The Academic Minute from 06.06 – 06.10
Monday, June 6th
Vaishali Raval – Miami University
Conversations About Race
Vaishali V. Raval, PhD is professor of psychology and affiliate of global and intercultural studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Her research centers on three interrelated areas: i) cultural and contextual foundations of parenting with a focus on emotion processes and how they relate to child and adolescent mental health among culturally diverse families around the world, ii) global mental health with a focus on contextual understanding of psychopathology and culturally informed mental health training and intervention approaches, and iii) experiences of marginalization and their impact on mental health and well-being. Her teaching, mentoring, and service also reflect a deep commitment to global awareness, diversity, and inclusion.
Tuesday, June 7th
Christopher Junium – Syracuse University
A Sulfurous End for the Dinosaurs
Dr. Christopher K. Junium is an Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University. His work focuses on using the chemistry of Earth’s geologic record to answer questions about the evolution of life and climate over the last three billion years of Earth’s history. Dr. Junium received his B.S. in Geology from Dicksinson College and holds a Ph.D. in Geosciences from Penn State University. He was an Agouron Institute Geobiology Fellow at Northwestern University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and prior to joining Syracuse University in 2012.
Wednesday, June 8th
Stephen Bagwell – University of Missouri – St. Louis
Respect for Human Rights Declined During the Pandemic
Stephen Bagwell is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri—St. Louis. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of political violence-with a special focus on the economic factors that lead governments to repress or respect human rights, and how firms, investors, and consumers respond to rights abuses. His work has appears in the Journal of Global Security Studies, the Journal of Human Rights, Political Violence at a Glance, and The Conversation. He received his PhD from the University of Georgia in 2019.
Thursday, June 9th
Joyce Bennett – Connecticut College
From Migration to Empowerment: The Story of Indigenous Maya Women
Joyce Bennett is an anthropologist whose research and teaching focus on sociocultural and sociolinguistic issues in Central and North America, especially as they relate to social justice. She mostly focuses on the Kaqchikel-speaking population of the Western highlands of Guatemala, but she is also interested in other ethnolinguistic groups in the country and, most recently, some of their indigenous counterparts in North America. She is an advocate of community engaged learning and regularly connects her courses to local communities in Southeastern Connecticut. Professor Bennett is an avid supporter of multi-method and cross-disciplinary approaches. She firmly believes that learning and scholarship must be connected to the people and places academics study through mutual collaboration, service, and respect. Professor Bennett’s publishes at the intersections of language revitalization, feminism, social justice, and political economy. She was the Central American Visiting Scholar at the David D. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University in the 2019-2020 academic year. Her articles appear in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, International Journal of Women’s Studies, Maya America, and more. Her most recent book, Good Maya Women, examines how marginalized Indigenous Kaqchikel Maya women revitalize their Indigenous language and customs as a result of their migratory experiences.
Friday, June 10th
Jinglu Jiang – Binghamton University
Designing Better Human-A.I. Collaboration
Jinglu Jiang is an assistant professor of Management Information Systems at Binghamton University, School of Management. Her research focuses on emerging technologies, human-AI interactions, and information diffusion on digital platforms. She has published in various journals, including MIS Quarterly, MIT Sloan Management Review, Information Systems Frontiers, and International Journal of Human-Computer Studies.
