Kudos (Spring 2025)
Featured Faculty
Students in Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Michael Beevers’ ENST 161 course published 16 opinion pieces on environmental issues in outlets including The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, The Portland Press Herald, The Sentinel, The Bucks County Herald, We-Ha News, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, The Hummelstown Sun, The (Sunbury) Daily Item, The (Uniontown) Herald-Standard, Valley News and the PA Environment Digest blog.
Professor of Biology Scott Boback’s research on rattlesnake behavior in Colorado was featured in France’s Le Monde and highlighted in NBC’s new nature documentary series The Americas. WGAL-TV NBC 8 also interviewed Boback as a preview of the national program. His research on how rattlesnakes drink, conducted with alumnae Madison McIntyre ’22 and Marja van Mierlo ’22, was featured in The New York Times, Science magazine and Observatorial.
Associate Professor of History Say Burgin penned the piece “White and Black Activists Worked Strategically in Parallel in Detroit 50 Years Ago, Fighting for Civil Rights” for The Conversation. The article, which explores themes from Burgin’s latest book, appeared in more than 40 outlets, including Yahoo! News.
Professor of History David Commins published Saudi Arabia: A Modern History. It received a positive review in the Times Literary Supplement.
Associate Professor of Spanish Eva María Copeland published two articles this academic year. “Afro-Spanish Countervisual Genealogies of Blackness in Rubén H. Bermúdez’s Y tú, ¿por qué eres negro?” appeared in the fall 2024 issue of the Journal of the African Literature Association, and “La madre patria: Domesticity, Empire, and the Affective in Eva Canel’s El agua turbia (1899)” was published in Hispanic Review. On March 13, Copeland moderated a discussion at New York University’s Espacio de Culturas@KJCC Center titled “Entre lo personal y lo colectivo: narrativas afrodescendientes en España,” featuring writer Lucía Asué Mbomío and photographer Rubén H. Bermúdez.
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Maggie Douglas’ research on neonicotinoid insecticides was featured in a new study on the decline of butterflies in Science. The study received widespread coverage, including in The New York Times and The Washington Post. The Food & Environment Reporting Network’s Buzzkill podcast also highlighted her work with pollinators and neonicotinoid insecticides.
Professors Lars English, David Jackson, Dave Richeson and Windsor Morgan published “Solving Introductory Physics Problems Recursively Using Iterated Maps” in the American Journal of Physics, along with three Dickinson students as co-authors: Kaden Sigmon ’25, George Vollmer ’27 and Emily Dunkel ’25.
Professor of American Studies Amy Farrell joined the Betwixt the Sheets podcast on the History Hit Podcast Network to discuss the history of BMI and fatphobia.
Senior Lecturer in Psychology Michele Ford’s counseling expertise was highlighted in a Washington Post article on how to heal after a breakup. The story also appeared in The Toronto Sun.
Adjunct Faculty in Political Science John Harles discussed the Trump administration’s immigration policies in a story in The Sentinel.
Professor of Psychology Marie Helweg-Larsen was quoted about her research into optimism bias in the German publication FOCUS.
Professor of Economics Ebru Kongar discussed the possible local impact of reductions in the federal workforce with WHTM-TV ABC27 and shared insight into the gender pay gap on the same station.
Professor of Biology Dave Kushner’s work on undergraduate virology and microbiology curriculum development, under the respective auspices of the American Society for Virology and the American Society for Microbiology, was published in two perspective articles in the December 2024 issue of the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education.
Associate Professor of Sociology Erik Love published “ ‘We Avoid the Race-baiting’: The Racial Dilemma and Advocacy for Public Transit in Detroit” in Ethnic and Racial Studies.
Visiting Professor of International Security Studies Jeff McCausland wrote the opinion piece “Pete Hegseth’s Only Qualification for Defense Secretary Is Fealty to Trump” for MSNBC.com. He also appeared on CBS News Radio’s The John Batchelor Show 27 times, discussing topics including the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the future of NATO, Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Department of Defense, a possible attack on Taiwan and other military issues. Additionally, he provided analysis on the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office clash for WPMT-TV FOX43.
Professor of German Sarah McGaughey’s appointment to the executive committee of the International Hermann Broch Working Group was covered in Germany’s Sonntag Morgenmagazin and Informationsdienst Wissenschaft.
Professor of English Jacob Sider Jost joined WITF-FM’s The Spark to discuss the Ides of March.
Professor of History Matt Pinsker and alumnus Cooper Wingert ’20 were panelists for the discussion “The Underground Railroad in South Central Pennsylvania.” The event was covered by the Gettysburg Connection podcast.
Associate Professor of History Emily Pawley was featured in Smithsonian magazine in a piece about Thomas Jefferson’s meticulous monitoring of the weather.
Charles A. Dana Professor of Creative Writing Susan Perabo published a short story, “Your Sixty Seconds,” in Literary Mama.
A new, free Ukrainian-language publication by Professor of History Karl Qualls was published by Academic Studies Press. The free download was made possible by an extraordinary subvention from R&D. This is a translation of his 2009 book, From Ruins to Reconstruction: Urban Identity in Soviet Sevastopol After World War II, published before the Russian invasion.
