Faculty Notes for April 2016: Publications, Quotes and More

Emeritus Professor of Political Science Larry Gerston was interviewed in the Los Angeles Times about the Republican primary.

Emeritus Professor of Political Science Larry Gerston was interviewed in the Los Angeles Times about the Republican primary.

Former Lucas College and Graduate School of Business Associate Dean Natalya Delcoure received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Federation of Business Disciplines at the 2016 conference of the Southwestern Finance Association in Oklahoma City. She has been dean of the College of Business Administration at Texas A&M University – Kingsville since August 2013.

Seattle-based photographer Peter de Lory, who previously taught in SJSU’s Department of Art and Art History as well as at the University of New Mexico and The Art Institute of Chicago, is currently photographer-in-residence for Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority. An exhibition of his work, “Walk in the Woods,” at Basecamp Books and Bites in Roslyn, Wash., runs through June 6.

Department of Sociology Professor Hien Do, director of the College of Social Sciences’ Student Success Center, was interviewed by ABC News San Francisco about Assembly Bill 1726, proposed legislation that would require higher education institutions and public health institutions to collect more information on Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, including specific ethnicity.

Professor Emeritus Larry Gerston, Department of Political Science, contributed a Los Angeles Times op-ed on California’s 2016 Republican primary, published April 7. “California has a long history of its political parties fracturing over philosophical extremism, competing racial and ethnic differences and stark geographic contrasts,” he wrote. “Given so many sources of division, any sudden unity in the California delegation would be a remarkable and unprecedented change in political behavior. But then, again, so far 2016 has been a remarkable year.”

Frederika Harmsen, previous visiting scientist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratory and current special assistant to the president on sustainability initiatives at CSU Sacramento, is a finalist for the position of provost/vice president of Academic and Student Life at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Her recent research focuses on climate change and sustainability, marine habitat mapping and STEM education.

Assistant Professor Funie Hsu, American Studies Program, took part in a panel discussion celebrating Asian Pacific American History Month at Ohlone College. The first such panel hosted by the college, Hsu and other participants shared the significance of the Asian American community in their own lives and discussed the media’s representation of Asian Americans, among other topics.

Department of Pscyhology Professor Emerita Ellyn Kaschak, author of Endangered Lives: A New Psychology of Women’s Experience (Basic Books), established a grant for undergraduate students at New York’s Binghamton University to support summer research in the field of social justice for women and girls. As reported in the university’s student newspaper, Kaschak hopes the grant will present a “different experience” than the classroom experience and persuade recipients of  “the need for social change.” Known as a founder of feminist psychology, Kaschak credits the feminist movement of the 1970s with developing her “consciousness of the power differences among people and nations” and prompting her decision “to do something about it.”

Professor Melody Moh, Department of Computer Science, spearheaded a collaboration with Aeris, a market leader in the Internet of Things (IoT), to introduce SJSU students to IoT. Eight student teams presented their final projects to a panel of senior industry leaders. “This was a fantastic opportunity for our students to work with Aeris,” Moh said. In addition to hands-on training, each student received a certificate of participation.

Photographer Mimi Plumb, who taught for 28 years in the Department of Art and Art History, recently rediscovered a trove of her photographs documenting Cesar Chavez’s campaign to organize farm labor in the summer and fall of 1975. Those images are now part of a new National Steinbeck Center multimedia website, “Democracy in the Fields” and some were featured in an article in the Salinas Californian. Plumb received a California Humanities Grant in 2015, and her photographs have been collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art and the Yale University Art Gallery.

Department of Mathematics Professor Tatiana Shubin, co-director of the Navajo Nation Math Circles Project, spoke about the project at San Francisco’s Exploratorium earlier this month and screened, with filmmaker George Csicery, the film Navajo Math Circles, a documentary that reveals Navajo Nation challenges in education and demonstrates the math circles approach. The goal of the NNMCP is to attract more Native Americans into STEM fields, particularly mathematics.

Pride Center and Gender Equity Center Director Bonnie Sugiyama organized the Bay Area’s first ever LGBT Japanese American conference, held on campus earlier this month. The conference addressed Japanese American and Hawaiian LGBT identities, family, Japanese American queer art, Buddhist and Christian faiths and other topics. More than 150 people attended. “It’s been great to bring this opportunity to talk about issues of multiple identities…they really do have an impact on how we grow up and how we come out and how we are treated by society,” Sugiyama said.