published a chapter titled “International Political Sociology & Resistance: Whither Revolution” in The Oxford Handbook of International Political Sociology, edited by Stacie Goddard, George Lawson, and Ole Jacob Sending (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025). This is the third piece in a three-year trilogy calling for a refiguration of revolution and with these provides the basis for a current book project.

Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin served as the external member on the doctoral dissertation committee of Katalin Amon, who successfully defended “The Mortgage Debtor, the Neighbor, the Homeless Citizen, and the Family: Understanding Citizenship and Housing Through Citizen Imaginaries” at Central European University in Vienna. Selbin is also currently serving as an external member on dissertation committees at the University of Cambridge and the University of Virginia.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby presented his sabbatical research, titled “Digital light processing 3D printing of microgel-reinforced hydrogels,” via a 15-minute platform presentation at the 2025 Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Annual Meeting held in Chicago on April 10. The first-author work is currently under review.

Physics majors Joseph (Joe) Dorsey ’26 and Amanda Mejia ’27 attended the Capital of Texas Undergraduate Research Conference (CTURC) hosted at the University of Texas at Austin. Joe presented platform presentations on his and Amanda’s research conducted in the bioprinting laboratory of Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony co-authored a paper, titled “Bachelors of Arts versus Bachelors of Science Degrees in Computer Science,” with Edward Talmage at Bucknell University and Andrea Tartaro at Furman University. The paper was published in the proceedings of the 29th annual Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges Northeastern Conference. It finds that there is a lack of consistent definitions for each degree within computer science, but that insights can be gained along several dimensions for liberal arts institutions that offer both degrees.

Computer science majors Timothy Berlanga ’25, Rudy Guerra Jr. ’25, and Kyle Keleher ’25 attended the Consortium for Computer Sciences in Colleges: South Central Region Conference at McNeese State University on April 5. They won first place in the poster competition for their work “Better Picks: Using Machine Learning to Make Smarter Sports Betting Decisions.” This project, done along with Kade Townsend ’25 in the Computer Science Capstone taught by Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony, built upon ideas first developed in the artificial intelligence course taught by Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello performed Dr. Chris Prosser’s 11-minute comedic operatic duet, titled “META Anthem,” at KMFA Radio’s Opera Austin Festival at the Draylen Mason Music Studio on November 16, 2024, in conjunction with LOLA (Local Opera Local Artists). The piece featured Altobello as mezzo soprano, baritone Brandon Morales, and pianist Brad Baker, and was directed by Rebecca Herman. A hilarious spoof on the ridiculousness of social media, the piece was written for Altobello and Dr. Tim O’Brien in the spring of 2023 and premiered at the Here Be Monsters Music Festival in Austin that summer.

Recent music graduate Makenna Palacio ’24, a student of Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Julia Taylor, has been accepted into the Houston Grand Opera (HGO) Young Artist Vocal Academy. All participants receive the opportunity to work on-site for a week of classes in character development, score preparation, diction, and movement, in addition to daily voice lessons and coachings with HGO music staff, including Director of Vocal Instruction Stephen King.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed organized and supported the submission, reception, and presentation of the panel “Salons, Skateboarding, and Tabletop Gaming: Stories of ‘Alternative’ Intersectional Gender Expression in Recreational Communities,” presented on April 4 at the 2025 Southwestern Anthropology Association Conference in Pomona, CA. During this panel, anthropology and classics double major Marley Sensenderfer ’25 chaired the session and presented the paper talk “Roll for Stereotypes: D&D and Gender Performativity Tabletop role-playing games,” anthropology major Emma French ’25 presented the paper talk “Gender and Skateboarding Culture,” and anthropology and environmental studies double major Rose Reed ’25 presented the paper talk “White Beauty Standards in a Hair and Nail Salon.” This panel was a collaboration of three student anthropology capstone research projects that deconstruct intersectional manifestations of gender in public space via insider (or native) ethnographic analysis. More information on the session and the conference can be found here.

Garey Chair and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Ed Merritt was interviewed by BBC News for an article about fat-burning during exercise. His expertise was featured in several international editions published in various languages, including Pashto, Portuguese, Swahili, Thai, and Turkish.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth earned two materials grants from the German Foreign Office and the German Academic Exchange Service, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). The grants cover two curated collections of German language publications: German language poetry across the ages, and German language texts in natural history, climate science, and the anthropocene. Students will engage with those collections in their studies of German language, literatures, and cultures at all proficiency levels. Success with DAAD materials grants is made possible through Berroth’s commitment to community engagement as a DAAD Ortslektorin.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson’s article “Tigah camp: unruly multispecies assemblages, race and gender in a Belizean trophy jaguar hunting camp” has just been published in the journal Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. It can be read here.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones presented a brief lecture titled “Mapeando las prácticas de partería de la ciudad de México: La Escuela Libre de Obstetricia y Enfermería y la visualización de los partos en casa después de la revolución. [Mapping Mexico City’s midwifery practices: The Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing and the visualization of at-home births after the revolution].” The presentation was part of the activities of the second workshop of MX.digital, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the United States and Mexico, including historians, anthropologists, geographers, and computer scientists, interested in the creation of digital repositories and maps for the visualization of the history of Mexico, organized by the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Aguascalientes, and sponsored by John Hopkins University. He became a member of the curricular committee tasked to design a general and flexible curriculum to disseminate knowledge, methodology, and projects on digital and public history for the collection, organization, and visualization of historical information.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long presented a paper titled “Exploring the fractured imaginaries of climate-displacement and security” at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Detroit. At this same conference, Long also served as a discussant on Farhana Sultana’s “Author Meets Critics: Confronting Climate Coloniality” panel.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long co-chaired three sessions titled “Confronting Climate Apartheid” at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Detroit. Long also co-chaired a panel on the “Coloniality of Climate Change” at this same conference.

University Business  has agreed to publish an article by Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle, titled “Has Student Affairs Become Too Decentralized to Best Help Students Succeed?,” in their April 2025 issue. One version of the article can be found here.

Olivia Bakke ’25, Zachary Collins ’25, Shobby Enakpene ’26, Christina Kuras ’25, Kacy Miller ’26, Abby Ryan ’25, Elise Samples ’25, and Vanessa Villarreal ’25 participated in the National Collegiate Digital Marketing Championship held at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business on April 1. All students demonstrated fantastic mastery of digital marketing strategy.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone and Instruction and Student Success Librarian Emily Thorpe presented a session titled “From Concept to Creation: Designing Engaging Library Creator Kits” at the Texas Library Association Annual Meeting in Dallas.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone was one of three panelists at the recent Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Dallas. The panel, titled “Navigating the Library Profession: Insights from Academic, Public, and School Librarians,” provided insight into each librarian’s journey and recommendations for navigating the field.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone, at the request of the Texas Library Association (TLA), presented a session on “Reimagining Special Collections: Outreach, Engagement & Hands-On Learning” at the recent TLA Annual Conference in Dallas.

Three faculty and eight students participated in the 2025 meeting of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America, which took place March 28–29 at Prairie View A&M University. Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr served on the Executive Committee as the section’s chair-elect. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross also served on the Executive Committee, in the role of Digital Media Editor. Ross also serves as a co-leader of Section NExT, a professional development program for early-career mathematicians. As part of his work for NExT, he led “Inquiry without Overhaul,” a session on introducing inquiry-based learning into mathematics classes in easy-to-digest pieces. Three students presented. Clay Elliott ’26 presented “Linear Algebra Behind Satisfactory,” which featured work done in his Linear Algebra class with Lord Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura. Georgia Micknal ’25 and Avery Weatherly ’25 presented “Antimagic Polydominoes,” which featured research done with Marr. Assistant Professor of Instruction of Mathematics Will Tran also attended, as did students Caytie Brown ’27, Ashlyn Cadena ’27, Camille James ’26, Robert Karcher ’27, and Dash Puentes ’27. All eight students competed in the Math Bowl as part of two different teams on Friday. Both teams finished in the top half of all teams competing.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 was the mezzo-soprano section leader and vocalist for Congregation Beth Israel’s High Holy Day season in September and October 2024. Professor Altobello sang under the leadership of Cantor Sarah Avner, Conductor Dr. Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, and Collaborative Pianist Dr. Maimy Fong. This marks Professor Altobello’s ninth year singing High Holy Days with the synagogue, the oldest Jewish synagogue in Austin.

Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings published “Pedagogical Approaches to VE” with co-author Tammy Jandrey Hertel of the University of Lynchburg. The chapter, which appears in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Computer-Assisted Language Learning, edited by Lee McCallum and Dara Tafazoli, explores the use of virtual exchanges in second language teaching as a means to enhance the learning experience by providing opportunities to interact and communicate with speakers of the target language. More information on the volume can be found here.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala steered several student projects that were accepted, presented, and recognized at a highly selective regional conference. Three Southwestern students traveled to Albuquerque, NM, to present their research at the 2025 Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference hosted by the Western States Communication Association. This marks the fourth conference Dr. Bahrainwala has mentored her students through. Faculty reviewers and the conference chair commended the students afterwards and attempted to recruit them to their graduate programs. Mia Santoscoy ’26 presented her paper “The Dehumanization of Palestinians in U.S. Media: Animal rhetoric through death tolls, Instagram infographics, CNN, and X.” Mia also received a standing ovation from the faculty speakers at the Palestine Solidarity day-long workshop on February 14. Vanessa Villarreal ’25 presented her paper “Mean Girl Feminism: Latina Narratives, TikTok, and the Fight Against Misogyny.” Elisabeth Barlin ’25 presented her paper “Sexy, Cute, and Popular to Boot: The Satirizing of Cheerleading within Bring It On.” Congratulations to these outstanding students.

Senior Aidan Gomez ’25 presented a poster titled “The Rules of Quotas Matter: Female Representation in the Italian and Japanese Legislatures” at the ASIANetwork Conference in San Antonio on March 29. The poster emerged from a paper written in Professor of Political Science and Vice President for Academic Affairs Alisa Gaunder’s Women in Politics in Europe and Asia course.

Assistant Professor of Classics Jeffrey Easton presented a paper at the Classical Association of the Middle West and South Annual Meeting in Champaign-Urbana, IL. The paper explored evidence from a set of eight Latin inscriptions which highlight a form of lateral social mobility among subaltern Romans. The paper suggests that while cases of extraordinary vertical social mobility tend to draw the most scholarly attention, cases involving incremental, multi-generational upward social and economic advancement represent a far more common experience for most Roman families.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed performed as the piano accompanist for four choirs from East View High School for their UIL performance in March. She performed on a total of eight pieces ranging from the 16th century to the modern period, including one with an East View clarinetist. The contest was held at Georgetown High School with three judges from across the state of Texas. This two-day event involved over 30 choirs from Region 26.

Senior Research and Instruction Librarian Katherine Hooker and Instruction and Student Success Librarian Emily Thorpe have received the 2025 Library Instruction Round Table “Project of the Year” award. Given by the Texas Library Association, this award recognizes an innovative or creative library instruction project or initiative in Texas. The recognized project was “Navigating Knowledge: Mastering the Ocean of Information,” a custom-built digital escape game that introduced information literacy and library information to incoming students in Fall 2024 FYS and AES courses.

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe, sociology and business graduate ThuyMi Phung ’23, and sociology and art history graduate Katherine Holcomb ’23 presented their co-authored paper titled “The Interaction of Race and Racial Grievance: Predictors of American Attitudes about Critical Race Theory” at the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in Boston from March 6-9.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a seminar paper titled “A Mouldy Tale Newly Set” at the Shakespeare Association of America conference in Boston on March 21. His paper discusses the path of Pericles, a play that Shakespeare co-authored, through its recent performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The play was once disdained because of its collaborative nature and sprawling geography, but now has become interesting for the same reasons.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi co-hosted a panel with Hannah Walters, Associate Professor of Marketing at Northern State University and author of “AI in Marketing: Applications, Insights, and Analysis,” at the Marketing Management Association Spring Conference. The panel explored four initiatives for integrating AI as a tool to develop critical thinking across marketing courses. Debika also presented her early-stage research project titled, “Place Marketing: Bridging the Gap Between Longtime Locals, Newcomers, and Tourists through Digital Marketing,” which examines how city marketing and communications teams manage the evolving brand identity of fast-growing communities.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum and Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby had their paper, “A Quality Diversity Approach to Evolving Model Rockets,” accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. For this paper, evolutionary computation algorithms studied by Dr. Schrum were applied to the problem of designing model rockets, like those built by Dr. Crosby’s students in his Introduction to Engineering class. The designs evolved by Dr. Schrum’s program were simulated in a computer, and the most promising designs were built by physics and computer science double-major Kade Townsend ’25, before being launched and evaluated in the real world.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Margaret Bonds  as a part of the Composers Across Cultures series by Oxford University Press (New York). It is the first book-length biography of the composer, pianist, and activist who (as many readers of these Notables know distressingly well) is Cooper’s primary musical heartthrob of late. The book draws on an unprecedented mass of archival materials, offers insights into previously neglected (but important) facets of Bonds’ career, points out and corrects a number of longstanding and widely repeated fictions, and includes as its final chapter a 100-page survey of Bonds’ more than 400 compositions, categorized by genre. It’s also Cooper’s third book completed in as many years (although its origins date back to the mid-1980s). Readers of this notice may rest assured that Cooper will now take a break from writing books (though his series of editions of previously unpublished works by Bonds and her friend and mentor Florence Price will continue…). Those interested in this book about one of the most extraordinary musicians and musical activists of the twentieth century may read snippets (or more) at OUP’s website here and through their favorite booksellers.

Assistant Professor of Music Ruben Balboa was named a national finalist for The American Prize in Orchestral Conducting, college/university orchestra division. The American Prize National Nonprofit Competitions in the Performing Arts are the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the performing arts. The American Prize is unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, directors, ensembles and composers in the United States at professional, college/university, community, and high school levels, based on submitted recordings. The full announcement can be viewed here.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey and chemistry graduate Lexi Fantz ’21 published an article titled “Functional Connectivity of Red Chlorophylls in Cyanobacterial Photosystem I Revealed by Fluence-Dependent Transient Absorption” in the Journal of Physical Chemistry B. They used ultrafast laser spectroscopy to show energy transfer between low energy chlorophyll sites on the picosecond timescale. This work was done in collaboration with researchers at Swarthmore College, National Institutes of Health, the University of Chicago, and the University of Sheffield. The article can be read here. 

Digital Initiatives and Collections Assistant Christina Gerardo won a Texas Library Association Branding Iron Award in the print marketing category for her Distinctive Collections Zine.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone presented “The Early Years of Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX” as part of the Preservation Georgetown Spring Lecture series.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was awarded the Kristeller-Popkin Travel Fellowship worth $4,000 from the Journal of the History of Philosophy  for a research project titled “Interrogating Apartheid’s Foundations through Alfred Hoernlé’s Philosophy.” Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse is one of two awardees to receive the highly competitive grant.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed was the visiting clinician for the Round Rock High School Choirs in February. She conducted, accompanied on piano, and gave instruction for foreign language diction, historical style, and vocal pedagogy, as well as provided several interpretative ideas for three choirs. She also gave conducting and UIL preparation coaching to their director. The choirs did well at the UIL contest, receiving at least one Sweepstakes Award for their performance and sight-reading abilities.

