Assistant Professor Kim Blisniuk from the Department of Geology in the College of Science and Assistant Professor Yue “Wilson” Yuan from the Department of Justice Studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences have been chosen to receive the SJSU Research Foundation Early Career Investigator Awards for calendar year 2019. The award recognizes tenure-track SJSU faculty members who have excelled in areas of research, scholarship and creative activity at an early or beginning point in their careers.
Kim Blisniuk
Geology Assistant Professor Kim Blisniuk. Photo: Robert Bain.
Kim Blisniuk’s research investigates and quantifies how landscapes evolve through time due to earthquakes and climate change. She is particularly interested in earthquakes that are preserved in the landscape along active faults because the rate at which a fault moves is proportional to the fault’s seismic hazard potential. The societal impact of her research is high because data she collects will help refine earthquake hazard models that forecast the potential of future earthquakes and their recurrence in California.
In 2019 Blisniuk received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the organization’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty. This added to her remarkable track record of funded research grants and awards from organizations such as the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program and the Southern California Earthquake Center. She has made presentations at the American Geophysical Union, the U.S. Geological Survey, Boston University, the California Institute of Technology, UCLA and Université Grenoble. Her publication record is equally impressive.In addition, she has been interviewed as a subject matter expert by Earth and Space Science News, National Geographic Magazine, the New York Times and major television networks.
Yue “Wilson” Yuan
Justice Studies Assistant Professor Yue “Wilson” Yuan. Photo: Robert Bain.
Wilson Yuan’s research examines the origins of fear of crime and how individuals and communities react to criminal victimization, particularly in Asian and Latino immigrant communities. He explores whether an immigrant’s status is associated with victimization and how immigrants of different racial and ethnic groups mobilize formal and informal resources in response to crime.
Funded by a grant award from the National Institute of Justice, Yuan and six SJSU graduate students are launching an extensive mixed-methods city-level victimization study focused on the city of San José, California. A survey of local residents’ victimization experiences will be conducted, as will in-depth interviews with residents, police department officials, victim services providers and members of community organizations.
Since arriving at SJSU in 2016, Yuan has published eight peer-reviewed articles on criminal justice and criminology in high-impact journals. With one of his graduate students as lead author, he co-authored “Surveillance-Oriented Security Measures, School Climate, Student Fear of Crime, and Avoidance Behavior,” which appeared in Victims and Offenders. He regularly presents at criminology conferences and has made invited research presentations at law schools (Nankai University and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics) and at Harvard University.
Blisniuk and Yuan will be honored at the SJSU Celebration of Research on March 26, 2020 from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Diaz Compean Student Union Ballroom. A short video profiling their research will be shown at this festive event. A showcase of research posters developed by more than 100 SJSU undergraduate and graduate students also will be presented. The event is open to the entire SJSU campus community.