Hofstra Magazine

2009 Faculty News

Associate Professor of Sociology Gail Satler

The following is a sampling of faculty accomplishments for the year 2009.

Miriam R. Albert, clinical professor of law, and Elizabeth M. Glazer, associate professor of law, presented “Bridging the Gap: Seamlessly Integrating Doctrinal Learning Into Skills Courses,” at the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning conference at Gonzaga University School of Law on June 23 and 24. Professors Albert and Glazer also presented at The Southeastern Association of Law Schools conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on August 5.

Habib M. Ammari, assistant professor of computer science, received a three-year, $400,000 federal grant to further his research in wireless sensor networks. This type of network consists of independent, battery-powered devices, called sensors, which communicate with a central base station that collects data. The networks can be used in a wide range of civilian and military applications to monitor conditions over a large geographic area. The grant from the National Science Foundation was awarded for Dr. Ammari’s research to build a theoretical foundation for the analysis and design of mobile wireless sensor networks and fi nd ways to increase their energy efficiency. Dr. Ammari also recently published his fi rst book, Challenges and Opportunities of Connected k-Covered Wireless Sensor Networks: From Sensor Deployment to Data Gathering.

Barbara Barron, professor of skills, Hofstra School of Law, participated in the National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s Teacher Training Program from June 11 through 13 in Manhattan. Professor Barron also trained Kosovar prosecutors and defense attorneys in a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Offi ce of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training; the Kosovo Judicial Institute; the U.S. Embassy; the ABA Rule of Law Initiative; and the National Institute for Trial Advocacy.

J Bret Bennington, associate professor of geology, and Daniel R. Rubey, dean of library and information services, served as co-directors on the Hofstra Cultural Center conference Darwin’s Reach: A Celebration of Darwin’s Legacy Across Academic Disciplines. Held March 12 to 14 in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin and the sesquicentennial of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Darwin’s Reach examined the impact of Darwin and Darwinian evolution on science and society.

Meena Bose, the Peter S. Kalikow Chair in Presidential Studies and director of the Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, presented Hofstra’s spring 2009 Distinguished Faculty Lecture, titled “Looking for Change: Evaluating the First 100 Days of the Obama Presidency.” Dr. Bose also served as co-director of the symposium President or King? Evaluating the Expansion of Executive Power From Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush with the School of Law’s Julian Ku, associated dean for faculty development and professor of law, and Eric Lane, the Eric J. Schmertz Distinguished Professor of Public Law and Public Service.

Alafair Burke, professor of law and associate dean for faculty research, Hofstra School of Law, had a short story, “Winning,” selected for publication in The Best American Mystery Stories of 2009. The story was inspired by feminist legal theory about gendered responses to violence.

Dana Brand, professor of English, saw the fall 2009 publication of The Last Days of Shea: Delight and Despair in the Life of a Mets Fan. The book is a follow-up to 2007’s Mets Fan, about Professor Brand’s lifelong experiences as a fan. In 2012 he and Richard Puerzer, associate professor and chair, Department of Engineering, will co-direct a Hofstra Cultural Center conference titled The Fiftieth Anniversary of the New York Mets, scheduled for April 26 to 28.

John Bryant, professor of English, received a grant for $175,000 over the next two years from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The award is the largest humanities grant in Hofstra history and will be used to launch the Melville Electronic Library (MEL), a digital “critical archive” of the works of Herman Melville. MEL will become the primary online site for Melville research. Users of MEL, including scholars, critics, students, and general readers, will have unprecedented access to a searchable collection of interlinked versions of Melville’s manuscripts, print texts, sources, art works, and other research and secondary materials. According to Dr. Bryant, by the conclusion of the two-year grant period, Moby-Dick, Billy Budd, and Battle-Pieces, Melville’s collection of Civil War poems, will be the first works to populate MEL. It will take approximately 15 years to complete the digital archive. Once completed, Dr. Bryant says it will be “an intellectual playground” for Melville scholars and students.

Hillary Burgess, assistant professor of academic support, Hofstra School of Law, was recently named editor of The Learning Curve, the newsletter for the AALS Section on Academic Support. She presented at a conference hosted by the Law School Admission Council; her presentation focused on serving diverse students and using technological innovations in the law school classroom. She also collaborated with academic support and legal writing professors from South Africa’s 17 law schools during the APPEAL (Academics Promoting the Pedagogy of Effective Advocacy in Law) conference co-hosted by Seattle Law School and the University of Pretoria. In addition, Professor Burgess presented at the Global Legal Skills IV conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by Georgetown Law School. Finally, Professor Burgess presented at the Institute for Law Teaching and Learning conference hosted by Gonzaga Law School.

