Mason Spirit Fall 2024

DISCOVERIES AT WORK

George Mason accelerates lab to market, addressing today’s grand challenges

A WINNING TICKET

Student Body President Maria Alejandra Romero Cuesta and Vice President Colin McAulay are leading this academic year with a vision of an empowered and interconnected campus community. Find out more about them at go.gmu.edu/StudentGov.

MASON SPIRIT

ABOUT THE COVER

George Mason is working to accelerate the lab-to-market process, in an effort to address today’s grand challenges.

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PHOTO BY RON AIRA

18 Putting Discoveries to Work

George Mason is in the business of discovery, and the Office of Technology Transfer works hard to bring these innovations to the marketplace.

24

Eight George Mason Inventions You Need to Know About

George Mason researchers are always coming up with new ways to improve people’s lives.

28

Getting to Know Provost

James Antony

James Antony became George Mason’s new provost and executive vice president on July 1. Mason Spirit sat down with him to find out where he sees the university going in the next decade and why he chose George Mason.

departments

2 First Words

3 From Our Readers

4 @Mason

32 Inquiring Minds

36 Shelf Life

38 Alumni in Print

39 Patriot Profile

40 Class Notes

42 From the Alumni Association President ALUMNI PROFILES

40 Samantha Carrico, MSW ’15

43 Jada Salter, BA Film and Video Studies ’20

45 Keil Eggers, BA Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’15, PhD ’24

48 Retro Mason

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MASON SPIRIT

ADDRESSING GRAND CHALLENGES

As one of the nation’s leading public research universities, George Mason has a responsibility to pursue solutions to the grand challenges of our time, anticipate future challenges, and prepare the next generation of problem solvers. That has long been our university’s mission.

For maximum impact, however, we must determine which problems the university and its research partners are best equipped to solve—which problems we can address that help result in a planet, people, economies, and societies that all thrive.

George Mason’s vast faculty expertise, ecosystem of innovation, and advantageous location near the nation’s capital have made us a leader in the study of climate, national security, infectious diseases, and many other pressing and complex issues. The groundbreaking work of our faculty, across disciplines, is among the reasons why U.S. News & World Report this fall again named George Mason the most innovative public university in Virginia.

As the saying goes, a problem defined is a problem half solved. But the other half of the solution requires resources. There are more grand challenges than there are resources for us to address them. With that in mind, I have charged a faculty-driven task force, the Global Grand Challenges Committee, with determining which grand challenge solutions we should prioritize with our research. Andre Marshall, vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact, will lead the university-wide committee.

This is more than a matter of impact. It’s a matter of practicality and strategic use of resources. The problems most likely to get solved are the problems with adequate financial support to solve them. Those determinations largely rest with our external funding partners in government, industry, and nongovernmental organizations. How to best leverage funding and existing university strengths will be two areas the committee considers in assessing our path forward.

This is part of a broader effort to streamline our research enterprise. In the coming months, members of our research team currently housed in other campus buildings will move to Merten Hall to join their research colleagues there to create a more cohesive working culture and align projects across divisions.

As you will read in these pages, George Mason already is a leader in addressing many of our greatest challenges, whether it be regionally, nationally, or internationally. And although we must focus on areas in which we can have the greatest impact, George Mason faculty and students will continue to address each grand challenge in a meaningful way.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about our university, it’s that discovery can come from anywhere on our campuses, at any time.

Gregory Washington

President,

George Mason University Follow President Washington on X at @gmupres.

MANAGING EDITOR

Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

ART DIRECTOR

Joan Dall’Acqua

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Melanie Balog

Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10

Anne Reynolds

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Katarina Benson

CONTRIBUTORS

Jerome Boettcher, MA ’21

Shayla Brown

Alecia Bryan

Joe Clark, MBA ‘17

Damian Cristodero

Mary Cunningham

Danielle Hawkins, MA ‘22

Sarah Holland

John Hollis

Nathan Kahl

Rebecca Kobayashi

Katie Maney

Tracy Mason

Amanda Milewski

Laura Powers

Lauren Clark Reuscher, MA ‘12

Rob Riordan, MPA ’19

Corey Jenkins Schaut, MPA ’07

Diane Schute

Taylor Thomas

Michelle Thompson

Preston Williams

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Claire Brandt

Jeeun Lee Namgoong

Michaela Reilly, BA ‘21

Azriel Towner, BFA ‘19

PHOTOGRAPHY AND MULTIMEDIA

Ron Aira

Melissa Cannarozzi, MA ‘22

Evan Cantwell, MA ’10

Eduardo Macedo

Ayman Rashid

Cristian Torres

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Brian Edlinski

EDITORIAL BOARD

Stephanie Aaronson, BA ‘94

Deputy Vice President for Communications and Digital Strategy

Paul G. Allvin

Vice President for University Branding and Chief Brand Officer

Trishana E. Bowden

Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Relations

Robin Rose Parker

Assistant Vice President for Communications

Jennifer W. Robinson, JM ‘02

Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations

Mason Spirit is published three times a year by the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations and the Office of University Branding. George Mason University is an equal opportunity employer that encourages diversity.

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BLIMPS AND BUSINESS COLLIDE AT THE MIX

BUILDING A DRONE and building a business are, at first glance, two very different tasks. Academically, you’d be hard pressed to find a robotics course in a business school, and vice versa. But at the Mason Innovation Exchange (MIX), all that separates these two undertakings is a staircase.

From the fabrication floor to the incubator’s loft, the MIX at George Mason is taking a unique approach, demonstrating how principles of entrepreneurship and innovation aren’t so easily siloed with two new courses: BLIMP and Student Innovator Mastermind.

The MIX BLIMP workshop grew from an Office of Naval Research-funded Biologically-inspired Lighterthan-air Instructional Mechatronics Program (BLIMP), which was developed to expand unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—or drone—education and build a pipeline for students to participate in the biannual Defend the Republic lighter-than-air robotics competition. In this course, students learn introductory concepts about UAVs and, within small interdisciplinary groups, build their own blimps with flapping wing mechanisms.

“We use organic life as the inspiration for these builds,” says instructor Daigo Shishika, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. “Students study the biomechanics of fish, insects, and birds, and then use those principles of flight and motion to create their own blimps.”

Each group learns how to build, program, and control flying robots. Using balloons made of mylar films, the students construct the blimp bodies and mount the electronic components—circuitry, motors, and microcontrollers—while ensuring that the blimp is well balanced.

At the end of the course, groups present their design and describe what creatures inspired their works, including butterflies, stingrays, tuna, and even dragons.

Shishika was open to the groups trying out-ofthe-box ideas. “The dragon, for example: I wasn’t confident it would work. But they proved me wrong and demonstrated some technical benefits of that type of wing.”

Professor Daigo Shishika (above) works with students on their UAVs (right) in the aviary of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center.

And it’s not just the students who benefit from trying new things. “As much as we’re teaching them the basics, they’re teaching us new ways of thinking about design and fabrication,” Shishika says.

Along with the microcredential the students earn, Shishika hopes they leave with a better sense of creative design and confidence in their ability to build and deploy robotics.

“It’s fun to build something from scratch and see it fly,” he says.

The Student Innovator Mastermind course uses a similar approach: building foundations while allowing space for creativity and innovation. It also gave George Mason alum Lisa Shapiro, BA Psychology ’03, MEd ’06, a seasoned entrepreneur and the MIX’s assistant director of entrepreneurship programs, the chance to bring the empty entrepreneurship incubator on the MIX’s second floor to life.

“I wanted to reinvigorate the space and provide student innovators with a place to share ideas, develop their businesses, and form a community with other entrepreneurs,” she says.

The six-week Mastermind program launched in the spring. The inaugural cohort included 10 students developing video games, a skincare line, mobile applications, and a 2024 Patriot Pitch competition winner—a business that supports older adults’ nutritional needs.

A key part of the programming was what Shapiro calls “transformational talks,” presentations from industry professionals on topics such as mindset, marketing and branding, goal setting, customer segmentation, and advice for business ownership.

“Being able to take what they’ve learned and immediately apply it is important,” says Shapiro. “Entrepreneurship is super hard. You need the right mindset to be able to handle the ups and downs. I want to get them started off in the right way so they’re better prepared.”

The incubator is also a space for the students to learn from each other. Sharing ideas and challenges is, Shapiro says, a necessary part of the process.

Honors College student Sahil Jagtap, who is majoring in computer science, participated in the Mastermind and the drone-prototyping programs. “I have a passion for building, making, and breaking stuff. I love doing research on new technologies and their potential to solve real-world problems,” he says.

The MIX’s course offerings allowed Jagtap to get hands-on experience in developing and launching tech-based solutions. “The skills I acquired from both programs, such as project management, teamwork, and technical expertise, are invaluable,” he says.

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“In addition, the mentorship and networking opportunities have connected me with industry professionals and potential collaborators, which will be beneficial as I continue my career in technology and entrepreneurship.”

Shapiro and Shishika both hope that this type of programming keeps students coming back to the MIX.

“Now that they’ve had a taste of the full process, they can focus on the aspect they enjoyed the most and dig deeper, whether that’s robotics, electronics, fabrication, or something else,” Shishika says.

“The MIX is a space for prototyping,” Shapiro says. “It’s a place for anyone with an idea to come and try to make it a reality.” A place where bold thinking and perseverance can combine in ways that are only possible at George Mason.

—Sarah Holland

PHOTO

More than 140 of Bruce Manchester’s former students gathered in August to celebrate him and 50 years of George Mason’s forensics program.

HISTORIC GIFT SPEAKS VOLUMES ABOUT GEORGE MASON’S FORENSICS TEAM

DECADES OF SUCCESS for the George Mason University Forensics Team are being rewarded through a landmark gift from Professor Emeritus of Communication Bruce Manchester and his partner and husband of 46 years, James “Fred” Emory. During Manchester’s tenure as director of forensics at George Mason, students won more than 10,000 awards in intercollegiate competition.

This historic planned gift from Manchester and Emory is the largest commitment to date pledged by a George Mason faculty member.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FORENSIC TEAM’S 50TH REUNION.

go.gmu.edu/forensics

Their gift will establish endowments to support the nationally recognized team in perpetuity. The pledge, in the form of a future bequest, will create endowed funds to support the positions of program director and assistant director, as well as provide lasting student support to the program through an existing endowed fund. Creating endowed faculty positions helps attract the best professors in the nation to George Mason to teach and lead this prestigious program.

“I could not have asked for a more rewarding career than I had at George Mason. I know how incredibly valuable the forensics program is to students, and

I simply want to give back as much as I can to that program,” says Manchester. “As an educator, I want to make sure that George Mason students will always have the opportunity for a strong forensics education.”  That commitment to access started when Manchester arrived at George Mason in 1975, a time when the young university was eager to find exemplars of success to establish its reputation and credibility. He served as the director of the forensics program from 1975 through 1993, aided by assistant director Sheryl Friedley. The endowed faculty positions will be named in honor of Manchester and Friedley, who were the team’s longest serving directors.

“I came here because I was fascinated by the idea of the challenge that George Mason was offering,” recalls Manchester, who is now retired and living in Florida. “Here was a chance to be on the ground floor in a place that didn’t even have a communication degree, and to be directly involved in developing the degree program.”

Together, Manchester and Friedley put the Forensics Team in the national spotlight, winning the East Coast Championship for 18 consecutive years.

George Mason finished in the national top five for 16 of those years, including winning the American Forensic Association national championship in 1979.

Before his retirement in 2004, Manchester was twice named Faculty Member of the Year by the Alumni Association and also received the David J. King Teaching Award, among other honors.

Many past Forensics Team members remain in touch with Manchester to this day. More than 140 of them showed up this past August to celebrate Manchester and 50 years of the forensics program. Manchester cites the team’s welcoming community as one of its chief hallmarks. “Whether you were new to the team or a veteran, you were valued,” he says. “The strength of the Forensics Team is definitely its camaraderie.”

—Rob Riordan, MPA ’19, and Alecia Bryan

LOWDER IS A SCHEV RISING STAR

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY’S EVAN MARIE LOWDER was among 12 state educators recognized by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) with a 2024 Outstanding Faculty Award.

The assistant professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society was honored as a Rising Star, a designation for faculty with two to six years of full-time experience. She is the 29th George Mason faculty member to be celebrated since the awards began in 1987.

Lowder’s research focuses on reducing justicesystem contact and improving behavioral health outcomes among justice-involved adults.

Her Early Justice Strategies Lab examines ways to facilitate community release, supervision, and connection to services and supports for those who are justice-involved. Many of the lab’s projects focus on front-end legal processing such as community-, police-, and court-based interventions and include the work of George Mason graduate and undergraduate researchers.

Lowder says she is most proud of helping to evaluate the state of Indiana’s pretrial risk assessment tool. Though the tool did well in predicting outcomes overall, she says it did not do as well for Black defendants in general.

“That motivated this whole conversation about looking at other places in the system where we can help rectify some of those disparities,” says Lowder, who has been at George Mason since 2019. “It launched a bigger conversation about race and the way [inequality] manifests in the criminal justice system. That has led to other projects working with Indiana government and local agencies to try to address some of those issues.”

The Outstanding Faculty Awards recognize faculty members at Virginia public and private colleges and universities who exemplify the highest standards of research, teaching, and service. The award includes a $7,500 gift from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation.

“It’s rewarding to have that bi-directional relationship, where we’re giving something back to the community,” she says. “We’re taking [on] something that can help to advance the evidence base around a specific issue.”

—Damian Cristodero

Sheryl Friedley and Bruce Manchester and team with the American Forensic Association first-place trophy in 1979. PHOTO

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GOOGLE’S $1 MILLION GIFT MAKES CYBERSECURITY CLINIC POSSIBLE

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY AND HOWARD UNIVERSITY HAVE BEEN SELECTED to receive $1 million in support from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund to establish a cybersecurity clinic. The funding from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, is part of a $25 million collaboration with the Consortium of Cybersecurity Clinics.

These cybersecurity clinics at higher education institutions provide free digital security services to under-resourced organizations, similar to how law or medical schools offer free community clinics. It’s an inclusive approach that offers benefits on both sides.

