Faculty Focus–April 10, 2023
St. Lawrence faculty put their knowledge into action so students and others are able to benefit from it. Recently, faculty participated in roundtable discussions about their books, published research papers, and presented at conferences with colleagues and alumni.
Bob Cowser
Professor of English Bob Cowser co-hosted a roundtable reading about the essay as a genre and read from his chapter in celebration of the book, "Edinburgh Companion to the Essay."
Cowser is the author of three nonfiction books, including Green Fields: Crime, Punishment and a Boyhood Between, which won "Best Memoir 2010" from the Adirondack Center for Writers and was cited in the Best American Essays 2012. His research focuses on the essay, Modernism, and film adaptation. At St. Lawrence, Cowser has taught courses in nonfiction writing, film, and American literature since 1998 and has taught abroad in France, England, and Denmark.
Alanna Gillis
Assistant Professor of Sociology Alanna Gillis presented her research paper, "A Liberal Arts Approach to Career Development," at the Southern Sociological Society Annual Meeting in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In the presentation, she argued that liberal arts majors prepare students better for careers than vocational majors and discussed her Sociology of Careers course as an example of how to incorporate career development within a liberal arts framework.
Gillis is the author of several scholarly articles which examine race, class, and gender inequality in higher education and inclusive pedagogy. At St. Lawrence, she teaches Introduction to Sociology, Introduction to Sociology: Inequality, Sociology of Education, and a community-based learning course of Sociology of Family–all of which supported her research on hyflex courses. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as a B.A. in Sociology from Furman University.
Patti Frazer Lock & Robin Lock
During the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston, Professor Mathematics Patti Frazer Lock gave an invited presentation on a panel on “Strategies for Enrollment and Inclusion in Mathematics” and gave a presentation with Professor of Statistics Robin Lock titled “Curriculum and the GAISE Report in Statistics."
Frazer Lock teaches courses across the spectrum of mathematics and statistics at St. Lawrence and collaborates with undergraduates on her research in graph theory. She has served on or chaired national committees on statistics and math education, and is currently the co-chair of the committee to revise the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE). Frazer Lock holds a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Lock holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is a fellow of the ASA, past Chair of the Joint Mathematical Association of America-ASA Committee on Teaching Statistics, a member of the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) development committee, and the inaugural winner of the Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award. In 2004, he was awarded the Mu Sigma Rho Statistics Education Award for excellence in statistical education and the ASA's Statistics in Sports Section Significant Contributor Award.
Jennifer Hansen
Professor of Philosophy Jennifer Hansen published the article, “A Reconsideration of the Role of Philosophy in the Reconstruction and Promotion of Leisure,” in the collection, Philosophy and Human Flourishing.
She also published the article, “Will AI Relationships End Loneliness?” at the Beyond Belief Blog.
Hansen’s research interests include the philosophy of psychiatry, feminist philosophy, American pragmatism (John Dewey and William James), and phenomenology. At St. Lawrence, she regularly teaches Ancient Greek Philosophy, Africana Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy, and in the First-Year Program. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from SUNY Stony Brook and an M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College.
Matt Higham
Assistant Professor of Statistics Matt Higham published a paper describing the overall goals of the spmodel package and a brief introduction on how to use the package to model various types of spatial data in PLOS One Journal. Higham also collaborated on a paper discussing the comparison of two different paradigms of analyzing spatial data, design-based analysis and model-based analysis, that was published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
Higham's research focuses on spatial statistics applied to ecological settings and in development of packages for the statistical software R. He holds a Ph.D. in Statistics from Oregon State University and he has worked extensively with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. At St. Lawrence, Higham regularly teaches Foundations of Data Science and a data visualization course that he designed.
Javier Muñoz-Díaz
Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish Javier Muñoz-Díaz published the article "Subaltern Masculinity and Modern Colonial Patriarchy Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez’s Memoirs" in Anthropologica-Revista-PUCP. The article analyzes the gender system and the construction of masculinities in the autobiographical writing of Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez.
Muñoz-Diaz is a literary and cultural critic and holds a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before joining St. Lawrence, Muñoz-Diaz taught at the University of Denver and the University of Michigan. His research focuses on the cultural history of the Andes and Amazon regions, Indigenismo, Indigenity, LGBTQ+ Studies, and Environmental Humanities.
Ronnie Olesker
Michael W. Ranger ’80 and Virginia R. Ranger P’17 Professor of Government Ronnie Olesker presented two papers at the International Studies Association Annual Conference in Montreal. “Diasporas as Audiences of Securitization: Jewish Diaspora and BDS,” examines the role of diasporas as audiences in securitization processes that involves ethnic-kin and has been published in Israel Studies Review Journal.
“Lessons From Dragons: Teaching Political Science Through House of the Dragon,” which she co-presented with Zach Lang '19, compares House of the Dragon to Game of Thrones and shows instructors how to leverage House of the Dragon to teach comparative and American politics courses.
Olesker’s work focuses on international relations and security studies. Courses she regularly teaches at St. Lawrence include Introduction to International Relations, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Middle East Politics. She holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and is a former assistant prosecutor at the Central District Attorney’s office in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Robin Rhodes
Director of ESOL and Multilingual Student Academic Support Robin Rhodes published a peer-reviewed chapter titled “Contact Zones and Investment in the Advanced ESOL Writing Classroom: Practical Recommendations for Linguistically Sustaining Instruction” in the Handbook of Multilingual TESOL in Practice. The chapter focuses on concepts of investment and contact zones to highlight asset-based instruction in writing pedagogy.
Rhodes holds an M.S.Ed in Educational Design, Training, and Development and an English as a Second Language teaching certificate and a doctorate in English Pedagogy/Writing in English Language Specialization. She teaches ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) academic English, ESOL education/methods, and African Studies courses. Rhodes launched St. Lawrence's Language and Cultural Exchange Program, is the coordinator for the Peace Corps Prep Program, and a part of the world languages, cultures, and media and African studies programs.
Marcella Salvi
Lewis Professor of World Languages, Cultures, and Media Marcella Salvi published an essay in the peer-reviewed volume, Donne Resilienti (Resilient Women, Eds. Di Filippo, Spani, Marino. QuodManet). The essay focuses on the works by Italian writer Elsa Morante and Spanish author Carmen Martín Gaite and is a reflection on the role of literature in recovering lost memory and in building resilience during traumatic historical events.
Salvi holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Michael Schuckers
Charles A. Dana Professor of Statistics Michael Schuckers published a paper titled “Estimation of player aging curves using regression and imputation” in the Annals of Operation Research. Using data from the National Hockey League, the paper discusses the best ways to estimate changing player performance as players age in the presence of unobserved performances.
Throughout his career, Schuckers has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He has conducted sports analytics work for a Major League Baseball team, a National Hockey League team, and additional sports organizations. Schuckers is an author and co-editor of the Quantitative and Mathematics Support Centers: A Handbook for Directors of Quantitative and Mathematics Support Centers. Among the courses he regularly teaches at St. Lawrence are Applied Statistics, Probability, Mathematical Statistics, and Statistical Methods of Data Collection.
Laura Mills-Smith
Assistant Professor of Psychology Laura Mills-Smith attended the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) in Salt Lake City, Utah. She led a roundtable discussion on strategies for promoting an appreciation of chronology when teaching lifespan development topically and presented a research poster titled, "Predictors of Child-Caregiver Enjoyment of Commonly Read Picture Books."
Mills-Smith studies the intersection of social and cognitive development in infants and children, including language sacquiition, parent-child interactions, and use of social cues. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Virginia Tech.
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