Use of biometric technology, including eye-tracking, in marketing has been growing in both academic research and practice. Several of the Marketing Science Institute’s research priorities from the years 2020-2024 include topics that could be further explored through the use and better understanding of biometric data: The Customer-Technology Interface, Tools for Capturing Information to Fuel Growth, and Attention, Engagement, and Customer Experience. (MSI 2020; MSI 2022). The goal of this research is to use eye-tracking technology to better understand the customer-technology interface, particularly how consumers use online product reviews as they proceed through the consumer decision-making process (e.g., which products to consider, whether to buy, which product to buy). Research has shown that consumers have a limited attention span and searching for additional information is costly; thus consumers are selective when choosing information to consider as they proceed through the decision-making process. Many heuristics may come into play during the decision-making process, like loss aversion, which may shape the information that consumers prioritize. Eye-tracking technology will help us understand what information a consumer looks at on a product reviews page (e.g., attributes, sentiment, etc.) as that consumer proceeds through the decision-making process and learn if the information being sought differs throughout the process. Additionally, this research will support my teaching (e.g., Marketing Research, Digital Marketing) in which I will be able to demo eye-tracking technology with students and show its capabilities in practice, as eye-tracking is increasingly being utilized by marketers in practice.

International immigrants and the money sent back to their home countries –defined as remittances– are key components in the economic sustainability of small nations in Latin America, particularly the case of El Salvador, a country with remittances inflows representing 20% of its national income. Remittances are one of the largest foreign financial inflows in El Salvador, even above foreign private investment and foreign aid. However, these funds could be viewed as a form of direct financial assistance that may induce recipients to substitute education and job searching activities for leisure and, in the worst-case scenario, criminal activity. Through a household survey requesting information on remittance income, labor occupations, and criminal background of family members ages 18 to 40, along with narrative evidence, this study aims at determining if remittances in El Salvador are associated with lower labor force participation and higher crime. The investigator will complete in-depth interviews with 20 head-of-the-household individuals residing in San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador.

Bishu Cine is a non-profit cultural collective based in Lima, Peru that uses cinema as a tool for preserving indigenous territories, languages, and ancestral knowledge. After months of relationship-building with Awajún communities of the Imaza district of Amazonas, Bishu Cine brought video cameras into the indigenous village of Shushug in 2021 and offered a ten day workshop that trained young people in the village how to collaborate with their elders to create short films about Awajún stories, practices, and values from their own perspective. Bishu Cine then returned to screen the films in several schools in neighboring Awajún villages as well as evening screenings “under the stars” where communities gathered in open-air makeshift cinemas to witness and celebrate Awajún stories told by Awajún filmmakers in the Awajún language. Given how the field of documentary has recently shifted away from extractive story telling methods and more towards an ethic of “nothing about us without us,” I would like to travel to Lima, Peru for a month in order to co-create a documentary with the members of Bishu Cine (as well as the founders of the school that trained them). The film would combine contemporary interviews with the collective and archival footage of their behind-the-scenes work with the Awajún in Shushug in order to demonstrate and disseminate their method as a replicable exemplar of ethical, sustainable, and collaborative community-based filmmaking that empowers marginalized communities to tell their own stories on screen.

The proposed research project comprises two interrelated parts, aimed at enriching our understanding of historical inequality, social mobility, economic well-being, and demographics in the pre-industrial world. The first part entails the completion of a proprietary database, systematically organized and queryable, integrating anthropometric data alongside controlled genetic group characteristics. This data serves as a vital instrument for material income with which to explore societal dynamics. The second part of the project delves into a focused examination of pre-Colombian Inca society, with a particular emphasis on scrutinizing the Malthusian dynamics. The objective is to assess whether Inca society aligns with Clark's portrayal of the "Farewell to Alms" phenomenon—a scenario in which technological and organizational advancements result in a harsher existence for the average worker in pre-industrial settings. By meticulously investigating this premise, the project aims to unravel the intricate dynamics between technological progress, societal organization, and the lived experiences of individuals within the Inca world.

The purpose of this project is to examine the role of gender-specific factors on cryptocurrency investment behavior and susceptibility to victimization. The co-investigators have completed data collection on a novel survey previously distributed on Amazon's MTurk platform. In particular, the authors are interested in understanding the differences between male, female, and non-binary identified investors, and whether or not unique patterns or relationships exist with respect to the likelihood of being a target or victim of fraud. In this project, we will be empirically testing the theoretical framework of a previously published article that outlined target congruence pertaining to digital currency investment behavior (see Dulisse, Connealy, & Logan, 2023). The purpose of this project is to examine the existing data to better understand gender-specific factors related to both the risk of (and protection from) becoming a target for fraud. Upon completion of the analysis, this project will be written in a manuscript format with criminological and economic scholars as well as fiduciary policy makers in mind. 

