Erica Kiduko self-secured an internship with the Global Peace Foundation to connect and enhance the research in her thesis with a hands-on summer internship.

Erica Kiduko ��’25, who grew up in Tanzania, decided to use her 2023-24 to help further her research and promote education around gender-based violence through a nonprofit in the country.

Kiduko, who is pursuing a master’s degree in Pan-African studies in the , was doing her thesis research on the status of women in Tanzania and a National Plan of Action to help prevent violence against women when she decided to expand her work through a Clements Internship.

“I was working on a project that is my passion, and I applied for an internship that captured my goals and my passions,” Kiduko says.

The Mark and Pearle Clements Internship Awards are now open for juniors, seniors and graduate students of any major who seek to further their career development through undertaking self-obtained unique internship opportunities. The award provides students with financial assistance to help in the pursuit of their unique professional goals.

The award typically provides students with $1,500-$6,000 to assist with internship-related travel, accommodations, required materials or living expenses.

Erica Kiduko

Kiduko was working on a thesis titled “Reckoning an Icon: Exploring Scholarship and Activism of [Kenyan professor] Mĩcere Gĩthae Mũgo,” where she explored the ongoing imbalance women in Tanzania face and why, despite the implementation of the National Plan of Action, many women were still experiencing physical violence.

The action plan focuses on protecting the rights of women and girls, preventing such violent acts from occurring in the future and providing relief to help violence victims recover, but Kiduko says many of the citizens are unaware of the plan and many of the laws in place to protect these girls and women aren’t strict enough.

Wanting to connect and enhance the research in her thesis with a hands-on summer internship, Kiduko turned to the Clements Internship Award to study the effectiveness of the National Plan of Action through a self-secured internship with the Global Peace Foundation, which was one of the organizations involved in launching the National Plan of Action.

As a program officer, Kiduko worked on the Global Peace Foundation’s Uniting to End Violence Against Women in Football [soccer] initiative, which focused on both resolving issues of gender-based violence in women’s soccer and changing the societal norms and behaviors that often prevent victims of violence from reporting these incidents.��Kiduko worked with soccer players ages 16 to 25.

“The initiative was trying to promote women’s empowerment by preventing gender-based violence while creating a safe environment for everyone to play their sport,” Kiduko says.

Kiduko helped run workshops where she and her fellow program officers would provide consultations to determine how much they understood about the prevalence and risks of violence while also equipping them with the knowledge of how to proceed should they witness an attack. One of the culminating projects was the release of an app where the players could anonymously report incidents of violence, whether they were the victims or the witnesses to an attack.

Erica Kiduko (back row, third from the left) turned to the Clements Internship Award to study the effectiveness of Tanzania’s National Plan of Action to help prevent violence against women through a self-secured internship with the Global Peace Foundation.

“It can be really hard for these players to report these incidents. Soccer could be their entire life and they’re afraid of being taken off the team for reporting an attack,” Kiduko says.

How will Kiduko apply the critical lessons learned through her internship and apply them to her work once she graduates from Syracuse University?

“Once I graduate, I still plan on exploring this community-driven approach to solving the important issue of gender violence. Now, I can conceptualize the different types of activism, from political and humanitarian activism, and I’m so grateful to have received the Clements Internship Award,” Kiduko says.

Applying for the 2024-25 Mark and Pearle Clements Internship Award

This year’s application process closes on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. In addition to being responsible for self-securing internships, students interested in applying are also required to include their internship proposal, including outlining the purpose and goals of the internship and how this relates to their educational and career objectives. Interested students also need to secure a faculty or staff sponsor letter by the application deadline. Visit the for complete details.

Eva Legge has been named a Mollie Beattie Visiting Scholar by the Society of American Foresters and was also awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. (Photo courtesy of Eva Legge)

Legge will receive a $10,000 scholarship to pursue her research on the role mycorrhizae play in boosting forest resilience. Mycorrhizae are fungi that grow on the roots of trees and plants and provide mutual benefits. As a Mollie Beattie Visiting Scholar, she will gain valuable professional development and networking opportunities. In addition to connecting with SAF members across the country, she can also submit her research to an SAF journal and collaborate with staff and partners at the SAF headquarters in Washington, D.C.

This latest award comes on the heels of Legge winning a����from the National Science Foundation over the summer. Like the Mollie Beattie award, the NSF fellowship includes a stipend and access to professional development opportunities. According to the NSF program, its mission is to “help ensure the quality, vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States.”

Legge is part of A&S biology professor����Mycorrhizal Ecology Lab and SUNY ESF Professor����Applied Forest and Fire Ecology Lab. As a member of these teams, she studies how climate-adaptive forest management, such as timber harvest, assisted tree migration and prescribed fire, affects the symbiotic relationship between fungi and forests. Their goal is to devise strategies to safeguard these crucial yet delicate symbioses, ultimately aiding in the development of effective forest management practices.

“Climate change will likely add to the many stressors facing eastern U.S. forests. However, the positive benefits of fungal partnerships with tree roots can, in certain contexts, increase a forest’s stress tolerance,” Legge said in an��.

With this funding, she will continue her research exploring the connection between forest management, mycorrhizal symbioses and seedling success. She hopes to improve management practices and maximize the advantages mycorrhizae offer to “future-adapted” seedlings, thereby enhancing the resilience of America’s forests.

Eva Legge (second from left) and her team have been conducting their latest field research in Huntington Forest, located in the Adirondacks. (Photo courtesy of Eva Legge)

“Eva is an exceptionally driven graduate student motivated by addressing critical knowledge gaps in forest ecosystem resilience to global change,” says Fernandez. “Her research focuses on the crucial role of belowground dynamics in forest resilience, bridging fundamental ecological research with applied forest management. Her multidisciplinary approach promises to advance both basic scientific understanding and sustainable land management practices in a changing world. I am thrilled to see her outstanding work recognized with these prestigious awards.”

Learn more about the�����Ի���.

Science festivals offer a platform for researchers to demystify complex scientific phenomena and help the public better understand the relevance and importance of their work. By making science accessible to broader audiences, it can also inspire future scientists to pursue careers in STEM.

Syracuse University postdoctoral researcher Graeme Eddolls (left) and his collaborator Andrew Spencer (right) presenting their research on gravitational waves during the Orkney International Science Festival.

Graeme Eddolls, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) who works with the (CGWAA), recently attended the in Scotland. The festival regularly draws prominent scientists, historians and experts who share their research with the public in approachable ways. Notably, when it was founded in 1991, it was the world’s second ever science festival, following the renowned Edinburgh Science Festival, which was established in 1989. Eddolls and his collaborators, Andrew Spencer, a lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and Leon Trimble, an audiovisual artist and honorary research associate at the University of Birmingham, presented their “Swimming with Gravitational Waves” project, which includes creative and interactive experiences that connect water, sound and gravitational waves. During the week, they also showcased their “Music of Deep Time” project and hosted booths at an Orkney Festival family event as well as a workshop at Kirkwall Grammar School.

About the Project

Leon Trimble performing at the Swimming with Gravitational Waves event.

To a general audience, the concept of gravitational waves may seem complex and challenging to understand. However, as Eddolls explains, gravitational waves follow similar physics principles as those we observe in everyday phenomena like light, water and sound waves.

Gravitational waves are produced in the aftermath of some of the most energetic processes in the universe, like when black holes or neutron stars collide. These events produce ‘ripples’ in spacetime, a concept which was first predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity. By the time these signals reach Earth, they are extremely faint. To detect them, researchers measure laser interference using detectors known as laser interferometers.

When a gravitational wave passes through a detector, it alters the distance that laser light travels along the detector’s two arms, changing their interference pattern. This technology, used by some of the most advanced detectors like the (LIGO) in the U.S., helped scientists make the first direct observation of gravitational waves in 2015, a monumental discovery made by an international team of physicists, including several researchers from Syracuse.

Eddolls points out that a fascinating aspect of gravitational waves is that their vibration frequencies fall within the range of human hearing.

The team brought their rubber spacetime demonstrator to the cliffs of Orkney to capture a scenic photo during the festival.

“While we can’t directly hear gravitational waves with our ears, we can take the signal from our detectors and turn it into sound,” he says. “You can actually to the converted signal of the first ever gravitational wave detection.”

Participants enter a swimming pool, where they can hear sound waves through speakers positioned above and below the water. This setup creates a unique auditory experience, mimicking how gravitational waves are produced everywhere in the universe. Furthermore, by swimming in the pool, participants can experience water waves through sight which gives the audience a good physical intuition of what waves are, how waves move and how waves interfere when they pass through each other.

Doctoral student Cijun Zhang explains his research to BioInspired Symposium attendees. Zhang studies in the Xiaoran Hu functional organic materials lab.

The event featured poster presentations by 79 undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Several researchers presented “lightning talks” on topics such as how and how the human body reacts; fabricating and creating and new technologies to address��problems from clean energy to robotics to medicine. Guest speakers from several universities made special presentations. Awards were presented to recognize researchers in multiple ways.

Three recipients were chosen in the Best Overall Poster category:

• ’25, a dual mathematics and physics major in the (A&S), for “.” (Principal investigators are , physics professor, and Antun Skanata, research assistant professor of physics.)
• , a doctoral student in physics in A&S, for “.” (Principal investigator is , William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics.)
• , an M.D./Ph.D. student in cell and developmental biology at SUNY Upstate Medical University, for “.” (Principal investigator is , associate research professor of biology.)

Two presenters were recognized as Stevenson Biomaterials Poster Award winners:

• , a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in the (ECS), for her work on “.” (Principal investigator is , associate professor of .)
• G’21, a mechanical and aerospace engineering doctoral student in ECS, for “.” (Principal investigator is , associate professor of .)

Two researchers received awards recognizing Best Lightning Talks:

• , a doctoral student in chemistry in A&S, whose topic was “.” Her work involves testing to find an improved diagnostic biomarker��for prostate and other cancers. (Principal investigator is , professor and director of biochemistry.)
• , a doctoral student in biomedical and chemical engineering in ECS, for her research on bone tissue, described in “.”(Principal investigator is , professor of biomedical and chemical engineering.)

A project by , “,” was recognized as having the best commercialization potential. Can is a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in ECS. (Principal investigator is Mary Beth Monroe.)

Receiving honors for her “social impact” initiative was , G ‘22, an assistant teaching professor in the , for her work, “ The project explored an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University’s Departments of Chemistry and Architecture that aimed to foster societal impact through sustainable innovation in architectural materials.��(Her collaborator was , associate professor of chemistry in A&S.)

Winston Oluwole Soboyejo, SUNY Polytechnic Institute President, asks Alexia Chatzitheodorou, a graduate research assistant, about her work on “Shape Morphing of Twisted Nematic Elastomer Shells.” Soboyejo was one of several university representatives to speak at the symposium.

Winner of the People’s Choice Award was , a biomedical and chemical engineering doctoral student in ECS. His project, “”

His research examines how hemostatic materials with antibacterial and antibiofilm properties can reduce infection rates and enhance the healing of traumatic wounds. (Principal investigator is Mary Beth Monroe.)

Best Publication Awards went to:

• G’22, a graduate of the applied data science program who is now a doctoral student in bioengineering and biomedical engineering in ECS. He is exploring the use of hiPSC-CMs to study and understand cardiomyocyte biology through biology with artificial intelligence. His paper, “,” published in Cell Reports Methods in June, presented new methods for investigating the physiological functioning of cardiac organoids using machine learning algorithms.

• , a doctoral student in bioengineering at ECS, studies wound healing and tissue regeneration. His paper, “,” was published in the journal ACS Applied Biomaterials in February.
• , a doctoral student in bioengineering at ECS, received an honorable mention. His paper, “” was published in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering in June.

LGBTQ History Month was created in 1994 by Rodney Wilson, a high school history teacher in Missouri. In 1995, a resolution passed by the General Assembly of the National Education Association included LGBTQ History Month within a list of commemorative months. October was selected to coincide with National Coming Out Day (Oct. 11), which was already established, and the anniversary of the first march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights in 1979.

LGBTQ+ History Month provides an opportunity for the campus community to learn more about and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of LGBTQIA+ communities.

LGBTQ+ History Month provides an opportunity for the campus community to learn more about and celebrate the history, culture and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities through a host of educational events, social events and discussions. With planning led by the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the month supports the ongoing efforts of the center to raise awareness and offer support to queer and trans students, staff and faculty and promote a sense of belonging and inclusion on campus and beyond.

“We invite the entire Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry community to participate in the schedule of events planned to honor LGBTQ+ History Month,” says Emily Stewart, director of the LGBTQ+ Resource Center. “At the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, we are committed to celebrating queer and trans individuals and their many intersecting identities throughout the year. There’s historical pride in holding space for these communities.”

Among the activities is the featuring Jackie Cox, from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 12, and local queens, Twigs Von’Du and Aria Vee. Student hosts Tommy DaSilva and Tati Nelums will moderate a panel to discuss the history and importance of drag in today’s climate and open up questions to the audience. The event will be held Oct. 18 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Underground, Schine Student Center. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. RSVPs will get priority over day-of event walk-ins. .

Other events include the following:

• Friday, Oct. 11, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.:
• Friday, Oct. 11, 1-2:30 p.m.:
• Tuesday, Oct. 22, 6-8:30 p.m.:
• Thursday, Oct. 24, 6-8 p.m.:
• Saturday, Oct. 26, 8-10:30 p.m.:
• Tuesday, Oct. 29, 4-5 p.m.:

The and the co-hosted the annual appreciation dinner to celebrate the postdoctoral community and to celebrate the scholars with their guests, faculty mentors and University leaders and staff. The evening included recognition of three postdoctoral scholars as the first recipients of the new Vice President for Research’s Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work.

“The dinner is meant to express appreciation for and highlight the important contributions postdoctoral scholars make to Syracuse University’s research and creative activities,” says , associate director of postdoctoral affairs. “The event provides an opportunity for our postdoctoral scholars and their family, friends,�� mentors and collaborators to applaud these contributions and to socialize.”

, vice president for research, says postdoctoral scholars are essential to the University’s research and creative mission. “Postdocs are critical to the success of the University. As they grow their own skills, they contribute intellectual vigor to their fields and enrich the experiences of our undergraduate and graduate students through their mentoring. As faculty, we rely on our postdocs in many ways. This event and the new awards provide a way for us to show our appreciation for people who are key members of our research teams.”

The recipients of the Vice President for Research’s Postdoctoral Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Work were chosen based on the outstanding quality and impacts of their research and creative activity. Winners received awards of $750 and presented summaries of their work to dinner attendees. They are:

• , a researcher in the in the
• , who works in the in the College of Arts and Sciences
• , a scholar in the in the

Duncan Brown, far left, vice president for research, congratulates the winners of the new postdoctoral recognition award. From left are David Fastovich, Dustin Hill and Kyung Eun Kim.

Kim’s research predicts the structure and mechanics of biological tissue and its composition and outer shell using computational and analytical modeling techniques. She works with , professor of physics, to examine the mechanical response and changes cells undergo when the tissues are compressed. The research pertains to a trait that is a hallmark of inflammatory disease in the body. She is also studying how tissue compression affects other disease conditions. Her research has applications in developmental biology, cancer research and tissue engineering.

Fastovich works with faculty mentor , Thonis Family Professor of Paleoclimate Dynamics and assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences. He studies Earth’s past climate to understand current climate changes, predict future rainfall changes from climate warming, determine what mechanisms affect climate changes and assess the impacts on biological systems over time and geographies. The work helps provide an understanding of how climate and ecosystems interact, knowledge that is crucial to preparing nature and human society for worldwide changes as the planet continues to warm.

Hill is an environmental epidemiologist ���Ի���data scientist who studies environmental inequality, pollution and human health. He has worked with the and , Falk professor and public health department chair, since 2021. Hill has provided advanced statistical modeling of wastewater data, surveyed local health departments on data use and mapped disease spread based on social equity. He is now using wastewater surveillance data for viral pathogens to create statistical models to predict future disease spread. He also works with co-mentor and Falk professor , Falk Family Endowed Professor of Public Health, on the child health impacts of exposure to industrial air pollution in Syracuse.

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, which is part of the Office of Research, was formed last fall. It provides centralized resources and dedicated staff to serve the interests and well-being of postdoctoral scholars across the University. The office supports postdoctoral professional and career development in close collaboration with the�� and other campus partners. The office also collaborates with staff across the University to facilitate administrative processes related to hiring and onboarding postdocs. The launch of the new office is intended to uphold the University’s commitment to a quality campus experience and positive career outcomes for postdoctoral scholars while advancing the University’s research and creative mission.

It’s the first partnership of this kind between an American college or university and a Japanese professional sports team. As part of this agreement, sport analytics students and faculty will work in different capacities with students and faculty from , which is located on the Japanese island of Kyushu.

Kumamoto Basketball Co., Ltd., President and Chief Executive Officer Satoshi Yunoue says partnering with Syracuse’s prestigious sport analytics program will improve the team’s performance as it seeks to move from the Japanese B.League’s B2 league to the B1 league. The Volters open their season on Oct. 7.

“In recent years, the importance of data has been gaining attention, and we are confident that together with Kumamoto University, (Syracuse) will support us in the analytics portion and contribute to improving our winning percentage as we accumulate know-how in data analysis,” Yunoue said in a statement on the team’s website that was translated into English.

“We are excited to be able to work with Syracuse University, which is leading the way in data analysis in the field of basketball in the United States,” Yunoue added.

The Falk College’s partnership with Kumamoto is the next phase for sport analytics students, who already provide data analysis for 11 of Syracuse’s athletic teams. In this photo, sport analytics major Dan Griffiths reviews performance data with track and field student-athlete Elizabeth Bigelow.

In serving as the Volters’ de facto analytics department, seven undergraduate and graduate students in sport management will remotely collect and analyze a variety of data, including player performance statistics, live game video, information from wearables that track performance data, and business and operations data.

“We are honored and excited about the partnership between Kumamoto University and Syracuse University Sport Analytics,” says Sport Analytics Undergraduate Director and Professor . “We look forward to providing statistical insights, building visualizations and models, and doing everything we can to help with the success of the Volters as we build what we hope to be a lasting collaboration with our wonderful partners at both Kumamoto University and the Volters.”

Under Paul’s leadership, sport analytics students have captured back-to-back National Sport Analytics Championships, and they have won numerous player and team analytics competitions in basketball, football and baseball. About 70 students are providing data collection and analysis for 11 of Syracuse University’s athletic teams, and other partnerships such as the one with Kumamoto are in the works both nationally and globally.

Previously, the Volters utilized staff members to analyze data on a limited basis. In addition to analyzing the Volters’ data, the Syracuse students will help analyze data from opposing teams, and the collaboration with Syracuse and Kumamoto University will help the Volters build their own data analysis team.

“We would like to use the Volters as a hub to connect university students in Kumamoto and America,” Yunoue says. “We are grateful for this connection, and we will become a team and work together as colleagues working toward this goal.”

Paul says this partnership speaks to the uniqueness of the sport analytics program because Syracuse students will apply the skills they’re learning in the classroom to a variety of areas for the Volters that will benefit from data analysis.

“This is the next step in the evolution of our program where our students are working in a practical laboratory with a professional team in another country and all that goes with it,” Paul says. “These are the ways they can show off their skills, and with the different time zones they can wake up in the morning and see the score of the game and the results of what they did.”

The OVMA created this award to remove barriers that often prevent student veterans from accessing internships, one of the most effective pathways to post-graduation employment. The award, which is needs-based, covers the cost of one internship credit hour, travel and living expenses, or both, with a maximum award of $5,000 per student. It’s part of the ongoing efforts by Syracuse University to support student veterans and ensure their success in the job market.

“Student veterans often face the difficult choice between pursuing full-time summer studies or finding seasonal work to meet their financial needs,” says Jennifer Pluta, director of Veterans Career Services with the OVMA. “It’s challenging to focus on securing internships when financial concerns are pressing. Since its launch, the Internship Award has successfully helped 24 of our student veterans gain valuable job experience, giving them a significant advantage in the job market.”

According to the University’s , more than 650,000 veterans nationwide are currently pursuing higher education, often with one primary goal in mind: finding employment afterward. While veterans highlight finding employment after their military transition as a top priority, connecting with employers can sometimes be challenging. Initiatives like the OVMA’s Internship Award are crucial in bridging this gap, providing student veterans with opportunities to gain practical experience and build networks that will support their career goals.

At Syracuse, students across all schools, colleges and degree levels have access to resources that help them find and secure internships in their chosen fields. However, student veterans, who often juggle complex schedules, family commitments and financial responsibilities, can find it particularly challenging to participate in internships. The OVMA’s Internship Award helps alleviate these challenges by providing financial support, enabling student veterans to focus on gaining valuable professional experience without the added burden of financial strain.

“Since its start, the internship award program has grown tremendously, providing invaluable opportunities for our student veterans to gain real-world experience and advance their careers,” says Ron Novack, OVMA’s executive director. “We are committed to expanding this program even further, reaching more student veterans and building strong partnerships with organizations that recognize and value the exceptional skills and dedication that veterans bring to the workforce.”

This year, military-connected students secured internships across a diverse range of industries, with many gaining experience in government agencies and tech companies. From working on policy initiatives and supporting service members through government roles to contributing to innovative projects in the tech sector, these students gained invaluable experience that will serve them well in their future careers.

Read more about three of the recipients and their unique experiences below.

Laurie N. Coffey ��’25, U.S. Navy Veteran

Laurie Coffey

Laurie N. Coffey, a U.S. Navy veteran with over 20 years of service, is now a second-year law student in the . This summer, she interned with the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office, where she gained valuable experience in public service law. Unlike the previous summer, when financial demands led her to take a highly paid corporate internship, this year was different.

“Receiving the scholarship allowed me to take a position that was unpaid and in public service,” Coffey says. “Having a family, mortgage, and going to school has financial demands that pushed me into a highly paid corporate internship last summer. The scholarship allowed me to pursue something more aligned with my passions and hopes to work in the advocacy arena.”

Curtis Cline ’25, U.S. Army Veteran

Curtis Cline

Curtis Cline, a senior majoring in aerospace engineering at the , is a U.S. Army veteran who completed three combat tours. During his service, he held such roles as crew chief, overhaul maintenance technician and downed aircraft recovery program manager. This summer, he interned at the Griffiss Institute, where he immersed himself in collaborative aerospace research.

“A lesson I gained during my internship is the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration. Working alongside experts in various fields, I learned how to effectively communicate complex ideas, integrate diverse perspectives and contribute to a collaborative research environment,” Cline says. “This experience has equipped me with enhanced problem-solving skills and a deeper understanding of how different disciplines converge in aerospace research.”

Marriler Wilson ��’25, U.S. Air Force Veteran

Marriler Wilson

Marriler Wilson is a graduate student in the , pursuing a master’s in public administration and international relations.�� Willson served in the Air Force National Guard, focusing on security forces and base defense, while also serving as a traffic enforcer with the New York Police Department. This summer, Wilson interned at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in the Office of Congressional Public Affairs.