POINT OF PRIDE

A collaboration between the National Security Institute’s Cyber and Tech Center (NSI CTC) at the Antonin Scalia Law School and Howard’s School of Business (HUSB), the new clinic will offer students at both universities the opportunity to learn cybersecurity and artificial intelligence skills in an effective, hands-on manner while simultaneously helping to protect vulnerable organizations, such as local small businesses, hospitals, schools, and nonprofit organizations, and their critical infrastructure from cyberattacks.

The added opportunities for George Mason students come at a critical time and could prove beneficial in fueling the growing tech talent workforce needed for the region. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report, cyber insecurity remains one of the top 10 global risks over the next 10 years. Currently, there are nearly 450,000 open cybersecurity jobs available in the United States, including more than 90,000 cybersecurity jobs across the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Demand for cyber professionals is projected to grow 32 percent by 2033.

“Both universities have deep ties to cybersecurity and innovation—from expert faculty to students eager to tackle tomorrow’s technology challenges,” says Jessica Jones, NSI deputy executive director. “The clinic will be a great step forward to broadening and diversifying the technology education pipeline in the region.”

The NSI CTC–HUSB Cybersecurity Clinic is one of 15 new clinics at higher education institutions set to launch in 2024 and part of Google’s commitment to launch 25 cyber clinics nationwide by 2025.

George Mason University has named Amarda Shehu as the university’s inaugural vice president and chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO). In this role, one of the first at a U.S. university, Shehu will lead the strategy and implementation of AI across research, academics, and partnerships for the university, maximizing opportunity and adoption in addressing the world’s grand challenges while leading on ethical considerations, governance, and risk mitigation. Shehu has served as associate vice president for research for George Mason’s Institute for Digital Innovation.

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

JAMES METCALF MARKS 50+ YEARS OF TEACHING

THIS YEAR, COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH

PROFESSOR JAMES (JIM) METCALF joined some very rare company, becoming the fourth George Mason University faculty member to mark 50 years of service. Since joining the Mason Nation in August 1973, Metcalf has seen the university grow into the largest public research university in Virginia.

“When I came here, I was young and energetic,” says Metcalf, a professor in the Department of Global and Community Health. “Now I’m old and energetic, and I continue to love it here. It was always in the cards that George Mason would be something special.”

His early work across the university places Metcalf among the pioneers who helped make George Mason the interdisciplinary institution it is renowned for being today. Metcalf helped write early curricula, served as a teacher consultant, and was part of a team of science faculty dedicated to alternative general education.

Metcalf describes that early faculty as enthusiastic and idealistic. “We built curricula and served on interdisciplinary committees. I connected with colleagues across disciplines and made many friends along the way.”

Throughout his time at George Mason, Metcalf has served as an instructional faculty member across multiple departments and schools. With a BS, MA, and PhD in physical education from the University of Maryland, Metcalf started out teaching exercise physiology and kinesiology in what was then the Department of Health and Physical Education and also taught clinical physiology to nursing students. He currently teaches GCH 332 Health and Disease and GCH 360 Environmental Health.

In addition to teaching, Metcalf has published academic works on exercise physiology, cardiovascular rehabilitation, women and maternal health, nursing, and health education and writing, as well as a textbook on aerobic and strength fitness. Metcalf says he is proud to have published works alongside his students.

Over the course of his career, Metcalf was elected president of the Sports Medicine Association of Greater Washington, which later became a chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, as well as a nonphysician president of the Physical Fitness Committee of the District of Columbia Medical Association.

Outside of teaching, Metcalf fuels his love for music by singing in the University Chorale for more than 20 years and follows along with the university’s various athletic teams.

Metcalf has also sat on the other side of the George Mason classroom as a student, auditing philosophy and physics courses, and continually seeking dialogue with colleagues across disciplines.

He remains as energized as he was when he first came to George Mason, and he looks forward to what the university has in store for the next 50 years.

“The 50 years I have been here at George Mason have been absolutely unbelievable in terms of where we’ve come from,” says Metcalf. “I was born at the right time and came to George Mason at the right time as it was just exploding. I’m thankful that I was here and along for the ride.”

—Taylor Thomas and Shayla Brown

METCALF TALKS ABOUT HIS YEARS AT GEORGE MASON. go.gmu.edu/metcalf50

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

GEORGE MASON PARTNERS WITH LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS FOR TWO LAB SCHOOLS

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY has received Virginia Board of Education funding for two of 14 laboratory schools being established around the commonwealth.

In partnership with local employers and community organizations, Virginia lab schools are focused on expanding opportunities for students by exposing them to workplaces that highlight the important role academic success plays in life. The lab schools provide another chance for George Mason to meet students where they are to offer them a distinctive educational path to achieve their goals, while also addressing career readiness objectives in the commonwealth.

George Mason is working with Northern Virginia Community College and Loudoun County Public Schools on the Accelerated College and Employability Skills (ACCESS) Academy, which will provide students with an alternative education pathway that emphasizes employability skills, innovative teaching and learning methods, and immersive experiences developed with industry partners, researchers, and instructional faculty.

Students in grades 9 and 10 will focus on completing high school graduation requirements while being introduced to problem-based learning. Students in grades 11 and 12 can then earn up to 30 college credits that may be applied toward a two- or fouryear degree program upon graduation.

Researchers and industry partners will also work with ACCESS students as part of a new Learning Innovation Lab, where teaching and learning innovations will be applied, evaluated, adapted, and disseminated.

Roberto Pamas of George Mason’s School of Education has been selected to serve as director of ACCESS Academy. In this role, he has been working

POINT OF PRIDE

George Mason’s Men’s Soccer Team won the Atlantic 10 Regular Season title for the first time in program history.

The team went on to host the A-10 Quarterfinals and Semifinals at George Mason Stadium.

with lab school partners to develop curriculum and course offerings and assessing staffing requirements and other resource needs. ACCESS Academy is expected to launch in fall 2025.

The Shenandoah Valley Rural Regional College Partnership Laboratory School for Data Science, Computing, and Applications (DSCA) is a collaboration between George Mason and Laurel Ridge Community College, Frederick County Public Schools, and Mountain Vista Governor’s School, as well as six rural and rural-fringe school districts in the Shenandoah Valley.

Programming will support students in grades 10 through 12 and cover data science and computing, research opportunities, apprenticeships and internships, experiential and project-based learning, certifications and microcredentials in data analytics, opportunities to earn an associate’s degree and college credits, as well as work-based learning opportunities. Students begin preparing for the lab school during their sophomore year, with programming starting in their junior and senior years.

“The vision is to create a data literate workforce empowered with skills, knowledge, and the mindset necessary to solve problems in a data-driven world,” says George Mason mathematical sciences professor Padhu Seshaiyer, who leads the effort.

The DSCA lab school will officially begin in fall 2025, with online offerings starting during the 2024–25 academic year. The school’s physical location will be in Frederick County. In addition to the students’ regular coursework in their respective districts, lab school courses will take place online through George Mason, Laurel Ridge Community College, and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation.

Laura Powers contributed to this story.

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BEHRMANNS ADD TO LEGACY WITH SCHOLARSHIP

“HE IS KIND OF A LEGEND HERE,” says the College of Education and Human Development’s Pamela Baker of Michael Behrmann, Professor Emeritus of Special Education.

After retiring from a nearly 40-year George Mason career, during which he helped build the university’s Special Education Program, Behrmann continues to add to his legacy. Behrmann and his wife, June, have created a scholarship for undergraduates studying special education.

“Children with special needs are our most vulnerable students. We need more teachers working with this population,” Behrmann says. “Undergraduate programs are one way [this issue] can really be addressed and start to bite into that shortage of qualified teachers.”

Behrmann wants the scholarship to support special education undergraduate students who are working with the Mason LIFE Program, a four-year postsecondary comprehensive transition program for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who desire a university experience in a supportive academic environment.

When Behrmann founded Mason LIFE in 2005, his vision was twofold. He wanted to both provide an on-campus educational experience for students with disabilities and offer George Mason students the opportunity to attain hands-on experience working with young adults with disabilities while pursuing their degrees. The program is one of the university’s best examples of putting inclusivity into practice and creating pathways that allow more students to join the Patriot community.

Mason LIFE enrolls around 50 students every year, including Madison Schittig, profiled on page 39, with 18 freshmen admitted for the 2024–25 school year.

The Behrmanns met when they were both teaching in Cincinnati, Ohio. June then spent more than 20 years as a writer specializing in special education issues before returning to the classroom as a special education teacher for Fairfax County Public Schools. Now the couple wants to help ensure that George Mason shapes the next generation of special education teachers.

“The Special Education Program is one of the strongest programs at the university, and I’m excited to see it continue to grow,” says Behrmann.

—Jerome Boettcher, MA ’21

2024 CELEBRATION OF DISTINCTION HONORS ALUMNI LEADERS

THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION’S ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF DISTINCTION recognizes outstanding alumni, faculty members, and students. Here are this year’s five honorees:

Hollis Kosco, BA Speech Communication ’94, is Alumna of the Year. She is the senior transportation manager for FIFA World Cup 2026 in Miami, where she oversees operational planning in three countries at 16 stadiums with 48 participating teams. Kosco was a member of both George Mason’s 1993 NCAA tournament runner-up women’s soccer team and the U.S. national handball team. Her international career in sports management and communications has included seven Olympic Games, two Asian Games, the 2015 Pan American Games, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Kimiko Lighty, MAIS ’10, received the Alumni Service Award. She is the founding executive director of Restorative Arlington (RA). An innovator in peace building and conflict resolution techniques, Lighty has been involved with RA since the initiative began in 2020. She led the design and implementation of RA’s Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Conferencing Program, a diversion program serving Arlington’s public schools, legal system, and community, and continues to serve as a strategic advisor to the organization.

Kala J. West, BA Communication ’15, received the Graduate of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D.) Award. She is an entrepreneur, media production consultant, and host of Sunday Morning Praise and Morning Inspiration on WURD Radio (96.1 FM/900 AM). She is also a media professional for the Penn Sports Network. West has been recognized by George Mason’s Black Alumni Chapter among its 2023 40 Under 40 Distinguished Alumni, as a 2023 20 Under 40 COGIC

Achievers Award honoree, and among Funtimes magazine’s 30 Under 30 People to Watch in 2017.

Gabriele Belle, an instructional associate professor in George Mason’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, is Faculty Member of the Year. She supervises all astronomy and college physics lab courses and teaches physics in the Enlisted to Medical Degree Preparatory Program. Belle is also a member of the university’s Nano-IMAGINE Council, which supports the growth of Virginia’s nanotech sector. Her research has included investigating quantum well structures with laser spectroscopy in high magnetic fields, developing new semiconductor devices, and building satellites to explore the GPS signal above the GPS satellites orbiting the Earth, for which she received the Air Force Association’s Citation of Honor and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Special Recognition Award.

Celine Apenteng, BA Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’24, is Senior of the Year. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in international security and expects to graduate in May 2025. As an undergraduate, she served as vice president in Student Government, speaker of the Student Senate, a member of the President’s Student Advisory Board, and co-chair of the Student Advisory Council for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Over the past year, Apenteng interned at the White House in the Office of Public Engagement and for the U.S. Department of State. She also works with the Carter School’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race to promote a more informed dialogue on the intersections between historical memory, justice, and racial reconciliation.

In addition to the five honorees, 18 alumni received Distinguished Alumni Awards from their school, college, or affinity alumni chapter at this year’s October event.

PATRIOTS GO BANANAS

GEORGE MASON BASEBALL ALUM South Trimble, BS Business ’23, and current graduate student Danny Hosley took the field in front of a sold-out crowd as part of the Banana Ball World Tour at Nationals Park in July. Adam Virant, who also played baseball at George Mason, is director of baseball operations and an assistant coach for the Savannah Bananas. Hosley, who is pursuing an MS in athletic training, is a utility player on the Bananas, and Trimble is a first-year player on the Firefighters, the Bananas’ new third team. Banana Ball, a close approximation of baseball with circus

tricks and performance art mixed in, has become a phenomenon, and this was the first year the Banana Bowl included Major League Baseball stadiums on its schedule.

“As a kid, you dream of a moment like this,” says Trimble of the game. “Playing in a major league park in front of a sold-out crowd. It’s something that is so surreal, and I’m grateful for being able to fulfill this dream of mine at Nationals Park, a stadium I’ve been to countless times as a kid, watching my favorite ballplayers play, and now I get to experience it firsthand.”

Pictured left to right:

South Trimble, Adam Virant, and Danny Hosley

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MASON NATION MEET THE

KEVIN BRIM

CAN I RECYCLE THIS? At some point, anyone who has approached a recycling bin with good intentions has asked themselves this question. According to Kevin Brim, a recycle/waste management supervisor at George Mason, one of the biggest challenges in his field is helping the community understand the parameters of recycling and composting. Brim and his team are working hard to change that.

LEARNING THE INS AND OUTS: Brim’s first job in Facilities was as a quality assurance inspector for the university’s housekeeping contract. Brim moved to the waste/recycle team in 2011 and learned every aspect of the operation from the ground up. That knowledge and experience led him to his current role. Brim knows he is part of something impactful, and interacting with the Mason Nation is what he likes best about his job. “I’ve been at George Mason for 18 years, and I learn something new every day.”

KEEPING IT CLEAN: “It can be confusing trying to decide what is recycling, trash, or compostable,” says Brim. But putting the wrong items in a recycle or compost bin can lead to contamination of waste streams. Brim and his colleagues in Facilities Management are working to make it easier for the George Mason community to recycle and compost.

SPREADING THE WORD: Brim takes pride in his team and how they help foster a culture of sustainability at George Mason. “I ensure my team knows just as much as I do about waste and recycling here at George Mason,” Brim says. His team’s interactions

BY

with others on campus help inform the community about the proper disposal of different items, protecting George Mason’s recycling and composting streams and supporting university efforts to be careful stewards of our environment.

SAVING THE SCRAPS: Future plans include increasing composting efforts in campus dining locations. “Facilities is looking to expand our composting programs with all food vendors on campus, with a main focus on behind-the-scenes food waste,” Brim says. These composting streams are often easier to control, ensuring a clean composting product.

THE GLASS IS HALF FULL: This spring, George Mason launched a glass recycling program, with purple recycling trailers parked on the Fairfax Campus. Brim says the program has expanded to collect glass bottles at catered events on campus. “We will continue to divert as much away from the landfill and incinerator as we can.”