This project will produce a scholarly research article regarding one of the greatest French critics of the twentieth century, Roland Barthes—the transformative structuralist whose book *Mythologies* (1957) is still taught on every campus in the country. In particular, I will perform archival research on Barthes’ neglected monograph regarding the important Romanian–American artist Saul Steinberg, who was most widely known as an illustrator for the *New Yorker* magazine. In 1978, the Parisian Maeght Art Gallery published Barthes’ monograph in appreciation of Steinberg with the English title *All Except You*. The critic (Barthes) and the artist (Steinberg) had been in direct communication in these years, and letters between the two are waiting in the archive to be consulted. The fact that *All Except You* has never received a legitimate English translation, and that the rapport between critic and artist remains unknown, is in itself an astonishing historical gap—as though Montaigne had written a book of essays about Michelangelo, and it remained obscure.

Curiosity can boost memory (e.g., Kang et al., 2009; Ryan & Deci, 2000). For example, in prior research, adults exhibited better memory for information for which they rated being more curious to learn the answer (Gruber et al., 2014). Nevertheless, the impact of curiosity on memory has not yet been thoroughly investigated in young children. Here, curiosity and memory were evaluated within children aged 4-9-years-old, after their interaction with a novel triceratops dinosaur exhibit at the Glazer Children’s Museum. After visiting an exhibit with a full skeleton fossil of a triceratops, children were re-exposed to 10 dinosaur facts that had been displayed within the exhibit. Approximately one-week later, children’s memory for these facts was evaluated via an electronic survey that guardians read aloud to their children. Guardians also rated their child’s curiosity about dinosaurs both before and after visiting the exhibit. I hypothesize that children who expressed stronger curiosity about dinosaurs will exhibit better memory for dinosaur facts. Data has already been collected for this project.

Proteins are dynamic molecules that carry out a number of critical functions in cells and organisms. Their activities are tightly controlled by a number of protein modifiers, one of the most important of which is a polypeptide called ubiquitin. The attachment of ubiquitin to proteins is carried out by a large class of enzymes (~600 in humans) known as ubiquitin ligases (E3s). These enzymes often modify their protein substrates with a chain of ubiquitin molecules, and existing evidence supports a model in which the length, linkage, and topology of the chain determine the fate of the protein it is attached to. Recent work has shown that the structures or “architectures” of ubiquitin chains can be quite complex and that they often contain bifurcations (branches) that emanate from the “trunk” of the chain. However, there are currently only a handful of E3s known to form branched ubiquitin chains, and the functions of these chain types remain poorly understood. The goals of this proposal are to: 1) determine if the NEDD4 family of E3s forms branched ubiquitin chains on substrates, 2) compare the rate of degradation for NEDD4 family E3 substrates modified with branched vs. unbranched chains, and 3) develop techniques to detect the formation of a specific type of branched chain using a recently engineered nanobody. We hypothesize that chain branching by the NEDD4 family of E3s promotes degradation of substrates, thus providing a mechanism to control the disposal of damaged, misfolded, or otherwise unwanted proteins.

Viruses hijack parts of a host cell in order to replicate and spread. This project will investigate how a virus, called Theiler’s virus, uses components of the host cell to replicate its genome. Dr. Freundt will employ advanced microscopy to study the movement of the virus’ proteins in living cells in order to understand how the virus uses host proteins to facilitate its replication. As Theiler’s virus is related to many important human pathogens, including hepatitis A virus, poliovirus, and common cold viruses, this study has the potential to reveal how this family of viruses subvert cellular components for their own advantage. 

The project explores the relationship between informal traditional authorities and community social capital in Ghana. Social capital is not hewn in the halls of parliament but rather through informal networks, relationships, and shared norms that facilitate collaboration and collective action. Former Anglophone African colonies, like Ghana, have a long history of robust informal institutions. Chiefs, as long as they were reasonably compliant to the colonizing mission, were preserved and given a great deal of leeway in how they managed affairs in their areas. This arrangement continues through the present and creates a great deal of variance in informal institutions and presumably their impact on social capital. Using Afrobarometer data to operationalize social capital and archival research from Ghana’s National House of Chiefs to operationalize informal institutions, this project explores this relationship. In so doing, it adds a novel non-Western case to the literature on social capital and contributes to the fledgling literature on comparative politics of informal governance providers. Findings will help explain how the nature of chiefs impacts community resilience.

This research project seeks to delve into the complex interplay of food web dynamics and spatial movement patterns of white grunt (Haemulon plumieri) between natural reefs and artificial reefs off of Clearwater, Florida. The study will center on unraveling the ecological intricacies of white grunt behavior, with a specific focus on dietary preferences, foraging dynamics, and their influence on trophic cascades. Utilizing a methodical approach involving rod and reel fishing, I aim to collect 600 white grunt ( 300 from natural sites and 300 from artificial reefs) for a comprehensive food web analysis. The euthanasia process will adhere to ethical guidelines, utilizing MS-222 to ensure a humane and respectful treatment of the study subjects. In tandem, I will tag 1,500 white grunt (750 from natural reefs and 750 from artificial reefs) using Floy Tags, to trace their spatial movements. Floy tags, small and uniquely numbered markers, are employed in fisheries research to monitor fish movement patterns. These tags are attached to fish, allowing scientists to track their migration, behavior, and population dynamics by recording tag recoveries from various locations, providing valuable insights into aquatic ecosystems and fisheries management. This aspect of the study not only contributes to understanding migration routes and habitat preferences but also allows for a comparative assessment between natural and artificial reef environments. This research aims to uncover habitat-specific nuances, ultimately contributing valuable insights to inform sustainable fishery management practices and foster a deeper understanding of how white grunt populations shape and respond to diverse marine ecosystems.