Assistant Director of Advising Hayley Harned presented a breakout session, titled “You Said What? Navigating Self-Disclosure in Academic Advising,” at the NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising Region 7 Conference in Memphis, TN from March 5-7. She also co-presented on “Enhancing NACADA Leadership Through the Emerging Leaders Program” and “Let’s Talk Professional Mentoring” due to her roles as an Emerging Leader and the Region 7 Mentoring Chair.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and education major Sydney Jackson ’27 presented two research sessions: “STEM and Successful Play-based Programs” at the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education in Valladolid, Yucatán, México, and “Play-Based Programs: Themes for Success” at the annual conference of The Association for the Study of Play in South Padre Island, TX.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman presented two workshops: “Playing with Numbers: Choice, Joy, and Wonder in Mathematics Education” at the annual conference of The Association for the Study of Play in South Padre Island, TX, and “Playful Approaches for Learning Math: Choice, Joy, and Wonder” at the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education in Valladolid, Yucatán, México.

In honor of the 2025 International Women’s Day, Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez organized a charity concert in Austin. The program consisted of music written exclusively by women, and Dr. Hourez invited Assistant Professor of Music Ruben Balboa to perform with her. The concert was dedicated to Dress for Success Austin, with all proceeds donated to the organization, which supports women’s independence and professional success.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez presented a lecture-recital, titled “Marguerite Canal & her three Esquisses Méditerranéennes for piano: An exploration of Impressionist colors and timbres,” at the Symposium on Timbre and Colour in French Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in the United Kingdom in February.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Margaret Bonds’ choral love song “Supplication” with E.C. Schirmer (St. Louis). Written for SATB chorus and piano, the work proceeds from the usual sense of the term “supplication” (an earnest request or entreaty, especially one made deferentially to a person in a position of power or authority – OED Online), but challenges its connotation of hierarchy (here, gender hierarchy): the men’s and women’s voices address each other with mutual/reciprocal deference: “Once more I offer you my adoration, I offer you my love. Once more I beg of you, heed my supplication… I want to love again, and learn to smile. I want to live again the life you made worthwhile… This is my tender supplication, this is my plea.”

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol presented and conducted a workshop titled “Experience Based Learning: A Renewed Perspective in Early Childhood Education” at the Association for the Study of Play conference in South Padre Island, TX.

On International Women’s Day, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon released the first episode of her collaborative podcast, Malflora Podcast, which is a series of pláticas (community conversations) with Latina/e lesbian activists, writers, artists, and scholars. Malflora Podcast is published by Malflora Collective, a community project dedicated to preserving the lives and legacies of Latina/e lesbians. Dr. Solomon first conceptualized Malflora Collective as a 2024 Mellon Publicly-Engaged Humanities Summer Fellow. Since then, the project has grown to include a team of nine members, including Communication Studies/Latin American and Border Studies double major Mia Santoscoy ’26, who is currently serving as Dr. Solomon’s Research Assistant. In Episode 1 of Malflora Podcast, members from Malflora Collective introduce themselves and their work memorializing Latina/e lesbian history and culture. Listen here or on all major streaming platforms.

Camille James ’26 presented a poster in the mathematics and computer science section of the 128th annual meeting of the Texas Academy of Sciences in Waco from February 28-March 1. This work on “Distortion of Single Transferable Vote on a Line” with Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony investigated improving the gap between the existing upper and lower bounds of this measure of social welfare.

From March 3-5, Assistant Professor of Education Alicia Moore engaged in National Service by fulfilling her federal appointment as a member of the Board of Visitors for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). The century-long history of this institution has played a vital role in strengthening American alliances and national security. During the meetings, she engaged with international military officers from Morocco, Singapore, Germany, Sweden, and Canada, two of whom shared that their nations send only their top officers in hopes of qualifying for the prestigious postgraduate program at the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). Dr. Moore provided curricular guidance and support, contributing to the ongoing development of CGSC’s academic programs.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited member of the delegation representing Academic Engagement Network (AEN), an organization dedicated to fighting academic antisemitism, at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “Never is Now” conference in New York City from March 3-4. The conference featured both Jews and allies who are working to fight a tide of Jew-hate that is rising at college campuses nationwide, including David Schwimmer, Gal Gadot, Billie Jean King, and Van Jones, as well as the presidents of the University of Michigan and Washington University in St. Louis. AEN and ADL announced a new partnership to clearly articulate that debate and protest about the Middle East is good, but harassment of Jewish students and calls for genocide must be stopped. A photo including Saenger and Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the ADL, to promote the work they are doing together can be seen here, via X.

Assistant Professor of Economics Hieu Nguyen had a research article accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Journal of Comparative International Management. Dr. Nguyen, the study’s main contributor, and his co-authors, Quang Evansluong of Umeå University and Aliaksei Kazlou of Linköping University, employed the Getis-Ord statistic, a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation, and a combination of publicly available and restricted-access data on new business formation in Sweden, to extend the existing discourse on native and immigrant entrepreneurship. The selection and agglomeration theories of economics and the disadvantage and cultural-capital theories of entrepreneurship research were used to rationalize some of the patterns observed in the study. A link to the paper’s preprint is available here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Margaret Bonds’ choral gem “Rainbow Gold” with E. C. Schirmer (St. Louis). Scored for mixed chorus and piano, “Rainbow Gold” was part of what Bonds called “a certain line” of compositions that she was “anxious to promote” after she became the only woman of color in classical music in the white- and male-dominated American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers in 1955, because the compositions advanced the cause of Black music and gave voice to the Black experience. She took it on a dangerous tour of thirteen Southern states as the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was gaining steam toward passage. In a letter to her family, she linked it to the end of segregation, tying the growing spirit of hope born of that Act’s progress to audiences’ enthusiasm for the piece and its populist message hailing the rewards that – so Bonds believed – would come to those who devoted themselves to doing good for others: “There’s a folly in believin’ / You can’t take it with you when / All these riches you’re achievin’ / No one else could use again, / It’s the pay you’ve been receivin’ / While you did good deeds for men – / Rainbow Gold.” Rainbow Gold posthumously premiered using a pre-publication print of Cooper’s edition by the Capitol Hill Chorale (Washington, D.C.) in 2022. Those interested in being moved to earn their own Rainbow Gold can hear that performance here.

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Jennifer Stokes presented a workshop on “The Power of Collaborative Learning: Faculty and Student Reflections on the Implementation of Collaborative Critical Thinking Problem Set Sessions” at the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society’s Southern Regional Conference, which was held in Lakeland, FL on March 1.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez was selected to be in the Sacred Writes Spring 2025 Carpenter Cohort. Sacred Writes provides support, resources, and networks for scholars of religion committed to translating the significance of their research to a broader audience. This spring cohort focuses on training scholars of religion, gender, and sexuality on translating their work into public scholarship. More about the program and her cohort can be found here.

Joseph (Joe) Dorsey ’26, Gabriela Nicole Hislop Gomez ’26, Bryan Guzman-Sanchez ’26, Sabina Martinez Carreon ’28, and Amanda Mejia ’27 attended the Texas Academy of Science (TAS) 2025 Annual Meeting hosted in Waco. Joe and Amanda presented platform presentations on their research conducted in the bioprinting laboratory of Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby. Joe was awarded first place among the platform presentations in the physics and engineering section. Dr. Crosby also contributed as one of the meeting’s section chairs.

Part-time Instructor of Applied Music Sarah Oliver published “The Biopsychosocial Approach: A New Path Toward Healing Physical Pain in Musicians” with Sage Journals. It will appear in the spring issue of the American String Teacher journal.

The weekend of February 28 – March 2 brought scientists from all over Texas to McLennan Community College and Baylor University in Waco, for the 145th Texas Academy of Sciences meeting. Ten students represented the Biology Department, including Gage Mallo ’26, Johun Reyes ’26, Annika Tracy ’25, Murphy Jacobie ’27, Madeleine Thomas ’26, Kylie Allemeier ’26, Katelin Pilarski ’26, Sarah Berver ’26, Alanna Guerrero ’25 and Jordan Emerson ’27. 

Based on her collaboration with Assistant Professor of Biology Kim McArthur, Annika gave a talk, titled “Location-independent axon pathfinding in the hindbrain of larval zebrafish,” that earned the first place undergraduate talk award for the neuroscience section. 

Madeleine presented a poster with her research mentor, Assistant Professor of Biology Sunny Scobell, titled “A morphological analysis of the dopaminergic pathway in the brain of a male pregnant pipefish.” Dr. Scobell also mentored Jennifer Smalz, a student from her previous institution (UD: The University of Dallas), who gave a talk titled “Investigating male pregnancy in Gulf Pipefish using scanning electron microscopy to describe the anatomy of the brood pouch over the reproductive cycle.” Ms. Smalz’ talk earned the first place undergraduate award in the systematics and evolutionary biology section. Within that section, Dr. Scobell also gave two presentations, one co-authored with UD student Farah Atarah, titled “Brood pouch anatomy throughout the course of male pregnancy in Gulf Pipefish,” and another focusing on her endocrinology, titled an “Investigation of the role of prolactin during reproduction in a fish with male pregnancy.”

Murphie presented a microbiology focused poster, titled “An affinity analysis of Aliivibrio fischeri and zooxanthellae” with the mentorship of Director of First Year Biology Laboratories Stacie Brown.

Working with Chair and Garey Professor of Biology Romi Burks, Gage presented a poster, titled “You better Belize they’re different: Phylogenetic analysis and species identification of native apple snails in Belize,” that garnered a first place best poster award in the systematics and evolutionary biology section. His poster co-author Johun secured first place in the Undergraduate Research Award Competition, complete with a $2,000 prize to continue the work, with his proposal, “Beneath Belizean waters: Discovering diversity of native apple snails in northern and southern Belize.” 

Also from the Burks lab, Kylie, Sarah, and Katelin shared their recent troubleshooting efforts in the lab in a poster titled “Extraordinary extraction efforts: Experiments to enhance DNA extraction for tissues of apple snails of conservation interests” that also used collections from Belize that occurred as part of the 2024 study abroad experience.

Dr. Burks also gave an oral presentation in the science education section about the recent undergraduate research experience that she developed in BIO50-222, Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Her talk, titled “Methodological microplastics: Development of an undergraduate CURE to quantify abundance of microplastic fibers in a local stream,” came out of conversations with microplastics expert Andre Felton from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Professor and Garey Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry Maha Zewail-Foote is the first author of a landmark publication in Nucleic Acids Research, a top journal in the field showcasing leading edge research. This publication, “Oxidative damage within alternative DNA structures results in aberrant mutagenic processing,” is the result of years of dedicated work and marks a major scholarly milestone. Conducted in collaboration with a research team at UT Austin, this work demonstrates that certain DNA structures are particularly susceptible to damage, contributing to genetic instability — a key factor in diseases like cancer.

Isabella Bahamon ’25 was selected for the Southern Sociological Society’s 2025 Howard Odum Award for Best Undergraduate Paper for her capstone project titled, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Choice: American Attitudes about Abortion Rights in the United States.” Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe supervised Isabella’s project during this year’s sociology capstone class.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Margaret Bonds’ “Note on Commercial Theater” as part of the Margaret Bonds Signature Series  with Hildegard Publishing Company. The song is Margaret Bonds’ final art song based on a text of her longtime friend and collaborator Langston Hughes, an art song in the style of blues, and about the blues – and it is a searing critique of cultural appropriation: “You’ve taken my blues and gone – You sing ’em on Broadway and you sing ’em in Hollywood Bowl, and you mixed ’em up with symphonies, and you fixed ’em so they don’t sound like me … But someday somebody’ll stand up and talk about me, and write about me – Black and beautiful – and sing about me, and put on plays about me! I reckon it’ll be me myself! Yes, it’ll be me.” (To hear Hughes’ own reading of it with jazz accompaniment, click here.) Bonds wrote her in 1960-61 and at that time, Hughes’ assistant George Bass described it as “another message from the gods to man via MARGARET BONDS,” and a pre-publication version of Cooper’s edition (2019) was used for a videorecording released by the Antwerp-based team Songs of Comfort in 2021 (that powerful recording can be seen here) – but the song has until now remained in manuscript. This edition marks its first publication.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper and Part-Time Instructor of Music Christopher Washington published the world-premiere edition of Two Songs for Peggy Lee  by Margaret Bonds with ClarNan Editions. Cooper accessed the original autographs in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and prepared the volume as a whole, while Washington composed the piano part for “Don’t Speak,” which survives in lead sheet only (vocal line with chord changes, but no written-out accompaniment). The two songs represent Bonds’ well-known ability to synthesize classical and non-classical styles and offer a glimpse into the workings of Bonds’ genius as it had come to exist by 1968. “Don’t Speak” is a love song of great tenderness and eros-tinged intimacy, while the other song, “Bunker Hill,” is a hard-hitting critique of the human costs of urban renewal and gentrification, named for the storied Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles, whose poor and underserved community of immigrants and minorities was heartlessly displaced in 1958 so that the area could be redeveloped with high-rise, high-rent, and predominantly white-owned facilities.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “The 5E Instructional Model Gets an F? Is it Time to Move On?” in the Winter 2025 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education. Their quarterly column tells the ongoing story of the fictional character, Ian Quiry, as he studies and struggles to learn how to be an effective elementary school STEM teacher. The newsletter can be read here.

Several psychology faculty members and students presented posters at the annual meeting of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) in Denver this past weekend. Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett, along with current capstone students Clayton Crusius ’25 and Sarah Doroshow ’25, presented a poster, titled “Self-Expanding in a Virtual Reality World,” at the main conference. Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with current capstone students Samantha Gonzalez ’25, Gwen Metz ’25, Georgia Micknal ’25, and Griffin Salinas ’25, presented a poster titled “A Labor of Love (Mostly): Developing a Self-Perceived Parental Effort Scale” at the Evolutionary Psychology Pre-Conference.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse co-edited, along with Maha Marouan and Alicia Decker, and contributed a critical interview to the piece “In Conversation with Mamphela Ramphele on the Urgency of Storytelling for Blackwomen in South Africa,” in Writing African Feminist Subjectivities, the first-ever special issue on African feminism in the history of the journal Feminist Formations. This landmark issue, now live on Project MUSE, brings together a powerful collective of feminist scholars, activists, and artists, engaging with African feminist thought in profound and transformative ways. The Writing African Feminist Subjectivities  issue can be accessed here.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel was invited to collaborate with the Drama Department at Austin Community College (ACC) on their production of The Long Christmas Ride Home  by award-winning playwright Paula Vogel. Bechtel designed the costumes and mentored three ACC students in costumes, hair, makeup, and puppetry. This deeply moving play chronicles a seminal event in the life of Vogel and her siblings and features bunraku puppetry. The production runs through March 2, 2025. Tickets can be reserved here.