It all comes back to serving George Mason students. “Students are the reason we are here, so they’re our target audience,” says Brim. “I’m always interested in hearing their input on what we can do better, or what they would like to see.”

—Lauren Clark Reuscher, MA ’12

See Kevin Brim and his team in action at go.gmu.edu/brim.

Job: Recycle/Waste Management Supervisor, Facilities Management

PHOTO

POINT OF

PARK IS THE NEW DEAN OF MASON KOREA

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY HAS NAMED JOSHUA PARK THE NEW DEAN of Mason Korea.

Park is an accomplished academic leader with extensive experience in business education in South Korea, recognized for his expertise in negotiation, debate, and mediation. He began his new role in August.

“Dr. Park’s appointment marks a promising new chapter for Mason Korea,” says President Gregory Washington. “His knowledge, vision, and leadership in the region will be crucial for expanding the university’s global presence in Asia and establishing new partnerships as we pursue our strategic priorities of innovation, student success, and impactful research.”

In his new role as dean, Park will be responsible for overseeing all academic and administrative functions of Mason Korea. He will work closely with faculty, staff, and students to enhance Mason Korea’s reputation as a leader in global education and to expand its impact as the campus enters its second decade.

Previously, Park was the dean of SolBridge International School of Business in Daejeon, South Korea, where he was instrumental in the school’s rapid growth and internationalization.

Park holds a juris doctor from Harvard Law School and a bachelor of arts in psychology from Pomona College. His research and publications focus on negotiation, debate, and mediation. Park has written several books and has been featured in more than 300 domestic and international seminars and workshops.

Known for his passion for education and debate, Park has been a leader in the international debate community. He is a board member of the World Schools Debating Championships and has served as a chief adjudicator at major debate competitions globally. His efforts led to the establishment and advancement of the SolBridge Debate Society, which gained recognition as one of the most accomplished debate teams in Asia.

“I am honored to become part of the dynamic and forward-thinking institution that is George Mason University,” Park says. “I look forward to working with the talented faculty, dedicated staff, and outstanding students at Mason Korea to build on the university’s successes and to create new opportunities for growth and innovation.”

Park succeeds former campus dean Robert Matz, who returned to George Mason’s Fairfax Campus in June after five years in the role.

George Mason University was among the 243 schools recognized as a Gold Military Friendly® School for our leading practices, outcomes, and effective programs. The honor was part of the listing of the nation’s top Military Friendly® institutions for the 2024–25 school year.

About 10 percent of George Mason students are current or former military or military dependents. More than 2,000 students use Veterans Affairs education benefits, and more than 100 are using U.S. Department of Defense Federal Tuition Assistance. Almost 800 use the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program. George Mason also has about 1,000 veterans working as faculty or staff.

YOUR 2025 ENTERTAINMENT STARTS AT GEORGE MASON

JANUARY 25

MASON ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

SILKROAD ENSEMBLE

Returning for a third year as a Mason Artist-in-Residence, the Grammy Awardwinning ensemble will engage the community and George Mason students through a variety of events, classes, and discussions surrounding their performance.

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

FEBRUARY 5 & 8

HOMECOMING

Feb. 5 Women’s Basketball Patriots vs. VCU

7 P.M., EAGLEBANK ARENA

Feb. 8 Men’s Basketball Patriots vs. Rhode Island

12 P.M. TAILGATE, LOT A

4 P.M. GAME, EAGLEBANK ARENA

FEBRUARY 23

CZECH NATIONAL

SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

HYLTON PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

Learn more at homecoming.gmu.edu.

JAN. 31–FEB. 7

GEORGE MASON SCHOOL OF THEATER

MASON CABARET 2025

JANUARY 31–FEBRUARY 2

HARRIS THEATRE

FEBRUARY 7

HYLTON PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

FEBRUARY 25

DEWBERRY FAMILY SCHOOL OF MUSIC

MASON WIND SYMPHONY AND SYMPHONIC BAND CONCERT SPRING 2025

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

MARCH 2

ANGÉLIQUE KIDJO

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

MARCH 28–29

GEORGE MASON SCHOOL OF DANCE

2025 MASON DANCE COMPANY GALA CONCERT

CENTER FOR THE ARTS

APRIL 3–6

GEORGE MASON SCHOOL OF THEATER THE TEMPEST HARRIS THEATRE

Student Success Research Innovation Community Stewardship

WHERE OTHERS SEE

CHALLENGES,

WE SEE POSSIBILITIES.

Yes, we live in challenging times. But George Mason was founded to address challenges—we were built for now.

WE SUCCEED BY

Providing access to education that eliminates achievement gaps among students from different backgrounds.

Fostering innovation to keep pace with a rapidly changing world.

Partnering with business and industry to meet emerging workforce needs.

Respecting all honorable points of view to address social divisions.

Embracing difference and diversity in all its forms to create a welcoming community.

Unifying our collective will and talent to maximize and sustain our resources.

“The impact is profound, but the equation is simple: George Mason + You = Success.”

Trishana E. Bowden Vice President,

Advancement and Alumni

Relations;

President, George Mason University Foundation Inc.

PUTTING DISCOVERIES TO WORK

George Mason is in the business of discovery, and the Office of Technology Transfer works hard to bring these innovations to the marketplace.

BY COLLEEN KEARNEY RICH, MFA ’95

One of the easiest ways to envision the George Mason University technology transfer process—that is, the route an idea takes to become a product—is to talk about Gatorade. It’s one of the most famous examples of university tech transfer.

In 1965, a University of Florida football coach met with scientists from the university’s college of medicine to determine why many of the university athletes were negatively affected by heat. James Robert Cade, MD, and his team of researchers created the now-ubiquitous sports drink to help athletes replace bodily fluids lost during practices and games. The product was named for the team—the Gators.

That early version of the drink wasn’t a hit with football players, and it took a multitude of steps to move the drink from prototype to supermarket shelves. But the drink’s formula improved and its popularity grew. By 2015, royalties for those inventors hit $1 billion—and gave other universities something to aspire to.

Not every invention takes off in such a lucrative way, but the goal of all these university-born innovations is the same—to improve people’s lives.

“George Mason is in the business of discovery,” says Andre Marshall, vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact at George Mason. “We want to get our good ideas out of the laboratory and put to good use.”

Right now, George Mason researchers are working on better diagnostics for Lyme disease, developing a bruise detection system that can be used by clinicians across all skin tones, and creating a decision tool to help U.S. farmers achieve better crop yields—just to name a few.

The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Congress, and philanthropists are among those who support this important work.

Paula Sorrell, George Mason’s associate vice president of innovation and economic impact, says the university’s competitive advantage lies in the fact that it houses tech transfer under the same umbrella as entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development. These units are all part of Mason Enterprise.

“This allows us to leverage our capacity to provide counseling and education from 23 other programs and strategically plan how technologies will positively impact society and Virginia’s economy,” says Sorrell, who leads Mason Enterprise. “Because our tech transfer office is staffed with an exceptional group of experienced business and technology professionals, we are able to balance the needs of internal and external stakeholders to move products to the market.”

THE BUSINESS OF DISCOVERY

At George Mason, the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), led by David Grossman, senior director of technology transfer and industry collaboration, helps researchers bring these ideas and discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace.

“The Office of Technology Transfer takes great pride in the quality of patented innovations brought forth by our dedicated researchers,” says Grossman. “This collaboration between academia and industry underscores our unwavering commitment to harness the full potential of research for the betterment of society.”

Long before industry becomes involved, Grossman and his team at OTT are there to help researchers protect their intellectual property (IP). All inventions begin with

an innovation disclosure, which is a brief summary of the work.

“I say innovation versus invention, because sometimes it’s not actually a patentable thing,” says Grossman, who is also a lawyer and has taught patent law. “Sometimes it is a copyright or something else.”

Following the disclosure, the OTT team will meet with the researchers. They try to discern if there is protectable IP, what the necessary steps are to secure that IP, and if there is a pathway to the public.

“Our goal is always to make sure that the results of the research benefit the public somehow,” he says.

PATENTS PENDING AND INDUSTRY PARTNERS

Being an inventor requires a lot of patience. It can take years to secure a patent from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. To date, George Mason researchers have acquired 296 patents.

Grossman says the number of innovation disclosures by university faculty members continues to grow but not all these innovations will go through the patent process. As he and the OTT staff work with faculty members to safeguard their IPs, they handle all the patent, trademark, and copyright filings.

Grossman says that new innovations are not usually in a position where they can go directly into the marketplace. So the next step in the tech transfer process often involves partnering with a company in that field and licensing the technology. The OTT team helps forge these partnerships and negotiate licensing agreements. Sometimes start-up companies are created to advance the innovation.

MOMENTUM IN RESEARCH

“Mysteries of the Brain” (Episode 1) Learn more about the NeuroMorpho open-access database of 3D neural reconstructions.

go.gmu.edu/ neuromorpho

“Hyperlocal” (Episode 2)

Learn about how community engagement and data-driven research is the key to solving for Virginia’s vulnerabilities, like potential flooding.

go.gmu.edu/ hyperlocal

One of the most successful university partnerships of this kind is with Ceres Nanosciences, a Northern Virginia bioscience company spun out of George Mason that specializes in diagnostic products and workflows. Ceres and George Mason have worked together since the company’s inception, and Ceres’s first lab was on George Mason’s Science and Technology Campus.

Ceres now has space nearby in Prince William County’s Innovation Park where it has increased its capacity to manufacture Nanotrap Magnetic Virus Particles. The base technology underlying the Nanotrap particle was created by George Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), which is led by codirectors Lance Liotta and Emanuel Petricoin.

These particles improve diagnostic testing for viruses like COVID-19, influenza, and Lyme disease (see sidebar on page 22), and this university–industry collaboration was critical to George Mason’s response during the pandemic.

Using a Nanotrap test, CAPMM scientists oversaw George Mason’s surveillance testing, administering more than 155,000 COVID tests to students, faculty, and staff and processing those tests in university labs with results within 24 to 48 hours. The easy access to testing and fast turnaround time meant that those testing positive were quickly identified and isolated, which helped mitigate outbreaks within the campus community.

“It was very fortunate that we had put a lot of energy into developing the technology for viral infections and released a product for it before the pandemic,” says Ceres CEO Ross Dunlap, who serves on the George Mason Research Foundation board. “We were able to rapidly respond and quickly validate our technology for COVID diagnostics, which was done in partnership with George Mason.”

SHARED RESOURCES

Some innovations like the NeuroMorpho database are a shared resource available to researchers around the world.

George Mason neuroscientist Giorgio Ascoli created NeuroMorpho.org in 2006 to store the large amounts of data needed to make computational models of neurons. The open-access database of 3D neural reconstructions has grown from 932 reconstructions to more than 180,000, and it is continuously updated with contributions from more than 1,000 labs worldwide.

The reconstructions have been used to investigate Alzheimer’s disease pathways, epilepsy, memory capacity, and the effects of cosmic radiation on astronauts’ central nervous systems.

Ascoli, founding director of the Center for Neural Informatics, Structures, and Plasticity at George Mason, believes this database could pave the way for future breakthroughs, such as new treatments for neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. “I’m a firm believer that in time NeuroMorpho.org will help advance humanity toward a fuller characterization of the mind-matter relationship, and that’s something to live for,” he says.

Sometimes the innovation is meant to make the research itself a little easier. Two technologies that came out of George Mason’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media were designed by historians to make humanities research easier to document and share.

Many college students recognize the name Zotero, which is a free, easy-to-use tool designed to help people collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research.

Since its release in 2008, Omeka has established itself as a leading open source web publishing platform for digital collections. The software has been downloaded more than 500,000 times and is the content management system for thousands of websites developed by libraries, archives, museums, and scholars.

As the head of George Mason’s research enterprise, Marshall believes it’s the university’s responsibility as a Carnegie Research 1 university to pursue this work and these collaborations.

“This work is ambitious,” says Marshall, “especially when you’re trying to bridge the culture between industry, university, and government. And when you add in doing this inclusively and while prioritizing access, it truly is what makes George Mason All Together Different.”

Giorgio Ascoli with some of the NeuroMorpho team.

Martha Bushong, Mary Cunningham, John Hollis, Katie Maney, Tracy Mason, and Laura Powers contributed to this article.

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

BRUISE DETECTION SYSTEM

Asa forensic nurse and former death investigator for the State of Maryland’s medical examiner’s office, George Mason researcher Katherine Scafide has long served people who fell victim to violence.

Since 2017, Scafide has been experimenting with “seeing” bruises using alternate light sources, such as UV light, which are already widely used in forensics to find evidence like blood, hair, or fibers. With grant support from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), she conducted a study that discovered using alternate light was five times better at detecting bruises on victims across a variety of skin tones than using white light.

Now she is working with George Mason colleagues Janusz Wojtusiak and David Lattanzi on a bruise detection system that can be used across all skin tones and leverages artificial intelligence (AI), imaging and light technologies, forensic reports, and clinical expertise to increase data collection and access to care for trauma victims. The tool could become an app on a smartphone that clinicians can use to assess the age of bruises.

One of the goals of the project is to build a data repository that combines images of bruises and other injuries with measurements, clinical and demographic information about the victim, and information inferred by AI.

In 2022, the DOJ gave the team another $988,559 grant to conduct a three-year study pairing forensic bruise analysis with machine learning. Then in 2023, George Mason received an anonymous $4.85 million gift to further advance the groundbreaking research.

A multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students also joined the project through a George Mason Summer Impact Grant. The group from three disciplines—nursing, informatics, and engineering— worked on developing a process to systematically search, analyze, and interpret a large number of available digital bruise images.

“A vital piece to success is ensuring that any AI tool has access to in-depth data from all skin tones and skin characteristics alongside human expert analysis,” says Lattanzi, who teaches in the College of Engineering and Computing.

One in three women worldwide experiences physical trauma at the hands of an intimate partner or stranger. When injuries are accurately documented, survivors are more likely to participate in the criminal justice process, according to recent studies.

“By improving documentation of physical trauma, we hope to address disparities in clinical care, which can lead to improved health care for all, as well as legal recourse for all survivors of violence,” says Scafide, who teaches in the College of Public Health.

More information on the study can be found at bruise.gmu.edu.

Pictured, from left, Janusz Wojtusiak, Katherine Scafide, and David Lattanzi

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

LYME DISEASE TEST

George Mason researchers are working to revolutionize Lyme disease detection and diagnosis with urine testing.