 "Farm of Olive: Cultivating Artistic Growth and Ecological Exploration.” will examine possibilities for producing art using sustainable materials such as found objects and natural plant forms, pigments, and dyes. In my early childhood, my mother was awarded three acres of Crown land in Nassau, The Bahamas. , I was consumed with growing edible plants, endlessly arranging stacks of stones in the yard, and using slash-and-burn techniques. This practice of gathering, sustainability, organizing and reusing found objects, and identifying plants' culinary and medicinal benefits has dramatically impacted my work. What plants did earlier inhabitants of this land use as foodstuffs and for healing? Could we revive these traditional crops? How might all of us heal from this land? For this project, a significant outcome regarding my professional practice will be developing a series of works: Crown Land: Farm of Olive and The Farm: Healing from the Land. Using art as a vehicle to document the processes and outcomes of this sabbatical research, this series will include hand-drawn maps, one-of-a-kind prints called monoprints, an artists' book using handmade paper, and a digital experience component using Augmented Reality (AR) technology. Conceptually, these works will also be fueled by scholarly research, drawing from texts such as P. N. Honeychurch's Caribbean Wild Plants and their Uses (1992) and archival materials held at local archives and libraries in the Bahamas. 

"Development between Security and Migration: Border Zones and Trade between China and Kazakhstan" examines the roles of borders in contemporary China’s practices of economic development and securitization. In recent years, the Chinese government has expended heavily in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a globe-spanning developmental program that provides expansion opportunities for Chinese firms and banks. The BRI has revitalized international transit gateways across Central Asia, such as that along the Sino-Kazakh border at Khorgos, which is the object of this study. As China pronounces its openness to flows of people, goods, and ideas for the sake of win-win development and mutual cooperation, a border perspective can reveal how Chinese economic influence is differently affecting people on the ground. Through interviews and participant observation with business people and traders working at and around Khorgos International Border Cooperation Zone, which lies at the boundary between China and Kazakhstan, I hypothesize that BRI gateways privilege Chinese nationals at the expense of Kazakh nationals. While border gateways allow for the movement of goods, they are also sites where passports are checked and where security rules quickly change; they provide frictions to mobility that bring China's political and social concerns about foreign infiltration and Islamic separatism into direct conflict with aspirations to reduce trade barriers, promote mobility, and deepen infrastructure development. My research contributes to border studies discussions about the paradox of mobility and immobility, which can be found at other global borders including those in Europe and the United States.

Other Shane Hintons is a novel in stories slated for publication through Stetson University’s Burrow Press in fall 2025. The book is a collection of autofictions, each of which uses a horror sub-genre as a premise. The narrative arc examines the experience of a fictional Shane Hinton whose life on a Florida strawberry farm is charted from childhood to middle age, exploring the threat of suburban expansion as metaphorically representing self-doubt. This manuscript is in the final stages of development, needing revision and editing prior to publication. To support the release of the book, I plan to draft essays on the craft of fiction and creative writing pedagogy that will be submitted alongside the completed manuscript of the book. I also plan to propose a presentation for the 2025 conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP). This proposal will make the case that relationships between readers and writers in local literary communities can counter the trust deficit of writing created by generative artificial intelligence.

Given contemporary American discourses on men and masculinity, this book project titled That’s What He Said: Men’s Thoughts on Gender and Society, intends to provide a general overview of men’s thoughts, opinions, and behaviors spanning several topics. Unlike most books about masculinity, which tend to focus on distinct groups and/or utilize qualitative data (e.g., interviews), this book will utilize The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a nationally representative dataset of men 15 – 44 years of age. This large-scale survey will allow us to provide quantitative insight into important issues and concerns central to men, including, but not limited to, family and relationships, parenthood, religiosity, sexual and reproductive health behavior, and social attitudes, while simultaneously teasing out how their responses vary along lines of race, class, sexuality, and other social locations that shape masculinity and manhood. This book project is under contract with Rowman & Littlefield.

This meta-analysis study aims to evaluate the different dimensions of instructor self-disclosure (e.g., relevance, frequency) throughout decades of published research in order to learn which dimensions are most strongly associated with positive student outcomes such as student engagement, participation, and cognitive learning. Instructor self-disclosure is a voluntary (planned or unplanned) transmission of information not readily available to students. When instructors teach, they may choose to share personal information about themselves in order to relate it to important lesson content. The main question is: "Is instructor self-disclosure actually an effective teaching strategy?" While a good deal of research studies over the years have suggested it may be an effective teaching tactic, a straight answer to this question would be clarified by conducting a meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a specific quantitative study design used to systematically assess previous published/unpublished research studies to draw conclusions about that particular body of research. For this project, the researchers will begin by collecting dozens of research studies that examine instructor self-disclosure in order to establish a dataset. Next, the researchers will conduct statistical tests on the dataset to derive the overall significant effects of instructor self-disclosure dimensions on positive student outcomes. Lastly, the researchers will provide these findings in a manuscript, submit it to the National Communication Association conference, and then a high-quality peer-reviewed journal. In doing so, we will unpack a greater understanding of how instructors should (or should not) use self-disclosure as a teaching strategy in the classroom.

