Faculty Publications, Presentations and Honors
Congratulations to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences faculty for their notable publications, presentations, and honors.
Associate Professor Mona Ali (Economics) authored two articles “Militarized Adaptation,” (Jan 2023) and “Reforming the IMF,” (May 2023) in the political economy publication Phenomenal World. The latter article was featured in the Financial Times Alphaville column. She was invited to present her research on the IMF and the global financial safety net at a central banking symposium in Hanover, Germany (June 2023), on ”Sanctions and the Global Dollar System” at a Harvard Law School Symposium on Economic Sanctions and National Security (October 2023) and on “Geopolitics and the Global Dollar System” at the New Directions in Money, Finance and Public Policy conference at Bard College (November 2023). She served as a panelist at webinars on sanctions hosted by the American Society for International Economic Law Interest Group (September 2023) and on “Money and the Climate Crisis” hosted by Jain Family Institute (November 2022).
Lecturer Brett Barry (Digital Media & Journalism) received Best Regional Podcast award in the 2023 Chronogrammies Readers’ Choice Awards for his podcast Kaatscast.
Assistant Professor Adolfo Bejar Lara (Languages, Literatures & Cultures) was awarded a Career Enhancement Fellowship from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars. Additionally, he published the article “From Narcoliterature to Narratives of Migration, or the Limits of Narrating Violence in Contemporary Mexican Literature” in Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World.
Lecturer Leigh Dodson (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) received the Liberal Arts and Sciences Part Time Teacher of the Year Award (2022-23).
Professor Glenn Geher (Psychology) had his work featured in various academic outlets, including his newest book An Introduction to Positive Evolutionary Psychology (published by Cambridge University Press and co-authored by five New Paltz psychology students and alumni, including Meg Frichte ‘22, Julia Lombard ’24, Kaitlyn Longo ’22 ’24g, Avrey Goodwine ‘22 and Darcy Montana ‘22. Additional publications include a chapter titled “Dissecting Darwin’s Drama: Understanding the Politicization of Evolutionary Psychology within the Academy” in Political Bias in Psychology. Co-authors on this chapter include Alex Mackiel ‘21g and Jennifer Link ‘21g. Geher co-authored the article, “Prosocial Motives Underlie Scientific Censorship by Scientists: A Perspective and Research Agenda,” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Geher has also had national and international media appearances, in outlets such as Bored Panda (Lithuania), CBC interview (Canada), Yahoo News (French), and more.
Assistant Professor Anna Gjika (Sociology) authored When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age, published by the University of California Press. The book examines how gender, status, and technology intersect with teens’ sexual ethics and practices, and offers a nuanced analysis of the ramifications of the digital trail for social and legal responses to sexual violence.
Associate Professor Judith Halasz (Sociology) gave two presentations on the socio-spatial dynamics of urban upscaling: “Super-gentrification Spills Over: The Impact of Displaced Aspirational Families, Creatives, and Hipsters” at the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting, August 20, 2023, and “Priced Out and Spilling Over: The Role of Aspirational Families in the Gentrification of Central Brooklyn Neighborhoods” at the International Conference on Gentrification and Displacement hosted by Boston University, October 27, 2023.
Professor Eugene Heath (Philosophy) authored “What’s Not to See? Foucault on Invisible Political Economy in Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson” in the Journal for the History of Economic Thought (vol. 45, no. 2, June 2023). In July, he presented a paper, “How Smith Differed from Hume—and Why,” at the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society meeting in St. Andrews. In October, he gave an invited presentation, “Adam Smith’s Conception of Self-Love,” to the Invisible Hand Seminar, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Associate Professor Heather Hewett (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) published two book chapters. The first, “Women,” was coauthored with Associate Professor Meg Devlin (History) and appeared in Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies, Vol. II (Routledge). The second, “Rethinking the Curriculum: #MeToo and Contemporary Literary Studies,” was coauthored with Professor Mary Holland (English) and appeared in The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media, and Violence. Her review of Katie Barnes’s book Fair Play: How Sports Shape the Gender Debates appeared in The Washington Post. As part of her work at the American Council of Learned Societies, she served as a panelist at a November event organized by the Center for the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, “Rethinking Tenure and Promotion Assessment in the Humanities: A Blueprint for Transformation and Innovation.”
