Professional and Academic Notes: Spring 2017

A round-up of awards, presentations and papers recognizing the achievements of SLU faculty, staff and students.

Faculty and Staff

Awards/Recognitions

Residence hall coordinator Kenny Bollwerk from the Department of Housing and Residence Life and Student Involvement, won the recent St. Louis Area Housing College Association election. Bollwerk will represent Saint Louis University as vice president for one year, then transition to president-elect during his second year.

Elsy Cardona, Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Langauges, Literatures and Cultures, has been awarded a Katharine Bakeless Nason scholarship to participate in the 2017 Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference. The Katharine Bakeless Nason Endowment was funded in 1995 by the LZ Francis Foundation to support emerging writers and to commemorate Katharine Bakeless Nason.

Ann Di Maio, M.D., of the Department of Pediatrics was recognized by Covering House for her work with adolescent victims of sex trafficking at their Red Gala event in March, where she received the Dignity Award for providing medical care at SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center.

Chris Ealham, Ph.D., professor of history at SLU Madrid, has been awarded a personal research grant by History Today, Britain's leading history magazine. The £10,000 grant will fund his ongoing research into the history of social violence and state terrorism in Spain after World War I.

Richard Lee, M.D., of the Center for Comprehensive Cardiovascular Care, received the Top Performance Award of the Editorial Board from the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

Ronaldo Luna, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology, was named the Outstanding Engineer in Higher Education for 2017 by the St. Louis Chapter of the Missouri Society for Professional Engineers at their annual meeting.

Sydney Norton, Ph.D., assistant professor of German in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, received the 2017 Friedrich Hecker Freedom Award, presented annually to an individual by the German-American Heritage Society of St. Louis for the promulgation of cooperation and understanding between Germany and the United States.

SLUCare internist Thomas Olsen, M.D., has been awarded Mastership in the American College of Physicians (ACP), the national organization of internists.

Article/Book Publishings

Ellen Barnidge, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral science and health education in the College for Public Health and Social Work, authored a study titled "Summer Hunger: Differences between Rural and Urban Households," published by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, with graduate student Melissa Chapnick; professor emerita Marjorie Sawicki, Ph.D.; Elizabeth Baker, Ph.D., professor of Behavioral Science and Health Education; and Jin Huang, Ph.D., professor of social work, as a collaborative effort out of SLU's College for Public Health and Social Justice. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

The Letters of Mark Twain and Joseph Hopkins Twichell, edited by Harold Bush, Ph.D., professor of English, was published by the University of Georgia Press.

Oscar Lopez, Ph.D., professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has published a short story "La nostalgia nos trae los veranos," in the online journal Carátula: Revista Cultural Centroamericana."

Jean-Louis Pautrot, Ph.D., professor of French in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, has published a book chapter: “L’histoire naturelle de Pascal Quignard” in Actes du Colloque International “Histoire(s) naturelle(s) des animaux dans la littérature de langue française (XXe-XXIe siècles) (Paris: Presses de la Sorbonne-Nouvelle, December 2016): 273-283.

Speaking Engagements

Elizabeth Blake, Ph.D., assistant professor and coordinator of the Russian program in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, presented "Shifting Borders and Intercultural Conflict on the Peripheries of Russia and the European Union" at John Burroughs School as the invited lecturer for their International Week celebrations.

Simone Bregni, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian and coordinator of the Italian studies program in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, delivered a paper, "Developing ITAL 1200, Intensive Italian for Gamers" in the Roundtable Session "Innovative Approaches to Teaching Italian II: Teaching Italian through Games" at the American Association of Italian Studies conference in April. He also chaired a session at the conference, "Machiavelli Today: Contemporary Representations of the Struggle for Power."

Digital humanities librarian Debra Taylor Cashion, Ph.D., from the Department of Special Collections in Pius XII Memorial Library, has been accepted to present a paper about METAscripta at the 2017 IIIF Vatican conference at the Augustinian Patristic Institute at the Vatican in June.

Arline Cravens, Ph.D., assistant professor of French in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, gave an invited presentation, "Il était une fois St. Louis: les origines françaises de St. Louis" for La Société Française de St. Louis at the Alliance Française de St. Louis in March.

Claudia Karagoz, Ph.D., associate professor of Italian in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, delivered an invited presentation on world-acclaimed Italian writer Elena Ferrante at the Italian cultural organization of Saint Louis Italiano per piacere.

Sydney Norton, Ph.D., assistant professor of German in the department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, presented a paper, "Legacy and Transformation: German Nationalism in Turner Societies of Civil-War America" at the 41st annual symposium of the Society for German-American Studies in Philadelphia.

Jean-Louis Pautrot, Ph.D., professor of French in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, organized and chaired a session titled “Figures de Jésus” that examined occurrences of Jesus of Nazareth in contemporary French literature at the International Colloquium in Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, “Le sens et les sens,” in Bloomington, Indiana in April. Pautrot delivered a paper on Pascal Quignard in that session, titled “’Nolite Judicare’: Critique du jugement de Pascal Quignard, un message chrétien?"

STUDENTS

Doctoral student Shahram Ahmadi Nasab Emran, M.D., Ph.D (c) presented his paper titled, "Hardliner-Moderate Dichotomy: A Deceptive Game Played by the Iranian Regime," at the Middle East Dialogue 2017 conference held by the Policy Studies Organization in Washington, D.C., in March.