M. David Burghardt, professor of engineering and co-director of Hofstra’s Center for Technological Literacy; Beverly Clendenning, associate professor of biology; and Sylvia Silberger, associate professor of mathematics, are co-principal investigators on a $2.1 million grant to improve eighth-grade student performance in math and science. The project will develop and research the academic potential of an instructional model and a set of prototypical materials that infuse standards-based math into the eighth-grade science program. Results from a prior NSF project involving more than 800 students whose teachers infused math into their science lessons indicate a statistically significant improvement in student math ability as well as attitude improvement toward math. Hofstra’s Center for Technological Literacy supports science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs in school districts, community colleges, and universities in New York state and nationally. Since its inception in 1990, the center has received more than $27 million in NSF funding.

Russell Burke, associate professor of biology, is participating in a consortium of professors from fi ve other universities to study why the risk of Lyme disease is much higher in the northern United States than in southern part of the country. The research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, and findings will help public health agencies develop better prevention strategies for Lyme disease, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports infects more than 20,000 people in North America each year. Dr. Burke has been investigating the role of lizards in the transmission of Lyme disease since 2002 as part of his research program on the ecology of native and non-native lizards and their parasites.

Monica Byrne-Jimenez, assistant professor of foundations, leadership and policy studies, received a $36,000 fellowship from the Fairfield County Community Foundation for a program titled “Evaluation of the Fairfi eld County Urban School Leaders.”

David C. Cassidy, professor of chemistry, published the biography Beyond Certainty: Heisenberg, Quantum Physics and the Bomb in February 2009. Dr. Cassidy is also the author of 1992’s groundbreaking Uncertainty, also about Werner Heisenberg. For Uncertainty, Dr. Cassidy became the only author to receive both the Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics and the Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society.

I. Bennett Capers, associate professor of law, was elected treasurer of the AALS Section on Law and the Humanities. He also received Hofstra’s Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication for 2008-2009 for his article “Crime, Legitimacy and Testifying.” He said, “The article examines the perception, especially prevalent in poor and minority communities, that the police often engage in perjury, and are themselves illegitimate. The article argues that prosecuting police perjury can contribute to community acceptance of the law as legitimate, and in fact result in a reduction of crime in the general population.” Lawrence A. Stessin was a journalist who joined the Hofstra University faculty as a professor of management in 1958 and served continuously until his retirement in 1973. During his lifetime and as part of his will, Dr. Stessin made substantial contributions to Hofstra University, including his donation to the Endowment Fund, which led to the establishment of the Stessin Prize, an incentive and reward for junior faculty who publish the results of their scholarly work.

Stephanie Cobb, assistant professor of religion, received Hofstra’s Lawrence A. Stessin Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Publication for 2008-2009 for her book Dying to Be Men: Gender and Language in Early Christian Martyr Texts, Columbia University Press, 2008. The book is a study of the communal function of gendered language in the earliest Christian martyr accounts, which date from the mid-2nd century to the early 3rd century. Lawrence A. Stessin was a journalist who joined the Hofstra University faculty as a professor of management in 1958 and served continuously until his retirement in 1973. During his lifetime and as part of his will, Dr. Stessin made substantial contributions to Hofstra University, including his contribution to the Endowment Fund, which led to the establishment of the Stessin Prize, an incentive and reward for junior faculty who publish the results of their scholarly work.

Lynn Cohen, adjunct assistant professor, School for University Studies, presented a lecture on Gerard Manley Hopkins in Ireland on July 28, 2009, at the 22nd Gerard M. Hopkins International Literary Festival. The title of her lecture was “The Kingfisher as a Symbol for Hopkins and Later Poets.”

Linda Davey, associate professor of curriculum and teaching, is project director on a $288,000 grant awarded by the Farmingdale Union Free School District in support of a New York state universal pre-kindergarten program there, supervised by Hofstra’s School of Education, Health and Human Services.

Nora V. Demleitner, professor of law and dean of Hofstra School of Law, was selected as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). Integral support of the ABF is provided by The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, an honorary organization of lawyers, judges, and legal scholars whose public and private careers have demonstrated outstanding dedication to the welfare of their communities and to the highest principle of the legal profession. Fellows support the research of the ABF through their annual contributions and sponsor programming of direct relevance to leaders of the legal profession. Dean Demleitner was named, for the second consecutive year, one of Long Island’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Business by Long Island Business News. She was asked to join the editorial board of a new series on Studies in Intercultural Human Rights at Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Dean Demleitner was also included in a list of “Supreme Court Choices You Haven’t Heard Of,” an NPR report by Nina Totenberg on May 17.

