CLAS Faculty Colloquia

Friday, October 20, 2023, 2:30 – 5:00 pm
Padnos 308, Allendale Campus

Please join your colleagues for collegial, corporeal, and cerebral refreshment. Refreshments will be served at 2:30 pm and presentations begin at 3:00 pm. The speakers and topics will be:

• Mark Luttenton (Annis Water Resources Institute) “Recent rapid changes in Higgins Lake.”
• Melissa Morison (Classics) “Aspects of Roman Tile Production Technology at the Sanctuary of Poseidon.”
• Matthew Cooper (Biology) “Taking the Pulse of Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands: 13 Years of Basin-Wide Ecological Monitoring.”

Philosophy Colloquium and Retirement Celebration for Professor Peimin Ni
Friday, December 8, 2023 3:00 - 4:15pm
Mackinac Hall MAK BL-L110

Please join us for Prof. Peimin Ni’s final colloquium presentation as a regular professor at GVSU, and for a celebration of his work and contributions in honor of his retirement afterward. The talk is open to the GVSU and broader community and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.  Colloquium Talk title: "From Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ to the Confucian idea of ‘banality of good’" The Retirement Celebration will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 pm at the Alumni House near the entrance to GVSU’s main Allendale Campus. Please join us in celebrating Professor Ni’s career and accomplishments, and in wishing him well on his next steps. Light refreshments will be served.

Thursday, February 16, 2024 2:30 – 5:00 pm
308 Padnos, Allendale Campus

Please join your colleagues for collegial, corporeal, and cerebral refreshment. Refreshments will be served at 2:30 pm and presentations begin at 3:00 pm. The speakers and topics will be:

• Michael Wolfe (Psychology) “What happens when beliefs change”
• Elizabeth Gansen (Modern Languages and Literatures) “American Anteaters Lost and Found: The Rediscovery of a 16th century Natural History Book”
• Martin Burg (Biomedical Science) What is that substance in the male prostate?  In vivo confirmation of a new histamine metabolic pathway through a CRISPR mutagenesis approach in Drosophila

January 20, 2022
Amy Russell (Biology) “Trust (the studbook) but verify: African painted dogs in captivity”.
Sofia Karampagia (Physics) “The level densities of atomic nuclei and their role in nucleosynthesis.”
Ian Winkelstern (Geology) “The last time the world warmed: New Interglacial fossils and climate data from South Carolina.”

March 17, 2022 
Brian Smith (Chemistry) “Understanding mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in bacteria.” 
David Álvarez (English) “Reclaiming the Strait of Gibraltar? French Rapper AbdelMalik's Journey to Morocco.” 
John Weber (Geology) “Trinidad and Tobago Geogenomics: reconciling and synthesizing published genetics data into a comprehensive geologic, paleogeographic and geomorphic model.” 

September 17, 2021
Dominic P. Nanni (Writing) “Rhetoric and the Practice of Liberal Education.”
Pei-Lan Tsou (Cell and Molecular Biology) “Detection of the SARS-CoV2 virus via Digital Droplet PCR in Wastewater.”

October 15, 2021
Michael Wolfe (Psychology) “Are we aware of changes to our health?”
Peter Zhang (Communication Studies – School of Communications) "Of Interlinguality and Translation."
Imran Mazid (Advertising and Public Relations – School of Communications) “Facebook and Instagram to Tackle Covid-19: An Analysis of Social Media Strategies of Top Hospitals in Australia, Canada, U.S.A., and U.K.”.

November 19, 2021
Alisha Karabinus (Writing & Digital Studies) “Working at Play: Reports from a Survey of Game Design Professionals on Student Hobbyist Experience”
Will Bowers (Biology) “New considerations for investigating tree water use”
Mario Fific (Psychology) “Two faces of facial holistic perception”

September 18, 2020
Alice Chapman (History): The “Double Leprosy of the Heart” and Images of Spiritual Illness.
Matt Christians (Cell and Molecular Biology): Breaking Down Light Responses in Plants
Brian Lakey (Psychology): The Power of Personal Relationships for Mental Health, Personality and Performance

October 16, 2020
Kristin Hedges (Anthropology)
Imran Mazid (Advertising and Public Relations Program, School of Communications)
Peter Zhang (Communications Studies)

November 20, 2020
Erik Nordman (Biology) “The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom: Essential Lessons for Collective Action."
Kody Wallace (Music, Theater and Dance) “The Role of Gesture in Perceptions of Expressivity and Technique in Solo Vocal Music.” [Postponed until Jan. 28]
Ross Sherman and Brian Hatzel (Movement Science) “Use of Whole-Body Segmental Bioimpedance Analysis to Detect Soft-Tissue Injury in Collegiate Athletes”

January 28, 2021
Pablo Mahave-Veglia (Music, Theater and Dance) “The Cello Concerto by Leo Sowerby.”
Kirsten Strom (Visual & Media Arts) “Bomarzo: A Musical Tour of Italy’s Park of the Monsters.”
Kody Wallace (Music, Theater and Dance) “The Role of Gesture in Perceptions of Expressivity and Technique in Solo Vocal Music.”