“One particularly memorable experience occurred on the second day of my internship when I had the unique opportunity to visit Capitol Hill. I observed a general counsel from my congressional and public affairs unit articulate the significance of MCC’s work,” says Wilson. “The counsel eloquently explained how MCC’s mission aligns with the interests of both political parties and how the corporation’s initiatives serve as a vital conduit for international cooperation and development.”

The OVMA Internship Award application period is open from September to May 31. For more details and to apply, visit . For more details about the award, reach out to Jennifer Pluta at jrpluta@syr.edu.

Story by Lissette Caceres

Van Skoik and Jiang created “Cyberguard,” an anti-cyberbullying model, for their final project in the School of Education’s IDE 632: Instructional Design and Development II course. This course requires students to develop an instructional design model and appropriate accompanying implementation documentation.

Particularly Vulnerable

Van Skoik’s and Jiang’s model proposes a process for educational institutions to follow that should help to reduce the number of cyberbullying incidents. Currently, it is under review with , with hopes to be published soon in the higher education technology journal and presented at its annual conference in November.

Having taught middle school for six years, and later working as an instructional technology specialist for a school district in South Carolina, Van Skoik saw both the effects of student cyberbullying play out daily in his classroom and how his district tracked students’ use of school-issued computers. His firsthand experience sparked the idea for the model.

“I think middle schoolers are particularly vulnerable as far as emotional intelligence, behavior modification and behavior management are concerned,” says Van Skoik, who believes the model’s interventions implemented at this age would help students learn as they grow. “Then by the time they’re in high school, which this data is from, there would be a reduction in cyberbullying cases.”

The pair used the (NYSED SSEC) incident data to identify the state high school with the highest number of self-reported cyberbullying cases in the state. That school—which the pair are not disclosing—was then used as the focus of their model. The school reported 39 cyberbullying incidents over the 2021-22 school year, which the pair says is a high figure compared to other schools’ average of 0.67 incidents per school.

Based on this data, the pair devised their model as steps school districts can follow to reduce incidents. The model, they say, acts as a positive feedback loop by raising awareness, identifying cyberbullying and preventing further cases. “The point of the model is the awareness of what cyberbullying is,” stresses Van Skoik, who says by bringing the issue to students’ attention, attitudes can be changed and good behavior reinforced as the process is evaluated each school quarter.

When Both Worlds Meet

found that teens use six cyberbullying behaviors: offensive name-calling (most reported), spreading false rumors, receiving explicit images, physical threats, harassment and having explicit images of them shared without their consent.

Online anonymity, 24/7 connectivity, lack of supervision and digital footprints—traces of online activity that can be used to provoke cyberbulling—are among the causes of electronic aggression that the pair identified. “If we can address those potential causes, J.J. and I believe the cases will come down,” Van Skoik says.

Regarding online anonymity, too often people can hide behind a screen, creating a persona that often says or does things a person would never do if face to face. “This model eliminates that possibility,” Van Skoik says. “It has to bridge the gap because the educational training program is the only thing that can happen when both worlds meet.” The model brings these two worlds—digital and real—together by emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach that combines data-driven interventions, educational training programs, and repetitive assessment.

The pair suggest interventions take place in both the digital and real worlds. First, they recommend schools develop an automatic monitoring system by installing software on devices the school loans out.

They note that monitoring is helpful to the entire school community and not only to students because teacher and administrator computers can be monitored to identify any incidents among staff as well. According to the Pew survey, three in 10 teens say school districts monitoring students’ social media activity for bullying or harassment would help.

Software can record and report suspected incidents of cyberbullying, and Jiang suggests AI also could be used in the monitoring program. “A lot of students hide bullying action in the cyberworld,” she says. “AI can recognize and also learn how to make a decision about if there is a risk of cyberbullying or not.”

For in-person intervention, the pair recommends schools collect feedback from students, staff and parents at the beginning of the school year to have a baseline assessment. This can include mental health evaluations when recommended.

Next, an educational training should be implemented during teachers’ professional development sessions, as well as for students and parents. Finally, an avenue to allow staff, students and parents to report incidents of cyberbullying should be created, and all interventions should be reviewed quarterly to track incidents, to see if there is progress or if the process needs to be refined.

Why We’re Not Learning

Both Van Skoik and Jiang strongly believe that in addition to use of monitoring software, schools must provide training and education about online social behavior. “School’s goal is to learn, that’s why we’re in this environment,” says Van Skoik, who often saw cyberbullying interrupt lessons in his classroom. “So, if we can’t learn, we have to find out why we’re not learning.”

Today, he says, society—and schools—are impacted by so many devices causing distractions, and in some cases, harm.

The educational training that the pair recommends can be offered in multiple ways, such as an online training, in-person session or a mixture of both. “The ultimate goal is for the educational training program to address the issue that there is a cyberbullying concern at the school, and—I think—it’s another way to create awareness,” Van Skoik says.

A final goal of Cyberguard is to create a culture of reporting online harassment. While software can help to identify suspected incidents—based on keywords, for example—avenues for self-reporting can also be implemented, either by having students, staff and parents complete a Google form or by encouraging students to raise concerns to guidance counselors and school staff.

“I hope this model can improve everyone’s awareness and help them develop skills on how to report cyberbullying,” Jiang says.

Ultimately, the Cyberguard model serves as a template for schools and, Jiang says, it will evolve after initial implementation. “In the first year, formative evaluations will be conducted every quarter to test our objective,” she says. If incidents of cyberbullying decline, the objective is met.

In year two, objectives can change, with a goal of seeing greater declines. Across years three to five, the pair will evaluate the model’s effectiveness by comparing the number of cases each year, hoping to see a stark decline.

“Our theory is that the prevalence of cyberbullying results from a lack of awareness, education and training,” Van Skoik say. “This is what instructional design tells us—it comes from a lack of knowledge, skills and attitudes.”

Story by Ashley Kang ’04, G’11 (a proud alumna of the M.S. in higher education program)

Nomar Diaz ��’25 combined a months-long internship as a systems analyst for ML Systems Integrator Pte Ltd. in Singapore with Syracuse Abroad’s 18-day program. In addition to his time in Singapore, he visited tech innovation firms in seven countries and business and cultural centers in 10 cities.

Diaz, who is pursuing concurrent master’s degree programs in information systems and applied data science at the , is open to a career in another country. He’d like to do sales engineering or be a solutions engineer at a computing solutions or information consulting firm in the United Kingdom, Singapore or Spain. As a former global ambassador for Syracuse Abroad, Diaz tells students not to second-guess their interest in studying abroad. “If you feel the hunch, just go for it,” he says. “You won’t regret it.”

While studying abroad, Nomar Diaz (front left, in the black shirt) and a group of fellow graduate students visited a landmark on the waterfront at Palau Uben, a small island in Singapore. (Photo courtesy of Nomar Diaz)

Bennie Guzman ��’25 is a master’s student studying art therapy in the , and he works full-time at La Casita Cultural Center. His goal is to be a licensed creative arts therapist. “My dream would be to connect what I’m doing here with international places that do similar work and expand our outreach beyond Syracuse,” Guzman says.

Guzman says the short-term Mexico’s History, Culture and Security program was exactly the right program for him. “Mexico is the place for Latin American art and indigenous studies. I wanted to see how international communities think about art, culture and community health and tie those things together,” says Guzman, whose experience helped him formulate his thesis on how Latino/Latin American communities use art and culture for community well-being.

M.B.A. student Jude Azai ��’25 used a summer abroad program to fine-tune his leadership capabilities in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. That interest developed during his bachelor’s degree program in pharmacy at the University of Jos in Nigeria and has continued throughout his work in business and healthcare.

The Business in East Asia program, which is offered by the Whitman School of Management, helped Azai with valuable insights into healthcare and broader leadership structure in countries such as Singapore. He wanted to understand how such nations become global powerhouses and learn how innovation and effective governance can drive economic growth. He also discovered that leadership is not overly complex. “Leadership is about creating the right vision, following through with openness and honesty and bringing people along. When leaders do this, miracles in nation-building can happen,” Azai says.

Whitman School of Management Students, including Jude Azai (far left), pose at the waterfall garden at Changi Airport in Singapore. (Photo courtesy of Jude Azai)

Krister Samuelson ��’25 is pursuing a master’s degree in information systems in the iSchool and sees a future as an analyst or security engineer in information security. His EuroTech experience provided quality time with like-minded people, he says. He attended the short-term program along with recent iSchool graduate Emmy Naw G’24. She says the program allowed her to engage with professionals in the field while seeing firsthand how business operations integrate technology. “I learned in real-world settings, broadened my understanding of global business strategies and enhanced my ability to think critically about how to apply technological solutions to complex business challenges,” Naw says.

This group of students, which includes graduate students Krister Samuelson and Emmy Naw, began the three-credit EuroTech course in Norway. They visited a number of tech companies located in 10 cities across seven countries in the two-and-a-half-week tour. (Photo at the Royal Palace in Oslo courtesy of Krister Samuelson)

public administration graduate student Troy Patrick ��’25 interned with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and participated in the Religion, Law and Human Rights in a Comparative Perspective program. He has studied peacebuilding and human rights and wants to work in the humanitarian field, perhaps one day at the United Nations secretariat, he says.

Patrick used the summer term to maximize his work experience. For his Council of Europe internship in the Department of Political Affairs and External Relations, he was assigned high-level tasks such as running meetings with international leaders and creating talking points for leader visits. The work provided real-world training and helped him better understand how religion, religiously affiliated states and religious groups impact how advocacy actions are formulated to deal with human rights and legal issues.

Learn More

Students can learn more about the University’s wide range of study abroad programs during Syracuse Abroad Week, which started Monday and runs through Sept. 20. They can also visit the Syracuse Abroad website at suabroad.syr.edu.

Managed by the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), the Bernard D. and Louise C. Rostker IVMF Dissertation Research Fund recently provided more than $40,000 to four students who are at varying stages of their dissertation pursuits. The Rostker IVMF Dissertation Research Fund operates annually for a span of five years. This marks the second cycle of funding dedicated to supporting Ph.D. candidates conducting dissertation research on topics related to and in support of veterans and military families.

The Rostkers have spent years of dedicated effort supporting military families. Bernard himself is a U.S. Army veteran, and Louise has a devoted history of supporting education for military children and expanding employment opportunities for military spouses. The pair met while pursuing their own advanced degrees at Syracuse University, and make the funding available to support those students who may face insurmountable barriers in their pursuit to obtain higher education just as they did in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“We both are so pleased with the program Syracuse University has established in our name,” says Bernard Rostker. “We know how demanding individual research can be, and we hoped that the support we could provide at a critical moment would have a positive impact. We look forward to the continued success of the program and the students it has helped.”

The four 2024 recipients are:

Mariah Brennan – Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

Mariah Brennan

Brennan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and a research associate with the IVMF. Her dissertation, “Post-9/11 Veterans: Gender Differences in Health, Stressors and Social Support During Reintegration,” examines health outcomes, reintegration stressors and social capital among veterans who recently separated from the military. Her work with the IVMF explores social determinants of health for veterans and veteran transition experiences. Prior to working at the IVMF, Brennan worked at the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health as a Lerner Fellow.

With support from the Rostker award, Brennan successfully defended her dissertation proposal this semester. “Being a Rostker Fellow has given me the opportunity to focus on my research in ways that would not be possible without this funding,” she says. “This fellowship has provided me with extra support and resources that have allowed me to participate in advanced methodological courses necessary for my research. This is a fantastic opportunity for any student who wants to do military or veteran research. I am incredibly grateful for the Rostkers’ support of my research on women veteran health after transitioning out of service.”

Rachel Linsner—David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics

Rachel Linsner

Linsner G’15, G’24 received her Ph.D. from the Department of Human Development and Family Science in Falk College. Linsner is a research associate at the IVMF, where she supports research on military families, military spouse employment, veteran transition and family policy. This semester, Linsner successfully defended her dissertation, “Maternal Employment Fit for Military Spouses: Implications for Attitudes Toward the Military, Individual Well-Being and Family Functioning.” Through the support of the Rostker fund, Linsner was able to conduct secondary data analysis with a convenience sample of 495 female active-duty spouses with children. This study explored differences in individual, family and military related outcomes based on employment fit or the actual and desired employment status, and the correspondence between them.

Linsner’s results revealed that lack of employment fit conferred significant risk across various outcomes for military spouses. Military spouses lacking employment fit were more stressed and socially isolated, and scored lower on measures of well-being, sense of belonging to their local civilian community and economic security than respondents who had employment fit. “I am so thankful to the Rostkers. My progress in my dissertation and degree is a direct result of their generosity. This award has provided valuable support for me and my family,” says Linsner.

Paul Sagoe – College of Engineering and Computer Science

Paul Sagoe

Sagoe is a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering. His research aims to develop a drug delivery system for treating post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) a painful joint condition common among veterans and military personnel.

Originally from Ghana, Sagoe came to Syracuse University after earning first class honors in biomedical engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. He also served as a clinical engineer at a teaching hospital in Ghana, an experience that invigorated his passion for medical science and informed his decision to pursue research studies in a field dedicated to impacting human health, improving patient’s well-being and alleviating pain. “As a Rostker Fellow, I am thrilled by the honor of being supported financially to pursue my research goals to the fullest capacity,” says Sagoe.

Sagoe’s dissertation, “Synovial Macrophage Targeting Immunomodulatory Therapies for Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis,” aims to design a disease-modifying intervention for PTOA by selectively targeting and eliminating inflammation-promoting synovial macrophages. The strategy aligns with mounting evidence highlighting the crucial involvement of synovial inflammation in PTOA progression, a problem that impacts more than 30 million Americans suffering from osteoarthritis following a joint injury.

Kyle White–College of Arts and Sciences

Kyle White

White, a graduate student in psychology, is a graduate research assistant at the Syracuse Veterans Administration Medical Center, where he has become increasingly interested in military and veteran populations. His dissertation, “Pain Intensity and Alcohol Use Behavior Among Veterans with Chronic Pain: The Moderating Role of Chronic Pain Acceptance,” aims to examine chronic pain acceptance as a construct linking pain and alcohol use in veterans.

“This fellowship will be instrumental in advancing my research goal of identifying psychological mechanisms underlying pain and addiction among veterans,” says White, whose research builds off previous studies that found chronic pain acceptance to be negatively associated with opioid use severity. “A greater understanding of the interplay between chronic pain and hazardous alcohol use has the potential to inform the development of tailored treatments for the many veterans suffering from these conditions.”

Brennan, Linsner, Sagoe and White join a cohort of other Rostker Fellows, who, collectively, have received over $90,000 in funding to conduct military-connected research. Applications are currently open for the next round of funding from the Bernard D. and Louise C. Rostker IVMF Dissertation Research Fund and will close on Sept. 30, 2024. For those interested in pursuing dissertation research on military-connected topics at Syracuse University, please visit the .

Those interested in supporting research on the military-connected community are encouraged to consider donating to the campaign.

Perrier and Liebell-McLean are pursuing dual master’s degrees in public administration and international relations and are the Maxwell School’s latest recipients of Robertson Foundation for Government fellowships.

Robertson awards are among the most generous and prestigious available to professional graduate students at the Maxwell School, covering full tuition for two years of study, a living stipend, health insurance and assistance in finding a summer internship. In exchange, fellows agree to work in the U.S. federal government for three of the first seven years following graduation. Since the program began in 2010, the program has funded 39 students, including Liebell-McLean and Perrier.

Julia Liebell-McLean

From New Jersey, Liebell-McLean graduated from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in culture and politics, and minors in French and francophone studies and African studies. While pursuing her degree, she interned remotely with the Office of Central Africa, a subsection of the Bureau of African Affairs in the U.S. State Department. She drafted activity reports and biographies for foreign dignitaries and helped plan trips for senior diplomats.

That experience, along with the nine months spent in Senegal in 2022, furthered an interest in international affairs that Liebell-McLean held since childhood. Growing up in a town with a large first-generation population, Liebell-Mclean was exposed to diverse backgrounds from an early age.

“I was sort of jealous of my friends who got to travel abroad to visit family, and it made me curious to live outside the U.S. and become familiar with other cultures and nations,” says Liebell-McLean, who also studied abroad in France during high school.

Liebell-McLean looks forward to the mix of classroom instruction and experiential learning opportunities to provide the skills needed for her career. She is especially interested in diplomacy, security studies, the francophone world, and West and Central Africa. She hopes to work for the U.S. State Department, perhaps as a foreign service officer. She says she likes the idea of “getting small things done every day,” and being “accountable to ‘the people.’”

“I was raised with the Jewish value of tikkun olam, or ‘mend the world,’ so I think those experiences helped instill the idea of service as well,” she says.

Mael-Sanh Perrier

Perrier was born in the United Kingdom and raised in New York City. After high school, he took a gap year to travel; in addition to France and Vietnam, he visited China to study martial arts. He then attended the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he spent three years in the Army ROTC program. He interned with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations and was a strategic partnerships intern for the city of Atlanta.

Perrier put his academic pursuits on hold for one year to join Americorps as a full-time teacher’s assistant in the education department of a youth mental health facility. He became a therapeutic drumming instructor, helping children develop healthy coping skills. During that time, he also joined the international humanitarian organization Team Rubicon, which deployed him to Haiti in 2021 to assist with an emergency management operation in the wake of an earthquake. He helped manage a medical team, worked with health organizations and helped with interpretation efforts.

He returned to college in August 2022 and earned a bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering, with a minor in Middle Eastern and North African studies in December 2023. He aspires to work in the field of homeland security, helping underprivileged communities build emergency management capabilities and resilience into their infrastructure.

“I’m a naturalized immigrant, and I want to give back to this country and serve our people as thanks for all the opportunities I’ve had,” he says.

Story by Mikayla Melo

“We decided to launch this new AI program to meet the growing demand from industry, where many companies, across diverse industries, need professionals capable of leveraging Generative AI. Furthermore, our students have shown significant interest in gaining expertise in AI, driven by the industry’s evolving requirements and opportunities,” says Jeffrey Saltz, iSchool associate professor and program director of the school’s master’s in applied human centered artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence is the third fastest-growing field in the U.S., and those with expertise in AI command an average salary of $162,000, according to Glassdoor.com. Popular jobs include GenAI Developer, Data Scientist, AI Product Manager and Human-AI Interaction Designer.

The iSchool’s new program will include a strong emphasis on hands-on projects to showcase students’ practical expertise and knowledge in the field of AI. Examples of projects include:

• Create a customer service chatbot using large language models (LLMs) that integrate with a company’s existing customer service system.
• Build a sentiment analysis agent that analyzes social media data for brand monitoring.
• Develop a virtual assistant that schedules meetings and performs other tasks using public Gen AI application programming interface (API)
• Examine the effectiveness and user experience of various human-AI interaction agents.
• Develop a medical diagnostic tool that assists doctors by analyzing medical images and patient data.

“The iSchool has been a pioneer in AI�� and data science education, and we were one of the first universities to offer an Applied Data Science program,” says Saltz. “Recognizing the evolving landscape of technology and the increasing importance of AI, the iSchool saw a critical need to expand its offerings to include advanced AI education.”

For the past five years, the iSchool has developed numerous courses to support the new AI program. Students can expect a comprehensive curriculum covering foundational AI concepts, as well as how to apply those concepts within practical applications. The program will include courses such as:

• Deep Learning in Practice
• Natural Language Processing
• Building Human-Centered AI Applications
• Responsible AI
• Dynamics of Human-AI Interaction

The continuing enhancement of courses helps to ensure that the iSchool’s program is robust and comprehensive and can evolve as the field evolves.

Furthermore, the iSchool’s faculty will diligently continue to research key questions around human-AI interactions and how to incorporate human and AI knowledge into organizations and society in general. From studying the future of work to information integrity, the iSchool’s professors are poised to teach students how to critically evaluate this emerging field of study.

The program, NRT-URoL: Emergent Intelligence Research for Graduate Excellence in Biological and Bio-Inspired Systems (EmIRGE-Bio), will support the integration of research and education on emergent intelligence in both biological and bio-inspired systems and allow doctoral students to work and experience team-building across disciplinary and departmental boundaries.

Lisa Manning speaks at a previous BioInspired Symposium. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

“Many of society’s most pressing challenges—including food security, sustainability and supporting aging populations—will require breakthroughs in biotechnology and bio-inspired science,” says , William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), who is principal investigator (PI). “This program will train a new generation of scientists and engineers who can evaluate and harness complex systems, such as biological tissues or next-generation materials, to drive intelligent responses such as sensing, actuating and learning, leading to breakthrough technologies.”

Co-PIs are , associate professor of biology and chemistry in A&S; , associate director of BioInspired and Renée Crown Professor in the Sciences and Mathematics and associate professor of biology in A&S; , Samuel and Carol Nappi Research Scholar and associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS); and , associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS.

BioInspired director , professor of biomedical and chemical engineering in ECS, says, “the Research Traineeship Program is currently one of—if not the most—competitive funding programs at the National Science Foundation. Receipt of the award speaks to the existing strength of graduate education in BioInspired fields at Syracuse University and to the exciting new opportunities and programming that Lisa and the team designed and proposed and now stand poised to deliver.”

The EmIRGE-Bio program will feature advanced core disciplinary courses in areas foundational to biotechnology and bio-inspired design; the development of two new courses utilizing team-based learning paradigms; and a longitudinal professional development program. It will also include a STEM entrepreneurship course offered by the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, an internship program and a co-curricular workshop series on project management and technology transfer.

Some 115 Ph.D. students from fields that span the life and physical sciences and engineering are expected to take part in the training, which the research team says will address a STEM workforce gap identified by local and national partners in industry and academe.

“Emergence in biology and bio-inspired design is one of the University’s signature areas of strength, and we have seen that borne out by the success of BioInspired since its founding in 2019,” says Interim Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer . “This initiative draws on that strength and supports our long-term strategic goal to transform STEM at Syracuse and enhance graduates’ potential for success in a swiftly evolving marketplace.”

Adds , vice president for research: “The NRT award will advance BioInspired in ways that are core to Syracuse University’s identity: recruiting and retaining a diverse student population, advancing cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and education and providing our students with the entrepreneurial skills needed in the 21st century workforce.”

Martin Bandier

Both degree programs are named after Martin Bandier ’62, the legendary music publishing executive and University Life Trustee. The is regularly recognized as one of the preeminent undergraduate music business programs in the country.

The new will offer students the same top features that set apart the undergraduate program, delivering hands-on experiences, training for cutting-edge skills needed to make students job-ready upon graduation and access to the large and loyal networks of Bandier and Newhouse alumni.

Billboard magazine has never published its list of the world’s top music business schools without including the Bandier program.

“Our goal at the Bandier program has always been to be the premier music business school, offering the most comprehensive and cutting-edge education while forging top-tier industry connections,” Bandier says. “With this new master’s program, we’re taking it to the next level, shaping future music leaders who are equipped, connected and ready to make their mark.”

Bill Werde

Launching in fall 2025, the Bandier music business master’s program provides a true multidisciplinary education to prepare students for their first job in the music industry. The comprehensive program will cover subjects that include the fundamental rights, royalties and deal-making approaches of the modern music business, across the label, publishing, management, streaming and live sectors, and all genres.