Pellegrino D’Acierno, professor of comparative literature and languages and Hofstra’s UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies, moderated a March 31 panel discussion titled “For a Rosary of Memories: Italian American Women Writers and Artists and Memory-Work.” The program featured a discussion by writers and artists on women’s role as bearers of personal and collective memory.

Nora de Marval-McNair, professor of Spanish, served as director of a bilingual Hofstra Cultural Center conference Borges and Us: Then and Always, November 13 and 14, commemorating the 110th anniversary of the birth of Jorge Luis Borges. Borges’ most well-known works include Ficciones, Labyrinths, The Book of Sand, The Zahir, Dreamtigers, The Book of Imaginary Beings and Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi. Conference participants included scholars from across the United States and from all over the world, including Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

J. Herbie DiFonzo, professor of law, and Andrew Schepard, Director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law and professor of law, made two presentations, “Putting FLER in the Curriculum: The Survey Family Law Skills Course” and “The FLER Project: Genesis, History, Status, and Future of the Family Law Education Reform Movement,” at a conference titled The Future of Family Law Education at William Mitchell College of Law on June 26. Professor Schepard additionally gave two conference presentations at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts meeting in New Orleans on May 29. He moderated a plenary session on “The Evolving Family Court System: Progress at a Price?” and participated in an open forum on the Uniform Collaborative Law Act. Professor Schepard, as reporter, also presented the Uniform Collaborative Law Act at the Uniform Law Commission’s (ULC) Annual Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 9 to 12. The act was unanimously approved and recommended to the states at the ULC meeting.

John DiGaetani, professor of English, saw the publication of his new book, titled Wagner Outside the Ring, an edited anthology of essays on the non-Ring operas of Richard Wagner. The book includes more than 40 photos from The Metropolitan Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. The book is published by McFarland Press and is also available on Kindle.

Michael D’Innocenzo, professor of history and the Harry H. Wachtel Distinguished Teaching Professor for the Study of Nonviolent Social Change, was honored at National History Day, held at Hofstra on March 8. National History Day allows students in grades 7-12 from local schools to compete as individuals or as part of a team in history categories such as performance, historical paper, Web site, and project. Winners of each category go on to the New York state finals in Cooperstown and, if successful, to the national competition at the University of Maryland. Hofstra alumnus and retired Plainedge social studies teacher Richard Marks ’63, one of the coordinators of National History Day, founded the New York State National History Day competition in 1979 and first approached Hofstra about sponsoring the local competition. At the 2009 event, Hofstra was honored for its 30-year sponsorship of the event, and Professor D’Innocenzo was recognized for his longtime involvement in the program. Additionally, Hofstra alumnus James C. Metzger ’83 funded a summer internship within the Center for Civic Engagement in honor of Professor D’Innocenzo. The $25,000 gift endowed the MetzgerD’Innocenzo Endowed Summer Internship for the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) at Hofstra University. The internship will be given to a deserving student based on academic achievement and/or financial need who is majoring in history and serving as an intern in the CCE. Professor D’Innocenzo is in his 48th year at Hofstra and received The American Historical Association’s 2008 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Simona Doboli, associate professor of computer science, is project director on an $87,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in support of the project “CreativeIT: Understanding the Creative Design Process: A Novel Cognitive Model Based on Behavioral Experiments in Circuit Design and Architecture.” Dr. Doboli was also part of a team of Hofstra computer science faculty that received a $290,000 National Science Foundation grant to introduce entrepreneurship and leadership components into the computer science curriculum. The project seeks to develop modules about innovation, entrepreneurship, and global aspects in several required courses, as well as an entrepreneurial computer science minor. At the time the grant was announced, Dr. Doboli said the computing education curriculum must address globalization through innovative solutions and go beyond technical skills and into communication, innovation, creative thinking and an understanding of the business world and global markets. Other Hofstra faculty involved in the project are Xiang Fu, assistant professor of computer science; Richard Hayes, assistant professor of management, entrepreneurship and general business; John Impagliazzo, professor emeritus of computer science; and Gerda Kamberova, associate professor and chair, Department of Computer Science.

Simon Doubleday, associate professor of history, is founding and executive editor of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (JMIS), a new, peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal for innovative scholarship on the multiple languages, cultures, and historical processes of the Iberian peninsula, and the zones with which it was in contact. The inaugural issue of JMIS was published in January 2009 by Taylor & Francis, and has an editorial board of 40 international experts from countries such as Japan, Argentina, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Spain.

