Dr. Jacqueline S. McLaughlin, Associate Professor of Biology
Jacqueline McLaughlin is an innovator in developing inquiry-based learning strategies for both traditional (classroom, laboratory) and non-traditional biology (online, fieldwork) settings. She is also the founder of CHANCE (Connecting Humans And Nature through Conservation Experiences), an educational outreach and professional development program that fosters understanding of the world's most troubling environmental issues through real-world research experiences. McLaughlin has published 27 publications in peer-reviewed books, journals, proceedings, and online environments, and has won numerous awards at the local, state, and national levels for excellence in biology teaching, research, and outreach. Her specific research interests include: the use of technology to blend research with the teaching of science; the benefits of undergraduate research in science education; and, international programming and assessment. She has given more than 95 presentations or professional development workshops on her research and/or scholarly activities in these areas.Presently, she is working on three specific research projects:
- TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY: The CHANCE online “research modules” enhance the teaching and learning of core biological concepts and our world’s environmental realities by using technology to virtually bring real-world scientists and their research data into high school classrooms. Thus far, seven modules have been developed and are already in use in high schools and educational organizations throughout the world. Based upon ongoing research and analysis, these pedagogical tools continue to evolve to meet the needs of today’s youth and educators, and also support the vision of the National Science Education Standards and, the more recent, NSF/AAAS Vision and Change view of undergraduate biology education in the 21st century (http://visionandchange.org/). Presently, CHANCE is working on developing and designing, using state-of the art web technology and real-world data, new online “research lessons” for our nation’s elementary and middle school classrooms. Dr. McLaughlin is also working on, with numerous colleagues and collaborators, ways to best define and create enhanced “online” learning environments for undergraduate biology instruction at Penn State University.
Most Recent Publications:
McLaughlin, J. S., & Munsell, D. S. (2012). Evolving on-line pedagogy: developing research-based multimedia learning tools for the high school and undergraduate biology "classroom." International Journal of On-line Pedagogy and Course Design (IJOPCD), in press.
McLaughlin, J. S. (2010). A Multimedia Learning Tool that Allows High School Teachers and Their Students to Engage in Scientific Research. In: J. Yamamoto, C. Penny, J. Leight, & S. Winterton (Eds.), Technology Leadership in Teacher Education: Integrated Solutions and Experiences. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global.
- THE USE OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE EDUCATION: A scale of openness to inquiry-based learning was initially devised by Schwab (1962) and later formalized by Herron (1971) and serves as a basis for defining the types of inquiry recognized today by The National Research Council (NRC, 2000). Students in Dr. McLaughlin’s 400-level biology courses (either in the field through CHANCE or in a traditional laboratory setting) are provided with a rare opportunity to complete research projects at the highest level of inquiry – “open-ended” inquiry – wherein the teacher defines the knowledge framework wherein inquiry is conducted but allows the student to formulate his/her own questions, choose methods, and make interpretations and conclusions (similar to a true research scientist). The over-arching research questions presently under investigation with regard to the above descriptive include:
- Do students and/or teachers report significant learning gains in knowledge, skills and core concepts using research-based inquiry paradigms?
- Do students emerge with an understanding of the Nature of Science (Lederman et al.1998) so they can appreciate the origins of scientific information, think critically about new problems and situations, and sustain a lifelong curiosity about the world around them?
Most Recent Undergraduate Research Presentations:
Bonner, L. & McLaughlin, J. "Stimulation of Red Blood Cell Differentiation In Vitro: Replication of a Classic Experiment Enhances Inquiry in the Undergraduate Laboratory." Undergraduate Research at the Capitol – Pennsylvania Event, Harrisburg, PA, March 27, 2012. (1 out of 4 posters selected to represent Penn State University at the state level)
Jeyaretnam, V. & McLaughlin, J. "Chronotropic Effects of Select Cardiovascular Drugs on the Developing Vertebrate Heart." 2nd Penn State Regional Undergraduate Research Exhibition, Penn State Brandywine campus, April 19, 2012. (1st Place Recognition in STEM category) -
Bonner, L., Karam, M., Rodriguez, A., Ross, R. & McLaughlin, J. "Maximizing Growth and Differentiation of Murine Erythroid Leukemia (MEL) Cells In Vitro." 1st Penn State Regional Undergraduate Research Exhibition, Penn State Lehigh Valley campus, April 20, 2011. (1st Place Recognition in STEM category)
O'Malley, M., Haupt, A., Carrick, H. & McLaughlin, J. "A Pilot Study of the Pollution and Eutrophication of Lake Taihu in Wuxi, China: An Analysis of Water Quality at Three Field Sites." Penn State Undergraduate Exhibition, University Park Campus. April 13, 2011. (1st Place Recognition in Course –related Research category)
Read article:
“Leukemia research brings biology students and local medical lab together.” Penn State Lehigh Valley News & Events, March 14, 2012.
