Faculty Experts Roundup

Find news from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs, the Scripps College of Communication, the Patton College of Education, and the College of Health Sciences and Professions.

The manuscript "Efforts by critical access hospitals to increase health equity through greater engagement with social determinants of health," co-authored by Dr. Bethany Lemont, Dr. Cory Cronin, and Dr. Berkeley Franz was recognized as the 2024 Article of the Year by The Journal of Rural Health. Lemont is a core faculty member in OHIO’s Institute to Advance Health Equity at Ohio University, where Cronin and Franz are co-directors.

About the research, Lemont and Cronin said: “Hospitals, especially critical access hospitals, are important for their local communities beyond just the medical services they provide. Hospitals that recognize that role and proactively implement an equity-focused approach are more likely to meet a broader range of needs for those they serve. Being able to share this work with a rural health audience and stakeholders is valuable for contributing to the conversation about the roles hospitals can play within their communities.”

Dean John McCarthy was made a Fellow of The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

"This is one of the highest honors of my profession and I was humbled to receive it,” McCarthy said. “My sincere thanks to my sponsor Glen Tellis and my co-sponsors Rajinder Koul and Ralf Schlosser as well as the others from multiple disciplines who wrote on my behalf."

ASHA describes the honor this way: “The status of Fellow is retained for life and is one of the highest honors this professional organization can bestow. It recognizes professional or scientific achievement and is given to a member who has shown outstanding contribution to the professions-contributions that are significant and would be so regarded within and beyond one's community or state.”

Dr. Ashley Allanson, associate professor of instruction in the Department of Recreation, Sport Pedagogy, and Consumer Sciences, spoke at the 2024 North American Coach Development Summit, June 10-12, in Columbus. Dr. Allanson delivered "Best Practices in Youth Sport Coaching: Virtual Coaching Education for Coaches, Parents, and Community.”

Dr. Christine Suniti Bhat, professor in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, started her tenure as American Counseling Association president on July 1. Additionally, Bhat received the ACA Fellows Award, a distinctive honor that recognizes ACA members "for significant and unique contributions to the counseling profession on a national level."

In ACA's magazine "Counseling Today," Bhat describes her strong belief in education and the long and winding journey (covering three continents) that brought her to Ohio University. An alumna of the Patton College, she earned her doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision, where she discovered her passion for teaching and mentoring.

Read our profile about Dr. Bhat and her experience in the counseling field.

Dr. Kristin Chamberlain, assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Counseling and Higher Education, was awarded the Dr. Tommie Radd Professorship in School Counselor Education. The Radd Professorship will provide Dr. Chamberlain with annual research funding and other financial support and intellectual property to allow Dr. Radd’s scholarly work to be shared with school systems.

In this role, Dr. Chamberlain will be providing assistance and consultation to schools and districts that are implementing the Grow with Guidance (GWG) System, which helps create an overall wellness process grounded in multidisciplinary best practices within classrooms and schools.

Patton College of Education's Dr. Kevin Cordi, assistant professor of Teacher Education at Ohio University Lancaster, edited and contributed to the book "Tomorrow's Storytellers Today: A New Generation of Storytellers Assesses the State of the Art,"  which received the Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award. The award seeks to highlight and promote distinguished titles published in the field of storytelling, and only 13 titles are honored in each two-year award period.

Dr. Stephen Harvey, professor of coaching, health, and physical education, is a renowned scholar in the field of coaching education. He recently co-authored a series of articles for coaches and coaching educators published on the U.S. Soccer Learning Center website: “Making Learning Happen Part 1: Defining Cognitive Load Theory”; “Making Learning Happen Pt. 2A: Optimizing Intrinsic Load Through Spacing & Retrieval Practice”; “Making Learning Happen Part 2B: Optimizing Intrinsic Load Through Scaffolding”: “Making Learning Happen Pt. 3: Reducing Extraneous Load During Coaching Interactions”

Harvey also spoke at the North American Coach Development Summit, serving on panel discussions on the topics of "Undergraduate and Graduate Sports Coaching Students Perceptions of Two Coaches Coaching Approach"; "Making Learning Happen in Coaching and Coach Education"; and "Using Cognitive Load to Make Learning Happen in Coaching and Coach Education."

School of Media Arts and Studies Director Josh Antonuccio has been nominated and featured in the 2024 Digilogue Community Class. Featuring creatives and executives who have positively impacted the music industry, nominated by The Digilogue community. Antonuccio is the director of the annual Music Industry Summit hosted on OHIO’s Athens campus, which brings industry professionals to perform, instruct and mentor students who aspire to careers in the music industry.

The article "Painting the Way Forward: An Ecological Cultural Visual Analysis of Anti-VAW Public Art in Rural Ecuador" was published in the journal Violence Against Women by Dr. Benjamin Bates and James Pepper Kelly and Carolina Herrera-Céspedes, doctoral students in the School of Communication Studies. The study completes a cultural visual analysis of anti-violence-against women (VAW) public art in a small Ecuadorian city and identifies four specific strategies for constructing public art messaging to help achieve freedom from VAW.

Chuck Borghese will be returning to OHIO’s Scripps College of Communication this fall as a Scripps Visiting Professor in strategic communication and managing director of the new Student Strategic Communication Agency.

On August 8, Dr. Laeeq Khan, associate professor and director of the Social Media Analytics Research Team (SMART) Lab, led a research panel at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC24) conference in Philadelphia.

The panel, "Leveraging AI for Enhanced Data Analysis and Visualization," focused on leveraging cutting-edge AI applications for advanced data analysis and visualization.

Dr. Sarah Davis published a research paper regarding the restorative and sustainable properties of Giant Miscanthus, a non-invasive sterile hybrid grass that is used as a building material and biofuel. Samuel Adu Fosu, a recent graduate from the Master of Science in Environmental Studies (MSES) program, co-authored the manuscript, titled “Decadal change in soil carbon and nitrogen with a Miscanthus × giganteus crop on abandoned agricultural land in southeast Ohio.”

The study found that giant miscanthus crops grown on abandoned agricultural land remove carbon from the atmosphere and store that carbon in the soil. Carbon sequestration was measured over 10 years and occurs even with annual harvesting of large amounts of biomass; that no fertilizer or chemical inputs are required to maintain the crop; and that the biomass can be used to make biofuel, bioproducts, or sustainable roofing material. The crop was grown on The Ridges in the Land Laboratory on Ohio University's main campus.

A paper titled “Measuring the Adsorption Cross Section of YOYO-1 to Immobilized DNA Molecules” from a research group in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department has been accepted by the Journal of Physical Chemistry B. The papers co-authors are graduate students Srijana Pandey, Dinesh Gautam and Associate Professor of Chemistry Jixin Chen.

In April, the Physics and Astronomy Graduate Students Association honored Distinguished Professor David Drabold during the second annual Outstanding Professor Annual Awards Ceremony. 

The ceremony is an opportunity for students to honor professors who have gone above and beyond in their support and mentorship for students.

Julia Paxton, professor of economics and undergraduate chair in the College of Arts and Sciences, has won the Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Award, focusing on the topic of inequality. Paxton’s Economics of Poverty class will be paired with a class taught by a professor from Queen's University in Belfast, and each faculty member will visit the other’s institution over the course of the year.