Letter From the Dean

Jean Ann Linney, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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IT Corner

• SharePoint Upgrade. The College’s SharePoint server upgrade
  to SharePoint Enterprise 2010 has been rescheduled for August.
  
  
• Office Communicator Deployment to Staff/ Admins. The Microsoft Office Communicator integrates the phone system with Microsoft Outlook and includes other features such as online presence and instant messaging. The client software will be installed throughout the College this summer.

• Results of College IT Survey. The A&S IT Department conducted an information technology survey of faculty and staff in January. Use this link to review the report.

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Save the Dates!

Please mark your calendars for these important dates:

August 20-23       New Student Orientation
August 24             Classes Begin
Sept. 5                   Labor Day: No Classes
Sept. 16-17           Parents' Weekend
Sept. 22-24           St. Thomas of Villanova Celebration
Oct. 10-16              Fall Break

Please click here for the complete academic calendar.

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Faculty Scholarship

• Pamela Blewitt, Ph.D., a professor of psychology, made a series of presentations at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, in Montreal in April. A paper entitled, “Social Class, Vocabulary Size, and the Slow Mapping of Word Knowledge in Young Children,” was co-authored with Psychology M.S. alumnae (please see STUDENT & ALUMNI NEWS). A poster titled, “Learning Vocabulary from Shared Book Reading: The Role of Child Engagement” and a poster titled “A Moral Vocabulary? Exploring the Link Between Moral Emotion Label Knowledge and Moral Judgment in Preschool Children,” were also presented. The posters were co-authored with Psychology M.S. alumni. Please see STUDENT & ALUMNI NEWS.
• Rebecca Brand, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology, presented three posters at the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal entitled, Mother’s gaze during infant-directed demonstration highlights action boundaries and goals; Utterances used in acoustic packaging are discriminable based on prosody; and Toddler’s difficult temperament predicts television use. The psoters were presented in April and were co-authored with current Psychology M.S. students (See Student News). Dr. Brand also co-authored a poster that was presented at the Eastern Psychologicial Association meeting. The title of the poster is, What is beautiful is good, even online: Correlations between photo qualities and text qualities in men’s online dating profiles. The poster was presented by current Psychology M.S. students (See Student News). 
• Michael Brown, Ph.D., a professor of psychology, published a paper in the latest issue of the Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews entitled, "Social influences on rat spatial choice."
• Samantha K. Chapman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biology, along with graduate student Rachel Jones, published a paper entitled, “Plant community structure and form of soil nitrogen deposition mediate native and non-native plant abundance and diversity,” in the journal Plant and Soil. Also, Dr. Chapman published a paper in the journal Oikos entitled, “Away-field advantage: mangrove seedlings grow best in litter from other mangrove species.”
• Robert Curry, Ph.D., a professor of biology, served as Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for Kearney 2011, a joint meeting of the Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS), Cooper Ornithological Society, and Association of Field Ornithologists, In March 2011. At the conference, Curry presented a paper on song repertoires of Carolina chickadees, co-authored by Villanova undergraduate K. Zusi, and he was elected First Vice-President of the WOS. He also presented a report to the councils of the three societies concerning plans for the 5th North American Ornithological Conference, an international meeting to be held in Vancouver, BC, in August 2012. Curry represents the WOS on the Steering Committee for the conference, at which he will also serve as Chair of the Student Presentation Awards Committee. In addition, Curry completed a two-year term in April as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ornithological Council (OC), an organization that works on behalf of eleven professional ornithological organizations in North American. Curry returned to the position of Vice-chair of the OC Board, on which he serves as a representative for the WOS. He also published a paper, “Nest, eggs, and nesting behavior of the Gray Trembler (Cinclocerthia gutturalis) on St. Lucia, West Indies,” in the June 2011 issue of the Wilson Journal of Ornithology, co-authored with current M.S. student Josh LaPergola and former M.S. student Jen Mortensen. He recently was one of more than 100 co-authors of an April 2011 letter in Nature on “Inclusive fitness theory and eusociality.” He also co-authored an oral presentation entitled, “Song variation in Carolina chickadees and implications for mate selection in hybridization,” given by undergraduate Karen Zusi at the 2011 annual meeting of the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Ithaca College, New York.
  
