Administration and Staff
Tony Kemp, associate vice president for events and special programs, adjudicated initial virtual scholarship and acting submissions from high school students for this year’s Georgia Thespian Conference. Additionally, he was part of the three-person scholarship selection team during the in-person experience held in Columbus on Feb. 9-11. Kemp also judged virtual musical theater submissions for the first round of the Alabama Thespian Conference on Feb. 17-18.
Dr. Samantha Wilson Murfree, assistant vice president for student affairs, recently completed a Master’s in Christian Ministries from the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity at Liberty University.
College of Education
Dr. Katherine Perrotta, assistant professor of middle grades and secondary education, and Ph.D. student Katlynn Cross presented on their Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant project titled “Same storm, different boats: A study on documenting the COVID-19 pandemic with a local history project” at the virtual meeting of the International Society for the Social Studies. Dr. Perrotta also presented with Ph.D. student Caitlin Hochuli on her Georgia Humanities grant project titled “They were here: A study on promoting historical empathy with a local history research project about a historical Black cemetery in the Southeast USA” at the virtual meeting of the International Society for the Social Studies.
College of Health Professions
Dr. Jeannette Anderson, clinical associate professor of physical therapy, and Dr. Lisa Lundquist, professor and dean of the College of Health Professions, presented “Strategies for Leadership Development of Doctor of Physical Therapy Students: Seven-Years’ Experience” at the American Physical Therapy Association 2023 Combined Sections Meeting, held Feb. 22-25 in San Diego.
Dr. Daniel Dale, clinical assistant professor of physical therapy, co-presented “Should Simulation Hours Count Toward Acute Care Clinical Education?” He also co-presented “Assessment of Physical Therapy Students’ Self-Efficacy and Accuracy Measuring Blood Pressure Using a Task Trainer” with Dr. Deborah Wendland, associate professor of physical therapy, at the American Physical Therapy Association 2023 Combined Sections Meeting, held Feb. 22-25 in San Diego.
Dr. Ann Lucado, associate professor of physical therapy, co-presented “Intra-Urban Physical Therapy Deserts: Barriers to PT Services in an NW Atlanta Community of Color” at the American Physical Therapy Association 2023 Combined Sections Meeting, held Feb. 22-25 in San Diego.
Dr. Nicholas Orton, clinical assistant professor of physical therapy, co-presented “Why Does It Hurt? Applying Current Pain Science to Wound Care Practice” at the American Physical Therapy Association 2023 Combined Sections Meeting, held Feb. 22-25 in San Diego.
Dr. Deborah Wendland, associate professor of physical therapy, co-presented “Diabetic Foot Ulcer Clinical Practice Guideline: Development and Recommendations,” “Reducing Reulceration Rate Using Continuous Activity Monitoring for People with Diabetic Foot Ulcers” and “Revision of the APTA’s Guide for Integumentary/Wound Management Content in Professional Physical Therapist Education” at the American Physical Therapy Association 2023 Combined Sections Meeting, held Feb. 22-25 in San Diego.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. James Eric (Jay) Black, Schumann Endowed Professor and chair of journalism and media studies, contributed to the 2023 editions of the Special Report on the State of Business in South China and the White Paper on the Business Environment in China, both of which will be published in March by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China. This is Dr. Black’s sixth year working with these publications.
Dr. Craig D. Byron, professor and chair of biology, co-authored a paper titled “Sagittal suture strain in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus and Cebus) during feeding” that was published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology.
Dr. David A. Davis, professor of English, published his book Driven to the Field: Sharecropping and Southern Literature with University of Virginia Press.
Dr. Abigail Dowling, associate professor of history, published “Hands On Workshops for Real World Experience: Scaffolded Assignments and Archival Objects in the Historian’s Craft” in Currents in Teaching and Learning in January.
Dr. John Marson Dunaway, professor emeritus of French and interdisciplinary studies, was invited to be one of five panelists for the Bicentennial Commission Storytellers’ Race/Ethnicity Presentations at Wesleyan College on Feb. 21. His presentation was titled “Maconites Who Have Contributed to Beloved Community.” The panelists’ presentations, captured in a 75-minute video, will soon be available at the Macon Bicentennial’s official website, macon200.com.
Dr. Sahar Hasim, assistant professor of biology, and Mercer students Hunter B. Tinker and Katherine Free published a paper titled “Effects of TiS2 on Inhibiting Candida albicans Biofilm Formation and Its Compatibility with Human Gingival Fibroblasts in Titanium Implants” in ACS Applied Bio Materials in collaboration with Auburn University.
Dr. Gordon Johnston, professor of English, had a collection of short stories called Seven Islands of the Ocmulgee — River Stories published by Mercer University Press on Feb. 1. His wilderness memoir, “Wind River Range-Finding — Field Notes from the Wyoming Rockies,” will appear in the March 2023 issue of the journal Still. Dr. Johnston also offered a craft workshop on his short story “Skin Trade” for artist-writers at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design on Feb. 9.