"Award Winning Student Searching for Cancer Cure, Mushrooms." Upper Saucon Patch, February 7, 2012.
"Lehigh Valley student chosen to showcase research at state capitol." Penn State Lehigh Valley News & Events, January 25, 2012.
"Hydroponic rafts may be a solution to Chinese water pollution." Research Penn State, December 14, 2011.
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING AND ASSESSMENT: CHANCE has demonstrated seven years of on-going, effective, international programming in environmental sustainability and teacher professional development thanks, in part, to the assistance of 27 partners. Importantly, CHANCE considers ongoing assessment and evaluation of its “Field Course Experiential Learning Model” (Zervanos and McLaughlin, 2003; McLaughlin, 2005; McLaughlin and Johnson, 2006), an integral aspect of its success over the years. CHANCE collects a wealth of participant data, including participant content knowledge, participant reflections, pre- and post-survey data, lesson plans, presentations, and student data. The findings of these assessments not only provide valuable direction for the program, but also have been presented at professional conferences on teaching best practices.
Most recent publications:Peer-Reviewed Book Case Study
Invited Case Study: McLaughlin, J. S. (2012) The CHANCE Program in China: Transforming Students into "Global-minded" Scientific Investigators and Citizens. In: Diana Oblinger (Ed.; President and CEO, EDUCAUSE), Game Changers: Education and Information Technology. Washington, D.C.: EDUCAUSE, 313-321
Invited Paper (Special Issue on Conservation):
McLaughlin, J., Cheng, X. & Liu, H. (2012). Using field research in China as a catalyst for effectively promoting global environmental awareness and stewardship. Biology International (IUBC), 50: 30-44.
Read articles:
"CHANCE Program wins 2012 Community Engagement and Scholarship Award." Penn State Live, April 12, 2012.
"CHANCE Program to receive award." Penn State Lehigh Valley News & Events, January 26, 2012.
"Chinese, American students join forces for sustainable development." Penn State Live, June 28, 2011.
Undergraduate and graduate students, pre-service and in-service teachers, and research scientist collaborators and educational specialists are involved in every aspect of her research.
For more information, visit Dr. McLaughlin's Website or her curricular vitae.
To peruse past projects visit http://www2.lv.psu.edu/jxm57/ugrad.html
John McCollough, Assistant Professor of Business Studies
Dr. John McCollough has a special interest in studying the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The EKC assumes that as nations become wealthier most types of environmental degradation begin to abate. The reason for this is that a clean environment is considered either a normal or luxury good in society’s overall welfare function. Just like an individual, the wealthier a nation becomes the more it desires to consume all goods including a clean environment. Societies, it is assumed, are willing to pay for cleaner environments as they develop. But as societies, particularly those that practice and preach laissez faire market economics, consume more consumer goods then how is it possible that the environment is not impacted? In a recent publication, a paper written from his original dissertation work, Dr. McCollough establishes a theoretical link between income and one aspect of environmental degradation, namely the buildup of municipal solid waste. Dr. McCollough plans to study similar links between income growth and other types of environmental degradation.
Julie B. Ealy, Associate Professor of Chemistry
Dr. Julie B. Ealy’s present research agenda proceeds at the theoretical level and pertains to the use of computer modeling to assist in the design of pharmaceutical compounds specifically as it applies to HIV-1 integrase. Several undergraduate students have been involved in her research all of whom have presented their research at local or regional meetings:
Todd Gehris, 2003 research, 2004 graduate
Todd examined bond angle, bond length, and dipole values of 23 molecules using 16 theoretical models in Spartan Pro, a computer software program used to examine small molecules three-dimensionally. The values obtained computationally were compared to experimental values. The information was used to gain a better understanding of the capability of Spartan Pro. This research provided the basis for subsequent use of Spartan Pro to minimize pharmaceutical compounds for HIV-1 integrase.
