Examination of Reentry Coalitions in Pennsylvania

Candalyn Rade

Psychology- BSED

cbr18@psu.edu

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/candalyn-b-rade-phd

I am conducting an examination of reentry coalitions located in 26 counties in Pennsylvania. Reentry coalitions are working in their county to address barriers to transitioning from the criminal justice system to the community, sponsor initiatives addressing successful transitions, and interface with local, state, and federal organizations. Through collaborations with local- and state-level stakeholders, this study is exploring the organizational structure, mission, and perceived role of reentry coalitions.

Isometric handgrip exercise training as an alternative approach to blood pressure regulation in African American men

David Moore

Kinesiology (BSED)

djm411@psu.edu

Diseases of the cardiovascular system including coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke are the leading cause of adult deaths in the United States. However, epidemiological evidence indicates that among U.S. adults, the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is greatest in African Americans (i.e., individuals of black African descent). Given that high blood pressure is a major risk factor for CVD and CVD-related mortality, the excess cardiovascular risk experienced by African Americans is likely explained in part by the greater prevalence of arterial hypertension in this population. Compared with Caucasians, African Americans also have higher blood pressure in the large blood vessel that exits their heart (i.e., the aorta), even when the blood pressure in their arms is similar. This can make African Americans more susceptible to complications from their blood pressure even if the blood pressure in their arm is considered “normal”.

My current research is investigating if and how well a structured form of repeated gripping exercise (known as isometric handgrip training) lowers arm and aortic blood pressures in men of black African descent. This form of exercise was recently endorsed by the American Heart Association as a potentially effective non-pharmacological approach to manage blood pressure. However, to date, African Americans have largely been underrepresented in trials of isometric handgrip training effects on blood pressure.

The Ambidextrous Pursuit of Strategic Information Technology Alignment and Organizational Agility in the Community Benefit Sector

Roderick Lee

School of Business Adminstration

rlee@psu.edu

http://personal.psu.edu/rll142/

This research integrates the literature on strategic information technology (SIT) alignment and organizational agility in order to examine how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) determine, plan, and implement their digital business strategies as well as design applications that provide high-quality donor and beneficiary experiences.

The Impact of Mental Skills Training on Adolescent Athletes’ Stress Responses in a Competitive Instructional Juggling Session

Candace Hogue

Kinesiology Department; BSED

https://www.linkedin.com/in/candacemhogue/

cmh454@psu.edu

The purpose of this research is to examine whether teaching mental skills to young athletes can buffer their stress response in a physical activity-based competitive setting. College students from Penn State Harrisburg’s Sport & Exercise Psychology Lab will be leading high school students through an instructional juggling session that is highly competitive and designed to trigger a stress response. There will be two groups of participants, including one that receives the mental skills training and one that does not. Psychological and physical markers of stress will be examined.

The Grip of Organized Crime and the Decline of Labor in America

David Witwer and Catherine Rios

School of Humanities, History and Communications

dxw44@psu.edu and car33@psu.edu

In 1949, in the midst of New York City’s crowded Garment District on a typical workday, a union organizer was stabbed to death. The brutal murder sent a message to the labor community that demonstrated the power and immunity of labor racketeers at a pivotal moment in the struggle for power between labor and organized criminals. Murder in the Garment District is the political history of that struggle, and its critical impact on American labor.

Our book examines this history within the Cold War context, extending well beyond the true crime morality tale to place organized crime at the intersection of politics, law enforcement, labor, industry, and journalism. This period marked a turning point in which organized labor’s image was permanently tainted, and an opportunity to curb corruption was missed. Through this history we demonstrate that corruption played a key role in shaping the complex power and decline of American Labor in the 20th Century.

Our collaboration joins historical research and analyses with the narrative strategies of creative writing to tell the historical story to a broader audience.

 

 

 

Translanguaging for Emergent Bilinguals: Inclusive Teaching in the Linguistically Diverse Classroom

Xenia Hadjioannou

Teacher Education, BSED

http://www.personal.psu.edu/xuh12

xuh12@psu.edu

This book considers the learning experiences of emergent bilingual students and visualizes translanguaging in different living situations and learning contexts.  Through vignettes, the book traces the challenges encountered by emergent bilinguals and the schools that serve them in monolingually-oriented settings, and illustrates a vision of how translanguaging can provide a promising alternative. The three authors of the book are bi/trilinguals themselves, and write from their own translanguaging experiences and the experiences of the emergent bilinguals and their teachers with whom they have been working.   The book starts with how the authors evolved from mononlingual language educators to translanguaging educators, and ends with concrete take-aways for translanguaging practices in different education settings and a call for translanguaging as an approach that is well-poised to serve the educational needs of emergent bilinguals in the 21st century globalized world.

