Arts and Sciences Faculty Promotions Effective August 2024

• Sucharita Adluri, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies – Promoted to Professor
• Erin Avram, Department of Chemistry – Promoted to Associate College Lecturer
• Andrea Corbett, Department of Biological, Geological & Environmental Sciences – Promoted to Associate College Lecturer
• Maria Gigante, School of Film and Media Arts – Promoted to Associate Professor of Practice
• Thomas Humphrey, Department of History – Promoted to Professor
• Anne O’Connor, Department of Chemistry – Promoted to Senior College Lecturer
• Meshack Owino, Department of History – Promoted to Professor
• Todd Romutis, Department of Mathematics & Statistics – Promoted to Associate College Lecturer
• Shelley Rose, Department of History – Promoted to Professor

Arts and Sciences Faculty Awards

Outstanding Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award

• Bibo Li, Professor, Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences
• Shelley Rose, Associate Professor, History

Jearl D. Walker Outstanding Teaching Award

• Shawn Ryan, Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics
• Karen Sotiropoulos, Professor, History

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Yan Xu
Professor, Department of Chemistry

Publications:

• Simultaneous determination of three curative flavonoids and neurotoxic anisatin in star anise fruits by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Akshay Suresh Patil, Xingyu Li, Yan Xu*, Food Chemistry 429,136769 (2023).
• Identifying Bioactive Components of Astragalus Radix and Their Vital Protein Targets for Treatment of Allergic Rhinitis Through Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking. Akshay S. Patil, Yan Xu*, Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research 55(3), 47008-47021 (2024), BJSTR. MS.ID.008706. DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2024.55.008706.
• Mechanism of Guangdong Shenqu in regulating intestinal flora in mice with food stagnation and internal heat based on 16S rDNA sequencing. Yani Jiang, Zhenhong Zhang, Han Chen, Yanmin Wang, Yanrui Xu, Zijie Chen, Yan Xu, Jingjuan Wang*, Journal of Traditional Chinese Medical Sciences. Accepted 8 March 2024.

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Phillip Wanyerka
Senior Lecturer and Program Director of Anthropology, Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures

FieldWork:

• Supervisor and Principal Investigator. Archaeological Investigations at the Fort Hill Earthworks 2023. Conducted a Phase I archaeological inventory survey and investigation of the Fort Hill Earthworks as part of CSU’s summer archaeological fieldschool. Department of World Languages, Literatures, & Culture, Cleveland State University.

Professional Lectures & Presentations (Invited): 

• Paleoenvironmental Change at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex. (Invited lecture for the Cleveland Metroparks’ Symposium entitled Perspectives on Environmental Change, Cleveland Metroparks West Creek Reservation, December 12, 2023).
• Where the Heavens Touch the Earth: Recent Archaeological Investigations at Fort Hill. (Invited lecture for the Cleveland Metroparks First Peoples Day, Rocky River Reservation, November 5, 2023).

Monograph/Technical Report:

• Phase I Archaeological Inventory at 33CU1, the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex, Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation: A Summary of the 2023 Cleveland State University Archaeological Field School, Technical Report #16. Final Report submitted to the Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland, Ohio under terms of Cleveland Metroparks permits 2023. Department of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio

Grants:

• 2024  Supervisor and Principal Investigator. Archaeological Investigations at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex, Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation. Funds to hire students to help conduct archaeological investigations at an Early Woodland earthwork site located in the Cleveland Metroparks, Rocky River Reservation. Office of the Provost and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies and Office of Research, Cleveland State University. ($4,040).

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Toby Vera Bercovici
Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Theatre and Dance

Grants:

Grants received for the Summer 2024 production of When the Mind's Free, a dance-theatre piece about early onset Alzheimer's in conversation with King Lear, which will premiere in Western Massachusetts and tour to CSU in September 2024.

• The Irene E. & George A. Davis Foundation Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024
• Amherst MA Cultural Council Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024
• Hadley MA Cultural Council Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024
• Greenfield MA Cultural Council Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024
• South Hadley MA Cultural Council Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024
• Montague MA Cultural Council Grant for When the Mind’s Free, 2024

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John Van Stan
Associate Professor, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences

Publication:

• Van Stan II, J. T., & Simmons, J. (2024). “Hydrology and Its Discontents.” Springer International Publishing.