Adrienne Dorward, 2003-2004 research, 2006 graduate
Adrienne participated in research on severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS. The 3D protein structure of main proteinase, an important enzyme involved in SARS replication, was examined in order to gain a better understanding of its role in the development of SARS in humans. A paper was published in The Journal of College Science Teaching on the integration of the research into a Science, Technology, and Society course, STS 200S.
Veronica Kvarta, 2004-2005 research, 2006 graduate
The structural and nonstructural properties of drugs were examined through an extensive use of primary literature. Our data from 33 drugs were compared to that of over 5000 drugs with close agreement regarding the properties of the drugs. A paper was published in The Journal of Chemical Education.
Mike Devine, 2005-2006 research, junior at University Park (2006)
This research involved the choice of an adequate HIV-1 integrase protein structure for drug design. Homology modeling was used to computationally fill in four missing residues on an HIV-1 integrase structure that was shown to be the most complete protein of five that were extensively investigated. A paper was accepted to be presented and published in The John and Paige Smith Undergraduate Science Research Symposium of Penn State University.
Shafali Aggarwal, 2006-2008 research, 2008 graduate
Literature review of primary journals provided approximately 40 possible drug structures for HIV-1 integrase, one of the enzymes of HIV targeted for the development of drugs. The most stable conformation of each drug structure was determined computationally using Spartan Pro. Each structure was then docked computationally into the active site of HIV-1 integrase to determine the best fit between the protein, HIV-1 integrase, and the drug structure and to compare the most stable drug structure with that obtained after docking.
Nichola Gutgold, Associate Professor of Communications
Dr. Nichola D. Gutgold enjoys two main areas of research: the rhetoric of prominent women and the pedagogy of the basic speech communication course. She is author of Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Press, 2006). The book offers a rhetorical analysis of Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. Her most recent book: Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (forthcoming, March, 2008, Lexington Books) examines the communication strategies and styles of contemporary women in broadcasting. She co-authored a rhetorical biography, Elizabeth Hanford Dole; Speaking from the Heart with Molly Wertheimer of the Penn State Hazleton campus. She has interviewed both Elizabeth and Bob Dole and a portion of her Elizabeth Dole interview appears in Brydon and Scott's public speaking textbook, Between One and Many Mayfield Publishing, sixth edition, 2008. Her other publishing credits include book chapters and journal articles in American Voices (Greenwood Press), Leading Ladies of the White House (Rowman and Littlefield) Communication Teacher, Women and Language, The Pennsylvania Communication Association Annual, and The Communication Review and the Iowa Communication Journal.
Dr. Gutgold serves as the College of Communications representative and the Honors Program coordinator. She is a member of the National Communication Association, Eastern Communication Association, and Vice President of the Pennsylvania Communication Association. Two student researchers: Foram Dave and Robert Thacker Dey will co-present on a panel at the Teaching and Learning with Technology Forum at University Park March 29th.
Robert Culp, Assistant Professor of Economics
Dr. Robert Culp continues his research in environmental economics. Over the past year, Dr. Culp personally inspected the outside of over 3600 homes in the 72 square-mile Parkland School District. These visual inspections collected information about the environmental attributes surrounding each home, such as power lines, cell towers, woods, mature landscaping, parks, railroads, busy roads, views, tree lines, green spaces, and a variety of other environmental attributes. Other studies only visually inspected fewer than 400 homes, and then only examining one or two factors, such as power lines, views, or landscaping. In total, Dr. Culp examined each of the 3600 sites for 56 environmental attributes.