Vice President and Dean for Student Life Brit Katz’ essay, “Latitude for the Attitude of Gratitude,” was accepted for publication in the book The Intentional Life: Crafting Your Legacy One Day at a Time, edited by Dr. David Anderson. The editor announced a publication date of late Summer/early Fall 2025.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez has been elected to the College Music Society South Central Chapter Board as the Advisory Board Member for Performance. In this role, Dr. Hourez hopes to build stronger connections between institutions in the South Central region. She aims to encourage more performance opportunities for students and faculty from colleges in the region, as well as to develop exchanges with surrounding communities. She also seeks to promote collaboration between different musical fields.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music and concert cellist Hai Zheng Olefsky has been teaching and coaching top young talents in the greater Austin area. Three of her students won cello auditions in the 2024–2025 Texas All-State Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, including the first cello chair of the Philharmonic Orchestra, sponsored by the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA). Two of her cello students from St. Stephen’s School won cello auditions for the Texas Private School Music Educator Association (TPSMEA) 2024–2025 All-State Orchestra.

Assistant Professors of Sociology Adriana Ponce and Amanda Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin, Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma, and Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro published “Teaching with Color: Thematic Hires and the Politics of Teaching in Texas,” in the journal Sociology of Race and Ethnicity. This article joins a growing conversation in the humanities and humanistic social sciences on ways faculty of color shoulder the burden of thinking about our shared futures as racialized, intersectional, and collaborative. You can find the article here.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala (LB) has secured a donation of two dozen volumes by Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar from the Ambedkarite Buddhist Association of Texas (ABAT). Dr. Ambedkar is one of the world’s most important contemporary thinkers, and authored the Constitution of India, the world’s largest democracy. He is also a leading anti-caste and Black-solidarity activist who has collaborated with W.E.B. DuBois to explore the overlapping injustices against Black and Dalit individuals. Metadata and Discovery Librarian Hong Yu and Director of the A. Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center Casey Duncan processed and catalogued the materials for the Library Center. In honor of Black History Month and this important donation, please join us for a special panel and refreshments in the Periodicals Room in the Library (the “First Thursdays” room) on Thursday, February 20, from 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. The panelists include Ambedkarite scholars from UT Austin, and members from ABAT who will contextualize the donation.

Assistant Professor of Theatre Gabriel Peña, Scene Shop Supervisor Monroe Oxley, and Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal collaborated on Adam Gwan’s chamber musical, Ordinary Days, for Penfold Theatre. This intimate musical follows four individuals as they navigate the frantic energy of New York City. Audiences are invited to consider the beauty of the ordinary as the characters connect, fall apart, lose each other, and find themselves. Peña served as director, Oxley as technical director, and Roybal as scenic designer. SU theatre major Bethani Pedraza ’25 and theatre minor Yeva Tcharikova ’28 provided technical assistance. Penfold Theatre is a 501(c)(3) professional theatre company recently setting roots in Round Rock, TX after 15 years of producing theatre in the greater Austin area. The productions run February 7 – March 1 at their new permanent home in Round Rock. The trailer, tickets, and information about Penfold Theatre is available here.

Regional Associate Director of Admission Jaime Gonzalez has completed the certification needed to become an interviewer for Gates Millennium Scholarship (GMS) finalists and will begin interviews this March. According to their website, “the goal of the GMS program is to promote academic excellence and to provide an opportunity for outstanding minority students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential.”

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published “Three Early Songs” by Margaret Bonds with Hildegard Publishing Company (Worcester, MA). The volume is the first publication of three works written before Bonds moved to New York, where she would spend most of the rest of her career, in October 1939. The earliest of the three songs, “Sleep Song” (text by Joyce Kilmer) was written when Bonds was just 14. The second, “The Sea Ghost” (text by Frank Dempster Sherman), written in 1931 or early 1932, is a parable of recognition of repressed traumatic memory; it is significant because it enhanced Bonds’ national recognition by winning the Rodman Wanamaker Competition in Musical Compsition for Composers of the Negro Race in 1932 (the prize of $250 is the equivalent of about $5,200 today). And the third song, “Sunset,” written ca. 1934-1938, is Bonds’ only known setting of the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar – a glistening meditation on the beauties of daylight passing into the beautiful darkness of night.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of “Joy,” written by Margaret Bonds on a text of Langston Hughes, with Hildegard Publishing Company (Worcester, MA). Written for four-part mixed chorus and piano, the composition has the greatest compositional longevity and variety of any of Bonds’ works, having first been composed in 1936 and then re-arranged by the composer at least seven times for various forces over the next twenty years. The reason for that recursive process is probably the lesson taught by Hughes’ parable-poem and Bonds’ music: that Joy/joy is not the exclusive domain of “upstanding” institutions such as churches and universities – Hughes wrote the poem just after he had abandoned his studies at Columbia University due to that institution’s deeply ingrained racism – but rather something that is equally often found in humble, ne’er-do-well quarters. That is an idea that both poet and composer lived by – and Margaret Bonds’ music gives exultant voice to its beauty. Those interested in hearing the music (which was released on Conspirare’s Grammy-nominated album “The House of Belonging” last year) can find it here.

Professor of Philosophy Michael Bray discussed the crisis of democracy and populist politics as the guest for an episode of the limited podcast series Crisis Point, run by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI) at the University of Sheffield, England. The series will air in March.

Counselor Geneva Walker, LPC, recently presented a meaningful talk on self-care and mindfulness to the mothers and daughters of the Austin360 Chapter of the National Charity League. Her presentation highlighted the importance of prioritizing mental health and well-being, incorporating practical tools and a guided meditation to inspire intentional living. Geneva’s commitment to fostering growth and resilience continues to make a positive impact both on and off campus.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes for Unity Theatre’s production of The Trip to Bountiful. This mid-20th century play was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Texas native Horton Foote and explores themes of longing, discontent, and family. This production runs from February 6 through February 23 in historic Brenham, Texas. Tickets can be purchased at unitybrenham.org.

President Laura Skandera Trombley’s review of Gravity: Selected Letters of Olivia Langdon Clemens  was published in the Winter 2025 edition of American Literary Realism, edited by Barbara E. Snedecor. The review can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse presented at the first annual conference of the League of African Women Philosophers (LAWP) held virtually on January 25–26. The title of their paper was “Reading Makhoere’s Autobiography of Prison Under Apartheid South Africa via an ‘Existential Standpoint.’” The League of African Women Philosophers is important because it represents a vital step toward addressing the historical underrepresentation of African women in philosophy and the broader intellectual discourse.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco co-authored the paper “Satellite remote sensing for environmental sustainable development goals: A review of applications for terrestrial and marine protected areas” with colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and The University of Tennessee Knoxville. The paper, published in the journal Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment, highlights the importance of using remote sensing to monitor protected areas and to overall achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The paper can be read here.

On January 9, the Mission-Driven Medicine website was launched. The website is the culmination of a project carried out by the Summer 2024 Organizational Communication class taught by Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar, and features the work of Lauren Chisholm ’24, Alexa Delenela ’25, Tre Flores ’26, Lauren Wise ’25, and Justin Zamora ’24. The website is a fieldwork-based public-facing humanities project analyzing the organizational communication at the Houston Methodist Hospital system.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Amy King choreographed The Secret Garden  at The Georgetown Palace Theatre. The musical, based on the children’s novel, opens this Friday, January 31, and runs until Sunday, March 2. It plays Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Jeffrey K. McCrary, along with two co-authors from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua and one co-author from Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, published the research article, “Riqueza, abundancia y diversidad de aves en ecosistemas antropizados y no antropizados del corredor seco nicaragüense,” in a special edition of Revista Científica Estelí  in December. He also presented a poster titled “Golden-cheeked Warbler habitat preferences in Nicaraguan Highlands,” in conjunction with co-authors representing Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua, Université de Sherbrooke, and Virginia Tech, at the Texas Conservation Symposium in January.

Vice President and Dean for Student Life Brit Katz served as the awards chairperson for the Associated Colleges of the South – Chief Student Affairs Officers’ Conference, held at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA.

Vice President and Dean for Student Life Brit Katz served as the emcee at the National LGBTQ+ Awards Ceremony for the NCAA Convention in Nashville, TN on January 15.

Professor of Communication Studies Valerie Renegar published “Third-Wave Feminist Rhetoric in the 21st Century: Rethinking Limitations, Possibilities, and New Directions” with her frequent co-author Stacey Sowards. The chapter appears in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminist Rhetoric, edited by Jaqueline Rhodes and Suban Nur Cooley. The chapter is a retrospective of the 20 years since the duo began writing on this topic. They argue that the fierce independence of Third Wave feminism taught women to speak out and believe in their own power, but with little understanding of how to organize or create lasting legal or political change. Sigh. More information on the volume can be found here.

Professor of Political Science and Vice President for Academic Affairs Alisa Gaunder presented a paper titled “The Japanese Gender Parity Law: Why Symbolic Legislation Passes and How It Faces Resistance” at the Southern Political Science Association Meeting on January 9.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “Never Too Old to Play with Blocks” in the Fall 2024 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education. Their quarterly column tells the ongoing story of the fictional character, Ian Quiry, as he studies and struggles to learn how to be an effective elementary school STEM teacher. The newsletter can be read here.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony, SU alum Sara Boyd ’20, additional faculty and student co-authors from Connecticut College and Middlebury College, and an independent researcher published the paper “Maximizing Rides Served for Dial-a-Ride on the Uniform Metric” in the journal Theory of Computing Systems  as part of the Commemorative Issue for Gerhard Woeginger, a leader in algorithms and combinatorial optimization. The online version is available here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Florence Price: Seventeen Art Songs and Spirituals  with ClarNan Editions (Fayetteville, AR). The volume includes 14 previously unpublished art songs and spirituals by Price, together with a variorum edition of an art song that evidently (judging from the number of times that she returned to it in the period 1937–1950) held special meaning for her, and the first edition of two previously published spirituals that, in this edition, document a performance tradition that dated to enslavement in Tennessee. At least one, and probably two, of the songs are Price’s most explicit musical commentary on her first marriage, and one of the spirituals published here for the first time is a heartbreakingly beautiful musical reflection occasioned by the death of Price’s mother. The art songs include texts by William Stanley Braithwaite, Maude Ludington Caine, Nora Connelly, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Claude McKay, and Elizabeth Whittier.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala published the chapter “The discursive eviction of Muslim women” in The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Feminist Rhetoric, edited by Jacqueline Rhodes and Suban Nur Cooley. The chapter examines how anti-Muslim logics are at the heart of menstrual discourse, COVID-19 measures, and even “Muslim-solidarity” movements. Sad! More information about the book can be found here.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross presented her paper “(In)visible Mothering Decisions in Leña menuda” at the Modern Languages Association (MLA) conference in New Orleans, LA from January 9–12.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed served as a national choral judge for the American Prize in December. The American Prize is a national, nonprofit competition in the performing arts and is the nation’s most comprehensive series of contests in the classical arts. The American Prize is designed to evaluate, recognize and reward the best performers, ensembles, composers, directors, and administrators in the United States. The American Prize has attracted thousands of qualified contestants from all 50 states since its founding, has awarded nearly $150,000 in prizes in all categories since 2010, and is presented annually in many areas of the performing arts.

Three faculty and an alumnus participated in the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle, WA from January 8-12. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Fast-flipping a Calculus 3 Class using AI help” in the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Contributed Paper Session on “Using AI in Mathematics Instruction.” This was sponsored by the MAA special interest group on artificial intelligence. Professor and Garey Chair of Mathematics Alison Marr served on a panel to talk about the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Summer Program (edgeforwomen.org). The panel was sponsored by IGEN, the Inclusive Graduate Education Network, which is a part of the National Science Foundation’s INCLUDES alliance: Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science. Marr has been Co-Director of the EDGE Summer Program since 2020. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “ODEs and the Flu” in the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Special Session on “Modeling Matters in Teaching and Learning Differential Equations,” sponsored by SIMIODE. Computational mathematics and psychology alumna Daniela Beckelhymer ’20 co-organized the AMS Special Session on “Math Research Community Climate Science at the Interface between Topological Data Analysis and Dynamical Systems Theory.” Beckelhymer has completed the M.S. in Mathematics and is working towards a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Minnesota.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol’s article, titled “Reclaiming the Pen: A Call for the Return of Interactive Writing to the Primary-Grade Classroom,” was published in the January/February/March issue of Literacy Today. This article explains an effective method of composition instruction for early readers. The issue can be found here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger delivered an invited lecture to a diverse group of 38 academics from around the country at the Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Miami on January 7. His talk, “The Battle for Legitimacy: Zionism, the MLA and Academic Freedom,” related to his ongoing leadership in efforts to protect academic freedom for all students and professors, including those who identify as Zionist, Jewish, and Israeli.

Sociology and business alumna ThuyMi Phung ’23 has published an article with Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe titled “The Armed Home and Support for Trump: Predictors of Americans’ Attitudes Toward Gun Violence” in the Journal of Integrated Social Sciences. This work represents ThuyMi’s first peer-reviewed publication and stems from her Fall 2022 capstone project. The article can be found here. ThuyMi continues her research on attitudes about gun violence at the University of Washington where she is completing her Master’s in Public Health.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of Five Pieces for Piano Solo  by Florence B. Price with ClarNan Editions. The five works – A Thought for May, A Wee Bit of Erin, Broadway at Night, Dainty Feet, and Southern Sketches  – span the period 1929–1949 and collectively offer a cross-section of Florence Price’s stylistic diversity and a glimpse into the workings of one of the most prodigious musical imaginations of the early twentieth century.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of “Silver Urn” by Margaret Bonds – a miniature in miniature composed for flute or violin, and a veritably glistening synthesis of neoclassicism and African American stylistic elements. The edition was released by ClarNan Editions. Philological evidence suggests that this is the first classical composition Bonds wrote after moving from her native Chicago to New York in October 1939. Cooper’s working theory to explain the origins of the diminutive and undated piece is that Bonds, who had worked as a ballet accompanist in Chicago and would resume working as a ballet accompanist soon after moving to New York, wrote the charming work for use in a dance studio. That notion is neither provable nor disprovable, but that’s Cooper’s story and he’s sticking to it (for now).

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes co-led a workshop on “Building a Small Liberal Arts College History Department,” as well as a mentoring session for early career scholars interested in working at a small liberal arts college, at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA). She is about to begin a term as co-chair of the AHA working group on small liberal arts colleges. She also currently serves on the AHA’s Nancy Lyman Roelker Mentorship Award committee.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse’s book review on Simone de Beauvoir and the Colonial Experience: Freedom, Violence, and Identity by Nathalie Nya was published online under “Volume 34 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2024): Special Issue: Sites of Coercion: Plantation, Colony, Metropole,” edited by Janine Jones, in Simone de Beauvoir Studies. In the review, Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse unpacks Nya’s compelling arguments and discusses how this book challenges us to rethink Beauvoir’s relevance in today’s global struggles for liberation and justice. The review also critiques the use of phrases such as “non-white” within European and American scholarship by drawing attention to the problematic uses as seen in Apartheid South Africa. It can be read here.

