Professor Emerita of English Helene Meyers published English Majors at Work: Career and Life Pathways (Rutgers UP). Read about the book here.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez published “Intersections of Religion, Race, and Feminism With a Progressive Politic” with Tess Starman of Molloy University in Critical Research on Religion. This research asks if women who identify as Christian feminists have more “progressive” stances on social issues than Christian women who do not identify as feminist. Their analysis reveals the ways that specific Christian denomination and racial/ethnic identity shape the relationship between feminism and support for progressive issues. The article can be read here.

On September 25, Part-Time Assistant Professor of Religion Sarah Summers presented at Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality 2026 Conference on Belonging. Her talk, “HONK! If You’re Part of the Resistance,” shared conclusions from her 2025 dissertation, “Marching toward Meaning: the Religious Worlds of Drum Corps and Community Bands.” Dr. Summers also spoke about her new project on HONK! bands, which are part of a global movement of activist community street bands. One of these bands will be playing at Southwestern’s Homecoming Celebration on October 23.

The story of Mail Clerk Hans Venable ’84, “The Church Town Hall Meeting,” is included in the book Proud Outtakes: 50 Heartwarming Stories of Courage and Connection in the Queer Community, edited by Jeff Lutes and Emily Stone. Proud Outtakes brings together stories from 42 queer authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Spain, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Nigeria, who open their lives and invite you into moments that are hilarious, devastating, tender, and fiercely hopeful.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon gave a guest lecture in Dr. Jackie Cuevas’ course, “Survive and Thrive: LGBTQ UT,” at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Solomon’s lecture was based on her published article “Tejano Drag Kings: Reclaiming Space, Place, and Culture Through Performance,” which Dr. Cuevas assigned for the class.

The English version of Assistant Professor of Political Science Helen Murphey’s article “Revisiting cultural relativism in the context of contemporary anti-gender movements” was published this week with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. It had previously been published in Spanish earlier this year. The article highlights how contemporary challenges to international human rights frameworks have increasingly adopted populist anti-elitist narratives. The article is available open access here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to give a virtual seminar with the Philosophy Department at Rhodes University in South Africa on October 1 to present their essay “Autographic Insurgency: South African Black Women’s Apartheid Autobiographies as Epistemic Refusal and Ontological Repair,” which draws on her current book project. ka’Nobuhlaluse decided to cancel the seminar in solidarity with Rhodes students protesting high tuition fees.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson presented “The Bonner Family History: Insights into Early Social Formations in Belize” for the Belize at 45 Conference, Belize Policy Research Institute, and the University of Belize, Belmopan from September 30-October 1. On October 3, Dr. Johnson was filmed for a documentary being produced by New York-based filmmaker Nyasha Laing about a key figure in mid 20th Century attempts to revitalize Belize’s mahogany industry.

Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez published an article in Piano Magazine titled “Mel Bonis and Her Album pour les tout-petits: Engaging Children’s Imaginations.” The article explores how the evocative character of Mel Bonis’ collection can spark children’s curiosity and invite them to create their own stories and imagery. Through the exploration of this repertoire, Dr. Hourez highlights the importance of nurturing imagination and creativity when introducing young children to music.

Adhering to her strong belief that chocolate-coated education makes it more palatable, Garey Chair and Professor of Biology Romi Burks participated in the chocolate conference and festival season by giving two invited presentations to international audiences. First, in mid-September, Dr. Burks joined as one of the 120 women presenters in the Women of Cacao online summit. This summit, a four-day event stretching across time zones, brought together the voices driving innovation, preserving tradition, and creating lasting change across the entire cacao value chain and included a diverse group of speakers, from farmers and chocolate makers to scientists, educators, entrepreneurs, researchers, authors, and industry leaders. Dr. Burks combined her love of the liberal arts and drew on her undergraduate major in English to contribute to the day focused on storytelling with a talk titled “Educated by Cacao: Storytelling and Science through Tattoos.” The talk will be archived as part of the summit and available for download with paid memberships and support of the Women in Cacao community. Dr. Burks later took her philosophy of being “educated by chocolate” to a public facing talk at the Northwest Chocolate Festival, held October 3–4 in Seattle. Her presentation, the “Latest and Greatest in Chocolate and Cacao Science,” represented the 10th invited presentation that Burks has given in the largest gathering of craft chocolate professionals and enthusiasts in the United States. Dr. Burks joined others associated with the Fine Chocolate Industry Association on their sponsored stage.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse published “The conditions of collective freedom: Reworking Black consciousness through Blackwomen’s praxis in Apartheid prisons” in The Southern Journal of Philosophy, one of the longest-running and most respected peer-reviewed journals in the discipline. Drawing on the autobiographies of Black women imprisoned under Apartheid, in this article, they point to Black women’s collective practices of survival and care inside prison and demonstrate how such acts offer a richer account of what collective freedom requires as per the South African Black Consciousness Philosophy. The article is open access and free to read here.

Seven Southwestern students — economics and studio art double major Asin Allavudeen ’27, economics and business major Cody Diez Jennings ’27, biochemistry major Jade Cindy Foka ’28, computer science and psychology double major Alyanna Martinez ’27, computer science and economics double major Juan Martinez Varela ’27, political science major Emma Sanchez ’29, and economics and business major Elias Sarwana ’27 — were selected to compete in the 2026 HSI Battle of the Brains (BOTB), held September 28–October 2 in Austin. This national interdisciplinary competition challenges student teams to tackle a complex business and technology problem in just 24 hours, requiring them to research the problem, develop an innovative and technically feasible solution, and create a business plan and presentation. The week also includes company visits, professional development, and recruiting opportunities with major employers, including Dell Technologies, Thrivent, CrowdStrike, eBay, The Home Depot, and Electronic Arts. Solutions are evaluated by industry experts on both their business and technical merits, with the seven highest scoring teams advancing to the finals. Southwestern was selected as one of those finalists and earned the highest business score in the competition! In addition, Diez Jennings received a scholarship from eBay, marking the second consecutive year a Southwestern student has received an eBay scholarship through the competition. The team was supported throughout the selection, preparation, and competition process by the Office of Student Life, Office of Academic Affairs, Director of the A. Frank Smith, Jr. Library Center & Head of Distinctive Collections Megan Firestone, Director of Student Engagement Jacorey Patterson, Assistant Dean of the Faculty & Professor of Spanish Laura Senio Blair, Board of Visitors Member Zoe Thompson, and team advisors: Director of the Center for Career & Professional Development Adrian D. Ramirez, Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings, and Professor of Business Debika Sihi.

Professor of Environmental Studies Joshua Long was featured in an ABC News Australia article on the potential impacts of tech-oriented creative development. The article, “Ditching the Glitter Strip: Inside the Gold Coast’s identity overhaul,” was published online here and the full length radio interview will air next month.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz and F. Zehra Çolak of Utrecht University published a chapter titled “Co-constructing a pedagogy of radical belonging: plática~testimonio as a methodology in teaching for social justice” in The Handbook of Social Justice in Education. The chapter highlights methods for supporting student teachers in building an educational philosophy that centers social justice.

Professor of Psychology Traci Giuliano recently published an edited book with former SU instructor Jenny Nissel titled Teaching High-Impact Courses in Psychology, which covers the teaching of HIPs such as FYS, capstone, community-engaged learning, study abroad, internships, and careers courses. The book is available here.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol and Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi released the premiere episode of season two of the Ms. Behaving in Literacy podcast. This episode features the creative team behind “Cosmic Comics,” the first comic style series of decodable texts out of New Zealand, with special guests Rachel and Grace Walker, the publishers of Flying Start Books, and author John Lockyear. This episode features methods for creating decodable texts that delight young children. The podcast can be viewed here.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes for The Marvelous Wonderettes at Unity Theater in Brenham, TX. This four person jukebox musical features popular songs from the 1950s and 1960s. The production runs through early October. Unity Theater is a professional theater company situated in historic downtown Brenham, showcasing professional theatre artists from the Houston and Austin areas. Tickets are available here.

Assistant Professor of Economics Hieu Nguyen and his co-author Paolo Nicola Barbieri of the University of Bologna published a study titled “In the Shadows of Silence: Wireless Restrictions and Long-Term Socioeconomic Outcomes” in the journal Information Economics and Policy. The paper treats the U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000-square-mile area of West Virginia and Virginia where federal regulators have restricted wireless transmissions since 1958, as a historical natural experiment. Using a regression discontinuity design that compares counties and census tracts just inside the boundary of the zone with those just outside it, Nguyen and Barbieri find lower educational attainment inside the zone along with a thinner local institutional environment, including fewer libraries and civic organizations per resident. The findings suggest that long-run exclusion from modern communication infrastructure can leave a lasting mark on regional development, and they add new evidence to policy debates over the “digital divide.” The paper can be read here.

Professor of Religion and Culture Laura Hobgood is one of the featured authors at her undergraduate institution’s inaugural book display, “A Legacy in Print: Celebrating JMU Alumni Authors.” The book selected by the James Madison University Carrier Library is The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals (Baylor UP: 2010).

Associate Professor of Biology Kim McArthur co-authored the article “Trigeminal and facial branchiomotor neurons have shared muscle targets in zebrafish larvae,” which was recently accepted for publication in the journal Anatomy. This work was completed in collaboration with Dr. Ritika Ghosal and Dr. Johann Eberhart in the Eberhart lab at UT-Austin, and demonstrates that cranial motor neurons have overlapping innervation patterns on cranial muscles – in contradiction to previous dogma in the field. This overlap may serve an important role in the coordinated action of cranial muscles in breathing and feeding behaviors.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “Thinking in 3D” in the summer 2026 newsletter of the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education (ICRSME). 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 summer column can be read here, starting on page 11 of the newsletter. This issue also has a call for STEM education proposals for ICRSME XVIII in Lima, Peru, in March.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci went to the LXIX Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Fisiológicas in Veracruz, Mexico to present “Puberty Suppression and the Brain” as part of the Symposium “The Sexual Brain,” funded by the International Brain Research Organization.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Religion Sarah Summers has joined the editorial team for the Encyclopedia of Religion and Popular Culture. She is the Sounds section editor and will also be assisting with the Sights section. This project is part of Springer’s prestigious Major Reference Works publishing program known as SpringerReference. Titles are published online first and then in print.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed published the article “The Changing Same of Race and Racism in Sugar Land, Texas: Memorializing The Sugar Land 95” in the Journal of Black Studies on September 8. A total of 95 Black men who were murdered during the convict lease era in Sugar Land, Texas were unearthed on a construction site for a new Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD) school in 2018. These men would become known as the Sugar Land 95 (SL95). Memorializing the SL95, creating a cemetery, and searching for descendants became a point of conflict between FBISD and the local Black community who felt the school district’s efforts were subpar. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, FBISD attempted to improve their efforts with minimal funding. This resulted in inaccuracies on historical markers, erroneous genealogical results, and burial ceremonies that excluded the descendant community. Sugar Land has had a long legacy of diluting Black history in order to redeem white subjectivity. This pattern has occurred in history curricula, local historical narrative, and cultural heritage projects like The SL95 Memorialization Project. Through the notion of racialized geography, silences in historical narrative, and the rejection of subjugated knowledges, Dr. Reed aims not only to demonstrate how the poor memorialization of the SL95 is a new manifestation of the same anti-Black racism that has existed in cultural heritage projects in the US, but also that Black resistance remains and continues to create new methods of preservation and memorialization. The article can be accessed here.

Wilhelmina Cullen Robertson Professor of Psychology Erin Crockett and psychology graduate Joshua Marquez ’26 recently published an article in Health Psychologytitled “Sexual Chemistry: Examining the Associations between Sexual Activity and Diurnal Cortisol.”

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma presented a seminar paper, titled “Food, Gender, and Power in Environmental History in Southern Africa,” at the National University of Lesotho in Roma on September 3. The paper historicizes how African women variedly used food to shape and control cultural, political, and economic landscapes in southern Africa and how this enables us to rethink their contributions within African Environmental History.

Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr has been named a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) as part of the 2027 class “for her outstanding leadership in advancing women in mathematics through co-directing the EDGE Program, mentoring undergraduate researchers, and creating innovative courses on women in mathematics. Her work fosters belonging through building inclusive communities that elevate overlooked voices, all while empowering women as scholars, researchers, and leaders alike in mathematical sciences.” More information about AWM Fellows can be found here.

Tower-Hester Chair and Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder served as discussant for “Leadership in the Public Eye” and chair of “(Anti-)Feminisms in Law and Labor” at the Women and Politics in East Asia Workshop, held at the University of Texas at Austin on September 1. Co-organized by UT Professors Tiffany Barnes ’04 and Amy Liu, the workshop supported early-career faculty and Ph.D. students working on women and politics in East Asia.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse has joined the Blog of the American Philosophical Association as co-editor of its Gender, Sexuality, and Women in Philosophy series. The blog marked the appointment with an interview conducted by her co-editor, Elisabeth Paquette of the University at Buffalo, published on August 19. In it, ka’Nobuhlaluse traces her path into philosophy from a first-year lecture hall in Johannesburg to a tenure-track post at Southwestern, discusses the questions about justice, race, and Apartheid’s afterlives that drive her research, and lays out her plans for the series: recruiting more contributors based outside North America and making room for creative essays, poetry, and photography as forms of philosophical work. The interview can be read here.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross and communication studies alumna Andrea Stanescu ’24 have recently published an article titled “La doble alteridad en Carmen y Lola.” The article, which started as Andrea’s paper in a class about cinema from Spain, can be read here.