Professor Mary Holland (English) published an essay “Rachel Cusk’s New Realism: Gender, Power, Voice, and Genre in the Outline Trilogy” in Contemporary Women’s Writing (Fall 2023) and co-authored (with Heather Hewett) a chapter, “Rethinking the Curriculum: #MeToo and Literary Studies,” for The Routledge Companion to Gender, Media and Violence (2023). In July, she gave a keynote speech titled “Love // more avant-garde than shame: Ben Lerner’s Ethical Aesthetics” at the Ben Lerner conference in Paris. She also spoke about “Rape, Consent, and Narrative” for King’s College in Pennsylvania. In April, she interviewed Carmen Maria Machado here at SUNY New Paltz. She is the recipient of the 2022-2023 Chancellor’s Award for Creative and Scholarly Activity.
Associate Professor Edith Kuiper (Economics) has been awarded the Joan Robinson Prize for best book (shared with two authors of other books) for A Herstory of Economics (2022, Polity Press) by the European Association for Evolutionary and Political Economy (EAEPE), the largest European society for heterodox economists.
Associate Professor Oksana Laleko (English) received the 2023 Mentor of the Year Award, which honors a faculty mentor who has made extraordinary efforts to support undergraduates’ intellectual growth and professional development outside of the classroom setting. She co-authored two peer-reviewed scholarly articles: “Grammars in Contact: A Study of Russian in Brighton Beach, New York” (2022) in Russian Language Journal (in collaboration with her undergraduate student Yana Miroshnychenko, currently a Ph. D. student in Linguistics) and “Embracing Linguistic Variation in Shift Ecologies: The Dominant Language Varies Too” (2023) in Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism. She also delivered a keynote address at the international conference on heritage language bilingualism in Istanbul, Türkiye and served as an invited speaker and faculty at the Heritage Language Summer Research Institute at UCLA.
Associate Professor Cyrus Mulready (English) authored Object Studies: Introductions to Material Culture published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Professor Ilgu Ozler (Political Science & International Relations) was elected to a second term on the board of directors for Amnesty International.
Associate Professor Jessica Pabón (Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies) was selected through a competitive process to be one of 15 SUNY system-wide Diversity Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DEISJ) Fellows. Dr. Pabón was selected in recognition of her expertise in and commitment to promoting DEISJ initiatives and principles in higher education. SUNY DEISJ Fellows work with faculty system-wide to enhance subject area expertise in DEISJ general education courses. As part of that work, SUNY hosted its inaugural DEISJ Conference in November 2023, where Dr. Pabón was part of two panels: “Critical Conversations in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice” and “Universal Design and Inclusive Online Learning.” Dr. Pabón’s tenure as a DEISJ Fellow runs through June 2024; as a Fellow, she will continue to support and assist faculty across the system in the development of DEISJ materials and courses and will work with other program Fellows to support and enhance SUNY DEISJ work.
Distinguished Professor L. H. Roper (History) contributed to ”An Atlantic Slave Trade Stretching from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean and Beyond: A Forum on Alejandro García-Montón, Genoese Entrepreneurship and the Asiento Slave Trade, 1650-1700,” which appeared in The Journal of Early American History 13. Roper also gave keynote addresses on “Poachers Turned Gamekeepers: The Guinea Company and How English Overseas Interests Became a ‘State’ Matter,” at the Pirates, Ports, and Exports: Maritime Relations in the Age of Sail conference at the University of Birmingham (U.K.) and at New Netherland Institute Scholars’ Seminar. He was a guest on the radio show “The Academic Minute” to discuss “Making Slavery ‘Normal’ in English America.”
Professor Akira Shimada (Asian Studies) chaired the “Origins of Buddhist Art in India” session and presented “Formation of the Mature Nāgārjunakonda Style: Buddhist Art and Architecture of Sites 2 and 3” at the Metropolitan Museum symposium “Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India and Its Global Reach.”
Assistant Professor Lynne Telesca (Communication Disorders) published “Implementing a Metalinguistic Approach to Secondary School Writing” in the Journal of Language Speech and Hearing Services in the Schools. She also presented on this work at the 2023 American Speech Language Hearing Association’s National Convention. The presentation has also been selected to be developed into a continuing education course for speech-language pathologists through ASHA Learning Pass.
Associate Professor Karla Vermeulen (Psychology) and Institute for Disaster Mental Health Executive Director Amy Nitza were named Research Associates of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) at the Smithsonian Institution. These appointments, for one year, are in recognition of their work with NMAH on a number of trauma-related projects, which are collectively titled “Trauma-Based Knowledge Work.” A supplementary exhibit called the “Science of Resilience” (credited to IDMH), which will be linked to a larger exhibit called “Science on Trial,” is scheduled to open at NMAH in the coming year.