The faculty development programs offer an opportunity for faculty members to grow professionally, to remain current with developments in their disciplines, and to infuse these experiences into the classroom to enhance student learning. As illustrated below, NKU’s faculty development programs have enabled our faculty members to undertake important work in their fields, often including students in their research, and have brought renown to the university.
SABBATICAL LEAVES are granted by the University to promote the professional growth and effectiveness of the faculty. Sabbatical leaves are granted to enable recipients, based on merit, to devote additional time to scholarly activity and research, advanced study, or artistic performance—all in pursuit of academic objectives. Tenured, full-time faculty, and department chairs are eligible to apply for sabbatical leave.
SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS provide funds to support professional development during the summer months. Examples of types of activities that may be applicable include: improving teaching skills; research; scholarly writing; creative or artistic projects; preliminary studies and literature searches; and attending seminars or courses related to one’s field or professional work. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty summer fellowship. Each faculty member awarded a fellowship for summer 2020 received an award of $6,000.
PROJECT GRANTS provide funds to pay expenses, purchase equipment, and to cover other financial needs for sabbatical leaves, faculty summer fellowships, and for other instructional, scholarly, and creative activities where financial support is not available through department budgets. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty project grant not to exceed $6,000. In 2019-20, 16 faculty members completed project grants.
The projects below were undertaken from Fall 2019 through Summer 2020.
Abdullah Al-Bahrani
Associate Professor
Department of Economics & Finance
Economic Education International Outreach
My sabbatical started off at Harvard as an attendee of the Management Development Program through the Graduate School of Education. After that, I spent my sabbatical year working at University College of Dublin, Ireland. During the year I focused on increasing my international research network, exposure to behavioral economics, and increasing my efforts in producing work geared towards policymaking and economic development. Although the academic year was cut short due to the pandemic, I had a successful sabbatical. I presented my work in Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Qatar, Canada and Oman. I worked with policymakers in Oman as they transitioned governments and implemented new economic policies.
I spent the second half of my sabbatical (March- August) in Oman due the pandemic and airport closures. However, I used that time to present in virtual international conferences, develop more economic education outreach programs through a YouTube channel, and help educators transition to online education. Overall, it was a successful year, especially given the impact of the pandemic. Additionally, it is important to note that while I was on sabbatical, I still maintained my role as Director for the Center for Economic Education, which, in itself, had many accomplishments during that time. For instance, we were selected as an Unleash Innovation winner. We trained 40 educators in our inaugural financial literacy education summer program, and we increased access to our FLC 101 course through School-Based Scholar program.
Rebecca Bailey
Associate Professor
Department of History & Geography
Innovative Pedagogical Design
When January 2020 arrived, I quickly settled into a routine of organizing mounds of gathered research and investigating new outlets for sharing my findings. Then, in late February, the arrival of COVID-19 changed our world “utterly” and forced all NKU instruction online. I set aside my original sabbatical project and leaned into work that I hoped could ultimately benefit students in my classes and my colleagues in this time of epochal transformation. In the spring and summer of 2020, worldwide, the pandemic forced reliance on remote learning, thus adding new fuel to the debate surrounding online pedagogy. Coincidentally, the pandemic further propelled in the United States a social reckoning that led to more public discussion of U.S. history than had occurred in the last fifty years.
Robin Bartlett
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Career Planning for Psychology Majors
Suffice it to say that the spring of 2020 was an interesting time to be on sabbatical. I managed to make the best of the time I had available to move several research projects forward and co-author a paper that was accepted for publication. One of my sabbatical goals included examining a new area of research on cognitive decision-making that may have implications for vocational identity development. Specifically, I reviewed literature on “maximizers”, who work to make the best decisions and “satisficers”, who make decisions that are good enough. This resulted in the preparation of a research study that will launch later this semester to investigate relations between tendencies toward “maximizing” and aspects of vocational identity.
While not a specific goal of my sabbatical application, my students and I launched and collected initial data for two different projects related to identity development in college students. One study compares vocational identity development and career decision-making difficulties in student-athletes versus non-student-athletes, and the other examines factors related to the development of financial identity. We are continuing data collection on these projects this fall. Finally, I was asked by a colleague to assist in the preparation of a manuscript that details the importance of a life-span development course in increasing interest in aging-related careers and preparing students to enter a multigenerational workforce. This manuscript was accepted for publication in a special issue of The International Journal of Aging and Human Development.
Michael Bush
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
Both Sides of the Gun: Retribution, “Common Sense,” & Gun Storage
The American Academy of Pediatrics (Safe Storage of Firearms, 2020) recommends the safest gun storage method is to keep unloaded firearms in a locked space and separately from locked ammunition. The least safe way to store a firearm is loaded and accessible. The Center for Injury Research and Prevention (Gun Violence: Facts and Statistics, 2020) reports 1.7 million children live in homes where guns are stored loaded and accessible. Despite the potential risk for homicide, suicide, and unintentional death or injury, there is some concern that safe storage laws could prevent or limit defensive gun use and would increase rates for some crimes. This study examined the relationship between retribution and gun storage, whether those scoring higher on a retribution index were more likely to store guns loaded and accessible. Using a national sampling frame with over 3,000 respondents (N=3,265), logistic regression analysis determined those scoring higher on a retribution index were more than one times more likely to store gun(s) loaded and accessible and the model correctly predicted 88% of responses. In addition, whites, older people, those in small or rural towns, and those identifying as conservative were more likely to store guns loaded and accessible. Findings support the notion gun policy must consider flexible and creative responses that reflect diverse communities, philosophies, and experiences to find more public support and effectiveness. The manuscript was accepted for presentation at the 2020 international conference for the American Society of Criminology in Washington, D.C. and is currently under review for publication.
Corrie Danieley
Associate Professor of Theatre
School of the Arts
Somatic Movement Training for Actor Health in Class and Career
This sabbatical gave me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge and understanding of somatic techniques for actor training. The Alexander Technique, Yoga, and Tai Chi all help promote strength, flexibility, presence, poise, discipline, and focus: qualities an actor needs to hone their craft. In particular, these techniques are also valuable to an actor’s health and wellbeing when it comes to safely entering and exiting a character. My interest lies in helping performers understand and execute a training regimen they can practice daily, utilize before auditions, and use post rehearsals and performances. Actors are in a career which at times can cause high levels of stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. I believe making somatic practices part of an actor’s daily warm-up and cool down is essential to their health, wellbeing, and longevity in their career. I spent much of this sabbatical gathering resources, taking classes, and cataloging somatic exercises that I could bring into my classroom right away. I also spent time retooling our BFA Acting Curriculum to include a course called Movement for the Actor One in which somatic exercises will be the primary focus. I am excited to teach this class this semester, Fall 2020.
Ursula Doyle
Professor
Chase College of Law
Patricia Roberts Harris: An American Icon
For the last several years I have researched the life of African American female politician, diplomat, lawyer and academic Patricia Roberts Harris, in preparation for writing her biography. This biography will span the full arc of Harris’s life and more. It will begin with the stories of her enslaved and free ancestors and end with her death. During my sabbatical, I reviewed several thousand pages of Harris’s archives, several hundred news articles and numerous books. I also conducted interviews with major figures in her life and career, including but not limited to former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice-President Walter Mondale, Reverend Jesse Jackson, author and journalist Juan Williams, civic leader and widow of former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Cora Masters Barry, and veteran political pollster Peter Hart.