Shoulder Joint Mechanics of Baseball Pitchers

R. TYler Richardson

Kinesiology Program, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education

rtr12@psu.edu

Shoulder injuries are common in baseball pitchers and require substantial recovery. A vast amount of literature has been dedicated to identifying those with greater risk of injury, developing strategies to mitigate injury, and evaluating surgical and rehabilitation programs. Unfortunately, limitations in the measurement of glenohumeral (arm relative to shoulder blade) and scapulothoracic (shoulder blade relative to thorax) motion severely diminish the impact of these works. The new shoulder measurement technique developed in my research provides individualized information on glenohumeral and scapulothoracic mechanics that can give a greater understanding of the risks of injury, enhance rehabilitative efforts, and aid in optimization of athletic performance.

This research project utilizes motion capture technology (used to make movies and video games) and real-time visual feedback in our newly complete Kinesiology Biomechanics Lab.  It would give an excellent visual presentation for a student video project.

Young Children’s Representations of Parent-Child Negotiation

Hannah Mudrick

Human Development and Family Studies, Behavioral Sciences and Education

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/hannah-mudrick

hxm99@psu.edu

Attachment theory conceptualizes children’s perceptions of others as internal working models (IWM; Bowlby, 1969). Children develop their IWM through their ongoing experiences with significant caregivers. It is through these IWM that children develop beliefs and expectations of others that affect their future behavior and relationships (Bretherton, 1990). One way that young children’s IWM have been assessed is through play-based story stem assessments that present emotional and interpersonal challenges, including conflict and mishaps (Bretherton et al., 1990). Children’s representations of adults in their stories can provide unique information about children’s understanding of how adults respond during these challenges.

The current work invited children to finish stories started by an examiner that involved parent-child conflict. The sample included children between the ages of 4.5 and 8.5 is the greater Harrisburg area. In addition to telling stories using Lego Duplo dolls, children also participated in assessments of their language and self-regulation skills. Caregivers completed interviews and questionnaires describing themselves, their children, and their experiences parenting and in social relationships. The goal was to examine how children represent negotiation between children and parents and whether this is associated with demographic characteristics, parenting behaviors, the quality of parent-child interactions, and children’s developmental skills and challenges.

Comparative advertisements and Schadenfreude: When and why others’ unfortunate choices make us happy

Ozge Aybat

School of Business Administration – Associate Professor of Marketing

oua3@psu.edu

Comparative advertisements often feature comical situations depicting the misfortunes of a consumer who uses a competitor brand. We examine schadenfreude, the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, as an emotional response elicited by comparative ads, as well as consumers’ beliefs in tempting fate. We show that comparative ads depicting the misfortunes involving a lower-quality competitor elicit more schadenfreude, and that this is because choosing a lower-quality competitor over a higher-quality brand is perceived to tempt fate and to be more deserving of the misfortune. Moreover, heightened levels of schadenfreude in turn lead to more positive attitudes and increased purchase intentions among consumers who are more reluctant to tempt fate.

Marianela: A New Translation

Gloria Clark

School of Humanities

gbc3@psu.edu

Marianela is an iconic 19th century Spanish novel written by Benito Pérez Galdós that has not been translated into English since the late 1800s. I have spent four years working on the translation and revisions. It is currently under a second review at Juan de la Cuesta Press, a scholarly press that specializes in Spanish language and literature.

GENDER MATTERS: LEADERS, SOCIAL NETWORKS AND NONPROFIT EFFECTIVENESS

Triparna Vasavada

Public Administration/SPA

tbv1@psu.edu

This project is a team project with Dr. Michele Tantardini in the school of public affairs. This project aims to study how gender influence social network characteristics of leaders of nonprofit organizations and the ability to create collaborative partnerships with other actors to achieve the organizational mission and goals. We propose that the outcome of creating these collaborative partnerships depends on social network characteristics – types of individuals (personal and professional actors) at the core and at the periphery of the network – and on the strength of the ties among the members of the network. To measure this, we plan to collect the data from 30 human services nonprofit organizations in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: 15 nonprofit organizations run by a female leader and 15 nonprofit organizations run by a male leader. Case selection will be based on the size of these organizations (number of employees and budget) and, following Rupasingha, Goetz, and Freshwater (2006), on the level of social capital of the counties in which these organizations operate. We will perform a Social Network Analysis to analyze the data. Follow up interviews and focus groups might also be used to better understand the studied phenomena. The findings will provide insights for leaders of nonprofit organization about the impact of their social ties  for their organization.