The core music business instruction will allow students to be well-versed on the basics of everything from music law and copyright to current social media and data tools in use by top companies today. Students will also be able to spend a to work in the heart of the music industry.

The new master’s program will be overseen by , who is also director of the Before joining the Newhouse School, Werde served as editorial director of Billboard, which won a 2010 Ellie Award for Digital Media from the American Society of Magazine Editors during Werde’s tenure. Under his direction, Billboard also earned Eddie Awards for Best Media and Entertainment Publication from Folio magazine in 2006 and 2007.

Mark J. Lodato

“Breaking into the music industry can be daunting. If you have great instincts and passion for what fans love in music and how those tastes evolve, the new music business master’s program will give you all the access, skills and network you need for an incredibly fulfilling career in the music industry,” Werde says. “The Bandier program will open doors for students for the rest of their lives.”

The program presents “a fantastic opportunity for college graduates to acquire the dynamic skills and gain the hands-on experiences that will help them succeed in the thriving music business,” Newhouse Dean Mark J. Lodato says. “We are eternally grateful at Syracuse University for the support of Marty Bandier and his enthusiasm to help the Newhouse School provide a first-class education for students aspiring to work in the recording and entertainment industries.”

The students were part of the Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices (SPE 644) course taught by , associate professor in the School of Education, who was the Libraries’ 2023-24 Special Collections Research Center .

The students presented their findings at a public showcase in spring 2024 and their work is available online as a digital exhibition. “” explores disability as a cultural construction by examining historical developments in special and inclusive education, as well as the development and later closures of institutions and asylums for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The archives—and exhibit—show details of how Americans in past decades regarded disability, including information about eugenics (the selective breeding of humans) as the basis for institutionalization; letters exchanged between institutions and individuals about certain individuals and situations; and striking images collected by those who advocated for disabled individuals and disability rights.

Graduate students held a public showcase last spring describing their research and capping their course, “Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices.” From left are Associate Professor Julia White and students Neil Boedicker, Kayla Cornelius and Raquell Carpenter. (Photo by Martin Walls)

White says the primary source materials provided the students with particularly rich and informative records, in part due to Syracuse University’s long history as a vanguard for disabled individuals and a leader in inclusive education and disability rights. Today, the Center on Disability and Inclusion continues the legacy of the , founded in 1971 by Dean Burton Blatt, a groundbreaking disability rights scholar. Blatt and other individuals at the University were involved in disability rights lawsuits during the 1970s and developed language surrounding the creation of special education law. All of that history—and dozens of associated original documents and artifacts—are preserved for viewing and research.

Julia White

“We at Syracuse have really reconceptualized how to think about people with disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities. The University is known for its forefront advocacy on inclusive education and all that work is evident in the archives,” White says. “There are so many things to investigate and so many lessons we can get from this; it’s a gold mine waiting to be explored.”

A former special education teacher, White now researches national and international special education policy and inclusive education as a human right. But she “was always interested in how law and policies could be applied to different people under different circumstances. I noticed how some students could be placed in segregated or self-contained classrooms while others were in resource rooms and were more integrated. Very little was different about their learning profiles other than their race or socioeconomic profile. I wondered why, if some students had more significant disabilities, they were held to very few or no academic standards.”

Based on her experience as both a doctoral student and a teacher, White says, “I had a pretty strong sense of the racial and economic injustice inherent in U.S. society and always considered inclusive education a civil rights issue.” Yet it was her experience in a Fulbright teacher exchange program in the Slovak Republic and later work for the Landmine Survivors Network for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, that cemented her perspective of inclusive education as a broader human rights issue.

Cover of “.” (Photo: Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

‘Fantastic’ SCRC Process

The time she spent examining materials and working with staff at SCRC “was a fantastic process all around,” White says. “Sometimes, an artifact had very little to do with what I was interested in—Syracuse University’s role in deinstitutionalization, inclusive education and disability activism—but there were many�� ‘aha’ moments that sent me down rabbit holes and that was a lot of fun. The discovery of so many amazing contributions of folks affiliated with the University was the best part of this fellowship. And the staff were phenomenal; they had great insights. I came into this knowing little about archival work and hadn’t done any myself, but they were so gracious and so helpful.”

SCRC staff were also readily available to the , discussing their readings, helping them categorize materials and offering advice on how to formulate the exhibit, White says. , instruction and education librarian, was involved with the class almost every time they met. , humanities librarian and digital and open scholarship lead, helped them create the digital exhibit.

Gratifying for Students��

The experience of using primary source documents and finding so much relevant information to work with was gratifying for the students, two of the class members say.

Sierra Eastman ’20, ��’25 teaches math to seventh- and eighth-grade students in the Syracuse City School District. Her review of archive materials helped her gain a better understanding of the perspectives of people with disabilities, Eastman says. “I have students with various disabilities in my classes and I wanted to get an understanding of them that I didn’t have as an able-bodied person. We tried to put ourselves in their shoes and see how we could make sense of how this [institutionalism] happened, how they were personally impacted and the larger societal reasons that it occurred.”

A “Fight Handicapism” poster provides a historic perspective about the word’s definition. (Photo: , Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)

Kionna Morrison G’24 is an algebraic reasoning teacher in the Syracuse City School District who completes the inclusive special education (grades 7-12) program this month as a scholar. She wanted to understand the experiences that people of color, especially Black children, had in institutions for the intellectually disabled. “I could see how disability, institutionalization and racism can be traced to the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I gained insight on how certain bodies have been consistently institutionalized.��Now, I want to continue to learn about the intersectionality between race and special education and how people from multiple marginalized communities navigate their experiences with disability,” she says.

White believes there has been a significant change in the public’s views on disability, and particularly on intellectual disability, in recent years. “The U.S. has much farther to go in terms of changing society’s perception of disability, intellectual disability and breaking down barriers for any group of marginalized people,” she says. “We need to recognize how far we’ve come in changing attitudes in society, making places accessible, and providing higher education opportunities for disabled people, such as Syracuse University’s program. That’s a good start to thinking differently. Although attitudes are something that we still have to change, the civil and human rights of people with intellectual disabilities are routinely denied in the U.S. and worldwide, and I hope that this project helps shed some light on the history of the continuing fight for disability rights.”

��

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Pardha Sourya Nayani

Pardha Sourya Nayani G’28, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), has received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Fellowship Award. The award is for his research on “Unleashing Bandwidth: Passive Highly Dispersive Matching Network Enabling Broadband Absorbers with Record-High Bandwidth-to-Thickness Ratio.”

The AP-S Fellowship Program aims to support graduate students and postdoctoral fellows worldwide interested in antenna analysis, design, development and other research areas related to AP-S.

Nayani joined EECS Professor Younes Radi’s research group in the Radiation Laboratory in the summer of 2023. “I am deeply honored to receive this award and look forward to making significant contributions in the field of electromagnetics and microwave engineering,” Nayani says.

“As a faculty member at Syracuse University and the prior institutions I have been involved with, I have had the opportunity to see and work with many talented students and researchers,” says Radi. “Rarely have I had the opportunity to work with a student as passionate, talente, and hardworking as Pardha. I am happy and proud that IEEE awarded him this prestigious fellowship.”

The ranking is based on a combination of institutional and student survey data, including career outcomes, technological infrastructure, academic rigor, cost and affordability, among others. The survey also incorporates student opinions that The Princeton Review collected through its online MBA student survey and institutional data reported by administrators at the business schools. This year, the data reflects surveys of administrators at 165 business schools offering online MBAs and more than 10,700 online MBA students.

According to The Princeton Review, online MBA programs have become as rigorous as their on-campus counterparts. For many business school candidates, an online degree might even be the smarter choice. Online programs offer flexibility, affordability, access to innovative technologies, students from a diverse career backgrounds and global opportunities.

Here are some of the highlights of what Whitman students said:

• The online MBA program provides “a solid educational and professional core,” “online interaction with classmates and the professor” and “flexibility of an online format instead of going part time attending classroom lectures.”
• The school also offers immersion events “so that online students still have the opportunity to network with their peers.” This makes them feel as though they are “a part of the institution and not just a number.”
• The majority of topics cover “current business practices and can be applied to current business problems.” While the amount of work can be “a lot to manage,” according to many students, “the way the classes are laid out makes it very easy for students to access, since there are many different days and hours students are able to choose from to accommodate their own work schedules.”
• The asynchronous and synchronous classes “are often taught by two different people.” This often “helps students hear the same information in two different ways.” Supplementary “resources and videos” are also provided as extra support.
• Discussions in class are “always thought-provoking” due to classmates who are “driven, intelligent and strive for excellence.”

“We are very happy to once again have validation of our programs from an outside rankings organization. This continues our school’s upward trajectory for being recognized as providing a highly valuable educational experience,” says Alex McKelvie, interim dean of the Whitman School. “We also appreciate the comments on the student-focused part of our program. Whitman has continuously concentrated on the online students’ experience, and we appreciate them highlighting this aspect.”

“This is the second ranking survey where students have highlighted the academic experience we provide. Whitman achieved an overall ranking of No. 29 this fall in the Poets&Quants ranking of online MBA programs. Recent alumni ranked us No. 15 overall on academic experience. Of particular note was alumni satisfaction with live synchronous classes (ranked No. 10 nationally) and professor quality (ranked No. 7 nationally),” says Amy McHale, assistant dean for graduate programs at Whitman.

.

His latest role is another opportunity to break new ground, and it’s also a homecoming for the double alumnus.

The OSPO is a multidisciplinary, cross-campus initiative intended to accelerate research and creative work by leveraging the use of open-source software code and adherence to open-source best practices. It is one of only about a dozen such offices operating at U.S. universities, so offers a chance to make high impact in that academic space and enhance the University’s research reputation through information and transparency, Capano says.

Capano earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in physics at Syracuse University. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Also a physics research associate professor in the , Capano will continue his research in gravitational-wave astronomy while he directs OSPO, he says.

After earning bachelor’s and doctoral physics degrees at Syracuse, he gained more than a decade of experience in open-source code development and extensive experience in multi-messenger data analysis, statistics and high-performance computing. He has worked as a member of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) Scientific Collaboration as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Maryland and as a high-performance computing facilitator and affiliate physics and math faculty member for the at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Perhaps his most distinctive “right place/right time” opportunity came in 2015 at the in Hannover, Germany, the largest research institute in the world specializing in general relativity, where he did postdoctoral research. Serendipitously, he was among the first scientists to observe the first from a long-ago collision of black holes in space. It was a monumental discovery that confirmed part of developed 100 years prior.

Capano, who grew up in the Adirondack town of Corinth, recently discussed plans for OSPO, his current research and what that breakthrough gravitational wave detection moment was like.

What led you back to Syracuse?

I was invited to apply for the OSPO director position and it sounded very interesting. It also presented a great opportunity to be closer to family again and for my daughter to grow up near her grandparents. And the things going on in Syracuse right now—Micron coming in and the Route 81 redevelopment—are exciting. The region is beginning a Renaissance, and the University is on an upswing too. ��I’m excited to be part of the changes and see how the investment and growth plays out. It seems like a once-in-a-century thing.

What has been accomplished at OSPO so far? What’s ahead?

Over the past year, I got the office up and running. Now, I’m promoting open-source culture across the University and encouraging faculty and researchers from all disciplines to make their source code and research data available beyond campus and to the public. That transparency helps instill confidence in their research results and can gain wider recognition for the work.

We’re now developing workshops for faculty, students and staff on coding processes and tools; campuswide seminars and speaker presentations; perhaps a student code hackathon. I’m also working to have open-source code development as part of the standard considered for faculty promotions.

How did you become interested in physics research? What drew you to astrophysics and gravitational wave research?

My dad, who had a master’s degree in physics and was an electronics engineer, used to tell me fascinating things about relativity and quantum mechanics, and that piqued my interest.

In my second year of graduate school, I needed to pick a research advisor. I was a teaching assistant for a course on electricity and magnetism, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. It was also ’s first semester as a professor here, and one night we sat together as we graded exams. Duncan [now a world-renowned gravitational wave expert, the University’s vice president of research and Charles Brightman Endowed Professor of Physics] asked if I’d like to do an independent study. I did, and I’ve stayed with it.

I already knew of the gravitational wave group and the idea of doing experimental gravity appealed to me. If it weren’t for the two of us grading exams that night, I might have gone an entirely different route. I’m very glad I didn’t; I have been part of some once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

What do your two National Science Foundation research projects examine?

My research focuses on testing basic principles of gravity and nuclear physics using gravitational waves.

explores Einstein’s theory of relativity by testing it in extreme conditions near black holes using data from the to see whether the waves match Einstein’s predictions or if they reveal unexpected patterns. involves creating a cluster of Apple computers to accelerate the search for gravitational waves using LIGO data. That can help make gravitational wave research less costly, allowing for more ambitious searches, and making it possible for more researchers to contribute to the field.

Capano says his father’s interesting stories about relativity and quantum mechanics helped develop his interest in the field of physics. (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

What was it like at the front line of the first gravitational wave detection—one of the greatest physics discoveries of all time?

I was at , which was affiliated with LIGO and worked closely with the Syracuse gravitational wave analysis group. On that day a couple of colleagues in the office next to mine got an automated alert about a detection of the in space. They excitedly banged on my wall; I came over and they showed me a plot of the data that showed the characteristic “chirp” signal.

We were some of the , and the moment was surreal. My first reaction, and that for many others, was that it was a mistake. The lab could simulate those signals and did so regularly to test the infrastructure. When the control room confirmed that they hadn’t done a test, that’s when the reality sank in. The whole thing was a whirlwind! As co-chair of the LIGO subgroup devoted to exactly that type of signal, I was later in charge of compiling the data analysis on the event.

[Capano was one of 1,000 LIGO-affiliated scientists whose contributions were recognized for detection of the waves, earning them the and the . In 2017, three LIGO scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery.]

What next for gravitational wave research?

It’s a very bright and exciting future. Syracuse is a big part of it. We are laying the groundwork to build the next-generation detector, Cosmic Explorer, that will be able to detect every black hole merger occurring in the universe.

Pushing the frontiers of physics can lead to new, practical things in life—like how the discoveries surrounding magnetism and electricity affected the entire modern world. My hope is that future discoveries about gravitational waves will do the same and that over the next 20 years, we’ll uncover new fundamental findings about the universe.

When she first started thinking about a career in design while in high school, her father suggested space architecture—a field that combines her love of both science and design—“and it clicked,” she says. Those interests brought her first to the University’s , where she earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 2023.

Doctoral student Andrea Hoe examines one of several compressed regolith cylinders she is testing.

Starting With SOURCE

Now, Hoe is a graduate research assistant in Assistant Professor�� Yeqing Wang’s in the . (ECS). She first contacted Wang in spring 2022 regarding her interest in research on lunar regolith, the dry, loose soil found on the Moon. Wang encouraged her to apply for an undergraduate research grant from the (SOURCE). She was awarded a grant, and, with Wang as her sponsor, began working in his lab that summer.

After Hoe completed her undergraduate degree, Wang encouraged her to pursue graduate studies at ECS, starting as a master’s student in the program. That allowed her to continue her work on lunar regolith composites.

Based on her excellent academic record and outstanding research experience, Wang says, he offered her a graduate research assistant position, a role that covers tuition, living expenses and insurance. The position was co-sponsored by Jensen Zhang, executive director of the Syracuse Center of Excellence and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. In addition to researching lunar regolith composites, Hoe has collaborated with Zhang and Wang on developing metal-organic-framework materials and devices for air purification applications. In fall 2023, Wang encouraged Hoe to apply to pursue a doctoral degree.

The NASA award was presented for Hoe’s proposal, “,” with Wang serving as principal investigator. The recognition provides her with a prestigious designation as a NASA Space Technology graduate research fellow, Wang says.

Compression Testing

In her research, Hoe uses urea and carbon nanotube additives and integrates them into the lunar regolith material with an acidic solution, then compresses the composite cylinder that forms from the substances to test how varied compositions affect its strength. The lunar regolith and urea can be sourced on site in space, a factor that significantly reduces the payload required to transport the materials from Earth to space.

Soon, Hoe will add experiments that examine the impact of lunar freeze/thaw cycles on the composite and test mechanical strength to gauge fabrication ability. Ultimately, she wants to identify an optimum formulation of the composite that is sufficiently strong and remotely mixable so it can be extruded from 3D printers to form lunar habitats. NASA believes the technology will permit structures to be built in outer space for use by humans on the moon and Mars, Hoe says, and its Marshall Space Flight Center is conducting regolith research for that purpose. She also believes the push for space exploration now being made by several companies will create a need for the habitats.

Regolith material, like what is found on the Moon, is used in Yeqing Wang’s Composite Materials lab.

Hoe has already sketched some designs for those space pods, envisioning small, connected, 3D-printed modules. Her ideas are partially inspired by biomimicry and her work with School of Architecture Assistant Professor . Biomimicry design takes its cues from nature, such as the way ants or bees build colonies.

Two Perspectives

Hoe believes her dual perspectives and the expertise she is developing will be particularly appealing to employers in the future. “We see the architecture aspect, the engineering aspect and the commercialization aspect to space structures. What we don’t commonly see right now is an architect who also has an engineering degree. That’s where I hope to fit in and meet the industry—between the architectural side that considers design for human comfort and the engineering side that incorporates the practicality of how to fabricate the structures. I am hoping that by the time I’ve completed my doctorate there will be more opportunities for space architects, and NASA is definitely where I want to be,” she says.

Wang says the NASA award “provides an exciting opportunity to collaborate closely with our NASA partners on researching composite material systems for space habitation. It also acknowledges our talented graduate student for her pioneering research in lunar regolith composites and allows her to continue pursuing her dream of materials research for space habitation.”

Hoe prepares to test a compressed regolith cylinder to assess the strength of the material.

Out-of-the-Box Pursuits

The student researcher has a history of out-of-the-box pursuits and believes that motivation and persistence can pay off. She is accustomed to others thinking that her goals may be unattainable, but most people have a positive reaction to her research, she says.

And though she began regolith design and testing in an engineering lab as an undergraduate, moving from an architectural focus to an engineering one has had its challenges, Hoe admits.

“It’s been a difficult transition from architecture to engineering since I’ve had to catch up on engineering requirements,” she says, though with her professor’s support and her passion for the work, she knows her goals are achievable. Her three engineering-oriented summer internships have provided learning experiences that have helped her understand how her strong design focus will assist her in engineering work, given current industry norms.

“I was able to demonstrate that an architecture background is useful in many projects and there were times engineering team members changed their opinions based on my contributions,” she says. “That’s why I encourage others to be passionate about something and to not give up on their dreams, even if others are not supportive.”

Thakur is one of in the United States to receive the award, which the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation calls the largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values.

Funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the fellowship was created in 1981 and has supported nearly 1,300 doctoral candidates. Newcombe Fellows have gone on to be noted faculty at domestic and foreign institutions, leaders in their fields of study, Pulitzer Prize winners and more.

Thakur’s dissertation, “River song: Riverine ethics and autonomy on the Brahmaputra floodplains,” focuses on the ethical actions shaping the lives of people inhabiting the floodplains of the Brahmaputra River in Assam, India, as they build a future amidst socio-economic, political and environmental precarity.

When Thakur began preliminary research in 2017, she followed the flows of the Brahmaputra River and its many tributaries in upper and central Assam. “This helped me understand how a mobile approach to land and life allows local communities across the Brahmaputra floodplains to deal with the uncertainties posed by climate change and infrastructures upstream,” Thakur says. “I specifically focus on how place-based ethics and ancestral values centering an autonomous mode of life emerge in narratives about a future for riverine communities living in small river islands on the Brahmaputra River’s northern bank.”

From 2021-22, Thakur explored riverine communities’ relationships with the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries through songs, stories and participation in everyday life while living in the river island region. She also interviewed activists and community leaders to understand their perspectives around development infrastructures that adversely impact community access to land and resources. She also conducted research at several archives in India.

“Nimisha’s research is fascinating, timely and important, and I enjoyed working with her to hone her application materials,” says Daniel Olson-Bang, director of professional and career development in the Graduate School. “I’m so pleased that such a deserving researcher will have this opportunity.”

Thakur’s research was supported by the American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Dissertation Fellowship from 2021-22. She also received support from the Department of Anthropology and the Moynihan South Asia Center in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the Education Model Program on Water-Energy Research, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Traineeship Program at Syracuse University.

The Retention and Student Success team receives the “Best Use of Results” award from Lois Agnew, associate provost for academic programs. From left: Hope Smalling, Radell Roberts, Lois Agnew, Kal Srinivas, Samantha Trumble, ShawnMarie Parry, Priyasha Sinha Roy ’24 and Prabin Raj Shrestha ’24

Academic Affairs and Institutional Effectiveness (IE) presented awards to several faculty and staff members, students, offices and programs during the One University Assessment Celebration on April 26, in the School of Education, Education Commons.

In her opening remarks, Lois Agnew, associate provost for Academic Programs, highlighted the importance of celebrating the various ways faculty, staff and students have engaged in assessment practices, illuminating our strengths but also reinforcing a commitment to continuous improvement. Awards were given in five categories:

• Assessment Champion: Recognizing campus community members who advocate for meaningful assessment to enrich the student experience and who have made outstanding contributions to the University’s culture of improvement.
• Outstanding Assessment: Recognizing a distinguished academic, co-curricular and functional area for overall robust assessment.
• Best Engagement Strategies: Recognizing programs/units for engaging faculty, staff and students to participate and contribute to the assessment process.
• Best Use of Results: Recognizing an academic, co-curricular and functional area for how assessment results are used in making decisions.
• Collaborative Inquiry and Action: A new award recognizing a unit that collaborates with others outside of their primary school, college or division to use assessment methods and data, resulting in actions to improve student learning and campus operations.