Kebede Gemene
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Religious/Supernatural AttributionElectrochemical and Optical Ion/Polyion Sensors for Clinical and Biomedical Applications
The primary activities I planned to accomplish during my sabbatical leave were (1) writing manuscripts on previously completed projects of my research, (2) writing research grant proposals and (3) conducting some preliminary studies to expand my research adding ion-selective optical sensors to my ion-selective electrode-based electrochemical sensor development. During this sabbatical, I submitted one manuscript to a well-known journal, Analytica Chimica Acta, for publication and one research manuscript is almost ready for submission. NKU undergrads and an international intern student are co-authors of these manuscripts. In addition, a research grant proposal was prepared during my sabbatical and is near completion. This grant proposal will be submitted to Kentucky Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (KBRIN) under the Investigator Development Award (IDeA) program on December 18, 2020. The third activity I planned to accomplish during my sabbatical was conducting preliminary experiments on ion-selective optical sensor development. I have already conducted strong research in the area of electrochemical sensor development. Augmenting this with optical sensors for applications in biomedical research has been my keen interest. During my sabbatical, I did some detail work on this area. I researched and purchased all the necessary active components used in optical polymeric membranes (films) and casted the membrane. Unfortunately, I did not run measurement of ions with the optical sensors during my sabbatical because of the time constraint caused by COVID-19. Everything is ready and we will explore research in optical ion/polyion sensors development soon.
Chris Gulinello
Professor
Chase College of Law
Contract Law Textbook
During my sabbatical, I had three major accomplishments:
Re-design of my project. I had originally contemplated concentrating my efforts on finding interesting and relevant cases for a textbook on contract law. However, as I progressed on my research, I was forced to confront the flaws in my textbook design, which would have been exacerbated, rather than improved, by including more cases.
This revelation resulted in a complete re-design of my textbook, with a focus on clear learning expectations, accessible discussion of the law, helpful illustrations, and exercises that challenge students to apply what they have learned. In addition, the new design of the textbook integrates over seventy video lectures on contract law I had already created. The combination of the video lectures, the textbook readings, and the exercises provides students with the tools they need to engage in active learning of the materials before coming to class.
Substantial progress of my project. During my sabbatical, I wrote over 700 pages of the re-designed textbook, completing 15 of the 18 chapters.
Successful international experience. A collateral benefit of my sabbatical was the opportunity to work on my project while living in Osaka, Japan for several months. During my four months in Osaka, I made significant progress on my project while enjoying the challenges of using a new language to accomplish daily tasks in an unfamiliar environment.
Greg Hatchett
Professor of Counseling & Human Services
School of Kinesiology, Counseling, & Rehabilitative Science
Textbook Proposal, Course Revision, and Manuscript Submissions
In the application for a sabbatical, I requested a one-semester leave to develop a textbook proposal on the topic of treatment planning in clinical mental health counseling. A subsidiary objective was to use the information collected during this process to rework my graduate course on treatment planning (COU 671). I constructed a detailed rationale and table of contents for a proposed textbook, which I submitted to two publishing companies. I am still waiting to hear a response. As a result of my research for the textbook, I also constructed a 25-page manuscript entitled, “The Art and Science of Negotiation in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. With the time allotted by this sabbatical, I also had the time to resubmit a second manuscript entitled, “Perceived Tenure Standards, Scholarly Productivity, and Workloads of Counselor Educators at Comprehensive Universities.” Finally, consistent with my sabbatical application, I used this time to revise my course on treatment planning (COU 671). As part of the revision process, I carefully read several new texts on treatment planning as well as over 50 journal articles. During the spring 2020 semester, I have the opportunity to implement this new version of COU 671, and I am excited as to what the outcome will be.
Alain Krapl
Professor
Department of Economics & Finance
Corporate Foreign Exchange Exposure and Bankruptcy: U.S. Evidence
During my sabbatical leave (spring semester 2020), I collaborated on a research project with Santiago Ruiz de Vargas, a corporate financial valuation specialist from Munich, Germany. We have shared interests in international finance and have successfully collaborated in the past. The resulting empirical research paper is titled: Corporate Foreign Exchange Exposure and Bankruptcy: U.S. Evidence.
Examining data from U.S. stock markets spanning 1980 to 2019, we explore the relation between corporate foreign exchange (FX) exposure and bankruptcies. FX exposures are defined as the sensitivity of stock returns to changes in FX rates. As is common in many studies, we use the nominal U.S. Federal Reserve Major Dollar Index (MCI), which captures trade-weighted changes in six major currencies against the U.S. Dollar. Using unconditional and conditional measures of FX exposure, we explore whether FX exposure is a contributing factor in bankruptcies and performance-based delistings from U.S. stock markets.
Based on economic intuition, related research, and anecdotal evidence, we hypothesize a positive relation between FX exposure magnitude and bankruptcy. Using two measures of bankruptcy, the UCLA-LoPucki Bankruptcy Research Database and the CRSP stock delisting data set, we find a statistically negative relation between FX exposure magnitudes and corporate failures. The results are opposite to our expectation, but a relation clearly exists. In the next steps of this project, we will explore plausible explanations of the reported paradoxical results.
Debra Meyers
Professor
Department of History & Geography
Crisis and Challenge in the Roman Catholic Church: Perspectives on Decline and Reformation
Dr. Debra Meyers, a Gender Studies, History, and Religious Studies Professor tenured in the Department of History and Geography, spent a very productive sabbatical semester working to complete a book addressing the implosion of the Roman Catholic Church. Crisis and Challenge in the Roman Catholic Church: Perspectives on Decline and Reformation, is an anthology co-edited with Mary Sue Barnett exploring the historical, theological, and ethical dimensions of the current issues threatening the two thousand-year-old Catholic Church. Crisis and Challenge will be published in 2020 by Lexington Books, the academic division of Rowman and Littlefield.
Joseph Nolan
Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Studies and Publications in Statistics and Student Retention
Sabbatical leave during the Spring 2020 semester, while not exactly conforming to original plans, resulted in three substantial publications (so far). The first culminated a project with co-authors from four other universities initiated within a 2017 USCOTS panel presentation. This project explored, from both student and faculty perspectives, the Benefits of and Barriers to Undergraduate Research in Statistics. The final manuscript, entitled Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Statistics: Reaping the Benefits and Overcoming the Barriers, was published in the Journal of Statistics Education in April, 2020.
The second publication came as follow-up to a Burkardt Center project. Having completed analyses for this project with student-consultant Eli Flerlage in Fall 2019, we were asked in March to assist with the manuscript. Prevalence and Characteristics of Patients with Primary Severe Hypercholesterolemia in Multidisciplinary Healthcare System was published in the American Journal of Cardiology in October.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the third publication relates directly to NKU and relates to research that began in 2018 when the Burkardt Center was asked to analyze student success data from NKU’s Mayerson Philanthropy Program. Analyses indicated a substantive link between students’ experience taking courses involving this program, and measures of student success including graduation and retention. April/May 2020 were spent working with co-authors to bring these exciting results to publication. High Impact Practices Through Experiential Student Philanthropy: A Case Study of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project and Academic Success at Northern Kentucky University is now published in August 2020 issue of the Journal of College Student Retention.
Bianca Prather-Jones
Associate Professor
College of Education
Identifying and Improving the Information Literacy Skills of Teacher Candidates
Dr. Prather-Jones’ sabbatical project centered on a study of the information needs and behaviors of preservice teachers (AKA: teacher candidates). The research questions that were the focus of this study included:
1. For what reasons do preservice teachers seek information?
2. What search methods and sources of information do preservice teachers use in response to these information needs?
3. What instructional activities might be incorporated into teacher education coursework to promote the development of teacher candidates’ information literacy skills?
