Mason Spirit Spring 2017 by Mason Spirit magazine

MASON SPIRIT

S P R I N G 2017

A M AG A Z I N E F O R T H E G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y CO M M U N I T Y

Criminal Minds The fascinating world of forensic science

TAPPI N G I N TO T H E S PI R IT S O F E N T R E PR E N E U R S H I P

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C R E AT I N G SO M E S T E A M

A L L T H AT JA Z Z

Grammy Award-winning drummer Peter Erskine shared his four decades of experience with Mason School of Music students during a master class in March. Erskine was a member of the jazz groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead. Photo by Evan Cantwell

Follow us on Twitter @MasonSpirit for alumni news, events, and more. ecome a fan of the Mason Spirit on B Facebook for links to photos, videos, and stories at www.facebook.com/ MasonSpirit. heck our website for a behind-the-scenes C look at the Spirit, more alumni profiles, and breaking news at spirit.gmu.edu.

On the Cover Students in Mason’s Forensic Science Program not only have access to the latest techniques in crime solving, they have some of the best “criminal minds” in the country teaching in the classroom. See the story on page 14 to read their stories.

MORE ON THE WEB When you see this graphic, follow it to the magazine’s website for more: spirit.gmu.edu.

G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y: A G R E AT U N I V E R S I T Y O F A N E W A N D N E C E S S A R Y K I N D

Crime Seen Retired FBI agents Mary Ellen O’Toole, Steve Burmeister, and Joe DiZinno had successful careers working high-profile cases before stepping into the classroom. Their field expertise and professional connections have made Mason’s growing Forensic Science Program one of the most competitive programs in the country.

The Dancing Brain How dancers move and learn may make them the perfect collaborators for Mason researchers. A new line of research bringing together the Departments of Bioengineering and Psychology with the School of Dance is adding Arts to STEM in a whole new way.

Spirits 22 Mason Regional vineyards, small-batch breweries, and craft distillers are tapping into a growing movement. As more people become interested in consuming locally produced food and drink, entrepreneurial Mason alumni are keeping glasses filled.

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FIRST WORDS FR O M O U R R E A D E R S A D VA N C I N G M A S O N @MASON M E E T T H E M A S O N N AT I O N INQUIRING MINDS S H E L F L I FE A LU M N I I N P R I N T

39 PAT R I O T P R O F I L E 4 0 C L A S S N O T E S

MASON SPIRIT

F E AT U R E S

42 From the Alumni Association President

A L U M N I P R O F I L E S 40 Bethany Hall-Long, PhD ’93 43 Jay Coakley, BSEd Physical Education ’78, MEd Leadership and Human Development ’94 44 Rachel Beauregard, BA Theater ’09

Running into Mason alumnus and Olympian David Verburg. See story on page 12. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 1

FIRST WORDS

MASON SPIRIT

ADVANCE: CLEARING A PATHWAY TO SUCCESS, TOGETHER

e have much to be proud of at George Mason University: our academic accomplishments, our top-tier research status, our national and international rankings. But what truly sets us apart is our ability to achieve these outcomes while maintaining a steadfast commitment to inclusion and access. We do not measure our success by how many people we reject but by how many people with potential we help develop and reach their life goals. And by that score, Mason does a remarkable job. Championing both academic excellence and inclusion is how we can achieve the greatest impact.

About half of our students come from underrepresented minorities, and about one-quarter qualify for Pell Grants. Yet our graduates report a student loan repayment rate comparable to institutions at which students have much less financial need.

A MAGAZINE FOR THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

spirit.gmu.edu MANAG ING EDITOR Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95 A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R S Cathy Cruise, MFA ’93 Rob Riordan C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R Sarah Metcalf Seeberg ART DIRECTOR Elliott de Luca, BA ’04 SE N I O R CO PY WR ITE R Margaret Mandell A S S I S TA N T E D I T O R Melanie Balog

A key element in this success story is our partnership with Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), one of the largest two-year colleges in the nation. Every year, more than 3,000 students transfer from a community college to Mason, the largest transfer destination in the commonwealth. About 90 percent of those transfer students come from NOVA.

E D I T O R I A L A S S I S TA N T Arthur Wesley

Students transferring to Mason from NOVA graduate at a higher rate than the national norm. Yet many students still do not achieve their dream of a four-year college degree. Nationwide, 80 percent of students who enter community college say their goal is to earn a four-year credential, yet only 14 percent have done so after six years. Even here at Mason, the success rate is only 20 percent.

CO NTR IBUTO R S Teresa D. Allen, MFA ’12 Martha Bushong Damian Cristodero Elizabeth Grisham, BA ’02, MA ’12 M. Leigh Harrison Brittney Irish Katherine Johnson Buzz McClain, BA ’77 Michele McDonald Alexa Rogers Jamie Rogers Preston Williams

Mason and NOVA are committed to finding ways to eliminate obstacles in transfer pathways so that more NOVA students can graduate from Mason. In early April, with Governor Terry McAuliffe, state education officials, and area business leaders on hand, we signed a memorandum of understanding to smooth the transfer pathway between NOVA and Mason. This will include common course codes, better student advising, and clearly defined curricular pathways toward Mason degrees, especially in fields where jobs are in high demand. Through ADVANCE: A NOVA Mason Partnership, we hope to double the graduation success rate for the NOVA students who come to Mason. If we can achieve that goal, each year we would help thousands more students graduate. This would not only help the students themselves but would be an additional boost to the Northern Virginia economy. The newly created Mason-NOVA Dual Admissions Compact in mechanical engineering, already in place, is a good example of what the broader partnership might look like. That program incorporates a shared advising process and full Mason transfer credit for NOVA mechanical engineering classes. When these students ultimately enroll at Mason full time, it will feel like a natural transition. Retention and graduation rates should improve as the new measures take root. Through this initiative with NOVA, Mason will continue to demonstrate that access and excellence are not mutually exclusive goals. Pursuing both with equal determination serves the greatest number of students, and best helps our region and state. Ángel Cabrera President