This year’s recipients included:

• Assessment Champion | Academic: Blythe Bennett, program manager, School of Information Studies
• Assessment Champion | Co-Curricular/Functional: Jessica Newsom, assistant director, Living Learning Communities
• Assessment Champion | Shared Competencies: Maureen Thompson, undergraduate director and associate professor, Department of Public Health, Falk College
• Outstanding Assessment | Academic Programs: Forensic Science Undergraduate and Graduate Programs, Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute, College of Arts and Sciences (A&S)
• Outstanding Assessment | Co-Curricular: Student Outreach and Support, Student Experience
• Outstanding Assessment | Functional: Future Professoriate Program, Graduate School
• Best Faculty Engagement Strategies: Human Development and Family Science program, Department of Human Development and Family Science, Falk College
• Best Staff Engagement Strategies: College of Professional Studies Dean’s Office
• Best Student Engagement Strategies: Living Learning Communities, Student Experience
• Best Use of Results | Academic: Film program, Department of Film and Media Arts, College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)
• Best Use of Results | Co-Curricular: Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (The SOURCE)
• Best Use of Results | Functional: Retention and Student Success
• Collaborative Inquiry and Action: Barnes Center at The Arch

After the awards, 2023 Assessment Leadership Institute participants were recognized for their poster presentations detailing assessment activities over the past year:

• Keonte Coleman, director of assessment and program review and assistant professor, Newhouse School of Public Communications
• Nadeem Ghani, assistant teaching professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS)
• Dimitar Gueorguiev, Chinese studies program director and associate professor, Political Science, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
• Jody Nyboer, associate professor, School of Design, VPA
• Kathleen Roland-Silverstein, associate professor, presenting with Isabel Hampton ’24 and Katie Weber ’24, Sentor School of Music, VPA
• Darwin Tsen, Chinese language minor coordinator and assistant teaching professor, Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, A&S
• Andrea Willis, director of academic programs, College of Professional Studies

Recipients of the inaugural “Student Engagement in Assessment” grant were also acknowledged for their poster presentations showcasing the collaborative experiences of students, faculty and staff:

• Biomedical and Chemical Engineering: Tessa DeCicco ’25, Kerrin O’Grady ’25, Jade Carter ’24, Carly Ward ’24, Natalie Petryk ’21, Bridget Sides ’25, Mia Paynton ’25 and Doug Yung, associate teaching professor, Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program director, ECS
• Center for Learning and Student Success (CLASS): Student Success Advisory Council, which includes Eadin Block ’26; Margot MacKechnie ’26; Gary Shteyman ’26; Karen Toole, coordinator of academic support, Center for Disability Resources; Tasha Terzini, advisor, A&S; Kate Bussell, assistant director of academic expectations CLASS; and George Athanas, associate director, CLASS
• New Student Programs: Winnie Naggar ’24 and Butch Hallmark, interim director, New Student Programs
• Retention and Student Success: Prabin Raj Shrestha ’24 and Hope Smalling, functional business analyst, Retention and Student Success

Jerry Edmonds, senior assistant provost, shared final remarks. He noted that Syracuse University achieved “two important milestones this year. It is the fifth annual celebration highlighting the dedicated efforts of faculty, staff and students to assess and improve, as well as 10 years since the University embarked on a campus-wide initiative of systematically collecting evidence to inform decision-making across our campus.” He concluded with thanks and appreciation for everyone’s continued efforts.

Visit the�� for event photos, presentation materials highlighting recipients’ achievements and posters.

Story by Laura Harrington, associate director, Institutional Effectiveness��

, professor and director of graduate studies in the in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and member of the , is the 2024 recipient of the William Wasserstrom Prize in recognition of his exemplary mentorship of graduate students. A&S Dean Behzad Mortazavi conferred the award on Santangelo at the Graduate School doctoral hooding ceremony on May 10.

Christian Santangelo

The prize is awarded annually to a faculty member who exemplifies the qualities of William Wasserstrom, a professor of English who died in 1985. Wasserstrom was a scholar known for his broad interests and profound impact on learning, with a particular teaching interest in the graduate seminar. Since his death, Wasserstrom has been memorialized with this award by A&S for outstanding success as a graduate seminar leader, research and dissertation director, advisor and role model for graduate students.

Santangelo joined Syracuse University in 2019 and was named physics director of graduate studies in 2021. His research interests focus on soft condensed-matter physics and materials geometry, extreme mechanics, 4D printing and self-folding origami, design of mechanical metamaterials and topological effect in nonlinear systems. He teaches Physics 1, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics and Advanced Statistical Mechanics.

He has co-authored 75 peer-reviewed articles, been quoted in multiple publications related to his research, presented at dozens of conferences and symposia and has received nearly $4.5 million in external grant funding for his work.

Santangelo recently served as “March Meeting” program chair for the (DSOFT) of the American Physical Society. He was also the co-lead of the Smart Materials focus group within the BioInspired Institute and a member of the College Level Liberal Arts Core Committee at A&S.

Santangelo has received several other awards and honors throughout his career, including the Glenn H. Brown Prize from the International Liquid Crystal Society, a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, the Early Career Award from the APS DSOFT and he was named a fellow of the American Physical Society.

“Professor Santangelo is certainly an example of the level of excellence Professor Wasserstrom represented, and a person whose extraordinary commitment to the mentorship of graduate students is deserving of recognition,” says Mortazavi. “His scholarship and the guidance and knowledge he has provided as a mentor in graduate education has positively impacted the physics department, its students and the entire college since he joined the University five years ago. It is an honor to present him with this award.“

Santangelo has mentored 20 graduate students and post-docs and has served as a research advisor for 12 undergraduates. Professor Mitchell Soderberg, associate chair of the Department of Physics, notes that a common theme heard about Santangelo is his “knack for helping students develop as scholars—not by knowing all the answers but by helping them to recognize the best questions to pursue.”

Former students and colleagues submitted enthusiastic nomination letters that spoke to Santangelo’s qualifications for this award.

“As a mentor, Chris struck a perfect balance of being available for guidance and allowing independence. By imparting principles explicitly and through action, I learned from Chris how to identify interesting scientific problems, find strategies for tackling them, and navigate uncertainty and communication results,” says former student Salem Mosleh, a research associate at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. “He makes sure students get exposure to the scientific community, allowing me to attend conferences and meet collaborators—which helped me get my position at Harvard.”

“As his first Ph.D. student, I was fortunate to have Professor Santangelo as my mentor, and I can confidently say that he has a natural talent for selecting research problems that are interesting, challenging and relevant in the modern context of theoretical physics,” says Marcelo Dias, who is a senior lecturer in structural engineering at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. “Professor Santangelo’s extensive mathematical expertise and practical approach to research have contributed to my career development. His interest in interdisciplinary topics has led to collaboration with many researchers throughout my career.”

Saraswati Dhakal

In that role, Dhakal coordinated the center’s renal transplant services, delivering care and treatment to patients while providing counseling and guidance to both the recipients and the family members of the donors.

Dhakal experienced the challenging hardships of working with patients with terminal illness, and she saw firsthand the psychological impact it can have on a family watching a loved one go through their health battle.

Those interactions reinforced to Dhakal the importance of holistic health care while setting her on a path to become a professional counselor and mental health advocate once she graduates.

“Witnessing the impact of mental health challenges on individuals close to me sparked a desire to understand and support those struggling with such issues. Those experiences as a nurse and transplant coordinator further ignited my curiosity to learn more about mental health, which stems from a desire to better understand individuals’ experiences, motivations and resilience in the face of adversity,” Dhakal says. “I am continuously intrigued by the complexities of human behavior and the role of counseling in promoting well-being.”

Saraswati Dhakal plans to utilize her master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling to create a safe, accessible environment for everyone seeking help.

During her time on campus, Dhakal was the graduate assistant at the Center for International Services, working with the staff to offer programming and services that support the well-being and overall success of the international student population while contributing to the center’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. She also was active with the , the counseling academic and professional honor society, serving as secretary during the 2023-24 academic year.

Dhakal will participate in the on Saturday, May 11, in the John A. Lally Athletics Complex.

Leading up to convocation, Dhakal sat down with SU News to discuss the challenges facing mental health care professionals and how she plans to utilize her degree to create a safe, accessible environment for everyone seeking help with their mental health.

Three Syracuse University students have been awarded prestigious graduate research fellowships through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), and two students have been recognized with honorable mentions.

The fellowship recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees in the U.S. The five-year fellowship includes three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000 and a $16,000 educational allowance.

The 2024 recipients of the NSF GRFP are the following:

• Edward (Cole) Fluker, a senior chemical engineering major in the College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS). Fluker will be joining the Ph.D. program in chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Pennsylvania upon graduation.
• Dan Paradiso, a second-year Ph.D. student in physics in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Melissa Yeung, a first-year Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS.

��Edward (Cole) Fluker

Fluker, who was recently named a University Scholar, initially got involved in research in his sophomore year and took on his first significant research project the following summer. Through the University’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, he worked under Ian Hosein, associate professor of biomedical and chemical engineering, analyzing a gel polymer electrolyte system as an alternative to liquid electrolytes in calcium-ion batteries. The research resulted in a paper, on which Fluker was first author, in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry.

That experience led him to pursue more research opportunities in energy storage. In summer 2023, he completed the Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture REU at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied the power and energy performance of aluminum air batteries (AABs) with Ag-based cathodes.

“By the end of the project, I had successfully fabricated cathodes that resulted in power performance of 70% of the commercial option at less than 1/4,000th of the cost,” Fluker says. “I was especially interested in creative efforts to improve efficient agricultural practices, and I hope to continue contributing to them while at UPenn.”

Fluker says the NSF GRFP will give him financial resources to help broaden his research to be more sustainable and inclusive. “There is a severe underrepresentation of Black students pursuing advanced degrees, and I believe this program will help me launch a pipeline program for African American students to support their advanced degree aspirations,” he says. “On top of my research goals committed to next generation energy storage, I want to pave a path for underrepresented students that opens doors they never thought were meant for them.”

Dan Paradiso

Paradiso’s research is focused on the deaths of massive stars in the universe, known as core-collapse supernovae. These stars, which have masses of around 10 to 100 times the mass of the sun, end their life in a cataclysmic and explosive death that produces light that can be detected with ground and space-based telescopes. Decades of research, however, suggests that not all stars that undergo core-collapse result in a successful explosion and instead the star can continue to implode until a black hole is formed. These events are referred to as failed supernovae, and it is estimated that approximately 20-30% of stars that undergo core-collapse result in a failed supernova.

“In my research I focus on the dynamics of shockwaves, which are ubiquitous with core-collapse supernova physics, using analytical and numerical methods to understand these failed supernova explosions,” Paradiso says. “I then use these techniques to make predictions about observable properties of failed and sub-energetic explosions.”

“As a second-year graduate student, the generous support from the GRFP is very welcome, and I am excited to continue my research with this support,” he says.

��Melissa Yeung

Yeung works in the fluid dynamics lab of Yiyang Sun, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, where she focuses on supersonic jet engines.

High noise levels have always been associated with supersonic aircraft, restricting their flight range to over sea. “The goal of my work is to alleviate the undesired features through strategically placed small micro-jets of air. I am currently focused on optimizing these micro-jets such that they can continuously modulate themselves to adapt to various flight conditions. By doing so, the flow can be controlled even in off-design conditions and with minimal energy input,” Yeung says. “Understanding these complex flow physics is vital for the development of next-generation high-performance aircraft. Successfully controlling this flow can improve upon the aircraft’s performance and ensure the safety of nearby workers or civilians. This work is one of many steps in pushing supersonic flight for commercial use.”

Yeung says the GRFP fellowship will allow her more flexibility in her research direction, fund her research activities and allow her to attend more conferences.

Yeung also notes the tremendous amount of support she received from Sun, Professor Emeritus Mark Glauser and Gina Lee-Glauser, retired vice president for research, throughout the application process. “Their guidance has been crucial to my success and without them I would have not have the honor of being an NSF GRFP recipient, she says.

Nicholas Rubino and Elizabeth Su

Two students also received honorable mentions in this year’s NSF GRFP competition. Nicholas Rubino, a second-year Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering in ECS who is researching robotic devices for physical rehabilitation, and Elizabeth Su, a senior graduating with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering and neuroscience from the College of Arts and Sciences. Su will pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Purdue University, researching enhanced visual prosthetics.

The CFSA will hold an the week of June 10-14. The bootcamp is for rising seniors and first- and second-year graduate students who are eligible for and plan to apply for the NSF GRFP this fall.

Students interested in learning more about or applying for the next NSF GRFP award cycle or any other nationally competitive scholarships and fellowships should visit the����or email��cfsa@syr.edu��for more information.

Graduate students and educators enrolled in the School of Education course, Significant Disabilities: Shifts in Paradigms and Practices, will provide a showcase of their work on May 8.

Co-organized by the and the School of Education, this event will debut a digital exhibition, “From Institutionalization to Inclusion: Disability Activism in the Syracuse University Special Collections.” It was created by members of the course who have been critically engaging with primary source documents and artifacts in SCRC’s collections to explore disability as a cultural construction by examining historical developments in special and inclusive education, along with the rise (and fall) of institutions and asylums for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

The showcase and reception are free and open to the public. If you require accommodations, please email Max Wagh at mlwagh@syr.edu by May 1.

“We appreciate and understand the high value our teaching assistants bring to individual students, class sessions, teaching and learning outcomes and graduate scholarship and success across the University,” says , dean of the Graduate School. “Our faculty and staff sincerely appreciate their contributions.”��

Candidates for Outstanding Teaching Assistant Awards are nominated by their departments. To be considered for the award, they must present a comprehensive teaching portfolio describing their work.

This year, 39 graduate students were recognized with the honor. They are:������

• Jeffrey Adams, English��
• Shreyas Aralumallige Chandregowda, civil and environmental engineering��
• Erika Arias, political science��
• Ana Juliana Borja, cultural foundations of education����
• Ava Breitbeck, physics��
• Brandon Charles, public administration and international affairs��
• Chun Chu, chemistry��
• Nelson Donkor, biomedical and chemical engineering��
• Neiva Fortes, economics��
• Siddharth Gavirneni, earth and environmental sciences��
• Taylor Harman, anthropology��
• Kellan Head, philosophy��
• Jianqing Jia, mathematics��
• Molly Joyce, art and music histories��
• Joumana Kalouch, languages, literatures and linguistics��
• Darzhan Kazbekova, social science��
• Leanne Kelley, biology��
• Christy Khoury, information science and technology��
• Daniel Kimmel, religion��
• Venkata Sai Teja Kotikalapudi, mechanical and aerospace engineering��
• Marie Kramer, mathematics��
• Qingyang Liu, human development and family science��
• Abigail Long, writing studies, rhetoric and composition����
• Ehsan Mohaghegh Dowlatabadi, economics��
• Katherine Mott, sociology��
• Sean Nalty, philosophy��
• Ocean Noah, English��
• Sadie Novak, chemistry��
• John Christoper Rodriguez, writing studies, rhetoric and composition��
• José Romero Reyna, languages, literatures and linguistics��
• Sourav Roy, physics��
• Chelsea Sato, mathematics��
• Morgan Shaw, English��
• Rachel Shepherd, biology ��
• Xinyue Tao, communication and rhetorical studies��
• Kirin Taylor, political science��
• Dominic Wilkins, geography and the environment��
• Biyuan Yang, electrical engineering and computer science��
• Chongmin Yang, sociology��

Now, Coley (they/them) studies how the policies and actions of local, state and federal governments and public officials, as well as those of private investors and property buyers, affect poor urban neighborhoods and residents in Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, looking at all three as representative of midsize Rust Belt cities.��The researcher recently presented their early findings at the Lender Center Racial Wealth Gap Symposium.��

“, , , and have left Black Americans more likely to reside in neighborhoods that are under-developed and under-resourced,” Coley says. “Those conditions have direct impact on Black Americans’ ability to build wealth. Historically racist policies affect the life cycle of people and impact where they can live, their chances at opportunity and their quality of life.”������

J Coley, right, presents at the Racial Wealth Gap sympoisum. (Photo by Chuck Wainwright)

A sociologist, Coley spent the last two years conducting extensive interviews with current and former tenants and homeowners in the , where residents organized to gird against the impact of early gentrification. Coley wanted to determine how the process of gentrification in Black neighborhoods occurred, how residents resisted it and how they responded to being displaced, dislocated and/or isolated because of it. Coley also examined how residents described the levels of trust or mistrust they had for anchor institutions (such as banks, medical centers and big developers) that had begun to cause changes to their neighborhood. The interviews yielded four common reactions, Coley says: “nothing new,” frustration, resistance and “make it right.”������

Many of the residents Coley interviewed were longtime community members who had lived through urban renewal. Their experiences put them “in a constant state of preparing themselves for what they feel is inevitable: displacement,” Coley says.��

According to Coley, infrastructure also plays a part in the characteristics of a neighborhood and can restrict access to resources. For example, Buffalo’s main street “divides Black Buffalo and white Buffalo in that 80% of Black people live on the east side. It’s an area of concentrated poverty. People don’t think about how that impacts your ability to get to certain resources, but conditions like that impact everything.”����

A Highway Parallel

In Rochester, as in Syracuse, a dilapidated highway is being torn down, Coley notes. While that will make way for more green space and area revitalization, it will still disrupt neighborhoods and potentially lead to the displacement of existing residents. Rochester’s and Syracuse’s projects also illustrate why residents may resist change they don’t think benefits them or their neighborhoods, they say.��

“Institutions need to be better collaborators with communities and include them in the changes that are happening in their neighborhoods,” Coley says. “People don’t have to have a Ph.D. for you to listen to them. They’re the experts at what they’re experiencing. I’ve talked to some 90-year-old women who have 50 years of experience in their neighborhood. They’re there every day; they know what they need.”��

Further contributing to the racial wealth gap, the gentrification of poor urban neighborhoods threatens Black Americans’ ability to build wealth through home ownership, Coley says. That’s because as property values in those areas rise, residents may have more difficulty affording their homes.����

J Coley

“People don’t really understand how policies created decades ago are still having an effect on peoples’ ability to build wealth, have equity and see and be seen in our society. When institutions and developers come into neighborhoods, we need to do a better job of holding them accountable and making sure they are good community partners and neighbors. We need to make sure they are investing in and not taking away from the communities.”��

Institutional Support Essential

The support of institutions like Syracuse University is essential to changing and improving government actions and programs that address the deterioration of neighborhoods, Coley believes. They say enacting progressive policies, such as establishing community land trusts and payment-in-lieu-of-taxes programs, can also help.��

“It’s really important that the University and other institutions are acknowledging the situation and putting the topic at the forefront,” Coley says. “That’s especially so because so many regions and institutions in this country are not doing that.”����

When their fellowship ends in 2025, Coley will continue to study these issues. They plan to stay in academia and seek a tenure-track position as an assistant professor at a research university. Based on their experience with other scholars creating , a collection of images and writings that emerged after a targeted mass shooting in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, along with their current research, they also plan to write a book based on gentrification and the displacement that occurs in some poor, urban Black neighborhoods.

Graduate-level learning, research and creative activities can also occur throughout the community as students work with local residents of all ages and backgrounds through partnerships with a variety of local organizations.

Graduate-level learning, research and creative activities take place in classrooms, labs and studios on the Syracuse University campus, but they also occur throughout the community as graduate students work with local residents of all ages and backgrounds through partnerships with a variety of local organizations.

The and the (EHN) in the College of Arts and Sciences are two campus resources that help graduate students find volunteer opportunities and carry out community-based research initiatives.

The Shaw Center is the University’s hub for experiential learning, matching student volunteers with community needs. Administrative coordinator says volunteers work at the University’s and other community locations, including the , , and (SCSD) schools.

EHN annual research assistantships and summer and winter fellowships provide arts and humanities that align with graduate scholarship, coursework and community-building. About 35 graduate students are currently involved across a range of programs, says , EHN founder and director.

Lauren Ashby

Lauren Ashby, a Ph.D. student in sociology, works with Data Warriors, a club at SCSD’s Nottingham High School that uses math and mapping to advance social justice and address local issues. She previously ran a summer research program for SCSD students on geographic information systems (technology that creates, analyzes and plots data to a map).

The community engagement and participatory research Ashby’s EHN-associated projects provide are important to her research, which looks at educational segregation and inequality, she says. “I have been able to work with incredible high school students who want to make real change in their communities. I’m diving right into what I am passionate about and I share that beyond academic spaces. Partnering with students pushes scholarship in new directions and provides new insights,” she says.

Lauren Cooper

Lauren Cooper, a Ph.D. candidate in English, specializes in the climate history of the Romantic period and its relationship to Romantic literature. She works mainly with first-generation immigrants, new Americans and other traditionally underserved populations.��Through her work with Write Out, she has helped area youth share their stories��while also enjoying literature. Her “Ecologies of Writing” project, she partnered with to offer students a way to respond to human-induced environmental and climate change.

Community-engaged projects provide a needed real-world lens to balance climate crisis and environmental justice questions against the literary responses to those issues, Cooper says. “Engaged humanities work provides a really valuable mode of making sure we’re centering questions and voices grounded in our contemporary moment and the community around us, even as we conduct specialized research,” she says.

Caroline Dollar

Caroline Dollar, a master’s student in public administration in the , started reading with kindergarteners and second graders at SCSD’s Delaware Primary School through the United Way of Central New York’s program. She travels to and from the school using Shaw Center transportation.

Learning about some of the challenges many SCSD children face, Dollar felt moved to help address them, she says. “I love to read, and I enjoy sharing that love with the students, so I decided to get involved with the community. I honestly just feel good about spending a little bit of my time each week giving back and connecting with the kids.”������

Graduate film student Monae Kyhara leads students in a filmmaking workshop activity.

Monae Kyhara, a master’s film student in the (VPA), helped pilot a filmmaking workshop, “Teens with a Movie Camera.” She worked with Evan Bode G’23, a VPA film and media arts graduate who is now a VPA instructor.

The project encouraged teens to use their smartphones as an artistic instrument and a form of self-expression.

Monae Kyhara

The experience was an enlightening and rewarding one, she says. “It allowed us to expand artist conversations with young artists and was an opportunity for both parties to learn from each other and grow in our love of the arts through pedagogy and practice.

Diana Varo Lucero volunteers at La Casita Cultural Center to read stories with young children. (Photo by Edward Reynolds)

Hosting Shaw Center weekly story times at La Casita Cultural Center helped Diana Varo Lucero, a master’s multimedia, photography and design student in the , stay connected to her community. She is producing a documentary for her master’s project. ��

Diana Varo Lucero

“I chose to volunteer because part of my values as a storyteller and a creative is to use my platform to give back to my community and provide a space for other people to tell their stories,” Lucero says. “I think that to create impact, we must actively become involved with our communities. La Casita has given me the space to learn and become involved. I have met welcoming people, built a supportive community and have discovered my ability to work with different age groups. I’m also still able to work towards contributing to local communities.”

Ridgeway has also served as graduate research assistant for the (EHN) and received a $10,000 grant from Humanities New York to help high school students at the North Side Learning Center create a speech and debate team. Those students went on to successfully compete in public forum debate tournaments, Model United Nations and New York State History Day.������

A native of Boise, Idaho, Ridgeway received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Boise State University and a master’s degree in literature from the University of Vermont. He says he chose Syracuse University for doctoral studies because of the unique community engagement emphasis of the composition and cultural rhetoric program.

Ridgeway recently discussed his experiences here, his passion for community-engaged scholarship and his plans after graduation.

