Faculty and staff achievements

Four Dana School of Music faculty members have combined talents to form the Dana Piano Quartet, featuring, from the left, professors Kivie Cahn-Lipman, cellist; Cicilia Yudha, pianist; Michael Strauss, violist; and Joseph Kromholz, violinist. The ensemble made its debut at the DeYor Performing Arts Center in September with a performance of Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25.

Martin Abraham, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, has authored a new multi-volume reference work, titled the Encyclopedia of Sustainable Technologies, and published by Elsevier. It is the first multi-volume reference to employ both Life Cycle Analysis and Triple Bottom Line approaches in assessing the wide range of technologies available and their worldwide impact.

John D. Bralich, Research Associate GIS and Data Services Manager, earned a Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design professional designation through the National Institute of Crime Prevention. Participants must complete 64 hours of instruction within two consecutive years. Bralich traveled to Greenville, S.C. for the basic training and completed the advanced training in Salt Lake City.

Kelly L. Colwell, assistant professor of Respiratory Care Programs and director, Master of Respiratory Care Program, Department of Health Professions, co-authored an article titled “Calculated versus Measured MVV-Surrogate Marker of Ventilatory Capacity in Pediatric CPET.” The article was published in the e-publication, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the monthly journal of the American College of Sports Medicine.

Janet E Delbene, professor emeritus, Chemistry, was honored as a “Top Author” by The Journal of Physical Chemistry at a special event in Washington D.C., as part of the ACS Fall National Meeting. The ACS “Top Author” designation recognizes the journal’s most prolific authors. Delbene retired from teaching in 1999 but has continued to pursue her research interests. In 2007 she published her 200th scientific paper, believed to be the most ever by a YSU faculty member.

Jeanne Elser, instructor, Film Studies, directed a play, titled “Burchfield’s Homecoming,” that was presented at the Salem Community Theater. The play memorializes renowned watercolor artist Charles E. Burchfield, who grew up in Salem and included many of the city’s buildings and rural scenes in his paintings.

Tim Francisco, professor, English, and director, Center for Working Class Studies at YSU, has been named to the Community Foundation Board of Directors. Francisco has helped develop and execute a number of community engagement projects, including The News Outlet, Up for Debate and The City Club of the Mahoning Valley.

Randall Goldberg, director, Dana School of Music, presents “The Kishineff Massacre and Domestic Musical Practice in America” at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. The presentation is part of the Library of Congress’ Lecture Series sponsored by the American Musicology Society and the Music Division of the Library of Congress.

Sherri Hrusovski, director, STEM Professional Services, recently arranged and participated in a panel discussion, titled “Building Bridges from High School to College to Career through Internship Experiences,” at the Ohio Cooperative Education Association Conference. Rana Abu-Hashim, a YSU student majoring in Chemical Engineering, was also a panel member. Hrusovski discussed a partnership that the STEM College initiated between local employers and the Chaney High School STEM program, creating internship opportunities for qualified Chaney students.

Robert Twomey, assistant professor, Digital Media + Art, won the Best Art Paper Award at the 44^th SIGGRAPH Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Los Angeles. He collaborated on the paper, titled “Transforming the Commonplace Through Machine Perception: Light Field Synthesis and Audio Feature Extraction in the Rover Project,” with Mike McCrea from the University of Washington.

Robert J. Korenic, associate professor, Civil and Construction Engineering Technology, presented a paper entitled Youngstown State University “Gateway Project” Rain Garden Design Upgrades. He made his presentation at the Engineering Sustainability Innovation and the Triple Bottom Line Conference in Pittsburgh, a national conference affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering and the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation.

Victoria Kress, professor, Counseling, Special Education and School Psychology, was honored by the Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio as a Woman of Distinction for 2017. Kress was among 20 women from across the region recognized for going above and beyond to make our communities better places to live, work, and raise a family. The annual Women of Distinction Awards Luncheon is also a means to raise funds for Girl Scout scholarships and financial aid.

Anne Lally, counselor, Counseling Services, was elected vice chair of the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board’s Executive Committee.

Christopher Leeper, adjunct instructor, Art, had 34 pieces of his original artwork in various media on display in the Ellen Nelson Gallery of ArtSpace in Lima, Ohio, a nonprofit arts organization. Leeper is a well-known Ohio painter and watercolorist and has conducted workshops for the Lima Area Watercolor Society.

Carol Lamb, director, School of Technology, has been elected to serve as a director on the Engineering Technology Council Executive Board of the American Society for Engineering Education. She will serve a two-year term that will run through 2019.

Joseph P. Lyons, associate professor, Health Professions, and director, Master of Health and Human Services program, presented at the World Nursing and Health Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. A keynote speaker, his presentation was titled “Acceptance by Physicians: A Temporal Replication of a Survey of Expectations and Experiences Speech Recognition Acceptance by Physicians.”

Nguyet Nguyen, assistant professor, Mathematics and Statistics, has had two papers accepted for publication. The first, titled "Hidden Markov Model for Portfolio Management with Mortgage-Backed Securities Exchange-Traded Fund," was published on the Society of Actuaries website. The project was funded by finance research grants from the Society of Actuaries. The second article, a collaboration work with associate professor Thomas Wakefield, professor, Mathematics and Statistics,and Dung Nguyen of the Ned Davis Research Group and titled “Using the Hidden Markov Model to Improve the Hull-White Model for Short Rate," was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance.

Gabriel Palmer-Fernández, distinguished professor, Philosophy and Religious Studies, recently published the following: an article, titled “Human Rights: Natural or Cultural?” in the Journal of Applied Ethics and Philosophy; an article titled “Just War Moralities” in the Journal of Religious Ethics; and a review of Ted A. Smith’s Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics in Reading Religion. In addition, Palmer-Fernandez’s English-language translation of a book, titled Anarchism in Latin America and authored by the late Argentine philosopher Angel Cappelletti, is scheduled for publication this fall.

Johanna Slivinske, part-time faculty, Social Work, was invited to present at the Ohio CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) for Children 2017 "Celebrate Kids!" Conference in Columbus. In her presentation, titled "Therapeutic Storytelling and Play with Children and Adolescents: Techniques and Triumphs," she addressed more than 100 guardians ad litem and CASA volunteers. Slivinske was also recently named co-editor of the academic journal Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping.

Fred Viehe, professor, History, has authored a review of the book titled Sex Workers, Psychics and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York's Underground Economy, that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of American History. Viehe was also a participant in a discussion, titled “A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order,” by Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, in Washington, D.C.