Dr. Chinekwu Obidoa, associate professor of global health studies and Africana studies, and Dr. Susan Codone, professor of technical communication, have been awarded Lilly Faculty Fellowships. Both professors will participate in the two-year Lilly Faculty Fellows Program, which includes attending four conferences, and will also receive start-up funds to inaugurate a Lilly Faculty Fellows Program on campus. Dr. Obidoa also delivered a presentation on HIV/AIDS in Georgia at the Tubman African American Museum to mark the National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on Feb. 7.
Dr. Joshua S. Rodefer, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience, co-authored a paper titled “Predicting the stalking of celebrities from measures of persistent pursuit and threat directed toward celebrities, sensation seeking and celebrity worship” for the journal PLOS One.
Dr. Martin Qiang Zhao, associate professor of computer science, has involved students from his database, software engineering and research classes in computer science and information science and technology programs related to his National Science Foundation grant. This collaborative project aims to build a database based on the Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico-derived skeletal collection housed at the Caribbean Primate Research Center and New York University. A set of graphical user interfaces for visualizing matrilineal and patrilineal family trees and measure result visualizations has recently been packaged as CSViewer (version 1.0) and shared with research collaborators at Texas A&M University College of Dentistry, The Ohio State University and Southern Illinois University. A poster paper on initial data analytics on Cayo Santiago monkeys’ female and male reproduction patterns has been accepted for the American Association of Biological Anthropologists 92nd annual meeting and is scheduled to be presented on April 22 in Reno, Nevada. A redesign and enhancement effort targeted for CSViewer v1.1 is currently ongoing, with help from Ethan Widener, a graduating senior majoring in computer science. A paper on “Engaging Undergraduate Students in CSViewer Development” will be sent to the 2023 International Conference on Innovations in Computing Research in Madrid in September. In addition, Dr. Zhao helped host a calligraphy corner during the Chinese New Year celebration events at Wesleyan College on Feb. 1. He showed students and parents how to use máobĭ — the traditional brush for Chinese calligraphy and painting — to write Chinese characters. He also helped select Chinese names for participants and wrote the names with a brush. In March, Dr. Zhao is scheduled to give a lecture for the Academy for Classical Education in Macon. Students in two sections of “The Well Trained Mind: The Ancient World” class will have hands-on experience with Chinese calligraphy.
College of Nursing
Dr. Lanell Bellury, professor, was a member of the planning committee for the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition Doctoral Symposium, which was held on Feb. 11 in Atlanta.
Dr. Marie Candy, clinical instructor, presented a poster titled “Implementation of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Screening Protocol in Primary Care Setting” at the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition Doctoral Symposium on Feb. 11 in Atlanta.
Dr. Tessy George, clinical instructor, presented a poster titled “Relationships between Health-Related Quality of Life and Caregiving Stressors in Caregivers of Persons Living with Dementia” at the Georgia Nursing Leadership Coalition Doctoral Symposium on Feb. 11 in Atlanta.
Dr. Seongkum Heo, professor and Piedmont Healthcare Endowed Chair, co-authored two papers. “Factors associated with attitudes toward advance directives in nurses and comparisons of the levels between emergency nurses and palliative care nurses” was published in the Japan Journal of Nursing Science, and “Factors related to patients’ self-care and self-care confidence in Korean patients with heart failure and their caregivers: A cross-sectional, correlational study” was published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing.
Caroline Moore, clinical instructor, co-authored “Protecting children’s health: Asthma and climate change” in The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing.
Dr. Humberto Reinoso, assistant professor, received a $10,000 grant as part of the Midwest Integration of the National HIV Curriculum project to integrate the National HIV Curriculum e-Learning Platform into health care profession programs funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Dr. Linda A. Streit, professor, was invited to speak at the Georgia Association of Nursing Students Council of Leadership, which is scheduled for March 25. This convention looks to inspire confidence and provide resources to Georgia nursing students for building meaningful relationships with their peers. Dr. Streit’s abstract was also accepted to Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nursing’s 47th Biennial Convention for an in-person oral presentation on the topic of mentorship of new educators. The convention will be held in San Antonio.
College of Pharmacy
Dr. Mahavir Chougule, associate professor, received funding in the amount of $11,761 from Emory University for his project titled “Formulation Development of Nicardipine for Intrathecal Administration.”
Dr. Susan W. Miller, professor, co-authored “Introduction: Age Friendly Care” in Engage: A Curriculum for HRSA-funded Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of an Age-Friendly Curriculum.
Dr. Angela Shogbon Nwaesei, clinical associate professor, and Dr. T. Vivian Liao, clinical associate professor, co-authored “A Programmatic Approach to Peer-Led Tutoring to Assist Students in Academic Difficulty” in American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education in January.
Dr. Lorenzo Villa Zapata, clinical assistant professor, authored “Drugs That Interact with Colchicine Via Inhibition of Cytochrome P450 3A4 and P-Glycoprotein: A Signal Detection Analysis Using a Database of Spontaneously Reported Adverse Events (FAERS)” in Annals of Pharmacotherapy in January.
College of Professional Advancement
Dr. Jared Champion, assistant professor of writing and interdisciplinary studies, published his essay titled “‘Big Naturals’: Nikki Glaser’s Politics and Pleasures of Disgust” in the Journal of Popular Culture.