February 18, 2021
Peter Zhang (Communications Studies) "Flusser and the I Ching.”

March 18, 2021
Eric Harvey (Multimedia Journalism) “Who Got the Camera? A History of Rap and Reality.”
Leon Lou (Psychology) “Why do we draw things we focus on larger than they are?”
Sookkyung Cho (Music, Theater and Dance) “Schubert's 1817 Sonatas.”

October 18, 2019
Imran Mazid (Advertising and Public Relations) “Virality of Social Change Messages on Facebook: A Study of Advocacy and Relationship Building Strategies of LGBTQ Advocacy Organizations.”
Michael Lombardo, Pat Thorpe (Biology), Sango Otieno, Dan Weglarz, and Alyssa Hawker (Statistics). “The factors that affect Tree Swallow egg mass vary yearly.”
Corey Anton (Communication Studies) "Absence, Incompleteness, Negation and Non-Being in Language and Communication."
Mark Luttenton (Biology) “Higgins Lake: Ecological Status and Trends”

November 15, 2019
Rachel S. Anderson (English) “A System of Belief: The Biopolitics of Saints’ Relics in Late Antique/Early Medieval Christianity.”
Jeffrey Kelly Lowenstein (Communications) “Working with Students To Exposing Systematic Inequality in America's Reverse Mortgage Market.”
John VanRegenmorter (Geology) “The Sternberg Fossil Collection at Grand Rapids Community College.”
Steve Glass (Movement Science) “Compensatory muscle activation patterns during instability training using a novel, water-filled training device.”

February 13, 2020
Ginny Peterson (Geology) “How micro- and crystal lattice-scale observations can inform tectonic-scale understanding of mountain building: An example from ocean crustal rocks embedded in the root of the southern Appalachian Blue Ridge.”
Beth Gibbs (Music, Theater and Dance) “Applications of Co-Teaching in Elementary Music”
David Eick (History) and Janel Pettes Guikema (History) “Games as ‘defining moments’ of the college experience: The impact of reacting to the past in French”

November 16, 2018
Kyle Barnes (Movement Science) “Running Economy of Highly Trained Male and Female Distance Runners in Marathon Racing Shoes vs. Track Spikes”
John Gabrosek (Statistics) “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The role of race, gender, and radio consultants on radio airplay in 1960s Chicago, Il and Grand Rapids, MI – Part 1”
Len O’Kelly (School of Communications) “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: The role of race, gender, and radio consultants on radio airplay in 1960s Chicago, Il and Grand Rapids, MI – Part 2”
Sherry Johnson (English) "A Hope to Remember."
Dalila Kovacs (Chemistry) “A bridge (not) to far: Cheminformatics at the crossroad between Chemistry and Toxicology”

January 17, 2019
David Zwart (History) Being Dutch American during World War II: Efforts at Maintaining Ethnoreligious Identity and Institutions
Hermann Kurthen (Sociology) “Present at the Destruction. Findings from Interviews with Foreign Policy Experts in Washington, D.C. in Fall 2017.”
Allison Manville Metz (Music, Theatre and Dance) “Victors of Character at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum: Theatre for Young Audiences and High Impact Community Engagement”
Abdullah F. Alrebh (Sociology) “Education in Arab World: From Totalitarianism to Democracy”

February 14, 2019
Ten Big Ideas identified by the National Science Foundation. All of the presentations were given by members of the Physics Department
Joshua Veazey – “Quantum Leap”
Brett Bolen – “Windows on the Universe”
Ben Holder – ”Growing Convergence Research”
Richard Vallery – “A Convergence of Fields: Using Fundamental Physics to Understand Materials”

March 14, 2019
Al Steinman (AWRI), Sookkyung Cho (Music, Theater and Dance) and Hannah Seidel (Music, Theater and Dance) “Raising Water Awareness through Science, Music, and Dance”.
David Alvarez (English) “Infra-maritime travails: clandestine crossings of a Mediterranean Strait”
Quinn Griffin (Classics) “A Renaissance Reader of Juvenal's Satire 1”
Brad Ambrose (Physics) “For Every Action…  Having an Impact on Preservice STEM Teachers through a CLAS Faculty Exchange in Germany”

September 15, 2017
Special topic “Narratives supporting change—where science and storytelling meet.”
Brian Deyo “Strange Narratives for Strange Times: Eco-fiction in/and the Anthropocene.”
Elena Lioubimtseva  “Teaching about climate change at the time of alternative facts.”
Robert Hollister "Understanding What Climate Change Really Means"
Beth Peterson "Winged Words." 

