Vol. XXX, No. 2
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Publications
Yasemin Akbaba, Professor and Interim Chair of Political Science, published “Türkiye: Home State Reimagined” in States and Their Nationals Abroad, edited by Klaus Brummer and Sumit Ganguly (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024). This book chapter delves into Turkey’s relationship with its citizens abroad, with a focus on religion and public diplomacy.
Natsuki Arai, Assistant Professor of Economics, with co-authors Nobuo Iizuka and Yohei Yamamoto, published “The Efficiency of the Japanese Government’s Revenue Projections” in Economics Letters 244 (November 2024): 112035. We evaluate the efficiency of the Japanese fiscal authority’s revenue projections and find that one-year-ahead projections are not efficient.
Megan Benka-Coker, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, with co-authors Wenrui Qu, Remidius Ruhinduka, Maggie L. Clark, Ashlinn Quinn, Harry Stokes, Wubshet Tadele, and Marc Jeuland, published “The Use and Impacts of an Ethanol Cooking Fuel Promotion Pilot in Dar es Salaam” in Energy for Sustainable Development 86 (June 2025): 101692. This paper evaluates a natural experiment of the uptake of bioethanol for clean cooking from the large-scale UNIDO-sponsored ethanol promotion campaign in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The findings indicate that households adopted bioethanol, but it did not displace traditional cooking methods, in part due to the weak ethanol fuel supply chain and additional barriers, such as cost.
Dan DeNicola, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, published “Liberal Education, Moral Agency, and a Flourishing Life” in Human Flourishing and Higher Education, edited by Joseph L. DeVitis and Pietro A. Sasso (Leeds, UK: Information Age Publishing, 2024). This essay argues that liberal education aims to help students envision and pursue a flourishing life. A key component is the development and equipping of moral agency, which includes morally relevant capacities and skills, character, moral understanding, and the making of moral commitments.
Anne Douds, Associate Professor and currently Chair, Public Policy Program, with assistance from student colleagues Juliette Rhinow ’25 and Troy Ayado ’25, and alum colleagues Ethan Wilt ’23 and Autumn Chassie ’23, published Criminal Justice Reform: From Arrest to Bail Decisions (Flip Learning, 2024). This is the first in a three-volume series on the history, evolution, and current state of criminal justice policy in the US. Each chapter covers one phase of the criminal justice system, and concludes with recommendations for applied research and learning.
Pete Fong, Professor of Biology, with student co-authors Ava Crawford ’25, Aylin Doganoglu ’25, Jeyssi J. Huaycochea ’26, and alum co-authors Matthew E. Cerbone ’24, Eleanor V. Sandt ’24, and Sierra D. Turbeville ’24, published “Toxic Effect of Warm Temperatures and Antidepressants on the Righting Behavior of the Freshwater Snail (Physa gyrina) from Pennsylvania, USA” in Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry 107.1 (2025): 207–222. This paper documents the effect of climate change on the behavior of snails, which are model freshwater organisms.
Tim Funk, Professor of Chemistry, with student co-authors Cole Springer ’25 and Sneha Jayaram ’25, and alum co-authors Melanie Hempel ’20, Auden Cameron Lampariello ’22, Nicolle Elahian Lopez ’24, Kimberly McCaskey ’20, Kathryn Wnuk-Fink ’22, and Bryn Werley ’23, published “Selectivity Effects of Hydrogen Acceptors and Catalyst Structures in Alcohol Oxidations Using (Cyclopentadienone)iron Tricarbonyl Compounds” in The Journal of Organic Chemistry 90.5 (2025): 2036–2051. Alcohol oxidations to form ketones and aldehydes are an important, fundamental chemical reaction used to make many different types of organic compounds. This article describes our efforts to improve the sustainability of alcohol oxidations by using an earth-abundant iron catalyst and an oxidant derived from waste biomass.
Ian Isherwood, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, with co-author Steven Trout, published “But It Still Goes On: Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory at 50” in Journal of Military History 89.1 (January 2025): 155–170. Few books written about WWI have had as great an impact as Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory (1975). Upon the 50th anniversary of this seminal text’s publication, Isherwood and Trout consider the work’s legacy and its importance within the fields of First World War Studies and Memory Studies.
Amy Lucadamo, College Archivist, Musselman Library, published “Prehistory to Digital History in a Summer Internship” in Mid-Atlantic Archivist 54.1 (Winter 2025): 12–14. This feature article describes the work of our summer intern cohort on a large donation of stone tools including projectile points, scrapers, grinding stones, etc., collected in Adams County by Gettysburg alumnus David R. Johnson, Class of 1972.