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I L L U S T R AT I O N Marcia Staimer

P H O T O G R A P H Y A N D M U LT I M E D I A Evan Cantwell, MA ’10, Senior University Photographer Ron Aira, University Photographer Melissa Cannarozzi, Image Collections Manager PRODUC TION MANAG ER Brian Edlinski EDITORIAL BOARD Janet E. Bingham Vice President for Advancement and Alumni Relations Frank Neville Vice President for Communications and Marketing Christine Clark-Talley Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations Mason Spirit is published quarterly by the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations and the Office of Communications and Marketing. Please log in at alumni.gmu.edu to update your records or email spirit@gmu.edu. For the latest news about George Mason University, check out www.gmu.edu. George Mason University is an equal opportunity employer that encourages diversity.

FROM OUR READERS

LOOKING AT BOTH SIDES ➤Please ➤ continue to have books and articles on both sides of the political spectrum. Amanda Stratton (From Our Readers, Winter 2017) assumes that we all like to read books from the left and want everything PC. I personally want to know what the author’s intent was and do not want a washed-down explanation of the book. Your answer shows either your bias or your attempt to be PC. Do not give in to the partisan views. Keep it informational.

Linda Layser, MSN ’84

THE MASON NATION FAMILY ➤What ➤ a great alumni magazine. My mother was the alumni editor for Notre Dame’s magazine for a number of years. I’m a Mason graduate and have a daughter attending Mason, which is why I’m writing. Meredith is in the Mason LIFE Program, a hallmark program led by Dr. Heidi Graff. I’d like to encourage you to do an article on this fantastic program in a future edition.

for myself, but this would make it easier for me to write checks to support my alma mater Jack Mallam, BS Administration of Justice ’03

EDITOR’S NOTE: Thank you for your comments and your great suggestion. Giving opportunities abound at Mason! So many, in fact, that with 10 separate schools and many other great programs, it is impossible for us to print a concise list here in Spirit. However, we have done so on our website. Please visit us at fasterfarther.gmu.edu/ways-togive to view a list of priority needs. For anyone unsure of where to begin, you can directly support student needs by clicking “Give” and selecting our Alumni Association Scholarship Endowment. CORRECTION: In the Winter 2017 issue of Spirit, we incorrectly listed Thomas G. Wells, BA Economics ’06, in the Obituaries section. Mr. Wells is pleased to report that he is alive and well and living in Dallas, Texas. We apologize for the error.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

Letters to the editor are welcomed.

Send correspondence to Colleen Kearney Rich, Managing Editor, Mason Spirit, 4400 University Drive, MS 2F7, Fairfax, Virginia 22030. Or send an email to spirit@gmu.edu.

Andy Cripe, BS Computer Science ’91

➤ SEEN ON THE WEB

GIVING OPPORTUNITIES? ➤First, ➤ thank you for the fantastic job that you and staff are performing on Mason Spirit! I always take time to sit down and read the magazine to see what is currently happening with Mason. It is my only connection with the university, and I always look forward to receiving it in the mail. Second, I do have a suggestion that I would like to submit. Would it be possible to dedicate a page to the various giving opportunities available at Mason? I know that opportunities are included in Mason Spirit at various times, but I have not seen a concise listing of what the needs are and how you can donate. I can only speak

New on spirit.gmu.edu Every year, Mason’s Alumni Association recognizes outstanding alumni, students, and faculty members for their achievements and contributions to the university with its Celebration of Distinction Awards. Check out the 2017 honorees and read their bios. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 3

A DVA N C I N G MA S O N

Your Gift, Your Choice

s you might imagine, I meet regularly with people who have made or are considering making a charitable gift to George Mason University. When I ask alumni what motivates them, often they tell me something like “I give because Mason helped make me who I am. Now I want to pay that forward to help today’s students.” Does that idea resonate with you as well? If so, perhaps now is the time for you to invest in Mason.

Once you have seen the power and promise of our university firsthand, you know what a difference we make in the lives of our students and our community. You understand the importance of the research being led by our faculty. And when you meet our students— from every state, every type of personal and family background, and all walks of life—you will surely be as inspired as I am by their potential. I also hear from friends and alumni who would like to give to Mason but feel they currently lack the resources. Fortunately, I can assure them, there are many ways to give. One of the most effective is to make a planned gift (often based on long-term assets, such as real estate, appreciated stocks or mutual funds, annuities, or retirement accounts)—either now, or through your will. Because these types of assets are typically held for the long term, a planned gift allows us to make a gift or pledge that is more generous than what we could normally give from our yearly income. Bequests are the simplest provisions to make; other arrangements can convey tax advantages, or even current income, to you and your loved ones. Planned giving is new to most people. To demystify the process, we have developed an online resource that helps you evaluate charitable giving options. If you are considering supporting Mason, I invite you to explore your options at plannedgiving. fasterfarther.gmu.edu. We understand that you have many worthy choices for your charitable giving. Each gift you and your families choose to make is a way to represent your values by sup porting the causes you believe in. That is why every gift we receive, of any amount, is deeply appreciated. Today’s Mason students are truly deserving of our support. I invite you to join with thousands of your fellow alumni by investing in their present, and in our shared future. Janet E. Bingham, PhD Vice President, Advancement and Alumni Relations President, George Mason University Foundation

Masonomics Campaign Honors a Legacy of Ideas

hen the university in November named buildings after its two Nobel Prize-winning economists— Vernon L. Smith and the late James M. Buchanan— it cemented their legacies at Mason in glass and stone. But Smith and Buchanan had already fashioned a legacy likely to outlast any campus building. Through the power of their ideas, the pair have influenced scholars, public policy, and the field of economics—things less tangible, yet more important, than bricks and mortar. Buchanan, who won his Nobel in 1986, and Smith, a recipient in 2002, each came to Mason already well known as thinkers and practitioners. Along with many notable colleagues, they helped establish a distinct approach, known as “Masonomics,” which emphasizes the value of free markets. Today Mason’s Department of Economics is held in such high regard that it routinely ranks among the top 50 in the world.