First Ladies are in unique positions of power and influence and are expected to represent particular segments of American society and advocate for specific policy programs. First Ladies have used their platform to raise awareness of many issues including the environment (Johnson), mental health and breast cancer screening (Ford), drug use (Reagan), literacy (B. Bush and L. Bush), and healthy living (Obama). Over the last 4 years the First Ladies Lab, under the direction of Drs. Lewallen and Anderson, has collected and coded over 1500 speeches made by First Ladies of the United States. These include speeches and remarks from First Ladies Johnson (1963-1969), Ford (1974-77), Reagan (1981-1988), Clinton (1993-2000), Bush (2001-2008), Obama (2009-2016), Trump (2017-2020), and Biden (2021-2023). Speeches have been coded according the Comparative Agendas Project codebook (CAP), an internationally recognized coding scheme of policy topics and subtopics, to track policy outcomes across countries. By coding our data according to this coding scheme, it allows us to compare First Ladies policy contributions to other policy actors/institutions. In this paper, we will examine the extent to which First Ladies' policy agendas reflect issues that also receive attention in other institutions and whether the President, Congress, the Media, and other institutions act on the First Ladies’ policy priorities. In other words, we examine the extent to which First Ladies influence the policy agenda.

Human-made organic molecules are major components in essential industries and building them requires chemical reactions that are efficient by utilizing inexpensive, non-toxic reagents that produce minimal waste. Reactions that produce carbon radicals, a carbon with an unpaired electron, are valuable due to their ability to facilitate transformations that allow chemists to piece together small molecules to produce large, more complex structures. The field of photochemistry is rapidly expanding because light could be used to generate radicals under mild conditions and involve them in selective and unique chemical transformations without the need for large quantities of dangerous reagents. For a photochemical reaction to occur, however, a molecule or complex within the reaction must be able to absorb the light being used. Our research investigates the function of molecules called carbazoles in photochemical reactions. Previously, we demonstrated how when exposed to UV-light, carbazoles could behave as reducing photocatalysts (molecules used to generate radicals by donating an electron after absorbing light). In this proposal, we aim to investigate if carbazoles could form an electron donor-acceptor (EDA) pair with molecules called N-acyloxy pyridinium salts. If so, the EDA pair may be able to absorb light in the visible region and be used to add alkyl groups (groups containing carbon–carbon single bonds and hydrogens) to other organic molecules. 

“Source of All Hair, Wearer of All Socks” is a visual narration of a subjective Black woman's fairytale presented as a series of larger-than-life, interconnected murals. The images are made up of digitally manipulated ballpoint pen drawings that follow the story of a Black woman who wakes up one Monday morning to discover she has grown a person out of her hair. In her nightdress and striped socks, she makes her way through a world that mirrors the complexity of our own, but this one is filled with just her, her hair, and her many duplicates. Through flying hairballs, commoditized socks, the ever-present “Source of All Hair”, and her materially minded counterpart the “Wearer of All Socks”, the work serves as an allegory for our contemporary condition, confronting questions of power, exploitation, and resistance. This award will support the development of the next chapters of this mural installation culminating in a solo art show at the Rockport Center for the Arts in Texas from August to September 2024. The show will consist of murals spanning 10 to 20 feet long, and up to 12 feet high, each with characters that tower above you as the story unfolds. Since the work exists digitally and is printed on adhesive wallpaper, it can be tailored to interact with different exhibition spaces beyond the Rockport show. 

This book project constitutes one of the first comprehensive efforts to clarify the patterns of local government litigation as it relates to the dual nature of federalism or shared governance - the linchpin of the American system of government. American cities are widely considered creatures of the state, whereby their powers are defined and significantly constrained by state constitutions. This has made American cities more or less invisible in the American constitutional framework. Most conflicts in the American federal system are channeled through the judicial system where the courts can authoritatively resolve disputes within the overarching system created by the Constitution. Presumably, American cities would find themselves to be perpetual losers in disputes against other governments and individuals whose place in the constitutional system is more secure. Litigation has been the critical mechanism to resolve fundamental questions about the place of cities within the American constitutional order and the Supreme Court has been forced to balance the practical realities of governing against the strictures inherent in the federal constitutional design. The purpose of this project proposal is to be able to collect additional information about the cities that are involved in litigation at the Supreme Court. This missing descriptive information will allow for the comprehensive evaluation of theoretical hypotheses through statistical analyses. 

The book, titled "Unknown and Unlamented: The Exile and Repatriation of a Loyalist Family in the Era of the American Revolution," is a history exploring the experiences of the British-sympathizing Robie family of Marblehead, Massachusetts to better understand allegiance—to both family and nation—during the American Revolution. The chapters I will complete (each approximately 14,000 words) highlight two critical moments in the family’s ordeal: their time spent as revolutionary exiles in Halifax, Nova Scotia during the war and their reintegration into early American society afterwards. Building from the extraordinary diary kept by nineteen-year-old Mary Robie in loyalist Halifax during the years 1783-1784, Chapter 3—titled “‘Gilded Misery’: Mary Robie and the Community of Suffering”—explores the experience of exile from the perspective of refugee women to highlight the critical role loyalist wives and daughters had in creating a community of refugees. Chapter 6—titled “‘No Country Ever Had Such Founders’: Samuel Edmund Sewall and Loyalist Descendants in the 19th Century”—follows the family’s return to Massachusetts in the 1780s emphasizing the understudied moment of loyalist repatriation.

