A group of faculty in academic regalia sit in a row

Faculty Experts Roundup

News from the summer includes travel, awards, published books and international performance.

August 22, 2025

The Chaddock + Morrow College of Fine Arts

Anthony Alterio , assistant professor of instruction in the Schools of Theatre and Dance, directed the inaugural Pittsburgh Dance Workshop (PDW) June 23–28 at the University of Pittsburgh. The event was deeply rooted in the work and talent of Ohio University, with several Bobcats integral to its success.

Designed to bridge communities across Pittsburgh’s dance scene, PDW brought together 17 major dance companies and independent artists to offer four days of classes and two evenings of performances.

“This project embodies the unique position I hold across two schools and exemplifies our goal of providing students and alumni with meaningful, real-world opportunities that extend beyond the classroom,” Alterio said.
Garrett Field , associate professor of ethnomusicology/musicology, received a Global Travel Fund award, which helped him to travel to Sri Lanka, where he delivered invited speeches in the Sinhala language at the University of Colombo, University of Peradeniya, University of Kelaniya, and Rajarata University. The focus of the lecture was on a book about Sinhala poetics published in 1939 by a Sri Lankan philologist named Munidasa Cumaratunga.
In late June 2025, Professor Jason Roland Smith and Associate Professor Lucas Rego Borges , faculty members of the School of Music specializing in tuba/euphonium performance, represented their institution on the global stage at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference (ITEC), hosted by the Spanish Association of Tubas, Euphoniums and Bombardinos.

Smith and Borges presented a featured recital that included the world premieres of two original works composed specifically for their duo. The program featured Suite Amor & Pax for tuba, trombone, and percussion by Brazilian composer Fernando Deddos, and an arrangement of Glorinha Gadelha’s Feira de Mangaio by Elder Ferreira.

In addition to his recital appearance, Smith served as an adjudicator for the Avant Garde Performance Competition and performed in two high-profile ensembles: the ITEA Past Presidents Honorary Ensemble and the Competitions Juror Ensemble.
Ricarrdo Hunter-Valentine , assistant professor of instruction and director of the Summer Dance Institute, was announced as a finalist for the Dance/USA fellowship Artist Program (DFA).

From the DFA website: “DFA recognizes the wide variety of ways in which artists engage in social transformation through dance, which often do not fit into established models of arts funding.”

Smith and Borges stand with an OHIO flag

Jason Roland Smith and Lucas Rego Borges representing OHIO at the International Tuba Euphonium Conference.

Garrett Field poses with a University sign in Sri Lanka

Garrett Field at the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, where he delivered invited lectures to multiple universities and was interviewed on a nationally televised program.

The College of Arts and Sciences

Timothy G. Anderson , associate professor in the Department of Geography, published the article “The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Landscape, Place, and Memory in a Midwestern Town” in Middle West Review, which was selected as the winner of the John E. Miller prize for the best article published in the journal in 2024.

Anderson’s interview in Germany regarding archival research he recently conducted there appeared in the Westfalenpost on May 15.
Professor Neil Bernstein ’s most recent book, “Poppaea Sabina: The Life and Afterlife of a Roman Empress” (Oxford, 2025), was published on June 20. Bernstein delivered a paper at the University of California-Davis on Lucan's Bellum Civile in March and will give a paper at Vanderbilt in October on Statius's Thebaid.
Brian Collins , Drs. Ram and Sushila Gawande Chair in Indian Religion and Philosophy and professor in Classics and Religious Studies, continued co-editing The Routledge Companion to the Mahābhārata, contributed entries on Raymond Buckland (Seax Wicca founder) and the Church of All Worlds for an upcoming exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Sex, and submitted a 5,000-word essay on sacrifice in Hinduism and Buddhism for the Bloomsbury Handbook of Mimetic Theory. He also conducted interviews and attended a music festival in Buena Vista, CO for research on his new book, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Metamodern Music and Mythology.
Cory Crawford , associate professor in Classics and Religious Studies, delivered an invited lecture at Yale Divinity School in April titled "Who’s Afraid of a Female Priest? Biblical Narratives Confront Kenite Traditions." Crawford also presented three research papers at Cambridge University, at the American Society for Overseas Research, and at Boston College’s "Graphic Signs of Religion in Antiquity" conference. In May, he led the Ping Institute Summer Seminar for regional high school teachers on ancient writing systems. Over the summer, he served as field supervisor for the Türkmen-Karahöyük Archaeological Project in Turkey, accompanied by three OHIO students, with findings to be presented and submitted for publication this fall.
Fred Drogula , Charles J. Ping Professor of the Humanities and professor of Classics and Religious Studies, was awarded the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) Excellence in Teaching Award, as well as OHIO's Jeanette Grasselli Brown Teaching Award in Arts and Sciences. He has a new book forthcoming from Oxford University Press titled “Spheres of Control: The Origins of Government in Early Rome,” which provides a new reconstruction for the formation of the Roman Republic. He also has a related article forthcoming from the American Journal of Philology. He has been invited to give a paper in Oxford (UK) this fall exploring the intellectual history of Roman concepts of authority.

