Monday
Imran Mirza – Miami University
Realistic Quantum Optical Models
Dr. Imran Mirza is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Miami University of Ohio. Before his appointment at Miami, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oregon.
Tuesday
Alexis Redding – Harvard University
Navigating the W-Curve of College Life
Alexis Redding is a developmental psychologist whose who specializes in supporting young adults during the college years and the transition to the workforce. She is the Faculty Co-Chair of the Higher Education Concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) where she also teaches courses in student development, student affairs, and research methods for higher education. In 2024, she also became Faculty Chair of a new Professional Education course at HGSE: Mental Health in Higher Education: A Theory-to-Practice Approach for Student Well-Being and is the editor of a forthcoming book, Mental Health in College: What Research Tells Us about Supporting Students (Harvard Education Press).
Wednesday
Mohamad Junaid – Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Ecological Disaster and Cultural Imagination
I am an anthropologist with a strong belief in teaching as crucial to creating a just, sustainable, and pluralistic world. I seek to inspire students to build a critical understanding of socio-political questions in local and global contexts and to appreciate the interconnectedness of human and non-human worlds. I provide students with intellectual tools to nurture open-mindedness and to develop new modes of thinking. In my classes, I use a combination of social theory, ethnographic texts, and documentary films to illuminate anthropological approaches to cultural difference and questions of inequality and power, as well as to the discipline’s creative and imaginative potential.
Thursday
Rays Jiang – University of South Florida
Unmasking the First Pandemic Beneath a Roman Arena
As the first genomics lab in University of South Florida, Rays Jiang lab takes on a pioneer role, as well as pushing the frontier of data-driven life sciences. Her lab is developing innovative methods and applications of omics technologies. She has published in high profile journals such as Cell, Science, and Nature Communications, and secured diverse funding sources from NIH, NSF and Gates’ foundations. Rays Jiang has a PhD in genomics from Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Friday
Shelby Carlson – Cornell University
Saving Birds Through Human Behavior Change
Shelby Carlson is a research associate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. As a conservation social scientist, Dr. Carlson applies theories and methods from the fields of sociology and psychology to understand human-wildlife interactions. Her research predominately focuses on the way individual values, social norms, and structural inequities influence (in)tolerance for wildlife. Dr. Carlson holds a PhD in environment and natural resources, with a specialization in environmental social sciences, from Ohio State University. She holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in psychology from Ohio University.
