Lecturer Aamina Ahmad, Department of English and Comparative Literature, received one of six 2017 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards, a $30,000 award that recognizes emerging women writers of promise. Ahmad’s novel-in-progress, The Walled City, is primarily set in 1960s Pakistan and features a police detective investigating the death of a prostitute. A previous Stegner fellow, Ahmad holds an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Department of Physics-Foundation Lecturer Friedmann Freund, a senior researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center, was described as “one of America’s unsung heroes” in a recent profile posted on Newsmax.com. “Dr. Freund has spent $1.5 million of his own personal funds in order to nudge NASA in the direction of the system of satellites…that he posits may be able to do the impossible—predict earthquakes,” reports science writer David Nabhan. Read more.
Job Centered Learning, a documentary by Professor Emeritus Robert Gliner, Department of Sociology, began airing on PBS affiliates across the country in August. Gliner visited high school technical education programs in California, Arizona and Massachusetts in making the one-hour film that sheds light on what Gliner describes as a “workforce skills gap”—the shortage of skilled workers to fill professions that require no college degree.
Pacific Standard magazine interviewed Professor Deepika Goyal, Valley Foundation School of Nursing, for an article on postpartum mood disorders in immigrant women. Goyal is co-author of a chapter on maternal mental health in Health of South Asians in the United States: An Evidence-Based Guide for Policy and Program Development (CRC Press, 2017). Read more.
Professor Persis Karim, a member of SJSU’s Department of English and Comparative Literature since 1999, was named San Francisco State University’s inaugural Neda Nobari Distinguished Chair in the Department of Comparative and World Literature and director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies, the first academic center of its kind in the U.S. Karim received SJSU’s 2017 Outstanding Professor Award and was founding director of the Middle East Studies Program.
Lecturer Rochelle McLaughlin, Department of Occupational Therapy, launched Revolutionary Wellness Talk Radio, a program that airs Thursdays at 2 pm PST on the VoiceAmerica Health and Wellness channel. A researcher of mindfulness-based stress reduction, McLaughlin also serves as co-host of the program.
President Mary Papazian will deliver the keynote address at the 54th Annual United Armenian Congregational Church Banquet in Los Angeles on September 30. Dr. Papazian, SJSU’s 30th president, is the first woman of Armenian descent to lead a major public university.
Wired magazine interviewed Lecturer Kerry Rohrmeier, Department of Geography, about the “controlled chaos” of the annual Burning Man celebration in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert and what it may reveal about the formation of cities that “spring out of nothing-ness” without the assistance of professional builders. Rohrmeier specializes in the study of intentional cities. Read more.
Lecturer Neal Waters, Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, directed ¡FIESTA!, a documentary highlighting the nine-day San Fermin Festival in Pamplona. The film is part of a New Media project that uses interactive infographics, maps, interviews and photographs to present the experience from the perspectives of locals, foreigners, the bulls and Pamplona itself. Learn more.