As Mason honors this history, it also looks to the future. The Economics Department, which across four decades has educated 4,000 undergraduate majors, 1,000 master’s students, and 400 PhDs, has now launched the BuchananSmith Legacy Campaign for the Future of Masonomics as part of the university’s comprehen sive Faster Farther campaign. The goal is to raise at least $15 million, with funds focused on the three priorities of faculty, students, and facilities. James M. Buchanan Successful fundraising will help the Economics Department advance among the world’s best. “What I most value about Masonomics,” says department chair Dan Houser, “is its toler ance and respect for alternative views. We are interested in creating and discussing ideas. That forms the foundation for all that we do.” Vernon L. Smith —Rob Riordan

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A DVA N C I N G MA S O N

D. R. Butler:

A HELPING HAND FOR STUDENTS

The life of Professor D. R. Butler, DPA ‘92, whose service to Mason spans a quarter-century, has followed a remarkable path over his 82 years. Born in rural Texas in the midst of the Great Depression, Butler learned early on a lesson about helping others. In those years, his father would fill his pickup truck with watermelons picked at a cousin’s farm, then drive around town with young D. R., delivering them for free to families in need. “That was my father’s way of giving back,” Butler says. “You can’t describe the feeling you got in watching the expressions on these people who were almost at the end of the line,” he recalls. “It’s amazing how it impacts you.” At just five years old, Butler dreamt of being a pilot. Impossible, his practical father told him. Then President Truman desegregated the armed forces, and Butler’s dream was possible. At age 20 he graduated from Prairie View A&M, joined the U.S. Army, and trained as a helicopter pilot. He flew in Korea, Germany, and Vietnam before retiring as a colonel in 1985. Only then did the Mason chapter of his life begin. Wanting “to teach and work with young people,” for many years Butler led the academic and guidance center for student-athletes at Mason. More recently, he held the position of associate athletic director for community relations in Intercollegiate Athletics. After earning his doctorate from Mason, he also taught an undergraduate government class every semester for two decades until his retirement in February. Butler’s deep concern for students led him to become a philanthropist. He and his wife of 62 years, Jo Jewell Butler, established the Butler Family Endowment for Women’s Athletics in 2010. Used annually to support five women’s teams, the endowment’s value now exceeds $125,000. As a benefactor and as a mentor, Butler often passes on his father’s example: “The best helping hand you will ever find in life,” he says, “is at the end of your own arm.”

D. R. BUTLER: Changing lives by giving to Mason Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 5

MASON

50 YEARS IN, GALLEHR KEEPS WRITING NEW CHAPTERS This spring, English professor Don Gallehr will do what no other Mason faculty member has done: celebrate 50 years of teaching at Mason. In April, Gallehr was recognized by the university for his longtime commitment to teaching Mason students, which he began when the university still was a satellite campus of the University of Virginia. To mark the occasion, here are five facts about one of Mason’s longest-serving and most-loved professors. He didn’t have his PhD when he started working at Mason. Gallehr was working on his graduate studies at Fordham University when he interviewed for the job. “Dr. Krug said, ‘You are going to finish your doctoral degree, aren’t you?’” recalls Gallehr. “And I said, yes, of course. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t.” Gallehr got the job and then finished his PhD at Catholic University of America in 1974, taking a class or two a semester while teaching. He founded the Northern Virginia Writing Project (NVWP). Gallehr heard of the National Writing Project (NWP) before it went national and traveled to California to take part in one of the summer institutes. Mason held its first summer institute in 1978 and the NVWP was born. His leadership role in the NWP led to visits on Capitol Hill to get funding to support the project nationally. He has taught more than 11,000 students. That number is based on a quick calculation (roughly 110 students per semester) and doesn’t include summer classes. He keeps in touch with many, especially the teachers he has mentored during his work with the NVWP, and he writes many letters of recommendation. In 2008, he received the David J. King Teaching Excellence Award. He does his homework. Gallehr does every assignment along with the students. “It makes me a much better teacher,” he says. He also workshops his essays in class and tries to work with a different class group each week. Tibetan monks think he is a stitch. When the Dalai Lama was looking for a writing teacher for his monks, he contacted the NWP, which sent him to Gallehr, who is well-known for incorporating meditation into the writing process. In 2010, he taught 33 Buddhist monks in a 15-day workshop in northern India. “They were the happiest group of students I have ever taught,” he says. “They would laugh their heads off. It was a wonderful 15 days.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

Mason Rises in Innovation Rankings

D I D YO U K N O W… Mason continues its winning streak in 2017 by securing the World at Work Work-Life Seal of Distinction for the sixth consecutive year. The university received the award for its commitment in many areas, including innovative programs, a positive workplace, culture initiatives, and community involvement. 6 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

eorge Mason University’s tradition of innovation puts it on the same footing with Harvard and Cornell, among others, according to the 2017 U.S. News & World Report college rankings. Mason is in a five-way tie for 14th on the list of 29 innovative schools. The innovation ranking is significant because it’s based on nominations from top college officials. “We are a very young institution that has achieved national and international renown in record time,” says Mason President Ángel Cabrera. “We like to say that innovation is our tradition, and it is through innovation that we manage to create value for our students and contribute to a vibrant economy in our community.”