• Judith Giesberg, Ph.D., an associate professor of history, is part of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and PCN-TV's Humanities on the Road feature. Her show, "Lincoln and the Widow Bixby," will be taped on Saturday, June 25, at 2 p.m., at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. 
• Edward Guinan, Ph.D., a professor of astronomy and astrophysics, was a lecturer at the 33rd International School of Young Astronomy (ISYA) held in Leijung, China in April. This school is sponsored by the International Astronomical Union  and was held to help young students and recent Ph.D.s from developing countries. Students from China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam,  and DPR Korea (North Korea) participated. The ISYA was held in conjunction with the Pacific Rim Conference on Stellar Astrophysics (PRCSA) so that the participating students could also attend the conference.  Guinan was also in China to meet with astronomers from Pyongyang Astronomical Observatory, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (North Korea) about providing help with their astronomy teaching and education programs. Also Guinan presented an invited paper at the PRCSA on "On the Suitability of Red Dwarf Stars for Hosting Life-supporting Planets."
• Charles H. Helmetag, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, has published an article, "Reflections on Heinz-Uwe Haus' Delaware Productions of 'Arturo Ui,'" in Communications from the International Brecht Society 39 (2010).
  
• Wayne Huss, Ph.D., a professor of history, is the guest curator for an exhibit titled, “Rally ‘Round the Flag: Civil War Color Bearers and the Flags They Carried,” at the Betsy Ross House in Philadelphia. The exhibit examines the most dangerous job on the battlefield: the color bearer. Wayne also spoke at the opening reception for the exhibit on April 21.  
• Irene P. Kan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology, recently presented two posters at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science. These papers were co-authored with current and former graduate and undergraduate students (see Student and Alumni News). Dr. Kan also recently presented a poster entitled, "Internal and external source monitoring in confabulation," at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting. This work was done in collaboration with researchers at the Memory Disorders Research Center at the Boston, VA Boston Healthcare System, and Boston University School of Medicine.
• Nancy L. Kelley, Ph.D., and Jonathan P. Yates, Ph.D., both of the Villanova Center for Liberal Education, made a presentation on the off-campus initiatives of the five freshmen "Learning Communities" at the 30th annual FYE or "First Year Experience" conference held in Atlanta, Georgia, on Feb. 8. The presentation demonstrated the ways in which these activities measurably improved both student academic performance and student satisfaction during their freshman year at Villanova and, by extension, how the VCLE model could be adapted and employed at other institutions. 
  
• James J. Kirschke, Ph.D., a professor of English, chaired the session entitled, “Complications of the American Revolution,” at the Biennial Conference of the Society of Early Americanists, in Philadelphia, on March 5, 2011.
  
• Elizabeth Kolsky, Ph.D., an associate professor of history, has published an editorial on the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA operative, currently in custody in Lahore, in The Dawn (Pakistan's largest English language daily newspaper). Read the article here. In addition, Dr. Kolsky, in connection with her new research project on empire and terror, has been selected by the Palestinian American Research Center to participate in an overseas Faculty Development Seminar to be held in May in Jerusalem and the West Bank. In addition, Dr. Kolsky has published an article in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper, on the killing of Osama Bin Laden entitled, “Body of Evidence.”  Dr. Kolsky also has published the article, “An unlikely pair,” comparing the parallel pasts and presents of Israel and Pakistan, in The Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English language newspaper. The article is based on Dr. Kolsky’s recent experience as a fellow at the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC).
• Steven Krauss, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology, recently presented a poster entitled, “Relational Model Evaluations are Different in Japan, Poland, and the USA,” at the Association for Psychological Science Annual Convention in Washington, D.C. This work was done in collaboration with former Villanova graduate students (see Student and Alumni News).
• John Kurtz, Ph.D., a professor of psychology, recently presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment in Cambridge, Mass. The paper is entitled, "Perceived and actual personality change during the transition to college." The paper was co-authored with an undergraduate alumna (see Student and Alumni News).  In addition, Dr. Kurtz is co-author on a paper published recently in the Personality and Social Psychology Review. The paper critically examines longstanding assumptions about the role of coefficient alpha in test validity. The first author is Robert McCrae from the National Institute on Aging.
  