Institutions of higher learning are increasingly susceptible to drops in enrollment. For many of these, sustained drops in enrollment can lead to serious consequences, including closures. While many institutions can engage in in-house adjustments to stem or reverse drops in enrollment, there may very well be forces outside of the institutions that drive such drops. This project aims to study whether social media conversations around different institutions were harbingers for any changes in enrollment. Specifically, we plan to look at the social media chatter about a number of institutions across the prior years and check to see if such communication had an influence on enrollment. We plan to look at institutions that had sustained drops in enrollment and compare these to institutions that had either steady or gains in enrollment. We plan to collect and study the conversations on popular social media websites directed specifically at the target institutions and fit regression models to test our hypothesis. At the conclusion of this study, we hope to be able to determine if social media conversations played a role in drops in enrollment. We also hope to identify which themes in social media conversations portend a drop in a year or two, and thus alert institutions of higher learning to this incoming problem so as to better plan on how to mitigate.

Who facilitated humanitarian aid in World War II unoccupied (Vichy) France to Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the war? How did these workers challenge the gender norms of both Vichy and Nazi officials? This historical research and writing project investigates the work of women American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) delegates who facilitated relief and rescue for Jewish concentration camp detainees and French schoolchildren in Vichy France during World War II. The Quaker-based AFSC provided more direct humanitarian relief to Vichy France and Vichy French concentration camps than any other non-governmental agency in WWII. Many of the AFSC delegates were women and their activities have largely been overlooked. AFSC men mostly handled the logistics of aid distribution whereas the women lived in the southern French camps and chose and accompanied refugee children to safety risking arrest and imprisonment. The story of the Quakers is unique because it presents the opportunity to expand upon the collective memory of American intervention in WWII, broadens the category of resistance in both French and Holocaust history and illustrates the complicated process by which humanitarians negotiated with authoritarian regimes. This project requires research in both published and unpublished source material. Published sources include memoirs and biographies written by and about AFSC women, a selection of articles and books, and historical scholarship on Holocaust relief and rescue. Unpublished sources include documents and memoirs housed in the AFSC archive in Philadelphia in files related to the war, and the Holocaust including internal memos, reports, and correspondence.

This research project is designed to look critically at the intersection of ethics and entrepreneurship by exploring the affinity between the work of Joseph Schumpeter and Friedrich Nietzsche. There is a need to enhance our understanding of the relationship between societal ethics and what Schumpeter calls “creative destruction”, and Nietzsche’s work offers constructive guidance for that endeavor. The essence of this project is that society has a keen interest in understanding how market disruption will affect firms and society, and entrepreneurs are a good source of information on this question. Part of the challenge for understanding the ethics of entrepreneurship is that a single moral principle does not exist to encompass the range of decisions that entrepreneurs must make. Entrepreneurs are rule-breakers who face multi-faceted problems with strictures, values, and virtues that may conflict insolubly (Brenkert, 2009; Adler et al, 2021). An ethical solution based on utilitarian, deontological, or rule-based theory quickly becomes too narrow to apply to the transformations that result from their actions and consequences of their behaviors. That is not to say that entrepreneurs do not break rules in ways that are morally wrong. They do, and those decisions should be condemned. They are, however, agents of creative destruction and, as such, are harbingers of the innovation that loosens the ossified patterns that no longer serve the market and society. The challenge for this research is to begin to reconcile, at least in theoretical terms, market disruption with values disruption.

My project will result in the completion of a book proposal and chapter manuscript for my second scholarly monograph, tentatively titled, "The Good Bird Robinson." There is no biography of the early nineteenth-century Philadelphia merchant William Davis Robinson, a peripatetic trader and published writer who engaged in the flour, tobacco, and slave trade and was involved in revolutionary events in Venezuela and Mexico between 1806 and 1824. My scholarly contribution will be an original life study of this historical figure. His business activities and support for revolution in Spanish America reveals a history of the transnational movement of people, goods, and ideas in the Greater Caribbean during the era known as the Age of Revolutions, 1776-1830.

This study aims to understand the ways people address feelings of loneliness in their lives. A growing percentage of the U.S. adult population experiences chronic loneliness. Recent data shows that over 60% of U.S. adults report being lonely, and 1 in every 12 U.S. adults report having no close relationships in their lives. This is a serious issue, as loneliness has well-documented and negative consequences for both mental health and physical health. Although researchers have developed interventions to address loneliness, these efforts typically involve seeking help from trained professionals, such as therapists. Unfortunately, it is not feasible for every lonely person to access therapy. Therefore, the goal of this study is to understand how people have previously addressed feelings of loneliness on their own. I will collect responses about the various ways people tried to address loneliness in their lives, including both what worked and what did not. Participants will also recall specific advice they received about loneliness and report the usefulness of this advice. This will allow me to understand the helpful and unhelpful actions, thoughts, and advice that can potentially reduce loneliness when seeking therapy is not an option.