MASON

Using Their Brains to Gain Clinical Experience

t isn’t every class that you have electrodes attached to your head and your classmates gather around to watch your brainwaves in real time. But that is exactly what happens in BENG 499 Applied Neurotechnologies, a new technical elective that is a collaboration between the Volgenau School of Engineer ing’s Bioengineering Department and Inova Fairfax Hospital. Mason professor Laurence Bray, associate chair of Bioengineering, developed the course to help students gain firsthand experience in a clinical setting and prepare them for future study. The class combines classroom learning with a state-of-the-science clinical experience at Inova Fairfax Hospital’s campus. “The class was a combination of the best of everything,” says senior bioengineering major Abdul Gouda. “There was clinical practice, classroom experience, teamwork, and some friendly competition.”

The specialized curriculum divides the semester into four segments, and each seg ment takes on a specific bioengineering skill or challenge. The segments include oncampus preparation and follow-up at Mason and hands-on lab experiences at Inova’s Advanced Surgical Technology and Education Center (ASTEC), one of the most technologi cally advanced surgery simulation facilities in the region. After teaching these students for several years, Bray says she had a good idea of what kind of course would excite them. “When registration opened, the class filled up in half a day. The response was overwhelming.” Bray designed the class with the coopera tion of the Department of Surgery at Inova and two hospital neurosurgeons, Mahesh Shenai, MD, and James Leiphart, MD, who taught the clinical portion of the course. “I’ve always wanted to work in a hospital,”

says bioengineering major Anuradha Nagulapati. “Growing up in the area, Inova was the name I heard when people talked about hospital, so it was awesome to be there in the clinic.” Nagulapati worked as Bray’s summer intern, helping with course preparation, and spent countless hours in the hospital. She says it was the first time she worked in a hospital setting with a health care team and interacted closely with physicians. Both students are in the bioengineering pre-med concentration in the Volgenau School of Engineering, but say they may delay their applications to medical school. "Working in the hospital setting let us see all the different career fields for bioengineering graduates,” says Nagulapati. “I haven’t ruled out becoming a physician, but I think I might want to work as a clinical specialist for a few years first.” —Martha Bushong

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MASON

Simply the Best

odexo USA has 12 regions, 100 districts, 480 university accounts, and more than 55,000 employees. Earlier this year, Mason senior Mason MacDonald won the National Customer Experience Award for his lively efforts behind the counter at the Northern Neck Starbucks on Mason’s Fairfax Campus. MacDonald has been working on and off at different Starbucks locations since he was 16 (he is 22 now). He is a “lead” at the Northern Neck Starbucks, which means on top of making drinks and interacting with customers, he is in charge of the location and the crew during his shift. “My favorite part of work at the moment is about find ing the art in what I do to keep it interesting to me,” says the environmental and sustainability studies major. “When I’m on bar, I tweak my milk steaming and pouring

commencement ceremony

May 20, 2017, will be the university's 50th Commencement Ceremony.

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techniques—I know, what a blast—in order to create better quality drinks. “Of course, I also like cracking jokes with customers,” he adds. “That never gets old.” “The fact that Mason is being recognized at the national level is extraordinary,” says John Teeple, resident district manager for Sodexo, referring to the coincidentally named student. “We’re extremely proud of his accomplishments.” After he graduates in May and hangs up his apron, MacDonald would like to work as a park ranger or a marine bycatch analyst. But he hasn’t ruled out graduate school. “Maybe when I’m 30 or so I’ll come back to get a master’s degree and work in the climatology labs,” he says. “We’ll see.” —Buzz McClain, BA ’77

D I D Y O U K N O W … Mason’s part-time MBA program is tied for

53rd

nationally, of 301

institutions, in the 2018 U.S. News & World Report rankings of the best graduate schools, a healthy jump of 21 positions from last year.

MASON

The View from The Anthropologist's Lens

raveling to film festivals and taking part in Q&As isn’t a regular part of Mason anthropologist Susie Crate’s job, but she’s happy to do it. She is the subject of a documentary, The Anthropologist, and she hopes that sharing her work in this way might contribute to not only the conversation about climate change but to a cultural shift. “My whole intention in this is to bring said wouldn’t it be great to have her people into this experience,” says Crate. in it and get the attention of young “If people can’t travel to these places, we people,” says Crate. After much discus can bring places and the human sion and drawing up a memorandum of experience to them.” understanding (MOU) to protect Katie’s The documentary film directors Seth rights as a minor, Katie was part of the Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy documentary. Newberger, of Ironbound Films, found At its core The Anthropologist is about Crate through the Arctic Social Sciences four women—three of them anthropol division of the National Science Founda ogists. As viewers watch Crate and her tion. Crate was already familiar with the daughter travel to Siberia, Kiribati in the filmmakers’ work. She had used their South Pacific, the Peruvian Andes, and 2008 documentary, The Linguists, in her the Virginia coast of the Chesapeake to classes for several years. The Linguists meet with people confronting the local follows two linguists around the globe effects of climate change, anthropologist as they try to document disappearing (and Mason professor emerita) Mary languages. Catherine Bateson talks about what an Similarly, the filmmakers wanted to anthropologist does, and about the travel with Crate. Since 1991, Crate has career of her mother, Margaret Mead, conducted research in northeastern who popularized cultural anthropology Siberia, Russia, working with Viliui Sakha, in America. Bateson was a Robinson a Turkic-speaking horse and cattle breed Professor of Anthropology and English ing group. Since 2006 her work has at Mason until she retired in 2004. focused on how climate change is The Anthropologist was named to affecting their livelihood and culture. Indiewire’s list of 10 Must-See Docu In the summer of 2010, the film mentaries at DOC NYC, America’s makers travelled to Siberia with Crate largest documentary festival. In and her teenage daughter, Katie addition to film festivals, the Yegorov-Crate. That’s when the focus documentary has been screened at shifted a bit. universities around the country. It is “That summer they realized that my available on DVD and for purchase or daughter’s father is Viliui Sakha and rent on iTunes. It was screened at that that entire side of her family is Mason as part of the 2017 Earth Week increasingly challenged by the local festivities in April. effects of climate change—and they —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

From top to bottom, The Anthropologist directors Seth Kramer, Jeremy Newberger, and Daniel A. Miller; Katie Yegorov-Crate and Susie Crate in the Andes; Mary Catherine Bateson and Margaret Mead, courtesy of Smithsonian Institution; and Katie Yegorov-Crate and Susie Crate. All images courtesy of Ironbound Films Inc.