• Robert Langran, Ph.D., a professor of political science, gave a lecture sponsored by the Pennsylvania Humanities Council to the Makefield Area Chapter of the American Association of University Women on the topic of the Supreme Court in Times of Crisis. In addition, Dr. Langran will represent his undergraduate alma mater, Loyola University Chicago, at the inauguration of Drexel University’s President on April 15.
• Joseph Lennon, Ph.D., an associate professor of English and director of the Irish Studies Program, was interviewed about his new poetry book, Fell Hunger, on Ireland’s leading radio arts program, RTE Arena with Sean Rocks. Listen here.
  
• Letizia Modena, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Italian, has published the book, Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness: The Utopian Imagination in an Age of Urban Crisis, New York and London: Routledge, 2011.
• Silvia Nagy-Zekmi, Ph.D., professor, director of Hispanic Graduate Studies, and director of the Cultural Studies Program, published a new edited volume entitled, Perennial Empire. It is co-edited with Chantal Zabus. Ithaca, NY: Cambria Press, 2011. Dr. Nagy-Zekmi also published an article in the Anales de Literatura Chilena entitled, "Memoria escatológica e historias apócrifas del Sur,” Anales de Literatura Chilena 11, 14, 2010: 239-254. In addition, Dr. Nagy-Zekmi published an article in the inaugural issue of Negotiations: A Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies entitled, “Derrida: Bilingualism of the Other From Abrogation to (Ex)Appropriation,” 1, 1. May 2011: 55-68.
  
• Michael A. Posner, Ph.D., an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, recently had two articles published. “The Impact of a Proficiency-Based Assessment and Reassessment of Learning Outcomes System on Student Achievement and Attitudes” was published in the May 2011 issue of the Statistics Education Research Journal, and “Managing the Grading Paradox: Leveraging the Power of Choice in the Classroom” was published in the June 2011 issue of Academy of Management Learning and Education. In April, he gave two presentations at the American Educational Research Association, one invited session on propensity score research in education, and one session on his NSF-funded grant evaluating a new assessment paradigm in 9th grade mathematics classes through a randomized controlled trial of 44 high schools in the Greater Philadelphia area.  In May, he gave two presentations at the U.S. Conference on Teaching Statistics, one on instructor characteristics associated with improved student attitudes toward statistics and one on evaluating the impacts of fun in the classroom. In addition, Dr. Posner has been reappointed by the President of the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) to a second three-year term on the MAA/ASA (American Statistical Association) Joint Committee on Statistics Education.
• Bernard G. Prusak, Ph.D., Gallen Fellow in the Villanova Center for Liberal Education and Acting Director of the Academic Learning Communities, published three papers this spring: “Double Effect, All Over Again: The Case of Sister Margaret McBride,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 32/4 (2011): 271-283; “Breaking the Bond: Abortion and the Grounds of Parental Obligations,” Social Theory and Practice 37/2 (2011): 311-332; and “The Costs of Procreation,” Journal of Social Philosophy 42/1 (2011): 61-75. His review of the volume Leaving and Coming Home: New Wineskins for Catholic Sexual Ethics, edited by David Cloutier, appeared in Commonweal, April 22, 2011, 25-26.
  
• Megan Quigley, Ph.D., an assistant professor of English, has received a Research Fellowship from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Megan will be using the fellowship to travel to do research on her book project: Vaguely Philosophical: Modernist Fiction and the Challenge of Philosophy.
  