Garey Chair and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Maha Zewail-Foote recently published an article in Chemical Research in Toxicology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. Zewail-Foote, first author and co-corresponding author, collaborated with researchers at UT Austin to show that H-DNA, an alternative three-dimensional structure that DNA can adopt, is particularly susceptible to oxidative DNA damage. The findings help explain how the structure of DNA can influence where damage occurs and why certain regions of our genetic material may be more prone to mutations that can contribute to disease.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey presented a talk at the International Conference on Photosynthesis Research (ICPR) Light-Harvesting Satellite Meeting, and a poster at the ICPR main meeting, both titled “Effects of Red Light and Native Environment on Light-Harvesting in the Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum.” ICPR took place July 23–30 in Liverpool, UK. Dr. Massey conducted the research collaboratively with chemistry and physics graduates Yusuf Buhari ’23 and Annalina Slover ’26, chemistry graduates Meghana Nittala ’24 and Sanjana Nittala ’24, biochemistry graduate Carolyn Waldie ’26, chemistry major Jenna Visciani ’27, and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Alex Klattenhoff.

Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings co-authored the article “The Study Abroad Experiences of Heritage Spanish Speakers,” recently published in the journal Spanish as a Heritage Language. Co-authored with Tammy Jandrey Hertel of the University of Virginia, this qualitative study examines the experiences of U.S.-based heritage speakers of Spanish who studied abroad in Spanish-speaking countries, looking at peer relationships, interactions with local communities, and long-term impacts on family relationships. The article can be read here.

Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura gave a talk titled “Circles and Perspective in Ancient Roman Wall Paintings” and co-led a workshop titled “Developing a Mathematical Art Manifesto” at the Bridges Conference in Galway, Ireland from August 5–9. The Bridges Conference is the world’s largest annual international gathering focused on connections between mathematics, arts, and culture.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon published the collaborative article “Latina/e Lesbian Archival Praxis and Memory Work: A Plática/Roda de Conversa with Malflora Collective” in the Journal of Lesbian Studies. Co-authored with fellow Malflora Collective members Melissa Aslo de la Torre, Mariana Meriqui Rodrigues, Guadalupe Ortega, Anahí Ponce, and Alexandra Nichole Salazar, the article examines nontraditional and community-based archival practices among Latina/e lesbians and explores memory work as a form of collective, cultural, and decolonial praxis. The article can be read here.

Associate Professor of Physics Cody Crosby co-authored the open-access article “The Allstruder: an open syringe extruder for every 3D printer,” recently published in HardwareX. The research introduces an inexpensive 3D-printed syringe extruder designed to print a variety of materials and work with a range of 3D printers. The article can be read here.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony participated in the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot Expansion Conference for Minority Serving Institutions, held August 10–11 in Portland, OR. Anthony presented a poster, “An AI-powered Academic Advising Chatbot,” highlighting a Spring 2026 computer science capstone project completed with Frank Desilets ’26, Alyanna Martinez ’27, Emilio Salas ’26, and Evan Williams ’26. The conference was funded by the National Science Foundation and organized by the Computing Research Association.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner co-authored two chapters in the textbook Remote Sensing, Big Data, and GeoAI: Exploring Applications with Geospatial Insights: “The Evolution of Big Data and GeoAI Within the Field of Remote Sensing” and “Environmental Monitoring and Conservation Using Remote Sensing and Big Data.” The textbook can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez presented research and served in several leadership roles at the American Sociological Association (ASA) and Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) conferences in New York City. At the ASA Annual Meeting, Hernandez served as discussant for the “Diverse Visions and Perspectives on the Sociology of Religion” panel and presented “White Epistemology, The Cultural Trauma of the Religious Right, and Feminist Sociology.” At the ASR conference, she presented “‘Is This What MomTok is About?’ The Performance of White Femininity in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” with Tess Starman of Molloy University, and organized and convened an Author Meets Critic panel for the new edited volume LGBTQ Religious Activism: Rethinking Identity, Faith, and Social Change.

The Mathematics and Computer Science Department was well represented at MathFest, the Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) Annual Summer Meeting, held August 5–8 in Boston. Faculty, students, and an alumna presented research, led professional development sessions, and received national recognition. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Pedagogy, Identity, and Community: A Decade of NExT,” discussing the impact of Project NExT and his progression from participant to leader at the Texas Section NExT level. Mathematics majors Ioana Burlacu ’26 and Ashlyn Cadena ’27 presented “Perimeter-minimizing rectangles using density M|x|^p + N|y|^q” in the MAA Undergraduate Poster Session. Their research was supervised by Ross as part of SURF 2025. Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr co-organized the session “Rewriting Who Counts” and presented “Women Count!,” highlighting courses she has taught at Southwestern. As Chair of the MAA Council on Prizes and Awards, Marr also participated in the Meeting of the MAA Congress and presented several prizes and awards during the conference. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton co-organized the session “Innovative Modeling Approaches to Teaching and Applying ODEs” and presented “Modeling-First DE: Learning to Teach, and Teaching to Learn” with fellow professional development leaders in differential equations. She also participated in an all-day working session for an upcoming book by MAA OPEN Math, a National Science Foundation-supported project focused on improving mathematics instruction through active-learning professional development. Mathematics and computer science graduate Emma Kathryn Groves ’17, now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, was a co-author of the presentation “Teaching to the Surface: Using Physical Models to Move Multivariable Calculus Beyond Formulas.” Finally, Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura and co-authors Annalisa Crannell and Marc Frantz received the Daniel Solow Author’s Award for their 2019 inquiry-based learning textbook, Perspective and Projective Geometry, published by Princeton University Press.

Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz presented “A Model of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for Roma Youth in Spain” with Alba Salázar Jiménez of the University of Seville at the International Migration Research Network Annual Conference in Girona, Spain, held June 29–July 2. Sáenz Ortiz also co-led the workshop “Anti-racist and Anti-colonial Organizing in Global North Higher Education” with Zehra Çolak of Utrecht University.

Assistant Professor of Economics Chandrayee Chatterjee presented two papers, “Anticipating the Algorithm: Gender and Labor Supply Responses to AI in Hiring” and “Policy Timing and Design in Affirmative Action: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment,” at the 101st Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association in Denver, held June 29–July 3. Both papers were selected for joint sessions of the Economic Science Association and the Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce presented “Power Moves: Conceptualizing Informal Gendered Interactions within Formal Gender-Neutral Shared Parenting Arrangements” at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in New York City, held August 7–11.

Director of Study Abroad & International Student Services Monya Lemery presented an interactive workshop titled “Education Abroad in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” at the WorldStrides 8th Annual Summit on Education Abroad in Dallas on July 30.

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood published two book reviews and an invited essay over the past several months. She reviewed When Animals Die: Examining Justifications and Envisioning Justice for H-Net Reviews (August 2026) and Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles for Environmental History (July 2026). Her essay, “Religion, Animals, and Academic,” was published in June on the official blog of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture as part of a series of reflections contributed by past presidents of the Society.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen was an invited speaker at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s biannual Project WILD Facilitator Forum at Bastrop State Park, where he presented “Playing WILD: The Power of Play and Play Organizations.” Professor of Education Alicia Moore and Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol contributed content on trauma-informed play to the presentation.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce published her research article, “‘An open mind and heart’: A queering analysis of emotions as empowerment during community engagement with families,” in the inaugural issue of Catalyst Journal. Using a feminist intersectional lens, the article finds that community engagement was an emotional oasis for young adults partnering with a local family resource center. More information is available here.

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere delivered a paper at the meeting of the Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, held from July 21–24 in Washington, D.C. The conference was a collaboration with the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, the International Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, and Smithsonian American History and American Art Museums. Her paper, “The Complicity Machine: Assault, Trafficking and Abuse in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s The Clever Woman of the Family (1865),” is part of a larger project that seeks to reframe what sexual assault, grooming, and trafficking might look like in Victorian domestic fiction, especially in the wake of #MeToo.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse, kinesiology major Jayden Dawson ’27, and anthropology major Raven Waugh ’26 published their co-written essay, “Reflections on Mapping an A–Z Philosophy BlackList,” on the Blog of the American Philosophical Association. In the essay, the authors reflect on their work on the A–Z Philosophy BlackList, an expanding archive of Black intellectuals curated by ka’Nobuhlaluse and shared every year during Black History Month since her appointment in the Philosophy Department at SU. The project has received funding from the Mellon Publicly Engaged Humanities grant. The essay can be read here.

Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum and physics majors Dominic Mashak ’27 and Brooke Ramey ’27 attended the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) in San José, Costa Rica from July 13–17. Mashak and Dr. Schrum presented their poster, “Multi-Objective Evolutionary Design of Molecules with Enhanced Nonlinear Optical Properties,” which was co-authored with Professor of Physics Steven Alexander. Additionally, Ramey and Mashak presented their poster, “Late Acceptance Hill Climbing for the Discovery of Stable Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides,” also co-authored with Dr. Alexander. Southwestern University computer science alumnus Alejandro Medina ’24 was also in attendance to present his poster, “Motif Diversity in Human Liver ChIP-seq Data Using MAP-Elites,” based on research conducted with his advisor at Baylor University as part of his Ph.D. studies. All posters have associated four-page extended abstracts published in the GECCO Companion to the Proceedings.

Professor of Political Science Bob Snyder presented his paper “Six Myths about the Fall of the Afghan Government in 2021” at the International Studies Association’s conference at the University of Pretoria in South Africa in late June. It will be published as a book chapter in Handbook on Afghanistan.

Professor of English Michael Saenger hosted a webinar for Academic Engagement Network on the topic of “Rebuilding Campus Civility amid Global Unrest.” The webinar featured Rabbi Meir Muller of the University of South Carolina, speaking on pro-Blackness and pro-Jewishness, Gunther Jikeli of Indiana University, speaking on collaboration with Israeli universities, and Naama Kanarek of Harvard University and the Kalaniyot Foundation, speaking on collaboration with Israeli medical research. The event was very well attended by professors nationwide. The webinar can be viewed here.

Director of the A. Frank Smith Library Center and Head of Distinctive Collections Megan Firestone chaired and presented on a panel titled “Making Joy: The Benefits and Costs of Making Activities in Special Collections” as part of TPS Fest (Teaching with Primary Sources Fest).

Margarett Root Brown Chair in Fine Arts and Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal is the scenic designer and scenic charge artist for Magnolia Musical Theatre’s production of The Addams Family Musical. The professional production is directed by acting and musical theatre graduate and Assistant Professor of Theatre at Abilene Christian University Joey Banks ’07, with technical direction by theatre arts graduate and SU Scene Shop Manager Chaz Sanders ’14. Ava Schweke ’29 collaborated with Roybal and Sanders in the fabrication and painting of the scenery while Madalyn Holstein ’29 served as a scenic carpenter and painter. The Addams Family Musical runs Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m. from July 15–August 15 at the Hill Country Galleria Pavilion in Bee Cave, TX. Bring a blanket, your beverage of choice and enjoy an evening of free, live theatre in the Hill Country!

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol was recently appointed as executive secretary of Specialized Literacy Professionals, a national organization founded in 1988 by Dr. Jack Cassidy. The organization was established to support the unique needs of literacy educators through practical research that is responsive to those needs.

Assistant Professor of Economics Dinushka Paranavitana presented her paper titled “The Price of Hate: The Effect of Title IX Exemptions on College Enrollment” at the Western Economic Association International Annual Conference held in Denver.

A public philosophy essay authored by Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse titled “But, Is She (bell hooks) a Philosopher?” was published by APABlogWomenInPhilosophy. The piece can be accessed here.

Professor Emeritus of Political Science & Emeritus Lucy King Brown Chair Eric Selbin was an invited speaker at the “Social Movement Studies in Intense Times: A Conference to Honour Donatella della Porta” at Scuola Normale Superiore’s Centre on Social Movement Studies. His remarks, “Strange Activism in Intense Times,” were meant as a theoretical provocation, suggesting social science frameworks are insufficient for understanding contemporary activism and “strange activism” as an analytical lens that takes seriously the unexpected, unconventional, and symbolically disruptive forms of protest in these “intense times” of democratic backsliding and authoritarian revanchism. The methodological proposal is of a “theoretical folksonomy of resistance” built on entanglement, anarchiving, and collective biography and for students of radical collective behavior to embrace strangeness, defamiliarize our methods and assumptions, and open ourselves to activism that is increasingly creative, symbolically rich, and resistant to standard categorization. The strange is here; our frameworks need to catch up.

Professor Emeritus of Political Science & Emeritus Lucy King Brown Chair Eric Selbin was honored to serve as a member of political science and government graduate Jean-Marc Pruit’s ’13 dissertation committee at the University of Virginia, which he (very) successfully defended on June 11. Titled “‘The dialectic had stopped’: Black Radicals and the End of History, 1968-1989,” the dissertation was co-directed by UVA professors Lawrie Balfour and Kevin Duong.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes was invited to be part of a workshop on “Anti-Racism after Empire (1968-2005)” at Queen Mary University of London. She presented a paper titled “From Anticolonialism to Antiracism in Saint-Denis,” drawing from her latest archival research in the Paris suburbs to look at evolving forms of solidarity.

Biochemistry major Caytie Brown ’27 received two international awards from her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi. Caytie earned the Collegiate Ruth Pretty Palmer Panhellenic Award, honoring an individual collegiate member for their leadership and exceptional service to the Panhellenic council at their university. This honor is in recognition of her outstanding service to Southwestern’s Inter-Sorority Council of which she served as president. Caytie also earned the Dorothy Shaw Leadership Award. This is the highest honor Alpha Delta Pi awards to any undergraduate member. This once in a lifetime award is an incredible honor for Caytie and an amazing reflection of Southwestern’s thriving Greek Life culture. Alpha Delta Pi is currently the nation’s largest sorority and Caytie competed against hundreds of applicants from colleges across the globe, taking home first prize for her chapter and her school.