Read our profile of Fred Drogula
Ryan Fogt , professor and director of the Scalia Laboratory for Atmospheric Analysis , served as part of a delegation of 10 people from the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to attend the 47th Antarctic Treaty System Consultative Meeting and its Committee on Environmental Protection in Milan, Italy, in June.

“This is my first time attending this international policy meeting, and to my knowledge, the first time a scientist from Ohio University has been to any of these meetings,” Fogt said. “Since this is the group where all policy pertaining to the preservation of Antarctic for scientific purposes only, and only invited guests are allowed into the policy rooms directly, it is quite an honor and distinction.”

Fogt was part of the delegation due to his role as the editor of the Antarctic Environments Portal , which provides policy-relevant summaries of Antarctic research written to a non-specialist (including policymaker) audience.

To learn more about the Scalia Lab and Fogt’s research, watch his “In a Nutshell” interview
Lisa Stein Haven , Professor of English on the Zanesville campus, recently published “Early Buster Keaton: From the Vaudeville Stage to Comique Films, 1899-1920” with Pen & Sword Press UK, and was asked to participate in the Chipping Campden Literature Festival in the Cotswolds in May. Interviewed for the event by British non-fiction writer and novelist Meg Saunders, Haven’s event was topped off with a screening of Keaton’s 1926 film The General.
Loren Lybarger , professor and chair of the Department of Classics and Religious Studies, delivered an invited lecture at the University of Oslo in June titled “Religion and Identity in the Palestinian North Atlantic: Chicago, Copenhagen, and Oslo.” The talk reported findings from his current research on Palestinian refugee and immigrant experiences in Scandinavia. In February, he gave the keynote address at the 11th Annual Middle East and North African Studies Symposium at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. The talk, titled “Transcending Catastrophes: Transformations of Palestinian Identities Since the First Intifada,” drew from his research in the Middle East, North America, and Northern Europe.
Martin Mohlenkamp and Todd Young , along with Ph.D. student Moayad Odeh and former student Muhammad Usman, published an article “Comparative Study of Sinc Collocation Method versus Hybrid Sinc-Finite Difference Methods for Solving Burgers’ Equations.” The paper appeared in the July 2025 issue of the journal Engineering Letters. Sinc collocation methods promise exponential order convergence for smooth problems, but before this paper, it was yet to be realized for differential equations on finite domains. The successful method uses a conformal mapping in space and a hybrid of the Crank-Nicolson and modified Euler methods in time.

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Chester Pach , professor in the Department of History, gave a paper on “Presidential Debates and the Age Issue: Then and Now” at the Age of Reagan Conference at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, in July. It explained how Reagan survived criticism that he was too old for a second term after a poor debate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984, while Joe Biden was unable to overcome the “age issue” after his disastrous debate with Donald Trump in 2024.
Myrna Perez , associate professor in Classics and Religious Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, received a fellowship from the Linda Hall Library of Science and Technology to work on her book “Ontology of a Mixed Race Woman” and was elected a fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion. Perez also published Criticizing Science: Stephen Jay Gould and the Struggle for American Democracy (John Hopkins University Press) along with several papers and delivered the keynote address at the University of Erfurt’s Truth Politics Between Science and Society conference.
Casey Plett (Thiessen), assistant professor in the Department of English, published a short story titled “Portal” in the latest issue of The Hopkins Review, the literary magazine for Johns Hopkins. Plett was also selected to be a mentor in the “Rising Stars” program for the Writers’ Trust of Canada. At AWP in Los Angeles this year Plett presented on the panel “Criminalized Lit” and attended the Mennonite/s Writing conference in Winnipeg presenting on the panel “Homecoming: Making Space for Queer Stories on the MennoLit Shelf."