Brian Meier, Professor of Psychology, with co-authors Benjamin M. Wilkowski, Emilio Rivera, Laverl Z. Williamson, Erika DiMariano, and Adam Fetterman, published “Toward a Comprehensive, Data-Driven Model of American Political Goals: Recognizing the ‘Values’ and ‘Vices’ Within Both Liberalism and Conservativism” in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 51.2 (February 2025): 167–184. When a person indicates they are “liberal” or “conservative,” an important part of what they are communicating is their goals for how they would like society to be structured. However, past theories have described these goals in dramatically different fashions, suggesting that either conservativism or liberalism reflects a divisive or unifying goal. The results of five studies suggest that Conservativism simultaneously reflects the unifying “value” of Tradition, as well as the divisive “vice” of Elitism; while Liberalism simultaneously reflects the unifying “value” of Inclusiveness, and the divisive “vice” of Rebellion.
Meier, with faculty colleague Eric Noreen, Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences, student co-author Michael Fellman ’25, and co-author Courtney M. Lappas, published “Perceived Naturalness Biases Objective Behavior in Both Trivial and Meaningful Contexts” in Social Psychological and Personality Science 16.1 (January 2025): 105–112. Research shows that perceived naturalness can bias beliefs about the positivity of items such as food, human talent, and vaccines, but this research focuses on self-reports, which leaves open the implications it has for behavior. In four studies (N = 492), we found that perceived naturalness impacts trivial and meaningful behaviors from chocolate eating to drug “injection.”
Meier, with co-authors Michael Schaefer, Li-Jun Ji, and Carlota Batres, published “Cross-Cultural Evidence for an Association Between Agreeableness and Sweet Taste Preferences” in Journal of Research in Personality 113 (December 2024): 04547. Research has shown that a preference for sweet foods is associated with agreeableness. We examined the replicability and cross-cultural consistency of this effect in four samples from different countries (China, Germany, Mexico, and the US; N = 1,629). We found that agreeableness was significantly and positively correlated with two different measures of sweet taste preferences in all four samples.
R.C. Miessler, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Musselman Library, with staff co-author Amy Lucadamo, College Archivist, Musselman Library, and faculty co-author Ian Isherwood, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, published “The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs: A Case Study of the Creation and Growth of a Collaborative, Pedagogy-Driven Digital History Project” in The Routledge Companion to Libraries, Archives and the Digital Humanities, edited by Isabel Galina Russell and Glen Layne-Worthey (London: Routledge, 2025). This book chapter concerns the development of a First World War Digital Humanities project at a small US liberal arts college. The project, based on a manuscript collection of documents, photographs, artefacts, and nearly 300 letters (primarily written between 1915 and 1919), was designed from the beginning to be truly collaborative, featuring the creative and scholarly work of undergraduate students, a faculty member, a librarian, and an archivist to tell a unique story from the Western Front. What initially began as a project to digitally preserve and promote primary source materials for a wider audience adapted and changed over the course of the centennial to become a teaching tool to promote the understanding of the war’s experiences through digital scholarship by students and staff at Gettysburg College.
Salma Monani, Professor of Environmental Studies, published “Foreword” in Cinema of/for the Anthropocene: Affect, Ecology, and More-Than-Human Kinship, edited by Katarzyna Paszkiewicz and Andrea Ruthven (New York: Routledge, 2025). This foreword introduces readers to the revisionary ethics of an essay collection which explores the world of cinema in a time of rapid planetary ecological change.
Monani published Indigenous Ecocinema: Decolonizing Media Environments (Morgantown: University of West Virginia Press, 2024). Introducing the concepts of d-ecocinema and d-ecocinema criticism, the book expands the purview of ecocinema studies, and not only brings attention to a thriving Indigenous cinema archive but also argues for a methodological approach that ushers Indigenous intellectual voices front and center in how we theorize this archive.
Heather Odle-Dusseau, Professor and currently David M. LeVan Endowed Chair of Ethics and Management, Department of Management, with co-authors Yi-Ren Wang, Russell A. Matthews, and Julie H. Wayne, published “The Wheel is Turning (and You Can’t Slow Down): Financial Hardships as Gendered Experiences and Financial Insecurity Trajectories” in Journal of Vocational Behavior 159.6 (June 2025): 104–115. We asked working adults in the US who were experiencing a financial hardship about their financial insecurity, health, and work-family balance over the course of three time periods. We also combined these data with community-level data on gender inequality. We found that financial hardships were more harmful for women than for men, and more harmful for those living in areas with greater gender inequality (in terms of the community-level gender wage gap).