Assistant Professor of History Soojung Han was invited to give a talk, titled “The Rule of the Shatuo Turks: Identity Formation in Medieval Sino-Inner Asia,” at the Asia Center at Seoul National University.

Assistant Professor of History Soojung Han was invited to give a talk, titled “The New Three Kingdoms: Reframing the Legacy of Tang,” at Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology in Taiwan.

A randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial overseen by Garey Chair and Associate Professor of Kinesiology Ed Merritt was published in the International Journal of Exercise Science. Alumni Zachary Moon ’24, Rachel Chiella ’24, Erica Otto ’24, Iliana Hernandez ’26, Barrett Knapp ’24, and Matthew Bierwirth ’24 were integral in completing the trial and seeing it through to publication. Special thanks are given to all the members of the SU community who participated, and the students who assisted with exercise training supervision over the 1.5 years the trial took place. Along with external funding, Southwestern’s SCOPE summer research funds, Garey funds, and research assistantships were integral to this project’s success. The full paper can be downloaded here.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner, along with colleagues at the University of Tennessee and the University of Florida, were awarded a $499,045 grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This grant funds the development of a public dashboard to monitor seagrass in real-time throughout South Florida. Additionally, this grant funds research assistantships for Southwestern students to assist in the making and implementation of this dashboard, which will be widely used by researchers and resource managers.

Professor Emeritus of Political Science & Emeritus Lucy King Brown Chair Eric Selbin published an article titled “Reframing Resistance: Why Do We Say ‘Resistance’ When We Mean Struggle?” in the Journal of Political Power. This is one of a set of three (two more are forthcoming) pieces related to resistance and social movements. This article questions the analytical and empirical dominance of the term “resistance” and contends that the term may, at times, obscure the proactive, enduring, and often existential dimensions of political action which might be better captured by the term “struggle.” A “folksonomic” approach is proposed in place of the common top-down, taxonomic knowledge production, prioritizing instead the vocabularies and imaginaries of political actors themselves. Drawing on a combination of entanglement, anarchiving, and collective biography together offers a framework for rethinking how scholars engage with both people’s political practices and lived experiences. More information is available here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “Playful Mathematics: Choice, Joy, and Wonder” in the peer-reviewed book Collaboration to Advance Science & Mathematics Education: Valladolid, Yucatán, México, published by the International Consortium for Research in Science & Mathematics Education. The book may be viewed here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and education major Sydney Jackson ’27 published “STEM and Successful Play-based Programs” in the peer-reviewed book Collaboration to Advance Science & Mathematics Education: Valladolid, Yucatán, México, published by the International Consortium for Research in Science & Mathematics Education. The book may be viewed here.

Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola presented a paper titled “Ferrara as a Mediterranean Hinterland: Text, Technology, and Ceremony at the Este Court” at the 28th Annual Mediterranean Studies Association International Congress, held at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece from May 26-29.

Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder and Professor Sarah Wiliarty of Wesleyan University have received a book contract from Routledge for their co-authored book project, provisionally titled Postwar Japan and Germany. The project grew out of the jointly developed course “Japan and Germany: Losers of World War II?,” which the authors teach collaboratively at Southwestern and Wesleyan. The manuscript is scheduled for delivery in late 2027, with publication anticipated in 2028.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone, with the support of Senior Director of Corporate & Foundation Relations & Grants Eileen Roybal and Grant & Gift Accountant Maria Kruger, received a TexTreasures grant for $40,000 from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. The grant will help replace the aging archival book scanner in Distinctive Collections, which was originally purchased through a TexTreasures grant in 2015. The project is to digitize materials related to the Texas German Mission Conference and a German newspaper.

Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with her co-authors Annalisa Crannell and Marc Frantz, were honored with the Daniel Solow Author’s Award by the Mathematical Association of America for their 2019 IBL textbook, Perspective and Projective Geometry, published by Princeton University Press. Established to recognize excellence in undergraduate mathematics education, this annual award honors the author(s) of outstanding teaching materials. Selection is based primarily on the impact these materials have on undergraduate education in mathematics and related disciplines. More information is available here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “STEM: Juggling Math and Science” in the Spring 2026 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 column can be read here, starting on page five of the newsletter.

Assistant Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Spanish Laura Senio Blair presented a paper titled “Affective Archives and Feminist Memory: Chilean Women Writers and the Politics of Care After the Estallido Social” at the XXXIV Congreso de la Asociación de Estudios de Género y Sexualidad (AEGS) 2026 on May 21 in Oviedo, Spain.

Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of History Jessica Hower had her article, titled “Teaching Pirates: The Perils and Promises of Using Piracy in Pedagogy,” published in The History Teacher, Volume 59, Number 3 (May 2026). The piece, which reflects on her experiences teaching in Southwestern’s FYS program, is also the cover inspiration for the issue, titled “The Craft of Teaching: Novel Approaches to History.” More information is available here.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Zoe Moss’ piece “The Televisual is Political: Hermeneutical Justice, Consciousness-Raising, and Bad Sex on TV” was published in the edited volume The Ambiguity of Consent: Consent Puzzles in Film, Public Discourse, TV, and the Law from Routledge.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol and Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi interviewed Steve Graham of Arizona State University on the fifth episode of their podcast Ms. Behaving in Literacy. Dr. Graham is considered one of the leading researchers on writing instructional methods. He graciously shared his insights on current issues in writing instruction, and future directions for research on teaching composition. The podcast can be viewed here.

John Shearn Chair and Professor of Business Debika Sihi was chosen by the Colleges That Change Lives (CTCL) Member Institutions and Board of Directors as one of their 2026 Connectors That Change Lives. The award expands CTCL’s tradition of uplifting student-centered leaders to faculty, staff, students, and administrators across CTCL member institutions whose dedication, leadership, and care profoundly shape student experiences and campus communities. The Connectors That Change Lives Award honors those whose contributions exemplify student centered values, community engagement, and a belief in education as a transformative force.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen presented “STEM and Successful Play-based Programs” at the 2026 Annual International Conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching in Seattle. The presentation was co-authored by elementary education major Sydney Jackson ’27.

Garey Chair and Professor of Biology Romi Burks gave an invited talk during the special symposium session, “The past, present, and future of freshwater invasion ecology and management: A career retrospective for David M. Lodge,” at the Society of Freshwater Science meeting. Dr. Lodge, an internationally well-known invasive species ecologist, just recently retired from Cornell University after 10 years of serving as the Director of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability following a successful 28-year tenure at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Lodge served as the Ph.D. advisor for both Dr. Burks and SU biology graduate Matthew Barnes ’06, who conducted his undergraduate research on apple snails. Dr. Barnes then went onto the University of Notre Dame to become an expert in environmental DNA, a research topic in which he and Dr. Burks continue to collaborate with Southwestern undergraduates using apple snails as a model organism. Accordingly, Dr. Burks titled her talk “Being a successful role model (organisms): Insights into diversity and distribution of apple snails (Pomacea) gained through field and molecular ecology,” highlighting how her time in the Lodge lab prepared her for the diversity of approaches needed to study invasive species. In her talk, she drew parallels between the effects of rusty crayfish that Dr. Lodge documented throughout his career and ways in which apple snails also impact aquatic systems. Dr. Barnes highlighted his last investigations in Texas with his remarks, titled “Back to the future with environmental DNA: repurposing previously collected samples to study the history of Texas freshwater jellyfish invasion.”

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez and environmental studies graduate Sarah Ventimiglia ’25 published their faculty/student collaborative research in the peer-reviewed journal Symbolic Interaction. Their article, titled “Hashtag ChristianGirl: The White Commodified Self on TikTok,” argues that Christian influencers on TikTok use a version of the white commodified self to attempt to sell products, services, and ideologies that uphold Christian whiteness as an idealized form of womanhood. The article can be read here.

Director of Student Inclusion and Diversity MyKella Mitchell, a higher education advocate, mentor, and speaker, successfully defended her dissertation focused on Black women faculty in STEM at Ivy and Ivy+ institutions. Her research explores their experiences, challenges, and triumphs within elite academic spaces, offering important insight into representation, persistence, and belonging in higher education.

Associate Vice President for Human Resources Jennifer Charles has been named a 2026 HR Impact Awards nominee by the Austin Business Journal. The annual awards honor HR leaders across Central Texas who are building the best climate, team atmosphere, benefits, and most importantly, engaged employees. The Austin Business Journal will be recognizing the HR Impact Awards nominees at an awards luncheon at Kalahari Resort & Convention Center in late June.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma presented a paper titled “‘Put it in their food:’ Food, Power and Social Control in Zimbabwe” at the Workshop on Southern Africa (WoZA), held in Connecticut from May 1–3. The paper stems from an ongoing SURF project exploring the gendered history and politics of African foodways.

University Chaplain and Director of Spiritual Life Ron Swain participated in the Rotary International District 5870 Conference and Service Cruise to Cozumel, Mexico. Ron was on the team that assembled wheel chairs for 25 recipients. He also was captain of the team to install and dedicate a “Peace Pole” at the soon-to-be-named “Rotary Way” in Cozumel.

Southwestern was well-represented at the Consortium for Computer Sciences in Colleges: South Central Region Conference at McNeese State University on April 24, with eight students presenting their software engineering capstone work. While only some members from each capstone team traveled, all are named here for their contributions. Two of those students also presented their research. All projects were supervised by Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony. The research poster by Evelyn Harrington ’26 and Camille James ’26 on “What Differentiates a BA from a BS in CS? Insights from Liberal Arts Colleges in the CCSC:SC Region” won 4th prize in the poster competition. Evelyn and Aaron Garza ’26 also presented “Chunch Volunteer Management System,” done in collaboration with teammates Reid Williams ’26 and Eleanor Wagner ’26. Camille also presented “Pantry Inventory Review and Tracking Enhancement (PIRATE)” with Nhi ‘Amy’ Tran ’26, done in collaboration with teammates Cade Doehler ’27 and Aidan Fitzgerald ’26. Alyanna Martinez ’27 presented “SU University Knowledge Assistant,” done in collaboration with teammates Frank Desilets ’26, Emilio Salas ’26, and Evan Williams ’26, which won 5th prize in the poster competition. “Matching with your Pirate Crew,” presented by Aidan Balakrishnan ’26, Ben McKallip ’26, and Matthew Volkin ’26, was done in collaboration with teammate Tanner Klein ’26.

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and business and sociology alumna ThuyMi Phung ’23 presented their co-authored work, “White Grievance as a Predictor of Opposition to the Black Lives Matter Movement,” at the Southern Sociological Society annual meeting in Jacksonville, FL from April 8–11. The presentation, co-authored with art history and sociology alumna Katherine Holcomb ’23, extends their research examining the dimensions of white grievance, how it attempts to undermine racial justice efforts, and effective strategies for countering this ideology.

Assistant Professor of Economics Hieu Nguyen has been appointed as a non-resident SLAR Scholar at Stanford University. During this one-year appointment, he will interact with the Center for Latin American Studies and leverage Stanford’s extensive library resources to further his research agenda and teaching endeavors related to Latin American economies.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse’s book review of Feminist African Philosophy: Women and the Politics of Difference by Abosede Priscilla Ipadeola was published by the journal philoSOPHIA. The review can be accessed here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of Margaret Bonds’ “The Night Shall Be Filled with Music,” for soprano solo and mixed chorus, with ClarNan Editions (Fayetteville, AR). Written for use in a 1965 festival titled “Songs of Freedom” that was organized by Rabbi Abraham J. Klausner, who is noted for his role in helping Holocaust survivors in Dachau and elsewhere to recover their faith and reconnect with loved ones after World War II, the composition uses the last five stanzas of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Day Is Done” (1844). It begins by urging sad and weary souls to turn to the words of “some humbler poet” rather than “the grand old masters and bards” and teaches that when we lend our own voices, however sad and weary, to the poet’s rhyme, “the night shall be filled with music” – a perfect message for a festival devoted to “present[ing] the trials, hopes and aspirations of those who have too long borne the yoke of oppression, made heavier by the silence of so many of us,” and for Margaret Bonds’ own life’s work of using her art to celebrate the dignity and inherent humanity of the poor, the oppressed, and the downtrodden. “The Night Shall Be Filled with Music” was published on the 54th anniversary of Margaret Bonds’ transition.

Professor of Art History Allison Miller virtually presented the paper, “古代中国 “紫色”的再考：染料，颜料，与色彩等级 [Reconsidering Ancient Chinese Purple: Dyes, Pigments, and Color Hierarchies]” at 制器尚象,第三届 [The Third Conference of “Making Artifacts by Modeling Images”], held at Northwest Normal University 西北师范大学 in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper and Part-time Instructor of Music Christopher Washington traveled to North Carolina for the world premiere of Margaret Bonds’ musical Bitter Laurel (1968-1969). Working with the surviving libretti, lead sheets, and other musical scores, Cooper and Washington created a fully performable version of the two-hour work, which was left complete, but not concluded, at Bonds’ sudden death in 1972. There is poetry to this premiere having happened at Queens University. Elizabeth Keckley (1818-1907) was an African American who eventually became an activist on behalf of formerly enslaved people and the best friend and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States. Keckley rose to that station from enslavement by the Burwell family, whose name was proudly emblazoned on the main administration building of Queens University until 2020. The University, which has since removed the Burwell name from its properties due to the family’s cruelty in enslaving Keckley and others, decided to honor Keckley using Bonds’ music, as a means of doing a belated right where so much wrong was done before. The musical was a great success, with an instant standing ovation at the end of Act II: mission accomplished.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner wrote an article in The Conversation, which examined the unexpected seagrass comeback on Florida’s east coast after Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. The article can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner published “Recording seagrass growth in Mosquito Lagoon, Florida after Hurricanes Ian and Nicole” in Frontiers, along with physics major Dominic Mashak ’27 and environmental studies alumni Hailey Vickich ’25. The paper uses machine learning to classify seagrass recovery in Florida’s Mosquito Lagoon and can be read here.