The project involved several stages across three semesters, and involved the following central activities:
· developing a survey regarding candidates’ information needs and information seeking behaviors;
· piloting and revising this survey;
· using existing literature and survey data to create and pilot instruction geared toward developing the information literacy skills of teacher candidates;
· distributing the revised survey prior to implementing this instruction;
· implementing the instruction;
· distributing the survey post-instruction; and
· analyzing study data, disseminating preliminary findings at a national conference, and preparing to disseminate overall and more in-depth findings at an upcoming national conference.
Ryan Salzman
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
Pop Up Civics in 21st Century America: Understanding the Political Potential of Placemaking
Ryan Salzman was awarded a full year sabbatical for the 2019-2020 school year to complete a book manuscript that was the culmination of a three-year research project examining placemaking as political behavior. Prior to the sabbatical year Dr. Salzman’s book project went under contract with Routledge. Over the course of the 2019-2020 academic year the book was successfully drafted and submitted to the publisher for review. Literature review and data analysis were central tasks during sabbatical in addition to the actual writing. Despite interruptions due to COVID-19, the sabbatical project was completed without delay. Publication for Dr. Salzman’s book – Pop Up Civics in 21st Century America: Understanding the Political Potential of Placemaking – is expected in late 2020 or early 2021.
Chris Strobel
Professor
Department of Communication
Media Aesthetics Teaching Materials
For spring 2020, I was granted a sabbatical to create materials to assist with the effectiveness of teaching media aesthetics. Like everything else in 2020, the project was hampered and changed by COVID-19. The plan was to spend the first half of the semester identifying the aspects of media aesthetics for which creating media would be most useful, and then writing the scenarios to be filmed. After spring break, once the weather warmed to allow for more comfortable outside filming, we would enter into production of the media with the editing phase immediately following.
The initial portion progressed well (I even squeezed in producing, writing, shooting, and editing a short film during February) and I accompanied our study abroad class to Guatemala during spring break. Before travelling I decided upon the concepts to be illustrated, and everything was on track for beginning production in late March. But while we were in Los Andes the world changed, and we returned to a different reality. We were barred from even returning to campus once we were back in the region, and in-person activities – like filmmaking – were prohibited.
I shifted my focus to preparing for whenever production can safely resume and concentrated on completing the online textbook into which the media will be placed. That text is already proving to be a positive resource for our Introduction to Media Aesthetics class, and the media which will ultimately be created from this sabbatical should only make it more effective.
James Walden
Professor
Department of Computer Science
How changing software development processes impact the quality and security of OpenSSL software
When the Heartbleed vulnerability in the OpenSSL software library made international news in 2014, it revealed how dependent the Internet is on open source infrastructure software that runs underneath the graphical interfaces we use. The goal of my sabbatical was to investigate how changing software development processes impact the quality and security of such software. The initial focus of my research was on OpenSSL, which provides cryptographic functions that are necessary for every login and purchase web page. I published my research on OpenSSL at the 2020 Mining Software Repositories international conference. My paper won the conference's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Impact award for outstanding contributions to the FOSS community.
In fall 2019, I visited the University of Gothenburg in Sweden to continue a collaboration with Dr. Riccardo Scandariato. We created a chatbot assistant for software developers to help develop more secure software. We started to evaluate the chatbot using an experiment with NKU students in spring 2020, but the experiment could not be completed due to class changes arising from COVID-19. We plan to complete the experiment in fall 2020.
I also visited Dr. Byron Williams at the University of Florida in fall 2019 to initiate a collaboration analyzing the Core Infrastructure Initiative's badge project, which evaluates software processes of open source projects. We have started collecting data, but the completion of the project has been slowed by COVID-19. We are continuing work on the project in fall 2020.
Kimberly Weir
Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
Unsustainable resource consumption in the global political economy
I was granted sabbatical leave for the Spring 2020 semester in December of 2018. The purpose of my sabbatical was to work on a book project exploring the problem of unsustainable resource consumption in the global political economy. I focus on a number of specific commodities as a way of understanding the impact of global supply and demand on the sustainability of humans and the planet. In 2019, I signed a book contract with Lynne Rienner Publishers, a peer-reviewed academic press.
My leave gave me the opportunity to travel to Patagonia and the Mekong Delta. Prior to departure, I spent time working on the chapter of my book focusing on water with these research opportunities in mind. Immediately upon return from South America, however, I was confronted with travel plan changes, and ultimately, cancellations due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unable to go to Southeast Asia, I reworked the water chapter.
I had one paper accepted to present at a professional conference – my presentation on corn at the Midwest Political Science Association’s conference in April 2020 was cancelled. While working on this chapter for the conference and the water chapter, I developed an improved approach to pairing commodities with the international political economy concepts and areas (international monetary, trade, and investment systems; development; international law). I subsequently made significant revisions to my work to incorporate this approach.
Kristine Yohe
Associate Professor
Department of English
Reckoning with the Past: The Historical Poetry of Frank X Walker
During my Fall 2019 sabbatical, I intensified my work on the manuscript for my forthcoming book, Reckoning with the Past: The Historical Poetry of Frank X Walker, which is under contract with the University Press of Kentucky. In this project, I examine five works of historical persona poetry by Walker, who is a former Kentucky Poet Laureate and founder of the Affrilachian Poets. I show how Walker’s works uncover important African American figures who have previously been widely overlooked because of racism, including York, the enslaved Black man who accompanied Lewis and Clark; Isaac Murphy, an early Black jockey who won multiple Kentucky Derbies; and Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was assassinated by a white supremacist. During the timeframe of the sabbatical, August to December 2019, I completed researching and writing one chapter on Frank X Walker’s book When Winter Come: The Ascension of York (2008) and began and completed researching and writing another chapter on Walker’s Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York (2004). In early December, I conducted a three-hour, in-person interview with Walker, the transcript of which will be included as a chapter in my book. Towards the end of the sabbatical, also in December, I made substantive progress on my book’s introduction, which became the core text of a Six@Six lecture that I presented for the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement in February 2020, as well as for a follow-up online lecture I delivered for Scripps Howard in May 2020.
Nana Arthur-Mensah
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
Flipping the Coin: Understanding the Role of Followership for Effective Leadership
I began a qualitative research study entitled Flipping the Coin: Understanding the Role of Followership for Effective Leadership. I submitted an IRB application to begin the study and received approval on 05/26. The purpose of this study is to explore how the role and characteristics of followers influence leadership behaviors and leadership outcomes. Specifically, the study seeks to understand how participants perceive their roles as followers in relation to leadership, and how following behaviors enhance a leader’s effectiveness or accentuates a leader’s shortcomings. I was introduced to 15 participants in the two organizations, to whom I sent emails inviting them to participate in the study. However, due to the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic, some of the participants did not respond to my follow up emails. Nonetheless, I was successful in interviewing seven participants in July and August via zoom and phone. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. I plan to continue my analysis of the data collected, while I still conduct additional interviews during the semester. During an initial review of the data collected and I am finding that, while individuals agree their roles differ from that of leaders, they have not given much thought to the concept of followership. When individuals understand the importance of followership, they are open to learning how to develop the right skills to become the effective follower who influences leadership outcomes. As practitioners, scholars and educators of leadership, it behooves us to shed light on the importance of followership.