This year’s awards provide funding for summer research and writing to students in 43 different programs.����

��Dissertation fellowships were awarded to:��

• Carlos Ramirez Arenas, religion����
• Emily Beauparlant, social psychology����
• Chelsea Bouldin, cultural foundations of education����
• John Brigham, earth sciences������
• Semaj Campbell-Blakes, history����
• Stephen Caviness, teaching and curriculum����
• Ahmet Celik, religion����
• Shreyas Aralumallige Chandregowda, civil engineering����
• Sicong Chen, computer engineering and information science������
• Joseph Colbert, biology����
• Nicholas Croce, social science����
• Amber Ford, chemistry����
• Lerie Gabriel, composition and cultural rhetoric����
• Nicole Yeannine Moller Gonzalez, geography����
• Xiaoxia Huang, political science����
• Jianqing Jia, mathematics����
• Linghua Jiang, human development and family science����
• Kelly Kearns, counseling and counselor education����
• Marie Kramer, mathematics����
• Qingyang Liu, human development and family science����
• Yang Liu, instructional design, development and evaluation������
• Michael McCall, political science����
• Catherine Montgomery, clinical psychology����
• Katherine Mott, sociology����
• Zakery Munoz, composition and cultural rhetoric����
• Brian Odiwuor, mathematics education����
• David Okanlawon, anthropology����
• Felipe Oliveira, philosophy����
• Madeline Olley, English����
• Zhijuan Niu, instructional design, development and evaluation������
• Jared Rosenberg, exercise science����
• Sarah Souders, public administration����
• Sarah Stegeman, history����
• Nimisha Thakur, anthropology����
• Sidney Turner, composition and cultural rhetoric����
• Renci Xie, Doctor of Juridical Science������
• Dong Zheng, civil engineering����

��Pre-Dissertation fellowships were awarded to:����

• Aleyna Akyuz, physics����
• Md Mahbubul Alam, chemistry����
• Karisa Bridgelal, composition and cultural rhetoric����
• Fatma Celik, religion ��
• Nelson Donkor, chemical engineering����
• Luanxin Gao, economics����
• Si Gao, counseling and counselor education����
• Falak Hadi, political science����
• Antonia Hamilton, clinical psychology����
• Sadam Hussain, anthropology����
• Geoffrey Huyck, composition and cultural rhetoric����
• Joanne Kim, public administration����
• Amanda Kingston, cultural foundations of education����
• Kaia Kirk, political science����
• Fasika Melese, instructional design, development and evaluation������
• Arda Oz, English����
• Eunji Park, counseling and counselor education����
• Abdul Bashir Pazhwak, social science����
• David Peters, mass communications����
• Caroline Plecki, biology����
• Vatya Raina, anthropology����
• Hannah Rembrandt, speech-language pathology����
• Karie Schmitz, mathematics����
• Soham Sinha, English����
• Ilariac Siriner, cognitive psychology����
• Paige Spencer, religion����
• Aditya Srinivasan, social science����
• Xihe Tian, counseling and counselor education����
• Nathalie Uwamahoro, electrical and computer engineering����
• Benjamin Valen, social psychology����
• Bryce Whitwam, mass communications����
• Jiahe Xing, economics����
• Zonglin Yang, earth sciences������
• Shuo Zhang, economics����

3MT provides participants with the chance to share details about their research and creative work in a compelling way—within a three-minute time limit. It was first developed by the University of Queensland in Australia and is now held at colleges and universities around the world.����

“3MT forces students to come up with ways to describe their research succinctly to non-specialists in a way that is not just comprehensible, but is also interesting and engaging. That’s a skill set that will pay off on the job market, and even beyond, as far as interacting with the media and others who can help disseminate your work and findings more broadly,” says Glenn Wright, executive director of career and professional development for the Graduate School, who runs the competition.��

Nimisha Thakur

This year’s top winner is , a Ph.D. student in anthropology, whose topic was “.” Thakur, a graduate research associate at the in the , won a 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 and a year membership in the Anthropological Association of America. Thakur also has the chance to represent Syracuse University in the regional 3MT competition hosted by the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools.����

Qingyang Liu

, a Ph.D. student in human development and family science, was named the “People’s Choice” winner by audience vote. Liu conducts research in the in��the . Her topic was “?” The prize was a set of Bose noise-cancelling headphones.����

Additional finalists were:����

• Caroline Barraco, master’s student in history, “Authenticity, Commodity and Empire in the Early Modern Spanish Relic Trade”��
• Yener Çağla Çimendereli, Ph.D. student in philosophy, “Nonnative Speaking and Linguistic Justice”��
• Nicholas Croce, Ph.D. student in social science, “America’s Forgotten Labor Colony Experiment”��
• Nardini Jhawar, Ph.D. student in clinical psychology, “Racial Reflections: Examining ADHD Help-Seeking Among Asian American College Students”��
• Matthew D. O’Leary, Ph.D. student in anthropology, “Entangled Frontiers: Capitalism and Artifacts of Power at Fort St. Frédéric”��
• Andrew Ridgeway, Ph.D. student in composition and cultural rhetoric, “Evil We Desire: Akrasia and Conspiracy Rhetoric”��
• Paul Sagoe, Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, “From Joint Pain to Joy Gain: Delivering Drugs for Osteoarthritis Cure”’��
• Julia Zeh, Ph.D. student in biology, “From Baby Babbles to Masterful Melodies: Investigating Vocal Development in Humpback Whales”��

Judges were Sarah Hamersma, associate professor and director of doctoral studies in public administration and international affairs, and Chung-Chin Eugene Liu, assistant professor of economics, both of the Maxwell School; and Corey Williams, a Syracuse City School District employee and a Common Councilor for Syracuse’s Third District.

Nine faculty members received the student-driven award, which acknowledges faculty who have had a significant impact and positive influence on graduate education because of their superior graduate-level teaching, dedication to departmental and community presence and excellence in research and creative activities.

Each year, the honors outstanding professors with the Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award. The student-driven award acknowledges faculty who have had a significant impact and positive influence on graduate education because of their superior graduate-level teaching, dedication to departmental and community presence and excellence in research and creative activities.��

Nine faculty members, whose nominations were reviewed by an interdisciplinary committee of graduate students, are this year’s honorees. They are:������

• , professor of philosophy and political science, College of Arts and Sciences (A&S);
• , associate professor of rhetoric and writing, A&S;
• , associate professor of linguistics, A&S;
• , associate teaching professor, Newhouse School of Public Communications;
• , assistant professor of human development and family science, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics;
• , professor of information studies, School of Information Studies;
• , associate professor of English, A&S;
• , professor of mathematics, A&S; ���Ի���
• , associate professor of public administration and international affairs, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.��

Baynes, who is also an associate in the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at the Maxwell School, studies social and political philosophy, critical theory and modern and contemporary German philosophy. He is currently examining the characteristics of rules and practices, the grounding of moral principles within practical reason and the relationship between democracy and basic rights.����

Browne’s interests intersect in the visual arts, vernacular philosophy and the rhetoric and literature of the Caribbean. His research and creative activities encompass digital projects, poetry and essay publications, original fine art, documentary photography, contemporary art and local and international exhibitions. He also researches the theory and practice of rhetoric and poetics that shape the African diaspora. ��

Green’s��linguistics research focuses on African languages, including those in the Mande, Cushitic, Dogon, Jarawan and Bantu families. He recently completed a Somali reference grammar. He has published articles on syllable theory, word structure and the use of tone and rhythm in speech.

Hong serves as the Newhouse School’s public relations graduate program director and teaches introductory courses in graphic design, social media, visual communications theory and multimedia storytelling for undergraduate, graduate and military visual journalism students. She has worked as a marketer, graphic designer for national magazines and editorial assistant for a communications research journal.������

Merrin teaches courses in child and adolescent development and advanced statistical methods. Trained in developmental psychology and applied methodology, he researches developmental processes that contribute to problem behaviors in adolescents. He looks at how experiences with families, peers, teachers and communities, particularly those involving identity-based harassment, may influence behavior.����

Qin teaches and researches the topics of metadata, knowledge and data modeling, scientific communication, research collaboration networks and research data management. She directs a lab using big metadata analytics and metadata modeling and linking, plus manages a team that studies biomedical collaboration networks framed by the theory of collaboration capacity.��

Roylance’s work examines early American literature and culture; nationalism, transnationalism and comparative colonialisms; geography; the organization and perception of time and history; and print culture and the history of the book. She is the author of “Eclipse of Empires: World History in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture,” and is now writing a book that tracks the shifting meanings of cultural literary artifacts.����

Shen’s work focuses on the applied and computational aspects of harmonic analysis, a branch of mathematics that investigates connections between a function and its representation frequency. He also studies how to optimize those applications in imaging science and information processing, including in wavelet analysis and image and signal processing. He holds a patent for a wavelet-enhanced automated fingerprint identification system with four other researchers.��

Siddiki is the Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy and director of the Master of Public Administration (MPA) program in the Maxwell School. She also directs the Center for Policy Design and Governance and is a senior research associate for the Center for Policy Research, Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration and Autonomous Systems Policy Institute. She focuses on policy design, collaborative policymaking, institutional theory and analysis and regulatory implementation and compliance.

Angelica Molina (left), Adya Parida (center) and Yajie (Lannie) Lan discuss their respective journeys to Syracuse University, how they found not only success but a welcoming community on campus, their advice for fellow international students and how they plan on making a difference in their communities once they graduate.

Finding out you were accepted into Syracuse University to pursue your academic dreams is a joyous time—and the start of a new adventure.

On this “’Cuse Conversation,” three accomplished international students stopped by to discuss their respective journeys to Syracuse University, how they found not only success but a welcoming community on campus, their advice for fellow international students and how they plan on making a difference in their communities once they graduate.

Adya Parida ’25 traveled nearly 7,700 miles from her home in Ranchi, India, to study computer science in the (ECS).

Yajie (Lannie) Lan ’24 ventured more than 7,300 miles from her home in Chengdu, China, to earn an architecture degree from the .

Angelica Molina ��’25 ventured more than 2,700 miles from her home in Cali, Colombia, to earn master’s degrees in public administration and international relations in the .

Check out episode 161 of the podcast featuring Parida, Molina and Lan. A transcript [PDF]��is also available.

While fingerprint powder and microscopes are very important tools in forensics, machine learning is becoming one of the fastest emerging technologies in the field. This involves the use of algorithms and computing to perform efficient and effective investigations by analyzing large and complex sets of data. The College of Arts and Sciences’ (FNSSI) offers customized courses designed to equip students with the skills to examine these problems using computational methods and algorithms.

One specific course, titled “Computational Forensics,” introduces students to coding, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Taught by , courtesy research professor and a leading expert in digital forensics, the curriculum teaches students how machine learning and AI are utilized in the field. A highlight for students taking this course is the final project, where they select a real-world problem that they are passionate about and solve it using computational techniques learned in class. The assignment culminates with a presentation where they share their solution to the chosen problem.

Brianna Cardillo

Brianna Cardillo, a graduate student in forensics, focused her work on one of her favorite hobbies – reading. Her project, “What to Read Next? Using Historical Reader Preferences to Promote Books from Marginalized Authors,” aimed to develop a machine learning algorithm that could suggest books, with a specific focus on promoting works by underrepresented writers.

“I’ve been in social media spaces surrounding reading and creatively writing books for a long time now, and I really became aware of just how much diversity people’s reading preferences lacked,” says Cardillo. “I have read so many books from authors like that had such incredible world-building and portrayed such important themes, books that deserved more praise than they got.”

To address this inequity, Cardillo developed an algorithm which suggests books based upon readers’ interests. It takes into account information like genre, length, average rating on the book recommendation site Goodreads, and authors’ race, which she gathered from personal interviews, blog posts and book jackets. She organized this data into Excel spreadsheets and input the information into a machine learning algorithm. Simply put, the algorithm is a content-based filtering system which considers what readers enjoy and calculates whether they will enjoy other books by underrepresented authors based on those interests.

Filipe Augusto da Luz Lemos

“Increasing awareness of marginalized authors requires readers to actively choose and promote diverse stories, especially since we have so much influence over publishing with how we use our dollars,” says Cardillo. “That’s why I wanted to make the algorithm in the first place, with the hope that this could be part of that first step.”

While she primarily focused on race when developing this version of the algorithm, Cardillo would like to one day expand it to include multiple categories of marginalization alongside race, like sexuality or disability status.

“I would love to include authors of many different identities so that everyone can find books where they feel represented,” she says.

“Paper Trail: Works by Veteran Photographers, Cartoonists and Sketch Artists,” is on display at the , which is managed by VPA’s creative arts therapy program, through Friday, Aug. 2.

Many of the images are from three cartoonist collections held at the . Featured are works by (“Beetle Bailey”), (“Marmaduke”) and (a World War II cartoonist). Other materials are by Alan Dunn and former students of the military visual journalism program at the : Kenny Holston, Preston Keres, Pablo Piedra, Ethan Rocke and Marianique Santos.

The co-curators, graduate students Ohoud Ibrahim Alfadhli, Upneet Kaur Mair and Katelyn Marie Miller, have all worked on various aspects of the exhibit as NVRC Gallery curatorial assistants.

Jennifer DeLucia

, assistant professor and chair of creative arts therapy, has guided the students through the project, which includes cartoons, photography and sketches that convey the complexities of the veteran experience. “As co-curators, students are empowered to take an active role in shaping the narrative and design of the exhibitions,” DeLucia says. “The interdisciplinary partnership between the art therapy and museum studies programs within VPA creates opportunities for unique dialogue as multiple perspectives inform the curatorial work, and students add fresh ideas and a great level of energy and enthusiasm.”

The experience also provides a unique interdisciplinary and experiential learning opportunity. “They are exposed to military culture and history, and that knowledge of military-connected communities will carry with them as they transition into new roles when they graduate, [helping them] address the miliary-civilian divide,” DeLucia says.

Ohoud Alfadhli

Co-curating the exhibit helped Alfadhli, an international student from Saudi Arabia, better understand the administrative functions of developing an exhibit, such as making appropriate legal arrangements for the loan of the art and copyright issues, she says. She also enjoyed delving into the archives to select exhibit items. “It allowed me to explore the artists’ works, sketches and correspondence, yet it was also challenging because I encountered numerous pieces that deserved to be exhibited.”

Upneet Mair

Mair, who is from India, says she enjoyed the installation process most. “It can be a bit exhausting, but the process is what I like about it, and once the exhibition is up, the satisfaction of doing it feels good,” she says. Mair, who has a master’s degree in fine arts, finishes the museum studies master’s program this spring. She wants to work at major museums in New York City as a curator or collection manager.

Katelyn Miller

Miller hails from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which she��calls “a place where museums, history and community engagement rule every major endeavor.” She adds: “I have embraced that perspective in both my undergraduate degree and my graduate career here.”

Miller used software to plot the exhibits in the gallery space, inputting artwork dimensions to develop an accessible and efficient design, an aspect of exhibition work that she particularly enjoyed. “Working on this exhibition from concept to installation has been a valuable exercise in collaboration and exhibition research and design. This space is an ideal environment for developing my skills as a museum professional, and I hope that ‘Paper Trail’ conveys this effort to its visitors,” she says. Miller wants to work in an institution that provides the community with learning resources, such as a national park, library or museum.

“The NVRC was intentionally designed to nurture interdisciplinary programming to advance the social, economic and wellness concerns of veterans and their families,” says J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and executive director of the University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families. “Our collaboration with VPA at the NVRC Gallery is a unique example of Syracuse University’s commitment to being the best place for veterans, and I encourage the campus community to visit this impressive exhibit.”

It is a job Baker didn’t even believe existed, but it’s the right position at the right time, she says. She’ll join a lab that is situated in the “hard sciences” (STEM and biology), but whose faculty decided they wanted to change the way they teach those subjects. The lab group is now focused on researching and exploring approaches to teaching that are equitable, accessible and inclusive for all students, especially for those who identify as neurodivergent, transgender and queer, Baker says.

That’s where she came in. The lab needed a qualitative researcher as a counterpart to its quantitative focus. Since most biology lab positions involve data crunching or taking samples, Baker says she is especially excited about this unique role.

Emilee Baker, a Ph.D. candidate in special education, is pursuing a unique postdoctoral research role in a biology lab.

“This job aligns with all of my vast and intersecting interests—education and learning, the environment and nature, qualitative research, writing, inclusive education, instruction, social justice issues, neurodiversity, disability and queerness,” she says.

During her time in the School of Education, Baker took advantage of many opportunities to position herself for the career she originally expected to have: assistant professor of inclusive education. She researched the program, a preservice teacher study away experience centering inclusive education and working with diverse students in New York City. She earned certificates of advanced study in and . She completed the Graduate School’s . She was a teaching assistant and a research assistant for the School of Education’s .

When the job market didn’t support her plans, Baker’s own neurodivergent behavior—anxiety—set in, she says. During the job-hunting process, “I was freaking out. People kept telling me I’d find the right position, though I was getting nervous. But I did end up finding what seemingly is going to be a perfect position for me.”

Summer Camp

Baker’s research for her dissertation, “Inclusive Environmental Education: Learning in Relation for Disabled, Genderqueer Youth,” bridges the gap between environmental and inclusive education and centers the voices of multiply marginalized youth learning in nature. As she searched for an environmental context for her work, she found it in a setting that perfectly aligned with her interests: a rare summer camp for queer and disabled students and students of color.

There, Baker was at ease with the students, and they shared a sense of comfort with her, in part because she divulged her own neurodivergent tendencies, she says. “I really understood and wanted to understand these kids and listen to them, and they sensed that, so they very much gravitated towards me,” she says.

The camp provided the kids with a vastly different learning experience than their typical school settings. “It was outdoors, away from families, school and support systems. The students were going through a lot personally, but they were still able to focus and learn in that inclusive and healing space, and that difference was transformative for them,” Baker says.

Formal Training

Baker says her highly interdisciplinary background, qualitative research experience and research with multiply marginalized students across K-12 and higher education earned her the spot in the biology lab. Associate Professor Sarah Eddy, who runs the lab, says she appreciates Baker’s formal training in education and her depth of knowledge. “What I have valued is the depth of knowledge graduates have developed, through their education Ph.D., in quantitative��methods, qualitative��methods and/or both educational theory and also critical theories. I appreciate how my projects are stronger when I partner with colleagues with formal training,” Eddy says.

Though Baker is still analyzing her dissertation findings, she hopes her research will lead to the questioning of arbitrary disability labels now used within K-12 schools, provide critical connections to schooling that takes place outside of formal education settings and reveal deeper meaning behind kids’ learning in relation to nature and STEM education, she says.

And while she’ll be conducting her lab projects remotely, Baker is satisfied that she won’t be working alone. Having new counterparts in a setting where she’s looked to for her unique strengths, skills and characteristics is exciting, she says.

“You can’t do research alone, let alone good research, and the most impactful experiences I’ve had at Syracuse are in lab spaces and collective groups. Being able to focus on a research agenda will allow me to feel comfortable and content about the work I’m doing instead of feeling the ‘mad dash’ to do it all,” she says. “This is allowing me to dip my foot in to see if academia is still the world I want to be a part of, and it seems like this role will support whatever avenue I want to take.”

Quinn Qiao

Their hands-on training is underway in the lab of noted expert , professor in the . Qiao directs the , one of three National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported collaborative research energy storage centers.

That center played a huge part in the University’s recent naming as a core partner in the , one of 10 inaugural projects funded by the NSF. Hosted by nearby Binghamton University, the project aims to make upstate New York “one of America’s battery hubs.” It brings $15 million now and potentially up to $160 million total to supercharge growth and cutting-edge research. Its is to establish sites that produce new battery componentry, conduct safety testing and certification and manufacture, integrate applications and support workforce development. New forms of battery power and energy storage technologies are considered critical .

Qiao will conduct training activities and collaborate with international industry partners and local economic development agencies and governments. He’ll also coordinate with existing entrepreneurship programs for technology transfer and commercialization activities and plan training for students from primary to graduate school and for local industry employees.

New Space

Qiao’s lab is housed in expansive new facilities in Link Hall that is filled with sophisticated and state-of-the-art equipment. The space is part of an extensive renovation designed to accommodate the college’s anticipated 50% growth over the next five years, as outlined in the University’s academic strategic plan, “.” That leap is being driven by emerging technologies in energy storage, computer chip and sensor manufacturing and other technology innovations that are leading new job growth in the Syracuse area.

Five-Student Lab

Students working with Qiao are , , , and .

Li tests lithium-rich cathodes in coin batteries aiming to speed synthesis processes to achieve batteries that can store more energy in the same physical space. He is working to produce materials faster and to lower the costs of production by using microwavereactors to accelerate the rate of synthesis and to monitor temperatures and pressures to observe how varying conditions affect the rate and yield of synthesis.

Hansheng Li, right, and Madan Saud, left, Ph.D. students, in the lab with Professor Quinn Qiao.

Over three years in Qiao’s lab, Li developed testing techniques and methodologies that have strengthened his preparation for a future either in industry or academia, he says. Still, his research hasn’t come without challenges, providing “a mix of pain and gain somehow,” he adds. “You’re not going to have results come out as you’re expecting them to each time, so analyzing the reasons behind those outcomes and proposing how to resolve problems is what’s helpful in building up research methodologies.”

Bilal Sattar, left, uses the ECS’s QiaolLab’s sophisticated equipment for experiments.

Sattar, who is in his second year at the University, worked three years in China before coming to the U.S. His research focuses on the chemical composition of batteries to see how they can be made more environmentally friendly. He also studies nanoscopic photochemical changes that drive instabilities in perovskite semiconductors used in solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photodetectors, lasers and other technologies, including solar panels and photo-rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

He enjoys the lab’s collegial nature and his professor’s “24/7 availability,” and is pleased at the high degree of professional activity he has experienced, he says. Sattar presented at last summer’s American Chemical Society (ACS) conference and at the 2024 American Physical Society (APS) March meeting in Minnesota. He has also been able to publish in scientific journals.

Third-year doctoral student Zhang works with an atomic-force microscope on nanoscale imaging and on mapping thin film organic solar cells and perovskite solar cells for nanoscale measurements.

Yuchen Zhang says his lab work with Professor Qiao, in which he works on solar cells at the nanoscale level, is world-unique.

“What I’m doing is world-unique,�� and no other universities can do it, so I’m very glad I have the opportunity to work here,” he says. Zhang imagines an industry career as a researcher, scientist or engineer, but is also open to an interesting postdoctoral position at a university or national laboratory.

Saud is a third-year Ph.D. student who previously taught secondary-level science in government schools in his home country of Nepal. He is working to develop a solid-state battery to meet the high energy demands of the electric vehicle and grid-scale storage sectors. His goal—and he admits it’s not an easy task—is to create an energy-dense, safer, longer-lasting solid-state lithium metal battery.

To do that, he replaces the liquid electrolytes in current batteries (which can sometimes be flammable) with a non-flammable solid electrolyte. That involves synthesizing a solid electrolyte, characterizing it, measuring its ionic conductivity, testing its stability with Li-metal anodes, then fabricating a full solid-state battery.

He has been able to synthesize a novel sulfide electrolyte that has a significantly higher critical current density at room temperature, he says. He is also working to increase the capacity retention in full solid-state batteries at higher current density. It’s a goal he hopes to achieve before he graduates in 2025.

The battery field is interesting for a researcher now, Saud says. Recognizing the hard work of his parents to assure his education, he hopes to pay his gratitude forward to help others. “The field does require basic knowledge in electrochemistry, but it offers a lot of research scope for a student who is energetic. As society transitions toward a more sustainable and electrified future, developing a new battery technology is a good way to contribute to the world.”

Poojan Kawekar is currently on an NSF intern research program at an industry lab in South Dakota.