• Kelly-Anne Diamond Reed, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of history, has published the monograph, Transporting the Deceased to Eternity: The Ancient Egyptian Term h3t (Oxford: Archeopress, British Archeological Reports, 2010).
• Deborah Schussler, Ed. D., an associate professor of education,  recently published the book she co-edited, Teaching as a Moral Practice: Defining, Developing and Assessing Professional Disposiitons in Teacher Education, through Harvard Education Press. Dr. Schussler presented a paper titled, “Educating as a Boddhisattva: Aware of the Self, Engaged as a Leader,” at the American Educational Research Association in April. Dr. Schussler will serve as the upcoming program chair for this organization’s Moral Development SIG (special interest group).
• Edward M.Sion, Ph.D., a professor of astronomy and astrophysics, was one of four invited speakers at a European Astronomical Society Special Symposium (SPS) on "Close Binary Systems with Compact Companions" held in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 4 to 8. Dr.Sion's invited talk was entitled, "White Dwarfs in Cataclysmic Variables."
• Paul Steege, Ph.D., an associate professor of history, has published the article, "Ordinary Violence on an Extraordinary Stage: Incidents on the Sector Border in Postwar Berlin," in Performances of Violence. Ed. Austin Sarat, Carleen R. Basler, and Thomas L. Dumm. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011: 140-63. 
• Mark Sullivan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of art history, has published an article titled, "Henry David Thoreau in American Portraiture of the 1950s," in The Concord Saunterer, the academic journal of the Thoreau Society.
• Michael Tomko, Ph.D., an assistant professor of literature in the Department of Humanities, has written the book, Romanticism and the Catholic Question: Religion, History and National Identity, 1788-1829, published by Palgrave Macmillan. Click here more information.  
• The National Science Foundation recently filmed the tidal marsh field and laboratory work of Nathaniel B. Weston, Ph.D., an assistant professor of environmental science. You can find a short story and film clip on the NSF Web site.
• Jonathan P. Yates, Ph.D., Rocco and Gloria Barbieri Fellow in the Humanities in the Villanova Center for Liberal Education, published, “The Use of the Bible in the North African Martyrological Polemics of Late Antiquity,” in Martyrdom and Persecution in Late Antique Christianity. Festschrift Boudewijn Dehandschutter, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium CCXLI, ed. Johan Leemans (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2010), 393-419.
• Mike Zimmerman, Ph.D., an adjunct professor of biology, has been appointed a consultant to the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.

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Alumni in the News

• Villanova alumnus, Brian Anderson, coauthored and published two articles with Professor Charles Folk, Ph.D. “Target uncertainty effects in attentional capture: Singleton detection mode or multiple top-down control settings?” appeared in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. The article, “Variations in the magnitude of attention capture: Testing a two-process account,” appeared in Attention, Perception & Psychophysics. Brian is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University. 
• Dr. Emily Ansell (MS Psychology, 1999), Yale University School of Medicine, was the first author of an article entitled, “Validity of the PAI Interpersonal Scales for Measuring the Dimensions of the Interpersonal Circumplex." The article was co-authored with Dr. John Kurtz, Dr. Patrick Markey, and recent alumna, Rebecca DeMoor (MS Psychology 2010). The article was recently published in the Journal of Personality Assessment. 
• Ben Baran, Ph.D., SPHR, 

  management researcher, consultant, and instructor 

  at The 

  University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and 

  Lt. Cmdr. (select), U.S. Navy HR Community, received a Ph.D. in organizational science from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in May. In August, he will start his new position as Assistant Professor of Management at Northern Kentucky University's Haile/US Bank College of Business. Baran graduated from Villanova in 2002 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and communication.
• Steven Castellotti, '00, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in comouter science, is featured here: NeuroSky Breaks Guinness World Record to Launch the Mindwave Headset; Hosts of the Gadget Show Use NeuroSky's MindWave to Move a VW Motor Car.
  
  Boston, who is 36, is managing attorney of the Law Office of Sherry Boston, LLC. She also serves as a judge on the DeKalb Recorder's Court and the Dunwoody Municipal Court.

  She has a bachelor's degree from Villanova University. She earned her law degree from Emory University School of Law.

