Faculty spend summer writing, researching and more

Pitt-Badford faculty spent the summer publishing, making presentations, conducting research and writing.

An article by Dr. Vaughn Bicehouse, assistant professor of education, “The Portraiture of Nick: Scene one the Early Years,” was published in the Journal of Case Studies in Education.

The portraiture is a case study of an autistic boy and his mother. Portraitures provide a holistic view of a subject that other studies often do not.

Dr. Jessie Blackburn, assistant professor of English, presented a paper titled “Mending the Cracks: Inside the Hypermediated Factures of the Undergraduate Writing Classroom” at Come Together: Digital Collaboration in the Academy and Beyond in Kingston, Ont.

Dr. Carys Evans-Corrales, professor of Spanish, worked with students in her Elementary Spanish I class to test new software from Vista Higher Learning. She was also invited to serve as co-editor of a Galician language edition of Metamorphoses, an academic journal published by Smith College that focuses on literary translation.

Finally, Evans-Corrales’s translation of “Leopardo Son,” a book of Galician poetry by Pilar Pallarés, has been accepted for publication by Small Stations Press.

Dr. Kevin Ewert, professor of theater, presented at the invitation-only International Shakespeare Conference in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, where he has been a delegate since 2006. His paper was called “No Longer on Speaking Terms: Shakespearean Performance Fatigue,” a piece about what happens to the scholar of Shakespeare performance at the theater when the inner monologue of critical discourse gets turned up louder than the play at hand.

Dr. S.N. Gajanan, associate professor of economics, presented two invited lectures, “Ethics and Food Security” at the Institute of Economic Education and “Development Economics With an Attitude” at the University of Madras in Chennai, India, where he also conducted data entry and a preliminary statistical analysis for ongoing research to calculate the benefit of vaccinating against the debilitating illness chickungunya.

An essay by Judy Hopkins, an adjunct writing instructor, appeared in skirt! magazine. In the essay, “Parting Gift,” she reminisces about a past love with a penchant for trivia and appearing on game shows.

Dr. Rick Knott, assistant professor of health and physical education, presented a paper titled “Rose Revisited: An Examination of the Pete Rose Baseball Scandal After More Than 20 Years” at the North American Society for Sport History convention at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Matt Kropf, director of the American Refining Group/Harry R. Halloran Jr. Energy Institute, gave two invited lectures. He spoke on “Ultrasonic Nano-Characterization” at The Penn State Center for Acoustics and Vibrations Annual Meeting, and he spoke on “Multi-Energy Optimized Processing” at the Olean (N.Y.) chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

He also made a poster presentation, “Cell Wall Mechanics From Nano Structures to Macro Properties” at the Department of Energy Frontier Research Center on Lignocellulosic Biomass at Penn State. In addition, he presented a paper, which was also published in the proceedings, of The Cleantech Conference and Technology Showcase in San Jose, Calif. The paper was “Reducing Material Waste in Biodiesel Production Through Multi-Energy Optimized Processing.”

On the writing side, Kropf co-authored “A Review of Progress in Atomic Force Microscopy,” which will be published this fall by Bentham Science Press, and wrote “Sensor Design and Packaging for Ultra-High Temperatures,” a chapter in the forthcoming book “High Temperature Materials and Mechanisms.” Also this summer, Kropf served on the abstract review committee for the 2012 National Advanced Biofuels Conference.

Dr. Ron Mattis, associate professor of engineering, traveled to Aix-on-Provence, France, where he presented a paper titled “Enhancing the Associate Degree with Independent Study Courses” at the International Journal of Arts and Sciences conference. Dr. Hashim Yousif, professor of physics, was co-author.

Carol Newman, an adjunct writing instructor, took three awards at the 2012 Chautauqua Literary Arts Awards, including the Hauser Award for Fiction with her story “Pens.” She also earned a second place in the adult poetry category for her poem “Retrospection” and an honorable mention for her poem “If a hen Runs Into Your House.”

Dr. David Soriano, associate professor of chemistry, worked with three students in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program to synthesize and develop a larger scale process for two candidate “second generation” biodiesel fuels/additives for diesel engines. The fuels were run in an on-campus diesel generator with no observed problems. Soriano has reported his findings and plans to submit them for future publication.

An article by Dr. Jean Truman, assistant professor of nursing, “Identifying Predictors of National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN) Success in an Associate Degree Nursing Program,” was published in the August 2012 print and online editions of the International Journal of Applied Science and Technology.

Dr. Klaus Wuersig, assistant professor of engineering, presented a paper, “Selection of Appropriate Programming Languages for Engineering Applications,” at the International Conference of Engineering Education in Turku, Finland.

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