Abigail (Abby) Ryan ’25 and Professor of Business Debika Sihi have published their research, “Crafting and Evaluating Generative AI Prompts: Insights from Students, Educators, and Marketers,” in Marketing Education Review. This work draws on perspectives from these different groups to design a prompt engineering assignment that can be integrated into a variety of marketing courses. The abstract of the article can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a new article, “A Magnus Amator in Illyria: Shakespeare and the Memory of Plautus,” in Memoria Di Shakespeare, the leading Shakespeare journal in Italy. In the article, Saenger argues that a key line in Twelfth Night, which begins “Some are born great,” is actually an echo of the Latin dramatist Plautus. The article further explores the poetic space between languages, which Saenger has called “interlinguicity.” It can be read here.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones presented his work, titled “Visualizing at-home births in Mexico City after the revolution: Midwives from the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing, 1920s and 30s,” at the seminario permanente de investigación de Atlas.mx, sponsored by CIDE, CONACYT, INEGI, UCMexus, UC Riverside, and John Hopkins University. He discussed his previous work with students to develop a digital map to locate midwives who graduated from this school and the women they aided. The talk also introduced his new project, co-directed with Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco, to create an interactive digital map aimed at making the historical archive of these midwives public.

Part-time Instructor of Applied Music Sarah Oliver was featured with Dr. Holly Dalrymple and the Saengerrunde Damenchor on NPR radio. The story highlights the choir’s commitment to the preservation of German heritage and can be read here.

Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Monya Lemery presented on two panels at The Forum on Education Abroad Regional Seminar in Austin on December 13: 1) Leveraging Education Abroad as a tool for Student Retention and Career Readiness, and 2) Approaches to Supporting Access to Education Abroad.

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Jennifer Stokes was featured in Episode 151 of the A&P Professor podcast titled, Muscling Through Barriers: The A&P Student Accommodations Handbook Unveiled. Serving as Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction-Accommodations Subcommittee, Stokes, in collaboration with 16 HAPS colleagues, researched, vetted, and produced this accommodations handbook, which was recently published by the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society. The podcast explores and promotes this handbook, which provides instructors with evidence-based suggestions and best practices for making A&P labs and classrooms more inclusive and accessible for all students. You can listen to the podcast and learn more about the handbook here.

On December 7, Assistant Professor of Music Ruben Balboa had the honor of being the featured soloist with the Central Texas Medical Orchestra, performing Hoffmeister’s Viola Concerto  in collaboration with Austin Speech Labs. This special performance supported stroke survivors and their families, underscoring music’s role in supporting the community and meaningful initiatives.

On December 9, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon hosted the Lavender Literary Society’s discussion of Dr. Lydia Otero’s book, L.A. Interchanges: A Brown and Queer Archival Memoir. Solomon and Otero engaged in an intergenerational dialogue centered on queer and lesbian Chicane literature, history, and activism. The virtual event was coordinated by the American LGBTQ+ Museum and can be viewed here.

Senior Associate Director of the Center for Career & Professional Development Alexandra Anderson participated in the second of two workshops in the Fulbright Program Advisors Development Initiative in New York, NY, from December 4–6. This funded, competitive opportunity features a cohort of advisors invested in growing their knowledge of the many opportunities within the Fulbright portfolio. Anderson advises students and alumni on the Fulbright U.S. Student Program to teach, study, or research overseas while serving as citizen ambassadors for the U.S. The Fulbright program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala (LB) attended the 2024 National Communication Association (NCA) conference in New Orleans, LA. She fulfilled her responsibilities as incoming Chair of the Feminist & Gender Studies Division. She also received a Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Critical/Cultural Studies Division for her co-authored article “De-whitening consent amidst COVID-19 rhetoric,” published with Dr. Kate Lockwood Harris in the Quarterly Journal of Speech.  While at NCA, LB caught up with SU alumna Sofia Salmeron, who is pursuing an M.A. in Communication Studies at Texas Christian University. Sofia presented her paper “You’re not working hard enough…you’re not trying hard enough: An analysis of privacy management and coping and resilience among your adults experiencing food insecurity.” Congratulations to this outstanding alumna.

Mississippi State University’s Division of Student Affairs announced that its annual awards for Director of the Year and for New Professional of the Year will be named after Vice President and Dean for Student Life Brit Katz. Dr. Katz is a 1980 graduate of Mississippi State University. The Katz Awards will be formally presented on May 1, 2025.

Alumna Samantha (Sammi) Saenz ’23 earned the third highest performer distinction for the Enterprise Management Program, covering the entire geographic area spanning from the Rio Grande Valley to San Antonio. In her role, she engages in marketing, sales, and customer success management.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was the invited speaker at an event at the Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding at Old Dominion University. He spoke about the crucial value of Zionism amidst the need to confront academic antisemitism and cultivate peace and inclusive community.

Assistant Professor of Economics Dinushka Paranavitana chaired a session titled “Health Behavior I” at the 94th Annual Meeting of the Southern Economic Association in Washington D.C. from November 23 – 24. She also presented her paper titled “The Unintended Consequences of Women’s Clinic Closures on Preventive Care” during this same session. This paper was also presented at the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Fall Research Conference at National Harbor, MD from November 21 – 23.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi and two of her first-year seminar students, Abigail Norton ’28 and Mateo Torres ’28, were featured in a Litmaps Community Highlight, a newsletter received by over 100,000 researchers all over the world. The students were highlighted for their work visually mapping a literature review. The piece is available here. (Students granted permission to share their work, and the students’ names were redacted on the piece to protect their privacy due to the wide distribution of the newsletter, so they have agency on if/how they want to share the piece.)

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Ariel Wood exhibited their work in a solo show in Houston. The show, titled “rest, raze, cullect,” brings together three bodies of work, interconnected and interrelated, yet each inspired by a particular infrastructural situ. Transplanting them together at Lawndale Art Center showcases material shifts over time and conceptual throughlines. Their work will be on view until December 21. Learn more here.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed presented an interactive lecture to about 50 high school students on classical music. The presentation was part of the Waco Symphony Council’s outreach to high school students in the Central Texas area. Topics included: “Where do we find classical music in our lives?”, “How are our lives impacted by classical music?”, and “What makes classical music different from other genres?”

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira engaged in the following activities during the 2024 National Communication Association (NCA) annual convention held in New Orleans on November 20–24: Presented the co-authored paper “Invoking Ethnic Identity in the Service of Right-Wing Rhetoric: A Rhetorical Analysis of 2022 GOP Latina Candidates in South Texas” in a session sponsored by the Latina/o Communication Studies Division; Participated in NCA’s Scholars’ Office Hours, a session in which a select group of invited scholars share time with graduate students seeking mentorship; Responded to the paper session “¡Presente!: Latinx Voices in Decoding Popular Culture,” sponsored by the Latina/o Communication Studies Division; Chaired the paper session “Latina Communication Studies: Reframing Narratives of Latina Power, Theory, and Representation,” also sponsored by the Latina/o Communication Studies Division; Participated as a mentor in the La Raza Caucus Mentorship Panel; and planned two sessions for the NCA Mentorship and Leadership Council, including a “Pathways to NCA Leadership” roundtable. For her two-year service to the Council, Moreira received a Presidential Citation of Service.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira received the Córdova-Puchot Scholar of the Year Award given by the National Communication Association’s Latina/o Communication Studies Division. The award is the Division’s highest honor, and it recognizes a scholar who has achieved a high level of excellence across the four areas of teaching, research, service, and advocacy. Moreira received the award during NCA’s 2024 convention held in New Orleans on November 20-24.

Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings and co-author Tammy Jandrey Hertel of the University of Lynchburg presented a talk, titled “Study Abroad as a Safe Place for Heritage Speakers to Practice Speaking,” at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Annual Convention and World Languages Expo held November 22–24 in Philadelphia, PA.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed organized a panel titled “Blackness and Whiteness in the Americas: Race Across Space and Time” for the American Anthropological Association’s 2024 annual meeting in Tampa, FL on November 21. Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson served as the chair for the panel. During this session, Dr. Reed presented the paper “Black Surrogacy and the Sugar Land 95: How White Officials in Sugar Land, Texas use Black Subjectivity to Fabricate a Social Justice Image,” Dr. Johnson presented the paper “Emerging Racial Categories and their Socio-ecological Context on the British Coast of Central America in the Late 1700s,” and undergraduate honors anthropology student Constanza Cameron ’24 presented the paper “Chilean Whiteness: Affective Dispositions Regarding Race and Class.” Alumnus Zacharia Arifi ’24 presented the poster presentation “1760 Hors Place: Discursive Identity Formation of the Franco-Kabyle Diaspora and the PostKabyle” as well. Abstracts of the panel, the papers, and the poster can be found here.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood presented as part of a panel on her contributions to the recently published volume Animals and Religion  at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. Her two chapters are “Companion Animals” and “Blessings of Pets in Jewish and Christian Traditions.”

Assistant Professor of Economics Chandrayee Chatterjee had two research papers presented at the 2024 Annual Conference of the Southern Economic Association in Washington, D.C. from November 23–25. She presented a paper titled “Examining the Spillover Effects of Weight Loss Product Advertising on Nutritional Choice and Physical Activity.” Her paper titled “The Role of Inattention in Statistical Discrimination” was also presented by her co-author at a different session.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth presented research on curriculum and instruction at the annual conference of the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) from November 22-24 in Philadelphia, PA. Berroth organized a session “From Aschenputtel to Schneewittchen: the Culinary in German Fairy Tales.” Fostering insights into a plurality of experiences around food, this session enhanced understanding of the culinary aspects of the Grimm’s fairy tales and showed how teachers can support learners across proficiency levels to analyze texts through the critical lens of food studies, while also working creatively with fairy tale-based recipes.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi joined the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, a double-blind, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles focused on academic research with contributions for marketing practitioners and academics.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse had a piece in public philosophy, titled “A Clothing Paradox Unbuttoned: Why We Should All Be Ethical Shoppers,” published in the Blog of the APA (American Philosophical Association) on November 21. In the work, Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse explores the intersections of philosophy, fashion, and ethics, tackling the contradictions in our clothing choices and addressing the question, how do we reconcile the desire for self-expression with the pressing need for sustainability and justice in global supply chains? This essay is part of a larger work on thinking about an eco-feminist praxis. The article can be accessed here.

The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science had a good showing at the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (TUMC) at the University of Texas at Tyler on November 9. Six mathematics majors presented preliminary work on their mathematics capstone projects under the supervision of Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton. Yasmine Soto ’25 presented “Spinning Stories: A Mathematical Model of Rumor Dynamics.” Christopher Garza ’25 and Leo Schoch-Spana ’25 presented “Developing Models for Lung Cancer in the United States.” Assistant Professor of Instruction in Statistics Jean Remy Habimana is a statistics consultant on the project and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura is a consultant on the software implementation. Isabella Robinson ’25 presented “Modeling Monarch Butterfly Populations.” Cole Thomson ’25 presented “Analysis of Music retention and popularity on Billboard’s 100.” Jadyn Rhodes-Cruse ’25 presented “Comparing Maternal Mortality.” Shelton and Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross attended and helped the group of students. Ross also co-led sessions in the Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) program, providing support for faculty in their first few years of teaching. Biochemistry major Daisy Orozco ’27 also attended.

Visual Content Producer Todd White, who also serves as a LUMIX Ambassador, was recently featured in the digital camera brand’s blog. The article profiles Todd’s career path from the corporate world to becoming a renowned photographer and filmmaker to his current role at Southwestern. The feature can be read here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and education majors Sydney Aschmann ’26, Makenzi Ducharme ’26, Hannah Pullen ’26, Annika Romeo ’26, and Maddie Ziegler ’26 presented in person, and Annika Flora ’26, Alejandro Gallegos ’26, and Emily Marks ’26 presented in absentia, at the Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST) in San Antonio. The session “Hands-on Science Lessons Presented by Preservice Teachers” was organized by Dr. Kamen. Additional undergraduate students, and their professors from the University of Houston – Downtown and Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi, were co-presenters.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes convened a salon session, “Engaging the Public through French History,” at the Western Society for French History’s fiftieth-anniversary annual conference in San Francisco. She also chaired and commented on a session about “Managing Gender and Families in Mid-Twentieth-Century France.”

Vice President and Dean for Student Life Brit Katz served as the Awards Chairman for the 2024 Associated Colleges of the South – Chief Student Affairs Officers Annual Conference. He created the new “Retention Laurels” Award for the year’s most exceptional interdisciplinary approach to retaining students. The Laurels were claimed by Spelman College.

On July 7 at First United Methodist Church, Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 was the Mezzo-Soprano soloist with the Texas Bach Festival under the direction of Dr. Barry Williamson. Altobello performed Bach’s “Magnificat BWV 243” and Vivaldi’s “Gloria RV 589,” performing the solo “Domine Deus, Agnus Dei.”

Ashlyn Cadena ’27, Olive Forrest ’26, Andres Garza ’27, Amanda Mejia ’27, Olivia Johnson ’26, and Professor of Chemistry Emily Niemeyer attended the 2024 National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM Scholars and Principal Investigator Meeting in Chicago, IL. In addition to interacting with other S-STEM Scholars from around the country and attending workshops and professional development sessions, three Scholars presented their research in conference sessions. Garza’s poster, titled “Laser induced synthesis of cobalt oxide oxygen evolution catalysts,” described work he completed during a summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at Texas State University. Mejia presented a poster, “Granular hydrogel synthesis for comparable in vitro model of brain parenchyma tissue,” which is based on her ongoing research with Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby. Cadena’s poster, “Perimeter Minimizing Rectangles in R2 with density M|x| + N|y|,” described her collaborative research with other Southwestern math students, Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross, and Adjunct Professor of Mathematics Lauren Ross.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon attended the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in Detroit, MI, where she offered a presentation titled “Teaching to Transgress Imperialism, Settler Colonialism, and Zionism: The Feminist Studies Classroom as a ‘Radical Space of Possibility’ in Texas.” She presented her work alongside Drs. Ruba Akkad of Austin College, Isis Nusair of Denison University, and Iveta Jusova of Carleton College on the panel, “Anti-Zionist Feminist Pedagogies: Teaching Toward Palestinian Liberation and an End to the Genocide in Gaza,” which was well-attended by feminist faculty and students from around the world. Reflecting on her strategies and experiences teaching about Palestine within a feminist context since arriving at Southwestern in fall of 2023, Dr. Solomon’s presentation concluded with a recording of SU alumna Brigit Reese’s 2024 commencement speech on Gaza, which received a standing ovation from the audience.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented “Chicana Feminism Now: Teaching Chicana Feminists Texts in 2024” at the National Women’s Studies Association in Detroit, MI from November 14-17. Her talk argued for the increased relevance of Chicana feminist literature and methods, presenting two case studies of English courses taught at Southwestern in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce and sociology major Chelsey Rocha ’25 presented “Stepparents in America: Unearthing Distinct Practices and Processes” at the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) annual conference in Detroit, MI. Dr. Ponce and Chelsey’s presentation highlighted their community engaged project’s current progress and developments.