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MASON

Mason Leads Training for First Responders

ocal and national first responders will learn how to protect them selves during outbreaks of infectious diseases or pandemics thanks to training from Mason’s Safety, Emergency, and Enterprise Risk Management Office. A three-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences provides funding for Mason to offer biological safety training to fire, emergency medical services, and law enforcement personnel throughout the mid-Atlantic. Mason is a member of the Duke Infectious Disease Response Training consortium, which received $381,000 over three years to train workers in health care, transportation, custodial services, law enforce ment, and emergency response. This training is a natural extension of a program Mason’s biosafety manager Diann Stedman has offered to regional emergency response personnel since the 2010 opening of the Biomedical Research Labora tory on the Science and Technology Campus. Stedman is leading the training with Julie Zobel, assistant vice presi dent of safety, emergency, and enterprise risk management, and David

Farris, executive director of safety and emergency management. Collectively, the three have almost 40 years of experience in the health and safety field, much of it focused on biological safety. In this training, “first responders learn how to evaluate hazards they may encounter and how to protect themselves and their communities,” says Zobel. “It is essential that we focus on adult learning strategies, hands-on experiences, and realistic scenarios to reinforce best practices and safety protocols.” Mason has already trained two cohorts of students. Working with the grant’s lead principal investigator Scott Alderman, director of safety and operations at the Regional Biocontainment Laboratory at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, the team trained approximately 40 U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Norfolk, Virginia, in November. Then in March the team trained the 80 members of the City of Fairfax Fire Department. Other trainings are currently in the works.

Connecting the World

he village of Nangi in western Nepal is as remote as it is beautiful. It takes up to nine hours to reach the next large town from Nangi’s location 7,300 feet up in the Himalayas. The farmers who make up the bulk of the population of 800 use yak to plow their fields, and traditions there are centuries old. In 2006, village leaders suspected that health care, education, and farm ing methods could be improved by using the internet. Nangi leaders received funding from the Inter national Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology (ICASIT) at Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government to facilitate their efforts. The source of the funds was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to the center for establishing rural internet connectivity to poor nations.

The center’s founder and director, Stephen Ruth, says backing the Nangi effort was one of the most successful of the center’s 20 overseas projects. “It’s the last place people thought you could set up a successful IT pro ject,” Ruth says. Today in Nangi, many hospitals have telemedicine capability, schools teach computer skills, and yak herders can communicate with farmers via email to get the best deal. And there are now many internet-based pro grams for tourism and environmental protection. Not only did ICASIT help achieve connectivity in Nangi, but now more than 100 villages throughout Nepal have internet service. The center marked its 25-year anniversary at Mason in 2016. Since 1991, Ruth has contributed to the

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connectivity of more than 20 sites around the world, helping with hardware, software, training, and design in remote places, from Ife, Nigeria, to Acornhoek, South Africa, to Bamako, Mali. Funding for ICASIT projects has come from such organizations as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the World Bank, the United Nations, the MacArthur Foundation, and others. Ruth says the center depends on collaboration for success. Studying and solving problems “is a professor’s job,” according to Ruth. “You’re supposed to find interesting things to work on—getting grants that help people is its own reward.” —Buzz McClain, BA ’77

ILLUSTRATION BY MARCIA STAIMER

Join an Eclipse Mob

n August 21, 2017, darkness will fall for about three minutes as the moon passes between the sun and the Earth. It will be a busy three minutes for scientists, including George Mason University researchers, as they scramble to gather as much information as possible about a layer of the Earth’s upper atmosphere called the ionosphere. The solar eclipse provides a rare opportunity to learn more about this layer, which is 46 to 620 miles above the surface of the planet. “The aim of the project is to study how the solar eclipse affects the ionosphere by col lecting information about low-frequency (LF) radio wave propagation,” says Mason elec trical and computer engineering professor Jill Nelson, who is co-leading Mason’s team.

“While people don’t directly interact with the ionosphere, they interact with communication systems that either use the ionosphere to send signals around the world like radio waves or signals that pass through the ionosphere, such as GPS and satellite systems,” says Laura Lukes, assistant director of Mason’s Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence and co-principal investi gator on the project’s National Science Foun dation grant. “The ionosphere impacts civilian and military communication and surveillance systems,” Lukes adds. “Improving our understanding of how the ionosphere behaves and influences radio waves helps improve and secure our communication systems.” “My research is in signal processing and wireless communications, so my role is

focused on designing low-cost receivers that can be used by [the] citizen participants to record data during the eclipse, as well as on studying the geographically distributed measurements we obtain through the project,” Nelson says. The solar eclipse is also providing members of the general public with the opportunity to take in the nationwide experiment. Nelson and her fellow researchers will be joined in their exploration of this phenomenon by a network of citizen scientists, including amateur radio operators, STEM educators, and high school students. Interested people are encouraged to visit their website eclipsemob.org for infor mation on how to build a radio receiver, participate, and share data. —Elizabeth Grisham, BA ’02, MA ’12 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 11