Kaswekar, also in his third year, focuses on developing lead-free perovskite solar cells, which have significant cost advantages over conventional solar cells and align with the nation’s clean energy transition. He also works on solid-state batteries and their industrial and commercial applications and nanoscale characterization techniques. He is participating in a study away internship at Daktronics Inc. in South Dakota, supported by an NSF INTERN grant.

He says Qiao “has been an invaluable cornerstone in my pursuit of a Ph.D. He is dedicated to fostering a collaborative and intellectually stimulating environment within our lab and I have grown not only as a researcher but also as a critical thinker under his mentorship.”

ParKer Bryant

and found the existence of AI technologies in communities affects people in many ways. They were part of a five-student research team working with , professor of anthropology in the , who was chosen as the 2022-24 Lender Center faculty fellow to study how artificial intelligence impacts weapons systems, communities and issues of social justice.

Bryant has worked in education since 2008. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in education leadership and moved to Syracuse from Georgia to pursue her doctorate in literacy education in the . Now in her third year, she wants to work as a faculty member or education researcher after graduation to stay involved with students but use data to ensure that educational policies are structured to benefit them.

Aren Burnside

Burnside is a third-year Ph.D. student in anthropology at the Maxwell School. He grew up in the Syracuse area and obtained dual bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and philosophy from Syracuse University in 2020. He wants to become a professor because he especially enjoys teaching.

Here, Bryant and Burnside discuss how their thinking about AI evolved after investigating its social intricacies. Together with Bahn and other student fellows, they will present their findings at the Lender Fellows Symposium on Friday, .

Victor Sholl

Sholl will receive a $1,000 prize. His article introduces and argues for a view he calls World Narrativism: that narrative features affect the quality of trajectories the world can take, thus becoming relevant when we decide which course of the world we should promote. Though the idea that the history of the world has narrative features has been defended before, views of this kind typically do not involve an explicit claim that individuals should promote a better story of the world. The common assumption is that whatever is the story of the world, it is something governed by factors beyond the control of individuals. He argues that World Narrativism is original in this respect.

His essay was chosen from those submitted by A&S graduate students currently enrolled in African American studies; English; art and music histories; languages, literatures and linguistics; philosophy; religion; and writing studies, rhetoric and composition.

Sholl received his master’s in philosophy from the University of São Paulo in 2022. His research interests include well-being, normative reasons, explanations, consequentialism, and artificial intelligence and art.

Professor Mary Hatch Marshall was a founding member of the Library Associates and holds a distinguished place in the history of A&S. In 1952, she became the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature—the first woman appointed a full professor in the college—after having joined the faculty four years earlier. Library Associates established the annual Mary Hatch Marshall Award to honor and help perpetuate her scholarly standards and the generous spirit that characterized her inspirational teaching career, which lasted through her retirement in 1993. Members of Library Associates, Marshall’s friends and family, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Central New York Community Foundation all contributed to the endowment, established in 2004, that funds the award.

Library Associates is a group of dedicated SU Libraries supporters who help to raise funds and accessibility for the Libraries’ special collections, rare books and manuscripts through opportunities like the Faculty Fellows program. Those wishing to join the Library Associates or make a gift to the Mary Hatch Marshall Award Endowment can contact Ron Thiele, assistant dean for advancement for the Libraries, at rlthiele@syr.edu or 315.560.9419.

Winners were selected from a pool of 72 nominees by a panel of faculty members who serve on the Graduate Faculty Council. The awards are presented annually to recognize overall academic excellence and outstanding research and creative activities by master’s and doctoral students. Honorees receive a certificate of recognition and a $500 award.

Peter Vanable

“The creativity, innovation and broad range of concepts and interests represented by the entire group of submissions was extremely impressive this year. Our 2024 honorees presented especially exciting talent and capability in their academic work and creative projects, and we congratulate them,” says , dean of The Graduate School.

The award winners will present brief overviews of their research or creative work at the awards ceremony.��This year’s honorees are:

• Fatima Dobani, a doctoral candidate studying clinical psychology in the : “Multiracial Youth Alcohol Misuse”
• Kellan D.L. Head, doctoral candidate, philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences: “Evaluating Beliefs and Epistemic Value”
• Jingjing Ji, doctoral candidate, chemical engineering, : “Designing Tomorrow’s Therapies Through Advances in Computational Modeling”
• Qingyang Liu, doctoral candidate, human development and family science, : “Differential Growth Trajectories of Behavioral Self-Regulation from Early Childhood to Adolescence: Implication for Youth Domain-General and School-Specific Outcomes”
• Jessie Codell McClanahan, a master’s degree candidate in studio arts in the : “Hollers, Hills, & Buckshot: Anthologies of Appalachia.”
• Emily Pifer, doctoral candidate in composition and cultural rhetoric, College of Arts and Sciences: “Pulling Up the Tangled Roots of Rural Nostalgia”
• Ashley Schiros, doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, College of Arts and Sciences: “Misinformation Mayhem: The Effects of TikTok Content on ADHD Knowledge, Stigma and Treatment-Seeking Intentions”
• Ryan Wen, doctoral candidate, mass communications, : “The Model Minority Stereotype Imposed on Asians in the United States and Their Neglected Health Disparities”
• Julia Zeh, doctoral candidate, biology, College of Arts and Sciences: “Investigating Vocal Development in Humpback Whales.”

Eight other candidates were also named for honorable mention recognition:

• Aatif Abbas, doctoral candidate, philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences
• Mary Helander, doctoral candidate, social science,
• Yushan Liu, master’s degree candidate, film, College of Visual and Performing Arts
• Abigail Long, doctoral candidate, composition and cultural rhetoric, College of Arts and Sciences
• Samantha Maguire, doctoral candidate, school psychology, College of Arts and Sciences
• Teresa Ott, master’s degree candidate, creative writing, College of Arts and Sciences
• Ashley Prow, doctoral candidate, earth sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
• Laura Streib, doctoral candidate, earth sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

U.S. Army veteran Benetta Dousuah ��’25 (center) poses with two of her fellow service members.

In reflecting on her resettlement experience, Dousuah expresses deep gratitude for the social workers who played a pivotal role in providing stability for her family, especially considering Liberia’s dire circumstances during the 2014 West Africa Ebola Virus outbreak, the worst in recorded history. In the remote villages scattered throughout West Africa, young women are often an indicator of viral outbreaks since they often serve as caretakers in their rural communities.

The enduring memories of U.S. Army soldiers providing humanitarian aid in her homeland influenced Dousuah’s decision to enlist in the military. While she was initially drawn by the educational benefits like the post-9/11 GI Bill, her desire to give back and assist those in need also significantly influenced her choice.

“After we came here from Liberia, I remember seeing soldiers helping out on the news. At the time it spoke to me, and I wanted to reciprocate that same energy, so I chose to enlist in the Army,” says Dousuah.

Dousuah served as a unit supply specialist, a crucial role in the logistical backbone supporting the U.S. military’s global presence. The military’s logistical units often play a vital role in humanitarian operations, particularly in remote areas with limited infrastructure.

Benetta Dousuah and her daughter pose with a dolphin.

In 2014, the U.S. Army responded to the Ebola outbreak in Liberia by constructing specialty field hospitals and providing essential medical services throughout the region. By 2021, Dousuah, now a Sergeant in the U.S. Army and a mother to a young daughter, found herself offering the same kind of assistance to refugees that her family was shown when they fled Liberia

“We were deployed to Indiana to help with the Afghan refugee resettlement process,” says Dousuah, who identified parallels between her experiences coming to the U.S. and the Afghan families she assisted. In addition to her regular duties, she contributed to developing classes for children and volunteered as a teacher. This direct involvement inspired a long-term goal of establishing a school in Liberia.

“I plan on going back to Liberia after graduate school just to get the idea of what I need to do first, but ultimately I want to get the foundation going to try and build, and then open, a school there,” says Dousuah.

As an Army veteran, Dousuah is committed to supporting service members and veterans dealing with mental health challenges. Her motivation stems from personal experiences working with soldiers struggling to access adequate behavioral health services and recognizing the insufficient support for Black women in particular.

Benetta Dousuah ��’25 (lower right) with other student veterans during a student veteran career emersion trip to Washington, D.C.

“Our mental health is not taken as seriously as it should be. If I’m experiencing social anxiety I may not be comfortable in the situation, but that’s not how people see it,” says Dousuah. “They just label us as angry, and it puts a lot of pressure on us when it comes to our mental health.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, women veterans aged 26 or older are among the most vulnerable members of the veteran population when it comes to suffering major depressive episodes. Dousuah sees her studies as a way to integrate both goals.

“While my concentration is on the clinical side of social work, I’ve also been able to take AIP (Advanced Integrated Practice) classes, which are more policy-related in a way,” says Dousuah. “My classes are helping me implement what I’m learning into the idea of building the school.”

Dousuah also seized an opportunity to assist her fellow veterans by interning with the .

“The work that I do in my internship is compelling because I get to help other veterans, particularly veterans like me or going through things I’ve been through. It’s helped me understand the whole holistic aspect of connecting veterans to resources, some of which I knew nothing about before,” says Dousuah.

To learn more about military-connected students at Syracuse University, or the programs and services available to them, please visit the website.

Currently, there are almost 80 postdoctoral scholars in 26 different programs and departments at the University.

A Valued Presence

, dean of the , says postdoctoral scholars are an integral part of the University community. “Along with excellent research contributions, they help to mentor our Ph.D. students and bring diverse backgrounds, varied career perspectives and added expertise to the research enterprise. We value their presence and their contributions, and we are pleased to support them however possible.”

Vice President for Research agrees. “Postdoctoral scholars are essential to the University’s research and creative activities. They contribute to the research program of their faculty advisors through their own research accomplishments and their interactions with our students. Their work enriches the environment of their research groups while they build their own skills through mentoring and collaboration,” he says.

The , administered by the in partnership with the Graduate School, serves as a centralized campus resource dedicated to the interests and well-being of full-time postdoctoral researchers. The office, established last fall, offers onboarding and orientation, mentoring connections, networking opportunities and professional skill development, among other resources. Additionally, lunch-and-learn workshops are held every other Wednesday from noon to 1:30 p.m. at 227 Lyman Hall.

Postdoctoral Experiences

wanted to expand her focus on family dynamics and aging. She is affiliated with the , a collaborative initiative of the and the , where she works with , Marjorie Cantor professor of aging studies.

Seonhwa Lee

“What I appreciate most is the institute’s vibrant research atmosphere. Faculty members and students actively engage in exploring compelling studies, and the open exchange of ideas, questions and constructive feedback nurtures intellectual curiosity and creates a collaborative space advancing research projects. This collaborative research atmosphere stands out as a key highlight of my experience at Syracuse,” Lee says.

Lee’s research examines how family traditions of strong religious belief and generosity in helping others contribute to intergenerational solidarity and positive aging and health. She looks at the relationships between parents and children and grandparents and grandchildren and how the role parents and grandparents play impacts the views of Generation Z populations. Her research shows that promoting religious belief as a family value draws family members emotionally closer, and that promoting prosocial values creates a greater sense of responsibility to provide care and support to older family members.

is a microbiologist and biomedical scientist with expertise in biological, biomedical and food safety-related research. Nwabor praises Syracuse University’s laboratory facilities and appreciates the access he has to equipment. “At other universities, we weren’t given the opportunity to use most of the facilities; the technicians did that. At Syracuse, they explain how to use equipment, such as an electron microscope, then they let you use it. I really appreciate getting to use the equipment by myself to get actual hands-on training.”

Nwabor is investigating microbial biofilm, communities of microorganisms that adhere to surfaces. Bacterial biofilm formation can result in negative medical issues for humans, such as dental plaque, lung fluids in cystic fibrosis and illnesses such as cholera, tuberculosis and Legionnaire’s disease. He is working to understand the interaction that occurs between surface features and structures in the adhesion process and how biofilm forms. He works in the of , associate dean for research and Stevenson Endowed Professor in the .

is a postdoctoral fellow in the . She and IES Associate Director are looking at how scientific bodies in the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Uganda and Poland adopt national health and science policy, especially in the context of the COVID pandemic.

Of her experience at Syracuse University, Pronin, a native of Finland, says, “I find Syracuse University and the Whitman School to be very friendly, with a very well-functioning administration, and I really like working with my supervisor. I’ve found this to be a very accepting environment.”

Pronin and Koppl are currently collecting data for a book they plan to co-author on technocracy, scientific research and democracy.

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs is located in Rooms 226 and 227 of Lyman Hall. The office is staffed by Colleen Burton, senior director of finance and research initiatives, and Claire Perrott, professional development postdoctoral fellow. For more information, email postdocaffairs@syr.edu.

L. Hazel Jack

Jack was working in the airport advertising field after earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing management and advertising from Pace University. She was responsible for her company’s national sales conference, scheduled in New York City on Sept. 10 and 11 that year, and was at a printing facility in New Jersey when the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center occurred.

“It was this moment that got me thinking, ‘Is this really what I want to do? What’s my purpose?’” Jack recalls. Soon after, she began searching for more meaning within her selected field, ultimately leading to a job in marketing and communications for the City University of New York’s School of Professional Studies.

That ignited her passion for higher education, and she has since held various executive roles related to marketing, communications, special events, advancement and crisis management with Johns Hopkins University, Howard University and now Colgate University, where she currently serves as vice president and chief of staff to the president. She has continued to collect advanced degrees along the way, and in fall of 2017, began her pursuit of a Ph.D. from Syracuse to take her expertise to the highest possible level.

An Unexpected, But ‘Easy Choice’

Jack, a first-generation college student, says when she was choosing where to study as an undergraduate, she didn’t consider her current role in higher ed administration as a viable career path. “I didn’t even know this was a thing. I just assumed I would do some kind of corporate communications or advertising. I never anticipated getting this level of education,” she says of attaining an MBA in marketing and a master’s degree in higher education administration from Baruch College before moving on to a doctoral degree.

“I often feel like I shouldn’t be here,” Jack says. “When you read about education and who tends to persist and who does well, I don’t exactly fit that mold.” After deciding to attain a Ph.D., she applied to a handful of programs, including the one at the School of Education. She didn’t think she would be admitted. “When I did, I was like, ‘Well that’s an easy decision!’”

She immediately connected with the professors and coursework. “I took a course on organization and administration in higher education, which was immediately applicable to my role at Colgate—looking at various aspects of how different institutions of higher learning are structured and some of the nuances of hierarchies and governance, which was really helpful,” says Jack.

Beyond coursework, she has been grateful to connect with her peers in the program who also work in higher education, helping break down the siloes that can prevail within and across institutions.

DEIA In Theory and In Practice

Another favorite course of Jack’s was one she took with on race, representation and culture. “It instantly gave me language to put to experiences I’ve had that I couldn’t explain before,” Jack says. “We dove into the literature around identity and place within higher education. As a woman of color in higher ed, working mostly at predominantly white institutions, there was always this ‘outsider’ feeling, even as I progressed in my career. Reading literature that described that experience, I realized it was not just in my head; it was real. It helped me make sense of what I’ve experienced in the space and reassured me that I deserve to be in this space.”

Jack plays an integral role in diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) work at Colgate and through her association with several professional organizations—including One X League, Chief, the National Council of Negro Women and as a John Roberts Lewis Fellow with the Faith & Politics Institute. She finds herself continuously revisiting and integrating her School of Education coursework into her career and advocating for others in the space who may share her background.

“Right now there is so much conversation around DEIA and higher ed, especially with affirmative action being struck down,” Jack says. “A lot of the conversation hits very close to home, and it’s often taking place in spaces where I’m the only one or one of very few who have a similar experience to me. Considering multiple perspectives is more important now than ever as we’re dealing with such complex issues.”

Dissertation Research on the Visibility of Black Women Leaders

Jack’s doctoral dissertation explores how Black women college presidents have historically been covered by the press—a topic she selected years ago, but has a certain element of timeliness in the wake of recent high-profile resignations of female college presidents, including the departure of Claudine Gay from Harvard University.

Focusing on eight Black women who led higher education institutes of various types and sizes beginning in the late 1980s, Jack examined national, regional, local and student press coverage of their tenures. She completed a content and discourse analysis of what was written and how they were written about, resulting in three preliminary findings.

“Up until recently, and I’m talking within the last 20 years, these women were often described physically in the coverage. For example, ‘She had short cropped hair with a beautiful smile and wore a blue suit,’” Jack says. “How often do you see a man written about in these terms? Second, unless they had a controversy or were a ‘first’ of some sort, they weren’t written about at all. A lot of the presidents in the middle of my timeline were basically non-existent in terms of being covered. My third finding is this notion that [Black female presidents] have to be perfect in their role and act in an exemplary way at all times—there is no margin for error.”

Jack anticipates defending her dissertation by the end of the spring semester. She plans to continue in her role at Colgate and considers a future in teaching, but says she isn’t in a rush to make any big moves or firm plans: “I’ve been working full-time and studying part-time for the better part of the last 20 years,” she says. “Maybe it’s time for a break. Maybe it’s time to come home from work and take a walk for a change. I never would’ve expected that I would be here in the first place, so we’ll see what happens next.”

serves as the University’s entrepreneurship and innovation hub, partnering with academic programs and entrepreneurial centers across campus and beyond to connect students to local, regional and national networks of alumni entrepreneurs, company founders, subject matter experts and venture partners.

Administered by Syracuse University Libraries and located in Bird Library, the LaunchPad hosts classes, speaking events and workshops and offers a mentoring program. In addition, LaunchPad hosts each year.

Winning Startups

Three businesses developed by graduate students recently claimed the top prizes in the ’Cuse Tank competition, one of the University’s premier business plan competitions. Here, the winners offer advice for other graduate-level students who have an entrepreneurial spirit.

Natasha Brao

developed , inspired by the Mediterranean dish Shakshuka. The MBA student says she plans to run the business full time after she graduates this spring. Brao recently began production runs and is forming relationships with small local retailers. She will expand the business by hiring staff and ramping up marketing and sales and hopes it will soon be investor ready.

“Creating a food product and brand has been something I have dreamed of doing since I was a kid, and now I owe it to myself to give it all I’ve got,” she says. She encourages others to pursue their startups while still in school. “If you have an idea you want to explore or that is ready and has a place in the market, this is the best time for that. Starting a business while being in grad school has made me more passionate and driven me to absorb as much as I can from my classes. They provide invaluable tools to learn as I go and I can immediately apply those lessons to the real world.”

Waqar Hussain

founded , a cloud-hosting platform engineered with proprietary software that offers streamlined cloud server management solutions. He is on track to earn an MBA with a concentration in entrepreneurship and marketing next year. Now, he’ll use his ’Cuse Tank prize to fund product development, improved technology, automation, marketing and the infrastructure and operations teams, he says. He encourages graduate students to take on startup ventures.

“[The experience] allows grad students to start building while they’re studying. These programs help you think more holistically when you’re competing—from writing to pitching to financing. You find there’s a whole world of things you can put into practice to build your real-world skills.”

heads , which uses engineering analysis software to design systems for active space debris removal, on-orbit satellite servicing and in-space manufacturing missions. He is in his final year of the H. John Riley dual engineering/MBA program.

Marin’s interest in creating a space company began in high school after a military representative at a science fair thought his passion could become something more. He credits a first-year entrepreneurship course with helping him better understand how to solve problems and seek opportunities. “Explore the connection between your passion and problem-solving while there’s time for it,” he suggests. “If you find something worth doing, do it.” He says he will enter his company in additional competitions this semester, then look for longer-term sources of funding.

Additional Resources

Students can also find entrepreneurship opportunities in their home school or college.

: The (New Explorations in Information and Science) Lab is a research lab where student innovators initiate IT projects, work with peers and explore emerging technologies. Students work on independent projects that advance the fields of information science, engineering and technology. The school also hosts workshops and hackathons.

: The ��provides information about patents, trademarks and copyrights. Student entrepreneurs can meet with law student experts regarding questions on intellectual property, regulatory compliance and commercialization resources as well as the technical, legal and business aspects of bringing new technologies to market. The center also hires graduate students from a wide range of disciplines to assess and analyze proposals submitted by real-world clients.

: The is an entrepreneurial workspace that partners with new media startups and offers tailored services to help students’ companies grow and succeed. The coordinates co-op internships that allow students to work with some of the world’s fastest-growing media startups.

: The graduate degree program in offers specialized tracks in four areas: new venture, social, corporate and family entrepreneurship. The school presents several competitions each year, including , the and . Whitman is also home to the , a student-centered co-working space and mentorship program, and the

: Veteran or military-connected students will find many at IVMF. help students get their ideas off the ground. The annual focuses on the opportunities and challenges faced by growth-stage businesses that are actively scaling or ready to scale. is a one-day entrepreneurship training event, offered in cities across the U.S., for veterans, active-duty military and military spouses or life partners who are just beginning to explore the opportunity of small business ownership as a post-service career path.

The��, in the (A&S), offers key grants and fellowships to graduate students that allow them to advance their projects and share their ideas beyond the walls of the University. Two such opportunities include�������Ի���

“Advancing graduate student research is so important. As the work of this year’s dissertation fellows and public humanities grantees amply illustrates, graduate students are pushing the boundaries of their fields and advancing the humanities in new ways for the 21st century,” says��, director of the Humanities Center. “Their projects explore how we think about transnational and cross-cultural solidarity movements to address legacies of settler colonialism; how we experience and navigate linguistic interactions; how we think about visual, photographic and historical archives—and address absences within them; and how we can use photography and literature to foster a positive transformation in ourselves and wider communities. We invite the broader community to join us for conversation and engagement with these cutting-edge scholars this spring.”

Humanities Center Dissertation Fellowship Recipients

The Humanities Center Dissertation Fellowships are competitive one-year awards in the form of stipends that allow the awardees, who are in their final year of their doctoral programs, to focus on completing their dissertations and immersing fully in their research without the demands of teaching.

To be eligible, students must be completing dissertations in Ph.D. programs at A&S in English, philosophy, religion or writing. (.) Selected fellows benefit from a support system within the Humanities Center, camaraderie with one another and the opportunity to present their work to an interdisciplinary audience.

The Humanities Center will hold a virtual��, where this year’s cohort will engage in dialogue and Q&A about their respective projects on Friday, Feb. 16, at 10:30 a.m. To register, visit the .

Çağla Çimendereli,��Ph.D. candidate, philosophy

Çağla Çimendereli

Çağla Çimendereli’s dissertation,��, identifies a new aspect by adopting an existentialist approach to spoken language, shifting the focus from the goals of speaking to the act of speaking itself.

As a native of Turkey, when she came to the U.S. to earn a Ph.D., she started noticing that occasionally using a foreign language for basic communication and academic discussion was quite different from existing in a foreign language while trying to be a free and authentic person. After discussing her experience with other nonnative speakers at the University, she realized there was a common lack of understanding of the phenomenon.

Çimendereli noted that speaking a foreign language was often considered a privilege or additional power, and that linguistic norms and practices help determine what language is spoken, often oppressing nonnative speakers in ways that have been ignored. Her experiences led her to question how these two simultaneous modes in nonnative speaking can be reconciled, which became the focus of her dissertation.