March 15, 2018
Leon Lou (Psychology) “Why most people cannot draw accurately from observation.”
Michael Lombardo (Biology) “College-aged women that play throwing sports have masculine hands.”
Theodore F. Towse (Biomedical Sciences) “Quantifying Human Brown Adipose Tissue Mass and Activity.”
Abdullah Alrebh (Sociology) “Political Islam in Charge of a Nation.”

September 18, 2016
Michael Lombardo (Biology) "Why don't girls throw like boys? The ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of throwing in the genus Homo."
Devereaux Kennedy (Sociology) "How to make sense of the sense we make of social life"
Charlyn G. Partridge (Annis Water Resources Institute) "Utilizing genomic tools to explore diversity and adaptation in natural populations."
Marie Ullrich (Film & Video Production) "The Alley Cat, a Case Study." 

September 19, 2014
Dalila Kovacs (Chemistry) “Green Chemistry”
Rob Franciosi (English) “Remember Us”: Facing the Holocaust in Ben Hecht’s We Will Never Die.
Paul Cook (Chemistry) “X-ray crystallographic analysis of the bacillithiol biosynthesis enzymes.”
Brett Bolen (Physics) “Black Holes in Expanding Spacetime”

October 17, 2014
Bruce Ostrow (Biology) “Stem cells and stem cell therapies: potencies and potentials.”
Sebastian Maisel (Arabic and Middle East Studies) “Double Minority – Yezidi Perspectives from Syria and Iraq.”
Vandana Pednekar-Magal (School of Communications) “From Somewhere Else: Transnational Communities and Media.”
Daniel A. Bergman (Biomedical Sciences) “Toxin-induced behavioral alterations in the crayfish.”

November 14, 2014
Georgette Sass (Biology) “A good mutant is hard to find; so what to do with a misfit like the delorean mutant?”
Robert Deaner (Psychology) “Does the Sex Difference in Competitiveness Decrease in Selective Sub-populations? A Test with Intercollegiate Distance Runners.”
Sufen S Lai (English) “Taming the Warrior Shrew: Ethnicity and Malleable Loyalty in the Construction of Women Generals in Chinese Ming-Qing Novels"
Laura Stroik (Biomedical Sciences) “The evolution of dietary competition in the earliest primates.”

January 22, 2015
Joe Jacquot (Biology) “Raccoon roundworm prevalence in Southwestern Michigan”
Merritt Taylor (BMS) "Identifying Genetic Determinants of Stem Cell Differentiation in the Developing Embryonic Nervous System"
Donald Zinman (Political Science) "The Heir Apparent Presidency"
Kirsten Strom (Art and Design) “The Darwinian Uncanny:  Surrealism, Animals, and Evolution.”

February 19, 2015
Brian Deyo (English) "The Anthropocene as Thought-Event: What's New in the Environmental Humanities."
Kevin Strychar (Annis Water Resources Institute) “Climate Change: Why it Isn’t a Myth Perpetuated by Bad Science.”
Robert Hollister (Biology) “Impacts of Climate Change on Tundra Vegetation.”

March 19, 2015
Henry E. Duitman (Music) "Opera and Musical Theater, Life in the Pits."
Diane Rayor (Classics)  "The 2014 Sappho Papyri Discoveries."
Brian Lakey (Psychology) "Can Ordinary Conversation Account for Perceived Support's Links to Mental Health?"
Renee Zettle-Sterling (Art and Design)

September 20, 2013.
Cynthia L. Thompson (Biomedical Sciences)
Giuseppe Lupis (Music)
Benjamin Holder (Physics)
Mark Luttenton (Biology)

October 18, 2013
Gregory Maytan (Music)  “Scandinavia 2: The process of researching, rehearsing for, recording, editing and designing a self-made professional CD.”
David Eick (Modern Languages and Literatures)  "Dictionary Wars in Old Regime France: The French Academy vs. Furetière."
Martin Burg  (Biomedical Sciences) “Using Drosophila to study the effects of histamine deficiency on behavior.”
Levi Gardner (Sustainable Community Development Initiative) ”Biological Diversity, Agriculture, and the Liberal Arts.”

November 15, 2013
Jeffrey A. Potteiger (Movement Sciences and Graduate Dean) “Effects of macronutrient ingestion during and after exercise on substrate oxidation in women with varying body composition.”
Paul Murphy (History) “Humanism, secular intellectuals, and cultural authority in twentieth-century America.”
Sok Kean Khoo (Cell and Molecular Biology) “Circulating microRNAs: a new paradigm for Parkinson’s disease biomarkers.”
Richard Vallery (Physics) “Antimatter and Matter: Using PALS to Study Novel Materials.”