MASON

.S. Olympic gold medalist David Verburg, Health, Fitness, and Recreation Resources ’13, returned to campus in February, where he was honored during the men’s basketball game with La Salle. “I’m definitely excited to be back,” says Verburg, who lives in Gainesville, Florida, and hadn’t been on campus since his 2013 graduation. Verburg, an 11-time All-American and two-time Colonial Athletic Association male athlete of the year, is the first George Mason track and field standout to win Olympic gold. He is the second to medal, joining Greg Haughton, BA Speech Communication ’89, a three-time bronze medalist for Jamaica. Verburg’s gold medal came at the 2016 Rio Olympics as part of the 4x400-meter relay team. Verburg ran the anchor leg in a heat that advanced the team to the final, but he missed the championship race because of plantar fasciitis in both feet and a torn tendon in his right foot, injuries that took two and a half months to heal. “It was hard to watch,” says Verburg of the final. “But if I tried to run and couldn’t finish, I would ruin the chances not only for myself and my teammates. In a relay, you can’t be selfish.” Healthy now, Verburg is training for the 2017 U.S. outdoor championships in June in Sacramento, California. The meet is a qualifier for August’s world championship in London. As for life after track, Verburg says he is exploring business opportunities and is creating a nonprofit organization in Gainesville that will offer afterschool athletic and academic programs. “I’ve been really blessed in my life in so many ways,” Verburg says. “It’s a way to help somebody achieve what I have. It’s a way to give back.” —Damian Cristodero

Good as

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M E E T T H E M A S O N N AT I O N

Ryan Murphy

MASON

Job: Coordinator, Outdoor Adventures

As the ad used to say, it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure. And for Ryan Murphy, coordinator of Mason Recreation’s Outdoor Adventures pro gram, each week offers a new chance for travel and discovery. Since the program began in 2014, Murphy has spent weekends leading Mason students and faculty away from books and desks and into the outdoors. He decides what trips to take, and handles requirements for programming, equipment, permits, and trip leader training, for nearly 30 trips a year. NATURE TRAIL: Before Mason, Murphy crisscrossed the country for nearly 12 years, beginning at Hamilton College in New York, where he got a degree in environmental studies and sustainability and worked as assistant director of outdoor orientation. From there he ran a ropes course in Colorado, practiced wilderness therapy in Utah and Nevada, was a senior outdoors educator in the Adirondacks, and conducted adventure-based outreach services at Princeton University. He’s certi fied as an American Mountain Guide Association climbing instructor, a wilderness EMT, and a river canoeing instructor. GETTING HIS FEET WET: Although he spent plenty of time outdoors as a kid, Murphy says his family “didn’t really go camping. I grew up in Owego, New York, on the Susquehanna River, canoeing, fishing, and

just being in the woods a lot. But it wasn’t until my college outdoor program that I went down the rabbit hole.” GOOD COMPANY: “Trips tend to fill up, and we typically have a wait list,” Murphy says. “We’re a very diverse group with a lot of international students, grad students, visiting researchers. Considering Mason’s large student population and campus, we’re still quite small, but we’re growing.” Beginner to advanced outdoor enthusiasts can hike, bike, canoe, rock climb, and more on one-day, overnight, or longer excursions. Destina tions include places like Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park and Annapolis Rocks in Maryland’s South Mountain State Park. PLAYING FAVORITES: Murphy’s preferred activities are rock climbing, skiing, and, especially, canoeing “at sunrise, when the water’s like glass,” he says. A particularly memorable moment occurred on a training trip to Assateague Island last spring. “We canoed out to these wild horses way out on this grassy point off the island, and we paddled up pretty close to them. We were in the pouring rain, but it was really warm. And really pretty.” —Cathy Cruise, MFA ’93

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Steven Burmeister and Mary Ellen O'Toole

Crime SEEN

One collected forensic data at bomb sites, another headed up the largest

crime lab in the world, and another buddied up to psychopaths. All three spent years in the FBI before bringing their expansive knowledge and

experience to George Mason University—along with some gripping stories. B Y C AT H Y C R U I S E , M FA ’ 93 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 15

“I love talking to serial killers.”

Mason Forensic Science Program Director Mary Ellen O’Toole says this breezily, the way someone who spent 15 years as an FBI profiler might. She worked some of the nation’s most notorious cases, including the Zodiac Killer and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, as well as the disappearances of Elizabeth Smart and Natalee Holloway. Perhaps her most famous case was Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer. For six months, O’Toole sat next to him in prison, her hand on his (unshackled) arm, trying to coax him into revealing where he’d hidden some of the bodies.

“I have a soft voice,” she says, “so people don’t find me inti midating. I don’t think he’d ever talked to a woman like that.” And Greenway did talk, eventually leading the FBI to a number of the victims. O’Toole and retired FBI agents Steven Burmeister and Joseph DiZinno are three of the heavy hitters who are helping to put Mason’s Forensic Science Program on the map.

EARLY ASPIRATIONS O’Toole’s father was an FBI agent and her mother a private secretary to J. Edgar Hoover during Chicago’s gangster era, which may have sparked her interest in the depraved. “Even as a little girl, I’d say, ‘I wonder, what do people think when they’re murdering somebody?’” she says. “I think I scared the crap out of my mother.” Hoover didn’t allow female FBI agents, so O’Toole studied psychology in college, then health counseling. But working as a marriage counselor was a bore, so she dove into law enforcement and was hired as an investigator for a district attorney’s office. When Hoover died and the FBI opened its doors to women, O’Toole was recruited. DiZinno, too, formed an early enthusiasm for crime solving. When he was 10, on a family trip to Washington, D.C., he toured the FBI Building. “And that was it,” he says. “I was sold.” And for Burmeister, the goal was to be a doctor, although while working as a volunteer firefighter and paramedic, he considered becoming a state trooper. Then he saw a presen tation on forensic science. 16 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

“It was like a lightbulb went on in my head,” he says. “It was everything I ever wanted.”