On November 15, University Chaplain and Director of Spiritual Life Ron Swain was a panelist on the Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) virtual discussion titled “Building Bridges: Strategies for Fostering Civil Discourse in a Post-Election Era.” During the panel discussion, ACS faculty and staff shared strategies for creating and navigating conversations about controversial topics in the classroom, on campus, and in our communities.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez presented a lecture titled “Implementing Music by Women Composers in the Undergraduate and Graduate Piano Curriculum” at the prestigious 2024 College Music Society National Conference in Washington, D.C. on November 8.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro was featured in the Place-Based Justice Network’s November Spotlight for her project Señora Power. In collaboration with Dr. Sophia Martinez Abbud, an Assistant Professor at Utah State, and Dr. Gaby Barrios, an independent scholar in Los Angeles, Dr. Del Hierro developed Señora Power, a multi-disciplinary project committed to writing Chicana feminist consciousness into public history. With particular attention to the coalescence of Chicanx culture and identity in Los Angeles and Houston from the early 20th century to the late 1980s, the initiative tracks the radical work and resistance of señoras prior to the civil rights movement. To execute this recording of personal and scholarly nuances towards archival knowledge, the final products of Señora Power  translate to the creation of a podcast discussing the various señora figures; a website to illustrate the project overview, hold podcast episodes, and provide breakdowns of each episode; and create physical pamphlets to be distributed in Houston and LA community centers to increase accessibility to Chicanx knowledge and history.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma gave a poster presentation titled, “‘Eating money’: Dollarization and the monetization of grain in Zimbabwe, 2000-08,” at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Workshop on Commodity Price Volatility in New York, on October 31.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones participated in a roundtable titled “Reproductive Science: Comparative Perspectives on the Past; Global Inspirations for the Future” at the 2024 annual meeting of the History of Science Society. His contributions were based on his most recent research project, titled “An In(di)visibilized Labor: The Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing and the Erasure of Professional Midwifery in Post-Revolutionary Mexico City.” He argues that this free school offered an alternative program that challenged the state’s model of birth by giving its graduates more autonomy to perform their services, including complicated births, at home without male doctors’ oversight. Despite the essential role of midwives both at home and in welfare institutions, the normalization of natural births, the regulations that restricted midwives’ intervention to natural births, and their ability to exercise obstetric autonomy just at home rendered midwives’ labor necessary for the reproduction of the Mexican nation, yet invisible.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed gave the EOY financial report at the national conference of College Music Society in Washington, D.C. She included highlights on revenue and losses, and provided insights and direction to financial management of current assets. She is leading the task of updating and improving the Society’s current Financial Handbook. She also began a discussion on seeking grants and utilizing new sources of revenue to position the Society to meet its goals for the next decade. She has been the Treasurer since 2022, and was recently re-elected to a new 3-year term.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper’s forthcoming biography of Margaret Bonds (Oxford UP, March 2025) was previewed in an interview/article in the Hong Kong music journal Interlude. Those interested in learning about the book, the story of its becoming, and some of its special features can read the interview here. The article also includes some exceedingly tasty clips of Margaret Bonds’s music.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross presented her paper “Translating memories: from autobiography to fiction” at PAMLA in Palm Springs, CA on November 10.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol presented two of her research projects at the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers Conference in Orlando, FL. The presentations were titled “Teaching in the Context of a Sentence: Early Literacy Skills Come Together in Interactive Writing” and “Cyrano Returns: Coaching Preservice Teachers in a Reading Clinic.” Cyrano refers to a bug-in-ear coaching model named for Cyrano de Bergerac.

Professor of Biochemistry and Garey Chair of Chemistry Maha Zewail-Foote gave an oral presentation for a special session on mechanisms of genomic repair and mutagenesis at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. Her presentation highlighted research conducted during her sabbatical, in collaboration with researchers at UT Austin.

Professor of Art History Kimberly Smith published an essay titled “Austria’s Dilemma: Wartime Politics and Propaganda in Schiele’s Landscapes” in the catalog Egon Schiele: Living Landscapes  (Prestel, 2024), published to accompany the exhibition of the same name at the Neue Galerie in New York. The essay examines Schiele’s participation in the 1917 Austrian Exhibition in Stockholm as an intensely concentrated moment of externally directed propaganda, in which his images of organic towns and rural scenes functioned as environmentally deterministic claims for a pluralistic yet united Austria in a post-war Europe.

Professor and Garey Chair of Mathematics Alison Marr, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics Lauren Ross, SU alumni Kathryn Altman ’24, Lauren Calzado ’23, Emma Lewis ’23, Rowan Via ’23, and two additional co-authors published the paper “Difference Distance Magic Oriented Graphs” in Research in the Mathematical Sciences. The print version of the paper will appear in a special issue of the journal, titled “Cutting EDGE Mathematics: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education Program.” The online version is available here. 

Professor and Garey Chair of Mathematics Alison Marr was one of four invited speakers at the Midwest Conference on Combinatorics and Combinatorial Computing held in Duluth, MN from October 18-20. Her 50-minute Friday afternoon address, titled “Three Puzzles I’m Pondering Presently,” also served as an undergraduate colloquium for math majors at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Assistant Professor of Biology Kim McArthur authored a spotlight article recently accepted in the journal Trends in Neurosciences. The article, titled “Cranial motor neuron input specificity refined by activity,” provides a critical analysis of a recent primary research article in her area of expertise (Kaneko et al. 2024, “Position-independent functional refinement within the vagus motor topographic map”). The spotlight and research article both address the “big picture” question of how motor neurons in the vertebrate hindbrain receive appropriate synaptic inputs during early motor circuit development.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby presented his lab’s progress via a poster presentation at the 2024 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting held in Baltimore, MD.

Physics majors Joseph Dorsey ’25 and Amanda Mejia ’26 presented their extrusion bioprinting poster at the 2024 Regional Symposium (Southwest) hosted at UT Austin. Simultaneously, Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby presented his lab’s pedagogical work on polymer modification at the 2024 Regional Symposium (Western) hosted at the University of Colorado Denver (Anschutz campus).

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth co-presented a poster on “SPARK for German: Challenges and Success Stories” at the online conference of the Coalition of Women in German from October 24-26. Berroth, together with Dr. Stefanie Ohnesorg of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Susanne Rinner of the Goethe Institut in Washington D.C., and Nella Spurlin of Baylor University, engaged audiences in exploring and discussing SPARK, the Structured Program for the Acquisition of German in the U.S., resources and know-how. Mindful of their ecological footprint, the Coalition of Women in German offers the annual conference online every third year.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented a paper titled “The Ethics of Ambiguity in The Merchant of Venice” at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference in Toronto on November 1. His paper addressed the issue of Shylock as a villain within the play, and how that issue has impacted modern controversies surrounding academic antisemitism.

ASIANetwork/Luce PostDoc Fellow in Economics Maorui Yang published “Long-Run Effects of Childhood Exposure to Medical Marijuana Laws on Education and Labor Market Outcomes,” along with co-author Han Yu, in the Journal of Labor Research (2024): 1-33.

Eunice Mexicano ’25 moderated the First Generation Perspectives Panel at Southwestern University, which featured panelists Riley Wolfe ’25, Elvis Marin ’26, Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, and Director of the Professor John Score II Learning Commons Maurice Wilson as part of First Generation College Celebration Week 2024.

Assistant Professor of Business Raji Kunapuli presented a solo-authored paper, titled “Effect of Abstract Language on Critics’ Selection of Referents for IPOs” at the Southern Management Academy Conference in San Antonio, TX.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer was the American Institute of Mathematics’ Invited Speaker at the Modern Mathematics Workshop at the SACNAS NDiSTEM conference in Phoenix, AZ on October 30. She presented “Unique Equilibrium States for Geodesic Flows.”

Professor of Education Michael Kamen was an invited presenter, along with Retired Project WILD State Coordinator Kiki Corry and Leander ISD Elementary Science Coordinator Jennifer Kaszuba, to lead “Hike Through the Guide” for the first of the WILD Webinar series, a professional development webinar for Project WILD facilitators.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala and Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Jaishikha Nautiyal received the Monograph of the Year Award for their co-authored article “Queer desi kinships: Reaching across partition.” The article appears in the Tier-1 journal QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, and articulates non-Western, and specifically South-Asian, queer praxes. The award is from the National Communication Association’s GLBTQ Division. The article can be read here.

Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Monya Lemery facilitated the “Member Mingle: Solo/Small Office Social” for the Forum on Education Abroad virtual networking series on October 18.

Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Monya Lemery presented “ Funding Strategies and Scholarships” at the Texas International Monthly virtual meeting on October 9.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper presented the keynote lecture at the inaugural concert of the 2024 Corcoran Music Festival, hosted by George Washington University. The centerpiece of the concert was the previously unheard “Five Spiritual Songs in High and Low Keys” of Margaret Bonds, which Cooper published in August 2024 ([Ann Arbor]: Videmus).

Assistant Professor of Biology Kim McArthur co-authored a research article recently accepted in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, presenting the results of her Spring 2023 sabbatical (funded, in part, by the Sam Taylor Fellowship). The article, titled “Structure and topography of facial branchiomotor neuron dendrites in larval zebrafish (Danio rerio),” uses a combination of single-cell labeling, in vivo fluorescence microscopic imaging, and 3D tracing to provide evidence that early synaptic input to motor neurons may be determined by the relative location of their dendrites in the developing hindbrain. This work contributes to our growing understanding of the importance of early spatial organization for the development of neural circuits.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez presented preliminary insights from her project, “Teaching Christianity and Whiteness in Turbulent Times,” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) conference in Pittsburgh from October 17–20.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol had her essay, “Disrupting epistemology and coalescing community: Disability activism on social media,” published in the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Trends in critical disability studies have taken issue with the absence of representations of disability beyond images of heroism or charity cases. In addition, an absence of representation in cinema and literature reinforces an existing bias that individuals with disabilities are uninteresting and have less value than nondisabled people (Beckett et al.; Hodkinson). The article explores the frontier of disability activism on social media as a space where new onto/epistemologies grapple among existing biases of disability. The article is available here.

Sam Irizarry ’23 was an invited panelist at the Texas Communicators Network meeting focused on the topic “Connect & Conserve Through Social Media.” He represented Hill Country Conservancy, where he enhances the organization’s online presence through content strategy, social media management, and digital storytelling. More information about the panel can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz published the manuscript “Solidarity in labor organizing: The alliance between the Black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers,” in the Black History Bulletin (BHB), volume 87, issue 2. The manuscript examines the collaborations between the Black Panther Party and the United Farm Workers in the 1960s and 1970s and includes a project-based lesson on solidarity in labor organizing for a high school U.S. History course. This manuscript is part of a special issue on African Americans and Labor.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed has been re-elected to a three-year term as the National Treasurer for the College Music Society (CMS). She has been instrumental in creating best accounting practices for the organization. She also chaired the Oversight Committee for the External Consultant to look at the structure and processes for CMS. She also successfully encouraged the organization to apply for ERC funding, which earned CMS a significant governmental return of monies to be used for financial needs of the Society. Her new term will expire at the end of 2027.

Dante Medina ’26 presented a poster titled “Using Molecules to Store Energy” at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. This presentation resulted from research done with Professor of Physics Steve Alexander.

Dominic Mashak ’26 presented a poster titled “Finding Molecules with Large Hyperpolarizabilities” at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. This presentation resulted from research done with Professor of Physics Steve Alexander during the summer of 2024.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma presented his forthcoming paper, “‘Critical but stable’: Agricultural Propaganda, Politics and Hunger in Zimbabwe,” at the Young Scholars Initiative, Exploring the Dark Side of the Moon: The History of Economics in the Global South workshop on October 17.

Jodi Glenn-Millhouse ’25, Kaiden Salaz ’26, Annalina Slover ’26, and Carolyn Waldie ’26 presented posters on their research on how photosynthetic diatoms adapt their light-harvesting under light and magnesium stress at the Southwest Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Waco, TX. Their presentations resulted from research done with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey.

On October 18-19, Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin, one of the founding members of the Resistance Studies Network, presented a chapter in progress at the 20th Anniversary meeting of the Resistance Studies Network at the University of Göteborg, titled “Why do We Say “Resistance” When We Mean Struggle? An Entangled Anarchival Approach.”

On October 16, Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin presented a pedagogical chapter in progress at Umeå University’s Department of Political Science Pedagogy and Practice Seminar, “everythingisconnectedtoeverything: People as the Makers of His/Her/Theirstory and his/her/theirstory.”

Professor of Political Science Eric Selbin attended the Living Democracy Symposium at the University of Maryland on October 10 and participated in the Decentering Whiteness Workshop, inspired in part by his co-authored book with Meghana Nayak ’97, Decentering International Relations.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed recently judged the All-State Region auditions at Stony Point High School. Senior music education student Emma Duncan ’25, recommended by Dr. Sneed, was also asked to serve as a judge for this competition. Hundreds of students sang to be selected for All-Region, and less than 100 will continue on to the next level of All-State auditions. Every year, more than 70,000 students audition for instrumental and vocal ensembles across the state, and fewer than 2,000 are chosen to perform in February at the state music educators conference.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson was an invited participant in the Third Coast Central America Collaborative at Texas Christian University from October 17-18, where she presented “The Flowers’ Story: Emerging Racial Categories and their Socio-ecological context on the British Coast of Central America in the late 1700s.”

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano published an article with several current SU undergraduates, including Georgia Micknal (first author) ’25, Samantha Gonzales ’26, Lauren Levee ’27, Gabrielle Fullard ’27, and Kalista Esquivel ’26. The article is titled “(Don’t) hit me up: The effects of initiator gender and setting on perceptions of date initiation” and will be published in the December issue of the North American Journal of Psychology.

Staff Instructor in Spanish Noelia Cigarroa-Cooke and Professor of Spanish Carlos de Oro presented the paper “Monstruosidad y poder: Alegorías de la injusticia en Sin señas particulares y La llorona” at the 77th annual convention of the Rocky Mountains Modern Language Association in Las Vegas, NV, on October 10-12.

On October 15, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Amy Rebecca King spoke at the book launch for Critical Acting Pedagogies: Intersectional Approaches. The book launch was held at RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in London and online, broadcast in America and the UK. Her chapter, “Liberating Casting and Training Practices for Mixed-Asian Students,” was one of 10 academic writings highlighted at the event.

Professor of Communication Studies Valerie Renegar presented a paper at the 9th meeting of the Nordic Rhetoric Association in Copenhagen, Denmark. The University of Copenhagen has distinguished itself as one of the finest rhetoric programs in Europe and is making a worldwide impact in rhetorical studies. The conference theme was “Technology in Transition,” and Dr. Renegar, along with her co-authors Dr. Stacey Sowards from UT Austin and Dr. Kristi Cole from NC State, presented a new piece on digital collaboration in research and teaching, and explored ways that these collaborations can function as mentoring opportunities. They focused on building and engaging in digital collaboration and the importance of horizontal mentoring and developing vulnerable relationships outside of an individual institution.

Part-time Professor of Creative Writing Chelsey Clammer ’05 recently had a personal creative essay published in Under the Gum Tree. Her essay, “Growth,” looks at the experience of a tumor extraction and the end of a relationship. The essay is the featured piece for the journal’s Fall 2024 issue. The issue can be purchased (print or digital) here.

