News & Events

Emma Duffy-Comparone, director of The Writers House, will publish her first book,Love Like That,a collection of short stories from Henry Holt & Co., in March 2021.

Dr. Alison Russell, chair and associate professor of the political science and public policy department and director of the international studies program, has been invited as one of two academics to speak at The Return of Naval Combat conference in Paris on Jan. 18. Russell’s career and research are heavily focused on naval strategy, cyber security, cyber strategy and United States naval strategy where it intersects with technology.

Ellen Longsworth, art history professor at Merrimack, has been elected president of the Society for Renaissance Art History.

Dr. Michael Stroud, professor and department chair of psychology, and Dr. Kirstie Dobbs, associate professor of practice for the department of political science and public policy, have created assignments that expose their students to new educational techniques: Podcasts and TED Talks.
Stroud’s podcast, Curious Minds, is available via Apple Podcasts. Please click the link below to view the TED Talks. Kirstie Dobbs’ podcast, Voices of Gen Z: The Future of Democracy can be found via Spotify Podcasts.

Sociology Associate Professor Daniel Herda presented his research on interpersonal contact between immigrants and citizens at the American Sociological Association virtual conference.

Anne Flaherty, associate professor of political science and public policy, presented her research at the APSA conference on Black Lives Matter and Indigenous Deaths in Custody in Australia and Canada. The presentation focused on the long history of indigenous peoples’ deaths in custody, challenges in the lack of coherent policy and resource responses and the potential for future changes in both countries.

Dr. Melissa Zimdars, associate professor in the Department of Communication and media studies, recently published Medicalized Reality Weight-Loss Television and the Negotiation of Neoliberalism on My 600 Pound Life. Within the article, Zimdars considers how one of these shows, My 600 Pound Life (2012), negotiates and de-centers discourses of neoliberalism through medicalization and spectacle.

Michael DeCesare, professor of sociology, spoke to the Arizona Republic about a plan to seat a student on the governing board of Maricopa Community College District. DeCesare, chair of the AAUP Committee on College and University Governance, which has raised concerns about board politics, said, “The board has taken some promising first steps, but (the committee) will continue to monitor the situation to ensure the faculty’s governance rights are fully restored at Maricopa.”

Michael DeCesare,professor and chair of sociology, was quoted in a Feb. 7, 2018, Boston Globe story about the ongoing search for the next president of Harvard University. DeCesare, who chairs a committee on university governance at the American Association of University Professors, said the school ought to pick an academic, to send a message to faculty that their work is important. “For Harvard to kind of reaffirm the importance of an academically oriented president would go a long way,” he said.

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.