E. Christa Farmer, assistant professor of geology, is project director on a three-year, $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to launch a multidisciplinary center devoted to the study of climate change. The new Hofstra University Center for Climate Study (HUCCS) will pursue three areas of climate research: the study of prehistoric hurricanes using sediment cores, the effect of rain on ocean absorption of greenhouse gases, and the impact of climate change on Long Island’s ecology. The grant also includes funding for student researchers, and public outreach that will eventually feature an exhibit about the center’s work at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City. Dr. Farmer spearheaded the grant application process and will be conducting the prehistoric hurricane research, called paleotempestology. Russell Burke, associate professor of biology, and J Bret Bennington, associate professor of geology, will investigate the impact of climate change on Long Island’s terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and David Weissman, the Jean Nerken Distinguished Professor of Engineering, will lead the center’s research on the combined effect of rain and wind on the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean.

Laurie Fendrich, professor of fine arts, spent fi ve weeks in April and May 2009 as a Brown Foundation Fellow, which allowed her to travel to France to live and work in the historic Dora Maar House in Ménerbes, a small village located in the Luberon mountains. The fellowship program, coordinated by the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, provides writers, artists, and others in the arts and humanities with an opportunity to step away from their daily obligations to concentrate on their fields of expertise. The retreat allowed Professor Fendrich to complete a portfolio of drawings that was featured in a solo exhibition at the Gary Snyder Project Space in New York City from November 4 to December 19, 2009. Professor Fendrich has also been working on her retrospective, scheduled to open in fall 2010 at the Williamson Art Gallery at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Monroe Freedman, professor of law, was presented with the inaugural David A. Diamond Distinguished Public Service Award by Hofstra School of Law’s Public Justice Foundation at its 20th Annual Auction on April 2.

Jeffrey J. Froh, assistant professor of psychology, was involved with two studies that looked at how people express gratitude. The first study, a multi-study paper on adults led by Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at George Mason University, was published online in March in the Journal of Personality. It found that women are better able than men to feel and express gratitude toward others and thus derive the social and personal benefi ts that come from such expressions. The second paper, featuring research led by Dr. Froh, appeared later in 2009 in the Journal of Adolescence. It found that while girls tended to express gratitude more readily than boys, boys may actually derive more of a benefit when they are able to do so.

Xiang Fu, assistant professor of computer science, is project director on a $30,056 grant from Georgia Southwestern State University, in support of “Collaborative Research: A Trial-and-Failure Project Tutoring System.” Dr. Fu was also part of a team of Hofstra computer science faculty that received a $290,000 National Science Foundation grant to introduce entrepreneurship and leadership components into the computer science curriculum.

Mitchell Gans, professor of law, was named 2009 Teacher of the Year by Hofstra School of Law students. Each spring, members of Hofstra’s current graduating class help select faculty members from each Hofstra school and college to receive the annual Teacher of the Year awards.

Patrick Gannon, chair, Department of Science Education, Hofstra University School of Medicine in partnership with North Shore-LIJ Health System, co-authored a study that shows that regions of the brain responsible for decoding written and spoken words are also involved with interpreting silent gestures. The evidence that both forms of communication are handled by a single, overlapping network in the brain lends credence to the idea that the areas that process language may be a vestige of regions that have existed for millions of years and adapted over time from communicating gestures to understanding words. The study was published in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and conducted in partnership with its scientists and a researcher from San Diego State University.

Andrea Garcia, associate professor of literacy studies and director of the Reading/Writing Learning Clinic at the Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, received a $3,900 grant from Planned Parenthood of Nassau County, to continue the Young Women’s Writing Project, which has been running successfully for six years in the Roosevelt and Uniondale School Districts.

Jean Giebel, associate professor and chair, Department of Drama and Dance, started the theater company Fat Melon Productions in summer 2009. She also directed its inaugural production, The Smoking Diary, written by Loretta Dillon, which ran in July and August at the ATA American Theatre of Actors Chernuchin Theater in Manhattan. Professor Giebel founded Fat Melon Productions as a not-forprofit organization whose mission is to support emerging artists.

Jamie Ghigiarelli, assistant professor of physical education and sport sciences, received a $2,206 grant from the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council Inc. to study the effects of low-fat chocolate milk on urinary hydration indices in a sample of Division I-AA cross country runners during off-season training sessions.

Raymond N. Greenwell, professor of mathematics, was a guest lecturer at various secondary schools and universities in Uganda in June 2009 through the Teach and Tour Sojourners program. His article “Statistical Signifi cance of Ranking Paradoxes,” with Anna E. Bargagliotti of the University of Memphis, was accepted by the journal Communications in Statistics, and his article “Solving Linear Diophantine Matrix Equations Using the Smith Normal Form (More or Less),” written with Stanley Kertzner, Hofstra professor emeritus of mathematics, was accepted by the International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

Daniel J.H. Greenwood, professor of law, was appointed to the advisory committee of the University of the People, an online academic institution.