From this data, Dr. Culp presented “Quickness of Sale: Are Environmental Amenities Reflected in Time to Sell Rather than Market Price?” April 2006 at the Southwest Economics Association meetings. This paper found evidence that the most common method economists use to estimate environmental attributes, hedonic pricing, may be biased. Hedonic pricing estimates the value of environmental factors by observing how market prices of certain goods, usually housing, vary according to the environmental attributes they possess. Dr. Culp found that hedonic methods likely underestimate both the value gained by positive attributes, such as local parks or tree coverage and the value lost by negative attributes, such as shopping centers and busy roads. This result is important because governments use these estimates for determining public policy and the courts regularly use these methods to determine just compensation in civil suits where the plaintiff has suffered the loss of certain desirable environmental attributes.
Xenia Hadjioannou, Assistant Professor of Elementary Education
Dr. Xenia Hadjioannou’s research on language and literacy education focuses on observing, describing, understanding and supporting practices that nurture literacy development. Some of her work involves the study of language-in-use: examinations of individuals and groups as they are interacting within and outside classroom settings. Another significant aspect of her research concerns the educational and social implications of specific linguistic choices made in the context of diverse interactions. Within this research strand fall her examination of non-standard dialect use in educational settings and her study of authentic classroom discussions. She has also conducted studies on context-sensitive implementations of exemplary instructional practices.
Recognizing the value of research as a powerful tool for learning, Dr. Hadjioannou often involves students in her own research or invites them to engage in research and creative endeavors of their own. She has so far co-authored two papers with students: 10 myths regarding the Communicative Approach with C. Constantinou (co-authored with Dr. Tsiplakou), and Shifting Focus: A Journey from a Strict Product Approach to Process Writing with M. Ioannou. Also, she and some of her PSU-LV students presented together at the 2007 PSU-LV Diverse Literacies Conference and she is currently working with a new group of students toward presentations for the conference’s 2008 incarnation. In addition, in Dr. Hadjioannou’s courses, students are engaged in various research endeavors: they conduct reading and writing assessment studies of novice readers, they engage in inquiry projects in the process of creating WebQuests, and they do bibliographic research on topics of their choice.
Mary Hutchinson, Assistant Professor of ESL Education
Dr. Mary Hutchinson’s research interests are tied to her teaching. Her major focus has been on community-based service-learning, an issue at the forefront of higher education and she has published and presented this research in a variety of venues. She is concerned with examining the theoretical implications of service-learning, in particular, and the intersections between literacy and social action. She has studied the impact of service-learning on first-year students as well as pre-service and in-service teachers. Most recently, her work in this area was included a book chapter on developmental writing in Learning the Language of Global Citizenship: Service-Learning in Applied Linguistics, and a paper accepted for publication as part of a manuscript published by the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience.
In addition to her research with first-year students, she also works with prospective and practicing teachers enrolled in English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) courses. Although these offerings focus on teaching ESL, it is the service-learning component that has a tremendous impact on students’ knowledge and understanding of second language acquisition theory and practice. Students work directly with ESL adults enrolled in community-based literacy programs, again integrating the academic work of the course through outreach. Through service-learning, students frequently experience dramatic “cognitive shifts” that often change their approach to teaching. Her research explores these cognitive shifts and their effect on teachers and their pedagogy. This research thread will expand in the coming years, as Dr. Hutchinson was awarded a 1.3 million dollar grant from the Office of English Language Acquisition of the United States Department of Education to work with the Elementary Education program (Dr. Xenia Hadjioannou) and the Lehigh Valley Writing Project (Nancy Coco) to establish a high-quality, credit-based professional development program for pre-service and in-service teachers. The MODELL (Modular Design for English Language Learners) Instruction program is designed to 1) to provide a solid foundation in understanding second language acquisition, cultural awareness and its impact on language learning; 2) to share effective teaching strategies aligned with State standards and assessment, and 3) to provide support through school-based learning communities organized to design, implement, and evaluate classroom practices and teacher-research inquiry projects. As Project Director, she will work closely with the design and instruction team to assess the impact of this program on teachers and students, and to disseminate these findings through publication with her colleagues.
