Latest Faculty Accomplishments
News
GRANTS (awarded June 2014)
Emily K. Akerson (Associate Director, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $15,000 from the Shenandoah Memorial Hospital Foundation for Healthy Families Shenandoah County to continue to meet the needs of at-risk families by providing education, resources and support.
Dr. Jo Anne Brewster (Professor, Graduate Psychology) received $3,300 from the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology to perform administrative tasks for the society.
Dr. Beth A. Eck (Head, Sociology and Anthropology; Associate Professor, Sociology) received $32,500 from Carmeuse Lime & Stone for the final phase of archaeological work at Middle Marsh Project to complete field work and laboratory analysis associated with the Nieswander’s Fort Site and Merritt’s Camp Site.
Alleyn S. Harned (Executive Director, Virginia Clean Cities) received $5,000 from the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy to expand activities regarding alternative fuels and renewable energy in the state.
Kimberlee Hartzler-Weakley (Administrator, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $10,800 from the Virginia Health Workforce Development Authority for the Blue Ridge Area Health Education Center to promote health careers and access to primary care for medically underserved populations through community-academic partnerships. Hartzler-Weakley received $8,000 from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control for “No Por Ser Menor (No, Because You Are a Minor)” to form a network of individuals and community support to help create systemic change, improve the Latino community and serve as a model of effective practices for reducing underage drinking.
Elizabeth Hoover (Assistant Director, Furious Flower Poetry Center) and Dr. Joanne V. Gabbin (Director, Furious Flower Poetry Center; Director Emeritus, Honors Program; Professor, English) received $10,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts for the Furious Flower Conference “Seeding the Future of African American Poetry” to organize the conference that presents the best established and emerging black poets to a large and diverse audience.
Dr. Christine A. Hughey (Associate Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry) received $154,544 from the National Science Foundation for “RUI: CMI: Predicting analyte response in negative ion electrospray ionization” to explore the mechanisms of ionization under different pH regimes and to develop a multivariate model that will predict response for physiochemically diverse acidic analytes under different solution/pH conditions.
Dr. Robert A. Kolvoord (Dean, College of Integrated Science and Engineering; Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) received $10,000 from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to support travel and conferences fees for workshop/conference participants of the 2015 Gordon Research Conference on Visualization in Science and Education.
Dr. Christine L. May (Assistant Professor, Biology), Dr. Lihua Chen (Assistant Professor, Mathematics and Statistics), Dr. Patrice M. Ludwig (Assistant Professor, Biology) and Dr. Anthony L. Tongen (Professor, Mathematics and Statistics) received $100,000 from The Jeffress Memorial Trust for “Developing an Innovative Mathematical Simulation Model to Inform Recovery Strategies for the Endangered James Spinymussel (Pleurobema collina).”
Dr. Robert L. McKown (Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) and Dr. Ronald W. Raab (Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) received $34,537 from the National Institutes of Health to manufacture and purify lacritin and design and generate cDNA constructs to help address how eye-specific tear factor lacritin promotes ocular surface homeostasis.
Dr. Jonathan J. Miles (Professor, Integrated Science and Technology) received two awards from the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy – $22,500 for the Wind for Schools Program to assist schools that are currently engaged in planning for and/or siting wind turbines on their campuses and to conduct school/classroom visits and $17,500 for the state-based anemometer loan program to visit and maintain and/or decommission the systems now deployed and to deploy one of the towers currently in the Center for Wind Energy’s inventory.
Dr. M. Ioana Niculescu (Professor, Physics and Astronomy), Dr. Kevin L. Giovanetti (Professor, Physics and Astronomy) and Dr. Gabriel Niculescu (Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy) received $105,000 from the National Science Foundation for the second year of “RUI: Probing Subatomic Physics via Lepton Interactions” to explore the transition between the perturbative and the non-perturbative regimes, quark confinement and hadronization, and measurements of fundamental quantities.
Dr. Georgia N.L.J. Polacek (Associate Professor, Health Sciences; Cluster Five Coordinator, General Education), Dr. Audrey J. Burnett (Assistant Professor, Health Sciences), Dr. Heather J. Carmack (Assistant Professor, Communication Studies) and Dr. Mary Katherine Ott Walter (Associate Professor, Health Sciences) received $42,394 from the Center for the Study of Tobacco Products for “E-cigarette marketing and college students’ attitudes and willingness to try” to benchmark attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of e-cigarettes among college students and examine the effect of product labeling and marketing strategies, and factual information regarding electronic nicotine delivery systems.
Gary S. Race (Grants Administrator, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services; Director, Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence) received $104,564 from Valley AIDS Network to provide university and administrative services.
Dr. David A. Slykhuis (Associate Professor, Middle, Secondary and Mathematics Education) received $34,000 from the Old Dominion Research Foundation to provide a residential professional development workshop for teachers.
HONORS
Milla Sue Wisecarver (Retired Assistant Director, Athletics Communications) was one of two people honored by the Virginia Sports Information Directors with presentation of the organization’s Distinguished Service Award. Wisecarver and Carol Hudson of Old Dominion University were honored at VaSID’s annual meeting June 5 at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland. The award is given to individuals who have promoted college athletics and the concept of the student-athlete. The honor is bestowed only to professionals who have been a part of the athletic community as a coach, administrator or member of the media for a minimum of 20 years. During her 38-year career at JMU, Wisecarver was, at various times, the primary contact for men’s soccer, men’s gymnastics, men’s archery as well as every women’s sport that JMU has fielded, with the exception of softball.
PUBLICATIONS
Dr. Margaret F. Sloan (Assistant Professor, Strategic Leadership Studies) and Dr. Cleopatra Grizzle of Rutgers University-Newark published an article, “Assessing the Impact of Federal Funding on Faith-Based and Community Organization Program Spending,” which was published in the summer 2014 issue of Public Budgeting & Finance.
SERVICE
Alleyn Harned (Executive Director, Virginia Clean Cities) and Dr. Kenneth F. Newbold Jr. (Associate Vice Provost, Research and Scholarship) have been appointed to the Virginia Energy Council by Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The council is charged with updating the Virginia Energy Plan for submission to the General Assembly by Oct. 1, 2014.