“We have developed a urine test for Lyme disease that detects the [Borrelia burgdorferi] bacteria that causes Lyme disease, making it a direct test to confirm an infection soon after the tick bite,” says coprincipal investigator Alessandra Luchini. “This leads to earlier treatment and could prevent the long-term debilitating effects of the disease.”

The current standard test for potential Lyme disease is an antibody blood test, which measures the body’s immune system response to the B. burgdorferi bacteria. In contrast, the George Mason test detects molecules derived from the bacteria themselves, which has the advantage of high specificity (accuracy) and early detection. In clinical research trials, the urine tests had a 90 percent true positive rate and close to 100 percent specificity.

George Mason recently received $1.2 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of the Army to support development of the test. This threeyear study takes place in the George Mason CAP/ CLIA Clinical Proteomics Laboratory on the Science and Technology Campus and uses banked samples from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of acute Lyme disease patients from the Lyme Disease Biobank and from Johns Hopkins University, a recognized leader in clinical Lyme disease research.

Additionally, the study pilots a George Mason invention—a collapsible urine collection cup, which can be shipped to a lab through the mail, making collection easier and diagnosis more accessible to more people through telehealth.

“A urine cup will offer a private, comfortable, and convenient way to collect the sample at home without compromising the accuracy of the lab test,” says Lance Liotta, codirector of George Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), and coprincipal investigator on the study. “Shipped in a semi-dry state that will preserve target proteins and protects against specimen degradation, this approach will improve specificity, which has been a weakness of previous testing approaches.”

George Mason’s Lyme disease test started as a student project in the Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program and has continued to gain momentum. In 2022, Luchini, Liotta, and the CAPMM team were one of 10 Phase 1 winners of the LymeX Diagnostics Prize by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation.

In 2023, CAPMM received $820,000 in federal funding to establish a clinic to help combat Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. The project, championed by U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), was part of the federal omnibus appropriations bill signed by President Joe Biden.

Alessandra Luchini (left) and Lance Liotta

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

CROPSMART

DIGITAL TWIN

The user-inspired CropSmart Digital Twin (CSDT) decision tool will help take the guesswork out of crop management decisions with services that will be easily accessible to users through both web portals and smartphone apps.

Led by George Mason researcher Liping Di, CropSmart is one of seven projects selected to advance to Phase 2 of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Convergence Accelerator, which could provide up to $5 million in funding.

With the Convergence Accelerator, NSF is investing in new technologies that address complex challenges in food and nutrition insecurity. The United States accounts for more than 25 percent of the total grain traded globally, and successful crop production involves smart management decisions.

In Phase 1, Di and his team received $750,000 from NSF to design CropSmart. With Phase 2, they are focusing on an operational release of the tool “so it can be tested and evaluated in a real operational environment and provide services to users,” says Di, director of the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems at George Mason.

Farmers often depend on their own experience when making decisions, but some will make large investments in commercial instrumentation to measure and collect data on their crops. After making that investment, they must also collect the right data to make a decision. With CropSmart, Di’s team will do this for them, using remote sensing and computer modeling, and covering larger areas at no or very low cost.

The team began testing this year with more than 4,800 end users, Di says. These users represent different agricultural sectors, ranging from individual farmers to farm credit bureaus and other related businesses, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The team is focused on commodity crops, such as wheat, corn, soybeans, and rice. Coprincipal investigators on the project include Cenlin He at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Jenny Du at Mississippi State University, Haishun Yang at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Juan Sesmero at Purdue University.

Sesmero says the first part of the release— CropSmart 1.0—focuses on certain decision points: irrigation, crop condition and yield prediction for supporting farm loan and crop insurance decisionmaking, and crop mapping and statistics. Over time, the team plans to add additional decision points and conduct comprehensive field testing before they release CropSmart 2.0.

“We use the results of our testing to refine the technology,” says Sesmero.

CSDT will provide three types of products to users: decision-ready information, a “what if” service, and direct management recommendations. The decisionready information will be delivered to end users for free. The “what if” and direct recommendation services will be provided for a fee and will help fund additional product development and sustain the operation of the tool.

Liping Di PHOTO BY RON AIRA

8

Eight George Mason

Inventions

You Need to Know About

George Mason researchers are coming up with a variety of ways to improve people’s lives.

American inventor Thomas Edison is credited with saying “genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” and many innovators can attest to this. The inventive process requires a lot of grit and determination. It can often take years to bring an innovation from idea to market.

Each year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issues patents to George Mason University that cover the creation of new or improved products, processes, or machines. The university received its first patent in 1996 for research professor Jenefir Isbister’s invention of a test for microbial contamination. Since then, George Mason has been awarded 296 U.S. and international patents, a quantifiable testament to the university’s bold approach to problem-solving and perseverance in creating solutions.

Alumni often share inventorship of patents with their faculty mentors for work they contributed during their time at George Mason.

In 2023, the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact recognized University Professor Lance Liotta, cofounder and codirector of the Center

for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), with a George Mason Lifetime Disclosure Award. During his career at George Mason, Liotta has filed more than 120 patent disclosures.

Disclosures to the university’s Office of Technology Transfer are the first step toward a patent for an invention or discovery. Liotta has 100 inventions to date and the prototype of one of these inventions—laser capture microdissection, a method to procure subpopulations of tissue cells under direct microscopic visualization—is in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History collection.

The Office of Technology Transfer at George Mason is the bridge between university researchers and industry visionaries bringing cutting-edge technology to life. Not only are they charged with protecting the university’s and researchers’ intellectual property, but they also negotiate licensing agreements to launch these technologies in the marketplace.

In this feature, we take a look at some of the George Mason patents that are available for licensing.

Regulating substance craving in real time—George Mason professors Padmanabhan Seshaiyer of the Department of Mathematical Sciences and Holly Matto of the Department of Social Work share a patent for REMind-h, an innovative tool that helps individuals in substance abuse recovery regulate their responses to drug craving cues. Their invention monitors the biobehavioral state of the user and strategically delivers, in real time, personalized recovery cues to prevent the person from relapsing. It is the first patent for the Department of Social Work.

Giving rehab a leg up—Liotta and CAPMM research professor Marissa Howard, BS Bioengineering ’17, PhD Biosciences ’22, hold the patent on a wearable device that measures, tracks, and monitors a wearer’s physiological conditions during a rehabilitation period. The device collects metrics, such as temperature, patellar shifting, limb circumference, and acceleration, and communicates data through a networked communication system so medical personnel and patients can stay updated with the rehabilitation progress and make adjustments. Howard and Liotta share the patent with Rachel Naidich, Matthew Luu Trang, Ish Sethi, Rebecca Woodhouse, and Kshamata Neupane, who worked on the device as high school students in George Mason’s Aspiring Scientists Summer Internship Program.

Keeping the lights on—George Mason alum Eniye Tebekaemi, PhD Information Technology ’18, and College of Engineering and Computing professor Duminda Wijesekera have a patent for a secure overlay communication model for decentralized autonomous power grids. The model is a logic-based system deployed onto computing devices in power grid stations and substations. In response to detecting various power grid faults, such as line failures and overcurrent states, the system can automatically rearrange power line configurations.

Putting an end to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—Researcher

Yuntao Wu, a professor in George Mason’s School of Systems Biology and the Center for Infectious Disease Research, has devoted his career to finding a cure for HIV. He’s received several patents for his work in this area, including Targeting the Cofilin Pathway and Method and System for Inactivating Virus Infectivity for Producing Live-Attenuated Vaccines. In 2013, he founded the biotech company Virongy after licensing an HIV drug-screening technology that was developed in his Science and Technology Campus lab.

Making aircraft safer Professor Lance Sherry, director of George Mason’s Center for Air Transportation Systems Research, and PhD student Oleksandra Snisarevska share a patent for Systems and Methods for Improved Airline Safety, a machine learning model that can be trained using historical flight data to generate alerts. When sent to a computing device onboard an aircraft, these alerts can provide information to the flight crew regarding the status of automated aircraft functions.

On-demand protection from flood waters—This invention—patented by Professor Emeritus George Donohue and alumni Adel Youssef, BS Systems Engineering ’20; Lucciana Remy, BS Systems Engineering ’20; Faris Masri, BS Systems Engineering ’20; and Murat Gokturk, BS Systems Engineering ’20—provides systems and methods for making dynamic, low-visibility, portable pneumatic cofferdams that can be readily deployed in flood-susceptible areas. Created as a senior design project, this inflatable, pneumatic cofferdam system is permanently anchored around a location’s perimeter. It creates a barrier of flood protection that can be deployed instantly in the event of a flood threat. When not deployed, it acts as a functional boardwalk.

Wearable device monitors muscle function—While there are wearable sensors for heart rate, skin temperature, and even electrolytes, no commercially available sensors monitor for muscle function. George Mason bioengineering professor Siddhartha Sikdar, director of the Center for Advancing Systems Science and Bioengineering Innovation, and bioengineering professor Parag Chitnis have developed a wireless wearable device that uses ultrasound sensors to monitor for muscle injury, function, and fatigue and can assess muscle recovery. The monitoring technology is ideal for sports medicine, personal fitness, and rehabilitation applications.

Promoting wound healing and closure—Inspired by a peptide that was first discovered in Komodo dragons, DRGN-1 is an antimicrobial peptide developed by College of Science researchers Barney Bishop, Monique Van Hoek, and Myung Chung. The peptide has been modified into a cost-effective antimicrobial and anti-biofilm treatment that can be used as an alternative to antibiotics in the treatment of infected wounds. The potential uses of DRGN-1 include antimicrobial sprays, wound dressings, topical gels, and as a coating for catheters.

THIS ALUM CAN HELP YOU SLEEP BETTER

Early on in his graduate studies at George Mason, Dan Gartenberg, MA Psychology ’12, PhD ’16, took a course on the neuroscience of sleep and was hooked. He is now founder and CEO of SleepSpace and a scientific advisor to other companies in the sleep science field.

Gartenberg says the university played a major role in his career as a scientist and entrepreneur. For his dissertation, Gartenberg worked with the Naval Research Laboratory to develop artificial intelligence (AI) models that could help predict when people, such as pilots, are getting fatigued doing a task for a long period of time by using eye tracking data. He published several papers and released his first few sleep apps around this time.

“George Mason gave me, as a PhD, the freedom to pursue a lot of different interests that weren’t strictly in one field,” he says. “It was a combination of software development, science, and even intellectual property. I worked with George Mason’s [Tech Transfer] team on some patents, and I got my first patent granted through that collaboration.”

Find out more about Gartenberg and his research at go.gmu.edu/Gartenberg.

—Danielle Hawkins, MA ’22

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INNOVATIONS COMING FROM GEORGE MASON. ott.gmu.edu

GETTING TO KNOW PROVOST JAMES ANTONY

BY PRESTON WILLIAMS

James Antony became provost and executive vice president at George Mason University on July 1. He previously served as dean of graduate education and postdoctoral affairs at the University of California San Diego. Prior to that, he was a faculty member and administrator at the University of Washington, Yale University, and Harvard University.

WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO GEORGE MASON?

I wanted to be at an institution that was developing the potential of people and taking them to heights that maybe they and others around them might not have thought possible. George Mason, to me, fit that bill. We accept on the order of 90 percent of the undergraduates who apply and, unlike other places that have a similar broad-access orientation, our students graduate at a very high rate. George Mason’s admissions process attracts amazing students without being exclusionary—we open opportunities here. We also do incredible work with our graduate and professional students. Overall, this place is very student centered.

There’s a whole host of things that I’m learning now that reinforces my decision to come here as being a good one. The faculty I’ve met are incredibly student oriented. They care about teaching and about what they’re doing in the classroom. They care about the kinds of experiences they’re constructing for our students. And they care about doing all that while continuing to elevate this place as a research university—you might not find that same balance at other places. So, I keep finding more and more evidence that coming here was a great choice.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EDUCATION

§ BA in psychology, MA and PhD in higher education and organizational change, all from University of California, Los Angeles

PREVIOUS POSITIONS

§ Dean, division of graduate education and postdoctoral affairs, University of California San Diego

§ Faculty director, graduate school of education’s higher education program, and co-director, management development program, Harvard University

§ Associate provost, Yale University

§ Associate vice provost and associate dean for academic affairs, University of Washington

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO DO IN YOUR FIRST YEAR?

I think there’s nothing more important right now for a new provost than to come in and hear the perspectives of faculty [and] of various kinds of leaders, to understand what’s going on with our staff, to learn about our students, and to appreciate the cultures and the histories that embody this place. Over time, this listening will enable me to develop an agenda in terms of strategy and goals. I’m reading everything I can and interrogating my own thinking about everything I believe I am learning so I can have what I hope are smart questions for folks when I ask them to explain things to me.

YOU WERE A FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENT, AS ARE MANY GEORGE MASON STUDENTS. HOW DOES THAT AFFECT HOW YOU CARRY OUT YOUR ROLE?

The hallmark of my own first-gen experience was not really understanding how things worked. I was a slow starter, and it took me a lot of time to really learn how to navigate the university’s culture. At the same time, given my background, I knew how to be resilient in many ways. And I think this is true for many of our students here as well.

FACTS

As a scholar, Antony’s research and teaching focus on the preparation of forward-thinking higher education leaders, both domestically and globally. He has written about higher education faculty, the socialization and leadership development of future faculty and college leaders, and data-driven decision-making in higher education settings.

He has taught courses in such topics as leadership theory, organizational change, assessment and evaluation, data-based decision-making, quantitative research methods, student affairs administration, leadership ethics, college athletics and athletic leadership, sociology of higher education, and the history of higher education.

My sense is that first-gen students know how to get stuff done. A first-generation college student is somebody who has figured out how to navigate life’s complexities, and still get to our university’s doorstep. They are not coming here lacking in abilities or resourcefulness. Sure, they may not have family members or others in their immediate sphere who know how to help them navigate the university. And they may lack financial resources. But in terms of personal commitment, smarts, and what we might call a “can-do” attitude, they’re not lacking. Even so, we shouldn’t assume that they will readily navigate our institution in a seamless fashion. We have to make sure we create an educational environment that is supportive and that allows them to reach their full potential.

ONE OF PRESIDENT GREGORY WASHINGTON’S GOALS IS GREATER EMPHASIS ON WHAT HE CALLS GRAND-CHALLENGE ISSUES. HOW ARE GEORGE MASON FACULTY POSITIONED FOR IMPACT?