A BITE OUT OF CRIME DiZinno says his 22 years identifying criminals in the FBI lab, many of them as director, were gratifying. So was eliminating from consideration the innocent—like the man who served seven years in jail for rape until DiZinno’s tests proved it wasn’t his sample at the scene. “He was exonerated,” DiZinno says. “I’m just as proud of that as any other case where we put people away.” Starting out as a dentist, of all things, DiZinno worked only a few years before selling his practice and heading to the bureau “with no experience whatsoever,” he says. “And I never looked back.” He entered the FBI as a field agent, chasing bank robbers, kidnappers, and extortionists, then moved to the lab as a trace evidence examiner. His dental expertise came in handy, not only for identifying bodies, but in helping him fashion a technique for extracting DNA from teeth that the lab still uses today.

GRAB AND GOATS Explosives analyst Burmeister, the first director of the bur eau’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center, calls a career of catching bad guys “fun and thrilling.” During his time at the bureau, Burmeister has helped capture crimi nals like Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Burmeister’s team followed Yousef from the Philippines to Thailand to Pakistan before capturing him on his way to Afghanistan. Tasked with bringing him back to America, they waited onboard a plane at the end of a runway—the distant terminal on one side, the town of Islamabad on the other.

“I’m told to be on the ground, so I get my suitcase and wait outside the plane,” Burmeister recalls. “A car pulls up, Yousef is brought out with his hands tied and a burlap bag over his head. They put him on the plane. The door closes, the car drives away, and all of a sudden everyone is gone.” Left alone on the tarmac with no money, no visa, and no gun, Burmeister reasoned if he went to the terminal, he’d be picked up by security. If he went into town, he’d likely be robbed or possibly killed. “So I just sat there,” he says. “Then a bunch of goats came out onto the runway to hang out with me. Finally, I saw a Subur ban heading my direction and recognized the driver as some one I’d worked with. I just wanted to kiss that guy.”

FROM CRIME TO THE CLASSROOM It is stories like these that keep Mason students excited about the work and possible careers forensic science offers. And then there are the professional connections these professors bring. Asked what sets Mason’s Forensic Science Program apart from others, all three point to the experience of its faculty. “I’ve looked at other schools, and a lot are academically oriented,” says Burmeister. “But Mason’s program has fabu lous professors—people with actual, practical knowledge.”

Crime-solving Misconceptions MYTH: DNA is always taken from crime scenes.

Take Burmeister himself, who recalls lecturing on the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, a case he helped investigate. “You can show slides all day,” he says. “But you need to bring to life that it was hot that day, there was trauma going on, it smelled, there were decaying bodies, there was a lot of violence, and sailors were knee-deep in water while trying to repair electrical lines. By reading it in a book, you’re not going to know any of those nuances.” And of course Mason is near the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and “every imaginable agency with expertise in so many things,” O’Toole says. That proximity got faculty in the door of the FBI’s crime scene house last summer, when DiZinno mentioned Mason would soon be building its own crime house on the Science and Technology Campus. Other upcoming initiatives include research involving scent dogs, developing a cold-case squad, constructing an explosives crime scene, and possibly even creating a body farm.

Joseph DiZinno

“We have to be thinking, what’s the future,” O’Toole says. “We’re training students not for today, but for what they’ll be seeing 10 years from now.”

If you’ve seen your fair share of movie or TV crime dramas, you may think you know a thing or two about the field. Forensics people call it “The CSI Effect.” Here, our professors dispense with some of the myths.

MYTH: Hannibal Lecter was a textbookcase psychopath.

MYTH: Forensic scientists not only collect evidence, they apprehend criminals too.

Fact: “In a case in Philadelphia, a guy robbed a

Fact: The movie Silence of the Lambs was

bank and left his ball cap there. At that time,

not true to life, where the killer asked Clarice

DNA testing was expensive and time-

questions about herself. Serial killers may size

consuming, so they didn’t do DNA on the cap—

you up in a disjointed way, but they just want

Fact: “All the CSI shows are a great recruiting tool. But these shows are not realistic, as you see the forensic examiners performing exams and immediately getting in a Learjet to arrest the bad guy. It’s not like that. Forensic science is all about the science. Everyone teaching in our program has picked up evidence at a crime scene, analyzed it, and testified in court. That practical experience is important, and it dispels some of these myths.”

they didn’t need to. His face was on the security

to talk about themselves. You ask, ‘Why would

camera, his fingerprints were all over the

you do that? How did you figure out how to

counter. But the jury decided they couldn’t

do it?’ And they love to tell you. They do.”

prosecute him because there wasn’t thorough forensic evidence. They’d seen it on CSI and expected it to be done.” —Burmeister

—O’Toole

—DiZinno Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 17

Bioengineering faculty members Qi Wei and Wilsaan Joiner (left side of screen) and Dance faculty members Susan Shields (standing) and Buffy Price test out the newly converted collaborative research space. Freshman dance major Kelsey Smith provides the movement for data collection. 

e

Dancing Brain 18 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

How dancers move and learn may make them the perfect collaborators for Mason researchers. A new line of research bringing together the Departments of Bioengineering and Psychology with the School of Dance is adding Arts to STEM in a whole new way. B Y CO L L E E N K E A R N E Y R I C H , M FA ’ 95

It all started with an email. Susan Shields, director of Mason’s School of Dance, had heard from more than one prospective student about their interests in neuroscience. Shields didn’t know for sure what the university had to offer these students, so she did some googling and found Mason bioengineering professor Wilsaan Joiner. “So I wrote Wil. I said, ‘My students want to know about this. Come see a show,’ ” Shields says. Joiner took her up on the invitation, and the two met. “He was intrigued by what we were doing [in the School of Dance],” says Shields. “And we wanted to learn more about what he was doing.” The rest is not exactly history yet, but it has launched a new line of scientific inquiry that could keep Mason researchers busy for years. As a bioengineer, Joiner’s research interests include sensorimotor learning and control. One of his ongoing projects focuses on the neural processes underlying motor adaptation and memory consolidation. In the simplest terms, he studies how one learns a physical skill and retains that knowledge. “When we study motor control, we study the human ability to learn and refine movement. In my scientific field, we talk about generalization, which basically is, I teach you how to move in A and then make it slightly different, let’s call that B. How much of what you learned for A transfers to B?” says Joiner. “And how we study this is ridiculously constrained,” he adds. “These experiments are typically very short lived, usually an hour over the course of one day. Learn ing motor skills over a period of months—that’s something that people don’t study.” PHOTO BY RON AIRA

 Mason dance majors Maddie Dunn and Robert Rubama.