January 23, 2014
Brian Lakey (Psychology) “What can the social lives of college students tell us about inner-city opiate addicts?”
Jennifer Gross (Psychology) “Forecasting the Effectiveness of College Teaching: Student Perceptions and Quiz Performance.”
David Vessey (Philosophy)  “A contemporary version of the Book of Nature.”
Michael Lombardo (Biology)  “Why don't USA based scientists publish studies on the role of innate variation in athletic performance?”

February 20, 2014
John Gabrosek (Statistics) Digital “Textbook Publishing – The Case of STA 215”
Sheldon Kopperl (Biomedical Sciences) "Science from the Sages and Medicine from the Mystics." 
Agnieszka Szarecka (Cell and Molecular Biology)  "Computational Modeling of Mutation Effects in a Class D Beta-Lactamase OXA-24"

September 2012
Thomas Walker (Political Science)
James Smither  (History)
Corey Anton (Communications)
Giuseppe Lupis (Music)

October 19, 2012
Chuck Pazdernik - "'The Fates have given men an enduring heart': An ethic of sustainability in archaic Greek poetry."
Peter Wampler - "Sustainability of water supply in Haiti and capacity building through scholarships for Haitian students."
Sheila Blackman - "Seed banking as a critical tool in sustaining managed ecosystems."
Heather Van Wormer - "Extinctions, Environmentalism, and Ecovillages: Sustainability in New Zealand."

November 16, 2012
Henry E. Duitman (Music) "Thurmond's Note Grouping: Lessons for Conductors."
Kelly Ross (English) "Emily Dickinson and the Reflex Arc." 
Michael Wroblewski  (Anthropology) "Indigenous Amazonian Media in the Era of Constitutional Interculturality in Ecuador."
Stephen M. Rybczynski (Biology) "The effects of inquiry instruction of students' attitude towards an introductory biology laboratory course."

January 19, 2012
Figen Mekik –  “How has climate changed in Earth’s past and how does modern climate change compare?”
Craig Benjamin – “Big history and global climate change.”
Shaily Menon – “Forecasting global change: the ‘super wicked problems’ of land, sea, and climate change”
Elena Lioubimtseva – “Russia's role in the post-2012 climate change policy: uncertainties and contradictions.”

First CLAS faculty research colloquium
Toni Perrine "Nuclear Terrorism and Docudrama: Dirty War."
Brian Hatzel "Clinical Implications for Shoulder Stability: How can we incorporate current research."
Paul Cornish "John Adams' Contribution to the Republican Tradition."
Giuseppe Lupis "How to organize a successful International Music Festival in Italy with no funding: the Grumo Festival 2010"

Second CLAS Research Colloquium
James N. McNair
Lisa Feurzeig
David Eaton
Michael Lombardo

October 15, 2010
Austin Bunn (Writing) "Devised Playwriting: Experiments in New Play Collaboration"
Brian Lakey (Psychology) "To what extent is mentoring quality an objective property of mentors?"
Daniel A. Bergman (Biomedical Sciences) "Crayfish olfaction: why all the stink?"
Margaret Dietrich (Cell and Molecular Biology) "Flowering (in the lab) in the Sonoran Desert"
Geoff Lenters (Physics) "A Statistical Smorgasbord: Automated Decision Processes and Image Processing"

January 20, 2011
Figen Mekik (Geology)
Dan Golembeski (Modern Languages and Literatures)
Renee Zettle-Sterling (Art and Design)
Yakuta Bhagat (Annis Water Resources Institute)

February 17, 2011
Joel Stillerman (Sociology)
James McNair (Annis Water Resources Institute)
Jodee Hunt (Biology)
David Kurjiaka (Biomedical Sciences)

March 17, 2011
Thomas C. Pentecost (Chemistry)
Virginia Peterson (Geology
John Bender (Chemistry)
Mark Luttenton (Biology)

Friday, September 19, 2025, Refreshments at 2:30 pm, Presentations at 3:00 pm
Padnos 308

• Jacob S Sawyer (Psychology) “Supporting Individuals Experiencing Grief and Bereavement: An Evidence-Based Approach”.
• Chad Frederick (Geography and Sustainable Planning) "The effect of ‘missing middle housing’ on municipal unemployment: Change in housing stock diversity and unemployment in 145 mid-size U.S. cities."
• Meiling Zhou (Statistics) “A Latent Variable Model with Pairwise Likelihood for Association Analysis Using Multiple Types of Phenotypes.”