John DeWitt Gregory, the Sidney and Walter Siben Distinguished Professor of Family Law, has been appointed a member of the Committee on Animals and the Law of the New York State Bar Association and of the committee’s Dog Breeding Working Group. He is also an active member of the education subcommittee. He has also been appointed a member of the Family Law Quarterly board of directors of the ABA Section of Family Law. On June 2 he was honored at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice Benefit Awards Dinner at the Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers.

Joanna L. Grossman and Barbara Stark, professors of law, have been jointly named Hofstra’s John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholars for 2009-10 and 2010-11. Additionally, Professor Stark has been appointed a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School.

Frank Gulino, associate professor of legal writing and research, was named Professor of the Year by the Hofstra Law Review. He was also appointed faculty adviser to the Hofstra Moot Court Association and director of Moot Court Programs at Hofstra School of Law.

Grant Hayden, professor of law, presented a paper titled Arrow’s Theorem and the Exclusive Shareholder Franchise at the London School of Economics’ Voting Power and Practice Workshop at Warwick University, UK, July 14-16.

Margaret Hunter, associate professor of engineering, received $243, 821 as part of her three-year grant from the National Science Foundation in support of Project ESTEEM – Equitable Science Technology Engineering Education and Mathematics. Project ESTEEM is a collaboration of faculty from Hofstra’s Center for Technological Literacy, Nassau Community College and CUNY’s Queensborough Community College that is developing a framework for infusing gender-equitable information and materials into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics curricula at community colleges. It is hoped that Project ESTEEM will encourage women to pursue educational and career opportunities in STEM fields.

Ahmet Karagozoglu, associate professor of finance, was named the 2009 Teacher of the Year for the Frank G. Zarb School of Business. Each spring, members of Hofstra’s current graduating class help select faculty members from each Hofstra school and college to receive the annual Teacher of the Year awards.

David Lalama, professor of music, served as composer and pianist for The Bench, presented in December by the Conservatory Dance Company at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. The Bench was truly a family affair, created and choreographed by his younger cousin, Keisha Lalama-White, and featuring his older brother, Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Ralph Lalama. Keisha Lalama-White conceived The Bench as a contemporary jazz-dance work in two acts, portraying a couple’s journey from falling in love and getting married to having kids and growing old.

Roberto Joseph, assistant professor of curriculum and teaching, co-authored an article in Educational Technology titled “Introduction to Special Issue on Culturally Relevant Technology-Based Learning Environments,” in the November-December 2009 issue.

Lawrence W. Kessler, professor of law, taught in the Trial Advocacy Program of the Office of the District Attorney of New York County on June 8.

Scott Kovar, adjunct assistant professor of chemistry and director of the Forensic Science Program, was chosen as the 2009 recipient of the Nassau County Police Department’s Detectives’ Association, Inc. Career Achievement Award. Over the years, Professor Kovar has received a number of police service awards for his forensic science work. He has presented scientific papers at professional forensic science conferences, has moderated or taught many workshops on specialized forensic science methodologies, and has been a television guest to discuss careers in the forensic sciences.

Stefan Krieger, professor of law, served as a panelist at the Federal Bar Council event at Brooklyn Law School on June 3 and 17 and taught at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s Teacher Training Program in Manhattan on June 11 and 12. He also presented “A Tale of Election Day 2008: Teaching Storytelling Through Repeated Experiences” (co-authored with Serge Martinez) at the Applied Legal Storytelling conference at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, on July 24.

Stephen Lawrence, associate professor of physics and astronomy, received a $12,408 grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute to participate in SAINTS, a program to observe SN 1987A, the brightest supernova in 383 years, as it transforms into supernova remnant {SNR}1987A, the youngest supernova remnant. This award is part of a subcontract with Harvard University.

Robert Leonard, professor and chair, Department of Comparative Literature and Languages and director of the Forensic Linguistics Program, was named the 2009 Teacher of the Year for Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Each spring, members of Hofstra’s current graduating class help select faculty members from each Hofstra school and college to receive the annual Teacher of the Year awards.

Zachary Lazar, adjunct assistant professor of English, was awarded both a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, which supports emerging talents in the arts and sciences. Also in 2009, Professor Lazar’s third book, Evening’s Empire, a nonfiction work, was published to much critical acclaim.

Phillis Levin, professor of English and poet-in-residence, was the poet-in-residence at the Manhattanville Summer Writers’ Week, an intensive poetry workshop and conference held in June. On July 4 she gave a reading at the Ledbury Poetry Festival in Herefordshire, England. This was followed on July 9 by a reading at London’s renowned Poetry Society. On September 24 she gave a reading at the launch of The Best American Poetry 2009 at The New School, and on October 10 she was a panelist on “The Once and Future Sonnet” at the Annual Convention of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics in Denver, Colorado.