Associate Professor of French & Francophone Studies Mireille Rebeiz published “Assad’s Fall in Syria Will Further Weaken Hezbollah and Curtails Tehran’s ‘Iranization’ of Region” in The Conversation. It was republished in nearly 40 outlets worldwide and was the focus of a conversation featuring Rebeiz on Turkish broadcaster GDH. She also spoke with BBC News Arabic and the South African Broadcasting Corp. about the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Rebeiz appeared twice on BBC News Arabic’s Talking Point to discuss the state of the ceasefire and was featured in a lengthy interview on Voice of America about the future of Lebanon and Iran’s influence. She also wrote “Selective Outrage and the Palestine Exception” for Project Censored and appeared on France24 and South Africa’s Newzroom Afrika.
Professor of Mathematics Dave Richeson was mentioned in Science News Explores in the article “Viewing Math as a Language Might Help It Make Sense to More of Us.”
Assistant Professor of Africana Studies Naaja Rogers discussed the history of Kwanzaa on WITF-FM’s The Spark.
Professor of English Claire Seiler published two new journal articles: “J.G. Farrell’s Lost Polio Novel” in PMLA (vol. 139, no. 5, 2024, pp. 821- 36), first published online on Jan. 6, 2025; and “Realism vs. Modernism vs. Influenza” in Nobody Cares but Everybody Should: Toward a Smarter History of the Novel, a special issue of Studies in the Novel (vol. 56, no. 4, Winter 2024, pp. 408-15), edited by Sarah Allison and Megan Ward.
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Kristin Strock’s research on oxidation in glacial waters, conducted with alumna Rachel Krewson ’20, was featured in Phys.org, AZoCleantech, The Microbiologist, Tech Explorist, Eurasia Review, Mirage News and EurekAlert! WisBusiness also highlighted her research on glacial methane emissions in Iceland.
Assistant Professor of Chemistry Olivia Harper Wilkins ’15 had a letter to the editor published in Chemical & Engineering News, detailing her classroom discussions on how policy interacts with chemistry. She also published “Photolysis and Sublimation Chemistry of Ammonium Cyanide With Relevance to Cometary Environments” in The Planetary Science Journal.
Administrator Accolades
Associate Director of Leadership Giving Andrea Britton discussed the use of AI in advancement in an article in Trusteeship magazine.
U.S. military outlet DVIDS covered Executive Director of the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples Amanda Cheromiah’s keynote speech at Naval Sea Systems Command.
Wellness and Staff Development Coordinator Jeanette Diamond discussed how the college tackles loneliness among employees in a story for the CUPA-HR blog.
College Archivist Jim Gerencser ’93 was quoted in a HuffPost story on Native American tribes’ struggles to repatriate remains from the site of the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
President John E. Jones III ’77, P’11, has been a leading legal commentator across major media outlets. He appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and BBC News’ Newshour to discuss President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship and pardons of January 6 defendants, with the latter airing internationally on 490-plus NPR stations. He also joined PBS NewsHour and MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports to analyze Trump-related legal issues. Jones provided insights to The Guardian and Bloomberg Law on judicial security concerns and the litigation surrounding Trump’s executive orders. He discussed the Trump administration’s conflicts with the federal courts on CBS Mornings; CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, The Source With Kaitlan Collins and News Central; MSNBC’s Chris Jansing Reports and Katy Tur Reports; NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports; CBS News Radio and The Guardian. His analysis appeared in Raw Story, Yahoo! News and Portugal’s Expresso. In PennLive/The Patriot-News, Jones authored “Judges Should Not Be Writing Election Law” and was quoted on higher education and the Trump administration’s ban on DEI policies. His interviews with The Conversation on the attorney general’s role and Trump’s pardons were republished in USA Today, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The San Francisco Chronicle. He also spoke with The National Law Journal, NOTUS, WGAL-TV NBC 8 and public radio stations WITF-FM, WHYY-FM Philadelphia and WESA-FM Pittsburgh. Jones weighed in on Trump’s trials, trust in the courts and gun laws on WPMT-TV FOX43, while WHTM-TV ABC27 featured him on legal issues surrounding the TikTok ban and a York County police lawsuit. He was quoted in multiple stories on the passing of pioneering judge Sylvia Rambo ’58. Additionally, Reuters interviewed Jones about threats to judges amid calls for judicial impeachments from Trump administration officials.
WHTM-TV ABC27 covered Dickinson’s Green Gifts Workshop with interviews of Director of Sustainability Learning Lindsey Lyons, Jillian Mann ’26 and Lina Najdi ’28. The story also appeared on WDVM-TV Hagerstown, Md., and Yahoo! News.
College Farm Energy Projects Manager Matt Steiman discussed the anaerobic digester project with Penn State Extension’s C-Change Grass2Gas podcast. His appearance was also mentioned in Morning Ag Clips.
In Forbes, Executive Director of the Wellness Center Lauren Strunk discussed the benefits of animal-assisted interventions (like the rabbits at the Dickinson Wellness Center) for student wellness.
Kudos as of April 15, 2025.
Read more from the spring 2025 issue of Dickinson Magazine.
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Published June 10, 2025