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Abed el-Rahman Tayyara
Professor, Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Publication:

• “Early Islamic Universal Histories”, in The Oxford Handbook of Universal History Writing (200 BCE – 1700 CE), eds. Daniele Miano et al (Oxford: University of Oxford Press) (Forthcoming).

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Xue-Long Sun
Professor, Associate Chair, Department of Chemistry

Dr. Xue-Long Sun will organize a symposium titled “Chemical Sialobiology and Medicinal Chemistry for Coronavirus Infection” during 2024 Fall American Chemical Society (ACS) Meeting to be held in Denver, Colorado, August 18-22. This symposium will focus on the topics of the chemistry and biology of sialic acids and sialidase in coronavirus infection, which includes Glycomics, Glycoproteomics, and Chemical Glycobiology of SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 Infection. Founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress, ACS is one of the world’s largest scientific organizations with more than 173,000 individuals in the global scientific community across 140 countries and with around 10,000 attendees at each annual meeting.

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Kiril A. Streletzky
Professor, Department of Physics

Publications:

• P. Herron and K. A. Streletzky, “Measuring dn/dc for Polysaccharide Microgels of Varying Crosslinking Density”, Journal of Undergraduate Research in Physics and Astronomy (JURPA) 32, 1, 30-34 (2023). /10.1063/10.0022472
• A. Titus, P. Herron, K. A. Streletzky, V. Uversky, B. Zaslavsky, “Effect of Trimethylamine N-oxide on the phase separation of aqueous two-phase systems”, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) 26, 10546-10556 (2024). /10.1039/D3CP06200G

both are coauthored by physics undergraduate major Patrick Herron

Conference presentations:

• “Analyzing Depolarized Dynamic Light Scattering by Solutions of Elongated Particles”, K. A. Streletzky, G. Nyabere, N. Nupnar, M. Hore, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 69(1) N00.00186, 2024 APS March Meeting (Minneapolis, MN, Mar 6)
• “Multidisciplinary REU site at Cleveland State University: Synthesis, Assembly, and Characterization of Soft Matter”, J. Bickel, K. A. Streletzky, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 69(1) J00.00065 2024 APS March Meeting (Minneapolis, MN, Mar 5)

Students' presentations at national conferences: 

• “Characterization of Polymer-Grafted Nanorods by Depolarized Dynamic Light Scattering with Genetic Algorithm Optimization”, N. Nupnar, M. Hore, K. A. Streletzky, G. Nyabere, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 69(1) N00.00083 2024 APS March Meeting (Minneapolis, MN, Mar 6)
• “Combining Light Scattering and Small Angle X-ray Scattering for Particle Characterization”, C. Douglas, P. Herron, K. A. Streletzky, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 69(1) F62.00010 2024 APS March Meeting (Minneapolis, MN, Mar 5)

Grant: 

• Marsh W. White Outreach Award to the CSU's chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) advised by me, "Outreach Totality: Eclipse-based Outreach-Teaching Experience" (American Institute of Physics, $600). The award supported 2024 solar eclipse outreach led by CSU students that a) trained Hathaway Brown high school students in eclipse outreach; b) delivered the outreach to CMSD students and general public at 5 branches of Cleveland Public Library.

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J. Mark Souther
Pr ofessor, Department of History and Director, Center for Public History + Digital Humanities

 Publications:

• Contextual introduction for Greenville, South Carolina, in Robert K. Nelson, LaDale Winling, et al., “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” American Panorama, ed. Robert K. Nelson and Edward L. Ayers, published Feb. 2024.
• Review of Seth C. Bruggeman, Lost on the Freedom Trail: The National Park Service and Urban Renewal in Postwar Boston (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022), The Public Historian 46, no. 1 (February 2024): 203–205.

Presentation:

• “Race and Recreation on Lorain’s Lake Erie Shore in the Green Book Era," Avon Branch Library, Lorain Public Library System, Avon, OH, Feb. 2024

Media Interview:

• Amanda Garrett, “Green Book Project Reveals Which Greater Akron Spots Were Safe Havens During Jim Crow Era,” Akron Beacon Journal, Feb. 22, 2024. 

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Shawn D. Ryan
Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Awards:

• 2023 CSU Distinguished Faculty Award for Teaching (April 2, 2024)
• Jearl D. Walker Outstanding Teaching Award

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Olivia Pethtel
Assistant College Lecturer, Department of Psychology

Grant:

• Textbook Affordability Grant: Encouraging and supporting the creation or compilation of low-cost or no-cost course materials. Grant through the Michael Schwartz Library. Amount Awarded: $1000.