Axel Brandt
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
Maximizing Induced Cycles in Complex Networks
A classic question mathematicians have explored is how to pack a bunch of the same object into a pre-determined space, say packing as many oranges as possible into a box for transport. What if we reversed this? Rather than fitting objects into a container, what if we could design a container to best fit an object? What would the container look like, and how many objects could we pack into it?
This summer fellowship explored this question in the context of graph theory, which is a field of mathematics that examines the relationship structure among objects. Graph theory is used by epidemiologists to model the spread of diseases, by airline companies to efficiently schedule flights, and GPS devices to determine the fastest route between locations.
For an example of a graph, consider a network of people related by who talks to each other. The graph representation for 7 children sitting around a table playing a game of “telephone” would be drawn as 7 dots in a circle with lines only connecting dots representing people that are sitting next to each other; we call this graph an induced 7-cycle.
For this project, we seek to determine what structure best packs induced 7-cycles. It is believed that a fractal-like construction -- where the structure looks the same if you zoom in -- is best for packing induced 7-cycles, but that has not yet been confirmed.
Research with students during the academic year produced results suitable for publication in a professional journal. A draft of the results was compiled and is being edited for submission; I hope to submit the manuscript before spring semester. During the summer I worked with a different group of students, during which we also obtained publishable results. A draft of their results is in the very early stages; I hope to submit that manuscript before the end of spring semester. If the 2nd goal stated in the proposal is more loosely interpreted as “obtain a publishable result”, then the success of the summer fellowship would exceed expectation.
Nicholas Caporusso
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Intangible Interfaces (I2s) – Enhancing the Accessibility of Physical Devices by Displaying Digital Replicas of their Interface on User’s Smartphone
The Fellowship supported research on a system that can improve the accessibility of User Interface (UI) of physical devices (e.g., vending, ticketing, and ATM machines, as well as appliances) to render them usable to individuals with disabilities, with specific regard to blind and deaf-blind people.
Specifically, the project focused on creating a system for implementing an Interactive Digital Twin, that is, a digital replica of the product user interface (e.g., touchscreen displays, keypads, knobs, and buttons) on users’ smartphones, so that individuals can leverage the accessibility features of their phone (i.e., text-to-speech) to be able to easily navigate the interface and understand how to use the vending machine. The project accomplished its main objective, achieving a working prototype that has been tested in a laboratory environment and is ready to be implemented in real-world scenarios. Moreover, the team rendered the solution affordable and immediately adoptable without requiring any changes to current devices.
The work has been realized in the context of a collaboration with a network of international partners and has resulted in two publications in international peer-reviewed scientific conferences, of which one has received a best paper award. Furthermore, the summer fellowship has created the opportunity to involve one NKU faculty and two NKU students in undergraduate research (including one UR-STEM project).
Ada Cenkci
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
EXAMINING THE ANTECEDENTS OF WORKPLACE LONELINESS
The funds from the Faculty Senate Faculty Summer Fellowship enabled me to work on my research project on the antecedents of workplace loneliness. Considering that there is very scarce empirical research on employee loneliness, this project aimed to collect data from white-collar employees from the US. During the fellowship, I narrowed the target population to the full-time employees (faculty and staff) of U.S. higher education institutions.
The fellowship allowed me to conduct a literature review, create the survey questionnaire, further develop my research model, finish my IRB application, complete the pilot study, and make modifications to the survey questionnaire according to the results of the pilot study. I plan to continue this research project within the 2020-2021 Academic Year. The results of this project are planned to be presented at a research conference related to my discipline. A full manuscript based on the results of this study will be completed within in 2020-2021 Academic Year and the associated article will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
Samuel Cho
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
SafeChat: Privacy, Security, and Trust Based Information Sharing among IoT Devices
The Internet of Things (IoT) senses environmental data and processes the data to provide useful services to users. As some possible examples, IoT bulbs can adjust themselves depending on ambient light or IoT refrigerators can order new eggs when necessary. Various software and hardware components are required to provide optimal services to users. However, IoT hardware and software components are vulnerable to external hacking activities because they are connected wirelessly and accessible by anybody who wants to use it. SafeChat is a tool to make IoT systems safe. SafeChat accomplishes this safety goal by providing tools and rules for safety concerns; users with different situations can get a different power of control or information granularity. SafeChat allows the owners of the IoT bulbs or refrigerator the authority to retrieve information and control the whole system, while casual visitors can only access restricted information with limited control capabilities. No information is available to outsiders, including hackers. In this report, we summarized the research ideas upon which SafeChat is based. We also briefly introduce the tools to verify the validity of the research ideas. We also researched the usability of SafeChat to develop a DSL (Domain Specific Language) and a primitive compiler for the SafeChat programming language. The research results will be a solid foundation for our next step in IoT research and education. We plan to publish research papers to share the knowledge, and we plan to incorporate some of SafeChat ideas in IoT related courses.
Megan Downing
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
An Examination of Self-Leadership Strategies to Mitigate Impostor Phenomenon Tendencies
The 2020 Summer Fellowship enabled me to advance my work on An Examination of Self-Leadership Strategies to Mitigate Impostor Phenomenon Tendencies, a project that explores the effectiveness of self-leadership strategies in mitigating the negative influence of impostor phenomenon (IP) tendencies. Specifically, I completed the literature review, phase one data review, and prepared IRB adjustments necessary due to Covid-19. Online resources were also planned and developed for project participants. In addition, related research was conducted for a co-authored project on pairing mindfulness and compassion-based practices with IP and another co-authored project on IP and career trajectory in information technology professionals. The fellowship supported the advancement of my work on three additional projects, including two co-authored manuscripts that were completed and accepted for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals. The first, completed in collaboration with Dr. Kajsa Larson, Dr. Joseph Nolan, and Mr. Mark Neikirk, High Impact Practices Through Experiential Student Philanthropy: A Case Study of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project at Northern Kentucky University was accepted for publication in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. The second, “Extreme” E-student Philanthropy: Expanding Grantmaking into Fully Online Classes and Assessing Outcomes for Students as Learners, Community Members, and Social Activists, completed in collaboration with Dr. Julie Olberding, was accepted for publication in the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership. Work was also completed on a solo-authored manuscript on experiential philanthropy and School Based Scholars (dual enrolled high school students) that is nearing completion for submission to the Journal of Leadership Education.
Ursula Doyle
Professor
Chase College of Law
Patricia Roberts Harris
For the last several years I have been researching the life of African American female politician, diplomat, lawyer and academic Patricia Roberts Harris, in preparation for writing her biography. This biography will span the full arc of Harris’s life and more. It will begin with the stories of her enslaved and free ancestors and end with her death. In preparation for writing this work I have reviewed several thousand pages of Harris’s archives, several hundred news articles and numerous books. I have also conducted interviews with dozens of major figures in her life and career, including but not limited to former President Jimmy Carter, former Vice-President Walter Mondale, former Washington, D.C. mayor Sharon Pratt, Reverend Jesse Jackson, author/journalist Juan Williams, widow of former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, Cora Masters Barry, and veteran political pollster Peter Hart. While the research for this project continues, I have, where appropriate, begun writing the first drafts of book chapters.
During my recent fellowship summer, I wrote about Harris’s achievements as Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Carter Administration, focusing especially on her development of the Urban Development Action Grant program, an initiative designed to pair public and private funds to rebuild America’s cities. Harris’s work contributed significantly to the development of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Boston’s Copley Plaza, Charleston’s Charleston Place, Detroit’s Riverfront, San Antonio’s Alamo Plaza, Vista Verde South and Riverwalk and New York’s South Street Seaport.