Claire Lindgren, associate professor of fine arts, art history, comparative arts and culture, was the only American scholar invited to present a paper at the International Colloquium on Models and Diffusion in the Roman Provinces held in Merida, Spain, in May. Her paper, titled “Meaning and Implications in Changing Depictions of Venus,” illustrated how subtle and not so subtle changes in the imagery of the classical goddess reflected the status and diverse positions of women in the greater Roman world during the first centuries of the common era. On her return from Spain, Dr. Lindgren participated in the Archaeological Institute of America/Long Island Society (AIA/LIS) Lecture Series at Hofstra, with a presentation titled “The Art and Meaning of Ancient Egyptian Jewelry,” which explained jewelers art from the earliest Egyptian dynasties to the Ptolemaic. May also saw the publication of her article “Bacchic/Dionysiac Imagery” in Les ateliers de sculpture regionaux: techniques, styles et iconographie, SVP Editions, Arles, France. This article dealt with the unique art style and representational iconography of the Roman provinces.

Donald Lubowich, adjunct associate professor of physics and astronomy and director of Hofstra’s Astronomy Outreach Program, received $308,000 through a NASA grant to bring telescopes to Long Island parks and beaches to encourage star-gazing and interest in astronomy. This is the third consecutive year that Hofstra’s Astronomy Outreach Program was awarded a NASA grant. The grant will pay for telescopes and an astronomy display that will be set up during 70 outdoor music and six outdoor movie programs in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The telescopes will be accessible to those with physical disabilities. The program was also part of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy being celebrated worldwide.

Greg Maney, associate professor of sociology, was elected chair of the Peace, War and Social Confl ict Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Much of Dr. Maney’s current research explores peace and war rhetoric, conflicts over day labor markets, and strategies for sustaining peace processes in divided societies.

William McGee, adjunct associate professor of English, participated in a government hearing on airline passenger rights in Washington, D.C., in September. He was invited to speak and answer questions on behalf of the investigative work he has conducted for Consumer Reports on the airline industry.

Charles Merguerian, professor and chair, Department of Geology, presented a lecture at Hofstra on November 19 about the unique geological discoveries that have been made during recent excavations of the World Trade Center site. This lecture was presented by Hofstra’s Institute for the Development of Education in the Advanced Sciences (IDEAS) within the School of Education, Health and Human Services.

Paul Mihailidis, assistant professor of journalism, media studies, and public relations, published the findings of a multiyear study on student learning outcomes around media and civic engagement. The study, published in various forms in MIT Press’ International Journal of Media & Learning, the Journal of Media Literacy Education, and as a report by the World Association of Newspapers, outlines fi ndings that correlate education practices for civic engagement based predominantly on understanding media landscapes. Professor Mihailidis was also commissioned by the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to compose a report for policy makers that shows what media education initiatives are most successful in the developing world. Professor Mihailidis is finalizing a book contract around media literacy with a prominent U.S. publisher. His research agenda took him to Chongqing, China, in January 2010, and he will present his findings in various forms and at numerous venues in Singapore in May 2010 and in Salzburg, Austria, in August 2010.

Martha McPhee, associate professor of English, had an article featured in the May issue of More magazine, “Unforgotten Italy,” about a recent visit to Italy, a country she fell in love with as a teenage exchange student. She writes about how her re-immersion in Italian culture and language helped her better understand and appreciate the girl she once was and the path her life has since followed. Professor McPhee recently completed her fourth novel, Dear Money, which will be published by Houghton Miffl in Harcourt in 2010.

Jamie Mitus, assistant professor of counseling, research, special education and rehabilitation (CRSR), received three grants from the U.S. Department of Education: $496,000 for research titled “Distance-Education on Rehabilitation & Independent Living for Persons Who Are Deaf”; $83,178 for “RRTC on Improving Employment Outcomes – Employment Service Systems Research and Training Center”; and $149,987 for “Rehabilitation and Long-Term Training: Rehabilitation Counseling.”

John Moore, professor emeritus of history, had his biography, Pope Innocent III (1160/61-1216): To Root Up and to Plant, published in paperback in January 2009.
Marlene Munn-Joseph, assistant professor of curriculum and teaching, received a $2,000 grant from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office for a Saturday program and a $53,518 grant from the New York State Education Department for the Teacher Opportunity Corps Program.

Maureen Murphy, professor of curriculum and teaching, served on the distinguished editorial board of the nine-volume Dictionary of Irish Biography, a collaborative project between Cambridge University Press and the Royal Irish Academy. It features 9,000 entries and includes biographies on the lives of Irish men and women who made significant contributions to Ireland and the world.