Part-time Assistant Professor of Business Charles deWitt’s book, The Broken Chord: The Blackwood Brothers Quartet and their Influence on Southern Gospel Music, has been accepted for publication and should be published by this summer.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Zoe Moss published an article titled “Bad Sex and the Evolution of Heteropatriarchal Power in the Post-#MeToo era” in the journal Feminist Theory. The article uses interviews with young women and the testimony of Stormy Daniels at the civil trial of Donald Trump to theorize the experience of “Bad Sex,” or sex that is legally permissible, yet also morally and politically harmful.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth and the SU German Club hosted a group of visitors from Germany on campus on April 15. Students and teachers from a high school in Augsburg enjoyed their campus day, participating in classes and discussions over lunch during a stroll to the square and on their campus tour. The visitors are in Texas for their German American Partnership Program (GAPP). Founded in 1972, GAPP supports school-to-school exchanges between the U.S. and Germany. With a network of over 775 U.S. schools and more than 400,000 alumni, GAPP is the largest bilateral exchange program between the U.S. and any other country. SU’s German Program regularly contributes to connecting students, educators, families, and communities – supporting learners of languages and cultures in building lifelong friendships and global connections.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth earned two grants from the German Foreign Office and German Academic Exchange Service – Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). The grants cover curated collections of German language publications, including selected literary works published in 2025 and a collection of learning-teaching materials. Students will engage with the collections in their studies of German language, literature, and cultures at all proficiency levels and in their training as educators, some in preparation for Fulbright ETAs. Continued success with DAAD materials grants is made possible through Berroth’s commitment to community engagement as a DAAD Ortslektorin.

Assistant Professor of Theatre Gabriel Peña performed as invited guest artist in Notes from the Field, the final production of Sewanee University of the South’s theatrical season, presented at the Tennessee Williams Center in Sewanee, TN. The docu-drama, compiled from hundreds of interviews with individuals impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline, features Gab portraying three distinct characters in this powerful multimedia work. Rehearsals began remotely, then integration with the local production team took place in March, and the show ran from April 15–April 19. Additional information is available here.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby and two Southwestern undergraduate students attended the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Biomaterials Day conference at Rice University. Biochemistry major Sabina Martinez Carreon ’27 presented a poster titled “Post-Print Reinforcement of GelMA+HAMA Scaffolds Via PEGDA Infiltration” and applied physics major Amanda Mejia ’26 presented a poster on her King Creativity chocolate printing project. Both posters were well-attended and generated significant interest among conference-goers. Amanda was awarded first prize for her poster!

Assistant Professor of English Vallaire Wallace presented on a panel at CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies’ “Queer-Class Relations Conference,” held at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. The panel was called “Queer Erotics of Class Crossover,” and was facilitated by Aaron Lecklider of UMass Boston. Dr. Wallace’s paper, titled “Homosociality At Sea: Hughes, The Big Sea and Class Consciousness,” focuses on reading Langston Hughes’ 1940 biography The Big Sea through a queer lens, with attention to how same-sex desire shadows his class encounters abroad, especially while in Nigeria.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes for The Stranger at Unity Theater in Brenham, TX. One of Agatha Christie’s more obscure works, The Stranger is a 1930s psychological thriller pitting a young woman against a charming grifter. Tickets are available at unitybrenham.org. The Stranger runs from April 23–May 10.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner and environmental studies major Zoe Van der Walt ’26 co-authored a publication, titled “Pathways to Sustainable Land Stewardship in South Africa’s Wine-Producing Regions,” with colleagues at the University of Tennessee, the University of Florida, and Michigan State University. The article is published in Sustainability and can be read here.

Members of the Education Department attended and presented at the American Educational Research Association, held in Los Angeles, CA from April 8–12. Assistant Professor of Education Alexandrea Melgoza gave a talk titled “Agents of New Knowledge: A Transcendental Phenomenology of BIPOC Mothers Traversing Texas’ Special Education.” Assistant Professor of Education Raquel Sáenz Ortiz and education and Spanish double major Ximena Ling Uribe ’28 presented research from a 2025 SURF project, titled “Towards a model of culturally sustaining pedagogy for Roma youth.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Alex Norris published an essay in Liberal Currents on the Trump administration’s approach in Iran and Venezuela, titled “The Moral Arc of the Universe Bends Toward Finding Out.” It can be read here.

Physics majors Brooke Ramey ’27 and Dominic Mashak ’27, along with Professor of Physics Steven Alexander, had their research, “Late Acceptance Hill Climbing for the Discovery of Stable Two-Dimensional Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides,” accepted to the 2026 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), taking place July 13–17 in San José, Costa Rica. The peer-reviewed research will be presented as a poster at the conference, and a four-page extended abstract will be published in the companion to the proceedings.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published Florence Price: Three Cotton Dances with Hildegard Publishing Company (Worcester, MA). The volume’s premise is a puzzle of sorts pertaining to Price’s life and work: though born and raised in Little Rock, AR, in the western end of the cotton-rich Arkansas Delta, she joined the Great Migration and moved from the agrarian south for good in 1928. Even though she flourished in her adopted home city of Chicago in the remaining 25 years of her life, she never stopped writing about the south, especially its lands and climes as these pertained to African American life. The three works presented here offer a cross-section of her musical reflections on cotton country that spans some 15 years and displays the richness and variety of her musical engagements with it.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol and her co-author, Dr. Tye Martin, Ph.D. of the University of New Mexico Albuquerque, presented a study titled “Didn’t We Almost Have It All: Disability, Technicism, Resistance and Internalized Ableism in Higher Education” at the annual Pop Culture Association conference in Atlanta, GA. They presented their autoethnographic research on navigating doctoral programs and disability services. Tye, who has muscular dystrophy, and Marilyn, who is the primary caregiver to her daughter who has a life-threatening rare disease, detailed their experiences in Ph.D. programs in the face of “normalcy” and social conditions that create barriers to access.

Art history major Emma Hargrove ’27 presented her poster titled “Ox-Demons and Snake-Spirits: Supernatural Iconography in a Maoist Era Cartoon” at the ASIANetwork conference, hosted by North Central College in Naperville, IL on March 27 and 28. The poster was based on a paper written in Professor of Art History Allison Miller’s course.

The Department of Theatre sent four seniors to the United States Institute of Theatre Technology conference in Long Beach, CA from March 13–17. Aidan Balakrishnan ’26, Warren Mullinnix ’26, Piper Swisher ’26, and Marley Wickersham ’26 took part in sessions ranging from stage and production management to lighting, scenic, and audio design. The students also networked with professional companies and artists, and presented their digital portfolios as part of Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel’s capstone course.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux presented a poster titled “Update on the Parental Investment (PI) Scale” at the annual meeting of the Northeastern Evolutionary Psychology Society (NEEPS) in Pittsburgh, PA. This is her latest presentation of data associated with creating a new scale to measure parental effort, inviting feedback prior to conducting the final validation study this summer in SURF.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon and psychology major and feminist studies minor Karla Vazquez ’26 attended the 2026 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Conference in San Antonio. They attended many illuminating sessions that bridged Chicanx studies, feminism, and anti-imperialist praxis, including workshops on Chicanx-Palestine solidarity and Chicana feminist zine-making.

Director of Public Engagement Manda Wittebort co‑facilitated a session titled “Between Story and Action: Where Dialogue Creates Change” at the Campus Compact 2026 Conference, “Hope Found Here,” where workshops had an acceptance rate of 30% and the conference saw a record number of attendees. The session guided participants through grounding practices, identity reflection, and dialogue skill‑building to explore how personal stories and positionalities shape community engagement. Wittebort and co‑facilitator Neda Kikhia led attendees in examining the role of storytelling in belonging, bridge‑building, and community action. The session was noted by participants as a conference highlight.

Senior Creative Director Matt Madsen was invited to and served on the panel of judges for the Counterspace Design Exhibition at UT Arlington’s chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). The categories Madsen scored were branding, layout, and typography. AIGA is the oldest and largest professional membership organization for design, with numerous student chapters at universities across the country. More information can be found here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen, along with Professor Emerita of Teaching and Learning at New York University Pamela Abder, Adjunct Professor of Physical Sciences at Suffolk County Community College Nina Leonhardt, Professor Emerita at the University of Calgary’s Werklund School of Education Bonnie Shapiro, and Faculty Member at Paderborn University Gabriela Jonas-Ahrend, presented “Hopeful Strategies to Address Challenges Currently Facing Teacher Preparation Programs: International Perspectives” at the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education (ICRSME) 2026 Virtual Conference.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum, Instruction, and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman, presented “Ian Inquiry Speaks: Fictional Stories to Support Preservice Teachers in Math and Science” at the International Consortium for Research in Science and Mathematics Education (ICRSME) 2026 Virtual Conference.

Mathematics and psychology alumna Daniela Beckelhymer ’20 has been named the 2026–2027 American Mathematical Society (AMS) Congressional Fellow, in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Beckelhymer expects to complete her Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Minnesota this May. The Fellowship is for a year on Capitol Hill to support a congressional committee or a member of Congress by providing a mathematical or technical perspective. More information is available here.

The Southwestern Mathematics and Computer Science Department had a strong involvement at the 105th Annual Meeting of the Texas Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), held at Baylor University in Waco on March 27 and 28. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross was honored as the recipient of the 2026 Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. Ross also helped organize sessions as a co-leader of Texas NExT, a professional development service that helps early-career mathematics faculty refine their teaching practices. Atkin Junior Professor and Associate Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer gave the closing invited address, titled “Using Loops to Make Good Maps.” Garey Chair and Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr presided over the meeting as the MAA Texas Section Chair. She also sponsored a team of five students in the Math Bowl competition: biochemistry major and math and neuroscience double minor Elizabeth Ayalew ’28, biology and physics double major Linh Nguyen ’29, physics and math double major Brooke Ramey ’27, math major Joshua Rodkey ’29, and biochemistry and math double major CeCe Sullivan ’29. Sullivan also won a book through a raffle. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton and Assistant Professor of Instruction of Mathematics Will Tran also attended. Marr and Ross also attended the Meeting of the Texas MAA Executive Committee, over which Marr presided, and the Meeting of Department Liaisons.

Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder presented “Pathways to Inclusion: How Historical Legacies, Left Party Strength and Conservative Leadership Have Shaped Immigration Policy in Japan and Germany” (co-authored with Dr. Sarah Wiliarty) at the Western Political Science Association Meeting in San Diego, CA on April 2. She also served as the panel chair of “Gender and Politics in Global Contexts.”

Political science major Sam Hoffman ’27 presented his paper “Truman’s Recognition of Israel: Strategic Interests or Domestic Politics?” on the panel “U.S. Foreign Policy and Public Opinion” at the Southwest Social Science’s annual conference in Nashville, TN on April 2. The work uses famed political scientist Robert Putnam’s two-level game theory to help explain the impact of international and domestic factors on President Harry Truman’s decision to recognize the newly-created state of Israel in 1948. The paper grew out of Hoffman’s work in Professor of Political Science Bob Snyder’s 2025 “U.S. Foreign Policy” class.

Physics major Dominic Mashak ’27, along with Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum and Professor of Physics Steven Alexander, had their research, “Multi-Objective Evolutionary Design of Molecules with Enhanced Nonlinear Optical Properties,” accepted to the 2026 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), taking place July 13–17 in San José, Costa Rica. The peer-reviewed research will be presented as a poster at the conference, and a four-page extended abstract will be published in the companion to the proceedings.

Director of Public Engagement Manda Wittebort and English alum McKenzie Rentie ’25 facilitated an interactive workshop session, titled “Time Together as Ritual: Practicing the Art of Facilitation,” at South by Southwest EDU. Nearly 100 nationwide participants from a diversity of sectors continued to find both facilitators throughout the entirety of the conference to offer positive feedback and express a desire to learn more from them. Attending their first SXSW, the pair was incredibly excited to build connections and community, and to speak to the importance of collaborative culture-making. Grounded in social justice and lived experience, attendees were invited to reflect on the knowledge they all are already equipped with to build meaningful connections and create sub-cultures, consider what roadblocks and challenges are keeping them from the approaches they already know, and utilize the power of storytelling as a space for changemaking.

Communications and Latin American and border studies double major Mia Santoscoy ’26 and political science major and Latin American and border studies minor Natalia Morales Robles ’27 presented, along with Associate Professor of History and Latin American and Border Studies Jethro Hernández Berrones, at the Southwestern Council of Latin American Studies 73rd Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, NV. Their presentation, titled “Mapping Midwives from Mexico City: A Visualization Project Introducing Undergraduates in the United States to the History of Reproduction in Mexico,” described the methodology to produce historical digital maps and a website showcasing the history of the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing in Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the work of some of its graduates. Students discussed their contributions to the project and the impact this work has had on their academic experiences and skill development. The website can be viewed here.

