The Academic Minute from 06.24 – 06.28
Monday, June 24th
Justin Schupp – Wheaton College
Farmers Markets
Professor Schupp looks at the intersection of social movements and inequality to examine how social movements influence, mitigate and perpetuate each other. His current focus is on the local food movement and the impact of farmer’s markets. His writings on the subject include the forthcoming journal article, “Wish You Were Here? Do Farmers’ Markets Contribute to Better Food Access in Food Deserts? An Examination of the United States.” Professor Schupp graduated from Colorado State University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.
Tuesday, June 25th
Gail Sahar – Wheaton College
Cause, Effect, Solution
Professor Sahar is a social psychologist who studies people’s reactions to controversial social issues, such as poverty, abortion, and terrorism. More specifically, her research focuses on the links between political ideology, perceptions of the causes of social problems, and emotions and attitudes toward those problems. “I am fascinated by the ways in which individual worldviews and culture shape political opinions,” she said. Professor Sahar earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California and her Ph.D. at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Wednesday, June 26th
Jeanne Wilson – Wheaton College
Unequal Relationship Between Russia and China
Professor Wilson is a political scientist whose principal research interest focuses on analyzing Russian and Chinese political behavior in response to both domestic and foreign policy challenges. She has written extensively on the relationship between the two countries, and she has testified on the subject before Congress. Professor Wilson’s scholarship also considers the politics of post-Communist states, and more broadly, issues of comparative politics and international relations. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan and her master’s and Ph.D. from Indiana University.
Thursday, June 27th
Dipankar Maitra – Wheaton College
Citizen Scientists
Professor Maitra primary area of research focuses on accretion inflows and outflows near compact astrophysical sources, such as black holes and neutron stars. His work attempts to shed light on the physical processes that lead to complex instabilities in these accretion flows, one of the most challenging and exciting fields in high-energy astrophysics. Before his appointment to Wheaton’s faculty in 2013, Professor Maitra held research posts at the University of Michigan and the University of Amsterdam. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Presidency College in Kolkata, India, a master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale University.
Friday, June 28th
Aubrey Westfall – Wheaton College
The Politics of the Headscarf
Professor Westfall studies minority politics and human rights, particularly as it applies to the politics of migration, women, cosmopolitanism and religious minorities in Europe and the United States. She is a primary author of The Politics of the Headscarf in the United States (2018), which investigates the social and political effects of the practice of Muslim-American women wearing the headscarf (hijab) in a non-Muslim state. She is currently investigating the politics of immigration in Scotland and Scottish views on the United Kingdom’s Brexit movement. Professor Westfall earned a bachelor’s degree from Westmont College and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in comparative politics from the University of Colorado.