Kathleen Fuegen
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Natural environments, focus of attention, and the experience of pain
I study the effect of natural environments on psychological well-being. In 2018, my collaborator, Kim Breitenbecher, and I were awarded a project grant to conduct an experiment examining how nature walks affect mood and pain perception. The experiment addressed two main questions: (1) why does walking in natural environments improve mood, and (2) how does the focus of attention during a nature walk (inward vs. outward) affect mood and pain perception. We expected that walking in nature improves mood because such walks reduce rumination and promote feelings of awe. We also expected that focusing outward would improve mood to a greater extent than focusing inward.
This summer fellowship provided support as I analyzed the outcomes of that experiment. Last fall, I had anticipated that data collection would be finished by May, 2020. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we were forced to suspend data collection in early March. Thus, the project remains incomplete. Nonetheless, I analyzed the data and wrote a rough draft of a manuscript. We hope to continue data collection when in-person research can safely resume.
This project provided a valuable learning experience for three students enrolled in a supervised research course. These student researchers collected and analyzed data, read background literature, and presented a poster during the virtual Celebration of Student Research and Creativity in April. Also, the fellowship provided support as I developed a course in environmental psychology. The course will address the effect of environments (both natural and built) on human health and well-being. It will be offered in spring of 2021.
Andrea Gazzaniga
Associate Professor
Department of English
The Pedagogy of Teaching Sonnets
During my Summer Fellowship, I drafted a pedagogical essay on teaching the sonnet to students in literature classes using Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous work, Sonnets from the Portuguese. My essay outlines effective lesson plans for instructors who find it difficult to teach poetic form in a way that engages students. I begin by explaining how to teach the sonnet tradition as a first step to teaching the significance of the sonnet form. Specifically, I discuss various classroom activities that illustrate how poets use the sonnet, a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter, to order tumultuous emotions. In other words, because the sonnet is a restrictive poetic form with an inflexible format, its measured language acts as a tonic for chaotic feelings. My essay then discusses Sonnets from the Portuguese to model how form and content work together. EBB’s sonnet sequence chronicles her courtship with fellow poet Robert Browning and is considered an iconic example of amatory verse. I advise instructors to teach how poetics and prose register intimacy in different ways by having them read EBB’s letters to Robert Browning and assigning them to write sonnets based on specific prose excerpts. I then ask students to write letters based on a sonnet from the sequence. With this assignment, students discover how the language of love changes based on the form it takes. I share some written examples in my essay and also report on successful learning outcomes. I plan to submit my manuscript for publication in Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition.
Kristine Hopfensperger
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Greater Cincinnati Pollinator Habitat Initiative
With the 2019-20 Faculty Summer Fellowship I was able to further the mission of the Greater Cincinnati Pollinator Habitat Initiative through focusing on future opportunities and growth. While Covid-19 altered plans of mentoring undergraduate students in field and lab work and plans of adding six new schools to our project, I was able to pivot and move the project forward in new and exciting ways. Time was spent this summer setting up a large-scale restoration study of pollinator habitat, developing new methods using drone technology for sampling milkweed populations (this included mentoring one undergraduate student), leading project communication with all partners, networking with multiple potential advantageous partners, and submitting a multi-million-dollar proposal that would support the Pollinator Initiative for the next six years. The Summer Fellowship was a true benefit to the future of the Initiative and all of those involved.
Stacie Jankowski
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Practice, Pressures, and Values: Journalists on the health news framing process
This fellowship addresses a little-studied portion of the journalistic health framing process by using interviews with journalists to investigate the ways they cover health news. Researchers often focus framing research about health news on what types of frames are present in media content and how those frames impact audiences. There is currently very little research done on the front end — how these frames are conceived of and understood by journalists. This project seeks to remedy that gap by connecting professional journalists and research about journalism in order to understand the professional practices, ethics, values, and pressures that influence journalistic choices. Because of journalism’s power and as journalism continues to rapidly change due to technological advancement, business pressures, and societal and political views of journalism, understanding this role is necessary work. This project will begin to fill a large gap in the literature about how health journalists conceive of news stories and thematic and episodic framing. This summer, the researcher completed the first phase of this research, examining background research and creating the data collection tools that will be used in the second phase of research. This project received IRB approval this summer, and so the researcher is ready to begin data collection.
Jae-Seung Lee
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, & Organizational Leadership
Is Community Policing (COP) really effective?: A tale of two cities.
This fellowship will contribute to the improvement of the current community policing programs. The community policing has become a dominant policing tool in the United States during the past three decades. However, its effectiveness on crime reduction is still in question. One of possible explanations is that there is no unified format of community policing since community policing is a philosophy, not a strategy. Hence, police departments have implemented different types of programs/strategies based on community policing in the United States. Moreover, only a handful of studies focus on why citizens participate in COP programs while studies consistently reported that citizen participation is crucial to successful implementation of COP to gauge the effectiveness. Therefore, this study attempts to examine a major driving force of citizen participation in COP programs using two datasets collected from citizen participants in two different formats of community policing programs: (1) the data from a survey of 500 citizen participants in the Houston Police Department’s Positive Interaction Program (PIP), monthly base community-police communication meetings hosted by the police department, in 2015, and (2) the data from a survey of 82 citizen participants in monthly-base civic meetings partnered with Covington Police Department in 2020. Finally, this study will offer policy relevant information to improve the current COP programs.
Zeel Maheshwari
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, & Engineering Technology
Research for a Wind Turbine Emulator
Funds from the summer fellowship and project grant were used to conduct research for wind-turbine emulator. My initial plan was to build a wind turbine emulator replicating a near-real-world scenario. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 situation, I ended up building a simulation model of a wind turbine emulator in LabVIEW software developed by NI. The simulation consisted of subsystems, such as a three phase voltage source, AC Induction Machine, turbine model, drive train model, and doubly fed controller. Inputs given to the model were wind speed and direction of wind. Outputs obtained were turbine speed, power and energy generated, turbine direction and tip-speed ratio. Two modes of operation were made available to the user. One was manual mode where the user could choose the input wind speed. Another option was automatic mode wherein wind speeds were automatically increased from 1-30mph. Outputs for both the modes were plotted graphically. In addition, I was able to review over 40 journal papers and articles on the topic. I plan to submit two manuscripts based on wind turbine emulators and the designing and developing of a wind turbine emulator for research and educational purposes (which will be co-authored by undergraduate students). In the review paper, the emulators will be categorized based on the type of motors, type of controllers, software platform, single or three phase. Overall, through the summer fellowship, I was able to build the foundation of the project which I plan to complete by the end of this year.
Joseph Mester
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Visualizing Novel HCV Vaccines with Fluorescence and Electron Microscopy
We developed a novel herpes simplex virus (HSV)-based vaccine vector system that allows for the rapid introduction and expression of genes from other infectious agents in a silent HSV backbone. Prototype vaccines for hepatitis C virus (HCV) were made using this system. These vaccines are being evaluated with human primary dendritic cell (DC) cultures as a model of immunogenicity. This Summer Fellowship focused on the design and execution of laboratory experiments to determine the kinetics of target antigen production in human DC cultures by using fluorescent microscopy to visualize vaccine-infected cells. The results demonstrated that the vaccine vectors were able to stably infect and produce the target protein at time points (days 1 to 9 post-infection) that are relevant for generating protective anti-viral immunity. The vaccines did not have a toxic effect on the DC, and vector-infected DC demonstrated immune activation as evidenced by morphological changes. These results further demonstrated the immune activating potential of non-replicating HSV-vectored vaccines in a human system. A collaboration with the University of Kentucky Electron Microscopy Core was initiated to visualize vaccine-infected cells and cell-free vaccine preparations at higher magnifications to fully characterize these novel vaccines. Modifications of the original HSV vector are underway to enhance the yield and stability of future vaccines based on this vector, and to improve its ability to generate strong immune responses. The Summer Fellowship allowed essential development work with the novel HCV vaccines to be accomplished, including time to perform a literature review of recent scientific publications on HCV vaccines. This review confirmed that our vaccines are unique and have a high potential for generating protective immune responses to HCV.