Computer science majors Camille James ’26, Alyanna Martinez ’27, and Nhi ‘Amy’ Tran ’26 competed in Southern Methodist University’s 8th annual ASA DataFest from March 27–29. The team analyzed a large real-world dataset and presented their findings and insights to judges and fellow competitors.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Chelsea Massaro and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey gave talks on their research at the American Chemical Society Spring National Meeting in Atlanta, GA in March. Chemistry and physics double major Annalina Slover ’26 and biochemistry major Carolyn Waldie ’26 gave talks on their research conducted with Dr. Massey. Chemistry major Andres Garza ’27 presented a poster on his summer research conducted at the University of Arkansas. Biochemistry majors Cindy Foka ’28 and Lara Alswafta ’28 presented posters on their summer research conducted at the University of North Texas.

Associate Professor of Spanish María de los Ángeles Rodriguez Cadena presented her paper “Los recuerdos del camino, el camino de la vida: remembranza ambulatoria a caballo en la película histórica Huérfanos” at the 60th Southern Council of Latin American Studies conference that took place from March 5–7 in Mexico City.

Business and international studies double major Cassidie Gomez ’26, Spanish and Latin America border studies double major Gerardo Ortiz ’27, biology major Adriana Salazar ’28, and sociology major Abigayle Stubby-Kern ’26 presented papers in Spanish at the Undergraduate Latin American and Latinx Studies Symposium at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL on March 27. Gomez, Ortiz, and Salazar presented a group project titled “De trabajadores a personas: la revindicación de la dignidad humana en la película mexicana La delgada línea amarilla” as part of the panel “Mexico: Community, Culture, and Development.” The group project was written for Associate Professor of Spanish María de los Ángeles Rodriguez Cadena’s course “Leisure and Play in Latin America” in Fall 2025. Stubby-Kern presented her paper “El lenguaje cinematográfico en la construcción de lo humano y el deterioro de las instituciones en la película argentina Un Hombre Mirando al Sureste” as part of the panel “Art, film, and identity in Latin America.” The paper was written for Dr. Rodriguez Cadena’s course “Conversation through Hispanic cinema” in Fall 2025. Dr. Rodriguez Cadena mentored her students during the process of research, writing, and presentation at the Symposium.

Anthropology majors and race and ethnicity studies minors Karim Clarke ’26 and Nia Cannon ’26 presented their capstone research at the Southwestern Anthropological Association annual conference in Claremont, CA on March 27. Karim presented “Between Constraint and Autonomy: The Labor of Black Care and the Practice of Self-Defined Belonging at a Predominantly White Institution” and Nia presented “Beyond Being ‘Diverse’: The Lived Experiences of Black Women at PWIs.” Their presentations were very well received with at least one audience member initially believing they were faculty members themselves. The research emerged out of coursework with both Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed and Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson, as well as the SU Racial History Project, and Dr. Johnson’s current anthropology capstone course.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby and three Southwestern undergraduate students attended the Society for Biomaterials (SFB) Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Atlanta, GA. Biochemistry major Rishi Rajesh ’27 presented a poster titled “Post-Print Reinforcement of GelMA+HAMA Scaffolds Via PEGDA Infiltration” and applied physics major Amanda Mejia ’26 presented a poster on her King Creativity chocolate printing project. Both posters were well-attended and generated significant interest among conference-goers.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez was invited to take part in the symposium “Desinvisibilization of women composers,” jointly organized by the French National Library and the University of Paris 8. The event, held in Paris on March 27 and 28, was dedicated to concrete actions aimed at increasing the visibility of women composers. Dr. Hourez presented a paper on the Boulanger sisters and how their unique relationship created a pathway for supporting the visibility of future generations of composers.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to workshop their work, alongside Texas A&M University Assistant Professor of Africana Studies & Hispanic Studies Benjamin P. Davis, at a Philosophy of Race Workshop during the 55th annual North Texas Philosophy Association (NTPA) Meeting, hosted by the Philosophy Department at the University of Texas at Dallas from March 27–28. Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse shared a draft of their paper “Black M/othering, Prison, the Doek: the production of Black women’s fungibility under Apartheid.”

Alumna Katie Markey ’25 and Professor of Business Debika Sihi led a special session at the American Academy of Advertising (AAA) 2026 Annual Conference, held in Austin from March 26–29. They developed a workshop based on their research examining how AI is transforming marketing and advertising practice. In the session, they introduced participants to the CRAFT framework (Curate, Refine, Assess, Frame, Transform), a structured approach for guiding effective engagement with AI-generated outputs.

Assistant Professor of Business Di Wang attended the 2026 Midwest Economic Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, the largest annual gathering of economists in the midwest, where he presented two research papers: “Bilateral FDIs in a Multilateral World: An Empirical Study of the Role of Economic Integration and Political Turnover,” and “Does More Energy Consumption Drive Economic Growth? A Panel Data Analysis of High- and Low-Energy-Consumption Countries Using PostgreSQL.”

Assistant Professor of Business Di Wang represented Southwestern University at the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education Forum in New York City, the world’s largest student-run financial conference, which this year drew over 135 universities and 1,300 participants. During the event, Dr. Wang collected up-to-date information on undergraduate finance programs from peer institutions and is using these insights to support the development of the new finance major in the Department of Economics and Business.

Professor and Garey Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry Maha Zewail-Foote presented her research at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., highlighting how alternative DNA structures and DNA damage influence repair and the development of mutations. This work contributes to understanding genetic instability and human disease, and provides new insight into the mechanisms underlying genetic instability and human disease.

Professor and Garey Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry Maha Zewail-Foote delivered a presentation, titled “From Curiosity to Confidence: Inclusive Teaching in Undergraduate Chemistry and Biochemistry Courses,” at the AAC&U Transforming STEM Higher Education Conference, highlighting strategies to support student engagement and success in STEM, and was also invited to serve as a session chair.

Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Sciences Stephanie Insalaco-Wyner presented her talk, titled “Implementing Learner-Centric Pedagogy in Environmental GIS: A Case Study from Southwestern University,” at the American Association of Geographers Conference (2026) in San Francisco. She also co-authored a paper presentation at the conference with Clare Stauber ’27, titled “From Archive to Interactive Map: Digital Storytelling of Midwifery in Mexico City after the Revolution.”

Professor of Music Michael Cooper’s work in exposing Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s lamentable forgery of a composition by Florence Price in their 2026 new year’s concert has been featured in articles published by The Guardian and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Tom Service’s article in The Guardian is available for free here, and Peter Dobrin’s paywall-protected piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer is available here. Those interested in seeing what it’s all about can read Cooper’s three blog posts that have been cited. The first of these, from February 1, is available here, with follow-up posts on March 15 available here and March 21 available here.

Anthropology graduate Zacharia Arifi ’24 recently published “Hors Place: Discursive Identities of the Modern Franco Kabyle” in The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography, Volume 15, No. 1. His article is based on a project he worked on while at SU. Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed oversaw its development in the anthropology capstone, and Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson assisted Zacharia in creating a journal article publication. The article is available here.

Professor of Business Debika Sihi presented on complementing data intensive coursework with outdoor experiential learning at the Marketing Management Association Conference, held March 19–20 online… thus, #1 dog Winston could listen along with the other faculty. In addition, she moderated a session on innovations in marketing education, examining customer prediction models and the use of generative AI in brand messaging, as well as another session on sales education.

Margarett Root Brown Chair in Fine Arts and Professor of Theatre Desiderio Roybal designed stage scenery for the production Little Women, presented April 16–26 at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre on the campus of St. Edward’s University in Austin. The production, written by Kate Hamill, is a fresh, fierce adaptation of the beloved classic, reimagined for a new generation–boldly exploring love, ambition, and the power of sisterhood.

Professor of Spanish Carlos de Oro’s article, “Melodrama y denuncia social: estrategias narrativas de resistencia en La pasión de Gabriel y Operación E” was accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Romance Studies. He also presented a paper on the same topic at the 2026 Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Estudios Hispánicos in Arequipa, Peru from March 11–13.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “Dramatic Science” in the Winter 2026 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 column can be read here, starting on page seven of the newsletter.

Assistant Professor of History Soojung Han presented the paper “Identity Changes of the Elite Xianbei in Medieval China” at the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) 2026 Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

Assistant Professor of History Soojung Han was invited to give a talk titled “From Kin to Pseudo-Kin: The Transformation of Kinship Politics and Diplomacy from the Early Medieval Period to the Liao–Song–Jin Era” at The Great Entanglement: Reframing East Eurasian Histories in the Longue Durée workshop hosted by the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. The workshop was sponsored by the University of British Columbia, Cornell University, and the James P. Geiss & Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood was recently a featured guest on the Relationscapes podcast episode titled “How Dogs Domesticated Humans.” As the author of A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans, Hobgood provided her expertise on the long, complicated co-evolution of humans and dogs. Hosted by award-winning journalist Blair Hodges, the Relationscapes podcast explores relationships, gender, sexuality, race, ability, and culture, focusing on ideas that inspire deeper connection and a more humane life. Listen to the episode here. 

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby co-authored an open-access article, titled “Digital light processing 3D printing enables versatile fabrication of human engineered heart tissues,” that was recently published in Cell Biomaterials. Briefly, the authors demonstrated that engineered heart tissue (EHT) molds from inexpensive polymer resins could be deployed to fabricate heart tissue with enhanced cytoskeletal and metabolic maturity. The work can be accessed here.

Several sociology faculty members and students attended the Eastern Sociological Society annual meeting in Washington, D.C. from March 5-8. Three sociology majors presented their capstone research: Rylan Hastings ’26 presented “One Nation, Many Teams: Americans’ Attitudes About Sport as a Unifier or Divider in Society,” Aris Morgan ’26 presented “The Perception of the West Under Threat: American Attitudes on China,” and Greta Nelson ’26 presented “They Don’t Belong Here: Understanding American Opposition to Undocumented Immigration.” Faculty and students also presented on their collaborative research projects: Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez, Morgan, and Nelson presented their 2025 SURF project “Stay Off Our TERF: Predictors of Anti-Trans Feminists Opposition to Trans Girls in K-12 Sports,” and Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe and Claire Adams ’27 presented “Suspicious Person Posts and Racial Profiling Anxiety in Neighborhoods.” In addition, Hernandez presented work from ongoing research, “But Is It Feminist? The Highlights, Challenges, and Opportunities of Creating a Sociological and Transdisciplinary Podcast.”

Violin and chemistry double major Seth Sagen ’26 was selected to perform violin with the Austin Symphony in their recent Masterworks concerts. He performed Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” a masterpiece of classical music which is also featured in the beginning of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He shared the stage with his teacher, Assistant Professor of Violin, Viola, and Chamber Music Jessica Mathaes, who is concertmaster of the Austin Symphony and performed the concertmaster solos in the piece.

Assistant Professor of Violin, Viola, and Chamber Music Jessica Mathaes performed a week-long residency in Jackson, WY public schools, working with high school orchestra students and presenting to elementary students. Mathaes is concertmaster of the Austin Symphony and a member of the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, and was invited to Jackson this March to represent the festival as a violinist and educator. The Grand Teton Music Festival has been recognized by The New York Times as one of the top 10 music festivals in the United States.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published a de facto diptych of beauty and power from the pen of Margaret Bonds: a setting of the spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me,” arranged for four-part mixed choir and piano, and another setting of that same spiritual, titled simply “Walk with Me,” scored for solo voice, solo cello, and piano. Both scores are published by Hildegard Publishing Company. The first work was written for seventh- and eighth grade voices and reflects Bonds’ interest in providing high-quality music for young musicians (none of that trashy John Williams stuff, or the sappy Disney fare!). The second was arranged from the “Lament” of Bonds’ series of musical snapshots of key moments in the freedom struggle – a movement that, according to Bonds’ written explanation, depicted the responses of the African American community and the world after the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Montgomery, AL on September 15, 1963. The arrangement published here was composed for performance at the first anniversary of that tragedy – a musical commemoration of the event, and a way of inscribing the names of victims, Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14), and Carol Denise McNair (11), into public memory by means of music, the language that, for Bonds, said more than mere words ever could.

Professor of Education Alicia Moore, Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol, and Professor of Education Michael Kamen presented “Healing Through Play, Stories, and Literature: Supporting Children’s Grief, Loss, and Resilience in Early Childhood Classrooms” at the 2026 Live and On-Demand Conference of the International Play Association (IPA-USA).

Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with her collaborator, artist Jiabao Li, gave a talk at The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) 52nd annual conference, organized by Professor of Education Michael Kamen and held at Southwestern University. The talk, titled “Math/Art Collaboration Through Play: A Report From the Triangle Program,” focused on the role of play in our interdisciplinary collaboration, which ultimately culminated in the idea of the math playground.

Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura gave a talk at the Gathering 4 Gardner 16 in San Francisco, CA, a puzzle/magic/art/math conference to celebrate the popular recreational math writer Martin Gardner. During each day were dozens of six-minute lightning talks given by attendees on projects they are working on. Futamura discussed three projects, updates from the mathematical art manifesto group she has been organizing over the past six months, the math playground funded by the Simons Foundation Triangle Program, and a general audience book on what can be gleaned from understanding the geometry of space in art and other 2D media, to be published by Princeton University Press.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen is the president of The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) and organized the 52nd annual conference at Southwestern. TASP is the premier professional organization in academia dedicated to interdisciplinary research and theory construction concerning play throughout the world. Presently, the Association publishes a quarterly newsletter titled Play Review and an annual volume titled Play & Culture Studies. The Association’s broad multidisciplinary focus includes the fields of anthropology, biology, communication studies, cultural studies, dance, ecology, education, ethology, folklore, history, kinesiology, leisure studies, musicology, philosophy, psychology, recreation, sociology, and the arts.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Ariel Wood exhibited their work in a solo show at Southwestern University’s Fine Art Gallery. The show, titled “porous,” takes as its primary point of reference the detention basins neighboring carceral facilities in Georgetown. These forms of infrastructure—sometimes themselves referred to as detention facilities—are stormwater management systems designed to temporarily collect runoff and release it gradually until fully drained. Typically dry, these concrete depressions punctuate the landscape with a brutalist austerity, their ambiguous function compounded by the uncanniness of government landscaping. Their work will be on view until March 26.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross presented her paper “Purchasing Pregnancy: Egg Donation in Spain” at the NeMLA conference in Pittsburgh, PA on March 6.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed and Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone were both interviewed and featured in the documentary “Segregation on Trial: Integrating Georgetown Schools,” filmed and produced by City of Georgetown Communications Manager Keith Hutchinson. The film debuted and was screened at the Georgetown Public Library on February 26, where Naomi and Megan both sat on a panel to discuss the film’s creation and importance with the larger Georgetown community. The film can be viewed here. The panel discussion is available here.

Assistant Professors of Music Julia Escobar (flute) and Jeanne Hourez (piano) performed and presented a recital in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8 at the Oak Branch Concerts venue in Austin. The recital program exclusively featured historic women composers who are often underrepresented in classical music. This included several works from Dr. Escobar’s forthcoming publication that highlights trailblazing women composers.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited speaker at a conference held at Texas Hillel in Austin. The conference addressed productive and meaningful ways to engage in religious and political difference, and was covered in the local media, available here.

At Together We Dine (TWD), Chaplain and Director of Spiritual Life Ron Swain was presented with Common Ground USA’s Texas Civility Award for his leadership of Courageous Conversations in Georgetown.

Chaplain and Director of Spiritual Life Ron Swain gave a presentation on the topic of peace building at the Gateway College Preparatory School’s Peace Garden Dedication Ceremony. This is the 17th Peace Garden created at area schools by the Racial Unity and Peace Building Committee of the Rotary Club of Georgetown. Swain is the Committee’s convener.

Professor of Political Science Bob Snyder’s article “Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Not Transactional. It Is Tributary.” appeared in the online magazine Open Canada, which is published by the Canadian International Council.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes took part in two roundtable sessions at the Society for French Historical Studies annual conference. For “Writing the French Empire Today,” she spoke about her 2023 book, Making Space: Neighbors, Officials, and North African Migrants in the Suburbs of Paris and Lyon (University of Nebraska). As part of “French History in the Small Liberal Arts Classroom,” she discussed “Using France to Teach about Race.”

Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of History Jessica Hower gave an invited talk titled “‘Bring[ing] Up the Bodies’: Queenship in History, Fiction, and the Public” at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA.

Southwestern was well represented at the Western States Communication Association annual conference in San Diego from February 27–March 2. Two students from Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar’s fall capstone class presented research at the Undergraduate Scholars Research Conference. Chloe London Jordan ’26 presented her capstone paper “Return to Whiteness: How ‘Return to the Land’ Platforms White Supremacy” and John Reese ’26 presented “Deconstructing Far-Right Rhetoric on X: A Case Study of the X Account End Wokeness.” Professor of Communication Studies Valerie Renegar was there to clap and cheer before presenting her work with Dr. Kirsti Cole from North Carolina State University titled “The Weight of Stigma” about GLP-1 discourse.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to speak to the graduate students who are part of the Minorities in Philosophy (MAP) Chapter at Texas State University on February 24. Dr. ka’Nobuhlaluse shared about their research, graduate experiences (in South Africa and the US), and challenges and joys of navigating philosophy as a Black woman.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of Florence B. Price’s significant but hitherto unknown “Spring Journey” (for women’s chorus, piano, and orchestra, or women’s chorus and piano) as part of the Craig Hella Johnson Signature Series of E.C. Schirmer Music (St. Louis). Written in Chicago in December 1935 and premiered by the South Side Women’s Chorus, Price’s music gives vivid – and wonderfully mischievous – voice to the longing for springtime joys that regularly attend Chicago winters (to say nothing of the winter drears and dreads of 2025–2026).

Director of the Professor John Score II Learning Commons Maurice Wilson and Coordinator of the Professor John Score II Learning Commons Laurel Mulkey ’24 presented a roundtable session titled “From Last-Day Decisions to Early Intervention: Building Coherent Pathways for Academic Persistence” at the Texas Affiliate of the National College Learning Center Association (TxNCLCA) Conference in San Antonio on February 19. Their session advanced scholarship- and practice-informed frameworks for aligning student support structures earlier in the academic term to promote student persistence. They also facilitated professional dialogue on collaborative, proactive models of academic support. The roundtable emphasized shared responsibility, cross-unit collaboration, and practical strategies for strengthening retention and student belonging.

Head of Distinctive Collections & Archives Megan Firestone has been elected to a three-year term of the Executive Board of the Texas Library Association as the representative for special libraries. The Texas Library Association is the largest state library association with over 6,000 members.

Head of Distinctive Collections & Archives Megan Firestone presented on women’s education at Southwestern University and Laura Kuykendall to the local chapter of the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO).

Head of Distinctive Collections & Archives Megan Firestone presented “A History of Women’s Education at Southwestern University” to the Daniel Coleman Chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura, along with artist Jiabao Li and art director Ron Berry of Fusebox, have been awarded a $150,000 grant to build a math playground in Austin through the Simons Foundation Triangle Program. Math Playground is an outdoor installation and accompanying exhibition that turns abstract mathematical ideas into playful, embodied, large-scale sculptures. Visitors can climb, slide, swing, and spin on custom sculptures whose forms embody complex math concepts. A Klein bottle slide creates a continuous looping path. A shape called a Boy’s surface becomes a twisting climbing net that flips orientation. The Lissajous swing set draws patterns in the sand through harmonic motion. A merry-go-round zoetrope animates models through rotation and repetition. Math Playground makes math fun and intuitive, inviting people to experience symmetry physically, in their bodies, by moving through shapes usually understood only in theory. For preliminary renderings, visit here. For the announcement, visit here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson presented “Revising the Early Social History of Belize, 1730-1820” at the Third International Caribbean Studies Forum at the University of Belize, Belmopan, on February 18. The talk can be viewed here.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes and masks for Zach Theater’s beloved classic, Charlotte’s Web. This family-friendly production tells the story using live bluegrass music, aerial silk acrobatics, and mask work. Performances run through May 17. Get your tickets here!

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe has been awarded this year’s Distinguished Contribution to Teaching Award by the Southern Sociological Society in recognition of outstanding achievements. Dr. Lowe will be honored during the Society’s Presidential Honors and Convocation Plenary, held at their annual meeting in Jacksonville, FL in April.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci, along with several students and alumni, published an article titled “Chronic testosterone enanthate or estradiol benzoate affects sexual behavior and motivation in Long-Evans rats tested for partner preference” in Physiology and Behavior. This work was supported by summer research programs (SCOPE ’24 and SURF ’25) and conducted by psychology and biology capstone students. Raylee Bowling ’27 is first author, followed by Chance Bauer ’26, Iva Irabor-Ighedosa ’26, Kai Wilson ’26, and Anna Pavlova ’28. Alumna Alex Avila ’25 and visiting scholar Kole Petersen, a student from Colorado College, were also co-authors. This project tested a model of gender-affirming hormone therapy in an animal model.

Director of Study Abroad and International Student Services Monya Lemery presented with colleagues at the Forum on Education Abroad Virtual Conference, “AI in Action: Ethical and Pedagogical Uses for Education Abroad.” She has served as part of a working group on “Artificial Intelligence and Education Abroad” and developed a resource for faculty and administrators managing study abroad programs, located here. Monya is serving a 3-year term as a member of the Forum Council.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Noelle Sawyer and her collaborators Benjamin Call, Dave Constantine, Alena Erchenko, and Grace Work had their paper “Local product structure for equilibrium states of geodesic flows and applications” published in the Journal of Modern Dynamics on February 10. The article focuses on statistical properties of equilibrium states on non-uniformly hyperbolic surfaces and strategies for working with the geometry there. The article can be read here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published a chapter titled “Luminaries” in a new book titled Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn in Context, edited by Benedict Taylor and Thomas Schmidt (Cambridge: Cambridge UP). Taking as its starting point the extraordinary number of cultural and political luminaries who were drawn into the Mendelssohn siblings’ respective cultural ambits (figures including Goethe, Prussian kings Friedrich Wilhelm III and IV, Hegel, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, Chopin, Queen Victoria, authors Hans Christian Andersen and Achim von Arnim, mathematician Charles Babbage, painter Ingres, and dozens of others), the chapter traces the gendered dynamics of the two siblings’ circles and the gendered nature of their techniques for using their access to luminaries for promulgating their respective artistic and social agendas.

Three faculty and two students joined over 5,000 mathematicians at the largest math gathering in the world, the Joint Mathematics Meetings, in Washington, D.C. from January 4–7. Those attending participated in events sponsored by the American Mathematical Society (AMS), Pi Mu Epsilon (PME), and the Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America (SIGMAA). Professor of Mathematics Alison Marr co-presented “Difference Distance Magic Digraphs” in the AMS special session on research results by mathematicians from the EDGE Program. She also participated in multiple events in her capacity as co-Director of EDGE. Marr stayed an extra day in D.C. to participate in #MathSciOnTheHill Day, joining over 250 mathematicians advocating for mathematics funding on Capitol Hill, where she was joined by SU alumna Daniela Beckelhymer ’20. Associate Professor of Mathematics John Ross presented “Optimizing Under Constraints: Developing a Compact Undergraduate Research Program” in the SIGMAA special session on showcasing undergraduate research experiences. Associate Professor of Mathematics Therese Shelton organized and co-chaired an AMS special session sponsored by SIMIODE on “Creating, Doing, and Sharing Modeling Approaches to Teaching Differential Equations.” Ioana Burlacu ’26 and Ashlyn Cadena ’27 presented “Perimeter-minimizing rectangles using density M|x|^p + N|y|^q” in the AMS-PME Undergraduate Poster Session. This research was supervised by Ross as part of SURF 2025.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper and his work editing and publishing previously unknown compositions of Florence Price and Margaret Bonds were featured in an article by Kyle MacMillan on January 30. For readers of these Notables, it’s worth noting that the count of “72” of Cooper’s editions of Price’s music is actually an old figure; the current count is 158 by Price and 56 by Bonds, with another six by Price and eight by Bonds currently in the hopper. MacMillan’s article is available here.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen was an invited speaker at the January Clearview Sudbury School monthly community gathering in Austin. He presented “Play and Learning,” highlighting his recent and ongoing research.

Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Associate Professor of Curriculum Instruction and Learning Sciences at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Debra Plowman published “To Algorithm or not to Algorithm” in the Fall 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 column can be read here, starting on page five of the newsletter. 

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma published the article “‘Political Grains’: Hunger and the Struggles for Food in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, c.2000–2010” in The Journal of Asian and African Studies. This piece reflects on the everyday experiences of ordinary citizens in accessing food during the protracted crisis years in Zimbabwe’s history. The article can be read here.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes took part in a roundtable review of Isaac Stanley-Becker’s book Europe without Borders: A History for the H-Diplo/Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum. The review can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Alex Goodwin and co-author Michael J. Nojeim had their book chapter, “The Prairie View Paradox: Age, Race, and the Evolving/Changing Landscape of Student Voting Rights at an HBCU in Texas,” published by De Gruyter in the edited volume Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses. The chapter examines the decades-long fight for student voting rights at Prairie View A&M University, focusing specifically on the Symm v. United States (1979) Supreme Court case.

Counselor Geneva Walker, LPC, recently presented a TEDx talk titled “Why Holding Both Is the Secret to Living Victoriously” at TEDx Round Rock Women. In her talk, Geneva explores resilience, grief, and emotional well-being, offering a framework for holding pain and purpose simultaneously while continuing to live with intention and meaning. Drawing from both clinical expertise and lived experience, the talk has sparked ongoing conversation around mental health, healing, and thriving after adversity. Members of the Southwestern community and beyond are invited to watch the talk, engage in discussion, or explore opportunities for classroom use, programming, or collaboration related to mental health education and resilience. Watch the talk here.

Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder served as a panel chair for two panels at the Southern Political Science Association Meeting held in New Orleans, LA from January 15–18. She chaired the panel “Parties, Leaders, and Candidates” and stepped in as an impromptu discussant when the scheduled discussant was unable to attend. She also chaired the panel “Comparative Perspectives on Feminist Movements.”

On January 20, Director of Admission Jaime Gonzalez was invited by Tuition Exchange and the Colleges That Changes Lives (CTCL) organizations to present about Southwestern’s unique student experiences to over 200 Tuition Exchange family attendees across the country, alongside other CTCL colleges. Tuition Exchange is a non-profit that awards up to full tuition scholarships to eligible students across member schools in 50 states/U.S. territories and nine countries, giving Southwestern a global platform and recognition.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music Michael Martinez presented the lecture recital “Multiphonics: A Brief History and Pedagogical Breakdown” at the 2026 Big XII Trombone Conference in Lubbock, TX from January 16–18. The lecture portion discussed the phenomenon of simultaneously singing and playing trombone, its history, and daily practice with healthy mindsets; the recital portion utilized compositions by Abbie Conant and Mike Svoboda to support key points in musical contexts.

