Faculty Development Leave 2021 Awardees
The purpose of Faculty Development Leave is to enable faculty members to engage in study, research, writing, field observation, and similar projects to improve public higher education. Read more about how faculty are using leave to write, research and network.
2021-2022 Faculty Development Leave Awardees
Bruce Cushing, Department of Biological Sciences
Dr. Cushing's research focuses on conducting a collaborative study at The University of Kansas using functional magnetic resonance imaging and 7 Tesla magnet to understand the role of higher order brain organization, functional connectivity, and microarchitecture in the expression of prosocial behavior in culturally distinct populations.
Eli Greenbaum, Department of Biological Sciences
The purpose for this research involves the completion and submission of a scholarly book with an academic press in 2022, under the working title: Venomous River: A Biologist’s Search for New Species Along the Congo. Dr. Greenbaum's scholarly book project will educate the general public and future generations of students about issues such as the historical legacy of colonialism, Congolese culture and language, and China’s growing influence in Africa by putting the issues into context with his long-running biodiversity research program in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central Africa’s largest country. The book will chronicle his gruelling 10-week, 900-mile journey up the Congo River and its tributaries in summer 2013, and provide a popular science narrative of his discoveries and experiences, including a snakebite from a highly venomous species, new species of frogs that might hold the key to combat drug-resistant bacteria, and the secret lives of fruit bats that are likely responsible for deadly Ebola and coronavirus outbreaks.
Tim Hernandez, Department of Creative Writing
This research builds on Tim Hernandez's decade-long chronicling of the 1948 chartered aircraft that caught fire en route to Mexico from California, killing all 28 Mexican Bracero workers on the flight. This research will help produce a second manuscript about the historic event and shape curriculum for the Fall 2022 semester.
Josiah Heyman, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Dr. Heyman's research is focused on a synthesis of the social-cultural condiction of the U.S.-Mexico border, which can address the simultaneious condition of divided but combined asymmetry in the social-economic domain and the creative hybridity in the cultural domain. His research will build on his partnership with UACJ on developing cross-border dialogues about environmental futures, particularly on water and climage change. Dr. Heyman's work will help understand border politics that have occurred over the last two decades.
Chu-Young Kim, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Dr. Kim's project involves hands-on research and training with single-particle cryo-electron microscopy and room-temperature X-ray crystallography - modern techniques that examine protein plasticity in way where he can see protein shape change over time, versus static images. This advanced analysis will also produce high-impact research opportunities for 成人头条 students.
Wen-Yee Lee, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Dr. Lee's research will further develop her work on a urinary metabolite model that can detect prostate cancer with over 90% accuracy - a rate higher than the current screening. She will dedicate this time to explore the entrepreneurship aspect of her work with collaborators at MIT and MDD UK to incorporate canine olfaction and chemical analysis in prostate cancer detection, which aims to demonstrate that dogs can be trained to recognize the odor from the urine of prostate cancer patients. She will also explore the potential for commercialization of her technology.
Jorge Lopez, Department of Physics
Dr. Lopez will collaborate with researchers at Texas A&M University's Cyclotron Institute in the development of machine learning tools to calibrate the detector arrays used in the study of nuclear reasions in the Cyclotron. His research will develop an artifical intelligence system that will shorten the amount of time it takes to measure light charged particles that detect explosives, drugs, and radiography. Dr. Lopez's application of artifical intelligence to nuclear physics will posiiton him and the Cyclotron group on the frontier of this up and coming area.
Oscar Macchioni, Department of Music
Dr. Macchioni will study, perform, and record piano works by Polish composer, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937). His research involves recording Szymanowski's Nine Preludes Op. 1 (1900), Four Etudes Op. 4 (1902), Variations in B-flat minor (1903, and Two Marurkas (1934). These works encompass Szymanowski's first and last piano compositions, showing a significant transition from Germanic romantic style to a nationalist one influenced by the Górale people from Southern Poland.
Cristina Morales, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Dr. Morales will work on a book manuscript titled, Intersectionality and State-Sanctioned-Violence at the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands: Latinxs Living on the Margins. The manuscript presents original data that examines the multiple layers of structural violence at the U.S.-Mexico border. The book contributes to critical diversity studies by looking beyond a comparison of Latinx and Non-Hispanic-Whites and, instead, focuses on intra-ethnic factors of stratification, such as race/ethnicity, citizenship, and liminal localities that implicate systems of privilege and inequality among Latina/os.
Ana Schwartz, Department of Psychology
Dr. Schwartz's work aims to provide expertise in event related potential (ERP) neuro-imaging methodology. This methodology is one of the state-of-the-art approaches for discovering cognitive processes, or time-lockes stimuli, that other methodologies are not sensitive enough to detect. Proficiency in this area will provide more students with opportunities to work alongside Dr. Schwartz in her lab, and provide more competitive grant proposals to NSF and NIH agencies.