  
  
  Read more: http://www.macon.com/2011/01/03/1396678/new-solicitor-general-named-for.html#ixzz19zhwCWDt
• Joseph P. Chirichella, '76, has been named the new President and CEO of Deborah Heart and Lung Center, a specialty heart, lung, and vascular hospital in Browns Mills, New Jersey. Chirichella, of Mount Laurel, has been with Deborah for over 30 years, most recently serving as its Vice President, Operations. He received a BA in General Arts. 
• Villanova alumna, Yoko Hara M.S. 2001) and Magdalena Klimkiewicz (M.S. 2005) co-authored a poster with Psychology Professor Steven Krauss, Ph.D., entitled “Relational Model Evaluations are Different in Japan, Poland and the USA.”  The poster was presented at the Association for Psychological Science Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.
• Meredith H. Henry (M.S. 2010) co-authored a poster with Pamela Blewitt, Ph.D. entitled, “A Moral Vocabulary?  Exploring the Link Between Moral Emotion Label Knowledge and Moral Judgment in Preschool Children.” The poster was presented in April at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal.
• Villanova undergraduate alumna, Julia Hernandez, co-authored a paper with Dr. John Kurtz entitled, “Perceived and actual personality change during the transition to college.” The paper was presented in March at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment in Cambridge, Mass. Julia is currently enrolled in the master's program in psychology at Loyola College of Maryland.  
• Pervinder Johar has been named the Chief Technology Officer of CCC Information Services Inc. Johar received a master's degree in computer science from Villanova. Learn more here.
• Ryan Langan (M.S. 2010) co-authored a poster with Psychology Professor Pamela Blewitt, Ph.D., entitled “Learning Vocabulary from Shared Book Reading: The Role of Child Engagement.” The poster was presented in April at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal.
• Bruce Lesh, who earned a master's degree in history at Villanova, is featured in the Carroll Eagle article, "History is no mystery for teacher from Westminster." A history, government, and politics teacher at Franklin High School, Lesh has been given an Excellence in Education award by the Baltimore County Chamber of Commerce.
• Stanton McComb has been appointed president of McKesson Medical-Surgical effective April 1, 2011.McComb earned his BA in Political Science and Business from Villanova in 1992.
•  Villanova alumna, Nicole Sorhagen (M.S. 2009) and Alexis Dolena (M.S. 2006) co-authored a paper with Pamela Blewitt, Ph.D. entitled, “Social Class, Vocabulary Size, and the Slow Mapping of Word Knowledge in Young Children.”  The paper was presented in April at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal. 

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Students In the News

• Villanova M.S. alumna Katherine Andriole and current M.S. students Shaina Hardesty and Margaret Place coauthored a paper with Michael F. Brown, Ph.D., and Bradley Sturz, Ph.D. (Armstrong Atlantic State University). The paper is entitled, “Precedence of spatial pattern learning revealed by immediate reversal performance." The paper was published in the latest issue of Behavioral Processes.
• M.S. Psychology students Abigail Bonatsos, Rebecca D’Orazio, and Hilary DeShong co-authored a poster with Professor Rebecca Brand. The title of the poster is What is beautiful is good, even online: Correlations between photo qualities and text qualities in men’s online dating profiles. The poster was presented at the Eastern Psychological Association meeting in March.
  
• Psychology M.S. students Teagan Bisbing, Justin Sayde, and Jared Batterman (along with Professor Michael Brown) presented a poster titled, “Follow the learning? Social influence on spatial choice in rats,” at the annual Conference on Comparative Cognition in Melbourne Beach, Fla. Justin Sayde (along with Professor Brown) presented a poster at the same conference entitled, “Skinner box for bees: A testing system for the study of bee learning and cognition.”
  
• Three graduate students in the Hispanic Studies Program organized a panel entitled, "Geographies of Self-Discovery: Literature as the Travel Guide for Life," which has been accepted to the Textual Journeys: Departure, Danger, Discovery conference at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, March 24-26, 2011. The papers are: Trevor Boffone: "Surviving the Mental Shipwreck: Palomo's Life-Altering Transformation in Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics"; Sara Cashin: "All Signs Point to Destiny: The Unfolding Plan in The Alchemist"; and Paula Plastic: "Shore Crossing: Literary Healing in Andrés Neuman's Una vez Argentina."
• Psychology M.S. student Shaina Hardesty co-authored a poster with Professor Rebecca Brand. The title of the poster is Toddler’s difficult temperament predicts television use. The poster was presented in April at the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal. 
• Villanova men's lacrosse standout Brian Karalunas has been chosen as the 2010-11 American Eagle Outfitters BIG EAST Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The selection was made by the Conference's Academic Affairs Committee. Learn more here.
  