“It seems clear to me that there are many people who experience agency-restrictiveness of nonnative speaking, but the traditional frameworks for understanding language speaking do not allow for open discussion,” says Çimendereli. “Exposing the structural/systemic aspects of these experiences helps those affected better understand that if they are feeling powerless and inauthentic, there are reasons, and that is not simply their own failure. I’m hoping to initiate a new way of discussing linguistic agency in philosophy, which I believe will better guide the linguistics justice debates in political theory, sociolinguistics and language education.”

Florencia Lauria,��Ph.D. candidate, English

Florencia Lauria

Florencia Lauria’s dissertation,��, puts Indigenous and Latinx studies in dialogue by examining border narratives in contemporary novels and films. Her research looks at reading borders as sites of profound tension for Latinx migration and Indigenous sovereignty and addresses materials that range from novels and fantasy and science fiction to historical archives and climatology reports.

The project examines settler colonial histories and environmental injustices in the Americas from Argentina to Canada. Her dissertation aims to refocus the conversations about Latinx and Indigenous contemporary literatures around borders that are not places for comradery and healing but instead unresolvable “unfriendliness” between contested positions. She poses what kind of shared political future is possible for migrant and Indigenous subjects given the turbulent landscapes in which they meet.

“Literature can highlight important inter- and intragroup relations, establishing common ground between different justice movements and providing avenues of collective resistance against colonial racial capitalist structures,” she says. “In some cases, it can also elude important differences between justice projects, such as land back campaigns or anti-deportation campaigns. My project is interested in challenging easy connection, which I argue do disservice to these relations in the long run. My hope is that by highlighting difference and non-equivalence, my work will contribute to more profound solidarities between justice projects.”

Humanities New York Public Humanities Grants Awardees

A joint initiative between the Humanities Center and the��, these competitive grants are awarded by Humanities New York (HNY) to support publicly engaged humanities projects that foster meaningful public partnerships and strengthen the role of the humanities across New York state communities.

Recipients of the Humanities New York Public Humanities grants also have the chance to take part in various networking events and workshops designed to develop greater skillsets and expertise. (.)

The Humanities Center will host a virtual��, where this year’s cohort will engage in dialogue and Q&A about their respective projects on Wednesday, April 10, at 10 a.m. To register, visit the .

Chelsea Bouldin,��University Fellow, Ph.D. candidate, School of Education

Chelsea Bouldin

Chelsea Bouldin, who was recently awarded an��Imagining America Publicly Active Graduate Education fellowship, was selected for a Humanities New York grant for her work, So be it; See to it: An Archiving Project.

Bouldin’s interest in this topic comes from her understanding that elitist, exclusionary institutions often house the archives of public figures whose insights offer potential frameworks for a fuller understanding of people’s histories, present and future—something particularly true for marginalized communities with less access to these institutions and whose histories have been disproportionately subject to being erased from mainstream education.

With this understanding, Bouldin has combined her work in archival research on Octavia E. Butler, one of the first African American female science fiction writers, with her commitment to public-oriented scholarship to explore how she could extend her project beyond academia to include public influence. Curating Butler’s work to form a Black women-centered community-based project in Syracuse, Bouldin aims to showcase how their respective histories in particular offer transformative tools to engage the present for those who have limited “windows and mirrors” to see themselves through literature.

“It is my deep hope that this project will impact my area of research by widening our consideration of archives as sites of epistemic resources and as a model of expansively ‘doing’ scholarship,” Bouldin says. “I also hope this exemplifies the ways that singular academic projects can be creatively shared in a multiplicity of iterations across difference. This project verbalizes imagination, which is critical to my area of research.”

Caroline Charles,��Ph.D. student, English/film and screen studies

Caroline Charles

Another Humanities New York grant was awarded to Caroline Charles for her project,��Family Pictures Syracuse/Turning the Lens Collective. Charles’ inspiration comes from research done for her dissertation,��Practices of Black Visual Archive in Film, which examines how Black filmmakers utilize archival materials inside their work, as well as from her work co-curating an archival exhibition,��A Love Supreme: Black Cultural Expression and Political Activism of the 1960s and 1970s, inside Syracuse University Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

As part of her dissertation research, she encountered the work of����and his own community engagement project, which encourages local communities to share stories through their family photographs. This motivated her to collaborate with The Family Pictures Institute, as well as students and staff at Syracuse University, to create a Syracuse community-based project around family photographs. A native of Syracuse, Charles hopes her work might inspire others to do a dissertation project, thesis or other form of scholarly research that involves the greater Syracuse community.

“The photographs we take, display in our homes or keep in family albums are sites for public memory—windows into stories that too often go unseen and underwritten,” she says. “My hope is that this project will allow participants to see the value in their own photo archives, and that will inspire the community to narrate the stories behind their photographs to ensure that our histories are not lost or overlooked. Finally, I hope that the project will be an opportunity to connect the community to our local archives and learn more about the services and resources they provide.”

Jacques Safari Mwayaona

Combining his background in instructional design with an understanding of diversity and inclusion, Universal Design for Learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Jacques Safari Mwayaona G’22 is making a name for himself in the field of educational development.

A Faculty Development Fellow in the University’s (CTLE) and a graduate of the School of Education’s , recently Mwayaona received double recognition from The Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education, or . He also presented two sessions on student-faculty partnerships at the November 2023 POD Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Include Everyone

Mwayaona’s first award is the , named for a former POD Network president and awarded to educational development professionals for “their accomplishments to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in their work” and for promoting the integration of DEI into teaching strategies.

Mwayaona humbly suggested his second award—a Graduate Student, Professional Student and Postdoctoral Scholar Development (GPPD) , with similar membership and stipend benefits as the fellowship—be offered to someone else. The committee suggested a compromise. Mwayaona would keep his award, but the benefits could go to another: “Keeping me on the award list allows me to mentor new GPPD awardees for years to come.”

The POD Network awards committees had noticed and rewarded Mwayaona’s work with CTLE that is helping students become active participants in their learning process, an initiative known as .

“My work is about building faculty-student partnerships that empower students to share their perspectives,” Mwayaona says. “Normally, a professor has all the power when producing knowledge, but when students have a say, they can participate in the knowledge creation process by actively sharing with the faculty what is helping them learn and what is not.” For instance, Mwayaona says, students may suggest new strategies that motivate them to learn that the faculty can try out.

Moreover, empowering students and establishing a power-sharing dynamic in the classroom is an equitable practice that increases diversity and inclusion because it allows every student the opportunity to share their perspectives and be heard, “making it easier for faculty to include everyone and make the classroom cultural responsive,” Mwayaona says.

Harnessing the Power

Mwayaona observes that a master’s degree in instructional design was a strong launching pad for his burgeoning career in educational development, saying, “It helped me learn how to integrate technology to improve learning effectively.”

The latest technology to change the educational landscape is AI, which Mwayaona and his CTLE colleagues are introducing to faculty through .”We are helping faculty embrace AI, harnessing the power of the tool but at the same time not putting the learning process in danger,” he says.

Understanding AI is its own learning process for instructors, observes Mwayaona, who recently earned a certificate in Designing and Building AI from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“As AI was being introduced, people were afraid of it, mostly because they didn’t understand it and because media coverage fueled fear,” Mwayaona says. “Now some professors are integrating AI fully into their classrooms, but others are still cautious about the harm it can do. They really want to understand how it works. If we continue to have these interdisciplinary conversations on AI across campus, I think it will help to lower anxiety.”

Mwayaona says there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to integrating AI. “Its use depends on the subject you are teaching or the domain you are in. Literature professors won’t use AI the same way as those in architecture. … Our suggestion to faculty is to focus on and adapt the learning objectives and students’ learning process rather than the final results.,” Mwayaona says, adding that one way AI is disrupting college learning is through its ability to produce quick results from a short prompt.

In other words, AI is getting better at producing a final result.

Instead, Mwayaona suggests, AI could be embraced as a starting point of inquiry. “Say you are writing a paper on the French Revolution—multiple authors and texts can be summarized by AI so that the student can then go on to generate their own ideas.”

AI Is Not Magic

Turning to another of his professional interests, Mwayaona says one benefit of AI is its potential to promote (UDL).

UDL takes into account multiple ways people learn, engage and express themselves. “It can be difficult for instructors to account for all students,” says Mwayaona. “If you really want learning to get better, it should be adapted to the needs of each student. AI can help build that adaptive content.”

At the same time, Mwayaona urges caution: “AI is not magic. We must build guardrails so it does not harm the student.”

“AI is not magic. We must build guardrails so it does not harm the student.”

—Jacques Safari Mwayaona G’22

One of AI’s notable flaws is bias, which has been described as AI’s “” or even “.” “AI brings a lot of bias along with it because of the way it consumes available training data,” says Mwayaona. “We know that data contains a lot of bias, and when AI learns from a biased dataset, it can include it in its algorithm.”

Because AI can throw out —e����� —results, its work and the data it relies on must be well-curated. “So when people ask me if AI is replacing jobs, one answer is to say that we still need controls on what AI produces, as well as people to check it, on top of other opportunities AI brings,” Mwayaona says.

Learn more about the School of Education’s , or contact Professor Moon-Heum Cho at mhcho@syr.edu or 315.443.5259.

Artist’s representation of a tidal disruption event (a star being torn apart by a black hole) (Photo courtesy of NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)

Astrophysicists from Syracuse University and the University of Leeds have collaborated with high school students in Syracuse to confirm the accuracy of an analytical model that can unlock key information about supermassive black holes and the stars they engulf.

At the center of most large galaxies lives a supermassive black hole (SMBH). The Milky Way has Sagittarius A*, a mostly dormant SMBH whose mass is around 4.3 million times that of the sun. But if you look deeper into the universe, there are vastly larger SMBHs with masses that can reach up to tens of billions of times the mass of our sun.

Black holes grow in mass by gravitationally consuming objects in their near vicinity, including stars. It’s a catastrophic and destructive end for stars unlucky enough to be swallowed by SMBHs, but fortunate for scientists who now have an opportunity to probe otherwise-dormant centers of galaxies.

TDEs Light the Way

As the name implies, black holes do not emit any light of their own, making them very difficult for researchers to observe. But when a star comes sufficiently close to a supermassive black hole, it can be destroyed by the black hole’s immense tidal gravitational field through an interaction that is, effectively, an extreme instance of the Earth’s tidal interaction with the moon. Some of the tidally destroyed material falls into the black hole, creating a very hot, very bright disk of material as it does so. This process, known as a tidal disruption event (TDE), provides a light source that can be viewed with powerful telescopes and analyzed by scientists.

TDEs are relatively rare—predicted to take place roughly once every 10,000 to 100,000 years in a given galaxy. One to two dozen TDEs are typically detected annually, but with the advent of new technology like the , currently under construction in Chile, hundreds are anticipated to be observed in the coming years. These powerful observatories scan the night sky for rising and falling sources of light, and thus “survey” the cosmos for time-changing astronomical phenomena.

Using these surveys, astrophysicists can perform studies of TDEs to estimate the properties of SMBHs and the stars that they destroy. One of the things that researchers try to understand is the mass of both the star and the SMBH. While one analytical model has been used quite often, a new one was recently developed and is now being tested.

The Advent of Analytical Models

The accretion rate—or rate at which a star’s stellar material falls back onto the SMBH during a TDE—reveals important signatures of stars and SMBHs, such as their masses. The most accurate way to calculate this is with a numerical hydrodynamical simulation, which uses a computer to analyze the gas dynamics of the tidally destroyed material from a TDE as it rains onto the black hole. While precise, this technique is expensive and can take weeks to months for researchers to compute one TDE.

In recent decades, physicists have devised analytical models to calculate the accretion rate. These models present an efficient and cost-effective method for understanding the properties of disrupted stars and black holes, but uncertainties remain about the accuracy of their approximations.

A handful of analytical models currently exist, with perhaps the most well-known being the “frozen-in” approximation; this name derives from the fact that the orbital period of the debris that rains onto the black hole is established, or “frozen-in,” at a specific distance from the black hole called the tidal radius.

Proposed in 1982 by Lacy, Townes and Hollenbach, and then expanded upon by Lodato, King and Pringle in 2009, this model suggests that the accretion rate from massive stars peaks on a timescale that can range from one to 10 years depending on the mass of the star. This means that if you’re looking at the night sky, a source could initially brighten, peak, and decline with time over timescales of years.

A New Way Forward

, physics professor in the , and , associate professor of theoretical astrophysics at the University of Leeds, proposed a new model in 2022, simply referred to as the�� model, which determines the peak timescale for TDEs as a function of the properties of the star and the mass of the black hole. From this new model, they recovered TDE peak timescales and accretion rates that agreed with the results of some hydrodynamical simulations, but the broader implications of this model—and also its predictions over a wider range of stellar type, including the mass and age of the star—were not completely elucidated.

To better characterize and understand the predictions of this model in a wider context, a team of researchers from Syracuse University, led by Ananya Bandopadhyay, a Ph.D. student in the��, conducted a study to analyze the implications of the CN22 model and test it against different types of stars and SMBHs of various masses.

The team’s work has been published in��. In addition to lead author Bandopadhyay, co-authors included Coughlin, Nixon, undergraduate and graduate students from the Department of Physics, and Syracuse City School District (SCSD) students. The SCSD students’ involvement was made possible through the�� (SURPh) program, a six-week paid internship where local high schoolers engage in cutting-edge research alongside University students and faculty studying physics.

SCSD students who took part in the SURPh program served as co-authors on the study. From left to right are Matt Todd (physics graduate student), Eric Coughlin (physics professor), Valentino Indelicato (SURPh participant), Dan Paradiso (physics graduate student), Julia Fancher (physics undergraduate student), Aluel Athian (SURPh participant) and Ananya Bandopadhyay (physics graduate student and lead author)

During the summers of 2022 and 2023, the SCSD students collaborated with Syracuse physicists on computational projects that tested the validity of the CN22 model. They used a stellar evolution code called “Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics” to study the evolution of stars. Using these profiles, they then compared the accretion rate predictions for a range of stellar masses and ages for the “frozen-in” approximation and the CN22 model. They also performed numerical hydrodynamical simulations of the disruption of a sun-like star by a supermassive black hole, to compare the model predictions to the numerically obtained accretion rate.

Their Findings

According to Bandopadhyay, the team found that the CN22 model was in extremely good agreement with the hydrodynamical simulations. Moreover, and perhaps most profound, was the finding that the peak timescale of the accretion rate in a TDE is very insensitive to the properties (mass and age) of the destroyed star, being ~50 days for a star like our sun destroyed by a black hole with the mass of Sagittarius A*.

Most striking and surprising about this result is that the “frozen-in” model makes a very different prediction. According to the “frozen-in” model, the same TDE would produce an accretion rate that would peak on a timescale of two years, which is in blatant disagreement with the results of hydrodynamical simulations.

“This overturns previously held notions about the way that TDEs work and what types of transients you could possibly produce by totally destroying a star,” says Bandopadhyay. “By confirming the accuracy of the CN22 model, we offer proof that this type of analytical method can greatly speed up the inference of observable properties for the disruption of stars having a range of masses and ages.”

Their study also addresses another previous misconception. By clarifying that complete TDEs cannot exceed month-long timescales, they disprove the earlier belief that they can be used to explain long-duration light curves that peak and decay on multiple-year spans. In addition, Coughlin notes that this paper verifies that peak fallback rate is effectively independent of the mass and age of the disrupted star and is almost entirely determined by the mass of the SMBH, a key indicator that models like CN22 can help researchers constrain masses of SMBHs.

“If you measure the rise time, what you could be directly peering into is actually the property of the supermassive black hole, which is the Holy Grail of TDE physics—being able to use TDEs to say something about the black hole,” says Coughlin.

Acknowledging the paper’s influence on the field, Bandopadhyay was invited by the American Astronomical Society to give a�� of the team’s findings at the society’s 243rd meeting in New Orleans this past January.

Looking to the future, the team says by confirming the accuracy of the CN22 model, this study opens a window for researchers to make observable predictions about TDEs, which can be tested against existing and upcoming detections. Through collaboration and ingenuity, researchers at Syracuse are bringing details about the physics of black holes to light and helping explore areas of the distant universe that were once untraceable.

This joint program leverages the national reputations and programmatic strengths of both schools in preparing students to be versatile, multidisciplinary, forward-looking experts and leaders ready to take on the important challenges across the globe related to sustainability.

This program can be completed in one year as a full-time student and is composed of a minimum of 30 credits. Central to this program is that students take courses from both the Whitman and Maxwell schools, ensuring that students learn about sustainability from a variety of perspectives, such as economics, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, international affairs, public administration, political science, statistics, sociology and supply chain management.

Students also have great flexibility in their elective course choices, allowing them to customize their own unique approach to sustainability by sector, industry or policy area. The first student cohort will be on campus in the fall of 2024. Applications to the program opened earlier this month.

Whitman School Interim Dean Alexander McKelvie says, “The world is increasing its appreciation for a multidisciplinary approach to sustainability that embraces the importance of private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Our students and their future employers also recognize the benefits of well-rounded students who possess the skills and abilities to navigate the complex topic of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) and that requires students to understand both business and policy.”

This program is designed for those who are passionate about sustainability and seek an interdisciplinary approach that features experts in business, policy, governance and entrepreneurship and will prepare students with the knowledge and skills to manage programs and lead organizations in addressing the challenging issues of sustainability in a complex global environment.

Students will come from a variety of undergraduate and professional backgrounds, including from the social sciences, humanities, sciences, engineering and business. This is a STEM-designated program, allowing international students to have 36 months of Optional Practical Training (OPT) upon completion of the program.

David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School says, “Sustainability is one of the great challenges of our time and requires understanding across disciplines, with economic, social, environmental and business considerations at its core. Graduates will be well-prepared to work in a global community where sustainable business practice and policy are intertwined across many career pathways and industries.”

Core courses will be taught by world-renowned faculty from both schools, which includes Whitman’s Maria Minniti, director of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society (IES) and Louis A. Bantle Chair in Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, and Maxwell’s Jay S. Golden, Pontarelli Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Finance and founding director of the Dynamic Sustainability Lab.

An important aspect of sustainability education is experiential learning, a need recognized and met in the For the required capstone course, students will work directly with clients in related industries.

Career placement rates and starting salaries for graduates in comparable programs are high. There is a significant increase in jobs in both the private and public sectors related to sustainability.

Admission requirements are the same as other master’s degree programs in the Maxwell School and Whitman School. Competitive scholarships are available based on merit.

See the M.S. in sustainable organizations and policy for more detailed information about this new joint program.

The concept is simple: through informal, one-to-one conversations about any subject, learners can become more accustomed to speaking English while learning nuances of American culture and customs as well as college and campus life.

“The program is literally conversation; there is no formal instruction provided by the partners,” says Shawn Loner, Graduate School assistant director of professional and career development, who manages the program. “The facilitator and participant work out the goals, topics and focal points for a session or sessions. Some international students want feedback on aspects of their language; others just want a place to practice their speech.”

Facilitators and participants typically meet once a week for at least an hour, although they can agree to meet longer or more frequently, according to Loner. Sessions usually begin at the start of the semester and run through the end of classes and may also occur during breaks if desired. Meetings are held in public spaces such as campus libraries, cafeterias or the Marshall Square Mall. Some conversation pairs also meet online via Zoom.

Shawn Loner

Law student and program participant Renata Maximiano Chaves says she highly recommends the experience. “Beyond enhancing my language skills, my [conversation partner] has offered valuable life advice, helped me adjust to American culture and provided campus life tips. This partnership has evolved into a precious friendship and their kindness and competence have boosted my confidence in improving my English-speaking skills.”

Conversation facilitator Elizabeth (“Lisa”) Sasser enjoyed her part in the program, too. “I worked with three fellow grad students during the fall semester on Friday afternoons. It was a low-key way for them to focus on their goals for the program—whether to be a teaching assistant or to polish conference presentation skills. I really enjoyed our conversations and hope they enjoyed them, too.”

“With the start of a new semester, the Graduate School is seeking new conversation facilitators and participants,” Loner says. Both undergraduate and graduate students can work in the paid, hourly facilitator positions. They receive some guidance on identifying typical non-standard language features and on how to conduct conversation sessions, but otherwise, they work independently. While facilitators meet individually with each participant, most work with multiple students. Partners are matched based on their schedules and the time each can devote to the program. Both facilitators and participants are welcome to stay in the program for as long as they wish. Last semester, about 95 international graduate students participated and were paired with 30 conversation partners.

Interested participants can fill out the . To apply for a position as a conversation facilitator, contact Loner at 315.443.3431,�� scloner@syr.edu��or visit him in person at 304 Lyman Hall.

Josh Henkin will visit campus Feb. 1 and 2.

Nationally recognized career expert Josh Henkin will visit campus next month to offer a series of workshops for doctoral students and postdoctoral associates who are preparing to seek industry or government positions in STEM. ��

Henkin is founder of career coaching and counseling services firm . He will be on campus Thursday, Feb. 1, and Friday, Feb. 2, to offer a series of four workshops on ways to tailor resumes, discuss and categorize skills, and interview for positions in today’s ultra-competitive STEM fields. Henkin will also be available for informal discussion over meals with doctoral students, postdocs and faculty mentors.��

“Henkin’s workshops are a must-attend experience that can be a game changer for participants,” says Daniel Olson-Bang, director of professional and career development for the Graduate School. “His extensive experience in industry and his support of STEM graduate students and postdocs in institutions across the country make him uniquely situated to address our students’ and postdoc scholars’ needs and provide essential support for their job searches.”   ��

After earning a STEM Ph.D. and completing a postdoctoral fellowship, Henkin was awarded an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy fellowship and has held numerous industry and government jobs. He is a subject matter expert and career coach for the and works as a career development coach for Lawrence Berkeley National Labs Postdoc Program. He previously served two terms on the board of directors of the and spent 15 years as a hiring manager in STEM. He is author of the book “,” copies of which will be raffled at the workshops.����

 The workshops are offered jointly by the Graduate School and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. They are co-sponsored by the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Computer Science and Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) at Syracuse University, and by the Upstate Medical University College of Graduate Studies and the SUNY ESF Graduate School.

For more information about the workshops and to register, visit the .

Daniel Olson-Bang

“I look forward to offering more awareness about specific funding possibilities and supporting applications for fellowships and grants,” Olson-Bang says. “Receiving awards can have a significant impact on the lives and work of our graduate students and postdoctoral scholars and can result in important new research and creative work. I enjoy helping individuals when they are in their programs and in the long run, helping to elevate the research profile of Syracuse University.”

Students can make appointments with Olson-Bang via to receive advice on tailored searches and help to complete dissertation-level doctoral and postdoctoral funding applications.

“Many funding awards are narrowly defined, and the chances of success increase if the opportunity more closely fits a project,” says Glenn Wright, executive director of professional and career development at the Graduate School. “We want to make sure doctoral students are aware of and are applying for more focused opportunities. Some of these opportunities are quite generous, but even smaller awards help establish a track record as a successful grant and fellowship seeker,” he says.

