Faculty Notes
Kira Bailey
Kira Bailey, David O. Robbins Associate Professor in Psychology and director of the neuroscience program, along with alumni coauthors Audrey Propp '24 and Maria Alonso '20, published the article "Prevalence of Internet Gaming Disorder, Depression, and Anxiety Symptoms before and after the Pandemic," in Healthcare, Dec. 2024.
Jamie Deitz
Jamie Deitz, assistant professor of education, and Josie Bair, executive director of OWL Camp and instructor in communication, presented "Verse & Voice: Uniting Dialogue and Diversity in Middle School English Language Arts (ELA)" at OCTELA 2025: Let's Talk! Authentic Dialogue & Language Diversity in the ELA Classroom in February. Their session explored how poetry fosters authentic dialogue and inclusivity by engaging students in diverse perspectives, sensory language, and creative expression. Through varied poetic forms, they demonstrated how ELA classrooms can amplify student voices and cultivate meaningful conversations.
Krystal Cashen
Krystal Cashen, assistant professor in psychology, coauthored the article "Future Parenthood Ideas among Childfree LGBTQ+ Adults: The Roles of Stigma and LGBTQ+ Community Connections in Journal of Family Psychology, 38(8). The study explores connections between experiences of stigmatization, community connections, and thoughts of future parenthood among LGBTQ+ adults. Kay Simon '15 was one of the coauthors.
Vicki DiLillo
Vicki DiLillo, professor in psychology, and Chris Fink, professor in health & human kinetics, who serve as co-directors of OWU's public health program, are spearheading a partnership with the Delaware Public Health District to implement a nationally recognized suicide prevention program (QPR Gatekeeper training) with OWU students. Also, up to 10 students will be selected to receive additional funded training to become QPR Gatekeeper instructors themselves. The initiative is supported by the Youth Suicide Prevention Grant, which is funded by the federal Preventive Health and Health Service Block Grant through the Ohio Department of Health.
Rich Edwards
Rich Edwards, professor of music and director of bands, led the OWU Honor Band Festival, which featured more than 300 high-school and middle-school musicians from 65 schools across Ohio in a two-day event in February. Seven ensembles performed three separate concerts to a combined audience of over 2,400 people in Gray Chapel. Here, Edwards conducts the OWU Symphonic Wind Ensemble during the festival.
Eric Gangloff
Eric Gangloff (pictured far right), assistant professor in biological sciences, was "thrilled how wellrepresented OWU was" with current and past students at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Atlanta in January. He gathered the group for this photo. Standing from left: Tyler Williard '27, Devon Haley '26, Brittney Parks '27, Anya Shevchik '26, Ariana Brown '26, Brooklyn Upp '27, Gabby Plunkett '25, Jazz Zimmerman '25, Dellen Roush '23, Josie Fornera '23, Princeton Vaughn '22, Eric Gangloff; kneeling: Cessie Socki '18 and Meg Deeter '17; not pictured: Makenna Juergens '22. Many OWU students presented posters at the national conference, and, fittingly, Gangloff presented "Productive PIs at PUIs: Maintaining Robust Research Programs at Undergraduate-Focused Institutions."
Eric Gangloff, assistant professor in biological sciences, and his team of student-researchers were featured in the March 5 National Geographic article "10 Lizards Were Smuggled into Cincinnati in a Sock. Now There Are Tens of Thousands." Gangloff and his students, who call themselves the Lizard League, are studying how invasive common wall lizards have adapted to their new environment in and around Cincinnati. One of their findings is that the lizards don't seem to be adversely affected by lead toxicity. Neuroscience major Emma Foster '26 is also quoted in the article.
Anthony Glass
Anthony Glass, director of strength and conditioning, published the article "Establishing a Winning Weight Room Culture," in the September/October issue of Coach & A.D. magazine.
Sarah Graves
Sarah Graves, coordinator of the OWU Writing Center and lecturer in English, coauthored the children's picture book Attack of the Monster Pickles! with her 9-year-old son. The darkly humorous book is a take on a B sci-fi movie that encourages kids to overcome their bedtime fears through the power of their imagination.
Frank Hobbs
Frank Hobbs, professor of fine arts, will exhibit three of his paintings in an exhibition at the Allen County Museum in Lima, OH, May 10–July 27, 2025. The curated exhibition, "From Fields to Facades: Ohio Landscapes," examines and contrasts the rural and urban landscapes of Ohio by Ohio artists. Above, one of Hobbs's works in the exhibition will be "Cement Plant," oil on canvas, 24" x 18".
Clifford Hurst
Clifford Hurst, assistant professor in economics & business, published the article "The Iceberg Metaphor of Human Cognition" in Journal of Formal Axiology: Theory and Practice in December. The paper sought to verify or disprove the metaphor known as the "iceberg model" of human cognition. It is a report of a study in which 215 research participants were asked to complete two assessments related to human cognition, the Hartman Value Profile (HVP) and the Metacognitive Awareness Index (MAI), as a step toward determining if people's conscious awareness of their thinking was derived from, or is similar to, their deep-seated, often unconsciously held, thought patterns. The study revealed very little correlation between these two assessments and little or no ability of the HVP to predict a person's responses to the MAI. The author concluded, therefore, that these two instruments do, in fact, measure substantially different aspects of human cognition.
