Faculty and staff achievements

Jessica Wallace, assistant professor, Exercise Science, was an invited speaker for a Sports Medicine Course in Lusaka, Zambia, supported by the International Olympic Committee and National Olympic Committee of Zambia. She focused her training on sport-related concussion and did both a scientific research talk and a training session on concussion management tools at the four-day training event. The course, designed for practicing physicians and physiotherapists in Zambia, was held at the Olympic Youth Development Center.

Frank Akpadock, senior research economist and regional scientist, Regional Economic Development Initiative, recently completed a technical study for the Greater Warren-Youngstown Urban League titled “The State of Black/African Americans in the Mahoning Valley.” Using 15 socio economic variables, he compared the performances of Black/African Americans with whites, Asians, Hispanic/Latinos, American Indian and native Alaskans living in the Mahoning Valley.

Jake Protivnak, associate professor and chair, and Matthew Paylo, associate professor, both of Counseling, Special Education and School Psychology, will present at the American Counseling Association Conference and Expo in San Francisco in March. Graduate students Jerrilyn Guy, Kelsey Cirkvencic, Emily Jumper and Rachel Soroka will also make presentations. The session will focus on “Mental Health Advocacy: Wellness Training for University Administrators, Faculty and Staff.” More than 4,000 students and professionals are expected to attend.

Michael Jerryson, associate professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, has published two edited books through Oxford University Press. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism is a 760 paged collection of 41 essays, and was published in November. He also co-edited Violence and the World's Religious Traditions, which came out in early December. He wrote or co-wrote the introductions to each as well as additional chapters for each of the volumes. In addition, Jerryson guest edited special issues for two journals: an extended introduction for the Journal of Religion and Violence: Buddhism and Blasphemy and an extended introduction for the double journal issue titled Bulletin for the Study of Religion: Theorizing Mimesis, Violence, and Myth. Last fall, Jerryson was invited to present a paper on Buddhist violence in Asia, “Marketing the Buddha and its Blasphemy,” at the BBB Copenhagen Conference at the University of Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, he was interviewed by the Danish newspaper Kristleligt Dagblad and provided an invited presentation at the Danish Institute of International Studies on the growing role of Buddhist-inspired violence in South and Southeast Asia. The interview was published in Kristeligt Dagblad in November.

Donna M. DeBlasio, professor, History, has joined the editorial team of Ohio History, a publication of Kent State University Press. She joined YSU colleague and editor Diane Barnes, also a YSU History professor, as coeditor of the Fall 2016 edition of the journal. Barnes also published the chapter, “Frederick Douglass and the Complications of Emancipation,” in Lincoln, Congress, and Emancipation, published by Ohio University Press.

Jai K. Jung, assistant professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, published a paper titled "Multi-directional force-displacement response of underground pipe in sand," in the Canadian Geotechnical Journal. The journal is considered among the top three journals in the geotechnical engineering field, and Jung’s paper was selected as its Editor's Choice for 2016.

Angela Messenger, coordinator, Maag Library; Hillary Fuhrman, director, Office of Assessment; Joseph Palardy, associate professor, Economics, and General Education Coordinator; and Tod Porter, professor, Economics, co-authored a chapter, titled “Adapting the VALUE Rubrics to Build a ROAD to Curriculum Mapping,” that was published in the book The Future Scholar: Researching and Teaching the Frameworks for Writing and Information Literacy. Their chapter focuses on using curriculum mapping and the AAC&U VALUE Rubrics to assess.

Lucy Kerns, assistant professor, Mathematics and Statistics, authored a paper titled "Simultaneous Confidence Bands for Logistic Regression with Applications in Risk Assessment," that will be published in the Biometrical Journal. The paper develops new statistical methodology for assessing the risks of exposures to hazardous environmental stimuli.