A Biopac data acquisition system is being requested to record ECG to measure heart rate (HR) changes during two experimental psychology studies. The first study will implement a classical conditioning paradigm to study how individuals learn emotional content differently. Specifically, cues that predict when something good or bad is about to happen is learned and anticipated differently between people. Heart rate changes inform as to how an individual is orienting, preparing and bracing for something bad to happen (in this study a loud scream). This study will explore if an individual’s unique response to threat translates to the same response pattern of anticipating pleasant things (in this study a baby giggling). The second study aims to combine attention control research in the mindfulness literature with biomarkers of preparatory responses preceding a target stimulus. Brain biomarkers (EEG) have shown ‘states’ of active networks to be predictive of performance. The second study aims to combine these EEG measures with mindful inhalation and exhalation to assess the extent to which brain, heart and lungs can be synchronized for improved behavioral performance on an attention control task. Both studies will record HR changes simultaneously with EEG brain activity.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Leftist: Dissident Publics in Literature and Film from Thatcher to Brexit* is a scholarly monograph that analyzes representations of artists (filmmakers, writers, and visual artists) in British novels and films made during and after Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. I argue in the project that there is a hitherto unrecognized diversity of political viewpoints and aesthetic practices represented as “leftist” in media outlets like the Guardian and New York Times, and that representations of artists exploring the relationship between art and politics offer nuanced reflections on the possibilities and limitations afforded by the media of novels and films. The method for the book, a sample of which can be seen in my article “Metamodernism and Counterpublics,” is to use artists’ essays, articles, and interviews to establish their own working theories about the relationship between art and politics within their self-identified leftist public discourse. I build on Michael Warner’s work on counterpublics to show how these artists constitute a counterpublic of what Alan Sinfield would call “middle-class dissidents” with a loosely shared social imaginary of what it means to be a British, leftist artist or intellectual. Although the many writers and filmmakers considered in this study all explicitly identify as leftist, they exhibit an enormous range of positions on economic and political policy that are nevertheless loosely united by a shift in focus away from the artist’s involvement in party politics and onto their engagement in the political ethics of everyday life.

A main goal of astronomical research is to understand our origins, from the origin of life on Earth to the origin of the Universe itself. A major aspect of these studies is the origin and evolution of our Milky Way Galaxy. While stars only make up about 5% of the total mass of the Galaxy, understanding how and where stars form, and their subsequent kinematics (motions), is a critical component to recovering its evolutionary history. Collaborating with colleagues at institutions in the USA and abroad, I am continuing work on a long-term project to verify and characterize newly identified stellar streams (or moving groups), collections of stars in the Galaxy with similar kinematics. Such streams are thought to be the link between stars that form in clusters and the individual field stars we see in the night sky and are critically important to our understanding of the dynamical formation and evolution of the Galaxy. We have identified five promising candidates that we are now investigating. I am leading the analysis of the compositions of the stars in each group in order to put constraints on their formation histories; stars that are born together are expected to have the same compositions. We are using spectroscopic data obtained with large professional astronomical telescopes for this work. 

The objective of this research project is to investigate the users' participation behavior patterns in online health communities (OHCs). An OHC is defined as a platform that enables individuals with similar health conditions or common interests to virtually gather and exchange information, seek and provide support, and build connections. Typically, users of OHCs are either patients or caregivers to individuals with chronic diseases such as diabetes, asthma, or cancer — conditions they may have to live with for their entire lives. For patients, the primary goal of using an OHC may include receiving information, expressions of empathy, love, trust, and caring, as well as finding a sense of belonging. Providers, on the other hand, aim to improve patient care and quality of life. Recent epistemological evidence from the literature confirms that the widespread use of OHCs has dramatically changed illness self-management, enhanced the quality of life, and improved decision-making, as OHCs serve as both a virtual source of information and psychosocial support. A user’s membership lifecycle in an OHC typically involves three stages: joining, engaging, and maintaining. The goal of this project is to gain insights into users' participation behaviors regarding the use of information technology (IT) across different stages of the user’s membership lifecycle in an OHC. Furthermore, this study aims to predict users' later stage participation behaviors based on their earlier stage activities. The findings of this study can support healthcare providers using these online platforms to better assist individuals with chronic illnesses.

As part of a broader study on the role of baseball in social life, this proposal seeks funding for a research trip to the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri. The Negro League Baseball Museum is the only museum dedicated to the preservation of African American baseball history as well as a site baseball fans around the world travel to as part of celebrating the game. The funding requested here will facilitate a similar trip wherein observational, documentary, and/or interview data may be gathered about the museum, the history of African American baseball captured in this location, and the role of baseball – and African American baseball specifically – in U.S. culture. As a result, this research trip will contribute to the ongoing preservation and dissemination of African American baseball history as well as the production of cultural knowledge at the University of Tampa. At the same time, this proposal seeks a summer stipend to aid the scholarly work on the broader project entitled The Meaning of Baseball. In brief, the overall project utilizes participant observation, documentary and other artifact collection, and interviews to ascertain what baseball means to individuals, families, and communities as a historical and contemporary social phenomenon. 