Biochemistry major Samantha (Sam) Hazen ’26 has been selected as a finalist for the American Chemical Society (ACS) Agricultural and Food Chemistry Division (AGFD) Undergraduate Poster Competition. As part of the award, Sam will receive $1,000 in travel expenses to attend the spring ACS National Meeting in San Diego, CA, where she will present her poster, titled “Comparison of phenolic composition, flavonoid content, and antioxidant properties among cacao nibs sourced from different origins.” The poster is based on research that Sam is completing with Professor of Chemistry Emily Niemeyer. The ACS AGFD competition was created to showcase the research talents of undergraduate students, and all finalists participate in a poster symposium with the possibility of winning additional cash prizes.

Mathematics and biochemistry major Brian Armijo ’25 presented “A Hidden Markov Model for Parkinson’s Disease Progression” at the Texas-Louisiana Section Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). His poster presents preliminary work on his mathematics capstone under the supervision of Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton. Armijo is also a Dixon Scholar and Southwestern’s first Goldwater Scholar in 30 years.

Senior Research and Instruction Librarian Katherine Hooker and Instruction and Student Success Librarian Emily Thorpe spoke at the 2024 Texas Library Association’s Library Instruction Round Table Summit on October 11. Their presentation was titled “Pirates, Puzzles, and Pathways: Gamifying Library Instruction for First-Year Success” and discussed scavenger hunts, breakout kits, and digital escape games that SLC has been designing and implementing since 2021 to successfully enhance traditional library instruction methods.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira has published the article “Invoking ethnic identity in the service of right-wing rhetoric: an analysis of 2022 Latina republican candidates in South Texas,” with Dr. Arthur Soto-Vásquez of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Communication, Culture, and Critique. The essay examines campaign ads from three Latina GOP candidates in South Texas, in which Moreira and Soto-Vásquez identified the strategic deployment of conservative ethnic identity that disavows racialized identity through anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead of moderating anti-immigration discourse, as has been suggested by observers on how to attract Latine voters, these candidates instead redirect the immigrant threat narrative towards other subgroups of Latines. The article can be found here.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth participated in the 48th annual conference of the German Studies Association from September 26-29 in Atlanta, GA. Berroth’s research paper, “Marica Bodrožić und Deniz Utlu’s ‘Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten’ – Reflections on the Curated Virtual Audio Archive Dichterlesen.net,” contributed to a series of panels organized around the topic of literary kinships in contemporary German literature. Berroth also served as a commentator for panel presentations in this series.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth hosted the annual fall conference for the Texas Chapter of the American Association for Teachers of German at Southwestern University. The conference brought together German educators across instructional levels and institutions, which is important for developing cohesive curricular pathways to success from middle and high schools to college, especially with focus on IB and AP programs that can earn participants college credits. The conference program included teaching and learning with AI, networking among programs, support for new colleagues, and publicly engaged humanities initiatives at the state and national levels. Participants earned continuing education credits.

Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr, along with colleagues she met while presenting on a panel at MathFest 2019, published an article titled “Domino Antimagic Squares and Rectangles” in Recreational Mathematics Magazine. The article can be found here.

Chemistry major Jodi Glenn-Millhouse ’25 gave a talk titled “Investigating the Effects of Decreased Magnesium Concentrations on Phaeodactylum tricornutum F710 Fluorescence” at the Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium (FURS) at the University of Texas at Austin on October 5. She was awarded the Best Presentation Award in Chemistry. Her talk resulted from research done with Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Bonnie Sneed delivered the pre-concert lecture for the Waco Symphony Orchestra performance on October 3. She led concertgoers in a discussion about Mexican composer Arturo Márquez and American composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland.

The Communication Studies Department was well-represented at the 2024 Biennial Public Address Conference. This is a highly-selective, invitation-only conference that showcases scholarship and responses from leading scholars in Rhetoric and Communication Studies. The University of Texas at Austin hosted this conference September 22-25. Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala (LB) was one of the eight invited plenary speakers to the conference. She delivered an address, titled “Caste is not a metaphor,” as a call to the field to grapple with its ignorance of caste, and to reckon with how caste bolsters “model minority” and white supremacist discourses. Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira responded to Dr. Angela Aguayo’s plenary, “Youth Production as Public Address,” in which she articulated a series of questions regarding the potential of networked space to produce liberatory content. Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Jaishikha Nautiyal participated in a panel titled “Anti-DEI legislation in Texas” and presented her work on “anaerobic rhetoric,” in light of the anti-DEI legislation in Florida, based on a forthcoming publication in Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez released her third CD, dedicated to “Quartet of the End of Time” by Olivier Messiaen. The album was recorded under the Ladoga Records Label, with Hank Landrum, Zongheng Zhang, and Bobae Lee. It can be heard here.

Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle was interviewed for the Higher Ed Demand Gen podcast on “The Secret To Building Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn for Higher Ed.” The episode was released last week and can be found here. 

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long published a chapter titled “The Coloniality of Climate Apartheid” in the Routledge reader, Confronting Climate Coloniality. Long’s contributions were also highlighted by the editor, Dr. Farhana Sultana, in promotional materials and he will be serving on upcoming panels in which this work will be featured. More information is available here.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez published her first monograph, “Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States: Faith, Race, and Feminism” (2024, Lexington Books). Based in content analysis, interviews, and survey data, Hernandez problematizes the view that Christianity and feminism are contradictory identities. More information is available here.

Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr and Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura presented at the 2024 Fall Central Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in San Antonio, TX. Dr. Marr presented her talk, “Domino Antimagic Configurations,” in the Special Session on Enumerative Combinatorics, and Dr. Futamura presented her talk/workshop, “Drawing in Geometry Students with Drawing Puzzles,” in the Special Session on Inquiry Oriented Learning in the Mathematics Classroom.

Regional Associate Director of Admission Jaime Gonzalez recently co-presented “Beyond Translated: Shared Bilingual Resources” at the National Association of College Admission Counseling’s national conference, alongside Shana Castillo from Rice University and Katie Ascencio from the Achieve Program. Their session provided shared admission counseling resources to better serve Latinx and Spanish-speaking bilingual families throughout the college search process.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented at the fourth annual La Chola Conference at East Los Angeles College on September 27-29. This conference centers Chola identities and communities, bringing together activists, artists, and scholars. Dr. Del Hierro’s talk, “Las Cholas’ Sartorial Scripts: A Chicana Feminist Analysis,” presented part of her research on the ways fashion has constituted political and cultural tools against racism, sexism, and colonialism. The program can be found here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published an essay titled “Shakespeare and Multilinguistic Affairs: A Strategy for Reading Across Borders” in Contemporary Readings in Global Performances of Shakespeare, edited by Alexa Alice Joubin. The book is published by Bloomsbury Academic as part of The Arden Shakespeare series.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer co-organized the hybrid conference, Big Ideas in Dynamics and Geometry. The event was held at University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and on Zoom on September 27-29, and was co-organized with Benjamin Call and Laura Schaposnik at UIC. Big Ideas in Dynamics and Geometry focused on the intersections of dynamics and geometry and exposing early career mathematicians to future research directions. Additionally, the conference served as the kickoff event for the fourth semester of the reading program for early career mathematicians, Big Ideas in Dynamics, also organized by Benjamin Call and Noelle Sawyer.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “Respecting Children’s Questions and Adapting K-W-L Charts” in the Summer 2024 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education. Their quarterly column tells the ongoing story of the fictional character, Ian Quiry, as he studies and struggles to learn how to be an effective elementary school STEM teacher. The newsletter can be read here.

Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal designed the scenery and stage properties for I’m Proud of You  by Tim Madigan. This production is a staged adaptation of Madigan’s novel, I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers. The play chronicles the true and extraordinary bond between Tim Madigan, a Texas author and reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Fred Rogers, the iconic TV host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. This production will be the inaugural production in Penfold Theatre’s new and permanent theatre venue in Round Rock, TX. Roybal also served as a theatre consultant on the new venue, which will be the first professional theatre in Round Rock. The production showcases Professor Emeritus Rick Roemer and SU alumnus Zac Carr ’11 as actors. SU Scene Shop Manager Monroe Oxley is the Technical Director for this production. Additionally, the stage and seating risers were designed and constructed by Oxley using a build crew that included Connor Bustos ’26 and Ash Zunker ’25. The production runs October 4-26.

Professor of English Michael Saenger published a blog post at the Times of Israel, titled “How to Spot Antisemitism.” It can be read here.

Associate Professor of Art History Allison Miller gave a virtual invited presentation on “Purple in Early China” to a Chinese art history class at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. on September 23.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony attended the 21st International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering in Valencia, Spain, in September. She presented a paper co-authored with Mark Mueller ’24 on “Course scheduling made easier: A user-friendly web-based timetabling tool using PyGLPK,” which is available here. The article details how, using ideas from operations research, it is possible to develop an integer linear program capturing constraints on course schedules, use Python and PyGLPK to find a solution, and package that within a more user-friendly and publicly available web interface.

Professor of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at Baylor University’s Armstrong Browning Library as a part of EVENT 2024, a hub conference sponsored by the North American Victorian Studies Association on September 19–21. Her paper was titled “Laugh Track: Pregnancy and Pronatalism in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.”

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long was featured in an article appearing in Texas Monthly, titled “Is America Ready for More Than One Kind of Weird?” The article can be read here.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long presented a poster titled “The Right to Retreat? Interrogating the xenophobic politics of urban climate retreat,” and co-presented a lecture on the topic of “Climate Havens” at the RC21 Common City Conference in Uppsala, Sweden from September 10–13.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published “Two Moon Songs for Women’s Chorus and Piano” by Florence B. Price (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan). The volume comprises two songs – “The Moon Bridge” by Mary Rolofson Gamble and “The New Moon” by Liza Lee Follett – that may be described as loving maternal musical reflections on the magic of moonlight in a young daughter’s imagination. Price published both works separately in 1930, “The New Moon” with a dedication to her friend Estella Bonds (mother of Margaret Bonds), but those editions are long out of print. Cooper’s edition hopes to help them find a new place in modern musical life.

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Tatiana Zhuravleva, along with her colleagues from Southwestern University and New Mexico State University, published an article titled “A Holistic Focus of Attention Enhances Vertical Jump Performance Among Inexperienced Individuals” in the Journal of Motor Behavior.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse virtually presented a working draft of a book chapter titled “The Interlocking Nature of Apartheid Praxis” at a workshop on “Apartheid as Method for Worldmaking after Empire: Encountering histories, presents, and continuities of Apartheid in South Africa,” held at the University of the Witwatersrand on September 17. The workshop aims to provide authors with feedback towards an edited volume on Critical Apartheid Studies.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Ariel Wood exhibited their work in a group show in Dallas. The show, titled “Sculpture School: Concrete,” was the culmination of a summer residency based on the theme of concrete. Their work will be on view at Sweet Pass Sculpture Park until November 16. View documentation images of the exhibition and accompanying catalog at sweetpasssculpturepark.com.

Buoyed by the momentum built on sabbatical, Garey Chair of Biology Romi Burks continued her work on the intersection between chocolate and liberal arts education by sharing her knowledge as the featured STEM kick-off speaker at Schreiner University on September 4 with a talk titled “Chocolate Covered Science: Connect what you love to eat with what you love to study.” Following that event, Burks attended the Dallas Chocolate Festival on September 7, where she contributed to a panel discussion on the crisis in the chocolate industry, along with entrepreneur Kate Weiser of Kate Weiser Chocolates and Jimmy Steward of Guittard Chocolate. Afterwards, Burks gave a solo presentation titled “Educated by Chocolate: How to build your chocolate knowledge one bite at a time.” Burks has also been invited to give this talk again at the Northwest Chocolate Festival, along with a second presentation titled “Separating Fact from Fiction in the Science of Chocolate.” These lectures will take place the first weekend of October.

Supported by a sabbatical leave, Garey Chair of Biology Romi Burks recently published the first paper out of the lab on environmental DNA in the journal Management of Biological Invasions, in collaboration with several undergraduate researchers and colleagues. The paper, titled “Snail slime in real time: Challenges in predicting the relationship between environmental DNA and apple snail biomass,” describes how extrapolations can fail between snail abundance and the amount of genetic material produced by apple snails under cold conditions. The results have implications for estimating the size of non-native invasive populations. Student co-authors include Cassidy Reynolds ’24, Esmeralda Rosas ’24, Cynthia Bashara ’23, and Lillian Dolapchiev ’23, along with alumni collaborator Dr. Matthew Barnes ’06 from Texas Tech University and Dr. Chris Jerde from UC Santa Barbara, who provided assistance in data analysis. The open access paper can be read here, as #6 in the table of contents of the journal issue.

History and biology alumna Katherine Montgomery ’23 presented a paper, titled “A Crafty Woman in a Mangled World: The Intersection of Art and Facial Reconstruction in Anna Coleman Ladd’s Mask Making,” at the Virtual Graduate Conference of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine held on September 13. Katherine originally worked with Chair and Associate Professor of History Joseph E. Hower on this project during her history capstone course. After graduation, she worked with Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones to turn her project into a piece for publication. Her presentation explored the intersections of gender, disability, surgery, and military history to highlight the innovative work in the field of prosthetics of Anna Coleman in the late 1910s.

Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder gave a virtual talk titled “Women in Executive Office: Constraints and Opportunities for Success” to students at Centro Universitario Anglo Mexicano (CUAM), a preparatory high school in Mexico, on September 11.

Kudos to Director of the Center for Career and Professional Development Adrian Ramirez and Sr. Associate Director of the Center for Career and Professional Development Alexandra Anderson. The Princeton Review ranked the Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) as #2 in the nation for “Best Career Services,” up from our #5 ranking last year. The CCPD remains #1 in the State of Texas.

On July 31, Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Jeff Doyle, Ph.D., presented “What’s Missing from Student Success Analytics?” to 3,300 members of the Future of Higher Education community.

Art history and theatre graduate Gabriella Gonzalez Biziou ’12 starred in and associated-produced a beautifully executed short film titled Foolhardy Love. Gabriella is returning to Texas this month to promote the film, which follows a couple confronted with two very different desires for their future. An official selection for the Beverly Hills Film Festival 2024, Foolhardy Lovescreens in Austin at the Austin Under the Stars Film Festival on Thursday, September 12 at 7:30 p.m., and at the Austin Spotlight Film Festival on Saturday, September 14 at 7:00 p.m. The film has been nominated for Best Narrative (at both festivals), Best Director, Best Actress (at both festivals), and Best Actor. The trailer can be viewed here.

Seth Sagen ’26 was recently awarded the Assistant Concertmaster position with the Central Texas Philharmonic, a professional orchestra in the Austin area. He is a violin major and student of Assistant Professor of Violin and Viola Jessica Mathaes. Seth won an audition in order to receive this highly competitive violin leadership spot with the orchestra.