The George Mason faculty are positioned to have impact on grand challenges because they’ve already been having an impact in ways that prepare us as a university to think about addressing big ideas. This is one of the youngest, rising research universities in the

country. This faculty has been steadily building its prominence as a research-based faculty with, frankly, a fraction of the resources that other universities enjoy. They are getting noticed all over the country for the impact they’re already having.

What if, while supporting them to do the work they are already excelling at, we were also able to strategically align our incredibly creative people around a set of issues that will define the human condition for generations to come? To me, that is the kind of question a grand challenge allows us to ask. It gives everybody a possible compass. It’s also not saying we only do the grand challenges—we still do the broad scholarship and creative work that represents the larger array of our interests. But, when possible, let’s imagine aligning of some of our folks’ work to tackle bigger challenges.

WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) IN HIGHER EDUCATION, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR GEORGE MASON GRADUATES TO BE FLUENT IN AI?

Research into artificial intelligence can provide opportunities for our scholars to define the future of AI, independent of its application. I’m talking about basic research that helps us understand AI and helps

us shape its associated technologies and possibilities. There are so many questions of a technical nature, but there are also questions of application and impact, not the least of which are all-important considerations of ethics and moralities around AI. I am excited by the possibilities of pure scholarship in all these areas, enabling our talented faculty and students to study AI in all its instantiations and to do really good work helping society understand and use AI.

Another opportunity is for our university to figure out where partnerships might exist with industry. We obviously have to think about partnerships that make sense, where the university can leverage its expertise to bring something to bear that advances scholarship, the development of our students, and service to humanity. But we may also be able to learn from the way in which industry is approaching this work. And we can certainly explore creating partnership opportunities and programs that benefit our students and faculty. We have an ethical obligation to teach our students about all this, and we have many exciting opportunities to explore with a variety of partners. The good news is that we are fortunate to have many smart, super talented people at George Mason who are leaders in this work. As provost, my job is to enable such people.

Provost James Antony stops for photos during Move-In in August.

ONE OF YOUR MANY AREAS OF EXPERTISE IS GRADUATE EDUCATION. ANY PARTICULAR PLANS OR THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT HERE AT GEORGE MASON?

A world-class research university has thriving programs at the master’s and doctoral levels, as well as professional degree programs that are top-notch. Graduate and professional education is something that, when done really well, provides an outcome to the student who’s pursuing the advanced degree, but also provides faculty an additional dimension to do their core creative and scholarly work. Special things happen in an intellectual space that brings faculty and graduate or professional students into collaboration with one another. But there’s also an impact on society. We need to make sure that we are putting together a robust array of graduate and professional programs that not only advance scholarship but also have impact on the lives of the average person out there. Those with advanced graduate or professional degrees, like the students we are training at George Mason, go on to have positive impacts on the daily lives of every person in our broader community. As provost, I will work with faculty and other leaders to think about what a vibrant future for graduate and professional education looks like for George Mason.

YOU’VE REFERRED TO GEORGE MASON AS ONE OF THE MOST COMPELLING INSTITUTIONS IN THE NATION. HOW SO?

What I see for George Mason is a future that will be positively stunning. We’ve got so much talent and potential that, on those dimensions, it will be hard to limit our possibilities. But, like many large public research universities, we will have to be strategic and creative when thinking about our future. The good news is we have a lot going for us. Our campus locations are ripe for development and for becoming the kind of built environments that, generations from now, will be leaps beyond what our founders could have imagined when we first opened as a university. We are also in one of the most compelling economic environments in the nation, not to mention within proximity to the nation’s capital—we have to continue leveraging our location.

At George Mason, we get to construct our own future. It’s going to require lots of discussion, planning, and strategic thinking. It’s going to be a lot of work, and we will have to be bold. But I am so excited about being somewhere that has that kind of potential. For me, I like being in a place where the very best days lie ahead. I look forward to working with everyone to shape that amazing future.

WHAT I SEE FOR GEORGE MASON IS A FUTURE THAT WILL BE POSITIVELY STUNNING. WE’VE GOT SO MUCH TALENT AND POTENTIAL THAT, ON THOSE DIMENSIONS, IT WILL BE HARD TO LIMIT OUR POSSIBILITIES.

Provost James Antony at

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

Play It Again and Again, Sam

RESEARCHERS AT THE COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH are part of a growing group seeking different therapeutic ways to improve the quality of life of nursing home residents with dementia without medication. Now, a new George Mason study has found that songs from adolescence and early adulthood enhance mood and social engagement among such patients.

Around 46 percent of residents in U.S. nursing homes have Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, and 13 percent of them are treated with antipsychotic medications, according to the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes. Such medications have been widely prescribed for people living with dementia in nursing facilities to treat their behavioral and psychological symptoms, though positive results are limited.

New research, led by principal investigator Megumi Inoue, has found that personalized music intervention is effective at alleviating agitation levels, enhancing mood and social engagement among residents, and reducing the use of antipsychotic and antianxiety medication.

Family members suggested songs, artists, and genres for personalized playlists that were developed based on what the participants listened to when they were around 15 to 25 years old, an age when more memories are available for potential recollection. Facility staff then played the personalized playlists for the intervention group twice a week, aiming for at least 30 minutes each session, for four weeks. Participants in the control group continued their usual schedule during these four weeks.

“This study provides evidence that personalized music intervention can be used to manage distressing behavioral and psychological symptoms associated with dementia,” says Inoue, an associate professor in the Department of Social Work. “This low-cost, easily implementable intervention, requiring no special licensure for administration, can significantly enhance the quality of life for nursing facility residents.”

Overall, the intervention group experienced a decrease in average antipsychotic medication use after the intervention, and the control group, which did not receive any music, had an increase in medication use during the same time period.

The observational data also reveals that this intervention can improve the mood of residents living with dementia and help them connect with others, while surveys from administrative staff and activity directors highlighted their positive views of the intervention.

“In addition to improving patients’ quality of life, this intervention can create an improved environment throughout the nursing home,” says Inoue. “For example, if personalized music helps reduce residents’ challenging symptoms, they will become easier to work with for direct care workers. In addition, the reduction of medications to treat residents’ psychological and behavioral symptoms will contribute to creating an overall safer facility because such medications have sedating effects that can cause falls.”

The study, published online in the Journal for Applied Gerontology, was supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services through the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services.

—Mary Cunningham

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/TRAVELISM

Improving O fficer Decision-Making in High-Stress Situations

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS are using immersive virtual reality to examine ways in which high-stress conditions may influence law enforcement officer decision-making and utilization of equitable policing strategies.

Professor Stephanie Dailey of the College of Education and Human Development is serving as the principal investigator on the project and working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in collaboration with the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute, a federally funded research and development center at the MITRE Corporation.

For this project, Dailey aims to better understand how support for law enforcement officers, including training and wellness strategies, can affect officer decision-making and lead to equitable policing outcomes.

The study, which uses MITRE’s simulations experiments (SIMEX) system, involves law enforcement officers who have been participating in a series of experiments where immersive virtual reality is used to simulate a high-stress encounter with a subject— as portrayed by an avatar—exhibiting various social and behavioral characteristics. The SIMEX simulation labs, located in McLean, Virginia, offer a special mix of technical and operational capabilities for government agencies that want to try out new ideas by using dedicated, state-of-the-art laboratories.

“We all have biases,” says Dailey. “Anytime we are navigating the world, we are operating off a series of cognitive shortcuts or mechanisms that support rapid decision-making, such as ‘Don’t touch a hot stove!’”

But Dailey added that sometimes the cognitive shortcuts people use are based upon faulty assumptions. “Having officers repeatedly go through different simulated scenarios helps us isolate what factors may influence officer decision-making.”

POINT OF

The next phase of the project centers on the impact of training that supports equitable policing. Researchers plan to survey law enforcement officers who have had this training to investigate if it has positively impacted officer behaviors and wellbeing in the field and whether there are aspects of this training that are especially beneficial.

“If my main goal is to help communities that are impacted by police violence, then the best place to start is with the decision-making of officers,” says Dailey. “As a researcher, I am trying to support safer and more just communities by helping officers make informed decisions.”

George Mason’s College of Public Health is the new home of 400,000 biological specimens through a partnership with Inova Health Systems. This repository of specimens, called a biobank, is an extensive collection of obstetrical and perinatal samples, along with follow-up health information, providing a rare and invaluable asset in public health and in the education of our future health, science, and technology care workforce.

LEARN MORE AT go.gmu.edu/Biobank

—Diane Schute

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/MATT GUSH

Using Psychology to Defend Against C yberattacks

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS are probing the psychology behind cyberattacks as part of a U.S. intelligence community program aimed at turning the tables on hackers.

As the prevalence and severity of cyberattacks continue to grow, the Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity (IARPA) has turned its focus on how best to exploit the weakest link in cyberattacks: the human factor. Under a new IARPA program, researchers hope to better understand cyberattackers’ cognitive vulnerabilities and decisionmaking biases and use those vulnerabilities to derail future attacks.

Researchers Daniel Barbará and Giuseppe Ateniese of the College of Engineering and Computing and Gerald Matthews of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences have been selected as part of a broader team of computer science, cybersecurity, and psychology experts to forge new research pathways and deliver cutting-edge technology as part of IARPA’s Reimagining Security with CyberpsychologyInformed Network Defense (ReSCIND) program.

The team of researchers are building defensive tools that first cue in on hackers’ human limitations and use those weaknesses to delay or derail the attack while it is underway.

“You want to make them waste their time,” says Barbará. “The more they waste their time, the less damage they’re going to do.”

This can be accomplished by luring hackers with decoys such as false networks or documents to distract them. But the trick is twofold. The decoys must appear to be real. They also need to entice the hackers away from their original aim. The latter is where understanding the psychological factors that influence hackers is essential.

As part of the first phase of ReSCIND, researchers aim to fill gaps that exist in the current understanding of human cognition and decision-making that influence hackers’ behavior.

Matthews says the baseline for their research comes from several areas of study in psychology, including human performance and how emotional states might influence performance.

“Hackers themselves are under pressure and potentially anxious about getting caught,” Matthews says. “They’re anxious about looking foolish to the people that they are working with.”

Cultural factors that motivate hackers are also important. Thrill-seeking college-age hackers would have different cultural norms and motives than highly trained professionals acting on behalf of a nation-state adversary, Matthews says.

Researchers hope to further understand the full scope of psychological factors that influence hackers, including how to measure, predict, and induce their cognitive vulnerabilities.

As part of the second phase, researchers plan to further define when cyberpsychology-informed defenses can be best used and how to determine their success. The final phase focuses on modeling, adapting, and automating those defenses.

The George Mason team is contributing to a ReSCIND contract awarded to SRI International and is working alongside experts from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Margin Research, Research and Assessment Design: Science Solution, Two Six Technologies, University of Florida, and Virtual Reality Medical Center.

—Joe Clark, MBA ’17

Improving the Health of Mothers and Children

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY HAS ENTERED the second cycle of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program called Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO).

The NIH grant provides ECHO teams across the country with funding to research five health outcomes for women and children over seven years. George Mason will receive $1.78 million per year to support this work and is the only university in Virginia participating.

George Mason’s cohort, which includes Boston Children’s Hospital and is led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, is looking at pre-, peri-, and postnatal outcomes; upper and lower airways; obesity; neurodevelopment; and positive health.

The team is currently re-recruiting participants from the first cycle. They have more than 300 child participants out of 1,512 returning. The youngest participant is under one year old and the oldest is 12.

“We’re aiming to gather information about women and children in a longitudinal manner to compare our data to that of Nebraska or Iowa,” says principal investigator Kathi Huddleston, PhD Nursing ’08, an associate professor in the College of Public Health. “Learning about the regional disparities will then allow us to use them to influence national policy.”

Research from the first cycle of ECHO revealed that school lunch consumption is associated with increased obesity in children, which prompted a policy change that strengthened the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. As a result, overall body mass index among school-aged youths has significantly decreased, which has substantial health benefits for future generations.

Other findings noted from the first cycle include changes in sleep patterns due to COVID-19 and disparities in sleep patterns between children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The team also found that there is a strong relationship between the health of the mother at pre- and early post-conception and the overall health of children. For example, babies born to mothers with higher levels of toxic metals are more likely to be underweight, which could lead to future health issues.

“If we want to have healthy kids, we have to have healthy moms,” says Huddleston, who was director of clinical research at the Inova Translational Medicine Institute before coming to George Mason.

Participating families come into the Population Health Center on the Fairfax Campus once a year so researchers can record each family member’s weight, height, and head and waist circumferences, as well as their body fat percentage. Teeth, hair, nail, and urine samples are also collected to test the progression of health and well-being in the children as they grow.

ECHO also encompasses the concept of inclusive citizen science, as the participants provide all the information being used to impact public health. They receive quarterly updates with the researchers’ findings.

“One of the understated benefits of this study is that children are encouraged to participate firsthand and gather an understanding of science in a very personal way,” says Huddleston. “We have received wonderful feedback from the kids about how they feel giving new information to better all children’s health.”

—Shayla Brown

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

ECHO clinical operations lead Lynda B. Ashie with one of the children in the study.

Hear Our Voices!: Engaging in Partnerships that Honor Families

Bweikia Foster Steen, associate professor, College of Education and Human Development

The National Association for the Education of Young Children, October 2023

Steen establishes why reciprocal family partnerships are essential within the contexts of child development theories, developmentally appropriate practice, and antibias education. The book also provides practical strategies and activities to help teachers and administrators examine and improve their practices for partnering with families.

Black Males in Secondary and Postsecondary Education: Teaching, Mentoring, Advising and Counseling

Erik M. Hines, professor, College of Education and Human Development, with Edward C. Fletcher Jr. (Eds.)

Emerald Publishing Limited, December 2023

This book contributes to the existing literature on Black males with a focus on teaching, mentoring, advising, and counseling Black boys and men from preschool to graduate and professional school as well as into their careers. It also addresses the gap in research on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black male educational attainment; the increased anti-Black racism related to police racial profiling and disciplinary issues in education; and the academic and career outcomes of Black males.

