Faculty Notes, July 23, 2015

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Brian Alters, Ph.D., professor, College of Educational Studies, has been reappointed as associate to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University for another five years, and to McGill University (Montreal) as adjunct in science for another three years. This brings his Harvard and McGill appointments to more than 20 years each. These appointments are primarily for his research endeavors in evolution education.

Doug Dechow, Ph.D., digital humanities and science librarian, Leatherby Libraries, and Chancellor Danielle Struppa, Ph.D., have published Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson, the festschrift that resulted from the conference by the same name hosted at Chapman University in 2014. Among the book’s features are commentaries from world-renowned computer scientists and figures from the media industry reflecting on the ideas, legacy and continuing influence of Nelson, the original visionary of the World Wide Web.

Theresa Dudeck, Ph.D., instructor, Department of Theatre, College of Performing Arts facilitated an “Impro for Entrepreneurs” workshop for EO (Entrepreneurs’ Organization), Orange County chapter, hosted at Chapman’s eVillage in July.

Grace Fong, DMA, associate professor and director of Keyboard Studies at the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, received the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Colburn School in Los Angeles.

In addition, this summer she performed the season finale concert for the Mainly Mozart Festival at the Adrienne Arsch Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, and the opening gala concert at the Lee University International Piano Competition and Festival. She also served as guest faculty and performing artist at the Reinhardt Piano Festival and Academy in Georgia, the Socal Chamber Music Workshop, as well as the Costa Rica Piano Festival.

Rosalee Hellberg, Ph.D., assistant professor, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Food Science, and her research group recently published two papers on the mislabeling of commercial meat products in the U.S. The papers are entitled “Identification of species in ground meat products sold on the U.S. commercial market using DNA-based methods” and “DNA barcoding reveals mislabeling of game meat species on the U.S. commercial market.” Both were published in the journal Food Control and are currently available as advance online publications. The hard copy versions will be published in the January 2016 issue of the journal.

Peter McLaren, Ph.D., keynoted the 5th International Conference on Critical Education held earlier this summer in the City of Wroclaw, Poland, where he was officially appointed as Visiting Professor by the city. While in Wroclaw, there was a national book launch for the Polish translation of the 6th edition of his book Life in Schools, with a preface by Professors Suzi Soohoo, Ph.D., and Tom Wilson, Ed.D. The book appears in a special series on international scholars. McLaren continued on to China where he fulfilled duties as Honorary Chair Professor at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. McLaren was appointed Honorary Director of The Center for Marxism and Education.

Gerri McNenny, Ph.D., associate professor, College of Educational Studies, and Pamela Ezell, Ph.D. student in Leadership Studies, and director of broadcast and digital media, recently presented “Flipping Sustainability: Web 2.0 Imagines a Sustainable Future” at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference (CHESC) in San Francisco. Their presentation focused on creating a flipped classroom experience in which students access a wide range of resources online to conceptualize a systems-based approach to sustainable designs for net-zero energy housing, food systems, and architecture. Class time is then spent on project-based learning. Due to the leading role that California’s colleges and universities have taken in moving the nation toward more sustainable practices, CHESC is by far the most impactful conference of its kind, the nation’s largest statewide exchange on sustainability where speakers from the UC, CSU, community college, and private university systems share best practices.

Michael A. (Mike) Moodian, Ed.D., instructor, College of Educational Studies, has been appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to a four-year term on the State of California Commission on Judicial Performance. This state agency is responsible for investigating judicial misconduct and judicial incapacity and for disciplining judges. Its jurisdiction includes all superior court judges and Courts of Appeal and Supreme Court justices.

Ramesh P. Singh, Ph.D., School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, is a new member of Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) Council for 2015-2016. TEX is driven by the real-world environmental challenges that local communities face within three areas: natural hazards/disasters, natural resources, and climate change. TEX builds collaborative relationships between community leaders, scientists and sponsors and helps them design and implement local solutions.

In addition, Singh gave a talk titled “Atmospheric Pollution Impact on the Environment and Water Resources in the Most Densely Populated Region of the Earth” in June at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at California State University, Fullerton.

Tom Zoellner, associate professor, Department of English, Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences, wrote a commentary on the Iran Nuclear Deal in the op-ed section of The Los Angeles Times. The article was titled “Republicans’ ‘Munich’ Fallacy.”