Richard K. Neumann, Jr., professor of law, was the recipient of the 2009 Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education. The Burton Awards for Legal Achievement are conferred by the Burton Foundation.

Ashira Ostrow, associate professor of law, moderated a panel titled “Zoning for Wind and Solar Installations” at Hofstra’s Wilbur F. Breslin Center for Real Estate Studies Annual Municipal Training Conference on June 11.

Dilruba Ozmen-Ertekin, assistant professor of engineering, was awarded a $45,000 grant from the New York City Department of Transportation and the CUNY Transportation Research Center to study improvements on New York Metropolitan Transportation Council data products.

Darra Pace, associate professor of counseling, research, special education and rehabilitation, is project director on a $13,000 grant awarded by the Amityville Union Free School District in support of the project “2009-2010 Partnership Program.”

Robert Papper, professor and chair, Department of Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations, was installed as Hofstra’s Lawrence Stessin Distinguished Professor in Journalism on March 18, 2009. Professor Papper is recognized nationally for his outstanding research examining the state of American radio and television news departments. His research efforts include reports that detail the status of minorities and women in the news industry. These reports, now known as the RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey on the state of radio and television news in the United States, are published annually by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA).

Richard Puerzer, associate professor and chair, Department of Engineering, presented a paper for the 10th consecutive year at the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture, speaking on race and Major League Baseball’s management structure. The annual gathering, which took place June 3-5, is co-sponsored by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and State University of New York College at Oneonta and examines the impact of baseball on American culture from inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives. Dr. Puerzer’s paper, titled “Jim Gilliam and Elston Howard: Exemplars of the Desegregation of Major League Baseball Management,” was part of a panel on “Baseball Integration.” Gilliam and Howard were African-American baseball players who became coaches but were denied management positions.

Levi Reiter, professor of speech–language-hearing sciences and head of the Audiology Program, presented a paper in May titled “Pathologic Sequelae of Ear Kissing” at a meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. He was the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Hearing Health Care Alliance of New York State in June, at which he discussed Reiter’s Ear-Kiss Syndrome (REKS). REKS received its name from Dr. Reiter’s recent diagnosis of a patient who suffered hearing loss, facial twitching and tinnitus following a forceful kiss on the ear from her young daughter. The condition has since proven to be more common than originally thought and can result from any hard suction on the ear. In August he had an article titled “Can a Simple Kiss on the Ear Cause Auditory Problems?” published in Tinnitus Today, the official journal of the American Tinnitus Association. He also presented an e-learning course for AudiologyOnline.com on July 15 titled “Ear Kissing (REKS): What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You,” which has earned continuing education approval from many prestigious associations and academies, including the American SpeechLanguage-Hearing Association (ASHA), American Academy of Audiology (AAA), British Academy of Audiology (BAA), Canadian Academy of Audiology (CAA), International Institute of Hearing Instrument Studies (IIHIS), and Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Blidi S. Stemn, assistant professor of curriculum and teaching, and Behailu Mammo, assistant professor of mathematics, have been awarded $898,976 from the National Science Foundation for the Noyce Scholarship Program, a four-year research project for Hofstra students studying to teach mathematics. Professors Stemn and Mammo, in collaboration with the Westbury, Uniondale, Roosevelt and Brentwood School Districts on Long Island, will recruit, prepare and retain 16 undergraduate mathematics students. These students will receive $20,000 per year when they enroll in the secondary mathematics teaching program at Hofstra. For every year they receive scholarship funding, these students, upon graduation, will be required to teach two years in a high-need middle or high school.

Alan N. Resnick, the Benjamin Weintraub Distinguished Professor of Bankruptcy Law, was the featured guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Eastern Bankruptcy Institute, held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on May 29.

Connie Roberts, adjunct instructor of English, was nominated for the prestigious Hennessy X.O Literary Award. Now in its 38th year, these awards provide undiscovered writers and poets with an opportunity to break through the barriers to see their work published. Ms. Roberts attended the awards ceremony in April 2009 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin, Ireland. Ms. Roberts, an Offaly native, immigrated to the United States in 1983. Her poetry has appeared in journals in the United States and Ireland.

Benita Sampedro Vizcaya, associate professor of romance languages and literatures, co-directed a Hofstra Cultural Center conference titled Between Three Continents: Rethinking Equatorial Guinea on the 40th Anniversary of Its Independence From Spain. This event was held April 2 to 4 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the independence of Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish-speaking nation-state in Africa. Between Three Continents addressed the historical and cultural connections between Equatorial Guinea, Spain and the Americas. The conference brought together a large number of scholars, cultural figures, and historical protagonists in the life of Equatorial Guinea. Several other academic institutions in the United States – including Bates College, The Catalan Center at New York University, Harvard University, Hunter College/CUNY, Instituto Cervantes New York, University of Missouri-Columbia, Queens College/CUNY, Saint Joseph’s College and Vanderbilt University – hosted additional panels and events.