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Meshack Owino
Associate Professor, Department of History

Presentations:

• Malcontents, Dissenters, and Chatterbugs: An Examination of African Response to Colonial Propaganda in Kenya during World War II. Presented at the African Studies Association Conference, San Francisco, California, November 30 - December 2, 2023.
• Roundtable discussion of the topic, Warfare without War? The Why and How of Operational Histories in African Conflicts, at the African Studies Association Conference, San Francisco, California, Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2023.

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Todd H. Nelson
Assistant Professor, Political Science Department

Publication:

• “That's Gonna Leave a Mark: Positionality and Secondary Trauma in Researching Mass Killing and Genocide.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. (2024)

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Lana Mobydeen
Assistant College Lecturer, Department of Political Science

Scholar:

• Pre-Law Advisors National Council (PLANC) National Conference Scholarship 
• Racheter DEI Membership Scholarship for the Midwest Association of Pre-Law Advisors (MAPLA)

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James (Jim) Marino
Associate Professor, Department of English

Grant:

• Awarded a Summer Stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

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Bibo Li
Professor, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences

Grant:

• Essential functions of Trypanosoma brucei. RAP1 (Grant No. R01AI179972) [National Institutes of Health]. December 2023 – October 2028. Total cost: $2,167,454. Indirect costs (IDC): $707,889.

Award:

• Outstanding Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award

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Elizabeth Lehfeldt
Professor, Department of History

Award:

• The CSU Office of Research Faculty Scholarship Initiative: “The Convent Household in Renaissance Europe, 1350-1650” funded $7,500.

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Nicholas (Nick) Klein
Lecturer, Voice Area Coordinator, School of Music

Award:

• National Association of Teachers of Singing 2024 Emerging Leaders Award

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Md Tareq Ferdous Khan
Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Publications:

•  Khan, M. T. F., Smith, D. F., Schuler, C. L., Witter, A. M., DiFrancesco, M. W., Armoni Domany, K., ... & Hossain, M. M. (2024). Circadian blood pressure dysregulation in children with obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep, 47(2), zsad254.
• Rabinowitz, Y., Williams, S., Triana, R. R., Khan, M. T. F., Hooker, K. J., Dubey, A., ... & Phero, J. A. (2024). Assessing the Efficacy of Buffered vs. Nonbuffered Lidocaine in Dental Extractions: A Double-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.
• Ahmmed, F., Hasan, M. N., Hossain, M. F., Khan, M. T. F., Rahman, M. M. & Hossain, M. J. (2024). Association between short birth spacing and child malnutrition in Bangladesh: a propensity score matching approach, BMJ Paediatrics Open. 8(1), e002240.
• McLaurin, W. S., Francisco, B. J., Hooker, K. J., Sheshashayee, N., Khan, M. T. F., Triana, R. R., ... & Krishnan, D. G. (2023). Antiresorptive and anti-angiogenic drug therapy in the pediatric population with reference to medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw. International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

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Wenqing Kang
Associate Professor, History Department 

Publications: 

• Translation (Chinese to English with Cathryn Clayton): Platinum Bible of the Public Toilet (公厕白金宝典) in Platinum Bible of the Public Toilet by Cui Zi’en, edited by Petrus Liu and Lisa Rofel, Duke University Press (2024)
• Book Review of The Specter of Materialism: Queer Theory and Marxism in the Age of the Beijing Consensus by Petrus Liu (Duke University Press, 2023) Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (2023)

Honor: 

• Visiting Academic, Trinity Centre for Asian Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Republic of Ireland, 2023-2024 

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Annie Jouan-Westlund
Professor and Chair, Department of World Languages, Literatures & Cultures

Conferences:

• Les écritures de soi, un objet transdisciplinaire ? Enjeux d’une définition et d’une approche historique et littéraire, Sorbonne Université, France, November 16-17, 2023: « L’écriture de soi à l’épreuve du social : Annie Ernaux, Edouard Louis, Didier Eribon »
• Culture de la mémoire et poétique de l’oubli dans la littérature contemporaine et extrême contemporaine : Entre héritage et transmission, Université Laval, Québec, Canada, Carnet Critique (online), October 30, 2023: « Faire œuvre d’un séisme familial : Le cas Lionel Duroy »

Invited Lecture/Workshop:

•  Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center, Cuyahoga Community College, March 1, 2024: “Intercultural Competence Workshop: France/USA”

Media Coverage:

• Slovenian Public Radio and Television RTV/SLO “Slovenski Cleveland” (Interview) September 27, 2023: “Slovenian language programs at Cleveland State University within the state of the humanities”. Click here for Podcast.