Professor Emeritus of Music Kiyoshi Tamagawa was invited to edit and expand the 2024-25 Prescribed Music List (PML) for solo pianists participating in the annual Texas State Solo and Ensemble Contest of the University Interscholastic League (UIL). Hundreds of high school pianists from across the state participate in this event, which culminates in a final audition before an expert adjudicator in Austin in late May of every year. They earn a rating and a possible designation of Outstanding Soloist. Tamagawa’s revisions, which are now in effect, substantially increased repertoire choices for participants, including for the first time many works by women composers and composers of color.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony co-authored a paper, titled “New Bounds on the Performance of SBP for the Dial-a-Ride Problem with Revenues,” that was presented on September 5 at ATMOS 2024, the Symposium on Algorithmic Approaches for Transportation Modeling, Optimization, and Systems. The paper, published in the Dagstuhl Open Access Series in Informatics, has co-authors Christine Chung of Connecticut College, Ananya Das of Middlebury College, and David Yuen.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music and Artist in Residence Hai Zheng Olefsky is excited to share this season’s release of the Amazon documentary “The Story of Art in America,” where she is featured in season 3, episode 2. This episode highlights Georgetown artists, including painter and art instructor Carol Light, textile artist Gary Anderson, muralist and portrait artist Devon Clarkson, and concert cellist Hai Zheng Olefsky. “The Story of Art in America,” an award-winning docuseries created by acclaimed film director Christelle Bois and produced by executive producer Pierre Gervois, explores the art scenes in various American cities and towns. The series features in-depth interviews with artists and art historians, highlighting the role of the arts in American society and its historical significance. The documentary is now available on Amazon Prime, offering a glimpse into Georgetown’s vibrant arts scene. Georgetown Arts and Culture Program Manager Amanda Still remarked, “It’s been an unforgettable experience to participate in this project… We are so proud of the members of our arts and culture community for the eloquent way they have demonstrated the impact of arts, culture, and history in Georgetown.” The episode can be viewed here.

Recent graduate Ian Klepcyk ’24 and Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci published one of two submitted entries in the Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior, published by Springer. This entry also includes videos Ian filmed in the lab as a companion to the written submission. The entry can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz attended the International Migration Research Network (IMISCOE) annual conference in Lisbon, Portugal in July. She presented, with Melina Bountris ’22, “Culturally responsive instructional strategies for immigrant-origin youth in Austria,” based on research conducted while Melina was completing a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship in Austria. She also presented, with Zehra Çolak of Utrecht University, “Co-constructing a pedagogy of radical belonging: Pláticas on teaching for social justice,” which is based on a chapter that has been accepted to be published in the Handbook of Social Justice in Education. In addition, Dr. Sáenz Ortiz co-led a workshop, titled “Towards decolonial futurities: On reimagining the university,” along with Zehra Çolak of Utrecht University, Zakia Essanhaji of VU Amsterdam, Dounia Bourabain of Hasselt University, and Leila Mouhib of Université libre de Bruxelles and Université de Mons.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz published the manuscript “Radical Love: Liberatory Pedagogical Praxis for Black and Latinx Youth in an Alternative School,” in the International Journal of Learner Diversity and Identities. The manuscript highlights a case study conducted by Dr. Sáenz Ortiz in an alternative school in the northeastern United States where most students were Afro-Caribbean. The article is available here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and his Faculty-Student-Project student, Sydney Jackson ’27, virtually presented a poster, titled “Successful Play-Based Programs: Case Studies,” at the International Society of Cultural-historical Activity Research Conference 2024: Inclusiveness as a Future Challenge, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. They reported on their analysis of twenty interviews with teachers, parents, and administrators from three play-based programs in New York City, Oxford, UK, and Billund, Denmark.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of Florence B. Price’s three-movement trio titled Moods for flute, clarinet, and piano. A number of fragmentary manuscripts for this important late work – a series of “moodscapes” that reflect the compositional and stylistic diversity Price had achieved by the mid-1940s – have long been known, but they did not permit reconstruction of the complete work. Cooper’s edition is based on two previously unknown autographs that were found in an apartment in Chicago and donated to the University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, in 2023.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Amy Rebecca King, along with her colleague Robert Torigoe, published a chapter entitled “Liberating Casting and Training Practices for Mixed-Asian Students” in Critical Acting Pedagogy: Intersectional Approaches. The chapter, which examines the history of multiracial representation and offers practical inclusive pedagogical approaches, can be found here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen is one of seven co-authors of the recently published chapter “Teacher Educators’ Perspectives, Beliefs, and Practices,” in the book Re-Exploring Play and Playfulness in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Narratives, Reflections, and Practices. His section is titled “Playing to Learn and Teaching with Play in a Science Methods Course at Southwestern University.” The book can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Tatiana Zhuravleva, along with her colleagues, presented research on “A Holistic Focus of Attention Enhances Vertical Jump Performance Among Division 1 Football Players” at the annual North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity.

Professor of Mathematics and John H. Duncan Chair Fumiko Futamura signed a book contract with Princeton University Press for a general audience book tentatively titled Projecting Spaces. The book is primarily about 2D art and how artists set the stage for their visual stories by playing with oblique and linear perspectives (this is where she sneaks in a little mathematical analysis), enhanced and impossible realities (more math), flatness and depth (math), and movement and still snapshots (physics?). The artwork explored in the book ranges from Renaissance paintings to 3D billboards and Radiohead t-shirts, and artists range from Leonardo da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer to Hokusai and Njideka Akunyili Crosby. The book will likely come out in 2027.

In July, Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music and Artist in Residence Hai Zheng Olefsky was invited to serve as a guest judge for the 2024 Colburn-Pledge Music Scholarship Competition by Musical Bridges Around the World (MBAW), a nonprofit organization dedicated to multicultural arts and social impact. MBAW’s mission is to celebrate our shared humanity by making global arts accessible to everyone. The Colburn-Pledge Music Scholarship offers college tuition assistance to young string players aspiring to careers in classical music.

Director of General Chemistry Labs Dilani Koswatta and Director of Organic Chemistry Labs Carmen Velez presented a poster on their collaborative project titled “Fostering STEM Interest Through Chemistry Connections with the Community” at the 2024 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, held on July 29 at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. This community-engaged learning (CEL) project connected chemistry and biochemistry senior capstone students, general chemistry lab students, and 5th graders from Georgetown’s Annie Purl Elementary in an outreach activity designed to spark curiosity about chemistry in young students.

Director of Organic Chemistry Labs Carmen Velez presented a workshop titled “Fueling Education Transformation: The Dynamic Chemistry of Community-Based Learning” at the 2024 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, held on July 29 at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. The workshop focused on community-based learning (CBL), an educational approach that connects students with community partners to enhance academic learning, civic engagement, and empathy. Participants explored best practices using the Chemistry for the Community (CFTC) curriculum, reviewed examples of CBL implementation, and developed personalized CBL plans by mapping community assets and defining student outcomes.

English major and Associate Editor at Penguin Random House Lydia Gregovic ’19 recently published her first novel, titled The Monstrous Kind. The novel, a fantasy retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, is set to release in early September and can be pre-ordered here.

Associate Professors of Business Gaby Flores and Hazel Nguyen, along with colleagues, published an article titled “The only  daughter effect: Examining the impact of child gender on a CEO’s hiring decisions” in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. The paper, which examines gender bias in top management hiring, can be found here.

The Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America recently held officer elections and finalized positions for the Executive Committee. Professor and Garey Chair of Mathematics Alison Marr has been elected to serve in the three year Chair role (Chair-Elect, Chair, and Past-Chair). Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross has also been appointed as the Digital Media Editor.

Four faculty members were active at MathFest, the national meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), on August 7-11, in Indianapolis, IN. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Turning a Geometry Project into a Geometry Festival” in the contributed paper session on “Building Community in Mathematics Departments.” Professor and Garey Chair of Mathematics Alison Marr presented “Difference Distance Magic Oriented Graphs” in the MAA invited paper session (aligned with an MAA invited address) on “Matching and Labelings in Graphs.” Marr also served on the panel “Creating Successful Study Abroad Programs in Mathematics” to discuss the mathematics courses she offered as part of Southwestern’s London program. Professor and Lord Chair of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura co-led a workshop, “Geometric Puzzles and Brain Teasers in Perspective Art,” with Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College and Marc Frantz of Indiana University. This was sponsored by the MAA special interest group “Mathematics and the Arts.” Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton presented “Student Modeling Projects in Sports” in the contributed paper session on “Math and Sports.” She also co-organized the contributed paper session “Differential Equations Student Activities and Projects, Big and Small” with Brian Winkel of SIMIODE, Rosemary Farley and Patrice Tiffany of Manhattan College, and Pushpi Paranamana of St. Mary’s College.

Professor of Political Science Bob Snyder presented his paper “The US and Iran: Understanding the Breakdown in Relations” at the International Studies Association’s conference at the University of Rijeka in Rijeka, Croatia in June.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was flown to Toronto to participate in a video documentary on his little brother, Mohan Govindasamy, aka Launders. Govindasamy was matched with Saenger through the Toronto office of Big Brothers / Big Sisters, and he is currently a major figure in e-sports. The video can be seen here.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez served as an invited panelist for “Where There Is Oppression: Doing Sociology in Challenging Times and Places,” at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in Montreal.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro co-presented “Rasquachismo: A Chicana Digital Humanities Praxis” on August 9 at DH2024, the annual conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.

Professor Emeritus of Biology Ben Pierce was appointed to the Bell and Coryell Counties Biological Advisory Team, which will assist in the development of a regional habitat conservation plan for these two Texas counties.

Professor Emeritus of Music Kiyoshi Tamagawa performed a recital on the TGIF Concert Series at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Fe, NM in June. His program was a reflection on the intertwined personal and musical relationships of Robert and Clara Schumann and their protégé and friend Johannes Brahms and included music of all three composers.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce, Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin, Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma, and Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro had their abstract “Teaching With Color: Thematic Hires and the Politics of Teaching in Texas” accepted as a special feature for the 10 Year Reflection Special Issue on pedagogy and hope in the Journal for the Sociology of Race & Ethnicity. The article will be both a pedagogical reflection on hope in the classroom and on thematic hires. The issue will be available in early 2025.

Associate Professor of Art History Allison Miller gave the presentation, “The Form-Matter Nexus in the Early Chinese Intellectual Tradition and its Implication for the Genealogy of Chinese Art” on the panel, “Rethinking the Form-Matter Nexus after the Material Turn” on June 25 at the CIHA (Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art) conference in Lyon, France.

This summer, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon participated in the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) Publishing Workshop to support her Mellon Publicly-Engaged Humanities project, Malflora, a forthcoming multimedia platform dedicated to publishing and preserving Latina/e lesbian stories. In the workshop, she learned from a wide range of speakers who work in book, magazine, and multimedia publishing and helped produce Issue 7 of the online magazine, PubLab. As an art director for the magazine, she curated a portfolio of Anel I. Flores’ paintings focused on lesbian intimacy, bodily autonomy, and queer liberation, which you can access here.

Assistant Professor of Violin Jessica Mathaes performed as a soloist with the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in Jackson, WY this summer. She also led the orchestra as concertmaster. Named “one of 2024’s top US Classical Music Festivals” by BBC Music Magazine, the Grand Teton Music Festival is an eight-week concert series that draws from top orchestra musicians throughout the world, and is led by music director Sir Donald Runnicles.

Professor of English Michael Saenger has been invited by Old Dominion University’s Institute for Jewish Studies and Interfaith Understanding to take part in their new series, “The Nosh: Taking a Bite Out of Hard Conversations.” Saenger will co-facilitate discussion on the current Israel-Palestine conflict and its impact on American academics.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira has published the essay “Working for the miracle: A critical, visual analysis of Disney’s Encanto,” along with co-authors Raisa Alvarado of California State University, San Bernardino and Carlos Flores of California State University, Sacramento, in the International Journal of Communication.The essay proposes a visual analysis of Encanto, with particular attention to the cultural tensions and ideologies that surround the film, including paratexts produced by Encanto fans via the streaming platform TikTok. Although the film remains notable for its stylistic displays of Latine identities and experiences, its visual choices remain situated in western, settler-colonial ideologies of oligarchical governance, mestizaje, and postracism. The visual analysis of Encanto and its related paratexts contributes to scholarship on the labor of cultural translators on behalf of Disney, expanding it to include unaffiliated Disney audiences who digitally articulate histories of imperialism, displacement, and their contemporary counterparts for public audiences. The International Journal of Communication is an open access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal that is consistently among the top quartile of journals in communication with highest citation metrics worldwide. The essay can be read here. 

This summer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Amy King directed Cats at the Georgetown Palace Theatre. Recommended by SU’s Ride the Cyclone  director Kristen Rogers, King collaborated with Evelyn Hoelscher of the Spaces of Fontana Dance Company and music director Michael Rosensteel on a contemporary take on the classic production. The production runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. from August 2 through September 8. Tickets can be purchased here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson presented “Lucy’s Story: The Surprising Tale of an Enslaved Black Woman in British Central America in the 1770s” as the inaugural webinar for the Government of Belize’s Institute of Social and Cultural Research-National Institute of Culture and History Research Lab Series 2.0 on July 24. It was well attended and is posted on the ISCR-NICH YouTube channel, available here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper’s work in editing and publishing previously obscure music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds was the subject of an interview article published in the August 2024 issue of American Music Teacher. The article can be read here.

Director of Admission Rebecca Rother and Regional Associate Director of Admission Jaime Gonzalez served as faculty co-chair, higher education and operations team, for the Admission and College Counseling Institute, a program run by the Texas Association of College Admission Counseling. They helped to engage new professionals on the high school and college sides of the enrollment process. The conference was held at Schreiner University in Kerrville, TX from July 15–18.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth participated in a collaborative event, “Tree Cultures ad Kew,” co-convened by Interdisciplinary Research at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the University of Derby. Bringing together researchers and practitioners from the humanities and from arboriculture, participants explored how we understand and regard the value of trees in both historical and cultural contexts. The symposium showcased emerging literary and environmental history scholarship on trees and tree spaces, and fostered discussions around how the arts and humanities can contribute to debates on trees, past, present, and future. The symposium was held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a UNESCO World Heritage site of immense arboreal, botanical, and conservation interest. Kew’s treescapes foregrounded the symposium’s discussions, and participants had the opportunity to engage in guided tree walks of Kew’s tree collections and of Kew’s Wood Xylarium.

Scene Shop Manager Monroe Oxley’s 10 minute play Overduewill be performed at the Tumbleweed Festival in Lubbock, TX, presented by The Lubbock Community Theatre, on August 9 and 10.

Assistant Professor of Music Ruben Balboa had the distinct privilege of performing at the 2024 American Viola Society Festival and Primrose International Viola Competition in Los Angeles, CA, where he gave the world premiere of “Tejano Suite for Viola and Piano,” a piece he commissioned by Alex Molina Shawver. The suite is an exploration of both genre and identity, delving into the Tejano or Conjunto genre, which includes folk music developed in the Texas-Mexico border region over centuries of cultural conflict, fusion, and synthesis. Each movement of the suite incorporates characteristic rhythmic material from common conjunto dances, while the harmonic and formal idioms remain true to the composer’s unique style.

Assistant Professor of Music Ruben Balboa and colleagues Ames Asbell, Kathy Steely, Martha Carpetyan, and Tim Washecka, had the honor of presenting and performing together at the 2024 American Viola Society Festival and Primrose International Viola Competition in Los Angeles, CA. Their presentation, entitled “AVS Festival Ensemble Commissions Retrospective: Works by Bunch, Colberg, and Vanderveer,” featured a retrospective with brief, recorded interviews with each composer and a performance of their works.

