Notable & Quotable

VPA Instructor Cristi Catt’s music group Telltale Crossing has released its debut album Door Ajar on all major music streaming platforms.

Assistant professor of graphic design,Dan Vlahos, MFA, was elected for membership to the prestigiousSociety of Printersin Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1905, the Society is dedicated to the study and advancement of the art of printing.

Health sciences assistant professor Juliana Cohen was interviewed by both the Washington PostandGood Morning America(GMA) for a story on school lunches.Cohen says that because children learn better when they eat, schools should provideenough time to have lunch.

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Presidential Rhetoric and Indian Policy is a book recently published by Dr. Anne Flaherty, associate professor of political science public policy and interim associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts.

Karen Haydenhas been promoted from associate to full professor in the department of criminology, which she also chairs. Hayden joined the Merrimack faculty in 1997 and earned tenurein 2001. Her areas of interest include girls, women and crime; rural crime; society and law; and cultural criminology. She is working on two books, one on society and law, and the other onimages of rural people and rural crime in popular culture. Haydenholdsbachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology from theUniversity of New Hampshire and a Ph.D. in sociology from Northeastern University.

Mary Kantor, adjunct lecturer in religious and theological studies, was quoted in a July 3, 2017, Catholic News Service story about three women who were consecrated June 24 into the Catholic Church’s order of virgins in a ceremony at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit. The vocation of consecrated virginity, which requires women to live a life of perfect chastity, dates back to the beginnings of the Catholic Church but had all but disappeared by the 11th century. “The rite of consecration of virgins in the world dropped off over the centuries as monastic community life for women developed,” said Kantor, who studied the vocation extensively for her doctoral dissertation at Harvard Divinity School. “During my (dissertation) research, I spoke with someone in the bishop and/or vocation offices of each diocese in the country. Some had no knowledge of the rite.”

Assistant professor of communication and media Melissa “Mish” Zimdars, author of “Watching Our Weights: The Contradictions of Televising Fatness in the ‘Obesity Epidemic,’” was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article March 24, 2020 discussing the portrayal of fat women on television.

Juliana Cohen,assistant professor of health sciences, was featured in a cnn.com article“How school lunches measure up in countries around the world”published April 9, 2018. “When kids eat healthier foods, this can have a really important impact on their cognitive functioning, which can then translate potentially to better academic performance,” she said.Cohen’s 2015 study,published in theJournal of the Academy of the Nutrition and Dietetics, was also featured. Her study found shorter lunch periods to be linked with less healthy eating among children.

Paul Zipper, adjunct lecturer in criminology and a detective lieutenant atthe Massachusetts State Police, was profiled in a March 20, 2017, Boston Globe story about his work leadingthe force’s Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit. Investigators who have worked with Zipper said he makes friends easily, helping him crack cases. “His strength is dealing and working with people and befriending them,” said State Police Sgt. Paul Horgan. “He also had and still does have a great talent for getting people to talk to him, and suspects eventually wanting to confess to him.”

Paul Antonellis Jr., lecturer in management and director of the human resource management programs, and Rachel Silsbee, assistant director of student success at the Writing Center, publisheda paper, “Employment Interview Screening: Is the Ink Worth It?” in the February 2017 issue of the Global Journal of Human Resource Management. The paperlooked at how tattoos are viewed by interviewers and the impacttattoos have on the interview process. Antonellis published a second article, “Practical Steps for the Utilization of Action Research in Your Organization: A Qualitative Approach for Nonacademic Research,”in the May 2017 issue of the International Journal of Human Resource Studies. The article detailed the process nonacademic researchers can use to investigate topics they wish to change within an organization.

Assistant Professor Leena Bharath, who teaches in the School of Health Sciences, has received $434,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The awarded R15 grant will stretch over three years and is intended to support the training of undergraduate students.

Cynthia Carlson, assistant professor of civil engineering, was first author on a paper, “Storm-Water Management as a Public Good Provision Problem: Survey to Understand Perspectives of Low-Impact Development for Urban Storm Water Management Practices Under Climate Change,” that won Best Policy-Oriented Paper of 2016 from the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, published by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The paper explored how storm water could be thought of as a “public good” and be managed better.

William Wians, professor of philosophy, delivered the opening keynote address at the 2018 Fonte Aretusa conference in Siracusa, Sicily, on June 6. His topic was ‘Violence and the Origins of Beauty’. Prof. Wians discussedthree figures closely associated with the Greek city of Syracusa on Sicily: Aeschylus, whose play “Prometheus Bound” was produced in the city’s outdoor theater around 405 BC; the poem of Empedocles, who was born in nearby Acragas; and the philosopher Plato, who spent 13 years in Siracusa in a failed attempt to produce a philosopher king out of the local ruler Dionysius the Second.

Lisa Perks and Jacob Turner, both associate professors of communication and media, have hadamanuscript about their experiences working with undergraduate students working on scholarly research projects accepted by the peer-reviewed journal Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research.

Associate Clinical Professor Brigid Hopkins was named a 2021 Board of Certification (BOC) Dan Libera Award Honoree. Hopkins has been a long-time leader and volunteer in the BOC community.

Eight faculty members from four schools at Merrimack attended the Association for Interdisciplinary Studies conference in Amsterdam last semester. They include associate professors Luis Saenz de Viguera Erkiago and Cinzia DiGiulio of the World Languages and Cultural Studies Department, Civil Engineering Department assistant professor Cynthia Carlson, visiting associate professor Ellen Fitzpatrick, Women and Gender Studies Department professor Simona Sharoni, Graduate Education Department associate professor Susan Marine, Accounting and Finance Department associate professor Ana Silva, and Education Department assistant professor Laura Hsu.

Kirstie Dobbs, assistant professor of practice in political science and public policy, was invited to the Youth Without Representation Workshop hosted by the University of Ottawa to present her research on youth involvement in political parties worldwide. In addition, Dobbs also attended the American Political Science Association Conference in Montreal to present her research on a youth civic engagement summer program called Youth Voice – a collaboration between Merrimack professors, the Merrimack Valley YMCA in Lawrence, and numerous local stakeholders.

Father Rick Piatt, director of the Rogers Center for the Arts, was quoted in an Aug. 22, 2017, Burlington (Mass.) Union story about an interfaith peace and unity gathering at Temple Shalom Emeth in Burlington. Piatt said he attended the event “to listen, learn and be supportive.” He added that he is confident Americans will stand up against the type of bigotry that was on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, the previous week. “They (white supremacists) will not win,” he said.

Mary McHugh, executive director of civic & community engagement, presented at an APSA round table on Essential Topics for Introductory American Politics Courses and presented a co-authored paper “Connecting Students across Borders in Interdisciplinary Service Learning.” This paper is based on the International Service Learning Network Symposium that was held online this past spring. Five Merrimack students participated in the symposium and worked with students from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Alison Russell, assistant professor of political science and international studies, was quoted in an April 17, 2017, Eagle-Tribune story about President Donald Trump’s decision to take military action against Syria in the wake of reports that Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own citizens. “This (military action) represents a very different foreign policy action than the president indicated even last week, so it’s a dramatic turn,” Russell said.