Eco-Evolutionary Drivers of Diversity in Toxic Algal Blooms

William Driscoll

Department of Biology & Science

https://sites.google.com/view/driscoll/home?authuser=0

wwd17@psu.edu

Biodiversity is shaped by the interaction of ecology and evolution, two processes that are often studied independently despite evidence that they can occur at the same spatial-temporal scale and influence each other. Yet, the importance of feedback between eco-evolutionary processes in the structure and function of diversity remains to be elucidated. We propose toxic algal blooms (TABs) are promising natural systems for studying how eco-evo feedbacks (EEFs) shape diversity in dynamic communities. TAB- forming species are easily cultured in the laboratory, and TABs show striking parallels with biological invasions in terrestrial plant communities. Our preliminary data indicate that TABs display significant evolution (genetic, phylogenetic, and function variation) in a manageable time interval (over the course of a bloom period) in a context where ecological consequences (such as toxicity) can be measured. However, the dearth of genome-level data for TABs is a significant gap in our knowledge that limits our ability to harness these complex, yet tractable, microbial systems for the study of EEFs. I am working with genomicists and theoreticians to undertake research to bridge this knowledge gap through integration of evolutionary and functional genomics, ecological experiments, and eco-evolutionary modeling to systematically characterize the integration between genetic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity in a toxic alga (Prymnesium parvum) and the plankton community subject to its repeated TABs. This research will address the following questions pertaining to a complete EEF loop: How does genetic adaptation (e.g. evolution of increased/decreased toxin production) affect the role of P. parvum in communities? How do changes in community properties (e.g. abundance of susceptible/resistant members) influence P. parvum genetic diversity and evolution?

Urban Stormwater Runoff

Shirley Clark

SSET Environmental Engineering

https://sites.psu.edu/shirleyeclark/

seclark@psu.edu

Stormwater runoff in urban areas is responsible for the destruction of aquatic habitats, the transport of pollutants, and flooding. The ability to understand the movement of water and the associated pollutants is key to creating a resilient and sustainable urban space. My research (spanning many projects and class activities) focuses both on advancing the science, especially in removing pollutants from urban runoff, and advancing the understanding of the next generation in viewing water holistically in the urban environment, especially where water stress is a serious issue.

Makerspaces, Fabrication Labs, and Interdisciplinary STEM Education

Tyler Love

Department of Teacher Education, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/tyler-love

tsl48@psu.edu

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) and creativity are critical to the future of our country.  Educating teachers to be able to teach students STEM concepts using the latest tools and methods is also essential.  My research looks at how we can safely bring some of the latest and greatest technologies (3D printing, laser cutters, etc) into classrooms to help foster innovation and prepare students to solve the challenges future generations will face.

The Body as Vehicle of Silence, Felt Solidarity, Imaginatively Deepening Reality and Speaking Truth in Poetry

Glen Mazis

Humanities; School of Humanities

http://www.glenmazis.com

glen.mazis@comcast.net

My latest Book, Merleau-Ponty and the Face of the World: Silence, Ethics, Imagination and Poetic  Ontology, explores the topics listed above but so so does my poetry, in my many published poems, and my poetry collection, The River Bends in Time, and in my newest collection that I am working on: The True Dimension of the Body, and my newest book, project: The Animal that I Have Always Been.

 

Crisis Management in Nonprofit Organizations

Lauren Azevedo

School of Public Affairs

lla41@psu.edu

I am currently working on a nonprofit case study for understanding the use of crisis communication in nonprofit organizations. The application of Crisis Communication strategies and theories is rarely explored in the nonprofit sector. With crisis communication focusing on preparation, adapted response, efficiency, and effectiveness, the strategies allow planners and stakeholders to focus on necessary community adaptations as well as the variety of crises they may experience. For nonprofits, crises do not always hinge on their participation in natural disaster preparation, mitigation, response and recovery efforts. In fact, the most perilous threat to these organizations surrounds reputation and the ability to remain effective and sustainable in the aftermath of an event to mitigate negative organizational reputation.

