Academic Minute from 3.26 – 3.30
Monday, April 2nd
Shannon Pruden – Florida International University
Gender Gap in STEM
Dr. Pruden’s primary research interests lie at the intersection between developmental psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, and education. Employing a variety of methodologies (e.g., eye-tracking and naturalistic studies of language), and age groups (0-5 years), her research focuses on the development of early language abilities, with an emphasis on the growth of children’s spatial language. More specifically, she has been examining which factors influence children’s early language development, such as the role of cognitive, biological, and environmental factors, including early conceptual knowledge, child gender, and socioeconomic status. She also studies the development of spatial abilities and how language influences the development of spatial skills. Dr. Pruden has been an author of more than a dozen peer-reviewed papers and chapters and has presented at more than 25 national and international conferences. Her research has been published in the most prominent journals in the field of Developmental Psychology and Education, including Child Development and Developmental Science.
Tuesday, April 3rd
David Schultz – Hamline University
Local Government
David Schultz is a Hamline University Professor of Political Science who teaches across a wide range of American politics classes including public policy and administration, campaigns and elections, and government ethics. David is also a professor in the Hamline and University of Minnesota Schools of Law where he teaches election law. David is the author of 30 books and 100+ articles on various aspects of American politics, election law, and the media and politics, and he is regularly interviewed and quoted in the local, national, and international media on these subjects by agencies including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Economist, and National Public Radio. His most recent books are Presidential Swing States: Why Only Ten Matter (2015), Election Law and Democratic Theory (2014), and American Politics in the Age of Ignorance: Why Lawmakers Choose Belief Over Research (2013). A three-time Fulbright scholar who has taught extensively in Europe, Professor Schultz is the 2013 Leslie A. Whittington national award winner for excellence in public affairs teaching.
Wednesday, April 4th
Anjali Joseph – Clemson University
How O.R. Design Can Transform Patient Care
Anjali Joseph, Ph.D., EDAC is the Spartanburg Regional Health System Endowed Chair in Architecture + Health Design and Director of the Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing at Clemson University. Dr. Anjali Joseph is focused on using simulation and prototyping methods to research and test effectiveness of promising design solutions that may impact patient safety in high stress healthcare environments. She has focused her research on multidisciplinary approaches to improving patient safety in healthcare through the development of tools and built environment solutions. She is also interested in understanding the role of the built environment in improving population health outcomes. She is currently leading a multidisciplinary AHRQ funded project to develop a learning lab focused on improving patient safety in the operating room. She led the research activities at The Center for Health Design before joining Clemson. Here, she served as principal investigator on several grants from different organizations such as Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, U.S. Green Building Council and the Kresge Foundation. Anjali’s work has been published in many academic journals and magazines. She frequently peer reviews articles for journals. She currently serves on an independent review panel on military medical construction standards for the Defense Health Agency. Anjali obtained her Ph.D. with a focus on Architecture, Culture and Behavior from the Georgia Institute of Technology, master’s degree in Architecture from Kansas State University and bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India.
Thursday, April 5th
Helen Baghdoyan – University of Tennessee
Treating Opioid Addiction
Helen A. Baghdoyan is a Beaman Professor at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville where she serves as Professor of Psychology and Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. She holds a joint appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Dr. Baghdoyan received her PhD from the University of Connecticut in Neuropsychopharmacology. She completed postdoctoral training and held a junior faculty position in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her NIH-funded research program has identified neurochemical mechanisms and brain regions regulating behavioral states such as sleep, wakefulness, and anesthesia. Her neurochemical studies identify neuronal circuits regulating sleep, anesthesia, and pain. Her research relates to health in that disturbed sleep exacerbates pain, and the opioids prescribed to treat chronic pain cause sleep disruption.
Friday, April 6th
Saida Heshmati – Penn State University
Felt Love
I am a postdoctoral research scholar in positive and Quantitative Psychology at Penn State University. I am interested in finding objective methods to measure complex cognitive and emotional behavior to examine the role of these emotional experiences in everyday psychological wellbeing. I am currently working on a project with Dr. Zita Oravecz on developing psychometric tools for longitudinal measurements of wellbeing in order to model the dynamics of wellbeing in daily life.
