This fall, MBU faculty and staff received recognition and logged accomplishments in their fields.
Gold College of Arts and Sciences
School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abby Wightman, professor of anthropology
“I was invited to participate in a roundtable at the American Anthropological Annual Meeting in November 2023 in Toronto. The roundtable was entitled “Teaching and Learning in Transition: Anthropological Pedagogies in the Pandemic Era.”
In March 2023, I presented a paper at the Southern Anthropological Society Annual Conference entitled,“Resettled Landscapes: Heritage and Activism in Virginia’s Blue Ridge.” This paper is based on continuing research among descendants whose families were forcibly displaced to establish Shenandoah National Park. At the same conference, I was elected as President-Elect of the Southern Anthropological Society.”
School of Visual and Performing Arts
Kerry Mills, assistant professor of art history
Kerry Mills presented a paper at the South Eastern College Art Conference in October 2023 titled, “Saving the Stories of Vernacular Architecture: Frances Benjamin Johnston’s Photographs of the American South.”
Molly Seremet, assistant professor of theatre
Molly Seremet presented a plenary paper at the 2023 Blackfriars Conference titled “Anne Green’s Anatomical Redemption.”
Shakespeare & Performance
Matthew Davies, associate professor of Shakespeare and Performance and English
“In October, I taught a three-day Shakespeare staging workshop on Twelfth Night at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. I also performed in a staged reading of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal at Silverline Theatre Exchange. And, lest I forget, earlier this summer I managed to check off a series of bucket-list roles in The Collected Works of William Shakespeare Abridged [Revised] (Again) at the American Shakespeare Center, among them: Cleopatra, Gertrude, Ophelia, Lavinia, and Juliet.”
Peter Kirwan, associate professor of Shakespeare and Performance
Peter Kirwan has had two articles: “‘Your Time’s Expired’: Spatiotemporal Dramaturgies of the Contemporary” in Shakespeare Bulletin, and a survey of 2022’s UK Shakespeare performances in Shakespeare Survey.
Also recently provided the launch video for the Arden Shakespeare’s new series celebrating the 400-year anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, in which the book’s editors talk about the book’s influence on preparing modern editions of Shakespeare’s plays.
Peter Kirwan, Molly Seremet, and Kerry Cooke all presented at the Blackfriars Conference, which was co-hosted by the Shakespeare & Performance program with the American Shakespeare Center, and featured several other significant events involving S&P faculty, alumni and students, including a half-day workshop with Keith Hamilton Cobb’s “Untitling” Project, guest lectures and workshops from the eminent director Sir Trevor Nunn, and performances including “What’s in a Name?”, adapted by S&P student Fawzia Istrabadi and featuring Doreen Bechtol as Lady Capulet.
School of Science
Chris Harnish, program director and assistant professor, exercise science program
Dr. Harnish has published five papers in 2023, including co-authoring a publication in PLOS One in April and as lead author recently in the journal Physiologia. The aforementioned research spanned more than 5-years of data collection and involved the help of several students over those years. Dr. Harnish is also the lead author on an interdisciplinary study of nearly 150-years of cycling records. The paper, out in November in the renowned journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, also features economist Dr. Greg Swinand and MDCHS physical therapy student Anna Fisher.
Palmer College of Professional Studies
School of Professional Studies
Calvin Chung, assistant professor of business
Paper Presentation at annual Association Research on Nonprofit Organization and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) 2023. Paper entitled “Servant Leadership Development for Second-Generation Asian American through Immigrant Churches.” Also chaired the “Social Enterprise and its Outcome” session.
Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences
School of Health Professions
William D. Cundiff, assistant professor, master of healthcare administration program
Peer elected to National Quality Forum (NQF) Rural Healthcare Advisory Group. Also named to the Technical Expert Panel (TEP) for the CMS Center of Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).
Marty Fontenot, assistant professor, physical therapy program
Presented “Do physical therapy doctoral students experience physiological and psychological changes during their first school year?” at three events: poster presentation, Virginia APTA Fall Summit; Platform presentation, Virginia APTA Fall Summit; Poster presentation, Educational Leadership Conference – Fall.
Lisa Burns, faculty member in occupational therapy, Brooke Lieske in physical therapy, and Caitlyn Powers in the physician assistant program presented at the Interprofessional Education Collaborative’s 2023 Poster Fair on November 29, 2023. Their poster, “Reflections on Our Nine-Year IPE Journey” shared with a national audience several important ‘lessons learned’ since Murphy Deming’s foray into interprofessional education began in 2014. These lessons, couched within a review of scholarly literature, inform educators seeking to implement and support interprofessional education.
Sarah McCadden and Emily Budd, assistant professors, occupational therapy
Presented a workshop at the annual Virginia Occupational Therapy Association conference titled, “Navigating the practice setting of academia: What we wish we had known as new educators.”
Sarah McCadden, assistant professor, occupational therapy
Two publications: McCadden, S. & Judy, B. (2023). “Occupational Therapy’s Role in Addressing Pelvic Floor Dysfunction and Associated Urinary Incontinence in the Inpatient Rehab Setting.” And Gillaspie, C., McCadden, S., & Hansen, G. (2023). “Barriers to participation in physical activity for elementary school children with disabilities.”
Emily Budd, assistant professor, occupational therapy
Presented a poster at the annual Virginia Occupational Therapy Association’s conference titled, “Occupational Therapy’s Distinct Role in Occupational Therapy: Implications for Practice.”
David McLeod, associate professor, health sciences
Published “The role of Culex territans mosquitoes in the transmission of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis to amphibian hosts,” Joanna M. Reinhold, Ella Halbert*, Megan Roark*, Sierra N. Smith, Katherine M. Stroh, Cameron D. Siler, David S. McLeod and Chloé Lahondère (*Denotes undergraduate author)
Also published Reinhold et al. Parasites & Vectors (2023) 16:424
In press: “Deep Neural Network Identification of Limnonectes Species and New Class Detection Using Image Data,” Li Xu; Yili Hong; Eric P. Smith; David S. McLeod; Xinwei Deng; Laura J. Freeman. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics.
Martha Cullaty, instructor, doctor of physical therapy program
Poster accepted at Combined Sections Meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association.
Andrew Baldwin, assistant professor, co-director of clinical education, physical therapy program
Presented a poster at the annual Physical Therapy Education Leadership Conference in October 2023 entitled “Physical Therapy Student Engagement During the Clinical Education Experience Using an Online Interactive Platform.”
Appointed as the Treasurer of the APTA Virginia Blue Ridge District.
School of Nursing
Janice Adams, director of nursing programs
Chair, Nursing Action Coalition of Florida. Appointed by the Center to Champion Nursing in America. Reporting to AARP and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Kwame Akuamoah-Boateng, assistant professor and program director, DNP-AG-ACNP Program
2025 Surviving Sepsis Campaign Panel