The purpose of my research project is to connect crisis communication strategies and theory to a nonprofit organization case study. The exercise focuses on a reputational threat to a nonprofit organization pre- and post-crisis to determine the impact of the outcome within the organization and among community stakeholders. I am working on implementing the case in a nonprofit leadership and management course and an organizational behavior course in the graduate program. The findings of my research have practical implications for nonprofit organizations and may result in better understanding reputational crisis and crisis communication theory in the context of community based nonprofit organizations.

 

Nature Writing

Jen Hirt

Humanties, English

http://sites.psu.edu/jenhirt/

jlh73@psu.edu

I’m happy to be part of a research video filmed outside, on one of the trails I regularly hike. This outdoor exploring is a key part of my writing process in the genre of nature writing. Whoever films me needs to be able to do the interview while hiking along with me and my dog. We normally do three miles. That means that lighting, sound, and distractions might be out of their control, but that’s part of the point. Locations could be Boyd Big Tree Preserve or Detweiler Park, both north of Harrisburg. If it has to be on campus, I will only do this in the abandoned Meade Heights area (where the old air force housing used to be) because that’s a spooky natural place.

 

Perceptions of Chronic Illnesses and Preventives Behaviors among Hispanic/Latino Men

Raffy Luquis

Health Education, School of Behavioral Sciences and Education

orl100@psu.edu

Hispanics or Latinos are the largest minority group in the United States.  While the leading causes of illness and death among Hispanics are heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes; their health needs continue to be poorly understood, especially among men. Data on Latino men’s health issues and preventive behaviors is limited as they don’t participate in health interventions and face unique barriers such as lack of insurance, work stressors, and cultural factors.  The purpose of this project is to conduct interviews with Hispanic/Latino men in Pennsylvania to assess their perceptions about chronic illness, health screenings and preventive services/behaviors, and cultural factors, which continue to influence preventive services and health care. Results of this investigation could provide a better understanding of the perceptions, health concerns, preventive behaviors, and cultural factors as related to preventive services and access to health care among Latino men.  The results of this study could support further investigations in the area of Latino men’s health issues and disease prevention.

 

Mapping the Local News Ecology of Harrisburg Area

Nakho Kim

Communication, School of Humanities

nmk5360@psu.edu

The purpose of this project is to build a framework for exploring how a diverse local community can stay well-informed about the civic issues in their own locality, by using a better combination of existing local news outlets.

The first phase involves mapping out the diverse media outlets carrying local news, ranging from mainstream mass media to prominent clusters on social networks. The second phase will research how specific civic topics spread among those outlets, and the discussion patterns therein. The third phase will involve finding gaps in that local news ecology, which once bridged through other communication efforts will result in overall better informedness of the community.

While the second and third will involve larger data-based research dependent on funding resources, the first phase started out by performing basic data collection about local media entities.

 

Cancer research on DNA binding proteins

Susannah Gal

Biology/SSET

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/susannah-gal-phd

Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled growth of cells or the loss of natural cell death processes.  Both of these aspects are controlled by tumor suppressor proteins that can be altered (mutated) in cancer cells resulting in the loss of regulation needed for normal cells and tissues.  One of the major ways these tumor suppressor proteins act is by binding DNA to allow genes to be expressed (turn on) or not.  My research team developed ways to monitor DNA binding and have used these approaches to analyze one of the major tumor suppressor protein in a variety of cancer cells.

 

Comparing Local and National News framing of #Metoo

Nakho Kim

Communications, School of Humanities

nmk5360@psu.edu

This research seeks to answer how representations of gender issues change between national and local news discourses. Coverage about the  initial stages of the #metoo movement by national news media and local Harrisburg news media  will be analyzed to explore differences in agency, narratives and framing in general.