Sarah Kaka
Sarah Kaka, associate professor and Ralph and Ella Schaaf Rodefer Endowed Chair in Education, had a very productive semester. She published two articles: "Meeting the Moment: How Micro- Inquiry Could Save Us in These Divisive Times" in the journal Social Education, and "Stories of Resilience: Rural Middle Level Educators and Trauma" in Middle School Journal. She published a book chapter titled "Grand Duchess Anastasia or Anna Anderson?: The Case of the Stolen Identity" in the newly released book Hollywood or History? An Inquiry-Based Strategy for Using Cartoons to Teach Topics in Elementary and Secondary Social Studies, published by Information Age Publishing. She also delivered five presentations at professional conferences: "Making Elementary HOT: Micro-Inquiries for Higher Order Thinking in Elementary Classrooms" and "You Can't Teach That in Social Studies!: Using Micro-Inquiries to Overcome Legislative Barriers" at the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Boston, MA; "A (Re)examination of the Knowledges and Methodologies Predominantly Centered in Social Studies Education Research: A Content Analysis of a Decade of Theory & Research in Social Education" at the College and University Faculty Association of the National Council for the Social Studies Annual Meeting in Boston; "Elevating Elementary Education: How Micro-Inquiries Can Promote Higher Order Thinking in Grades K-5" at the Ohio Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Lewis Center, OH; and "Making Time for Inquiry: Using Micro-Inquiry to Increase Student Voice and Choice" at the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts 2025 Annual Conference in Newark, OH.
John McGory
John McGory, part-time instructor in journalism and communication, served as editor of the book Kay's Life: The Stories of Kay Conklin. Written by Kay Conklin '88, the book is a collection of local stories published in the Delaware Gazette over the past decade. The 88-year-old author earned her degree in her late 40s by taking one class a semester for 12 years while working as a secretary in OWU's Education Department. She later served four terms as Delaware County Recorder.
Aza Pace
Aza Pace, visiting assistant professor of creative writing, won the Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize for her poetry collection Her Terrible Splendor, which was published by Willow Springs Books in March. Her poem "Calling" appeared in the Elysium Review in January, and other poems were accepted for publication in Bennington Review, Willow Springs Magazine, SWWIM Every Day, and Plant-Human Quarterly. She also served as a poetry judge for the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writer's Award, which supports emerging writers by recognizing outstanding debut publications.
Eva Paris-Huesca
Eva Paris-Huesca, associate professor of Spanish, coauthored the book La mirada horizontal: Cineastas del siglo XXI. Autoría, compromiso social y conciencia de género (The Horizontal Gaze: 21st-Century Women Filmmakers. Authorship, Social Commitment, and Gender Awareness.) She also published the book chapter "La consolidación de la nueva tradición ginocriminal en la nueva serie de Susana Martín Gijón" ("The Consolidation of the New Gynocriminal Tradition in Susana Martín Gijón's Latest Series") in Cooling Off: Serial Authorship and New Directions in Spanish Female Detective Fiction, Inmaculada Pertusa-Seva and Melissa A. Stewart (Eds.), Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Dustin Reichard
Dustin Reichard, associate professor in biological sciences, published two peer-reviewed journal articles with OWU undergraduate coauthors. The first, "Repeatability of an Extended Phenotype: Potential Causes and Consequences of Nest Variation in Troglodytes Aedon (Northern House Wren)," was published in Ornithology in late 2024. Chandler Carr '24 and Zoë Swanson '24 were coauthors. They found that female house wrens tend to build the same nest over and over rather than making changes from nest to nest. The second, "Risk Assessment During Nest Defense Against Three Simulated Predators by Female Northern House Wrens (Troglodytes Aedon)," was published in Ecology and Evolution in early 2025. Ross Eggleston '22, Josie Fornara '23, Kyle Davis '19, and Jess Dong '21 were coauthors. They found that female house wrens defend their nests differently depending on how threatening the predator is to their own survival. When they encounter a snake or chipmunk, which eat wren nestlings but not adults, they are very aggressive. However, when they encounter a hawk, which eat wren nestlings and adults, they stay away and never attack the hawk. Sorry kids! All of this work was funded by OWU's Summer Science Research Program.
Nate Rowley
Nate Rowley, associate professor in environment & sustainability, and Wes Rancher '23 published the article "Comparison of Multiple Methods for Supraglacial Melt-Lake Volume Estimation in Western Greenland During the 2021 Summer Melt Season" in Glacies, Nov. 2024. Rowley and Lauren Hollinger '25 also coauthored "Assessing the Performance of Three Photogrammetrically-Derived Digital Surface Models for Community-Level Mapping: A Case Study in Bahía Ballena, Costa Rica" in Drones, Feb. 2025.
Shari Stone-Mediatore
Shari Stone-Mediatore, professor of philosophy, presented her paper, "The Role of the Humanities in Criminal-Legal Reform Advocacy," at the Illinois Association of Museums Annual Conference in Joliet, IL. At the conference, she also co-led a workshop on the ways that museums can contribute to critical awareness about problems in our criminal legal systems.
Julide Yazar
Julide Yazar, associate professor of economics, authored "Bayesian Fictitious Play in Oligopoly: The Case of Risk- Averse Agents" in Games 15, no. 6. Her paper presents a novel Bayesian learning model for risk-averse firms in oligopolistic markets, focusing on balancing profit maximization with risk minimization. Unlike traditional models that assume risk-neutral agents, this approach employs a normal-inverse gamma prior distribution to estimate rivals' supply functions and optimize production decisions by considering both expected profits and return variance. A key contribution is the proof that this Bayesian learning method converges to the Cournot-Nash equilibrium, even in oligopolies with three or more firms where traditional best response dynamics often fail. This research enhances our understanding of strategic decisionmaking under uncertainty, demonstrating how Bayesian learning and risk aversion interact to stabilize markets and offering insights for industries where firms encounter significant uncertainties.