The Academic Minute from 01.03 – 01.07
Monday, January 3rd
Guangqing Chi – Penn State University
Infrastructure in Rural Alaska
Guangqing Chi is a Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography and Director of the Computational and Spatial Analysis Core at The Pennsylvania State University. His research seeks to understand the interactions between human populations and the built and natural environments and to identify important social, environmental, infrastructural, and institutional assets to help vulnerable populations adapt and become resilient to environmental changes. His research has been supported by more than $50 million grants, including the $3 million multi-institutional transdisciplinary POLARIS project funded by the National Science Foundation, to investigate environmental migration and food security in response to climate change. He has published over 120 publications including more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, contributing to foundational advances in environmental demography and population-infrastructure nexus. His work is often collaborative and transdisciplinary, aiming to create significant impacts through the integration of research, education, community engagement and outreach, and sometimes international collaboration.
Tuesday, January 4th
Melissa Wells – Empire State College
The Prevalence of UDL Techniques in Virtual Formats
Melissa Wells is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Empire State College in the Educational Studies Department. She is an online professor and Subject Matter Expert in special education coursework at Liberty University. Prior to her work in Higher Education, Melissa was a special educator in the New York City Department of Education. She currently resides in New York City with her husband and three young children.
Wednesday, January 5th
Deborah Bennett – Berklee College of Music
Gender-Neutral Language
Deborah J. Bennett is a Professor of Language and Literature at Berklee College of Music. Her poems and translations have appeared in Salamander, Connotations Press Online, La GuaGua and elsewhere. Her prose has appeared on Edify, Only a Game and Cognoscenti among others. With Simone Pilon, she has co-authored and presented research on gender inclusive terminology in Romance languages Ideating Pedagogy in Troubled Times and at the Pacific Asian Modern Language Association Annual Conference.
Thursday, January 6th
Alanah Mitchell – Drake University
Planning for the Best of Both Worlds in the Hybrid Workplace
Alanah Mitchell is the Aliber Distinguished Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Information Management and Business Analytics in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake University. Dr. Mitchell’s research focuses on the design, implementation, and use of information and communications technologies (ICT) for collaboration, specifically in global virtual teams. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. Dr. Mitchell regularly teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of information systems and technology. Her research and teaching experience extends to executive education as well as speaking and other consulting projects.
Friday, January 7th
Arran Caza – University at North Carolina Greensboro
The Best Way To Educate Future Business Leaders
Arran Caza is an Associate Professor of Management in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at UNC Greensboro (UNCG). He also is a faculty affiliate of the UNCG Gerontology Program. His research examines leaders, with an emphasis on leadership development and effects of age on leadership dynamics. He earned his PhD in management and psychology from the University of Michigan, his MA in psychology from the University of Michigan, and his BSc in economics from the University of Ottawa. He has researched and taught on three continents, and had the opportunity to work with a variety of organizations, including Great-West Life Assurance, New Flyer, Manitoba Hydro, CH2M Hill, the RCMP, the Justice Institute of British Columbia, Bank Mandiri, and Support EXP. Before becoming an academic, he worked in program evaluation, health promotion, and law enforcement.