Barbara Cantalupo, Associate Professor of English
Dr. Barbara Cantalupo's research is focused on nineteenth-century American authors, especially Edgar Allan Poe, Emma Wolf and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and she has published numerous articles in scholarly journals on these authors and other women writers and artists including Tillie Olsen, Yvonne Rainer, and Karen Finley. Dr. Cantalupo is currently working on a book-length manuscript on Poe and the visual arts. She co-edited with Richard Kopley the second volume of Prospects for the Study of American Literature: A Guide for Scholars and Students (forthcoming in 2008 from AMS Press). In addition, Dr. Cantalupo has written an introduction and edited Emma Wolf's Short Stories in The Smart Set (forthcoming in 2008 from AMS Press). Dr. Cantalupo edited and wrote the introduction for the re-issue of Emma Wolf's 1892 novel on intermarriage, Other Things Being Equal (Wayne State UP, 2002). The founding editor of The Edgar Allan Poe Review in 2000, Dr. Cantalupo returned to its editorship in 2007 after a three-year hiatus with support from an anonymous donor and the sponsorship of Penn State Lehigh Valley, The Poe Studies Association and the Baltimore Poe Society. She is currently co-chair of the Third International Edgar Allan Poe Conference: The Bicentennial to be held in Philadelphia in October 2009.
Margaret Christian, Associate Professor of English
Dr. Margaret Christian has a special interest in early modern literature and religion in England. She is working on a book for Manchester University Press on Edmund Spenser's romance epic - The Faerie Queene (published in 1596). Spenser used allegory to dramatize the political and religious issues of his day, a method that drew on Elizabethan methods of biblical exegesis. A project related in location and timeframe, Sitting in Moses' Chair, analyzes the official religious rhetoric of the sixteenth century (the prayer book, state-sponsored sermons, and other publications of the established church) as dramatic texts. During the period of English transition between medieval Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, monarch, bishops, priests, and people were discovering new roles, and religious rhetoric offered them "scripts" to read from or hear performed and "parts" (dramatic characters) to try out. For her next project, My Share: Living on One Six-Billionth, Dr. Christian is learning about development economics and environmental issues to make cross-cultural comparisons. In the summer of 2006, she began travelling to interview and photograph families who are living on their "fair share" of the earth's wealth and resources to see how people live on about $9500 per year in 18 different countries.
Kathleen L. Lodwick, Professor of History
Kathleen Lodwick’s research focuses on two different but related topics. Both concern Protestant missionaries in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One project focuses on Hainan Island, off the southern coast of China, where 85 American Presbyterians served from 1885 to 1953. She is writing about their relationships with consular officials, an issue particularly complicated in this case by the fact that the nearest American consular personnel were a two and a half day journey away in Canton and the British consul took care of the missionaries' concerns on routine matters. The only time American consular personnel were summoned to the island was in 1924 following the murder of a missionary. Her research indicates the British consular personnel relied on the missionary doctors for not only medical matters, but also to convince the British government to provide them with adequate housing, so the relationship between the two groups was truly a two-way street. A second project is on James Gilmour of the London Missionary Society who served from 1870 to 1891 in Mongolia. Along with a Mongolian colleague who teaches at the University of Nanjing, an institution founded by missionaries, we are exploring the possibility that Gilmour was also working for the British intelligence service as he made no converts in Mongolia, but was in the region in the heyday of the Great Game between Russia and Britain over control of inner Asia. Several students have worked as research assistants on these projects over the years.
Douglas R. Hochstetler, Associate Professor of Kinesiology
Dr. Doug Hochstetler’s interests involve both sport philosophy and sport history. Research interests in sport philosophy include sport ethics, and the place of meaning in physical activity. Research interests in sport history include intercollegiate football in the 1920s-1930s.
Denise Ogden, Associate Professor of Marketing
Dr. Denise Ogden’s research areas are retailing and integrated marketing communications (IMC). In retailing, she studies consumer behavior, including multicultural aspects and in particular, the Hispanic consumer. Under IMC, her research is in tactical areas such as personal selling and advertising, especially at the retail level. Of particular interest is how companies coordinate and integrate marketing communications that emanate from an organization.
Her research in retailing has resulted in publications examining retail formats, Hispanics and the decision process and the effect of acculturation on behavior. Under the IMC umbrella, research areas have included examining media preferences and in-store retail behavior.
Ogden is a co-author of a Retailing textbook, Integrated Retail Management, published by Houghton Mifflin (2005). Other publications in retailing include an online course to accompany a text, the CLEP book on Marketing, and a chapter in a book published by the Point-of-Purchase Advertising International (POPAI) organization.
