The Academic Minute for 2022.06.20-2022.06.24

The Academic Minute from 06.20 – 06.24

Monday, June 20th
Thomas Shohfi – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Are Immigrant Workers Impacted by Turmoil In Their Home Countries? 
Shohfi is an assistant professor of accounting and finance at the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research published in top accounting and finance focuses on fraud, investor behavior, disclosure, and capital markets. Originally from Long Island, New York, Mr. Shohfi is a graduate of the University Pittsburgh, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and New York University. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Financial Risk Manager designations.

Tuesday, June 21st
Marisa Zapata – Portland State University
Striving for Equity in Your Process: A Music Analogy
Dr. Marisa Zapata is an Associate Professor of Land-Use Planning at Portland State University and Director of PSU’s Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative. As an educator, scholar, and planner, Dr. Zapata is committed to achieving spatially – based social justice by preparing planners to act in the face of the uncertain and inequitable futures we face. She believes how we use land reflects our social and cultural values.

Dr. Zapata received her Ph.D. in Regional Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, her M.U.P. in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and B.A. in Anthropology from Rice University.

Wednesday, June 22nd
Linda Charmaraman – Wellesley College
For LGBTQ Youth, Social Media Can Have Unexpected Benefits
Linda Charmaraman, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College and director of the Youth, Media & Wellbeing Research Lab. Her research interests include technology and adolescent health, digital citizenship, innovative research methods to include overlooked and hidden populations, and how social identities such as gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and political affiliation affect wellbeing.

Thursday, June 23rd
Steven Walkley – Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Rare Disease: When The Diagnoses Is Not The Answer
Dr. Walkley has focused his career on the study of rare genetic brain diseases.  Most notably these have involved so-called “storage” diseases like Tay-Sachs, Salla, and Niemann-Pick disorders caused by inherited defects in the recycling (lysosomal) system of cells.  This interest began during his early training in veterinary and comparative medicine and with the identification and development of these diseases in domesticated and laboratory animals.  Educated at universities in his native state of Alabama, Dr. Walkley also carried out postgraduate studies at Auckland University in New Zealand, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Dr. Walkley joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1982 and today is professor in the Departments of Neuroscience, Pathology and Neurology and Director of the Sidney Weisner Laboratory of Genetic Neurological Disease.  In 2010 he was named Director of the Rose F. Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center at Einstein.

Friday, June 24th
Dena Davis – Lehigh University
What Americans Would Want, If They Were Diagnosed with Dementia
Dena S. Davis is professor emerita at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, and is now a professor at Lehigh University, where she teaches primarily courses in bioethics.  She has been a visiting scholar at NIH, Arizona State University, The Hastings Center, and the Brocher Foundation.  She has been a Fulbright Scholar in Israel, India, Indonesia, Italy, and Sweden.  Her research partner for this project is Lauren Dennelly, a graduate student at Bryn Mawr.