VoonChin Phua, Professor of Sociology, published “Challenges in Creating a Data Set by Using Online Information: Analyzing Online Dating Personal Ads” at “Sage Research Methods,” SAGE Publications Ltd. (January 20, 2024, online). In this case study, I discuss major considerations and choices that we had to make as we extracted the information from the website. This case study is intended for researchers with basic computing skills.
Chris Suehr, Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies, published Lost Lutherans: Perspectives on American Religious Decline (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2025). This book offers a straightforward look at American religious change through the lens of a Christian denomination. Interviews with people who have left their home religion show the stories behind the statistics.
Don Tannenbaum, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, with co-author Briana L. McGinis, published Inventors of Ideas: Introduction to Political Thought, 4th Edition (Cengage, 2024). This book traces the development of political philosophy from its origins into the twenty-first century.
Jim Udden, Professor and currently Chair of Cinema and Media Studies, published “Film Appreciation: The Steady Rear Guard of Taiwanese Film Culture” in Global Movie Magazine Networks, edited by Eric Hoyt and Kelley Conway (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2025). This article explains the longest-lasting film journal in Taiwan’s otherwise volatile film culture. Representing the national film archive that publishes it, it has always recorded the key issues of Taiwanese and world cinema, but has not generated any controversy itself.
Randall Wilson, Professor of Environmental Studies, with alum co-author Alyssa Papantonakis ’24, published “National Parks and Wildlife Restoration in the Global North: The Case of Wolves in the United States and France” in The Changing Nature of National Parks, edited by in Joe Weber and Selima Sultana (London: Palgrave Macmilllan, 2024). This research offers a comparative analysis of the role of national parks in wolf reintroduction efforts in the United States and France. While Yellowstone National Park is often credited with influencing conservation efforts in the US and around the world, we considered what lessons the US might glean from the experiences of other countries. The restoration of gray wolves in France presents an opportunity to explore this question.
Ae sil Woo, Assistant Professor of Political Science, published “Legislative Configuration and Strength Through the Idea of Ends Independence” in Political Science 76.2–3 (2024): 1–15. This study examines the importance of understanding the overall structure of the legislative process to access legislative power vis-à-vis an authoritarian executive.
COMMENTARIES, BLOG POSTS, AND GENERAL-AUDIENCE PUBLICATIONS
Devin McKinney, Archives Assistant, Musselman Library, posted “You Wouldn’t Want to Live There: Chaos: The Manson Murders” at Critics at Large (March 21, 2025), a review of Errol Morris’s documentary of that title, the Tom O’Neill book which it adapts, and other works devoted to the Charles Manson case.
McKinney posted “Alone with David Lynch: Notes from a Séance” at Critics at Large (February 23, 2025). This essay revisits neglected parts of Lynch’s filmography in the context of his recent death and the passage of time.
McKinney posted “Genius Is Pain: A Complete Unknown” at Critics at Large (January 12, 2025), a review of the Bob Dylan biopic.
Salma Monani, Professor of Environmental Studies, completed “The Page 99 Test” for the Campaign for the American Reader at The Page 99 Test (February 8, 2025). The test asks authors to open their books to page 99 and assess if the page provides a good sense of the book’s overarching themes. The subsequent response provides interested readers with a snapshot review of the book.
PROFESSIONAL PAPERS, PROCEEDINGS, AND PRESENTATIONS
Yasemin Akbaba, Professor and Interim Chair of Political Science, participated in a workshop titled “One Hundred Years of Turkish Foreign Policy (1923–2023): Thematic and Conceptual Reflections” at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Chicago, IL, March 2–5, 2025. This workshop allowed participants to present their manuscripts. Professor Akbaba presented her paper on positionality of religion in Turkish foreign policy.
Akbaba chaired a panel titled “Active and Inclusive Engagement in the Classroom” at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Chicago, IL, March 2–5, 2025.
Akbaba participated in a roundtable panel titled “How to Choose an Appropriate Outlet for Scholarship” at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Chicago, IL, March 2–5, 2025.
Akbaba chaired a panel titled “Teaching Foreign Policy and Policymaking” at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Chicago, IL, March 2–5, 2025.
Akbaba chaired and participated in a roundtable panel titled “A Global Dialogue on Teaching Centric Institutions and Careers” at the 66th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association (ISA), Chicago, IL, March 2–5, 2025.