 

“The Pure in Heart.” Mormon Education and the Colesville Saints, 1820-1836

Brian Zang

American Studies, Penn State Harrisburg

bfz1@psu.edu

The study of early Mormonism belongs in the field of American Studies—of this, there is no doubt. But, it also belongs in the field of Educational Anthropology. The interdisciplinary study of early religious education before the hegemony of public schooling in America fills a gap in the scholarship and speaks to a continuing need in a day when religious folk press for private school funding, school vouchers, charter schools, homeschooling, and even “un-schooling.” These issues are not new, even if earlier versions of the conflict had different watch-words under the broader banner of a separation of church and state. We have forgotten much of what it was like to live in a time when progressive democratic schooling was a mere dot on the horizon. Perhaps the progressives are right to suggest we’ve progressed past the dark ages of America. However, some sectors of public opinion have romanticized these bygone eras and have sought to dig up their curriculums for modern use. Without over-romanticizing past ways of knowing and being, my research goes a step further than curriculum rediscovery by attempting to reconstruct what early Mormons wanted their children and adults to become through religious education—in other words, I study what the culture of an early religious education looks like. I do this to give insight into the modern debate between progressives and religionists mentioned above. Do past educational cultures of religion speak in any way to modern concerns of public versus private education, or to competing cultural educations, for that matter? In an age before the roles of the church and the state in education became hotly contested, the early Mormons forged an independent pedagogy that borrowed from larger American ideals, but ultimately brought them into conflict with the rest of society. Additionally, this early Mormon pedagogy was markedly different than later Mormon iterations. Are the teaching practices, philosophies, and methodologies of early American religions, along with their curriculum choices, compatible with modern day notions of a pluralistic America? I begin with early Mormons because Americans so resoundingly rejected one of their own homegrown religious movements. This fact alone proves that research into early Mormonism is crucial in understanding our unresolved conflicts with religious education and religions in America today. Many of today’s concerns played out during this earlier time period, without permanent solutions, and definitely without a satisfactory outcome for one of America’s major religious groups.

 

Youth Violence

Eileen Ahlin

ema105@psu.edu

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/eileen-ahlin-phd

Criminal Justice, SPA

Dr. Ahlin is using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to examine the relationship between violence and communities, and how family management, peers, and youth characteristics serve as risk or protective factors. In addition, she is studying risk factors associated with violence among youth in custody in detention centers, jails, and prisons.  She is a co-recipient of the 2016 W.E.B. Du Bois Fellowship from the National Institute of Justice, for research examining the role of immigrant generation status and race/ethnicity on the effects of inner-city mobility on youth violence and exposure to violence.

 

Regulation of long non-coding RNAs in health and disease

Nik Tsotakos

nxt12@psu.edu

SSET/Biology

Our research attempts to shed some light in an understudied group of RNA molecules, the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA, for short). These molecules seem to play significant roles in the structure (and thus, the function) of the cells in our bodies. Dysregulation of lncRNA molecules could lead, or at least contribute, to disease. We have shown that a certain group of these molecules are dysregulated in diabetic kidney disease, and we are looking forward to understand the effects that this dysregulation has on the function of the kidneys. We eventually want to move on to other systems in the human body, and their associated physiologies.

 

Patient Decision Aids: Communication Contexts in Health Care

Russell Kirkscey

trk82@psu.edu

https://www.russellkirkscey.com/

English/Humanities

I study how and why people make decisions about health care. My focus is on shared decision-making, which involves equal participation between the health care provider and the patient in their discussions about treatment and management options. My research emphasizes bioethics, rhetorical analysis, qualitative studies, and communication theory to complement the quantitative studies established by biomedical practitioners.

My monograph, Patient Decision Aids: Communication Contexts in Health Care, investigates the rhetorical contexts of patient decision aids in health care. The chapters include the history of the genre, the role of patient decision aids in shared decision-making, patient and provider literacies, intercultural communication, visual design, and achieving informational balance. The audiences for the book are healthcare professionals, technical communicators, and undergraduate students interested in pursuing those careers.

I am particularly interested in foregrounding the need to balance practitioners’ knowledge of evidence-based medicine with the experiential and embodied knowledge of patients. This balance is challenging on several levels, including the need to address the disparity of traditional patient and provider roles. Health information technology has begun to contribute digital tools to access and deliver information that seeks to balance the contributions of patients in particular. Patient decision-aids, for example, give background information and prompt participants to think about how treatment options interact with their values.

More information is available under the research and publications tabs on my website.