• Jenny Liang and Lauren McDermott, junior computer science majors, will present their research results on connectivity issues in wireless communication networks at the 2011 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, to be held April 3-5 in San Francisco, California. Jenny and Lauren developed an interactive simulation and visualization platform for wireless communication graphs, then successfully used it to determine the signal strength necessary at each wireless node to guarantee full wireless connectivity, subject to a few local constraints. This research project was sponsored by the 2010-2011 Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates (CREU) program of the Computing Research Association Women's Committee (CRA-W). The 2011 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing is the sixth in a series of conferences, its 10-year anniversary. The program includes stellar invited speakers, a student poster competition, a daylong Doctoral Consortium, a session featuring a choice of attractions unique to San Francisco, a gala banquet and dance, and many exciting networking opportunities. Creating a welcoming environment, gathering a community of diverse scholars, and providing the highest quality learning, networking, and social experiences make the "Tapia Conference" the tremendous event that it is. Submitted by Robert Beck, Ph.D., a professor of computing sciences.
  
• Kelsey Low, a M.S. student in the Department of Biology, received a student research grant from the American Ornithologists’ Union in May 2011. The award will support Low’s thesis research on plumage brightness in Carolina and black-capped chickadees and their hybrids, mentored by Dr. Robert Curry.
• Psychology M.S. student Molly McGarvey co-authored a poster with Professor Rebecca Brand. The title of the poster is Utterances used in acoustic packaging are discriminable based on prosody. The poster was presented in April at the Society for Research in Child Development in Montreal.
  
• Sean McManus, a Biology major with a Bioengineering minor, has been selected to intern this summer with Jens Karlsson, Ph.D., an associate professor of mechanical engineering, through a partnership with Merck. Learn more here.
• Current Psychology M.S. students, Travis T. Nichols and Christopher B. Pizzica, presented a poster entitled, "Examining false memory in aging: Teaching old(er) dogs new tricks," at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, D.C. This work was done in collaboration with Irene P. Kan, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology.
• Current Psychology M.S. student Lauren Nutile and Psychology B.A. alumna Lauren Krupa, presented a poster entitled, "Conflict adaptation across tasks: Evidence for domain-general cognitive control" at the annual meeting of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, D.C. This work was done in collaboration with Irene P.  Kan, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology, and researchers at the Center for Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland.
• Estefanía Tocado Orviz's work, "La rebelión de Marina en Todos los gatos son pardos de Carlos Fuentes," was accepted at the 4th Graduate Student Symposium at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) March 25-26, 2011. She is a graduate student in the Hispanic Studies Program.
  
• Kristin Raudonis, a graduate student in Computing Sciences, presented her research results on wireless networks with directional antennas at the International Conference on Combinatorial Optimization and Applications, held December 18-20, 2010, in The Big Island, Hawaii. Under the guidance of her research supervisor, Dr. Mirela Damian, Kristin settled a long standing open problem in computational geometry, showing that a particular neighboring graph is a spanner. This neighboring graph can be realized with directional antennas and therefore can serve as an efficient wireless routing topology. These research results have been recently invited for submission to a special issue of Discrete Mathematics, Algorithms and Applications. Submitted by Mirela Damian, Ph. D., anassociate professor of computing sciences.
  
• Psychology M.S. Student, Catherine (Katie) Sanders, was awarded first place for her poster entitled, “Validation of the PAI Internalizing and Externalizing Dimensions with the Five-Factor Model,” which she presented in March, at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality Assessment in Cambridge, Mass.
  
• Erik Scully, a student in the dual B.S./M.S. program in Biology working under the direction of Dr. Robert Curry, recently received the George W. Barlow Award from the Animal Behavior Society (ABS). ABS gives this award to the top-ranked application in its annual student research grant competition. The grant will support of Scully’s M.S. thesis research on the social ecology of the herbivorous ant-acacia jumping spider in Mexico.
  