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Peng Jiang
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences

Grants:

• Awarded two grants totaling $1.14 million under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) more>>

Projects:

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)  AWD00001593 (801737)
Role: Principal Investigator (Total cost to PJ: $507,256
Period of Performance: 7/7/2023 – 3/31/2025
Modeling Wound Infection in Volumetric Muscle Loss
Contamination is a key factor leading to complications in wound healing, resulting in delayed and less-than-ideal recovery. This project aims to evaluate the microbial landscape of human wounds through metagenomic analysis and explore the impact of microbes on healing processes. Additionally, we will develop machine learning models to predict the wound healing trajectory (e.g., healed or dehisced) based on wound biopsy transcriptome data and microbial landscape.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)  AWD00001593 (801740) Role: Principal Investigator (Total cost to PJ: $507,256)
Period of Performance: 7/7/2023 – 3/31/2025
Novel Approaches for Mitigating Fibrosis While Enhancing Myogenesis
There is a tradeoff between fibrosis (the body’s attempt to close an open wound) and myogenesis (the body’s attempt to replace damaged or missing skeletal muscle) in the context of volumetric muscle loss (VML). Based on our preliminary data, we observe that fibrosis could not be effectively managed through immunological control alone, such as M1/M2 macrophage polarization. We hypothesize that augmentation of myogenesis is the key to controlling fibrosis in VML. This project aims to (a) assess whether applying HGF (a myogenic stimulant) to canine wounds improves muscle regeneration and (b) use a novel computational strategy that integrates reversal transcriptome, text mining, and our VML data to predict compounds specifically target the fibrogenic function of fibroblasts.

Publications:

• Astafev, A.A., Mezhnina, V., Poe, A., Jiang, P^#. and Kondratov, R.V.^#, 2024. Sexual Dimorphism of Circadian Liver Transcriptome. iScience. (^#Co-Corresponding author)
• Prabahar, A., Zamora, R., Barclay, D., Yin, J., Ramamoorthy, M., Bagheri, A., Johnson, S.A., Badylak, S., Vodovotz, Y. and Jiang, P. ^#, 2024. Unraveling the complex relationship between mRNA and protein abundances: a machine learning-based approach for imputing protein levels from RNA-seq data. NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics, 6(1), p.lqae019. (^#Corresponding author)
• Bukhman YV, Morin PA, Meyer S, Chu LF, Jacobsen JK, Antosiewicz-Bourget J, Mamott D, Gonzales M, Argus C, Bolin J, Berres ME, Fedrigo O, Steill J, Swanson SA, Jiang P., Rhie A, Formenti G, Phillippy AM, Harris RS, Wood JMD, Howe K, Kirilenko BM, Munegowda C, Hiller M, Jain A, Kihara D, Johnston JS, Ionkov A, Raja K, Toh H, Lang A, Wolf M, Jarvis ED, Thomson JA, Chaisson MJP, Stewart R. A high-quality blue whale genome, segmental duplications, and historical demography. Mol Biol Evol. 2024 Feb 20;41(3): msae036.

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Matt Jackson-McCabe 
Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies

Dr. Jackson-McCabe has been invited to join a small, international group of scholars for a symposium on “The Gospel of John and the Formation of ‘Jewish–Christian’ Relations from the New Testament to the Babylonian Talmud” funded by the Oskar and Signe Krooks Foundation (Sweden). The first meeting will be held at Lund University this September, and the second at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in Spring 2025. The resulting essays will be published in a book edited by the project’s organizers in 2026.

Publication:

• Jackson-McCabe, Matt. “Hebrews, the Catholic Epistles, and the ‘Parting of the Ways’.” Pages 89-109 in The Oxford Handbook of Hebrews and the Catholic Epistles. Edited by Patrick Gray. New York: Oxford University Press. (in press)

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Brice Grunert
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences

Grant: 

• Awarded a four-year, $949,830 project funded by NASA's Office of Earth Science and is titled "Validation of PACE OCI science data products across diverse optical and trophic gradients of the Great Lakes." more>>

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Stephen Gingerich
Professor, Department of World Language, Literatures and Cultures

Publications:

• “Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel,” introductory essay, excerpt, and annotated bibliography. Short Story Criticism, vol. 50, Gale Research, 2024.
• “Marc Crépon’s Literature/Philosophy of Nonviolence.” CR: The New Centennial Review, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2023, pp. 151–178.

