Faculty Accomplishments
Jeffrey Huber,AIA, associate professor and interim director of the School of Architecture, will be a panelist for the American Institute of Architects Symposium Design for Climate Action: Intersections 2020. Every year, the Intersections Symposium looks at some of the newest projects and research by leading architects and academics. This year's virtual symposium will include experts from University of Virginia, University of California, Tulane, California State Polytechnic Institute and more.
Mitchell Hutchings, DMA, assistant professor of vocal studies, helped to save a student’s life by calling attention to an abnormality in his throat during a voice lesson in Fall 2018. After a private voice lesson, Hutchings told Luis Javier that he was concerned and that he thought Luis should see a doctor. After an ultrasound and biopsy, in 2019, Luis had surgery with a sonic scalpel, which was used to make sure that his larynx was not compromised. Because of the size of the tumor, recovery took six months, and the return to singing was gradual. Luis graduated from FAU in Spring 2019, and now he is fully recovered. “The last thing a voice teacher expects to hear is ‘you saved my life,’” said Hutchings. “Often, we hope that music might help heal emotional wounds, but when voice lessons actually play a factor in life and death, the feeling is remarkably profound.” A full article on this story can be found here: http://www.csmusic.net/content/articles/thyroid-cancer/
Kelly Shannon, Ph.D. Professor of History, has recently been featured on NPR and in the Washington Post. Dr. Shannon's Op Ed was published in the Washington Post's column
"Made by History" regarding the past and possible future of U.S.-Iran relations. Her piece on NPR's podcast "Press Play" discusses how the U.S. and Iran have developed a fraught relationship. She is also working on a new book on U.S. relations with Iran from 1905-1953. Check out the works mentioned above:
The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/2FXK4tI
NPR: http://kcrw.co/2TtzXVl
Robert Rabil, Ph.D. Professor of political science, traveled to Lebanon this summer to conduct research on the volatile Lebanon-Israel border. While there, Rabil met with UNIFIL with the intentions of following up and probing the quiet American-led mediation of the Israel-Lebanon border dispute. Rabil's findings were published as a featured article in the National Interest (September/October 2019 Issue), the premier journal of the realism school of world affairs. "The accomplishments achieved thus far because of the (Trump) administration’s efforts, led by acting Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield, have been quite impressive. Even if their success is incomplete, these efforts could help the economies of both Lebanon and Israel. More importantly, it could decrease the risk of a devastating war with regional repercussions."
Angela Nichols, Ph.D. assistant professor of political science, conducted fieldwork in Colombia during the summer of 2019. Her project examined women's participation in both war and peace. She conducted more than 50 interviews with NGOs, politicians, and most importantly former guerrillas of Colombia's largest rebel group, FARC-EP, the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombi - Ejército del Pueblo, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army. FARC-EP has been fighting against the Colombian government in the longest-running armed insurgency in the Western Hemisphere. Among those interviewed were Rodrigo Landoño (former commander and now political leader of the FARC-EP), Victoria Sandino (Senator representing the FARC-EP and an important representative for the incorporation of gender into the 2016 peace agreement), Liliana López (a FARC-EP political leader and important figure for the incorporation of gender into the 2016 peace agreement) and Vera Grabe (anthropologist, politician, and co-founder of the M-19 rebel group that demobilized in the early 90s). Most of the other interviews were anonymous to protect the interviewees identity. Nichols is pictured here at a FARC-EP reincorporation camp where former FARC-EP guerrillas live.
Noemi Marin’s second book of poetry titled Aerul departarii was featured in April at the Voices of Romania event in Chicago. The event was sponsored in partnership with the Center of East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Chicago. Marin’s latest book of poetry was published by Tritonic Academic Publishing House, Bucharest in 2017. More information on the event is featured here
Alan Berger, Ph.D., Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies and Director of FAU’s Center for the Study of Values and Violence After Auschwitz, is the editor of the recently released “Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor and Friend.” The book is collection of essays about Elie Wiesel written by judges of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Ethics Essay Contest. The contest was established in 1989 and because of it, through the years, more than 6,500 college and university junior and senior students have written on the ethical and moral challenges facing the world. In this volume, judges reflect on the essays and on their interactions with Wiesel that ensued.
The book was published by Cascade Books, Eugene, Oregon.
Kevin Wagner, Ph.D., chair and professor of the Department of Political Science, was recently honored as the recipient of the FAU Alumni Association Talon Award. Kevin was honored for his many accomplishments in political science and for his tireless efforts in representing the University. Wagner received his J.D. from the University of Florida and has worked as an attorney and member of the Florida Bar with the law firm of Scott, Harris, Bryan, Barra, and Jorgensen in Palm Beach Gardens. He returned to the University of Florida five years later to earn an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science. He has lectured extensively on American politics and has been cited in many leading newspapers including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Newsday, Bloomberg News, USA Today and the Miami Herald. He has been featured as the political analyst for CBS 12 in West Palm Beach, on national television including NBC’s The Today Show, and recently he was interviewed by the Finnish Broadcasting Network YLE (http://bit.ly/2FmOIny).
Wagner’s work has been published in leading journals and law reviews including “American Review of Politics,” “The Journal of Legislative Studies,” and “Politics and Policy.” He has also presented at national conferences including the American Political Science Association, the Southern Political Science Association and the Midwest Political Science Association. His recent work focuses on the effects of technology on politics and campaigning; he is the co-author of “Tweeting to Power.” His other research focuses in the areas of American Institutions, American Political Development, Judicial Politics, Political Behavior and Research Methods.
Meredith A. B. Ellis, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology, recently had her first single-authored monograph published. The Children of Spring Street: The Bioarchaeology of Childhood in a 19th Century Abolitionist Congregation (http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319926865) looks at the skeletal remains as well as the historical records of the some 70 children buried at the Spring Street Presbyterian Church in lower Manhattan between 1820 and 1850. Using that information, it reconstructs and tells the stories of what it was like to be a child growing up in New York City in the first half of the 19th century. This is Ellis’ second book to be published this year. Her first book was Nineteenth Century Childhoods in Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives,” an edited volume that she wrote with Jane Eva Baxter of DePaul University. Ellis’ research focuses on human skeletal remains from archaeological sites. Specifically, she looks at how people lived in the past, and what their bodies can tell us about their daily lives and about life in a family and a community.
Josephine Beoku-Betts, Ph.D., will serve as a Fulbright Scholar for the 2018-2019 academic year at the Institute for Gender Studies and Documentation (INGRADOC) at the University of Sierra Leone. During her term as a Fulbright Scholar, she will provide expertise in strategic planning for program and curriculum development in a new Gender Studies undergraduate degree program. She will also teach courses in the M.Phil. and M.A. degree programs in Gender Studies. In addition to teaching and program development, Dr. Beoku-Betts will continue her research on “Women’s Political Activism in Post-War Sierra Leone”. Specifically, she will study the Fifty-Fifty Group, a local women’s NGO that advocates for women’s increased involvement in political leadership, increased awareness about women’s citizenship rights, and provision of support for women running for elected office. Her work examines how this NGO leverages political transformations in the state, for example, the newly elected government of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) 2018, to demand legislation and policies which promote gender equality and women’s rights. She will consider whether changing political opportunities to restructure gender relations in a deeply embedded patriarchal culture will lead organizations such as Fifty-Fifty to refocus their goals and analytical frameworks using feminist standpoints that are openly assertive in their engagement with the state.