• Victoria Suwardiman, a junior computer science major, is one of only 50 students nationwide selected to receive a Microsoft Golden Ticket. This entitles her to an all-expense paid trip to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where she will be given access to Microsoft engineers, visionaries, grassroots innovators, unreleased technology, and networking opportunities. She will learn where new ideas come from, study the breadth and depth of interesting social challenges, and gain perspective of the role of software in solving today’s and tomorrow’s issues. She also has won a travel grant to allow her to attend the 2011 Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. The program includes stellar invited speakers, a student poster competition, a daylong Doctoral Consortium and many exciting networking opportunities. Submitted by Robert Beck, Ph.D., a professor of computing sciences. 
• Stephanie Wright, a 2010 graduate of Villanova’s M.S. program in Biology, received a student research grant from the American Ornithologists’ Union in May 2011. The award will support a study of song learning in Carolina and black-capped chickadees as part of Wright’s doctoral program at the Ohio State University. Wright is conducting her project in an ongoing collaboration with her M.S. thesis mentor, Dr. Robert Curry.
  
  
  

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Faculty and Staff in the News

• Lara M. Brown, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science, was among a group of seven political experts who discussed the primary results for a special piece in the New York Times entitled, "Angry Boomers and Other Election Clues." Read the piece here. In addition, Dr. Brown was featured in U.S. News & World Report in an article entitled, "Washington Whispers: Sarah Palin's 2012 Opportunity."
• Jerusha Conner, Ph.D., an assistant professor of education, co-wrote an editorial in The Notebook, an independent newspaper that covers the Philadelphia School District, entitled, "Reframing Youth and Violence."
• Robert H. DeFina, Ph.D., a professor of sociology, was featured in the Journal Sentinel in an article entitled, "Faith leaders voice support for unions."
• Judith Giesberg, Ph.D., an associate professor of history, appeared on the National Geographic Channel’s Civil Warriors series April 11 at 9 p.m. The episode is titled, “Free at Last.” Watch the trailer here. On Friday, April 15, Dr. Giesberg participated in a panel that followed WHYY’s screening of Ken Burn’s Civil War. In addition, Dr. Giesberg visited the Muhlenberg Community Library to discuss, “Lincoln and the Widow Bixby,” on April 14. She also visited the Tredyffrin Public Library to discuss, “Lincoln and the Widow Bixby,” on April 19. The following day, Dr. Giesberg discussed, “Support Your Troops: Conversations on the Civil War Home Front,” at the Philadelphia History Museum. Two of her blogs appeared in the New York Times Disunion blog. Dr. Giesberg also is featured in the article, "From 'Glory' to 'Gone With the Wind,' fascination with Civil War endures," which appeared in the Christian Science Monitor. Her article, "The Most Northern of Southern Cities," appeared in The New York Times on May 22.
  
• Edward Guinan, Ph.D., a professor of astronomy and astrophysics, is featured in the National Geographic online: "Big, Hot Planets Are Fountains of Youth."
• Thomas B. Ksiazek, Ph.D., an assistant professor of communication, recently was featured in a Christian Science Monitor article titled, "New York Times paywall: Savior of journalism or confusing debacle?" He reflected on the potential success of the Times' new pay model and what it means for both news audiences and a struggling print industry.
  
• Robert Langran, Ph.D., a professor of political science, was quoted in an article in MSNBC.com on June 21, 2011, entitled, “Wal-Mart ruling raises the bar for class actions.”
• Eugene McCarraher, Ph.D., an associate professor of humanities, published an article, "The End of Capitalism and the Wellsprings of Radical Hope," in The Nation.
• Mary C. Quilter of the Ethics Program was named Woman of the Year by the Department of Pennsylvania Catholic War Veterans’ Auxiliary at its convention in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
• Catherine Warrick, Ph.D., an assistant professor of political science, was quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer article, "Women's Rights Get Short Shrift in Egypt's Makeover," 18 March 2011.
• Rebecca Lynn Winer, Ph.D., an associate professor of history; Barbara Wall, special assistant to the Presidentfor Mission Effectiveness and associate professor of philosophy; Jeremy Cooper, student; and Ruth Anolik, Villanova Center for Liberal Education, were featured in a recent article entitled, "Catholic Universities Offer Decidedly Jewish Menu," in a recent issue of the Jewish Exponent.

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