Staff Instructor in Spanish Noelia Cigarroa-Cooke and Professor of Spanish Carlos de Oro presented the paper “Comparative Allegories of Authoritarianism in Contemporary Latin American Horror Cinema” at the 2026 Annual AIFOR Conference in Honolulu, HI from January 3–7.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Music and Artist in Residence Hai Zheng Olefsky has returned from a successful tour in Asia. In October 2025, she was invited to lead a cello master class for students at the China Conservatory in Beijing, sharing her expertise with some of the country’s most promising young musicians. She has also been teaching and mentoring the exceptional young cellists in the greater Austin area. Her students achieved remarkable accomplishments in statewide and regional music competitions. Two of her top cello students earned placements in the All-State Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, including the prestigious first chair of the All-State Symphony Orchestra. In addition, six of her students won auditions in the 2025–2026 Texas All-Region Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, securing both the first and second cello chairs of the All-Region Symphony Orchestra. These All-State and All-Region auditions are sponsored by the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), a leading organization promoting music education across Texas.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum attended the LEVEL UP AI Workshop in Phoenix, AZ on January 7 and 8, which stands for Launching an Educational Vision to Expand Leadership, Understanding and Progress in Artificial Intelligence. The workshop, supported by the National Science Foundation and organized by the Computing Research Association, focused on ways to enhance and expand undergraduate Artificial Intelligence education to help create an AI-ready workforce.

Professor of Theatre Sergio Costola recently published an article titled “Farò raddoppiare li segni pubblici de gaudio et letitia per la terra et per tutto. Lucrezia Borgia and Her Theatre of Diplomacy (1509–1512)” in Storie e Linguaggi 11.2 (2025). The article examines Lucrezia Borgia’s diplomatic activity during the wars of the early sixteenth century, showing how the courtly receptions, musical performances, dances, and fashion spectacles she organized in Ferrara functioned not merely as displays of power but as active instruments of political negotiation and mediation. The article is available open access here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of the romantic piano waltz “Love’s Triumph” by Will H. Dixon (1879–1917) with Recital Publications. Dixon was one of the leading lights of the generation of African American creatives whose genius and resistance to the oppressive forces of anti-Black racism in the U.S. prepared the way for the Harlem Renaissance and Chicago Black Renaissance in the years after his death. A recording by Miami-Dade College Professor Wayne Bumpers of “Love’s Triumph,” commissioned by Cooper and Lawrence H. Levens of New York, can be found on YouTube here.

Professor and Chair of English Eileen Cleere participated in a roundtable at the Modern Language Association’s (MLA) annual meeting in Toronto, Canada from January 8–11. The roundtable featured conversation about how literature can help us navigate institutional spaces where faculty labor is increasingly gendered and generational. Her paper, “Becoming a Minor Character,” discussed the temporal mismatch between the timeline for meaningful institutional transformation and a “move fast and break things” incentive structure that requires immediate and assessable outcomes.

Professor of English Michael Saenger presented an invited talk at the Academic Engagement Network’s Short Course in Miami, FL. The talk was on how to combat rising antisemitism in academic societies. Immediately after the speaking engagement, Saenger travelled to Toronto to lead a diverse group of faculty advocating for campus civility and against antisemitism at the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention. At the convention, many faculty from around the country spoke passionately about how to protect a culture of campus safety and educational integrity. You can read about the controversy at the convention here.

Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar was featured as an interview source in a set of recent news stories produced by News 6 in Tulsa, OK, as part of their Roadside Memorial Project. The project, directed by News 6 reporter Katie Eastman, is comprised of several stories originally broadcast between December 22–26, 2025, including a documentary-style story about roadside memorials titled “Love on the Side of the Road,” and a separate news profile of Bednar as a researcher of roadside shrines and collective trauma. The written stories and videos are available here.

Assistant Professor of Music Jeanne Hourez was awarded the Programming Award by the International Alliance for Women in Music. This prize recognizes performers who have made deliberate, conscious efforts to achieve greater gender equity in their programming by including women/non-binary composers and/or performers.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes organized and helped lead a workshop titled “Leadership in a Small Liberal Arts College History Program” at the American Historical Association’s (AHA) annual meeting in Chicago. Dr. Byrnes is co-chair of the AHA’s working group on small liberal arts colleges.

Professor of History Melissa Byrnes was featured on the New Books Network podcast for her book Making Space: Neighbors, Officials, and North African Migrants in the Suburbs of Paris and Lyon (University of Nebraska Press, 2024). The episode can be heard here. Dr. Byrnes’ book was also recently reviewed on H-Diplo. The review can be read here.

Professor of Political Science Alisa Gaunder and co-author Dr. Sarah Wiliarty published “Leadership in Crisis: Comparing Prime Minister Abe’s and Chancellor Merkel’s Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic” in the interdisciplinary journal Contemporary Japan on December 22. This article argues that Merkel was more effective in managing the first stage of the Covid-19 crisis compared to Abe due to new institutions created to coordinate between the local and national level as well as the execution of a policymaking narrative that focused on science and solidarity. Abe’s approach was hampered due to long-established structural inefficiencies in the bureaucracy as well as a policymaking narrative that called for cooperation and self-restraint without responding to public concerns. This comparison adds to our understanding of the impact of leaders on public policymaking in times of uncertainty as well as to the important relationship between leaders and institutions.

Director of Technology Support and Services Daryl Tschoepe and Mail Clerk Rita Alonzo assisted with renovating the Transformation Room at Cactus Ranch Elementary School in Round Rock, TX. Daryl contributed computer items, including sound equipment, and Rita volunteered to decorate the room to look like outer space by helping make satellites and stars. Transformation Room volunteers renovate a classroom at Cactus Ranch Elementary School to different themes throughout the year to help students get interested in a variety of subjects, including geography, other countries, Texas, and even space.

Lord Chair and Professor of Computer Science Barbara Anthony and co-authors Ananya Das of Middlebury College and Christine Chung, Charles Lincoln, Krishh Tipnis, and Kate Vento, all of Connecticut College, had their paper accepted to PRIMA 2025: Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems. Students Charles and Kate presented the paper on “Metric Distortion of STV on the Line and the Impact of Voter Turnout” at the conference in Modena, Italy. The paper, available here, analyzes the ranked choice voting mechanism Single Transferable Vote, provides theoretical results on metric distortion, or how much worse an elected candidate is than the socially optimal choice, and considers how distortion is impacted by voter turnout. It also studies the impact of voter turnout on the 2021 New York City Democratic Primary Election, which used ranked choice voting.

Assistant Professor of History Bryan Kauma recently published a book chapter titled “‘Agriculture is a scam!’: Agrotechnologies and the Agrarian Fallacy Among African Grain Farmers in Colonial Zimbabwe, the 1920s to 1970s” in Environment, Technology, and Development. The chapter explores the experiences of grain farmers and demonstrates the socio-environmental impacts that fertilizers and hybrid seeds had on African agriculture and food (in)security during the colonial years in Zimbabwe. This chapter is also available Open Access here.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Alex Goodwin and his co-author Ronald Goodwin had their book chapter “Comparing American Presidencies: Leadership in the First Hundred Days of Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden” published in an edited volume titled America in Crisis: Presidential Power, Populism, and the Global Struggle for Truth published by Springer International Press.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed for a story in the Times of Israel on academic boycotts and the harm they cause to Jews and to university communities as a whole. Saenger has been a leading advocate for academic freedom and antidiscrimination. The story can be read here.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross had her second book, Narrating Infertility in Spain, published on December 9. More information is available here.

Professor of Sociology Maria Lowe, along with sociology graduates ThuyMi Phung ’23 and Katherine (Kat) Holcomb ’22, have published a mixed methods paper titled “White Grievance as a Predictor of American Attitudes Toward Critical Race Theory” in the journal Sociological Forum. This article is based on a faculty-student collaborative research project and can be accessed here.

Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings and co-author Tammy Jandrey Hertel of the University of Virginia presented a talk titled “The Use of Open Educational Resources in Medical Spanish Courses” at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) Annual Convention and World Languages Expo held November 20–23 in New Orleans. The practice-oriented presentation aimed to showcase available open educational resources (OER) for Spanish for healthcare professions and guided attendees through materials addressing cultural practices and perspectives surrounding childbirth.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth shared her research at the AATG/ACTFL conference in New Orleans on November 21. Her presentation, “Advocacy and Leadership through Universal Design for Learning: UDL and Transparency in Learning and Teaching: TILT,” contributed to the panel “Single Faculty German Programs – Best Practices.” This well-attended session focused on German language programs in higher education, bringing together experienced single faculty instructors to discuss the challenges they face and the strategies they use to sustain and support their programs. German educators from Rice University, Belmont University, and Midwestern State University joined Berroth in sharing their best practices.

Assistant Professor of Economics Dinushka Paranavitana presented two papers at the 95th Annual Meeting of the Southern Economic Association on November 22–24 in Tampa. She presented her papers titled “The Price of Hate: The Effect of Title IX Exemptions on College Enrollment” and “Chiropractor Scope of Practice Laws” at two different sessions at the conference. She was also the discussant for a graduate student session, and provided feedback for an Economics PhD student on the job market this year.

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood presented on the panel “Beyond Personhood: New Ways to Imagine Our Solidarity with Animals” at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting in Boston. The Animals and Religion Group was founded by Dr. Hobgood and several colleagues in 2000 and has now been active in the AAR for 25 years.

Professor of Spanish Katy Ross led a workshop on AI in the L2 classroom at PAMLA, the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association, in San Francisco on November 23.

Duncan Chair and Professor of Mathematics Fumiko Futamura was invited by the Mathematical Association of America SIGMAA – Undergraduate Research group to co-present a webinar with Dr. Elizabeth Reid at Marist University on designing manageable and meaningful undergraduate projects. She talked about her students’ innovative ideas for application projects in Linear Algebra and Geometry and how some of these have led to continued research beyond the semester, presentations at regional and national conferences, and in one case, an award-winning publication.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson organized a double panel for the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans on November 22, along with Dr. Patrick Gallagher of the University of Texas–San Antonio. The sessions were titled “Predatory Politics: The Wily Animal-Human Relationships of Hunting and Fishing” Part 1–Sea and Part 2–Land. Dr. Johnson presented “Tigah Camp: Unruly Multispecies assemblages, Race and Gender in a Belizean Trophy Jaguar Hunting Camp” in Part 2–Land.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol and her colleague Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi released the premiere episode of their podcast Ms. Behaving in Literacy. The episode featured an introduction to the concept and purpose of the podcast, to explore politics of literacy education policies and research through the lens of humor. The co-hosts also interviewed attendees of the Association of Literacy Education and Research annual conference in Oklahoma City, who shared their favorite experiences at the conference. The podcast can be seen here. The next episode will feature highlights from the most recent publication of the academic journal Literacy Research and Instruction.

Associate Professor of Psychology Carin Perilloux, along with psychology graduate Madeline Bollinger ’24, psychology graduate and Coordinator of the Professor John Score Learning Commons Laurel Mulkey ’24, and biology graduate Vy Nguyen ’23, have published a paper titled “Hooked on a feeling: Psychological and physiological responses to ASMR triggers” in the journal Technology, Mind, and Behavior. This article is based on three years worth of SCOPE projects and is published with open access here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed presented her paper “A Healing African Diasporic Deconstruction of Ashkenormativity” at the American Anthropology Association Conference in New Orleans on November 20. The presentation was on the panel she also chaired, titled “Canonical Hauntings of the Body: On Harm and Healing—Knowledge Production and the Politics of Belonging.” Dr. Reed’s paper explores how the dismissal of whiteness by white presenting Ashkenazi Jewish Americans harms Jews of color and erases their experiences within the Jewish Diaspora. Through a critical inversion of the haunting paternalistic relationship between Jewish anthropologists and Blackness, she asks what Jewish Americans can learn from African Diaspora scholarship. She suggests that Jewish identity should be reconceptualized through African Diasporic notions of identity and race as a means to deconstruct Ashkenormativity and to fuel a healing critical recognition of Jewish diversity. Anthropology graduate Zacharia Arifi ’24 presented a paper on this same panel, titled “Bourdieu Awal and Me: Unraveling a Canon of Franco-Kabyle Ethnolography,” where they mediate the history of French ethnography with ethnographic fieldwork to posit how a legacy of disciplinal practice haunts ethnic identification among the French Kabyle. Particularly, they define how its corpus has codified and perpetuated hegemonic knowledge of belonging that supplant the diaspora’s autonomy in self-conceptualization. They consider, then, how its communities negotiate what it means to be Kabyle through living encounters with discursive expression. Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson served as the discussant for this panel. The conference program can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse had the essay, “An Ode to the Domestics, the Minors of Apartheid, My Grandmother Among Them,” published on the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s blog, Caliban’s Readings. It can be read here. The piece is a philosophical and personal meditation on Black women who worked as domestics under Apartheid, with a special focus on ka’Nobuhlaluse’s maternal grandmother. It explores how bureaucracy, racial capitalism, and patriarchal law rendered these women “minors,” even as their labour sustained families, homes, and the nation. Drawing on Black feminist and Africana philosophy, as well as autobiographical writing, ka’Nobuhlaluse thinks through archives not only as formal institutions but as living, intergenerational memory carried in bodies, stories, and ordinary objects. ka’Nobuhlaluse wrote this essay while teaching an FYS on Apartheid.

Chemistry and biochemistry majors Kaiden Salaz ’26, Alex Dow ’26, Ian Becher ’26, Saki’a Rivers ’26, Maddie Bridges ’26, and Kayla Moody ’26 presented posters and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Sara Massey gave an invited talk at the American Chemical Society Southeast/Southwest Regional Meeting in Orlando, FL in October. Student presentations resulted from research done with Massey, Professor of Chemistry Emily Niemeyer, and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Chelsea Massaro, who also attended the conference.