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Melanie Gagich, Senior College Lecturer, Department of English
& Emilie Zickel, Lecturer, Department of English

Award:

• Inaugural Open Education and Advocacy Research Fellows for 2024-2025 awarded by Cleveland State University’s Textbook Affordability Grant Team.

Conference:

• Presenting the panel, “Open Access Practice and Abundant Opportunities: Interrogating the Creation of an Interactive FYW OER to Promote Student Engagement,” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Spokane, WA on April 5, 2024.

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Greg D'Alessio
Professor, School of Music

Professor D'Alessio had a world premiere of a set of Piano Pieces -"Elements" - performed by the Pianist Hsin-Ni Liu in Drinko Hall on February 26, 2024.

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Kathy Curnow
Professor, Department of Art and Design

Publication:

• “Benin Ivory Pendant Pair: Honoring an Ambitious Mother” was published in The Routledge Companion to Global Renaissance Art, eds. Stephen Campbell and Stephanie Porras, pp. 282–299. New York, Routledge.

Other:

• Roundtable discussion about teaching the global Renaissance at the Renaissance Society of America's annual conference in Chicago, March 21-23.
• Invited back to the South Porch Arts Residency in Summerville, SC for work on an ongoing historical novel about Liberia and the U.S., January 2024.
• Spent April in Messejana, Portugal for a second residency at Buinho Arts to work on an ongoing historical novel about Portugal and Nigeria's Itsekiri Kingdom in the early 1600s
• Provided extensive scholarly commentary for a legal conflict between the owners of a Luso-African ivory saltcellar and the Italian government's export office, January 2024.

Media Interview:

• "Did Three Benin Bronzes Just Turn Up in a Store in Alabama?" Interview for Freakanomics Radio Plus in October 2023 with technical assistance via Benjamin C. Richards and the Michael Schwartz Library's Podcast Lab.

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Warren (Chris) Boyd
Associate Professor of Practice, Department of Chemistry 

Presentation:

• Synthesis, characterization, and biological activity of transition metal azodioxide complexes

[Conference presentation]. American Chemical Society National Meeting, New Orleans, (2024, March).

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Samantha Baskind
Distinguished Professor, Department of Art & Design

Publications:

• “Audrey Flack: With Darkness Comes Stars.” In Audrey Flack: With Darkness Comes Stars, exhibition catalog (New York: Hollis Taggart, 2024), 8-15.
• “Cleveland’s Jewish Community Punches Above its Weight Class,” Tablet Magazine (February 20, 2024). 
• “In Tel Aviv’s ‘Hostages Square,’ a nearly 40-year-old sculpture assumes new meaning,” Jewish News Syndicate (January 25, 2024).

Series Editor:

• Dimyonot: Jews and the Cultural Imagination (newest book published in series):
• Volume 17: Kerry Wallach, Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit (2024)

Conferences and Invited Public Lectures:

• “Toward a Jewish American Art History.” David W. Belin Lecture in American Jewish Affairs. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (March 2024)
• “Moses Jacob Ezekiel’s Confederate Statuary and the Mutability of Meaning." Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (January 2024)
• “Censored by Princeton: ‘Jewish Artists and the Gilded Age,’” College Art Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL (February 2024)
• Session Chair, “The Aesthetics of Orthodoxies,” Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference. San Francisco, CA (December 2023)

External grants:

• Academic Engagement Network grant

Exhibition curated:

• "The Seventeen: Iron Flock" by Archie Rand Jerusalem Biennale, Jerusalem, Israel: March 18 May 9, 2024

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David J Anderson
Professor, Department of Chemistry

The research journal article with Dr. David Anderson of the Department of Chemistry as corresponding author, with student co-authors Prasad Gobburi and Eric Kipruto, is in the top four of research articles of all time (all years) in the number of views in the Journal of Liquid Chromatography and Related Technologies.

Publication:

• Gobburi, A. L. P., Kipruto, E. W., Inman, D. M., & Anderson, D. J. (2021). A new LC-MS/MS technique for separation of gangliosides using a phenyl-hexyl column: Systematic separation according to sialic acid class and ceramide subclass. Journal of Liquid Chromatography & Related Technologies, 44(1–2), 114–125.