Akbaba, with student colleague Maria Christina Kardash ’26, presented a paper titled “Fragility of Freedom: Securitization and Religious Discrimination” at the Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, Northeast (ISA-NE), Baltimore, MD, November 8–9, 2024. Religious restrictions against minority religions are widely observed, including in western democracies, and with acceleration. Religious pluralism is particularly fragile in the regions experiencing significant transitions, such as formerly Communist states with the end of the Cold War, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) after the Arab uprisings. Previous research indicates tendencies to securitize religious minorities, especially when there is an unexpected shift in the security environment of a state. This paper investigates religious freedom tendencies in Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Maria Christina Kardash was a Kolbe fellow in summer 2024; this paper builds on that project.
Akbaba participated in a roundtable panel titled “Articles and Books: Demystifying the Academic Publication Process” at the Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, Northeast (ISA-NE), Baltimore, MD, November 8–9, 2024. This panel brought together journal and book series editors to demystify the academic publication process for graduate students and early career scholars. Professor Akbaba joined the panel as co-editor of International Studies Perspectives (ISP).
Akbaba participated in a roundtable panel titled “Teaching Contentious International Issues” at the 120th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Philadelphia, PA, September 5–8, 2024. Teaching about contentious international issues can be challenging for faculty. Such challenges can be exacerbated by heightened tensions caused by ongoing conflict, such as the war in Gaza. In this roundtable, experienced faculty discussed their approaches to teaching about such issues in the wake of exacerbating factors.
Kathy Berenson, Associate Professor of Psychology, with student colleague Shannon Walker ’25 and alum colleague Thea Albin ’24, presented a poster titled “Friend Support Preferences in College Students” at the annual convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Philadelphia, PA, November 15, 2024. This research examined demographic and personality predictors of preferences for different kinds of friend support strategies.
Berenson, with student colleague Waverly Smith ’25, presented a poster titled “Caregiver Emotion Socialization and Young Adult Wellbeing” at the annual convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Philadelphia, PA, November 15, 2024. This research examined participants’ recollections of their caregivers’ responses to their emotions during childhood as predictors of mental health outcomes in young adulthood, and showed that the association between these variables differed depending on socioeconomic status.
Berenson, with student colleagues Emma Anderson ’26, Carys Cook ’26, Abriana Larson ’26, and Saima Siddiqui ’26, and alum colleague Sydney Goldberg ’22, presented a poster titled “Effectiveness of Self-Compassionate Writing for Reducing Body Dissatisfaction in Young Women Exposed to Images of Idealized Bodies” at the annual convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), Philadelphia, PA, November 15, 2024. This experiment demonstrated that relative to writing tasks focused on body self-esteem or general self-esteem, a writing task focused on self-compassion was more effective for reducing body dissatisfaction in young women exposed to images of fashion models.
Alice Brawley Newlin, Associate Professor of Management, with student colleague João Branco Chaves ’25, presented a poster titled “Behind the Curtain: The Influence of Tourism and Production Costs on Broadway Success” at the 39th National Conference on Undergraduate Research, Pittsburgh, PA, April 7–9, 2025. João’s study explores the relationship between Broadway’s financial success, NYC tourism, and production costs. By analyzing data from 1980 to 2023, the study finds that tourism plays a crucial role in Broadway’s performance, while cost management, particularly cotton prices, also influences its financial outcomes.
Brawley Newlin, with colleagues Cheryl Gray, Stacey Kessler, Christopher Rosen, and Isabel Skovera, conducted a panel titled “Turns Out Researchers Are Human: Experiences Making and Disclosing Mistakes in I-O Psychology Research” at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Denver, CO, April 5, 2025. In this panel discussion, we disclosed various mistakes—ranging from minor and annoying, to major and career-altering—that each of us has made in the research process. Our hope was to facilitate a more open and honest culture of disclosure, to ensure a more robust, accurate science.
Brawley Newlin, with colleagues Kama Dodge, Kristen Black, Shane Fuhrman, Nita Prabhu, and Deborah Lee, conducted a panel titled “Navigating Career Paths in I-O Psychology: Nothing ‘Mid’ about Mid-Career” at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Denver, CO, April 4, 2025. In this panel discussion, both academic and applied I-O psychologists discussed their experiences and offered advice for folks entering the “middle” phase of their career (e.g., post-tenure).
Brawley Newlin, with colleagues Teresa Bui, Riley McCallus, Jackson Millard, and Nastassia Savage, conducted a panel titled “Realities of Multi-Disciplinary Work: Experiences of IOs Working with Non-I-Os” at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), Denver, CO, April 4, 2025. In this discussion panel, I-O psychologists working in a variety of sectors and roles shared their experiences and recommendations for working with experts from many other disciplines outside of their home one.