The Chillicothe Campus

Cynthia L. Fannin , MSN, RN, assistant clinical professor, had a book published in May titled “My Journey into Bedside Nursing.” It includes 33 stories on Fannin’s nursing experience.

“It would be a good read for our student nurses as well as seasoned care givers,” Fannin said.

The Patton College of Education

Laura Harrison , professor and department chair, and Kristin Dixon-Chamberlain , assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, will present a session titled “Exploring the Positive Humanities’ Role in Human Thriving” October 30 at the All Ohio Counselors Conference in Dublin, Ohio.
- Harrison also authored a book chapter with alumni Samba Bah (MA '18) and Joseph Carver (PHD '20) called “Decolonizing the Curriculum in the Age of Digital Structural Violence” in “Developing Culturally Responsive Curriculum in Higher Education.”
Dr. Stephen Harvey , professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport Pedagogy, and Consumer Sciences, recently appeared on the coaching education podcast, The Sport Psych Show addressing “Understanding and Improving Player Learning.”
Courtney Koestler , associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education, published a new book with colleague Dr. Eva Thanheiser from Portland State University, titled “Building Community to Center Equity and Justice in Mathematics Teacher Education.” The authors also have been invited to develop a book proposal on their collaborative work centered on critical literacy, agency, and action in elementary mathematics classrooms.
Marcquis Parham , assistant director of Career and Employer Engagement and director of Brothers RISE, was selected as the incoming chair of the Ohio Deans Compact Incentive Grantee Committee Community of Practice and the Toward a Representative Educator Workforce (TREW) Committee.
- Parham also delivered a keynote address at the Ohio Council for Exceptional Children's summer conference in June.
Dr. Nick Stroup , assistant professor, will co-chair the Association for the Study of Higher Education Organization and Administration program section.
- Stroupwas also recognized along with Harrisonand program alumna Becky Challenger during the recent 2025 Teaching and Recognition Ceremony hosted by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Assessment.

The Scripps College of Communication

Josh Antonuccio , director of the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Ohio University Music Industry Summit, released a debut album with his band Swanpalace . Titled To Depart the Waking World, the album features Antonuccio, along with producer and drummer Jim Eno and vocalist Leah Joy.

Antonuccio and Eno also work together on the Music Industry Master Class in Providence, which brings students from the music production and recording industry major to work with Eno in the studio.

Read about the Master Class
Professors and students represented the college in San Francisco at an annual gathering of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC).
- Adonis Durado , associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies, participated in a panel presentation on artificial intelligence (AI) called "Designing the AI Classroom: From Infographic Tutor to Generative Storytelling Course".
- Dr. Laeeq Khan , associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies, served as a discussant at the conference, offering critical analysis and feedback to other scholars regarding consumer reaction to brand activism.
- Dr. Parul Jain , professor of Strategic Communication, presented research regarding menopause and social media with doctoral student Lina Elshrief, in a session titled "Exploring Stigma and Advancing Solutions."
Dr. Aimee Edmondson , professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism and associate dean, spoke in May at a forum on press freedom sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. On a panel on “Press Freedom in a New Era of Reporting,” Edmondson provided historical context of the Sullivan libel case and discussed the importance of public records and local news media credibility with other panelists.
Laeeq Khan also published “The Data Analytics Advantage,” a guide to analyzing and leveraging social media data for strategic decision-making.
Frederick Lewis , professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies, wrote, directed and co-produced the documentary Paul Laurence Dunbar: Behind the Mask , which has been featured in multiple showings across the U.S. and recently obtained a distribution deal with PBS.
Three faculty members from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism led sessions on trauma, conflict reporting and media ethics at the American University of Armenia (AUA) in July.
- Kevin Z. Smith , executive director of the Kiplinger Program and president of the Society of Professional Journalists, taught journalism ethics, newsroom policy creation, and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
- Mark Turner , associate professor and media effects scholar and newsroom advisor, explored neutral language in conflict reporting, press freedom under censorship, and avoiding narrative bias in wartime coverage.
- Nerissa Young , associate professor of instruction and award-winning expert in trauma journalism, led sessions on covering conflict, interviewing trauma survivors, and safeguarding reporters’ mental health.