A Queer Theory of the State

Samuel Clowes Huneke, assistant professor, History and Art History

Columbia University Press, December 2023

Huneke expands upon his online essay in this book to offer a more optimistic perspective. He asks how queer theory can wed its critically antinormative impulses to the empirical need for a state. In answering this question, he shows how the state is an integral component of a politics that seeks to subvert and undo the oppression of queer lives.

Advancing Equity-Focused School Counseling for All Students

Sam Steen, professor; Shekila Melchior, associate professor; and Amber B. SansburyScott, PhD student, College of Education and Human Development

Routledge, December 2023

Using author narratives, this book highlights the racial disparities that currently exist in schools within the historical context of pivotal legal cases in the United States. At the same time, the authors emphasize the importance of assessing and supporting students through a culturally appropriate lens that recognizes student strengths. They provide current and historical frameworks through which school counselors can develop a more socially just school counseling program.

Harlem

in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Stephen Robertson, professor, History and Art History

Stanford University Press, March 2024

The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935, was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and the first occurrence in the nation’s leading Black neighborhood. Focused on capturing the complexity of the new form of racial violence, this open-access digital monograph is a multilayered, hyperlinked narrative that connects different scales of analysis: individual events, aggregated patterns, and a chronological narrative.

Housing in the United States: The Basics

Katrin B. Anacker, professor, Schar School of Policy and Government

Routledge, April 2024

This guide allows readers to quickly grasp the complex range of policies, programs, and factors that shape the housing landscape. Part I covers the fundamentals of housing, and Part II focuses on housing policy and its evolution from the early 20th century to present day.

Recently published works by George Mason faculty

Silicon Valley and the Environmental Inequalities of High-Tech Urbanism

Jason A. Heppler, adjunct assistant professor, History and Art History

University of Oklahoma Press, April 2024

Heppler’s book explores how Santa Clara Valley became Silicon Valley and came to embody both the triumphs and failures of a new vision of the American West. It is also a case study on the origins of U.S. environmentalism and debates urban and suburban sustainability.

Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation

Bryan D. Caplan, professor, Economics, with Ady Branzei

Cato Institute, May 2024

Why are housing prices in the United States so unbelievably high, especially in the country’s most desirable locations?

In this book, Caplan makes the economic and philosophical case for radical deregulation of this market. Not only would the average price of housing be cut in half, but the building boom unleashed by deregulation would simultaneously reduce inequality, increase social mobility, promote economic growth, and more.

Leadership at the Spiritual Edge: Emerging and Non-Western Concepts of Leadership and Spirituality

Stacey K. Guenther, adjunct professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, with Mohammed Raei and Lisa A. Berkley (Eds.)

Routledge, July 2024

This book explores the intersection of spirituality and leadership, examining cutting-edge research, theory, and practices that help build healthy and long-term effective leadership. Showcasing non-Western views of leadership across a range of backgrounds, the book also looks at leadership styles that enable better problem-solving when addressing the complex challenges of organizations and societies.

COMPANION TAILS

George Mason English professor Kyoko Mori writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book, Cat and Bird (Belt Publishing, March 2024), has been called a “memoir in animals” and focuses on the six house cats who defined the major eras of her life as a writer.

What inspired you to write this book?

I’ve lived my entire adult life with cats and yet my previous books— both fiction and nonfiction—only featured cats in the periphery of the story, as colorful minor characters at best. In truth, getting my first cat at 22 was a life-altering event: that cat saw me through graduate school, my first teaching job, marriage and divorce, and my first two books. I wouldn’t be the same person I am now if I hadn’t been with him for 18 years. So my first impetus was to finally do justice to him and to his successors. The real contrast is between cats and dogs and songbirds and other wildlife. Even with birds who come to our window feeder or end up in our care (I worked as a songbird rehabilitator), we can only admire them from a distance or nurse them back to health in order to return them to the wild. We love companion animals by holding on; we love wildlife by letting go. I wanted to explore this contrast.

What surprised you about the process of writing this book?

I knew from the beginning that the book was going to be about the way the two kinds of devotion—to cats and to birds—have sustained my work as a writer and helped me to make a home. I also realized that a book about living with animal companions and witnessing the dangers that threaten birds, other wildlife, and the whole planet will have to dig deep into grief. The desire to hold on and let go at the same time—as when a beloved animal companion dies or when we watch migratory birds navigate the sky—became the essential aspect of the book’s narrative and investigation.

What are you working on now?

My last nonfiction book before Cat and Bird was a knitting memoir titled Yarn: Remembering the Way Home. I’ve picked up where Yarn finished and published four personal essays about women and clothes. At the same time, I continue to be interested in backyard wildlife—especially after a squirrel made a nest on my window ledge and had two babies. Sei Shōnagun, the 11th-century Japanese writer who appears in Cat and Bird, was equally interested in the beauty of nature and human-made objects. I don’t think clothes and wildlife can fit into the same book, but for now I’m following the inspiration and seeing where my work goes.

—Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ‘95

PHOTO PROVIDED

Examining the Past to Understand

the Present: The Journey of a CubanAmerican Refugee and What Led to His Conversion from Democrat to Republican

Jorge E. Ponce, BA Psychology ’76

The book (Fulton Books, June 2023) brings the author’s challenges, disappointments, and victories that destiny threw in his path to the forefront, revealing all the events that shaped him and his views on the nation’s political climate. Ponce provides his take on why there has been a recent exodus of Hispanics from the Democratic Party and the need to keep this group in the Republican tent for future elections.

Ponce is a Cuban American who came to the United States with his family via the Freedom Flights in 1966. He writes about issues that need to be aired. His letters to the editor have been published in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the Tampa Bay Times.

Every Student Deserves a Gifted Education

Brian K. Butler, MEd Counseling and Development ’93

This book (The Answer’s in the Room Press, October 2023) redefines gifted education as inclusive and offers current research and expert insights that support the idea that all students can excel if educators believe they can. The book equips educators with the tools to create an inclusive and enriching educational experience for all students.

Butler is an internationally recognized educational leader, consultant, and author with more than 30 years of experience. He also hosts the podcast A Conversation with Brian

The Spirit in My Shoes

John Michael Cummings, BA Studio Art ’89

In this story collection (Cornerstone Press, November 2023), Cummings writes about loneliness, relationships, and the common struggles people face in tales that conjure comparisons to John Updike, Raymond Carver, and William Gay.

Cummings is the author of three novels and more than 100 short stories. His stories have appeared in the Kenyon Review, North American Review, Iowa Review, and Alaska

Quarterly Review. He lives in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where his family has resided for six generations.

Mother Countries

Andy Fogle, BA English ’96, MFA Creative Writing ’00

Spurred by his mother’s death and driven by pandemic and racial unrest, Fogle’s latest poetry collection (Main Street Rag, November 2023) excavates family and national history to explore larger truths about gender, privilege, and racism.

Fogle is the author of Across from Now and seven chapbooks of poetry. His nonfiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Parks & Points, Cutleaf, Writers Chronicle, and elsewhere. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, he now lives with his family in upstate New York, where he teaches high school. He is the poetry editor at Salvation South Dead in the Water

Keith Yocum, BA Philosophy ’74

In this novel (self-published, January 2024), an empty boat is found floating off the coast of Cape Cod, and a young reporter is sent to cover the story. The more she digs into the ghost boat’s mystery, the closer she comes to danger herself.

Yocum is a former journalist and author of nine novels, including the Dennis Cunningham espionage thriller series set in Australia. Yocum is drawn to writing about people caught up in complex military and international conflicts. He lives in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Sterling (Images of America)

Brittany DeLong, BA Communication ’12

This book (Arcadia Publishing, February 2024) chronicles Sterling, one of the most diverse locales in Northern Virginia, from its earliest documented history in the 1600s to its modern day status as one of Loudoun County’s first planned communities.

DeLong, a freelance writer and lifelong Sterling resident, has worked as a university press and association magazine editor and has contributed to a publication about the history of the U.S. Foreign Service. She enjoys volunteer work as both a youth soccer coach and tutor.

Recently published works by George Mason alumni

MADISON SCHITTIG

Having a unique perspective on viewing the world is one thing— but it’s another thing to be able to share that perspective through your art. Take a look at the work of Madison Schittig, a photography intern in George Mason’s Office of University Branding (OUB), and one can immediately see she’s been gifted with the latter. Via Schittig’s striking point of view—including her eye for geometric lines, shapes, and color—familiar places on campus become abstract, and landmarks and buildings well-known to many transform in startling ways.

As a part of the Mason LIFE Program, a post-secondary transition program for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Schittig is accompanied to classes and her internship by a fellow George Mason student, who is a member of the program’s student support staff. Read more about the program in the story on page 12.

A QUIET PLACE: Schittig fell in love with photography after she received her first camera from her sister. It quickly became her favorite class in high school, where she found a sanctuary in the dark room. “It’s so calm in there, it’s like a stress relief,” she says. Though she now shoots digital photos for OUB, that love of the art form has continued into her time at George Mason. “It makes me feel like I have a purpose. I also feel like I’m not alone, I have a team.”

NATURAL INSPIRATION: Many of Schittig’s photos center around the natural world. “I just feel drawn to nature, because I like the

YEAR: Third-Year Student

MAJOR: Mason LIFE, Photography

HOMETOWN: Warrenton, Virginia

woods, and I used to play in the woods when I was growing up. I like the trees, I like the grass, I even like the river…because it has texture.”

LEARNING FROM THE PROS: Senior photographers Ron Aira and Evan Cantwell, MA Arts Management ‘10, serve as Schittig’s mentors and supervise her internship. “With Ron, he taught me how to edit raw photos, and he taught me all these cool tricks and tips. Evan taught me shooting—it’s good to shoot up close for people,” Schittig says. “I like it here, I like the people, I like the team. I really want to stay here one more year.”

MAKING MEMORIES: Like many other Patriots, Schittig cites friends and clubs as her favorite things about George Mason. But Schittig’s favorite George Mason memory is a bit more personal. Twice, the university’s biweekly email newsletter has featured her work, including her self-professed favorite, a striking scene of colorful origami garlands cascading in front of a white bicycle.

ADVICE FOR FUTURE PATRIOTS: “Don’t be nervous. You’ll be nervous at first, but once you get the hang of it then you’ll be fine. But always bring the proper camera.”

See a photo essay featuring Schittig’s work at go.gmu.edu/madison-photo.

—Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10

A Child’s Best Friend

When Samantha Carrico, MSW ’15, enters a room, eyes usually lock onto her charismatic coworker Rylynn. But while Fairfax County’s facility dog gets all the attention, Carrico is the key to making it all happen. As the supervisor of Volunteer and Partner Services within the county’s Department of Family Services (DFS), Carrico plays a leading role in providing critical services to children and their families through programs that are powered entirely by volunteers.

“I like to call Volunteer and Partner Services the best kept secret in DFS,” she says. “We’re providing so many resources to families and communities.”

Those resources range from Adopt-a-Family, their popular holiday assistance program, to body safety classes for children offered in the public schools. Last year, the Body Safety Program alone served 15,000 children.

“It’s been really nice to see the impact that we’re making,” Carrico says. “Prevention is definitely where we’re going to move the needle for child welfare.”

When not managing four full-time staffers, almost 100 volunteers, and leading the county’s child welfare mandated reporter training for agencies ranging from police departments to the CIA, Carrico is also the official handler for Rylynn, a five-year-old Labrador-golden retriever mix.

Carrico was working with Manassas City when she heard of a colleague who worked with a certified service dog and broached the idea with her supervisor. When she learned they could have one only if the dog were free, Carrico didn’t give up. After much research, her perseverance paid off. She found Canine Companions, which offers trained service dogs to organizations and individuals free of charge.

“Rylynn is actually the only facility dog at a family services or social services agency in the whole country,” Carrico says. Rylynn attends events and is certified to accompany children in the witness stand when they must testify in court. “It’s very rewarding for a family or child to know that Rylynn is here for them, with no other agenda.”

Carrico hopes her experience with Rylynn—and her determination to find a way to make it happen—will help pave the way for more agencies nationwide to acquire their own facility dogs.

“Children will disclose when they’re ready, but also when they’re comfortable. And sometimes it’s on us as the professionals to help make sure the environment is comfortable for them.”

A licensed social worker, Carrico has been with Fairfax County since 2020, but her entry into the world of child welfare started long before that—and included a pivotal stop at George Mason.

Born and raised in Northern Virginia, Carrico’s first memories of the university came when she attended Camp Mason at the Fairfax Campus as a child. When it came time to think about getting her master’s, the choice was easy.

“George Mason felt like a second home,” she says.

Carrico found the many internship opportunities the university offered her invaluable. “What really resonated with me, from being a student into being a professional, is…how enriching my internships were.” She’s since paid the opportunities forward by hiring George Mason students as interns.

It all comes back to her desire to make a difference, whether she’s offering in-person training or sitting quietly while Rylynn comforts a child in distress. “My heart really lies in wanting to do more.”

—Priyanka Champaneri, BA ’05, MFA ’10

1960s

Keith Kenny, BA History ’69, retired in 2002 after a 32-year career at the CIA. He then worked for SAIC, which provides government services and information technology support, from which he retired in 2012. He now is a writer of speculative fiction and has had many short stories published under the pen name K. A. Kenny. His novel, The Starflower, was published in August 2023 by Austin Macauley. He and his wife, Carole Duff, were married in 2006 and live in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.

1970s

Gary Dittmer, BS Business ’72, MS Business ’96, wrote Easy Giggles, a Vietnam Saga, published in May by Vanguard Press. The historical novel explores the United States involvement in Vietnam and also serves as a personal memoir. He received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star with “V” device, and Combat Infantryman’s Badge. He is a certified public accountant and was an adjunct professor at both George Mason and the University of Virginia.

Jim McCarthy, BS Public Administration ’75, is president of AMDC Solutions and a Florida Supreme Courtcertified county mediator. He earned his law degree in 2022 from Florida State University College of Law. In 2017, he was appointed to the Florida Environmental Regulation Commission by then-governor Rick Scott and was reappointed by Governor Ron DeSantis. He

also served on the Virginia Commission to Increase Voter Registration, appointed by then-governor Chuck Robb.

Carolyn Taylor, BSN ’78, MSN ’86, MBA ’94, PhD Nursing ’14, received the College of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is the former corporate operations officer for Taylor-Oden Enterprises, an information technology and health care consulting firm.

