People & Places is a monthly highlight of the ongoing professional activities and achievements of faculty, staff, and students of the College.
Blake Neiderlander ’24
Blake Neiderlander ’24 recently completed a ten-week-long biomedical ethics research internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, as one of the six candidates selected for this highly competitive program. Over the summer, Neiderlander worked with experts in clinical genomics and primary care, exploring the ethical integration of genomic technologies in primary care practice. Neiderlander helped develop a strategic mix-methods implementation and dissemination framework for a systematic review that would enable the primary care clinical genomics team to extract and critically analyze the ethical considerations surrounding the successful implementation of genomic technologies.
Along with research, Neiderlander had the opportunity to shadow medical professionals, from the Sleep and Epilepsy Clinic with Dr. Erik St. Louis to Liver Transplant with Dr. Ty Diwan. The Biomedical Ethics Research program allowed Neiderlander to fully immerse himself into the field of medical ethics and enabled him to apply his love for philosophy, which he initially found at Allegheny College.
Neiderlander is excited to continue the connections he made this summer at the Mayo Clinic, where he will explore the notion of moral worth/value and its intersection in Liver Transplant Selection Committees with transplant surgeon Dr. Diwan. He also looks forward to this fall semester as he is eager to apply his summer experience in his medical ethics course.
Mark Cosdon, Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, was recently awarded a Fulbright to Egypt for 2023 and 2024. Professor Cosdon intended to reside at Cairo’s University of the Arts. Due to the timing of the Fulbright’s final decision, Professor Cosdon declined the honor and intends to reapply later. Professor Cosdon will spend the fall 2023 semester teaching at the University of Palermo in Sicily.
In August 2023, Brian Collingwood successfully defended his dissertation titled “Leadership development experiences of mid-level administrators in higher education: A phenomenological study,” which fulfilled the final requirement toward earning his Ph.D. from Gannon University.
Brian Harward, Professor of Political Science, led a study away seminar in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a colleague from the University of Georgia, from May 15 to June 15. Maddie Menke ’26, joined the 17 UGA students for a seminar on Political Economy and the Scottish Enlightenment.
Professor Harward also co-authored the paper, “Taking Blame Avoidance and Vote Explanation Seriously,” and presented it at the 2023 American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Los Angeles, CA earlier this month.
Pictured: Stephen Cullinan ’23 and Olivia Kraus ’24
Stephen Cullinan ’23 and Rod Clark, Professor of Psychology, presented a poster titled, “Some Effects of Classical Conditioning on Withdrawal Symptoms During and After Drug Abstinance” at the 49th Annual Association for Behavior Analysis International Conference in Denver, CO last May.
Julia Lenahan ’23, Olivia Kraus ’24, Emily Eshleman ’24, Ian Oliver ’26, and Professor Clark presented a poster titled, “Free Food Preference and Conditioned Food Preference of Unfamiliar Food in Female Rats” at the 45th Annual Meeting of The Society for the Quantitative Analysis of Behavior held in Denver, CO.
Alyssa Ribeiro signed an advance publication contract for her book manuscript Making the City Brotherly: Black and Latino Community Activism in Philadelphia, 1960s to 1980s. It will be part of the Historical Studies of Urban America series with the University of Chicago Press.
While doing archival research in Hong Kong last summer, Guo Wu, Associate Professor of History, was invited by Dr. Chi Wai Cheung, editor-in-chief of the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Twentieth-Century Bimonthly, an influential academic and intellectual journal, to write a critical review essay.
This article of 12,000 Chinese characters, under the title (in translation) ” ‘A Hero Is But an Ordinary Man’: A Critical Review of Zhai Zhicheng’s Hu Shi in the Eyes of Twentieth-Century Neo-Confucians,” will appear in the October 2023 issue of the journal on pages 101 through 112.
The following Department of Environmental Science & Sustainability faculty and staff members:
- Rich Bowden
- Terry Bensel
- Matt Bethurem
- Laura Branby
- Casey Bradshaw-Wilson
- D. Byrnes
- Ian Carbone
- Beth Choate
- Lee Demi
- Wendy Kedzierski
- Eric Pallant
- Kelly Pearce
- Chris Shaffer
- Jesse Swann-Quinn
- Kerstin Martin
- Kelly Boulton, Sustainability Director
published the paper “College-Community Environmental Collaborations: Guidance for Successful Community-Based Projects and Research,” in the World Sustainability Series, “Educating the Sustainability Leaders of the Future,” coedited by Professors of Environmental Science and Sustainability, Eric Pallant and Kelly Pearce. The paper explores best practices for research and project collaborations with community members, leaning on the department’s decades-long history of partnering with government, private, and corporate partners.
The Folger Shakespeare Library blog features an interview with Jennie Votava, Associate Professor of English, about her recently published book, Shakespeare’s Histories on Screen: Adaptation, Race and Intersectionality, an imprint of the Arden Shakespeare series by Bloomsbury Publishing.
Jesse Swann-Quinn, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science & Sustainability, was invited to serve as the new technical editor for FOCUS on Geography, a peer-reviewed, media-based digital publication produced by the American Geographical Society.
FOCUS on Geography allows diverse voices to share their research in a more visually-engaged format.
Tommy Conners (World Languages and Cultures) recently published the article “Color-blind Aesthetics in Manuel Muñoz: Reading Race in Form and Feeling,” in MELUS Journal.
It reads Chicano writer Manuel Muñoz’s writing to position the ethnoracial identity Latinx as a mood of feeling sustained by places and objects instead of people. Although dated Fall 2022, it did not appear in print until this past summer. Read the article here.
Ryan Pickering, Associate Professor of Psychology, was recently featured in two episodes of Dr. Kim Case’s podcast “Enough Y’all” for social justice academics. Their conversation featured perspectives of working-class academics and perspectives on class culture within higher education.
Angie Jennings, Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, and Rylee Kahler ’25, recently completed a mural in conjunction with Erie Arts and Culture Public Placemaking Initiative, with assistance from artist Rayne Burgin.
In addition, a selection of Jennings’ paintings was included in the show “Transcendental Arrangements: 109th Annual AAP Exhibition,” held at The Miller Institute of Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University.
