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JMU Research, Scholarship & Creative Endeavors

Volume 2, Issue 4

Greetings! The energy of a new academic year has returned to Harrisonburg, as we recently welcomed the largest freshman class in JMU’s history – 4,625. As these students begin to make their mark on Madison, we hope you will continue to follow our newsletter as we profile the students, faculty, and staff who make JMU a special place. A royal honor – Director of the Center for International Stabilization & Recovery, Ken Rutherford, joined Prince William and Prince Harry for a memorial service honoring the life of Princess Diana on August 30 th . Dr. Rutherford accompanied Princess Diana on a humanitarian trip to Bosnia to meet with landmine survivors, three short weeks before her untimely death. Read More Thinking about JMU’s impact around the globe, JMU produced three faculty Fulbright Scholars for the 17-18 academic year. Dr. Michele Cude, Middle, Secondary & Math Education, traveling to Kenya; Dr. Ramon Mata-Toledo, Computer Science, traveling to Chile; and Dr. Trevor Stokes, Graduate Psychology, traveling to Georgia, earned this prestigious honor to engage with international communities to advance their scholarship. I would like to extend congratulations to Kathy Schwartz, Professor of Art and Art Education and Director of the School of Art, Design and Art History. The National Art Education Association (NAEA) named Dr. Schwartz the 2017 Southeastern Region Art Educator of the Year. Read More We are also excited to announce the launch of the Cyber Hygiene and Cyber Intelligence Boot Camp. JMU Intelligence Analysis faculty members, Dr. Edna Reid and Dr. Kathleen Moore, will deliver training to Virginia K-12 teachers on cyber hygiene – the daily maintenance of an individual’s online safety – and cyber intelligence (analysis of cyber threats) for integration into K-12 courses. This bootcamp, funded by the Commonwealth’s Secretary of Technology and Department of Education, will utilize face-to-face and online instruction, as well as guided tours of a data center and security operations center. Please read on below for more JMU scholarly highlights! Sincerely, Yvonne Harris             Vice Provost for Research & Scholarship James Madison University

English Faculty Receives NEH Grant Brooks Hefner, Associate Professor of English, was awarded a $50,904 Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in early August. In collaboration with Ed Timke, lecturer of Media Studies at UC Berkeley, Dr. Hefner plans to apply the funding to his project, Circulating American Magazines. The project will create online tools that make circulation data on American magazines, which held historical significance between 1868 and 1972, more accessible. Read more

Brooks Hefner, Associate Professor of English

Political Science Book Examines Revolving Door Lobbying

Political Science Associate Professor Timothy LaPira, co-author of the book Revolving Door Lobbying: Public Service, Private Influence, and the Unequal Representation of Interests (2017), explained how lobbyists fill a gap in congress in an interview with CQ Roll Call. Dr. LaPira and co-author Herschel Thomas, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at Arlington, found that 52 percent of all registered federal lobbyists "walked through" the revolving door. Furthermore, these lobbyists earn four times as much as their counterparts who do not have experience working in federal government. Revolving Door Lobbying argues that these lobbyists become a sort of political insurance for companies and associations. Read more

Governor McAuliffe and Virginia Clean Cities Celebrate Clean Energy Milestone

VCC Executive Director Alleyn Harned and Board Member Ben Delp pose with Governor McAuliffe during the clean energy announcement in Richmond.

Virginia Clean Cities (VCC) co-hosted a press conference where Governor McAuliffe announced that 319 state and local government vehicles have switched to alternative fuel in the Commonwealth, reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. "This is a great step forward and we will continue to work to make Virginia’s the cleanest and most innovative vehicle fleet in the nation," said McAuliffe. Executive Director of VCC Alleyn Harned commented, "...propane and natural gas and electricity are low-cost alternative fuels, often representing cost savings as much as $1 per gallon." VCC, housed at JMU, assisted the Governor reach his goal of 300 alternative fuel vehicles five months ahead of schedule. Read more

Geographic Science Students and Faculty Establish Marine Reserves in Haiti

A team of JMU students and faculty and Jean Wiener, a Haitian Marine Biologist and founder of the Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversite Marine are collaborating in an effort to establish three areas of coral reef around Haiti as marine reserves. Dr. Mary Kimsey, Geographic Science faculty member, reached out to Wiener after spending more than a decade with students mapping projects in Haiti. This opportunity allows students to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to a real world project. One potential positive outcome as a result of this work is legal protection against fishing and development in order to preserve the coral reefs. Read more

Musical Theatre Faculty Publishes Success Strategies

Julio Agustin, Associate Professor of Musical Theatre at James Madison University

Julio Agustin has been a working professional in the theatre industry for more than 20 years. Agustin, in his book The Professional Actor’s Handbook: From Casting to Curtain Call, offers 17 strategies that he found useful in his personal journey to success. He provides readers with up-to-date information in hopes of a smoother transition from "struggling artist to working professional." Agustin himself has been in six Broadway shows and has made countless television appearances, all the while educating students who maintain active careers in New York and regional theatre.

