Faculty Notes, April 14, 2014

Mark Axelrod, Ph.D., Department of English, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has had his screenplay Of Gold & Ashes accepted into the 2014 Beverly Hills Film Festival scheduled for April 23-27. The screenplay is a drama based somewhat on true incidents and is a love story between a Ukrainian Jewish American basketball player, Avi Levin, who has the opportunity to play for the United States at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the first Olympics in which basketball was included, and a woman he meets in Berlin.

Karen Gallagher, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of World Languages and Culture, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has been awarded a Fulbright to be a participant in the Summer Academy in Leipzig for American Faculty in German from June 15 to June 28.

A paper by Hesham El-Askary, Ph.D., Schmid College of Science and Technology, published in the book Air Quality-Models and Applications, is enjoying a high amount of online readership. The paper, “Analyzing Black Cloud Dynamics over Cairo, Nile Delta Region and Alexandria using Aerosols and Water Vapor Data,” has been downloaded more than 3,000 times, making it one of the journal’s most popular articles.

Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., professor, School of Computational Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, gave a talk in Seoul, South Korea on the television program 15 minutes that will change your life. A recording of his talk, Who Am I?, can be seen on YouTube.  of 18-minute talk is below. The Facebook Page for the station gained 30,000 followers after Menas’ talk, which was called “Who Am I?”
Anna Leahy, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of English, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, contributed to the poetry anthology The Burden of Light, edited by Tanya Chenov. Buyers of this e-book set their own price and all proceeds go to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance. The anthology includes text and also video and audio content. More information is available at the Burden of Light website.

Nehring, Michael, professor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts, won two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, including Featured Performance for his portrayal of Abram in Our Class, and Ensemble Performance for Our Class, which was produced by Son of Semele Ensemble, founded by Matthew McCray ’98.