 

Child Caregiver Interaction Scale (CCIS) (Carl, 2010) Compared to Arnett CIS (Arnett, 1989): An Updated Measure to Assess Quality Child Caregiving

Barbara Carl

bec109@psu.edu

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/capital-area-early-childhood-training-institute

Human Development and Family Studies/Behavioral Sciences and Education

My research is focused on improving early care and education. As P.I. of CAECTI, I oversee the training and technical assistance of child care providers throughout the region. My personal research focuses on improving the quality of interactions between the child care provider and the children in their care.

Books at Partners: Diverse Literature in the Early Childhood Classroom

Mary Napoli

mxn130@psu.edu

BSED- Teacher Education

Is it necessary to infuse diverse literature in the early childhood classroom?  Why? And for what purpose?  How can diverse literature be woven throughout the early childhood curriculum?  Diverse literature plays an increasingly significant role in the early childhood classroom, especially as communities become more global and diverse. In today’s early childhood classrooms, educators are faced with increasing demands to match curricular standards to the developmental needs of their learners. The overarching goal of this research project is to assist teachers in integrating high quality diverse literature to support instruction across the curriculum.  A group of early childhood educators and the researcher (Dr. Napoli) will incorporate high-quality selections of literature (across various genres)  to develop children’s understanding of their cultural communities as well as foster cross-cultural understandings. By including diverse literature in the early childhood classroom, teachers can facilitate and co-construct dialogue about differences, diversity, and respect. Through the use of multimodal text sets, or collections of connected books and resources, within the literacy curriculum, young children and their teachers will develop new understandings and respect for others. Considering the power that books hold for children of all cultures, teachers have a responsibility to select high quality books with positive and authentic themes that will facilitate identity development while promoting acceptance and understanding of others.

In order to become culturally competent citizens who value and respect others, every young child must have opportunities to learn about and understand the lives and views of people whose races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, family structures, immigration status, abilities, communities, genders, and sexual orientations differ from their own. Carefully selected, developmentally appropriate, and culturally accurate diverse literature can provide young children with access to authentic voices that communicate a wide range of emotions, attitudes, and experiences beyond those that are familiar to them. Moreover, diverse literature, when organized in text sets and linked across the curriculum, can open windows into aspects of the world in order to build empathy towards others while supporting interdisciplinary instruction. This research project will be developed into a book (contract received) and will serve as an important resource for teachers. Teachers are often drawn to books that offer simple and direct themes related to topics such anti-bullying, kindness, and making friends. Literature should include representations of different aspects of daily life within a culture, with particular attention given to aspects of setting and racial relevance (Yenika-Agbaw & Napoli, 2011). There needs to be a concerted effort by new and experienced classroom teachers to employ a critical lens as they face the challenge of finding quality books that feature multicultural content and reflect the demographics of their classroom. The children’s literature and resources featured in  this research project  will raise the standard for quality and sophistication in the kinds of stories we share with young children.

 

Now Hear This: the silence that started our scholarly interest in sound.

Catherine McCormick

cam336@psu.edu

Communications/School of Humanities

There has been a virtual explosion of interest in sound as an area of study during this century, but hidden inside that explosion are repeated referrals to a short list of twentieth-century individuals [Ong, McLuhan, Schafer, Cage] and a musical composition that wasn’t.

How do psychotherapists address religious and spiritual issues with clients?

Stephanie Winkeljohn Black

smw78@psu.edu

https://harrisburg.psu.edu/faculty-and-staff/stephanie-winkeljohn-black-phd

Psychology – BSED

The study explores how graduate students training to become psychotherapists approach religious and spiritual issues in session with their clients, and whether students’ biases around religion and spirituality affect how they perceive their clients.

Bronze Age Aegean Frescoes

Marie Cummings

mnp27@psu.edu

School of Humanities

As an archaeologist and art historian, I primarily focus on Bronze Age (ca. 3,100-1,100 B.C.E.) Aegean (Greece) wall paintings. We can earn a wealth of information from studying these images, including but not limited to: what types of organic materials/objects were used (think clothing, food, crops, pets!), what kinds of behaviors or acts were performed by ancient peoples, and their values. Part of my work involves studying plaster, into which the paint is added while still wet, from the site of Sissi, Crete. Another part of my work involves trying to learn about the roots of different types of imagery, like monkeys, and what that can tell us about ancient trade, travel, social relationships, technologies, and belief systems. There are plenty of different aspects of my research that I’m happy to help turn into your project — let’s find what you’re most interested in and go from there! 

No ancient aliens, please.