Assistant Professor of Biology Sunny Scobell gave an invited seminar to the Department of Biology at Texas State University, titled “The physiological regulation and evolution of male pregnancy,” on November 14.

Assistant Professor of Biology Sunny Scobell gave an invited seminar to the Biology Department at Trinity University, titled “The mysterious male brood pouch: Structure and function of male pregnancy in seahorses and pipefish,” on November 10.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez presented a virtual book talk to women and gender studies students at California State University, Northridge on November 18. The focus of her talk was on feminist interview methodologies and the chapter “Wife – Mother – Girl Boss” from her 2024 book Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States: Faith, Race, and Feminism.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce was selected to participate in “Beyond Colonial Constraints: Cuir Feminist Praxis as Rupture and Healing across the Archipelago” at the NWSA annual conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico from November 12–16. The pre-conference opportunity was rooted in Boriken archipelago feminism to explore how gender and sexual minorities disrupt coloniality and embrace joy.

At the recent annual meeting of the Associated Colleges of the South’s student affairs leaders, Southwestern received the 2025 Student Retention and Persistence Laurels, given to a member institution demonstrating a significant program or service in support of student retention and persistence. The award recognized an initiative launched in Fall 2023 to provide students with documented financial need funding support for first-semester dues required to join a sorority or fraternity.

Associate Professor of Communication Studies Lamiyah Bahrainwala (LB) published the article “Muscular Anti-Muslim Sentiment” in the journal Women’s Studies in Communication. The article examines the overlaps between muscular Hinduism and muscular Zionism and how they function together transnationally. You can read more here.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon attended the 2025 National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Borikén) from November 13–16. She presented on a roundtable titled “Archiving Malflora: Latina/e Lesbian Memory Work as Decolonial Praxis,” along with four other members of Malflora Collective, her collaborative PEH project focused on preserving Latina/e lesbian histories. The roundtable focused on creative strategies for archiving community stories through zine-making, podcasting, and digital archival practices, while also contending with the fraught nature of online platforms.

Education majors Tiffany Ashcraft ’27, Emma Bethke ’27 (in absentia), Jonas Eaton ’26, Sydney Jackson ’27, Elisa Keese ’27, Ava Knez ’27, Catherine Matthews ’27, and Abigail Shuvalov ’27 presented at CAST (the Texas Science Teachers Conference) in Dallas with Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Assistant Professor of Education Alexandrea Melgoza. The session, “Hands-on Science Activities Presented by Preservice Teachers,” organized by Dr. Kamen, also included presentations by preservice teachers from The University of Houston–Downtown and The University of North Texas–Dallas.

Staff Instructor in Spanish Noelia Cigarroa-Cooke and Associate Professor of Spanish Abby Dings presented a talk, titled “Establishing Community Partnerships for Spanish for Healthcare Professions: Laying the Groundwork for Equitable, Experiential Learning,” at the 2025 NAMS/MOLA (National Association of Medical Spanish/Medical Organization for Latino Advancement) conference in San Antonio from November 6–7.

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and holder of the Garey Endowed Chair in Chemistry Maha Zewail-Foote presented at the UNESCO Regional Centre for Quality in Education’s International Forum on World Quality Day. Her presentation, “Thinking Differently about Quality: Curiosity, Connection, and the Future of Learning,” explored how mentorship, inclusivity, and human-centered teaching can advance educational quality and innovation. Addressing an international audience of education leaders and policymakers, Dr. Zewail-Foote reflected on the power of curiosity and compassion in shaping the future of global education and advancing equitable, high-quality learning experiences.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum attended the Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) conference with SURF research student Olivia Kilday ’28 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from November 12–14, to present their peer-reviewed research paper, “Text-to-Level Diffusion Models With Various Text Encoders for Super Mario Bros.” Computer science majors Emilio Salas ’26, Bess Hagan ’25, and Reid Williams ’26 were also co-authors on the paper, and the oral presentation was given by Olivia. The research details the creation of software models that create levels for the original Super Mario Bros. based on text descriptions. The AIIDE conference is a prestigious conference with an acceptance rate under 25%, which is sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Computer science and theatre double major Aidan Balakrishnan ’26, computer science and mathematics double major Tanner Klein ’26, and computer science major Matthew Volkin ’26 participated in the Association of Computing Machinery’s South Central USA Regional Programming Contest on November 8, solving seven out of 13 problems. Their team, the pi-rates, placed 4th among the 20 teams in the South Central USA Division. They participated in the competition at the University of Texas at Austin site, but were in competition with teams at other sites throughout the South Central USA Region. Teams in the Mid-Atlantic USA Region and Southeast USA Region competed on the same day, and across the entire conference, the pi-rates placed 17th out of 94 teams. The team was coached by Associate Professor of Computer Science Jacob Schrum.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone presented on Charles S. Belford, an early local builder, for the Preservation Georgetown Fall Lecture series.

Head of Distinctive Collections and Archives Megan Firestone presented on Distinctive Collections and materials related to Georgetown that are held in the collection to the Rotary Club.

Assistant Professor of Physics Cody Crosby co-authored “Dynamic Regulation of Granular Hydrogels Through Guest-Host Interactions to Spatiotemporally Guide Cellular Migration” in the journal Advanced Science (IF = 14.1), along with several postdoctoral scholars and graduate students in the Burdick Lab at the University of Colorado–Boulder. The manuscript represents work undertaken during his pre-tenure sabbatical and demonstrates that printing granular hydrogels in particulate suspension paths can create a dynamic environment that can regulate cell migration. The work can be found, open access, at this link.

Assistant Professor of English Sonia Del Hierro presented a paper titled “Aesthetics in the flesh: Las Brown Berets and Chicana Resistencia” at the 11th Annual El Mundo Zurdo conference, hosted by Trinity University in San Antonio from November 6–8. This year’s theme was “Hope Sin Fronteras: Reclaiming Fluidity, Empowering Communities, and Enacting Resistance.”

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol and her colleague Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi published their article, titled “A collaborative and comprehensive model of professional support for implementing interactive writing in preschool,” in the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. The research report explored professional support and instructional coaching for the implementation of writing instruction in early elementary. The abstract can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Education Marilyn Nicol attended the annual national conference of the Association for Literacy Education and Research, where she presented preliminary findings from her current research study, titled “Teaching with Multicultural Literature during Troubled Times: A Community Engaged Learning Project.” She also hosted the inaugural fireside chat for the Teacher Education and Professional Learning special interest group with her colleague Bethanie Pletcher of Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. They discussed their publication, titled “Reclaiming the Pen: An Exploration of Interactive Writing in the Primary Grades.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History Rachel Daphne Weiss published “Delineations: Jan Hackaert’s Graphic Geognosy” in Art History. It can be read here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson and her Summer 2025 SURF students presented their findings at the 13th Race, Ethnicity and Place conference in Albuquerque, NM from November 5–7. Their panel was titled “Race, Gender, Slavery and Freedom in Everyday Life on the British coast of Central America, 1750-1830.” Dr. Johnson and three students presented their papers: anthropology and feminist studies double major Dina Gaxiola ’28 presented “The Case of Jane Trapp: Race, Gender, Slavery and Freedom in Early British Central America,” psychology and sociology double major Sophia Hernandez ’28 presented “From Enslavement to Influence; Gendered Agency, Racial Boundaries, and the Story of Ariadne Broaster,” Dr. Johnson presented “Living across lines of freedom in the early history of Belize: The origins of the Bonner family,” and biology and environmental studies double major Shae Whitney ’28 presented “Maria Middleton – Slave, Criminal, Transported Convict: Understanding Gender, Race and Freedom across the British Colonial World.” The students may have been the only undergraduates presenting papers at this conference. The papers were well received, with one audience member sharing that this was the most interesting panel they had attended.

Professor Emerita of English Helene Meyers published “Wrestling with Jewish Shame: a Review of Sarah Hurwitz’s As a Jew” in The Revealer. It can be read here.

Associate Professor of Music Jason Hoogerhyde’s new work for alto saxophone, Hollow, received its premiere performance at the College Music Society’s National Annual Conference in Spokane, WA, on October 31. The work explores the wide range of the instrument, motivically employing large melodic intervals across that range.

Associate Professor of Theatre Kerry Bechtel designed the costumes for A Charlie Brown Christmas at Zach Theater in downtown Austin. This musical is based upon the classic Peanuts family favorite and is a wonderful holiday event for the whole family. The production runs from November 7 through the end of the year. Tickets can be obtained here.

Theatre alumna Olivia Rose McCain ’22 was awarded a 2025 B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Hair and Makeup Design for her work on MotherTree at the VORTEX Repertory in Austin. Olivia is an actor, designer, and entrepreneur with a successful podcast called Gals & Goblins.

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Applied Music Katherine Altobello ’99 was a mezzo-soprano soloist in Mozart’s beloved “Requiem KV 626,” presented by the Texas Bach Festival, under the direction of Dr. Barry Scott Williamson, on June 29 at First United Methodist Church in Georgetown. Ms. Altobello performed the iconic quartet “Recordare” alongside soprano Jenny Houghton, tenor Dr. Jeffrey Jones-Regona, and baritone Dr. Tim O’Brien. The entire work can be heard here.

Professor of Communication Studies Bob Bednar presented an invited lecture titled “Remembering Jessie Daniel Ames: A Legacy of Social Activism Connecting Southwestern and Georgetown,” as part of the Preservation Georgetown Lecture Series, on October 15.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Adriana Ponce published her critical literature review on U.S. stepfamilies in the Journal of Sociology Compass. The article, “A Literature Review of U.S. Stepfamilies: Directions Toward an Intersectional, Feminist Understanding of Lived Experiences Centered on Social Justice Praxis,” is part of a special issue centering on intersectionality, titled “Beyond Boundaries: Reviewing the Multifaceted Dimensions of Intersectionality,” and identifies a glaring gap and directions for new knowledge creation centered on community engagement. The article can be read here.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed by J Life: Heart of New Jersey, on the topic of rising antisemitism in academic environments. The interview can be read here.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon published a peer-reviewed article, titled “Tejano Drag Kings: Reclaiming Space, Place, and Culture Through Performance,” in WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly, a top feminist studies journal. This article theorizes Tejano drag king performance as a critical source of resistance to state repression and cisheteronormative cultural standards. While drag kings in general, and Latino drag kings in particular, remain marginalized subjects in popular drag discourse, this article spotlights the work of Tejano drag kings and theorizes how their embodied performance and parody of masculinity serves as a vessel for feminist worldmaking. The article can be accessed here.

Assistant Professor of Sociology Amanda Hernandez served as an invited panelist on an “Author Meets Critics” panel at the Sociology for the Scientific Study of Religion annual meeting in Minneapolis on October 31. The book, “Faith & The Fragility of Justice: Responses to Gender-Based Violence in South Africa,” by Meredith Whitnah is an exploration of non-governmental organization responses to gender-based violence in post-apartheid South Africa. Amanda’s comments focused on the author’s call to use intersectional frameworks in the sociological study of religion and the use of creative and innovative methodologies to do this work.

As part of his Publicly Engaged Humanities project, Professor of English Michael Saenger was interviewed by KVUE Midday News Anchor Jenni Lee on the topic of rising antisemitism in academic life, and the need to support civil discourse around controversial issues. The interview can be seen here.

Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson participated in the Kulcha 2025 symposium, hosted by the Heritage Education Network Belize, from October 29–31. She presented “Early Belizean Social History: The case of the Crawford family” on October 29. The presentation can be accessed here at 4:54 (4 hours, 54 minutes); the live Q and A starts about 30 minutes later.

Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies Meagan Solomon, alongside her Mellon Publicly-Engaged Humanities (PEH) Research Assistant Mia Santoscoy ’26, attended the 2025 Lesbian Lives conference in New York City from October 24–26. They presented on a roundtable titled “Latina/e Lesbian Archival Praxis and Memory Work: A Plática/Roda de Conversa with Malflora Collective,” which included seven members of the Latina/e lesbian collective co-founded by Dr. Solomon with support from the Mellon PEH grant. In the roundtable, Malflora Collective members discussed the non-traditional and community-based archival practices that Latina/e lesbians engage in, arguing that their memory work is rooted in collectivity, lived experience, and cultural reclamation as a form of decolonial praxis. Together, they highlighted how noninstitutional archives and digital memory projects like Malflora Collective are crucial for preserving the stories of marginalized communities and fostering transnational solidarity in the face of cultural and political oppression.

Professor of English Michael Saenger was an invited speaker on the topic of “Academic Engagement Network’s efforts to confront antisemitism and support and protect Jews and Zionists in academic spaces” at the Jewish National Fund’s annual conference in Hollywood, FL from October 23–26.

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Zinhle ka’Nobuhlaluse was invited to comment on Hannah Bacon’s paper, “A Critical Phenomenology of Carceral Time,” presented at the 63rd annual Society for Phenomenology Existential Philosophy Conference. This year’s conference was held online over two weekends, October 17–18 and 24–25.

Professor of Psychology Fay Guarraci and psychology alumnus Ian Klepcyk ’24 collaborated with colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin to finally complete a four year long project that was accepted for publication in Hormones and Behavior, titled “Chronic periadolescent leuprolide exposure affects the expression of multiple genes in the hypothalamus and pituitary gland with a different pattern of expression in female and male Long-Evans rats.” This project is one of the first studies to investigate changes in the brain associated with exposure to puberty blockers for a prolonged period of time in an animal model.