The Academic Minute from 4.08 – 4.12
Monday
Moira Marsh – Indiana University Bloomington
Celestial Creatures and the Mythology Behind the Solar Eclipse
Moira Marsh is a folklorist and librarian at Indiana University Bloomington. She earned both her Ph.D. in folklore and M.L.S. from Indiana University and has published research on folklore and humor theory. Her book Practically Joking was published by Utah State University Press in 2015.
Tuesday
Megan Bryson – University of Tennessee
Buddhism and Gender Fluidity
Dr. Megan Bryson’s research focuses on gender and ethnicity in East Asian Buddhism. She has published the books Goddess on the Frontier: Religion, Ethnicity, and Gender in Southwest China (Stanford, 2017) and (with Kevin Buckelew) Buddhist Masculinities (Columbia 2023). Her work has also appeared in journals such as Asia Major and Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. At the University of Tennessee, she teaches courses on Asian religions, religious studies method and theory, and religion and nonprofit leadership.
Wednesday
Tri Than – Binghamton University
Creating Tools to Better Track Online Misinformation
Thi Tran is currently an assistant professor of management information systems at the Binghamton University School of Management. He holds a PhD in Information Technology, specializing in cyber security research from the Department of Information Management and Cyber Security at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He also obtained a Master of Science in Information Technology and Management, specializing in data analytics and IT project management from The University of Texas at Dallas. Before joining the information technology field, he graduated from a Bachelor of Business Administration program at the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, specializing in human resource management and strategic management.
He has been teaching management information systems courses since 2020, covering various aspects, including cyber security, information assurance, data analytics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, and IT project management.
Thursday
Eranda Jayawickreme – Wake Forest University
How Can You Become a Good Thinker?
Eranda Jayawickreme is the Harold W. Tribble Professor of Psychology and Senior Research Fellow at the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. He is a personality psychologist whose work focuses on post-traumatic growth, moral personality, personality dynamics, and well-being– research topics that are at the core of existential psychology. His research has been supported by multiple grants from the John Templeton Foundation, Templeton Religion Trust, Templeton World Charity Foundation, European Association for Personality Psychology and the Asia Foundation/USAID. His awards include the 2023 Early Career Contributions Award from the International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology, the 2018 Faculty Excellence in Research Award from Wake Forest, and the 2015 Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, the BBC, the Guardian, NPR (including on NPR’s Hidden Brain), the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Scientific American, PBS, CNN, and Slate. He is currently co-editor of Social Psychological and Personality Science and an associate editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: PPID and Personality and Social Psychology Review.
Friday
Annabelle Roberts – University of Texas at Austin
Why We Hate to Wait
Annabelle Roberts is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business. Prior to joining McCombs, she received her PhD in behavioral science from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Annabelle studies judgment and decision making in the context of consumer behavior, with a focus on motivation and self-control. In her research, she explores what leads people to make more patient decisions and feel more patient while waiting.