Allison Parker
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Effect of water level on oviposition choice by Culex mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae)
The Faculty Summer Fellowship combined with a Project Grant provided me with an opportunity to supervise five undergraduate students in a mosquito ecology project examining female mosquito oviposition (egg-laying) preferences for man-made containers with different volumes of water. In this study, we specifically examined oviposition preference in Culex species, which are the main vectors of West Nile virus in the area. Since no vaccine is currently available for West Nile virus, control of the mosquitoes themselves is the best way to control disease outbreaks. Female mosquitoes lay their eggs in standing water. Understanding in which habitats females prefer to oviposit can lead to targeted mosquito control efforts. In this study, our goal was to determine if female Culex spp. could detect differences in water levels in man-made containers. We collect egg samples daily for 12 weeks this summer, and enumerated the collected larvae to species. Our preliminary results show that the females can detect some differences in water levels, with females ovipositing significantly less eggs in the containers with the least water compared to other containers. We hope to submit a manuscript with these findings by the end of Fall 2020.
Emily Shifley
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Characterizing the embryonic expression patterns of pck1 and pck2 genes
I appreciate the support from the Faculty Senate for my summer research titled “Characterizing the embryonic expression patterns of pck1 and pck2 genes.” When tissues form in the early embryo, their cells express different sets of genes that help them become more specialized in a process called differentiation. My research is focused on understanding and characterizing how these genes guide embryonic development. When the usual patterns of gene expression and differentiation do not occur normally, birth defects can result. My research lab uses Xenopus frogs as model organisms and we identified two uncharacterized genes called pck1 and pck2 that might play important roles during early stages of embryonic development. The goal of the summer fellowship was to analyze the roles and expression patterns of pck1 and pck2. With the help of an undergraduate researcher, I was able to compare the sequences of pck1 and pck2 with each other and with their equivalent genes in other vertebrate animals, including humans. These analyses, along with research from other studies, gave us a better understanding of the roles these genes play as enzymes in developing, embryonic cells. Additionally, we have been working to characterize their expression patterns and found that pck1 is expressed in an embryonic tissue called the ectoderm which eventually gives rise to the skin while pck2 is expressed in developing nervous tissue which eventually gives rise to the brain and spinal cord. These results suggest that several important tissues use pck1 and pck2 activity to differentiate and develop.
Matthew Zacate
Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, & Engineering Technology
Upgrading research software to answer a new question: can perturbed angular correlation spectroscopy be used to measure how fast atoms jump in superalloys?
Superalloys are multicomponent and often highly disordered alloys that have important applications throughout industry, including automotive, aerospace, and medical. Diffusion – the long range motion of atoms – in these alloys can place constraints on manufacturing processes and can impact device performance. It is, therefore, important to learn as much as possible about the fundamentals governing diffusion. One possible approach is to use a method called perturbed angular correlation spectroscopy (PAC), which, under the right conditions, allows measurement of how fast atoms jump in the alloy. Until now, most PAC measurements have been made on ordered alloys. The main goal of this summer fellowship project was to use computer simulations to investigate whether or not PAC is sensitive to atomic motion in highly disordered alloys.
Computer code developed previously by Dr. Zacate called the Stochastic Hyperfine Interactions Modeling Library was used for simulations. As a part of this work, the code was updated by providing GNU Autotools support so that the code can be installed and used more easily by other researchers, by providing options to reduce memory usage to allow study of larger, more complicated models, and by building in a framework to run the code on parallel-computing networks. While work on the code will continue after the summer fellowship to get the new version ready for publication, it was possible to use the code to investigate effects of jumping atoms in a model disordered system.
In short, simulation results indicate that PAC is capable of detecting rapid atomic jumps in superalloys and other highly disordered alloys. These results have been shared with a collaborator and can serve as a demonstration of proof-of-concept in a future grant proposal.
Alyssa Appelman
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Written in code: How acronyms in news articles affect readers’ perceptions and behaviors
Journalists often use acronyms to streamline content, especially where space is limited. For example, a headline might say US, instead of United States. Although this is common, news readers say frequent acronym use bothers and annoys them. Why is this the case? Some studies suggest a perception problem: acronyms make journalists sound elite, or they make the content seem sloppy. Others suggest a cognition problem: acronyms are confusing and difficult for readers to understand. In other words, acronyms in headlines might bother people because of their presence or because of their difficulty. My 2019-2020 NKU Faculty Grant funded the second in a two-part study that tested these possible explanations. Participants read sample news articles with or without acronyms in the headlines. In all, this project found support for a difficulty effect; people had lower content and source perceptions when they read headlines with unfamiliar acronym(s). This included higher frustration, lower source perceptions, lower message quality, lower message credibility, and lower newsworthiness. People did perceive some differences in headlines with acronyms compare to those without, particularly if they were paying close attention, but those differences were much less pronounced. In other words, readers didn’t seem to be inherently bothered by the presence of acronyms; they seemed to be bothered by the presence of acronyms they didn’t understand. These findings suggest that journalists should explain acronyms, rather than avoid them. I have written the results of this project and submitted the manuscript to a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Kathleen Fuegen
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Kimberly Breitenbecher
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
How exercise and the natural environment influence the experience of pain
The purpose of our project is to test the hypothesis that outward focus during a nature walk will be more effective than inward focus with respect to increasing objective pain tolerance and decreasing subjective perceptions of pain intensity, pain unpleasantness, and pain distress. Participants in our study include NKU students recruited from psychology classes. We are using a within-subjects design to test our hypothesis, which means that participants must attend two experiment sessions to complete the study. Participants who complete the second session receive a $40 gift card to Amazon.com. We received IRB approval for our study during early fall 2019. We also recruited three undergraduate students to serve as research assistants. After the students had completed training on experiment procedures, we began data collection. We collected data during fall 2019 and the first half of spring 2020. Our data collection was interrupted by the transition to online learning during the latter half of spring 2020. Thus far, twenty-one participants have completed the first session. Seven of those participants also completed the second session. Our research assistants presented our preliminary findings at the 2020 NKU Celebration of Student Research and Creativity. Thus far, we have spent $104.75 of our award on printing costs and $1000.00 on the purchase of twenty-five $40 gift cards to Amazon.com, and we have used seven of those gift cards to compensate participants. We have $1,335.25 left in the project grant account. We plan to ask for an extension of the project so that can resume data collection when university operations return to normal.