Current opportunities for eligible Ph.D. students, including details and application deadlines, are available on the .

From left: Edward Raff, Natalie Howell, Nicholas Graham and Pulak Jain

A team of Whitman School of Management students took first place over more than 500 teams from universities across the nation in the , held at the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University in November.

Whitman’s Nicholas Graham G’23 (MBA), L’23; Natalie Howell G’24 (MBA); Pulak Jain G’24 (MBA) and Edward Raff ’23 took home the $50,000 prize in the competition that challenges master’s level students to use their analytical skills, data and innovative ideas to solve real-world problems for . The competition has become one of the top health care analytics case competitions in the country.

This year’s competition revolved around cancer patients and drug adherence to a new medication that has proven highly effective if a patient can complete a full course. However, many discontinue treatment due to side effects. The competition’s challenge was for teams of two to four master’s level students to build a model that would predict which patients would have an adverse drug event that would result in stopping the medication before the treatment is complete, while also making the model fair in treatment with regard to race and gender.

The competition was completed in multiple phases starting with 500 teams—750 master’s level students representing 75 major U.S. universities—beginning on Aug. 1. Of those, 50 were invited to submit a written business case about how Humana could improve business using the information in their models.

The top five finalists were announced on Oct. 27, which included the Whitman team named “Cross-Functional Counter-Factual Claims,” an alliteration on the team’s diverse background and planned strategy for analyzing what would have happened “counter” to the facts in the data.

On Nov. 8, the five teams traveled to Texas A&M, where they had only 30 minutes each to pitch and explain their business plans, as well as answer questions from data scientists, pharmacologists and executives from Humana and professors from Texas A&M. Whitman’s first-place win was announced at the awards ceremony on Nov. 9.

To secure first place, the Whitman team members developed a custom algorithm to advise Humana on how to improve business using the information learned from their model, according to Raff. Then, they researched medical journals for interventions that can improve patient drug adherence, what services Humana provides and how they are offered. Their final business plan focused on combining the current and recommended services into a single unified portal to provide medically sound guidance on improving patient incomes.

“I truly enjoyed this opportunity for hands-on learning through the Humana-Mays Healthcare Analytics Competition. Working to develop a solution with the potential to make a real difference in patients’ lives was an incredible experience,” says Howell. “We each have very different strengths and professional backgrounds, and we work together well, which allowed us to challenge each other and succeed as a team. Winning this competition is a reflection of our collective experience and our continued learning at the Whitman School of Management, empowering us to approach real-world challenges with confidence.”

For more information on the Whitman School of Management’s MBA program, visit the .

at Syracuse University celebrated a new chapter of innovative online education at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 9.

Founded in 2017 as a signature “One University” initiative within the , the Center for Online and Digital Learning is the unit that develops Syracuse University’s world-class online programs and meets “the needs of students seeking a Syracuse University education from anywhere in the world.”

The Center for Online and Digital Learning recently moved up the hill to 100 Sims Drive from its previous location at the College of Professional Studies at 700 University Ave. The newly renovated and expanded space positions the center for success as Syracuse University’s rapidly grows.

Otto the Orange making use of the Center for Online and Digital Learning.

“Quality, scalability and innovation have always been at the core of our mission,” says Judy Teng, executive director of the Center for Online and Digital Learning. “Our new facility allows us to reimagine the online learning experience, while our cutting-edge technology and methodologies allow us to enhance teaching and learning.”

The University will offer more engaging online learning possibilities for graduate and undergraduate students as the center grows substantially, says Jim Gaffey, executive director of administration and strategy at the College of Professional Studies.

“This new facility signifies the University’s investment in the Center for Online and Digital Learning and also recognizes the growth of online programs,” Gaffey says. “We want students to have the most up-to-date information available, and these new resources will allow us to refresh courses at a faster rate to better serve our students.”

The Center for Online and Digital Learning ribbon-cutting ceremony occurred on Nov. 9.

Ranked 21st among national universities and fifth for private schools in the U.S. News & World Report 2023 Best Online Programs rankings, Syracuse University has proven its commitment to online education.

“The Center for Online and Digital Learning is in the vanguard of Syracuse University’s efforts to face head-on the many disruptions to higher education—to produce and align differentiated academic offerings for a rapidly changing marketplace. Through the talent, creativity, innovation, experimentation, and excellence located at the Center, Syracuse University will achieve its online and digital innovation goals over the next 20 years,” says Michael Frasciello, dean of the College of Professional Studies.

Nearly 30 million people in the United States struggle with alcohol use disorder (AUD), which is characterized by impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences. Of that 30 million, less than 10% receive treatment, according to the . Among the barriers to care are cost, stigma and presence of co-occurring psychological symptoms or conditions, including anxiety, depression and trauma.

Sarah Woolf-King (left), associate professor of psychology, and Fatima Dobani, a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology, were each recently awarded prestigious grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Through the development of novel intervention strategies, members of the College of Arts and Sciences’ are dedicated to advancing treatment for individuals suffering from AUD. This is another example of cutting-edge research at Syracuse that contributes to human thriving, a key pillar of the University’s new . In support of that work, a psychologist and graduate student in psychology were recently awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

, associate professor of psychology, received a (major NIH research grant awarded to individual investigator teams) to test the efficacy of a novel approach to decrease alcohol use and improve co-existing psychological symptoms among people with HIV.

A second NIH award—an —was obtained by , a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology. The prestigious F31 award will support her work to generate a way to measure how discrimination against Multiracial young adults contributes to alcohol misuse among that population. Her study will develop a discrimination scale to help inform culturally sensitive intervention strategies.

Learn more about these .

]]> /blog/2023/12/06/critquant-school-of-education-faculty-and-students-join-a-movement-to-disrupt-traditional-research-methods/ Wed, 06 Dec 2023 19:26:51 +0000 /?p=194780 A group of faculty and graduate students are part of a growing movement in academia that is re-evaluating long-held assumptions about research design.

The CritQuant Research Forum meets in person and online in October 2023.

Critical Quantitative Theory seeks to disrupt the traditional dichotomy between quantitative and qualitative research methods, with the former typically assumed to be more rigorous and suited to “hard” sciences and the latter seen as more subjective and better suited for use with critical theoretical perspectives. By disrupting this dichotomy, CritQuant—sometimes called QuantCrit—seeks to use data and statistics in a more equitable way, arguing that by doing so, it might become a useful and more racially just method of examining social justice questions.

Introduced in a 2018 Race Ethnicity and Education journal article—“”—this method calls on education researchers to explore inequity by examining data sets and statistics through critical analytical frameworks, such as critical race theory (CRT), intersectionality and feminism.

At the School of Education, an interdisciplinary team of faculty and graduate students has been meeting twice a month—since spring 2023—as the Critical Quantitative Research Forum. Among its original members are , associate professor of reading and language arts; , associate professor of higher education; , associate professor of counseling and human services; , associate professor of quantitative research methodology; , associate professor of teaching and leadership; and doctoral student ParKer Bryant, a Lender Center for Social Justice Fellow.

Change and Possibility

“There is a primacy to quantitative data because it is seen as objective, so its findings have a privileged status,” says Professor Johnson. “Some people tend to trust quantitative data and see it as more valid than qualitative research methods, such as ethnographies, interviews or case studies.”

One reason for this paradigm, explains Johnson, is that in qualitative research, the researcher is the “instrument” that gathers data, through an interview or by analyzing texts “as opposed to a quantitative instrument, such as a survey that is analyzed by software.” Thus, the quantitative researcher is assumed to be impartial and their experiences or beliefs irrelevant. That assumption has sometimes cloaked biased research and conclusions, as with the widely criticized 1994 study .

“If quantitative research is the privileged approach, then it needs to be transformed if we are going to work toward equity,” Johnson says. “We can’t put all the work of addressing critical equity questions on qualitative researchers, so how can we use statistics to tell the story of social justice, point out inequities and put forward ideas of change and possibility that illuminate and address structural inequalities? I’ve been thinking about this since I was a grad student.”

A Challenging Space

As a current doctoral student, Bryant is researching the impact of academic language on creative thought. It’s a topic traditionally suited to qualitative methods, such as interviews, surveys and ethnography, she says. However, she became interested in CritQuant “because I wanted to explore my research question thoroughly. I’m already familiar with qualitative research, but I want to understand quantitative methods such as linear and advanced statistical models. There’s no reason not to know quantitative models.”

The research forum is collegial, Bryant observes. “What I tell my friends is that faculty really want to be there, so it feels as if you are having high intellectual conversation among colleagues. It’s a challenging space.”

Bryant was invited by the faculty members to join an internal grant project that continues the forum’s work.

“How Can Educational Inequities Caused by Racial Wealth Gap Be Reduced? A Critical Quantitative Analysis of Individual, Home, and School” is using quantitative methods to examine whether individual or institutional-level factors have a greater influence on “the mediated relationships among socioeconomic status, opportunity to learn and students’ learning outcomes.”

“This study aims to contribute to advancing quantitative methods in educational research using the CritQuant framework based on critical race theory and intersectionality,” writes principal investigator Jang. “We believe that educational scholars would benefit from our work in considering CritQuant as a racially just method.”

Peeling Back Assumptions

Given her scholarly work focuses on the effects of campus climate on the sense of belonging of students of color in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, Johnson is well-situated to critique the quantitative vs. qualitative dichotomy.

The reason why qualitative research is appropriate for answering questions of social justice is that “it can tap into communities the way that other research can’t, by asking about lived experiences or centering marginalized and minoritized voices,” she says.

Conversely, quantitative research is seen as not amenable to social justice work because statistics can be used to advance and explain non-equitable conclusions, as in “The Bell Curve.” “The history and restrictions of quantitative methods are seen as having limited value in an equity agenda. Folks like myself, trained in quantitative methods, are trying to figure out ways to use statistical research methods within critical frameworks such as CRT.”

One technique to make quantitative research more equity-minded—“positionality”—dispenses with the idea that the researcher is impartial. “CritQuant forces researchers to position themselves in the research and asks them to consider their biases and subjectivity,” Johnson says. “Research questions arise from somewhere, after all.”

Johnson says her research interests often return her to when she was director of minority student affairs at Worcester (Massachusetts) Polytechnic Institute, supporting Black, Latinx and Indigenous students. “That experience created lots of questions for me, and I often think back to the challenges my students had,” Johnson says.

“My experiences as a Black woman working at primarily white institutions frames where I’m coming from in my research, and CritQuant makes me reckon with that,” Johnson says. “Qualitative researchers are expected to do this work, so why aren’t quantitative researchers expected to do the same? We encourage our doctoral students to write out their positionality in their research design, in order to peel back assumptions of unbias and objectivity.”

Structures and Systems

Another technique is embedded in the CritQuant forum’s grant project and speaks directly to why the method has the power to transform educational research.

“Quantitative research often can situate deficits on the people being studied, whereas CritQuant research can be used to examine structures,” says Johnson. “In other words, we’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix the student, but critical quantitative research has the power to examine whether outcome differences might be environmental or institutional. Maybe we don’t need to fix the student but instead look at fixing the structures and systems.”

As education graduate students ask more questions about how to integrate CritQuant into their research topics, the research forum is becoming a space where faculty can share their own experiences and challenges, such as how to use quantitative methods with subject groups that are small in number or how to incentivize participation ethically.

“I research groups that are already minoritized on campuses,” Johnson says, “so when researching campus climate, I have to be able to overcome survey fatigue and build relationships in order to ask questions about racism and sexism. There is an extra labor required on the part of the researcher.”

Johnson sums up the work of the research forum as enacting the “critical” part of Critical Quantitative Theory. “It’s exciting to engage with faculty and graduate students in an informal way to sort that out.”

Despite growing up on Cayuga ancestral lands, one of the six nations that make up the Haudenosaunee Confederacy of Native Americans in New York, Lorna Rose ’11, G’21 never really identified with her Native heritage.

She was raised Italian American and always thought of her Italian roots when it came to her cultural heritage. But that perspective changed with the sudden passing of her older sister in 2020.

That loss sent Rose down a path that would lead to a spiritual reawakening, cultivating an affinity for both her Native culture and her Native heritage. From the depths of sadness, Rose immersed herself in her Cayuga culture, reacclimating and reacquainting herself with her Native roots. In the process, she rediscovered pride in belonging to the Cayuga Nation, the People of the Great Swamp.

Lorna Rose

“Being there with my sister’s kids and realizing they just lost their closest connection to their Native heritage, as one of their aunts it’s my job, my obligation and my responsibility to step up and reconnect with my heritage. Once I did, it was almost a visceral transformation. My body just felt so much more comfortable,” says Rose, who earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from the and a master’s degree in communications from the .

“I started to overcome a lot of the mental health issues I’ve been battling, building and growing my connection and my awareness of my connection to who I am as a Native woman, and reconnecting with my family and getting back into that community that I’d been removed from so long, being raised away from it. It was really life-changing,” Rose says.

Lorna Rose (center) poses with Hall of Fame sportscaster Bob Costas ’74 (left) and Hall of Fame basketball coach Jim Boeheim ’66, G’73.

The University community has come together during Native Heritage Month to amplify Indigenous innovation, celebrate Native communities and educate people surrounding the contemporary issues Native Americans and Native communities face.

Rose stopped by the “’Cuse Conversations” podcast to discuss her spiritual reawakening, the pride she feels through her Native heritage and culture and how the Syracuse University community helped her overcome depression and mental health issues. She also shares how she launched her own communications consulting company, Rez Communications, and why she’s eternally proud to be a Syracuse University alumna.

Check out . A transcript [PDF]��is also available.

As vice president of University Union, Molly Gross (second from right) helped organize events such as the Block Party on April 29, 2022, at the JMA Wireless Dome that featured A-Trak, 070 Shake, 2 Chainz, and Baby Keem. With Gross in the photo are, from left to right, Beck Patrone, Mackenzie Glaubitz and Mo Morris.

Molly Gross ’22, G’23 is proof that it’s never too late in your academic career to change your career goals.

In Spring 2022, Gross was set to graduate with a public health degree. She was a work-study student in the Falk College admissions office, and Director of Admissions asked Gross if she was excited about graduating and starting her career. “I said, ‘Actually, I don’t know.’ I was stressing a little bit because I didn’t know if that’s what I wanted to do anymore,” Gross says.

Gross had more conversations with Golia and her staff and told them she had enjoyed organizing concerts as a member of the . “With Molly’s public health background, she initially considered a PA (physician assistant) program for graduate school,” Golia says. “However, during her time at Syracuse University, she was involved with the student union organizing events, where she realized her passion was in live music and events. “She contemplated finding a job and then potentially pursuing graduate school,” Golia adds. “But as a student employee in the Falk admissions office, we kept driving her to consider the Forever Orange opportunity.”

Molly Gross says Syracuse University “gave me the opportunity to learn so many different things and working with UU (University Union) was an experience that really formed where I am now.”

The provides half the tuition for students who enroll full-time in a qualifying graduate degree or certificate program at Syracuse University. The scholarship is automatically available to graduating seniors who are eligible for admission and commit to attend graduate school immediately after graduation.

Golia connected Gross with , director and chair of the Department of Sport Management at Falk College, who met with Gross to discuss the department’s one-year (SVEM) master’s program. “I talked it over with my parents and the (Forever Orange Scholarship) was a large factor because I don’t know if I could have gone without it,” Gross says. “I looked at the (SVEM) program and the connections it has and the value it brings that could help me learn more about the industry and help me get more exposure and progress faster in that career.”

Gross’ decision was a smart one as she received the 2023 Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the Department of Sport Management and is now the event manager for the Oak View Group entertainment company based in Atlantic City, New Jersey, about an hour’s drive from her hometown of Cinnaminson, New Jersey.

We recently caught up with Gross to talk about how her passion for the live music industry developed at Syracuse University, the value of her public health degree and her new position coordinating live events. Here’s that conversation:

Q: You entered Syracuse University as a biology major but then switched to public health as a sophomore. What prompted that change?

A: I took one (public health) class in the first semester of my sophomore year, and it was a service-learning class where we worked with an organization in Syracuse (Vera House) and helped them in any way they needed and produced a project out of it.��The class was really engaging, and after that class I switched over to public health because I was thinking that maybe I’d go to the medical side and PA school.

I didn’t really think about staying at Syracuse (for graduate school) or switching to the event side until the end of my senior year. I was vice president of the University Union (UU), and in high school I never had exposure to the entertainment world to even know that was what I wanted to do. Syracuse gave me the opportunity to learn so many different things and working with UU was an experience that really formed where I am now.

Q: Where did you get your love of live music?

A: Where I grew up, there’s the River Line (train) that would take us to Camden, New Jersey, and we would go to what’s now called the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion. They would have concerts all summer and my friends and I would go no matter who was performing. I always liked being in that environment; I love seeing people attend events and get excited and follow their favorite performers.

Q: You started the SVEM program in July 2022 and worked closely with the staff at the JMA Wireless Dome. What was that like?

A: Both in the Fall and Spring semesters we had (Dome Director) and (Associate Director) as professors and it was great to hear about their experiences because they have worked in so many positions and places within the entertainment industry and in the Dome.

In the fall semester, we had a ‘secret shopper’ event where Tom gave us tickets to a basketball game and we acted as if we were spectators, but we were really observing the environment. How were the security lines? How were ticket takers and concession staff interacting with guests? How clean was the area? So, we were thinking critically about our experience and reporting back to him.

As event manager for the Oak View Group entertainment company based in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Molly Gross oversees events such as Disney on Ice that recently appeared at Jim Whelan Boardwalk Hall.

Q: Did the program involve any additional experiential learning?

A: The way the program was structured, it was as much about the experience you gained outside of the classroom as inside. We had projects where we reached out to network with people; looked into different jobs that we wanted to potentially hold one day and what path could get us to that; and made phone calls to ask other people about their different experiences in the industry.

I worked in the (Syracuse) Oncenter box office, Syracuse Amphitheater, and with the operations team in the JMA Dome, I felt like they were always encouraging us to use our time outside of the classroom as wisely as possible. It was always in the back of my mind that if I was going to spend this money and time in this program, I was going to make the most of it. I was going to spend every second trying to gain as much as I could, whether it was working this event at the Dome or that event in the community. It’s always shown me that it comes back around and the experiences I had with those things did help me later.

Q: What are you doing in your current position in Atlantic City?

A: SVEM has us do a nine-credit practicum and I did that in the summer (of 2023) as an event coordinator at the Convention Center and Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. I was recently promoted to event manager, and I work between the client and the building to make sure they have everything they need, whether that’s setting up, connecting with food and beverage, or their internet and AV (audio-visual) needs.

At the Convention Center, our clients are conventions, trade shows, meetings and luncheons. At Boardwalk Hall, it’s concerts, indoor auto racing, Disney on Ice and events like that. I go from working a convention from 7 to 4 on a Monday to working a concert on Friday night. I really like that about my role; I’m getting to see it all.

Q: What role does your public health background play in your career?

A: The general manager where I work right now is put in situations where he has to make decisions or plan for situations that you might not ever think you had to, like he was leading a lot of the decision-making when COVID hit and had to decide certain plans and procedures for the company and the venue. I hope to get to one of those positions one day and I think that what I learned in the public health program at Syracuse will always be valuable.

And whether I use it in my career or not, it’s also been valuable to my life in general, understanding the complexities of health and the world. There were so many classes where we talked about the social determinants of health and how everybody is experiencing different things that affect their health—understanding that diversity helps no matter what you’re doing.

Q: What would you say to other students who may be in the position that you were in as they approach graduation?

A: Always have the conversation. If you’re not happy where you are, talk to an advisor and have that conversation. With how the majors are structured, time is limited, so I would act on it sooner than later. I know if I’m feeling that way, I’d rather act on it than regret it later.

I don’t think any decision is final. Just because you make a decision now doesn’t mean everything is closed off forever.

Carlee Kerr, who is in her first year in the ’s higher education master’s program, serves as a graduate assistant in ODI. She helps with strategy, program planning, event logistics and other hands-on activities that increase awareness and promote DEIA objectives among students, faculty and staff. Those initiatives are a critical component of the University’s new academic strategic plan, “.”������

Before coming to Syracuse, Kerr earned undergraduate degrees in history and gender and women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island, where she was one of the co-creators of Diversity Dialogues, a student-led initiative offering dialogue-based workshops on DEIA and social justice. For her work on the initiative, Kerr earned a schoolwide student leadership award. ��

��We talked with Kerr about her undergraduate diversity activism, her current role and her future career interests.

Part of the Office of Research and developed in partnership with the Graduate School, the new office is an expansion of the University’s commitment to a quality campus experience and positive career outcomes for postdoctoral associates, says , vice president for research.

“Postdoctoral scholars are essential to the University’s research and creative activities,” Brown says. “They contribute to the research program of their faculty advisors through their own research accomplishments and their interactions with our students. Their work enriches the environment of their research groups while they build their own skills through mentoring and collaboration.”

New Support Services��

Located at 227 Lyman Hall, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs will provide professional development, peer groups and skillset development opportunities, which will help the University recruit and support outstanding postdocs who advance the research and creative mission, Brown says. Office staff members expect to facilitate opportunities for practice research presentations, writing groups and mentoring resources for faculty members who supervise postdocs.

Onboarding Help

A comprehensive orientation and onboarding program for incoming postdoctoral scholars, aimed at helping them quickly acclimate to the University, is currently being developed. Additionally, Postdoc Communal Lunches are held every Wednesday from noon to 1:30 p.m. Postdoctoral scholars are welcome to bring their own lunch and enjoy coffee, tea and snacks with fellow postdocs.

Dedicated Staff

Colleen Burton

Colleen Burton joined the Office of Research in February as associate director of postdoctoral affairs and research services and led the establishment of the new office. Burton provides management and financial oversight for all postdoctoral program functions, facilitates hiring and onboarding for postdoctoral researchers and collaborates with campus partners to develop resources and programming to enhance the postdoctoral experience.

“Postdocs serve an important role in academic research,” says Burton, who earned a Ph.D. in political science from the . “I’m looking forward to enhancing the supports that help them thrive here and as they prepare for their next steps. This has been a great opportunity to collaborate with many different departments across campus. We have a lot more to do, but I feel that we are off to a good start.”

Claire Perrott

Joining Burton in the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs is Claire Perrott, professional development postdoctoral fellow. She leads development of postdoctoral and mentor-facing resources, connects postdoctoral scholars to existing campus resources, creates onboarding and orientation programming and develops events promoting networking, community-building and professional development opportunities.

Perrott holds a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Arizona. She was an instructor and assistant professor at several institutions before deciding to pursue a career in higher education administration. Her background provides a unique perspective on various pathways that postdoctoral scholars can pursue to develop professional resources, she says. “I believe we are filling an important gap by providing resources specifically for postdocs and I hope our efforts not only increase the research being done on campus but also help our postdocs land great jobs. I hope that postdocs feel comfortable approaching our office with questions. We want to hear from them so that we can set them up for success.”

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs will continue to collaborate closely with the Career and Professional Development team in the to assess postdoctoral scholar needs and tailor programming toward them, Burton says.