Former Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Katie Aha, Catherine Hiebel ’22, and Linsey Jensen ’23 co-authored an article, titled “Turning to the Radical Right: Examining Subnational Variation in Radical Right Support after Ethnic Minority Success in East Central Europe,” which has been accepted for publication in Electoral Studies.  This article started as a 2021 SCOPE project. Jensen is currently in a dual M.A./M.Sc. program, recently completing a M.A. in European History, Politics, and Society at Columbia University, and starting a M.Sc. in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe at the London School of Economics in the fall. Hiebel will be starting a M.Sc. in International Politics at Trinity College Dublin in the fall.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma attended the 29th Southern African Historical Society (SAHS) at the University of Johannesburg on June 26-27, where he presented fieldwork notes from Mellon PEH Summer Fellowship-supported research on commodities, trade, and pre-colonial African society.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma attended the Institute for Global Law and Policy Global Scholars Academy in Stellenbosch, South Africa on June 28, where he presented his paper titled, “‘Put it in their food’: Food, Power, and Control in southern Zimbabwe.”

Professional Academic Advisor Hayley Harned has been elected as one of the twelve National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) Emerging Leaders for 2024-2026. The Emerging Leaders Program provides a structured platform that aims to build an inclusive and sustainable community of strong NACADA leaders. The program is a cohort of professionals focused on building leaders for the next generation of NACADA engagement. We are proud of Hayley’s accomplishment and excited for her continued growth and development in the field of advising!

On June 23, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon led a community teach-in at Alienated Majesty Books entitled “No Pride in Genocide: A Teach-In on Zionist Pinkwashing.” The teach-in focused on defining and dismantling pinkwashing, or the process of promoting LGBTQ+ rights to appear progressive while simultaneously upholding oppressive systems that directly harm LGBTQ+ people, such as settler colonialism and occupation. The teach-in was part of a larger series of educational events in Austin focused on Palestinian liberation, which enabled a broader public to engage in critical dialogue informed by activist-oriented scholarship.

Associate Professor of Business Debika Sihi published an article titled “Sustainability and Marketing: Examining the Digital Impacts” in the book Advances in Digital Marketing and eCommerce  by Springer. She virtually presented this work examining the developing standards, measurement, and disclosure of environmental impacts related to the advertising industry at the Digital Marketing and e-Commerce Conference held June 26-28 in Barcelona, Spain.

Sierra Rupp ’23 had her Senior Seminar paper, “From Fields to Frontlines: The Relationship Between Drug Trafficking & Armed Conflict,” directed by former Associate Professor of Political Science Emily Sydnor, published in The Pi Sigma Alpha Undergraduate Journal of Politics.  Rupp is currently in Kyrgyzstan on a Critical Language Scholarship for Russian and this fall will be on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Spain. Her generous acknowledgements recognize the role of the political science department in general and her various professors in this process. You can find the article here.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby co-authored “Endometrial decidualization status modulates endometrial microvascular complexity and trophoblast outgrowth in gelatin methacryloyl hydrogels” in the journal npj Women’s Health  with Dr. Samantha Zambuto and the Harley Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The work was published open-access and can be downloaded here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper gave an invited presentation for the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library’s Summer Educator Institute, “It’s Tricky: American Music and Culture.” Titled “Teaching American Classical Music in Color: Stories, Journeys, and Portraits Old, New, and Yet to Come,” Cooper’s presentation was about the ethical and moral imperative of challenging both the perception of a Black/White color line in classical music and the de facto creation of said color line via endless reiterations of canonical compositions by mostly-long-dead-canonical composers, most of whom are European and/or male, and about ways in which today’s educators can liberate themselves from the fetters of canonical domination.

Assistant Professor of Kinesiology Jennifer Stokes recently published the “Anatomy and Physiology Student Accommodations Handbook” through the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS). Serving as Chair of the Curriculum and Instruction-Accommodations Subcommittee, Stokes, in collaboration with 16 HAPS colleagues, researched, vetted, and produced a 64-page guide to assist instructors in meeting student accommodations by identifying meaningful alternatives to existing protocols in anatomy and physiology laboratories based on best practices supported by current research and the concepts of universal design. The goal is to make anatomy and physiology laboratories as inclusive and accessible as possible, allowing all learners to achieve their desired level of success. This new HAPS publication was also featured in a workshop, “Implementing Inclusive Teaching Practices in Anatomy and Physiology Labs,” led by Stokes, at the HAPS Annual Conference in St. Louis from May 25-29.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez published a feature article in the Summer edition of the magazine Conscience,  titled “Are There Christian Feminists? How White Supremacy Impacts Our Assumptions About Identity.” In the article, Hernandez highlights the role that white supremacy plays in the common assumption that feminism and faith are at odds.

Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola published an essay entitled “Lucrezia Borgia Triumphal Chariot: Notes on Performance Documentation” in Skenè. Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies,  10.1 (2024): 61-80, Memory and Performance, Classical Reception in Early Modern Festivals. The Monographic Section was edited by Francesca Bortoletti, Giovanna Di Martino, and Eugenio Refini. The essay can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Alexander Goodwin was the keynote speaker for the Georgetown Juneteenth Celebration on June 15. This was the 72nd Annual Celebration of Juneteenth in Georgetown sponsored by the Georgetown Cultural Citizen Memorial Association (GCCMA). Juneteenth is a recognition and celebration of June 19, 1865 as the day that the enslaved people in Texas were informed that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed on January 1, 1863 to free them from slavery. On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law making Juneteenth a national holiday.

Assistant Vice President of Admission Christine Bowman presented at the Higher Education Consulting Association Annual Conference in Atlanta. She was a member of the Professional Development Institute, where she led a workshop on understanding the financial aid process and collaborated on a session regarding student transitions and support throughout the college search experience.

Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal served as a theatre staging and venue consultant for Penfold Theatre’s new home in Round Rock, TX. This is the first professional theatre venue in Round Rock. Penfold Theatre will open its 17th season and continues its mission of telling intimate stories of empathy and hope, curating performances by premier local artists, and nurturing theatremakers of today and tomorrow. The opening of this facility will also provide other performing artists access to affordable space at a time when venues are disappearing.

Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal designed scenery and is the scenic charge artist for Magnolia Musical Theatre’s production of Footloose the musical, running July 10 through August 10 at Hill Country Galleria Pavilion in Bee Cave, TX. This professional production is directed by Professor Emeritus of Theatre Rick Roemer, with technical direction by Scene Shop Manager Monroe Oxley. Students Connor Bustos ’26 and Em Hoover ’27 collaborated with Roybal and Oxley as academic interns in scenic fabrication and scenic art. Alumni Kyle Bussone-Peterson ’24 and Alex Cannata ’24, along with students Ashlyn Zunker ’25 and Olivia Hynes ’27 are scenic carpenters and painters.

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones was invited to participate in a workshop of the “Seminar of the social and cultural history of health and disease in Mexico,” held at the Institute of Historical Research, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Discussants contributed their chapters for an upcoming volume on hidden histories of health and disease in Mexico in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Professor Hernandez Berrones’ contribution, titled “Recovering the relics of modern medicine in Mexico: Homeopathy, vitalism, and religion, 1853-1912,” examines the associations between heterodox religious and medical systems in the construction of a plural therapeutic market place in modern Mexico.

Associate Professor of Chinese Carl Robertson delivered an invited presentation titled “Beautiful Writing and the Art of Living: An Introduction to Chinese Writing,” for International Chinese Language Day at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington D.C. on April 20.

Associate Professor of Chinese Carl Robertson presented an invited lecture in Chinese, entitled “Translation and Cultural Communication: How a Twentieth-Century Concept of Chinese Language Transformed the Language of Western Poetry,” addressing AI in light of the revolutionary effect of Ezra Pound’s theories and translation of Chinese language, as part of the series “Professional Lecture Forum on Foreign Languages,” at the Translation Department of Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, Hubei, China on June 11.

Associate Professor of Chinese Carl Robertson presented an invited lecture in Chinese, entitled “Who is Writing? Comparing Ideas of Self in Understanding Chinese Calligraphy” for the Fujian Scholar Forum, held at Fujian Normal University in Fuzhou, Fujian, China, on June 5.

Associate Professor of Chinese Carl Robertson delivered an invitational keynote address in Chinese, entitled “Excellence in Teaching through Collaboration and Empathy,” dedicated to the memory of Professor of Art Star Varner and in partial fulfillment of her charge, to the “China-US College Chinese Language Teachers Association” (unofficial translation of the recently inaugurated 中美高校中文教师联) at Xiamen University in Xiamen, China, on May 31.

Assistant Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Laura Ramsel has been selected by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) and the Institute of International Education (IIE), to attend the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program Advisor Workshop, hosted by the University of Houston on July 12. Interest in the workshop was competitive.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes has been appointed as a production editor for H-France Review.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen, Retired Project WILD State Coordinator Kiki Corry, and Leander ISD Elementary STEM Coordinator and Project WILD Facilitator Mark Corry presented “Polishing the GEMS: Improving PD through Lesson Study” at the 2024 Coordinator Tri-Conference and Training for Project WILD, WET, and Learning Tree state coordinators and facilitators. Kamen and Corry were also invited facilitators for state coordinators observing and collecting observation data on combined WILD, WET, Learning Tree at a pre-conference workshop for local educators.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “There Are No Word Problems in Real Life–To Keyword or Not to Keyword” in the Summer 2024 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education. Their quarterly column tells the ongoing story of the fictional character, Ian Quiry, as he studies and struggles to learn how to be an effective elementary school STEM teacher. The newsletter can be read here.

Senior Director of Conference and Event Sales Sally Cameron, Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone, and Senior Director of Marketing & Communications Kristen Paxson, have been recognized for their exceptional leadership and dedication by graduating from Leadership Georgetown’s 2023-2024 Class. This prestigious program, a nine-month community leadership initiative by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, focuses on professional development and education to empower current and emerging leaders. The program aims to deepen participants’ understanding of community dynamics and the critical role leadership plays in ensuring long-term success. On June 5, Cameron, Firestone, and Paxson celebrated their graduation, marking a significant milestone in their professional journeys and their commitment to community development.

Institutional Research Analyst Hal Hoeppner, alongside Director of Community-Based Learning at Georgia Institute of Technology Sarah Brackmann, presented “Who is doing what? Moving beyond Self-Reporting to Track HIPs” at the annual Association of Institutional Research (AIR) Forum. The presentation was about how Southwestern tracks student participation in Study Abroad, Internships, Undergraduate Research, and Community Engaged Learning without relying on student surveys.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes for The Star Spangled Girl  at Unity Theater in Brenham, TX. This classic Neil Simon comedy required 15 distinct costumes from the late 1960s for the three main characters. Unity Theater is a professional theatre company located in beautiful Washington County, attracting theatre artists and patrons from both the Austin and Houston areas. The Star Spangled Girl  runs through June 30.

Professor of Kinesiology Scott McLean and students Kevan Kennedy ’24 and Emma Williams ’24 presented a poster entitled “Comparison of Overground, Motorized Treadmill and Non-Motorized Treadmill Gait” at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Boston, MA.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala presented on a featured “supersession” at the Rhetoric Society of America biennial conference. The panel focused on climate catastrophes, and Bahrainwala spoke about manual scavenging among Dalits, the framing of Muslims as “climate culprits,” and the ongoing green colonialism of Palestine.

Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola was the keynote speaker for the International Conference “RAPPRESENTARE GLI ESTE. La comunicazione del potere Estense entro e oltre i confini della signoria” in Ferrara, Italy from May 23-25.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey gave a talk titled “Fluence-dependent transient absorption reveals the functional connectivity of red chlorophyll sites in cyanobacterial PSI” at the North American Photosynthesis Congress, held June 3-6 in Atlanta, GA. She conducted the research with Lexi Fantz ’21 along with collaborators from Swarthmore College, the University of Chicago, and the University of Sheffield.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux and her students, Lainey Gutierrez ’25, Jaxson Haynes ’25, Maryn Medlock ’25, Cassidy Reynolds ’25, and Lauren Sanders ’24, presented a poster titled “Developing the Self-Perceived Parental Effort Scale (SPES)” at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science in San Francisco, CA on May 25.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes reviewed Katharina Fritsch’s book, The Diaspora of the Comoros in France: Ethnicised Biopolitics and Communitarianism, for H-France. It can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira presented two papers at the Rhetoric Society of America Conference, held in Denver, CO, May 23-27. Moreira presented the essay “The Place of Blackness in U.S. Constructions of Latinidad,” in which she investigates Anzaldúa’s legacy of mestizaje and hybridity as foundational for the absence of studies about Blackness and antiblackness in Latine Communication Studies. Additionally, she presented on the failures of media literacy and “informational bootstraps” approaches in the classroom in the face of growing monetized and organized disinformation campaigns.

Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Raquel Moreira was among 30 scholars invited to participate in the Viral Movements Symposium, hosted at Penn State on May 14 and 15. The symposium was organized by Lisa Flores, the Josephine Berry Weiss Chair of the Humanities, and featured scholars from the humanities and life sciences to discuss the topics of (im)mobility, (mis)information, and (mis)management.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of the complete four-movement version Florence B. Price’s valedictory opus, Dances in the Canebrakes, for Piano Solo, with ClarNan Editions (Fayetteville, AR). Price actually began work on the music that would become this suite in early 1929, and returned to the idea repeatedly over the next twenty-four years. Finally, in what was to be the last year of her life, she was ready to publish it and made preparations to do so – but died before the edition could come out (it was copyrighted five months to the day after her death and published shortly thereafter). That edition soon went out of print, however, and consequently the Dances in the Canebrakeshave been known mostly in the orchestral arrangement prepared by Price’s colleague William Grant Sill. Cooper’s edition makes her music newly available as she conceived it, also including an appendix that provides the original version of final movement (this titled Chicken Feathersinstead of Silk Hat and Walking Cane). Interested folk can hear three of the suite’s movements in the landmark recording on pianist Althea Waites’s 1987/1993 album Black Diamonds here.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony co-authored a paper in the journal Optimization Methods and Software. “Maximizing the number of rides served for time-limited Dial-a-Ride” shows that for a particular variant of the offline Dial-a-Ride problem, no polynomial-time algorithm will serve the optimal number of requests, unless P = NP. It then describes k-Sequence, an approximation algorithm that repeatedly serves the fastest set of k remaining requests, and bounds its performance. The paper can be read here.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long published a paper titled “Reckoning Climate Apartheid” in the journal Political Geography. That paper, which examines global systematic climate injustice, can be found here.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long presented a paper titled “Avoiding Adaptation as Partition” on May 16 at the Human Geographies of Adaptation Conference at the University of Bergen in Bergen, Norway.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long presented a flash talk on May 13 titled “Reframing Existential Adaptation” at the Theory of Change Workshop hosted by Imagine Adaptation in Bergen, Norway.

Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Monya Lemery has been nominated and elected to serve on the Forum Council beginning July 1, for a three-year term. The Forum Council serves as part of the shared leadership of The Forum on Education Abroad, along with the Board of Directors and the Forum staff. One of the primary roles of Council members is to represent the Forum membership and the greater field of Education Abroad and communicate the interests and needs of the field of Education Abroad to The Forum.