1980s

Susan Grace Cohen Nagel, BIS ’80, BS Geology ’82, retired from a community college and university teaching career as an adjunct professor of geology. She wrote Delectable Squash and Pumpkin Recipes: Unique Recipes for the Fruits of the Vine Grown on the J.L. Hall Farm, a cookbook and tribute to a family’s organic farming culture in New England. The book was self-published in 2019. In addition to writing, she enjoys quilting.

D. Eric Schansberg, BS Economics ’86, is a professor of economics at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany. He along with Richard McKenzie and Dwight Lee served as the primary authors in the revision of their Microeconomics for Managers: Principals and Applications textbook for its fourth edition, published in May by Cambridge University Press.

Class Notes

1990s

Jeffrey Osborne, BSEd ’90, MA ’07, retired from a 33-year teaching career, primarily focused on first-grade inclusion. In retirement, he plans to travel to London and New York City to visit his daughters, volunteer in his local school, and “continue to explore new horizons with friends and family.”

Manesh Gupta, MS Computer Science ’91, received the College of Engineering and Computing Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the founder, president, and CEO of NikSoft Systems Corporation, which provides technology innovations to the federal government.

Mark Phillips, BS Social Work ’91, is the minister for the First & Franklin Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. He earned his master of divinity degree in 1994 from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and was ordained by the Pittsburgh Presbytery in July of that year. He has served as a minister at churches in Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan.

Michelle Robl, JD ’91, the county attorney for Prince William County, Virginia, received the 2023 Arthur W. Sinclair Professionalism Award from the Prince William County Bar Association (PWCBA). The

award, which was established in 1992 and named in honor of a founding PWCBA member, recognizes a member who demonstrates the highest standards of honor, integrity, competency, and courtesy in the legal profession. Robl has served as the county attorney for more than three decades.

Colin Hart, MA International Transactions ’92, received the Schar School of Policy and Government Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the cofounder and managing director of Freedom Development, a private commercial real estate investment company.

Hollis Kosco, BA Speech Communication ’94, is the George Mason University Alumni Association’s Alumna of the Year. She is the senior transportation manager for FIFA World Cup 2026 in its Miami-area headquarters. She was a member of the 1993 NCAA national runner-up George Mason women’s soccer team.

Catherine Becker, MS Biology ’96, received the College of Science Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, retiring as an officer after 21 years. She then spent 20 years working in energy data management.

Jeffrey Shen, BS Decision Sciences and Management

What’s New with You?

Information Systems ’96, received the Honors College Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the president at Red Team Consulting, a federal contracting, corporate strategy, and business development firm.

Joseph Cox, BS Accounting ’97, earned his doctor of business administration degree in accounting at Liberty University in May. He is the director of compliance and internal audit at Fincantieri Marine Group. He recently completed a stint as an adjunct professor of auditing at Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Alaleh Jenkins, BS Accounting ’97, received the Costello College of Business Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is the principal deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy, where she oversees formulation, execution, and compliance for the department’s $257.6 billion budget.

2000s

Cito Vanegas, MBA ’00, along with two business partners, purchased Mimslyn Inn, a 58-room resort in the Shenandoah Valley. The property features cottages, homes, and a hotel with 45 guest rooms. In addition,

(continued on page 42)

We are interested in what you’ve been doing since you graduated. Landed a new job? Received an award? Started a family? Have a new business? Submit your class notes to alumni.gmu.edu/whatsnew. In your note, be sure to include your graduation year and degree.

Dear Fellow Patriots

George Mason University benefits everyone we interact with—from those who work, live, and learn on campus to wherever our alumni go on to make their lives and livelihoods. George Mason grit and audacity lead to innovations that make the world a better place.

As the university’s reputation climbs, the good word about George Mason is spreading. The commonwealth’s largest university is ranked No. 1 in Virginia for innovation and social mobility and has 14 graduate programs among the top 50 nationally, according to U.S. News & World Report. George Mason is a major contributor to CNBC naming Virginia America’s Top State for Business and the No. 1 state for education—further proof that George Mason makes everything better!

Innovation on campus is limitless. The university is poised to lead its first NASA mission; we offer the country’s first ethics in artificial intelligence minor and the first cyber security engineering program; and we opened Virginia’s first College of Public Health and first School of Computing.

Our alumni are also shining examples that George Mason is on a relentless quest to transform the world. At last month’s annual Celebration of Distinction gala, the alumni association recognized alumni, students, and faculty for contributions to George Mason, their communities, their fields, and beyond. Find out more about the alumni who were recognized on page 13.

I hope you continue to engage with George Mason in ways that are meaningful to you and further strengthen your relationship with the university. To that end, could you hire or mentor a Patriot? Could you or your employer sponsor a networking event? Visit our revamped Alumni-Owned Business Directory, where you can register your business and search fellow alumni businesses by type, location, or alum’s name. Find it at alumni.gmu.edu.

Fall is a beautiful time to visit campus, and I hope you have the chance to stop by. In the meantime, please reach out (shine2@gmu.edu) with thoughts about energizing our ties as alumni to one another and to our alumni network.

With Patriot Pride,

Scott Hine, BS Decision Sciences ’85 President

George Mason University Alumni Association

he leads NEW Solutions, a national nonprofit that helps workers aged 55 and older to find jobs in the federal sector across the United States and its territories. He lives with his wife and two children in Arlington, Virginia.

Joseph Beal, BS Decision Sciences and Management Information Systems ’01, received the Early Identification Program Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is a managing director in Deloitte’s Risk and Financial Advisory Cyber Practice, serving clients in the government and public services civil sector.

Robert Sandoval, MA History ’01, was appointed an administrative/professional faculty member at Eastern Virginia Medical School at Old Dominion University, where he also serves as an administrator on the Institutional Review Board.

Gwendolyn Everett, PhD Education ’02, is interim dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University. She also is associate professor of art history in the department of art. Previously, she served as associate dean for the division of fine arts in the college of arts and sciences, director of the Howard University Gallery of Art, and chair of the department of art. An expert in 19th and 20th century American and African American art, museum, and cultural studies, she was a research consultant for the National Museum of African American History and Culture Plan for Action Presidential Commission. Her findings on African American art collections were included in “The Time Has Come: Report to the President and to the Congress” in 2003.

Ashley Hurt Callen, JD ’04, received the Antonin Scalia Law School Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

Celebration of Distinction. She is the general counsel to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

Olufunke Owolabi, MPA ’04, published A Dream Comes to Life, in March. A children’s picture book, it tells her later-in-life parenting story and explores why telling that story is important. She is the head of multifamily employee experience and engagement at Freddie Mac.

Torey Carter-Conneen, BA Economics ’05, CERB Accounting ’07, received the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a 16,000-member professional association.

Margarita Maria Martinez, BA English ’05, received the Distinguished Lambda Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. They are a professional counselor and co-owner of Multicultural Career Center, a Virginia-based therapy and career services private practice.

Christian Teresi, MFA Creative Writing ’06, wrote What Monsters You Make of Them, which was published by Red Hen Press in September. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous journals including AGNI, The American Poetry Review, Blackbird, The Kenyon Review, Literary Hub, and Narrative. He is director of advancement and communications for the American Councils for International Education and lives in Washington, D.C.

Brittany Mullins, BS Marketing ’07, founded Eating Bird Food, providing healthy recipes and more to her 753,000 loyal Instagram followers and through her website eatingbirdfood.com.

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Just the Two of Them

Award-winning composer and songwriter

William (Bill) Salter is the subject of the featurelength documentary Just the Two of Us, named after his Grammy Award-winning hit song. He is also the grandfather of the filmmaker Jada Salter, BA Film and Video Studies ’20.

Salter created the film with support from George Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts Young Alumni Commissioning Project, which provides funding to emerging alumni artists. She premiered the documentary at George Mason earlier this year as her 88-yearold grandfather watched remotely on Zoom.

“I sat down [to write] my vision for the film and did not hold anything back,” says Salter. “I really enjoyed the freedom of creating what I had envisioned in my head.”

Salter got the idea for the documentary after hearing Will Smith’s remake of the hit song that was originally performed by Bill Withers and written by her grandfather, Withers, and Ralph MacDonald. She made a post on TikTok explaining her family’s history with the song, which gained a lot of attention as “Just the Two of Us” was simultaneously going viral on the social media app.

As a child, Salter wanted to be a singer, so her grandfather tried teaching her how to play the guitar. But she struggled to get the hang of it. Her grandfather was the one to nudge her to take a different path.

“He told me ‘You don’t have to be a singer. You don’t have to be on stage directly. You can do something like me behind the scenes.’ Now I’m doing that, and I’m very happy he gave me that advice,” Salter says.

Although Salter’s film mainly focuses on her grandfather, who was born in Harlem, New York, in 1936, it heavily features other family members and accomplished musicians who impacted her grandfather’s life and career. The film also includes footage of accomplished Motown artists recording and performing songs written by Salter and his songwriting partners.

“I wanted to show just how much of a passion piece this film is to me, how it would honor my grandfather and his legacy,” says Salter. “I am his biggest fan, so I wanted to shed light on him and his work, as not many people know who is responsible for so many songs that are listened to worldwide.”

Salter, who is currently a video producer at the U.S. Department of Justice, is brainstorming future projects including travel videos and more stories about artists and other professionals who have done groundbreaking work behind the scenes “so they can get the shine they deserve,” she says.

—Shayla Brown

Thanks to the Young Alumni Commissioning Project, 18 CVPA alumni to date have been granted awards anywhere from $2,500 to $5,000 to support the creation of new artistic works in film, dance, visual art, music, and game design.

PHOTO PROVIDED

Are you an alum who owns a business?

List it in our alumniowned business directory.

Go to go.gmu.edu/ alumnibusiness to find out more.

Amir Zonozi, BS Psychology ’07, received the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the CEO and co-founder of Zoomph, which provides AI-powered insights to sports and entertainment brands, leagues, teams, and media.

Cheryl Denise Kelly, BA Integrative Studies ’09, received the Distinguished Black Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is a personal injury attorney and the founder of C. Kelly Law in Atlanta, Georgia.

Alex Plank, BA Film and Video Studies ’09, was a guest on NPR’s “Consider This,” talking about his role as associate producer on the film Ezra. He is also founder of WrongPlanet.net, the largest online community for autism.

2010s

Josh Knox, BS Economics ’10, is a consultant with Cooptimize and publishes the blog iamJoshKnox.com, on which he writes about his professional life as a Dynamics 365 and operations functions consultant, among other subjects. He published Letters to a Young ERP Consultant in January.

Kimiko Lighty, MAIS ’10, is the George Mason University Alumni Association’s Alumni Service Award recipient. She is the founding executive director and current strategic advisor to Restorative Arlington. She led the design and implementation of the organization’s Heart of Safety Restorative Justice Conferencing Program, a diversion program serving Arlington County’s legal system, schools, and the community.

Caroline Morin, BS Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’10, received the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. An organizer with experience across issues from housing justice to cash bail to voting rights, she currently facilitates grant equity for outdoor recreation and conservation projects in Washington state.

Jenni VanCuren, MA English ’10, is an English professor at Laurel Ridge Community College, with locations in Luray, Middletown, and Warrenton, Virginia. She recently received the college’s Distinguished Teaching Faculty Award and the Faculty Student Engagement Award. She is co-advisor of the college’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter and is regional coordinator for the society’s chapters in Virginia and West Virginia. She wrote When Shadows Fade, published by Rosedog Books in 2016.

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2024–25

Scott Hine, BS ’85, President

Christine Landoll, BS ’89, MS ’92, Immediate Past President

Jeff Fissel, BS ’06, President-Elect

Andy Gibson, BA ’02, Vice President, Alumni Engagement

Stephanie Zimmermann, BS ’93, Vice President, Student Engagement

Kristen Taylor, BA ’88, Vice President, Volunteerism

Michael D. Marino, BA ’11, Vice President, Partnerships and Sponsorships

Sawyer Dullaghan, BS ’15, Historian

John Hall, BS ’93, Treasurer

Chaimaa Fekkak, BA ’13, Director-at-Large (2023–25)

Suehaila Nabulsi, BA ’00, Director-at-Large (2023–25)

Lisa Rosser, BA ’89, Director-at-Large (2023–25)

Janae Johnson, BS ’11, MAIS ‘15, Director-atLarge (2024–26)

Daniel Williams, MS ’11, Director-at-Large (2024–26)

Kathleen Wills, BS ’15, JD ’20, Director-at-Large (2024–26)

Deion Maith, BA ’20, President, Black Alumni Chapter

Charles Davidson, PhD ’16, President, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution Alumni Chapter

Thomas Ammazzalorso, MA ’04, CERG ’05, MEd ’10, President, College of Education and Human Development Alumni Chapter

David P. Brown, PhD ’04, President, College of Engineering and Computing Alumni Chapter

Shawn L. Brann, BA ’95, MA ‘99, CERG ’06, President, College of Humanities and Social Sciences Alumni Chapter

Vincent Pereira, MHA ’14, President, College of Public Health Alumni Chapter

Michelle Ryan, PhD ’15, President, College of Science Alumni Chapter

Sarah Campbell, MS International Commerce and Policy ’11, is associate vice president for defense and security initiatives and head of special projects in the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact at George Mason. In the new position, she supports the vice president and other members of the executive team to increase operational efficiency and effectiveness, enhance the university’s ability to scale research and build infrastructure, and improve risk management and compliance. Previously, she was chief of staff at the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security at the University of Maryland.

(continued on page 46)

Vacant, President, College of Visual and Performing Arts Alumni Chapter

Kevin Connor, MBA ’22, President, Costello College Alumni Chapter

Jorge Velasquez, BA ’14, President, Early Identification Program Alumni Chapter

Leigh Ann Dewitte, BS ’15, President, Green Machine Ensembles Alumni Chapter

Melissa Alberto, BA ’19, President, Honors College Alumni Chapter

David Miller, PhD ’15, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Alumni Chapter

Xavier Clark, MPA ’18, PhD ’23, President, Lambda Alumni Chapter

Nely Garcia, BS ’21, President, Latino Alumni Chapter

Vacant, President, Scalia Law School Alumni Chapter

Brennan Georgianni, MPP ’16, President, Schar School of Policy and Government Alumni Chapter

Philip Pinero, BS ’20, President, Veterans Alumni Chapter

If you would like to become involved in the Alumni Association, please contact the Office of Alumni Relations at alumni@gmu.edu.