Bruce Torff, professor of curriculum and teaching and director of the Doctoral Program in Learning and Teaching, was named the 2009 Teacher of the Year for the School of Education, Health and Human Services. Each spring, members of Hofstra’s current graduating class help select faculty members from each Hofstra school and college to receive the annual Teacher of the Year awards.

James Sample, associate professor of law, spoke on the threats posed to judicial impartiality by campaign spending in judicial elections at a conference titled American Justice for Sale at Baruch College’s Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity on September 17.

Gail Satler, associate professor of sociology, is author of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Living Space. She spoke at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan on June 20 at a public program titled “The Guggenheim: Place and Time in a Global Context,” which was presented in conjunction with the museum’s exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward. The Guggenheim was designed by Wright, and Professor Satler’s lecture expanded upon his “Destruction of the Box” address in which he recalled the origins of his break with traditional architectural thought.

Jin Shin, assistant professor of psychology, received a $141,046 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study “Home-Based Intervention for Young Children with Intellectual Disabilities.”

Norman Silber, professor and associate dean for intellectual life, Hofstra School of Law, was elected to the board of The Consumers Union Action Fund, and he was selected to serve on the advisory board of Loyola Consumer Law Review. Professor Silber was also selected to speak, consult and teach consumer law in China during July. The appointment was made by China Law Development, a Chinese law reform organization located in Beijing, and the China Consumers’ Association, an organization affi liated with China’s Bureau of Commerce and Industry. Professor Silber is chair-elect for the Section on Nonprofi t and Philanthropy Law and continues to serve as secretary and editor of the section’s listserv.

Gayl Teller, adjunct associate professor of writing studies and composition, was named Nassau County poet laureate, 2009-2011, by the Nassau County Poet Laureate Selection Committee. Professor Teller’s poetry collections include At the Intersection of Everything You Have Ever Loved, Shorehaven, Moving Day, One Small Kindness (a finalist for the Blue Light Poetry Prize), and – most recently – Inside the Embrace.

Nanette Wachter-Jurcsak, associate professor of chemistry, serves as program director for Hofstra’s annual Summer Science Research Program (HUSSRP). For the summer of 2009, through a generous grant from National Grid, HUSSRP was able to offer “green” research projects ranging from household energy demand and alternative fuels to environmental engineering. Since 2002 HUSSRP has offered high school students opportunities to conduct individual scientifi c research projects under the direction of Hofstra faculty in the physical and natural sciences, psychology and mathematics.

Vern Walker, professor of law, joined the editorial review board for the International Journal of Agent Technologies and Systems (IJATS), published by IGI Global. IJATS is a journal on applications of artifi cial intelligence that focuses on all aspects of agents and multi-agent systems, with a particular emphasis on how to modify established learning techniques and create new learning paradigms to address the many challenges presented by complex real-world problems. Professor Walker also conducted two four-day seminars in May 2009 at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy. The courses were titled “Building Legal Reasoning Trees” and “Assessing the Probative Value of Evidence.”

David Weissman, the Jean Nerken Distinguished Professor of Engineering, is project director on a $110,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in support of the project “Corrections to Scatterometer Wind Vectors: The Role of Rain-Induced Stress in Air-Seal Interaction.” This past spring, Dr. Weissman was installed as the Jean Nerken Distinguished Professorship in Engineering. The professorship was established in 1990 through the generosity of the late Albert Nerken, a chemical engineer, industrialist and philanthropist, in honor of his wife. The professorship is designed to recognize and encourage outstanding teaching, research, and leadership in the fi eld of engineering sciences. Dr. Weissman was also honored by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Geoscience Remote Sensing Society with a certifi cate of recognition for his contributions to and leadership of the organization. The award was given on July 13 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Mary Anne Trasciatti, associate professor and chair, Department of Speech Communication, Rhetoric, and Performance Studies, was named the 2009 Teacher of the Year for the School of Communication. Each spring, members of Hofstra’s current graduating class help select faculty members from each Hofstra school and college to receive the annual Teacher of the Year awards.

Joanne Willey, professor of biology, is project director on a $136,404 grant from the National Science Foundation in support of the program “RUI: Understanding a Morphogenetic Biosurfactant in Streptomyces Coelicolor.”

Lauris Wren, clinical professor of law and attorney-incharge of the Political Asylum Clinic, was honored by St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat on Long Island on May 18 for her work gaining asylum for Stanley Nwachuku, a young Nigerian attacked because of his religious and anti-cult activities.

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