Ogden is also in her second year as the editor of Retail Education Today, an information source and peer-reviewed article outlet for academics in Retailing.
Todd Retzlaf, Assistant Professor of Math
Dr.Todd Retzlaf’s research has focused on problems involving random walks on locally compact groups. Articles published to date have focused on the rate of decay of concentration functions on non-compact locally compact groups. Mathematically, the concentration functions are an infinite sequence of functions on the compact sets of the group, G. They are defined as
fn(K) = supg µ(n)(Kg)
where µ(n) is the nth convolution power of µ, the transition probability measure of the random walk. Essentially, as the name implies, these functions measure how concentrated the random walk is. Therefore, the rate at which they go to zero represents how fast the random walk “gets lost”. The following simple example, which has been known for some time, illustrates this concept. Consider yourself seated on a chair with an infinite number of chairs to both your right and left (the fact that there are an infinite number of chairs is what makes the “group” of chairs non-compact). Now flip a coin. If it is heads move one chair to the right, if tails move one chair to the left. If, before we perform the experiment, I asked you to guess where you will be after a single coin flip you would have a fifty percent chance of answering correctly. However, the more times you flip the coin and move, the less likely you will be to guess your final position correctly. In fact, if n is the number of coin flips, it can be shown that the probability of guessing the outcome correctly will be smaller than Cn-1/2 for some constant C.
His research extends these results to more complicated non-compact locally compact groups. Given a random walk on such a group, the concentration functions are analogous to our probability of guessing the correct chair. His research shows that, for appropriate random walks, the concentration functions decay to zero at a rate of Cn-D/2 for some constants C and D. The D in this formula comes from the volume growth rate of the group (or of a certain subgroup) and corresponds to a dimension-like quality of the group. So, for example, if we put an infinite number of chairs in front of and behind our starting chair and all of the chairs to our right and left, and if we randomly choose to move left, right, forward, or backward, then we would have a random walk on a two-dimensional array, and our group would have D=2. This would mean that our ability to predict the correct chair would decay at a rate of Cn-1, which is faster than the rate for our single line of chairs. In other words, because of the higher dimension the random walk has more room to spread out and "gets lost" faster.
Tai-Yin Huang, Associate Professor of Physics
Dr. Tai-Yin Huang’s primary research interests focus on the dynamics, chemistry and energetics of the mesosphere and lightning effects on mesospheric airglow. Her expertise comprises theoretical modeling, numerical simulation, and data analysis. The projects that she has been working on are about, but not limited to, Lightning-Induced Transient Emissions (LITEs) or Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), gravity waves, airglow emissions, exothermic heating; secular variations of minor species; wave ducting; the formation of Mesospheric Inversion Layers (MILs); tidal variation of atomic oxygen, and nonlinear response of minor species.
Several undergraduate students have been involved in the following NSF funded projects under the guidance of Dr. Huang. The results of the research studies of the students have been or will be presented at an NSF-sponsored national meeting.
Nicholas Dzienis
Nicholas has been working on a project to investigate wave-induced secular variations of OH airglow in the southern hemisphere. He presented the following talks:
- Dzienis, N. M., Huang, T.-Y., Hickey, M. P. (2008). Simulations of wave-induced variations of minor species and OH airglow in the MLT region at north and south 18 degree latitude, CEDAR workshop, Utah, USA.
- Dzienis, N. M., Huang, T.-Y., Hickey, M. P. (2008). Simulations of wave-induced variations of minor species in the MLT region at north and south 18 degree latitude, The 2008 Penn State Lehigh Valley Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Symposium, Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, USA.
His poster at the Symposium won him a Symposium Award.
Roger Kuhl, Steven Troxell and Jason Fritz
These students investigated the temperature dependence of OH nightglow emission on the occurrence of sprites. They have been involved in the following paper and presentations:
- Huang, T.-Y., Kuhl, R., & Troxell, S. (2006). An investigation of sprite-induced variations in the mesospheric OH nightglow emission. John T. and Paige S. Smith Undergraduate Science Research Symposium Proceedings, The Pennsylvania State University College, York.
