The Academic Minute for 2020.04.13-2020.04.17

The Academic Minute from 04.13 – 04.17

Monday, April 13th
Laurie Grobman – Penn State University
Humanities
Dr. Laurie Grobman is a Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Penn State Berks. Grobman’s teaching, research, and service interests center on community-engaged scholarship and teaching, bringing together students and community organizations to produce meaningful work while enriching students’ learning experiences. She and her students have worked closely with the city of Reading, Central Pennsylvania African American Museum in Reading, Centro Hispano in Reading, Jewish Federation of Reading, and the Olivet Boys & Girls Club of Reading. She founded Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric, now in its 15th consecutive year of publication, and the international, multidisciplinary online journal, Undergraduate Journal of Service Learning and Community-Based Research.

Tuesday, April 14th
Monica Menendez – NYU Abu Dhabi
Sharing the Road
Monica Menendez is an Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi and a Global Network Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at the Tandon School of Engineering in New York University. She is also the Director of the NYUAD Research Center for Interacting Urban Networks (CITIES).

Wednesday, April 15th
April Thames – University of Southern California Dornsife
Toxic Racism
April Thames is an associate professor of Psychology who studies how social context interacts with the brain to influence health and mental health outcome. She operates a translational neuroscience research program that studies the impact of chronic disease, substance abuse and socioeconomic disadvantage on neurological, cognitive and mental health outcomes.

Thursday, April 16th
Renee Penalver – Coe College
Cognitive Psychology
I am a cognitive psychologist interested in how the bilingual experience impacts different types of memory. In my current research, I investigate how word frequency and bilingual language proficiency impact source memory. Source memory is a type of explicit memory that is memory for context associated with an event (e.g., time, space, people, sounds, feelings). Similarly, I have investigated the effects of the bilingual experience on implicit memory. Implicit memory is memory that is automatic. I have also investigated other types of cognition (attention) and how it is impacted by bilingualism.

Friday, April 17th
Paul Dosal – University of Southern Florida
The Power of Predictive Data on Campus
Paul Dosal is the Vice President for Student Success at the University of South Florida. In that position, he is responsible for coordinating the university-wide student success initiative, a strategic campaign to raise retention and graduation rates, boost student satisfaction, minimize financial indebtedness, and prepare all students for success in their careers or graduate and professional schools.