Christine Curran
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Neurochemical and Toxicological Analyses Following Prenatal and Early Life Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution
The goal of this project was to quantify the effects of traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) on brain development during pregnancy and breast-feeding using a mouse model that mimics known genetic variation in the human population. TRAP is a growing area of concern in the field of developmental neurotoxicology, and it’s critical to identify those individuals who are most vulnerable to develop effective public health interventions. In addition to the research goals, this grant was meant to support undergraduate research in the Department of Biological Sciences and to provide preliminary data for major external grant applications. The Project Grant directly supported three undergraduate students through summer stipends and benefitted 14 other NKU undergraduates and one Mexican exchange student working on the overall project. An AREA-R15 grant application to the National Institutes of Health was successful (scored at the 9th percentile) along with three other external grant applications, resulting in more than $430,000 in funding. Student success was exemplified by First and Second Place Poster Awards to Ashley and Taylor Parton at the 2019 Ohio Valley Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting and acceptance of an abstract by Taylor Parton for presentation at the 2020 Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting. Environmental Science major Yvonne Sene was accepted to Johns Hopkins University (Bloomberg School of Public Health) for graduate studies, and Tori Ferguson was accepted into UK’s Physician Assistant Program. Although COVID-19 restrictions delayed completion of some key experiments, it is still anticipated that one manuscript will be submitted by Spring 2021.
Anh Dang
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, & Construction Management
The Role of Peer Success on Goal Pursuit
Research has shown that only 8% of people who set their New Year's goals could achieve them. Many goals are difficult to obtain, especially within the first try. With the prevalence of social media and other online communities, consumers are more likely to be exposed to their peers' goal accomplishment than ever before. Does peer success encourage or discourage individuals from pursuing goals? Through experiments with US adults, my research project finds that the effect of peer success on goal pursuit depends on connection types. Particularly, when a person's strong ties (i.e., close relationships) (versus weak ties) share their success on social media, it will arouse the person's benign envy. Unlike malicious envy, which is a negative emotion with the intention to harm others, benign envy inspires the envier to level up. Thus, I find that benign envy resulting from strong ties' successes encourages similar goal pursuit. However, the paper shows that strong ties' positive impact is less significant on individuals with high social comparison scores. Overall, the findings indicate a positive side of social media, amid all the existing negative associations and anecdotes. The paper will be submitted to the 2021 American Marketing Association Conference.
Allyson Graf
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Developing Healthy Aging Educational Resources through Community Partnership and Experiential Learning Opportunities
This project grant supported a second-year, tenure-track faculty member in developing experiential learning opportunities for students through research and community engagement. Consistent with NKU’s mission to be a regionally-engaged leader through education and service, the goals of the project grant delivered in three ways. Firstly, students and I worked to address the education needs of a local non-profit focused on falls prevention among aging adults. Educational resources and recommendations were provided to advance their mission to provide community education. Secondly, I was able to advance a leg of my research program focused on ageism and barriers to student interest in working with aging populations. Service learning opportunities were incorporated into existing courses, enhancing student learning but also permitting data collection on the effects of such involvement. Lastly, the scholarship component provided experiential learning by involving students (paid and unpaid) as collaborative partners. Students gained valuable research experience, including local, regional, and national presentations and opportunities for future publication; they also learned how age can operate as a source of stigma and marginalization and the bountiful and rich opportunities that emerge when we forego the stereotypes. This project grant allowed me to strengthen connections with students and the community while establishing myself as a healthy aging advocate.
Suk-hee Kim
Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Micro-Credential Program Preparation Through Assessing Student Readiness to Work in Aging: Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills
The goals proposed for this project were to (1) assess knowledge of and attitudes towards aging in a sample of undergraduate and graduate students undertaking BSW and MSW degrees in social work, (2) analyze the extent to which knowledge, attitudes, perceptions of gerontological social work, and other factors are associated with interest of aging-related issues in working with aging populations, and (3) provide the social work students with new educational materials to enhance their knowledge base regarding relevant gerontological issues.
There were four important outcomes of this project. First, this project recruited participants (n=82) to examine the students’ knowledge, attitude, skills and readiness to work with the aging population on college campus and motivate universities to provide academic opportunities to specialize in gerontological social work. The primary finding of the study is that students are somewhat knowledgeable and have positive attitudes toward older adults, but providing more appropriate training would enhance individuals’ interactions while working with older adults. Second, the project provided the fourth-year National Careers in Aging Week on campus to raise awareness about diverse careers available in the field of aging. Due to the unprecedented events surrounding COVID-19 during the project year, I developed and provided two university-wide webinars: (1) “An Epidemiological Response to COVID-19 presented by the Epidemiologist from Hamilton County Public Health Department and (2) “Never Too Old to Dream” given by the director of community relations for second wind dreams on campus. Third, I also provided the Ageism First Aid Certification Training opportunity for 18 social work students through the free access training available (May-July 1, 2020) through the Gerontological Society of America. Fourth, this project was presented at the Celebration of Student Research and Creativity 2020 (faculty mentor-graduate student collaboration) at NKU and an abstract was written and submitted for peer-review in the Council on Social Work Education-APM 2020. The project manuscript is currently under peer review in a leading Journal of Gerontological Social Work.
Zeel Maheshwari
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, & Engineering Technology
Research for a Wind Turbine Emulator
Funds from the summer fellowship and project grant were used to conduct research for wind-turbine emulator. My initial plan was to build a wind turbine emulator replicating a near-real-world scenario. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 situation, I ended up building a simulation model of a wind turbine emulator in LabVIEW software developed by NI. The simulation consisted of subsystems, such as a three phase voltage source, AC Induction Machine, turbine model, drive train model, and doubly fed controller. Inputs given to the model were wind speed and direction of wind. Outputs obtained were turbine speed, power and energy generated, turbine direction and tip-speed ratio. Two modes of operation were made available to the user. One was manual mode where the user could choose the input wind speed. Another option was automatic mode wherein wind speeds were automatically increased from 1-30mph. Outputs for both the modes were plotted graphically. In addition, I was able to review over 40 journal papers and articles on the topic. I plan to submit two manuscripts based on wind turbine emulators and the designing and developing of a wind turbine emulator for research and educational purposes (which will be co-authored by undergraduate students). In the review paper, the emulators will be categorized based on the type of motors, type of controllers, software platform, single or three phase. Overall, through the summer fellowship, I was able to build the foundation of the project which I plan to complete by the end of this year.
Bridget Nichols
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, & Construction Management
Aron Levin
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, & Construction Management
Using Eye Tracking Technology to Examine the Effects of Front of Package (FOP) Nutrition
Information on Perceptions of Food Healthiness and Taste – A Study of the Millennial Consumer
Completed Project Goals
The purpose of this project was to investigate how millennial-aged consumers interpret
front of package (FOP) nutrition information. It is a continuation of a project started in
2018/2019. The project activities included purchasing and training on eye-tracking/heart rate
monitor software & hardware, study design and planning, participant recruitment, and data
analysis. The project grant funding primarily supported the purchase of the eye-tracking
equipment (GP3 150Hz HD; $4,500), participant incentives ($10 per completed session), and
payment for participants in online experiments. The project currently includes an online sample
of over 500 consumers (including pre-test and manipulation checks) and a student-sample of
about 100 who completed the eye tracking portion. (Assistant Professor Anh Dang is also very
involved in this research.)
From this data, we conducted a rigorous study using the eye tracker and heart rate
monitor, whereby we tested whether or not adding a positive nutrient to the required
“nutrients to limit” (negative nutrients) would influence perceptions of food taste, food
healthiness, and purchase interest – while indicating how much visual attention is paid to the
nutrient information. The main goals achieved to date are 1) a presentation was made at the
most prestigious marketing conference, the American Marketing Association, in August 2020,
and 2) a journal submission was made to the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing. This
submission is now in the “revise and resubmit” status.
Additionally, we are attempting to collect more data using the new eye tracker
purchased with this year’s grant. However, since we waited for the latest tracker technology to
be released from Gazepoint, our tracker was purchased in February 2020, just before the
University closed due to COVID-19. The nature of our research requires us to be in close contact
with participants, thus we have not been able to resume data collection as of yet. This project
will extend beyond our originally conceptualized plan, but we believe it will introduce
interesting facets of food nutrition attention.