Business Analytics Faculty Presenting at INFORMS

Elham Torabi, Assistant Professor of Business Analytics, has been invited to present her research at the 2017 Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Conference at the end of October in Houston, Texas. Since joining JMU, Dr. Torabi’s research has focused on Medicaid fraud detection and prevention. Medicaid fraud and abuse result in significant waste of resources every year that could be otherwise used to improve access for those in need of care. Her research has enabled collaborations with The Mayo Clinic, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and The University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Currently, Torabi is using data analytics and computer simulation modeling to help the Mary Washington Hospital Emergency Department (MWH-ED) in Fredericksburg, Virginia improve their operations under increasing competition and serious nurse shortages in the region. They are currently preparing two manuscripts for publication: "Emergency Department Capacity Planning in Presence of Competition," and "Slow down Doc! We do not have enough nurses." Dr. Torabi developed the Joint JMU-MWH internship/research assistantship position through a partnership with JMU alumnus and CEO of Charts Healthcare L.L.C., Phillip St. Ours. The JMU College of Business featured this collaboration in the article "From Research to Reality." Dr. Torabi takes pride in playing her part to achieve the vision of JMU and the College of Business to foster engagement with ideas and with the world. Read more

Innovations in Professional Nursing Award

School of Nursing Director Julie Sanford and Associate Director for Graduate Programs Melody Eaton accept the Innovations in Professional Nursing Award.

JMU’s School of Nursing teaches students how to be confident advocates for their patients and these efforts were recognized by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing through the Innovations in Professional Nursing Award. The Nursing faculty emphasize the importance of advocacy and health policy education by promoting initiatives such as JMU Health Policy Collaborative: Advocacy in Action. Implemented by Nursing tracks of study at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels, this program is a collaboration with the Department of Social Work and Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD). Healthcare workers are no strangers to policy making and JMU’s program instills the necessary confidence to engage with the process. Read More

Education Student Wins Teacher Research Award

Education graduate student Mandy Kousen, received the Excellence in Pre-Service Teacher Education-　Teacher Candidate Research Award from the Association of Teacher Educators in Virginia. Kousen was nominated by her research adviser, Dr. Laura Desportes, for her research paper, "Emotional Behavioral Disability Prevalence Trends in Virginia and Teacher Efficacy." Prior to winning this award, Kousen was selected to present her findings at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Memphis, Tennessee last semester. Kousen credits JMU’s College of Education for supporting, fostering, and encouraging opportunities for education research. Kousen plans to continue researching interventions and aims to develop evidence-based theories. She is currently working toward a Masters of Teaching in Special Education K-12 Adapted Curriculum, with plans to earn a Masters of Education with a Behavior Specialist Concentration.

Madison Accelerator Laboratory is Open for Business

Physics & Astronomy Associate Professor Adriana Banu, Accelerator Lab Manager Scottie Pendleton, and students prepare the medical electron linear accelerator.

James Madison University’s new physics laboratory has just opened a world of opportunities for research and career development says Professor Art Champagne, the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of Physics at UNC-Chapel Hill and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Champagne encouraged researchers at a two-day conference, hosted by the JMU Physics & Astronomy Department, to explore the latest opportunities found at the Madison Accelerator Laboratory (MAL), which opened just in time for the fall semester. MAL features a medical electron linear accelerator, a 140 keV x-ray imaging machine and standard particle detection instrumentation. Additionally, the lab is capable of performing low energy experiments for a wide variety of purposes and disciplines, including but not limited to nuclear physics, nuclear engineering, materials science, geology, biology, and archaeology. Read More

Faculty Grant Awards

For a monthly listing of recent faculty grant awards, please visit the Madison Scholar website . Here are a few notable awards from July 2017: Kimberley A. Foreman (Associate Dean for Human Resources and Administration, College of Business; Lecturer, Accounting) and Lynn S. Powell (Executive Director, Institute of Certified Professional Managers) received $401,204 from the Institute of Certified Professional Managers to maintain the organization’s national headquarters on the campus of JMU. Kim Hartzler-Weakley (Director of Children and Youth, Institute for Innovation in Health and Human Services) received $480,303 from the Virginia Department of Health for the Shenandoah Valley Child Development Clinic. Dr. Keith Holland (Associate Professor and Assistant Department Head, Engineering), Audrey Barnes (Assistant Professor, Industrial Design), Dr. Chengqi Guo (Associate Professor, Computer Information Systems and Business Analytics), Dr. Erica Lewis (Assistant Professor, Nursing), Dr. Patrice Ludwig (Assistant Professor, Biology) and Dr. Sean McCarthy (Assistant Professor, Writing, Rhetoric and Technical Communication) received $30,000 from VentureWell to attract and train faculty to design and implement interdisciplinary problem-focused courses and to provide student teams with resources and funds to prototype soluti ons to identified business and social innovation opportunities. Dr. Michael Renfroe (Professor, Biology) and Dr. Samuel Morton (Associate Professor, Engineering) received $18,750 from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to expand research of industrial hemp. Dr. David Stringham (Associate Professor, Music), Cindy Hunter (Associate Professor, Social Work) and Jesse Rathgeber (Assistant Professor, Music Education) received $20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to study the impact of an interdisciplinary, arts-based project on formerly incarcerated persons, pre-service professionals, and community members.

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