Brent Harger, Associate Professor of Sociology, presented a paper titled “After the Slur: Student Reactions to a Racial Slur Incident at a Liberal Arts College” at #ESS2025, the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS), Boston, MA, March 7, 2025. This research uses in-depth interviews to explore student interpretations of, and responses to, a racial incident at a small liberal arts college, examining how factors such as race, gender, and political views shape these interpretations and responses.
William O’Hara, Associate Professor, Sunderman Conservatory of Music, presented a paper titled “Tuneful Recollections: The Formal Implications of Self-Borrowing in Two Orchestral Works by Amy Beach” at OxMac23, the Annual Conference of the Society for Music Analysis, Oxford University, Oxford, UK, July 8, 2023. This presentation discussed how American composer Amy Beach (1867–1944) often rewrote her own early songs in order to use them in her larger instrumental works.
Jack Ryan, Associate Professor of English, presented a paper titled “Mile Marker Zero: Last Writer Standing” at the Fourth Virtual Joint Conference of the Literature/Film Association (LFA) and the Association of Adaptation Studies (AAS), February 21, 2025. Separated by fifty years, two short documentaries, Tarpon (1974) and All That is Sacred (2023), connect the sporting life with the artistic lives of Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, Richard Brautigan, Russell Chatham, Jimmy Buffett, and Guy de la Valdène. McGuane is the last person alive who participated in the Tarpon project, which was filmed in Key West. The conference theme was “Adaptation and Aging”; this paper was presented as part of a panel titled “Aging Climates.”
Ryan presented a paper titled “Showing Up: Kelly Reichardt’s Humanistic Art” at LFA2024, the annual conference of the Literature/Film Association (LFA), York, PA, September 26–28, 2024. Work occupies the center of Kelly Reichardt’s 2023 film Showing Up, specifically the dedication required to make art. Reichardt has constructed a career telling humanistic cinematic stories featuring characters who grapple with ethical and economic issues, albeit in understated ways.
Kerry Wallach, Professor and currently Chair of German Studies, gave numerous invited lectures about her recently published book, Traces of a Jewish Artist: The Lost Life and Work of Rahel Szalit (State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2024). She was honored to give talks at Wesleyan University, Smith College, Bucknell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. The UPenn lecture was given in commemoration of Kristallnacht/November Pogrom of 1938. The lecture at UT-Knoxville was the Abraham and Rebecca Solomon and the Ida Schwartz Distinguished Lecture on Judaic Studies, given on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Wallach presented a paper titled “Understudied Jewish Women Artists in Germany” as part of a panel on “Jewish Women in Austria and Germany, 1880–1955: Roles and Representations” at the 48th Annual Conference of the German Studies Association (GSA), Atlanta, GA, September 26–29, 2024.
Wallach presented a paper titled “Women Artists and Art Criticism in the Jewish Press in Germany” as part of a panel on “German-Jewish Women in Journalism and the Visual Arts, 1918–1938” at the 56th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS), December 15–19, 2024.
iewed on the New Books Network Podcast on April 8, 2023, about her book, Adapting: A Chinese Philosophy of Action (Oxford University Press, 2021)
ACADEMIC EXTERNAL DIVISION GRANT AWARDS
August 2024 – April 2025
Tim Funk, Professor of Chemistry, received a $365,616 grant from the National Institutes of Health for his project “Ionizable Triazine Lipids for RNA Delivery.”
Jena Meinecke, Assistant Professor of Physics, received a $12,000 travel grant from the LaserNetUs program of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Using the Phoenix Laser Laboratory at the University of California-Los Angeles, Meinecke will study high-repetition rate exploration of Biermann-battery generated magnetic fields in pre-magnetized laser-produced plasmas.
Ryan Kerney, Associate Professor of Biology, and Val Stone, Lab Instructor, Department of Biology, received a $4,998 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education for their project, “Science in Motion/Advancing Science.”
Kate Buettner, Associate Professor of Chemistry, received a $6,500 Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society. The grant will fund research at the University of California-Los Angeles using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) to develop a better understanding of the vanadium environment and to make initial myoglobin constructs.
Shelli Frey, Professor and currently Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, collaborated on a $616,215 grant awarded to Mount St. Mary’s University by the Major Research Instrumentation Program of the National Science Foundation. The grant is for the acquisition of a confocal microscope to establish a multi-institution core facility for undergraduate research and education.