Kevin Muente
Professor of Visual Arts
School of the Arts
A Figure Painting Workshop with Tony Ryder
This was a two week figure painting workshop held at the Bay Area Classical Atelier with artist Tony Ryder. During this workshop he would do demonstrations each morning and we would paint in the afternoons. His process of painting is slow and methodical using tiny brushes to capture every nuance of the human form. We worked from life, painting a nude model with north light, and this is the longest pose I've ever painted. I learned more about my paints, colors and how to perceive how light falls on the figure. Since the workshop, I have made alterations to this painting technique to suit my own way of painting, and I am continuing to find a happy balance.
I also believe in being a life-long learner. As a student in the class, I tried to look at the workshop from the perspective of a student learning new things, and also how I would deliver the material if I was the instructor. I believe this type of participation in my own learning helps me be more empathetic to the diversity of learning styles in my own students as well as offering multiple/various ways of delivering course content in my own classes.
Tracy Songer
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
{WT} The many voices of Gary Burbank: A daughter’s story about her dad who changed radio.
This summer proved to be very productive thanks to the fellowship awarded by the benefits
committee. As many creative projects go, what I applied for and what I ended up with aren’t
exactly what I had anticipated. I am pleased to say though that this summer’s fellowship was
spent digitizing and archiving reel to reel audio tape, shooting several interviews and capturing
spontaneous footage on several trips with my father. However, it is hard to get much work done on your creative project when your creative subject was focused on releasing his first ever audio podcast. While shooting for the documentary and going through archival footage, we ended up focusing on the release of 8 podcasts, each one our in length, proposed to launch in December of 2019. After doing some informal research listening to countless “funny” podcasts, it’s clear that his sketch, satirical comedy is both timeless and needed. The documentary has a solid conclusion and the anticipated release date is on track for the spring of 2021. I truly believe that this story will entertain anyone in the Cincinnati area and nationally who listened to Gary Burbank and the many voices and personas that he brings to his listeners. My unique perspective as his daughter proves that those voices didn’t stop at home or after he retired. In fact, I’m not sure that any of his stories are true, but they sure are fun to listen to.
James Walden
Professor
Department of Computer Science
How changing software development processes impact the quality and security of OpenSSL software
When the Heartbleed vulnerability in the OpenSSL software library made international news in 2014, it revealed how dependent the Internet is on open source infrastructure software that runs underneath the graphical interfaces we use. The goal of my sabbatical was to investigate how changing software development processes impact the quality and security of such software. The initial focus of my research was on OpenSSL, which provides cryptographic functions that are necessary for every login and purchase web page. I published my research on OpenSSL at the 2020 Mining Software Repositories international conference. My paper won the conference's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Impact award for outstanding contributions to the FOSS community.
In fall 2019, I visited the University of Gothenburg in Sweden to continue a collaboration with Dr. Riccardo Scandariato. We created a chatbot assistant for software developers to help develop more secure software. We started to evaluate the chatbot using an experiment with NKU students in spring 2020, but the experiment could not be completed due to class changes arising from COVID-19. We plan to complete the experiment in fall 2020.
I also visited Dr. Byron Williams at the University of Florida in fall 2019 to initiate a collaboration analyzing the Core Infrastructure Initiative's badge project, which evaluates software processes of open source projects. We have started collecting data, but the completion of the project has been slowed by COVID-19. We are continuing work on the project in fall 2020.
Robert Wilcox
Professor
Department of History & Geography
Agricultural Nationalism or ‘Imperial’ Science? ‘El Sabio’ Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Development
My 2019 Project Grant was combined with a Summer Fellowship that allowed me to research in Asunción, Paraguay. The Project Grant facilitated my participation at an international conference in Brazil. In Paraguay, I researched the impact of Moisés S. Bertoni on agricultural science in the country, an important element in Paraguay’s economic development during the time period and beyond. Over the course of roughly three months of research and writing I visited several libraries and archives and read numerous writings by Bertoni that provided valuable information advancing my research. Besides Bertoni’s publications, I also was able to begin the laborious task of going through his many letters and other communications found in the National Archive of Asunción (ANA). My intention was to evaluate how much of Bertoni’s work was a product of European agricultural science or the consequence of autochthonous experience and his own trial and error. The result was a paper entitled “Agricultural Nationalism or ‘Imperial’ Science? ‘El Sabio’ Moisés S. Bertoni and Paraguayan Agricultural Development” presented as part of the panel: Science, Biodiversity and Natural Resources: the agricultural frontier in the Americas, at the 3rd World Congress of Environmental History in Florianópolis, Brazil from July 22-26, 2019. The organizer of the panel, Sandro Dutra e Silva, has indicated that he hopes to publish our papers in a highly-respected Brazilian journal in the near future. I also chaired another panel on development in the Amazon from the 1960s, and during the congress was able to renew and make new contacts/friendships with scholars from around the world.
Lauren Williamson
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Aging and mild chronic inflammation increase anxiety and decrease memory in a rat model of normal aging
The purpose of this project was to examine a model of normal aging in rodents combined with the common life event of mild chronic inflammation. Cognitive decline is a risk of aging, but most research models focus on Alzheimer’s disease or other causes for dementia. This project focused on normal aging following mild persistent inflammation, which occurs commonly in the Western world because of diet, lack of exercise and exposure to chemicals. We assessed anxiety, learning and memory, and brain markers of inflammation. My hypothesis was that older adult rats were more sensitive to inflammation, had greater anxiety, and showed impaired learning compared to young adults. I further hypothesized that cellular changes resulting from inflammation caused these behavior changes. Four undergraduate students worked on this project, including one, Michael Kennedy, who attended the Southeastern Regional IDeA Meeting in Louisville, KY to present a poster on this work. We processed over 100 brains looking at markers of brain inflammation at the levels of protein expression and RNA expression. We found that certain markers of inflammation decrease during aging, while others increase over time. Overall, this project produced novel data about normal brain aging and gave many NKU undergraduate students a valuable research experience.
Justin Yates
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
The complex role NMDA receptors have on risky decision making
We determined if the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor drugs CGS 19755 (competitive antagonist) and Ro 63-1908 (GluN2B-selective antagonist) alters risky choice as assessed in the risky decision task (RDT). In the RDT, rats chose between a small, safe reinforcer (1 food pellet) and a large, risky option (2 pellets) paired with probabilistic foot shock. We tested a total of 32 rats (male = 16; female = 16) in the RDT. The probability of receiving a foot shock either increased across blocks of trials (0, 25, 50, 75, 100%; n = 16) or decreased across the session (100, 75, 50, 25, 0%; n = 16). Results showed that CGS 19755 (2.5 and 5.0 mg/kg) increased risky choice in both males and females, but only when the probability of receiving foot shock increased across the session. Conversely, Ro 63-1908 (1.0 mg/kg) decreased risky choice, but only in male rats when the probability of receiving foot shock increased across the session. The current results highlight the complex role NMDA receptors have on risky decision making, as targeting specific subunits has opposing effects on performance in the RDT. The inability of either drug to alter risky decision making in rats trained on the descending schedule (i.e., decreasing probabilities) may be due to different learning mechanisms that these rats encounter compared to rats trained on the ascending schedule. Overall, these results show that the GluN2B subunit may be a molecular target for treating disorders characterized by excessive risk in males.