- Huang, T.-Y., Kuhl, R., & Troxell, S. (2006). An investigation of sprite-induced variations in the Mesospheric OH Nightglow Emission, John T. and Paige S. Smith Undergraduate Science Research Symposium, York, Pennsylvania, USA (invited talk).
- Huang, T.-Y., & Troxell, S. (2006). On the OH nightglow emission in the occurrence of sprites, CEDAR meeting, Santa Fe, California, USA.
- Fritz, J., & Huang, T.-Y. (2005). On the OH nightglow emission at Sprite temperatures in the MLT region, CEDAR meeting, Santa Fe, California, USA.
Kevin Abdo and Thien Hoang
They investigated the wave-induced secular variation of OH nightglow, of OH intensity-weighted temperature, and of minor species with a 2-D, time-dependent, fully nonlinear OH chemistry-dynamics model. They were involved in the following presentations:
Bonnie Hanner
Bonnie has been involved in a project that numerically simulates the formation of the mesospheric inversion layer observed during the ALOHA-93 campaign. She gave the following presentation:
Peter Behrens, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Currently, Dr.Peter Behrens is engaged in 3 research projects, any of which can involve student participation. One project is the completion of a historical review and analysis of the published works of Otto Klemm (1884-1939), who contributed significantly to applied psychology in Germany during his career at Leipzig University. This is a compendium of his works and was undertaken, in part, with the assistance of an Applied Psychology student who has since graduated. A second project is a history of radio psychology from its early days in the late 1920s through the Depression era. Several well-known and not so well-known psychologists regularly conducted radio broadcasts on various topics for the general public. Finally, a study has been completed with the assistance of a former Penn State student on the significance of patients’ locus of control in drug and alcohol rehabilitation, with emphasis on the effect that treatment has on perception of internal and external control in life.
David Livert, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dr. David Livert is currently working on two research projects:
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A longitudinal study of students pursing a chef’s degree at the Culinary Institute of America with the assistance of Lehigh Valley undergraduate assistants. Students are being tracked who entered the CIA in the fall of 2005 through the completion of their degrees in 2007. Our focus is on group dynamics in the kitchen, the role of group composition on prejudice, and the pressures faced by female students and non-traditional students. As students progress further into their studies, observations have indicated that female and older students experience prejudice. This research interest began with Livert’s thesis and his interest continues especially since females are a statistical minority as chefs.
- A replication of a study conducted 2005-2006 for Penn State’s International Studies Program is also being conducted. The online study investigates the experiences of Penn State students who spend their spring semester abroad. Students’ interactions with host country citizens is being examined as well as the potential effects of these interactions on friendships and on long term change in the student’s worldview. The findings so far suggest that just being in foreign country – even non-Anglophonic – does not necessarily ensure a meaningful experience for the study. Formation of friendships with host citizens and the pursuit of small group interactions (with attendant emotional highs and lows) are critical.
Kevin J. Kelley, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dr. Kevin Kelley is currently working on three projects. The first examines the relationship between emotional intelligence, health, and life satisfaction. This project continues work started with a student who graduated and is currently attending graduate school at Kutztown University. The second examines the relationship between empathy and health. The third project is attempting to formulate a new treatment for school-age children who were abused when they were infants or toddlers.
Jennifer Talwar, Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Jennifer Talwar has been awarded a year-long sabbatical for 2008-2009 to work on a project entitled "Urban India and Global Commodity Culture: A Focus on the Urban Poor." She will be researching "the role(s) India's traditionally marginalized populations (the urban poor) are playing in shaping India's new commodity culture and associated ideologies of mobility. This research extends an on-going project that began as a Senior Fulbright Scholar in India (2002-2003). It comprises the last phase of research that is necessary to complete a book manuscript. Talwar's research in India has focused on two interrelated questions that are significant to both public policy and academic debates about India's socio-economic changes since liberalization began in 1991: 1) how and why socioeconomic inequalities continue to be regenerated even while economic development and wealth generation take place, 2) the degree to which socioeconomic categories have become more or less fluid with new patterns and ideologies of mobility. In India, where global commodity culture signifies "high end" consumption and where socioeconomic categories have been historically static, an understanding of the poor's relationship to commodity culture provides a window for viewing class (and in some cases caste) specific adaptations and interpretations of socioeconomic mobility".