How did national independence movements against European colonial rule in Africa win support among Europeans? How did supporters and beneficiaries of European imperialism transform into supporters of anti-colonial causes? This historical research project investigates the case of Gavin Maxwell (d. 1969), a famous 20th-century British nature writer and travel writer, who became a critic of French imperialism in Morocco and an active supporter of the Algerian war for independence against France. This project explores Maxwell’s writings about independence movements and French colonialism, and his relationship with anti-colonial sympathizers and allies such as Margaret Pope and Gavin Young, as Maxwell became part of the “transnational activism” (Stenner, Globalizing Morocco, 2019) that supported the movement for Algerian independence, leading to Maxwell’s 1961 espionage mission to Algiers on behalf of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1961.
This project requires research in both published and unpublished source material. Published sources include Maxwell’s own writings, numerous books and articles written about him (although the latter almost entirely neglect his North African activities), and historical scholarship on anti-colonial independence movements and their international networking and public relations efforts. Unpublished sources include Maxwell’s papers, including correspondence and notes and an unpublished manuscript on “Arab Nationalism,” which are housed at the National Library of Scotland, in Edinburgh; papers of his publisher, Longman, housed in the library of the University of Reading, near London; items held by the Eilean Ban Trust; unpublished sources on Maxwell’s contacts in North Africa at the French Diplomatic Archives (Nantes; La Courneuve).

I have been overseeing our graduate business professional coaching program since 2016 and am interested in whether student perceptions about our coaching program correspond to levels of authentic leadership, meaning in life, emotional intelligence, core self-evaluations, health, and well-being. We have been pairing graduate business students with professional and community coaches each year since 2002. In 2016, we formally integrated the program into our leadership certificate for Masters of Business (MBA) students and community participants, which we developed by aligning with best practices in experiential education from the Society for Experiential Education (Thomason, Andersen, Gupta, and Rustogi, 2022). Since then, we have required coaching in our executive MBA (EMBA) and executive Doctor of Business Administration (EDBA) programs and are offering coaching to our professional MBA, Masters of Marketing, and business undergraduate students. We have 140 active coaches, many of whom are affiliated with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) or are community leaders and/or our former graduate students. Students write three reflection papers after each of three meetings with their coaches, which we've analyzed in the past for themes for two journal publications. We have received IRB approval to analyze student reflection papers for themes and to administer surveys to measure the aforementioned constructs.

The project goal is to elucidate the contributions of Pauline Tarnowsky regarding the impact she made on the discipline of Criminology as the first known female criminologist (Huff-Corzine & Toohy, 2023; MacDonald, 1910). The funding of this grant will allow the PI to continue the translation of historical research conducted by Tarnowsky over the Summer 2024 academic term, which has never before been published in English. Additionally, it will allow the PI to travel to the Lombroso Museum during the 2024-2025 academic year to view letters written between Tarnowsky and other well-known contributors in the criminological discipline, which are not otherwise available through electronic avenues. This research will be conducted during the 2024-2025 academic year specifically through (1) development of a manuscript based upon in-person research conducted at the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin, Italy to be submitted to a scholarly academic journal such as Criminology, the Journal of Criminal Justice, or the Journal of Criminology, which advances our field in the inclusion of contributions to our historical foundations; (2) finalization of the first half of Tarnowsky’s Les femmes homicides; (3) development of the translation of the second half of Tarnowsky’s Les femmes homicides, contributing not only to the foundation of our discipline, but also to UT’s mission to provide excellence in teaching and intellectual growth; and (4) dissemination of final research outcomes in an academic presentation

Comparative analysis is an ever-present yet remarkably under-studied academic competency. As a core skill required in all undergraduate art history courses it reliably serves as a central component in every survey syllabus, but despite its pervasive presence in the undergraduate art history curriculum, comparative analysis has yet to receive specific investigation to define best practices for its instruction within or even outside the discipline. An informal literature search on comparative analysis instruction revealed a wealth of resources supporting the design and implementation of comparative analysis research, especially in the social sciences (for example Vallier 1971, Rihoux 2006, Ragin 2014, Greckhamer 2018, among many others), but surprisingly nothing focused on strategies for teaching it. Clearly, significant work is still needed to explore the efficacy of specific pedagogical approaches for teaching comparative analysis. As colleges and universities strive to identify effective strategies for developing future global citizens, art history’s inherent interdisciplinary offers a wealth of opportunities for cross-disciplinary learning. This component of a multi-phase research project focuses on comparative analysis instruction and leverages data from my own classroom practice to investigate the potential universal applicability of discipline-specific instruction regarding of student major or career ambition. 