Trailblazing a New Path to Peace

Keil Eggers, BA Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’15, PhD ’24, is the first to admit that his research methods are unique to the world of conflict analysis and resolution. But his unorthodox approach is becoming the standard for George Mason University’s Peace Engineering Lab in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Eggers has been a champion of complexity-informed conflict transformation, futures, and SenseMaker, a technology that applies a quantitative framework to narrative research data that has been submitted and interpreted by the subjects themselves.

“My professors have always been willing to let me experiment and have supported me in trying new things,” he says. “That’s one of the biggest strengths of the Carter School.”

As a Kansas native with an interest in international politics, Eggers knew he wanted to be in the Washington, D.C., region when he applied to colleges. George Mason was the perfect fit. Then he took a course in the Carter School, and “it sealed the deal” on his academic path, he says.

“I found [studying conflict analysis and resolution] to be a much more helpful approach to problemsolving,” he says. “It’s less about protecting one country’s interests and more about building international relationships based on dialogue, mutual learning, and mutual respect.”

After graduating in 2015, Eggers received his MA in international peace studies from the UN-mandated University for Peace before returning to George Mason for his PhD.

Eggers’s approach to research using sensemaking technology is distinctive, particularly in academia, and very few programs could accommodate it. The Carter School, however, was interested in Eggers’s methodology and had a fellowship with that topic in mind. He was the first to receive the Peace Engineering Fellowship, designed to support the creation of the Peace Engineering Lab, where conflict analysis and resolution experts would work with engineers to create innovative technologies for peacebuilding.

“More often, engineers are put on the front lines to solve social conflict through designing infrastructure or new technologies,” Eggers explains. “But their solutions also have social impact, which needs to be accounted for and considered during the design process. They need more tools to understand that

impact and how it will affect peace, which we can provide. And, on the other side, we need support in developing and implementing new analytical technologies.”

Meanwhile, Eggers has completed his dissertation, utilizing the same sensemaking technology he worked to implement in the lab. With the support of partnering organizations Horizon Project and Common Ground USA, his project “Us Against When: Futures and Complexity-Informed Conflict Transformation in the United States” looked at five states with higher risk of political violence by using collected data from 800 subjects. He presented his work at the Alliance for Peacebuilding’s PeaceCon2023.

“We were building the plane as we were flying it, so to speak,” Eggers says of the work. “We had a strong belief that this is an emerging field and a gap that needed to be filled. We keep showing up, putting in the work, and we’re cementing our role in the field as being at the forefront of this.”

—Sarah Holland

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

Philip Wilkerson, MEd Counseling and Development ’12, employer engagement consultant in George Mason’s University Career Services, also is the owner, producer, host, and content strategist of Positive Philter, a podcast about positive thinking. During the past year, he was named the National Association of Colleges and Employers Mentor of the Year; received one of the Chamber ALX’s 40 Under 40 awards; and was named to the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Forty Under Forty list.

Kwanza Nicole Gooden, BA Film and Video Studies ’13, received the College of Visual and Performing Arts Thomas W. Iszard IV Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is a writerdirector and the founder of the production company GOODENTERTAINMENT. In 2023, Netflix acquired her three-part docuseries The Black Beauty Effect, which

celebrates the contributions to the beauty industry by Black communities.

Rona Jobe, MPP ’13, has been presented the Deborah Farnell Rising Star Award by the National Association of Women Business Owners. As a first-generation immigrant from the Philippines and the wife of a U.S. Foreign Service employee, Jobe is the CEO of LVL-Up Strategies, a consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia, that works to help women-owned enterprises reach the next level of success.

Nia Maureen Harrington, BS Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources ’14, received the College of Education and Human Development Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is the chief development officer at Speaking With Impact, where she manages the firm’s presentation skills, media training, professional development, and women’s leadership initiatives.

Obituaries

ALUMNI AND STUDENTS

Kurt C. Fritzinger, BA History ’70, d. May 12, 2024

Doris A. Harwitz, MEd Elementary Education ’73, d. March 31, 2024

Allen G. Bonner, BS Business Administration ’74, d. July 13, 2024

Christopher J. Collins, BS Biology ’74, d. March 29, 2024

Kathy M. Zaccardi, BA English ’74, MA ’76, d. July 7, 2024

Robert A. Johnson, BA History ’75, d. May 2, 2024

Kala J. West, BA Communication ’15, is the George Mason University Alumni Association’s Graduate of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D.) Award recipient. She is a media production consultant, host of Sunday Morning Praise and Morning Inspiration on WURD Radio, and a media professional for Penn Sports Network.

Bobby Lacy II, BA Music ’16, MA Arts Management ’21, received the Green Machine Ensembles Distinguished Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. He is the director of AV production at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, as well as the creator and director of Green and Gold Soul and associate director of Green Machine Ensembles.

Colonel (Ret.) James L. Kennedy Jr., MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’18, received the Distinguished Veterans Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction.

He is an associate professor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Belvoir.

Carlehr Swanson, BM ’19, was crowned Miss Virginia 2024 on June 29, 2024, just months after performing a preview concert or her upcoming EP, Growing Pains on George Mason’s Fairfax Campus. Currently a PhD student at the University of Virginia, Swanson founded Music Is Unity, an organization dedicated to providing free musical performances at schools and nursing homes.

2020s

Katherine Trejo, BA Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’22, received the Distinguished Latino Alumni Award at this year’s Celebration of Distinction. She is an ADVANCE success coach at George Mason, as well as a registered student organization advisor for

the Mariposas Mentoring Program and the academic chair and alumni advisor for the Alpha Nu chapter of the Sigma Psi Zeta sorority.

Celine Apenteng, BA Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’24, is the George Mason University Alumni Association’s Senior of the Year. She expects to graduate with her master’s degree in international security in May 2025 and continues to work with the John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race to promote dialogue on the intersections between historical memory, justice, and racial reconciliation.

Julia Funari, BA Government and International Politics ’24, is legislative coordinator at the American Legion in Washington, D.C.

Katherine Williamson, BA History ’75, d. June 14, 2024

Robert C. Hornbrook, BA Biology ’76, d. March 29, 2024

Anita D. Jones, BS Business Administration ’77, d. June 6, 2024

James C. Rike Jr., MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’77, d. April 13, 2024

Chris N. Anastos, JD ’78, d. May 8, 2024

George F. Ball Jr., JD ’78, d. April 21, 2024

Gariel V. Burchett, BS Business Administration ’78, d. March 30, 2024

Paul D. Mackey, JD ’78, d. June 14, 2024

Phyllis L. Shannon, BSN ’78, d. June 16, 2024

Ronald L. Bullock, BS Business Administration ’79, d. April 15, 2024

Peter Gatti, JD ’80, d. June 13, 2024

Janice L. Jansohn, BIS ’80, d. April 25, 2024

Gregory T. Lyons, BS Business Administration ’80, MBA ’87, d. April 13, 2024

Celine Siira, BA History ’80, d. May 6, 2024

Carol Y. Butler, MEd Elementary Education ’81, d. March 30, 2024

Maria H. Malagon, MEd Secondary Education ’81, d. March 22, 2024

Susan L. Curcio, BSN ’82, d. April 7, 2024

Corrine J. Sidener, BA English ’82, d. July 6, 2024

John B. Denny, BS Business Administration ’83, d. May 22, 2024

Ann B. Hereford, BS Business Administration ’83, d. May 26, 2024

Mary Towle, BS Social Work ‘83, d. July 20, 2024

Timothy J. Witter, BS Business Administration ’83, d. June 27, 2024

Nancy J. Coburn, BS Social Work ’85, d. April 24, 2024

Samuel E. Stalcup, BS Decision Science ’85, d. May 22, 2024

Col. Cotton W. Bowen, MPA ’86, d. May 26, 2024

Diane E. Hartman, BA Speech Communication ’86, d. June 14, 2024

Thomas M. Jones, JD ’86, d. July 14, 2024

Thomas M. Smith III, MPA ’86, d. May 30, 2024

Catherine P. DeLano, BA English ’87, d. May 13, 2024

Dinah Walters, BS Computer Science ’87, d. March 12, 2024

Barton N. Daniel, JD ’88, d. July 15, 2024

John W. Lyver IV, MS Electrical Engineering ’88, MS Computational Science ’07, PhD Computational Science and Informatics ’10, d. June 16, 2024

Sharon M. Brown, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’89, d. April 29, 2024

Sheila F. McSweeney, MSN ’89, d. May 26, 2024

Lisa H. Reeder, BA Government and Politics ’89, d. May 7, 2024

Marilyn J. Stevens, BIS ’89, d. May 3, 2024

Thomas J. Cobb, BA Speech Communication ’90, d. May 7, 2024

Lori L. Markley, BA Sociology ’90, d. June 30, 2024

Colleen L. Harvey, BA Spanish ’91, d. June 16, 2024

Eric H. Counts, BS Biology ’92, d. April 19, 2024

Christina M. Grippaldi, BA Psychology ’93, d. May 15, 2024

Roger W. LeBlanc Sr., MS Information Systems ’93, d. June 12, 2024

Peter D. Robinson, JD ’93, d. June 24, 2024

Lowell A. Clemons, MS Information Systems ’94, d. May 11, 2024

H. Alexander Kagan, BA Anthropology ’95, d. July 3, 2024

Joseph M. LoPresti Jr., MEd Curriculum and Instruction ‘95, d. March 27, 2024

Muriel H. Montgomery, MEd Counseling and Development ’95, d. May 31, 2024

Marilyn R. McGettrick, BS Finance ’96, d. June 5, 2024

Jeffrey E. Furbank, MBA ’97, d. June 1, 2024

Lorna D. Landis, BA Psychology ’98, d. June 11, 2024

John R. Vincent, BS Mathematics ’98, MS ’01, d. May 14, 2024

Linda J. Aceto, MAIS ’99, d. May 1, 2024

Leigh A. Mann, MEd Special Education ’99, d. May 29, 2024

Capt. Steven M. Briese, MS Systems Engineering ’00, d. May 16, 2024

Robert J. Laver, MA New Professional Studies ’03, d. May 30, 2024

Harry B. Zullo, MS Exercise, Fitness, and Health Promotion ’03, d. April 30, 2024

David S. Holland, BS Electrical Engineering ’04, d. June 29, 2024

Jairo G. Vargas, BS Electrical Engineering ’04, BS Economics ’09, d. June 3, 2024

James H. Kahrl, MS Computer Science ’05, d. May 12, 2024

Nancy C. Rose, BS Psychology ’05, MEd Counseling and Development ’09, d. March 24, 2024

Rachel H. Ziemba, MBA ’06, d. March 27, 2024

Morgan J. Turrell, MA Transportation Policy, Operations, and Logistics ’07, d. March 1, 2024

Lisa R. Aiken, BA Government and International Politics ’08, d. May 23, 2024

Brian M. Jordan, MA History ’10, d. March 17, 2024

FACULTY, STAFF, AND FRIENDS

Don Kelso, Associate Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science and Policy, passed away on August 31, 2024. He was 84. George Mason’s first marine and freshwater ecologist, Kelso was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about two decades ago and retired from the university in 2005. He joined George Mason in 1970 and founded programs in freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecology. He helped establish the PhD program in environmental science and public policy, the first PhD program in the sciences at George Mason and the first doctoral program of its kind in the country. An original member of the Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center,

Meghan Kelleher, MEd Curriculum and Instruction ’10, d. March 21, 2024

Blake T. O’Farrow Jr., MEd Counseling and Development ’10, d. June 20, 2024

Daniel L. Nagle, PhD Computational Sciences and Informatics ’11, d. August 7, 2023

Marhea B. Ruzanic, MA New Professional Studies ’11, d. May 9, 2024

Mark Appanah, BS Accounting ’14, d. June 29, 2024

Karen J. Houston, DA Education ’15, d. April 8, 2024

Peter Chan, MS Information Systems ’20, d. June 27, 2024

John Markle, BA English ’20, d. May 7, 2024

Dennis G. Pierce, d. May 6, 2024

Ashley D. Robinson, d. March 14, 2024

Oilides V. Rodrigues, d. January 5, 2024

Steven S. Saythong, d. May 21, 2024

Carrie A. Vukich, d. July 5, 2024

Mary D. Warren, d. April 29, 2024

FORMER FACULTY AND STAFF

William E. Files, d. May 20, 2024

Neil Goldman, d. May 5, 2024

George W. Malenich, d. June 10, 2024

John R. McIntosh Jr., d. May 18, 2024

Dean G. Pruitt, d. July 12, 2024

Sean L. Salyards, d. July 20, 2024

Evelyn F. Slaght, d. April 29, 2024

Gloria J. Sussman, d. June 6, 2024

Stephan R. Taub, d. May 13, 2024

John E. Vasquez, d. April 12, 2024

Kelso worked tirelessly to document the tidal Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. In 1984, he launched the Gunston Cove Study with Professor R. Christian Jones, a long-term project to gain a greater understanding of the ecological conditions of the watershed that continues to this day. The College of Science began raising funds in 2021 to build a pier at the Potomac Science Center to recognize his efforts. Funds raised to date have purchased a boat that facilitates research and “gets more students on the water”— always a mission for Kelso. Learn more at go.gmu.edu/KelsoPier.

Biomedical Research Lab Opening, 2010

On June 10, 2010, George Mason University opened the Biomedical Research Laboratory (BRL) on the Science and Technology Campus in Prince William County. Here, George Mason researchers have been able to advance their groundbreaking work on the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of infectious diseases. The construction of this 52,000-square-foot biocontainment laboratory, one of only 12 in the country when it was built, was funded in part with grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health. In 2023, George Mason received a five-year $12.2 million NIAID grant to support BRL operations and enhance our capabilities in the infectious disease space.

Learn more at brl.gmu.edu.

PHOTO

George Mason University began with a vision for a new kind of university, and that future-forward thinking led us to where we are today: an educational leader, a research powerhouse, a cultural center, and an economic engine for our region.

With Mason Now, our $1 billion comprehensive campaign, we’re keeping our eyes on the future by supporting student success, research, and innovation to meet the ever-evolving demands of our world.

But we can’t do it alone. We’re looking to the forwardthinkers in our community who will help us meet the grand challenges ahead.

It’s time to answer the call. To honor that past vision, to power future possibilities, support Mason Now.

Support Mason Now gmu.edu/masonnow

Eduardo Macedo