Dr. W. David Lane, professor of counseling, was named a finalist for the Feathered Quill Book Awards on Feb. 1 for his latest children’s book, I Have Questions, Lots and Lots of Questions: A True Story of Christmas, which was published Nov. 4, 2022. This is his eighth children’s book. The international Feathered Quill Book Awards recognize outstanding books in multiple categories.
Dr. Awatef A. Ben Ramadan, assistant professor in health informatics, published an article titled “Optimizing the Usability of Automated Dispensing Cabinets and the Optimization’s Impact on the Nurse Performance and Technology Adoption” in the Annals of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care journal in November. In addition, two of her book chapters, “Case Study: Innovative High Impact Practices (HIPs) in Eight-Weeks-Long Online Graduate Research Methodology and Capstone Courses during COVID-19” and “Promoting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Course Design and Instructional Material Development,” are in process to be published in the International Perspectives on the Way Forward in Higher Education book by Springer Publishing.
School of Business
Dr. Laura Boman, assistant professor of sports marketing and analytics, and her co-authors presented their research titled “Wait Till You Read about the Impact of Emojis on Tipping” at the American Marketing Association Winter Conference in February 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, Dr. Boman was featured in WalletHub’s piece about Best Car Insurance in Georgia on Feb. 22.
Dr. Juanita Forrester, professor of management, presented a session titled “Supporting Student Resilience and Well-Being through Curricular Micro-Interventions” as a part of a speaker panel and professional development workshop at the Annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in February. The panel addressed how resilience interventions, brief and targeted practices including mindfulness approaches, play an increasingly prominent role in higher education in supporting students’ adaptive responses in the face of increasing acute and chronic stressors. Topics covered were the importance of embedding curricular micro-interventions, best practices for administration, and evaluation of student outcomes.
Chris Orrison, adjunct instructor of risk management and insurance, was elected president of the Middle Georgia Chapter of the CPCU (Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters) Society and selected by the National CPCU Society to be on the Student Action Committee for 2023. The CPCU Society is a national insurance and risk management group made up of insurance professionals.
Dr. Carol Springer Sargent, associate professor of accounting, co-authored a paper titled “Blockchain Barriers in Supply Chain: A Literature Review’ that was published in Journal of Computer Information Systems.
School of Engineering
Dr. Susan Codone, professor of technical communication, and Dr. Chinekwu Obidoa, associate professor of global health students and Africana studies, have been awarded Lilly Faculty Fellowships. Both professors will participate in the two-year Lilly Faculty Fellows Program, which includes attending four conferences, and will also receive start-up funds to inaugurate a Lilly Faculty Fellows Program on campus.
Dr. Philip B. Gallagher, assistant professor of technical communication, presented his recently published article, “Balancing Privacy and Presence in Post-Covid Pedagogy: A TPC Study,” at the 2023 Conference on College Composition and Communication as part of the Professional and Technical Writing cohort. His study features a heuristic tool faculty can use to ensure both engagement and data security in recorded and remote classrooms for all participants.
School of Law
David Hricik, professor of law and associate dean for faculty research and development, was a panelist on Feb. 3 for “The Three C’s of Attorney Ethics: Candor, Confidentiality, and Conflicts.” He was also quoted in “Machines That Draft Laws: They Are Here,” a blog post in Politico by Mohar Chatterjee. Additionally, he took over authorship of the treatise in Agnor’s Georgia Evidence 2022-2023 and authored an update to the leading treatise in the Georgia Law of Torts 2022-2023 edition.
Stephen M. Johnson, professor of law, published an article in the 2023 Seton Hall Law Review titled “Deregulation: Too Big for One Branch, But Maybe Not for Two.”
Mark L. Jones, professor of law, authored an article in the Spring 2023 edition of University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review titled “Grabbing the Bull by the Horns: Jurisprudential, Ethical, and Other Lessons for Lawyers and Law Students in the Immigration Labyrinth and Beyond.”
School of Medicine
Dr. Jennifer Barkin, professor of community medicine and OBGYN, was invited to serve on the Data and Safety Monitoring Board for an National Institute of Mental Health-funded clinical trial studying interventions for postpartum depression. The role of the board is to monitor serious adverse events and report them to the National Institutes of Health when necessary. In partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting, Dr. Barkin received funds from Twin Cities Media/Pew Charitable Trust to develop a Perinatal Mental Health Training. The training will take place on April 15 and will be co-hosted by the Center for Rural Health and Health Disparities and the Georgia Rural Health Innovation Center. Anyone with an interest in perinatal mental health is welcome to attend.
Dr. Devi Rajan, instructor of biomedical sciences, gave a presentation on “Strategies to improve lecture-based instruction practices that stimulate attentiveness” at the 2023 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons International Conference, which was sponsored by Georgia Southern’s Center for Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Eric Shaw, professor of community medicine, was a co-author on the “Quality of ICU discharge summaries produced by pediatric residents: The Memorial Health University Medical Center experience” in the HCA Healthcare Journal of Medicine 3:6 and “Utility of the H-Score for predicting COVID-19 severity” in the journal Cureus.