National human rights institutions (NHRIs) are domestic institutions established by the government with an explicit mandate to protect and promote human rights. To date, 130 countries have established official NHRIs. Advocates see their proliferation as a good sign. Skeptics, though, worry that these institutions can easily become government mouthpieces that legitimate abuse. Indeed, countries have immense leeway in when they establish an NHRI, and then how it is designed. While this flexibility is meant to localize international rights to specific contexts, leaders can use their considerable discretion during the design process to create NHRIs in an effort to appease international and domestic audiences, while leaving NHRIs hamstrung in their ability to hold the government accountable. Thus, NHRI design differences are prevalent, and they matter. This project will revise and update a past data collection project on NHRI design variation. In a two-step process, student coders, overseen by Dr. Welch, will 1) identify every foundational document (FDs) that gives each existent NHRI its legal mandate, and 2) engage in content analysis of these FDs to track the difference between different countries’ NHRIs, as well as the change in each country’s NHRI over time. 

Modern high-tech applications ranging from smartphones to electric vehicles rely on a variety of metal-based materials. The rare earth elements (REEs) are among the most commonly utilized metals in such applications, and to take full advantage of the useful properties of REEs these metals must first be extracted from their naturally occurring minerals. Extraction of high-purity REEs presents a significant challenge, requiring complicated procedures that generate large amounts of environmentally hazardous waste. Over the past several years, our research group has been developing molecules that bind to REEs to achieve enhanced metal extraction from water-based solutions which should improve metal mining efficiency as well as facilitate metal recycling from discarded consumer products. With several promising extractant molecules already under development, the project proposed herein focuses on optimization of the extraction procedure itself. The extraction protocol utilized in our work is known as the “liquid-liquid” extraction method and involves several parameters that may be varied to influence metal extraction efficiency and selectivity. Building off of preliminary studies conducted over the past year, we now plan to focus on variation of extractant molecule concentration and solvents used within the liquid-liquid extraction protocol. In addition, a new research direction is also proposed here which utilizes the same extractant molecules and methods, but focuses on potential lithium metal extraction.

This research project explores the need for a partnership between the humanities and professionalization within the academy. Grounded in history, this project’s culminating journal article addresses how the "war on the humanities” has strained the relationship between the humanities and professionalization (e.g., professional and technical writing). It points to the futility of battling against those who are ultimately on the same side of the “war.” Delving into the historical context, I will explore competing seminal works like C.P. Snow's (1963) The Two Cultures and Steven Jay Gould’s (2003) The Hedgehog, the Fox, and Magister’s Pox to provide established arguments about trends in education and the economy. I will also incorporate Caroline Miller’s (1979) “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing” to focus on the more specific context of technical and professional writing. The project draws on literature that highlights the benefits of integrating the humanities into professional practice. Additionally, it makes an argument for the humanities relevance in enhancing communication skills for leadership, including a focus on leaders who have English degrees, including YouTube’s CEO Susan Wojcicki. The project's purpose is to make a strong argument for a partnership between humanities and professionalization by emphasizing the intrinsic value of humanistic skills employed in English, writing, and literature degrees that foster critical thinking, innovation, creativity, and effective communication--all essential for success. Additionally, the article contends that the two areas--humanities/literature and professionalism/technical writing--have much in common and rely upon each other for success. 

Society is affected and concerned by the spread, transmission, and acquiring of infectious diseases such as viral and bacterial infections. Microbes, such as West Nile virus and Salmonella spp. bacteria, are two examples which can be transmitted to UT college students as they are visiting and living on campus. Where do these microbes come from? One source are the birds that frequent the campus. As these birds visit campus, specifically on 8 birdfeeders placed on campus, they defecate and with the feces drop viruses and bacteria that may be harmful to humans. These diseases (such as West Nile and Salmonella) are called zoonotic infections, disease causing microbes that are readily passed from animals to humans. In addition to being concerned by getting sick from the microbes, healthcare providers are concerned by the increasing issue in treating these diseases due to the increase of antibiotic resistant infections like Salmonella spp. To understand these concerns and study bird species, seasonal, and location trends, this project will collect feces from the birdfeeders and identify three key factors from the dropped feces. First, West Nile virus amounts will be analyzed. Next, bacteria that will can potentially cause disease (such as Salmonella and others) will be isolated and identified. Lastly, bacteria will be tested to see if they are resistant to commonly utilized antibiotics. The analysis of these three key factors will determine and link the risk of human disease on campus to visiting birds and their feces.

Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer in men (behind skin cancer). Methods to treat and, better yet, prevent prostate cancer have been actively studied for years. While early detection and surgery can be effective, ways to prevent the start and spread of prostate cancer remains a mystery. Recent research has suggested that polyphenon E (a proprietary blend from green tea extracts) can slow the growth of prostate cancer cells in cultured cells. As scientists, we attempt to understand on a molecular level the cause of these exciting results, as the additional understanding can lead to better treatment of prostate cancer, or even application in other types of cancers. It has been shown the gene encoding a protein called regulator of G protein signaling 4 (RGS4) is expressed 10-30 times higher than normal in cells treated with polyphenon E. This high expression upon treatment of cells with polyphenon E leads us to hypothesize that RGS4 might have some role in slowing the growth of prostate cancer cells. The goal of this project is to explore the importance of RGS4 in the growth of prostate cancer cells using chemical (drug treatment) and biotechnological (reduction of RGS4 messenger RNA) methodologies, with the hope of better understanding the mechanism of polyphenon E on prostate cancer cells and the overall understanding of the biochemical pathways RGS4 is involved in relating to the cell growth in these cells.