That’s why Joiner found the dancers so fascinating. Not only do they learn a dance over a fixed period of time, and repeat that performance over and over, they can also adjust their movements—as a group—to fit the performance space, such as moving from a rehearsal studio to an arts center stage. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 19

Motion data recorded by the cameras is transmitted to the computer and computer models are created.

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

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3-D cameras are mounted in a ring around the ceiling of the studio to record motion data from the sensors on the dancers' suits.

Joiner asked how long it takes the dancers to make that tran sition, expecting an answer involving days or weeks. The response: a few minutes. “Some people think you just put on the music and you move, and it just happens,” says Mason dance professor Elizabeth “Buffy” Price, who has been teaching dance at Mason for 25 years. “Even dancers sometimes take these skills for granted.” She continues: “How do you learn that step? How do you maintain the memory of it? It is a very sophisticated process. Biomechanics relates to all of it. If you don’t have that awareness of your body, how do you make the nuanced changes to a performance? We all have the skill, but [dancers] hone it.” One of the first skills dancers learn when they come to Mason is a technique called “flocking.” It is a movement improvisation in which students mirror or shadow each other’s movement in a group, following a leader around the room. The technique hones dancers’ proprioception, or their sense of their body in space.

This skill, and how dancers learn it, is something of particular interest to Mason cognitive psychologist James Thompson, who studies human movement and behavior. “In psychology it is called ‘shared representation.’ You need to have a general awareness of where the other people are.” One of the first things the team of researchers did was apply for a National Science Foundation grant and convert a dance studio in the de Laski Performing Arts Building into a space where they could collect data using 3-D motion capture techniques. “Straight away the group clicked,” says Thompson. “The grant proposal was just a first pass at trying to put a series of experiments down on paper. We are continually talking about side projects. I have about 10 years’ worth.” Mason bioengineer Qi Wei, director of Mason’s Bio mechanics Laboratory, is part of the team developing the computer models to replicate the dancers’ movement in the new lab. They also included the development of an undergraduate class as part of the proposal. Tentatively called “Engi neering Dance,” the class will bring together students from dance, engineering, psychology, and other fields to explore theories about learning and emotion, and how they relate to movement. “In a way, dancers don’t realize what they know,” says Shields. “We are constantly trying to make sure our dance majors go out into the world confident intellectually. That they understand that what they know translates into the real world. Hopefully they are going to dance for years and years, but if not, then they have these skills.”

After the dancers don special suits, researchers attach dozens of sensors that are tracked by the cameras.

James Thompson

“There’s the research, but we are all interested in what this collaboration means for education and teaching,” says Thompson. “Because, as a scientist, I want students who are creative and think outside the constraints of the field. Students who work hard and are disciplined. It really doesn’t matter what their field is.”

 Bioengineering doctoral student Ryan North ensures data is being captured while PhD student Wendy Baccus, BA Psychology ’08, MA ’13, adjusts the sensors. Not pictured: neuroscience major Erin McKenna.

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PHOTOS BY EVAN CANTWELL

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MASON

PIRITS

Crafting “adult beverages” is one of the fastest

growing industries in Virginia, and entrepreneurial Mason alumni are well represented.

Four Mason alumni walk into a bar…. Not really. But they do walk into their own brewery, winery, or distillery nearly every day, and their success is no joke. Not far from where they once crammed for exams, these entrepreneurs each fashion and distribute a distinctive line of beverages—beer, wine, or spirits—throughout Northern Virginia and the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The following four alumni are just a sampler of more than 15 Patriots crafting beverages in this growing industry. And Mason, they say, played a big part in what’s on tap. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 23

Matt Greer

C ABO OSE B R E WI N G COM PANY

While still a student at Mason, Matt Greer tried his hand at beer making with a home brewing kit called Mr. Beer. “I had no idea what I was doing and I had no patience,” he recalls. “Beer takes a good two or three weeks to make well. Three days later I was like, I think this is done. It wasn’t. It just tasted terrible.” Fast-forward to find Greer, BS Biology ’94, now immersed in the intricate process of craft brewing and sales at his own establishment, Caboose Brewing Company, in Vienna, Virginia. Greer and partner Tim McLaughlin opened Caboose in May 2015. The two had first planned to start a software company—a venture they often discussed over cold ones at the Vienna Whole Foods, “the only craft beer in town,” Greer says. It wasn’t long before the brewery idea took hold instead, and with help from their wives, the pair fashioned a locally sourced menu of food as well, like Virginia pork belly with Pennsylvania apple cider glaze. After graduating from Mason, Greer worked as a microbiologist, then founded multiple startups before opening Caboose. What he learned as a Patriot, he says, still resonates. “Everything that happens in that room is biology and chemistry,” he says of the on-site brewery. “It’s not often you get to study something you actually end up doing.”

PHOTOS BY EVAN CANTWELL

Greer plans to open another Caboose this year in the Mosaic District in Merrifield, Virginia. The new venture will make beer and cider, he says, and may even include a distillery. For more information about Caboose Brewing Company, visit www.caboosebrewing.com. —Cathy Cruise, MFA ’93 24 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

Sudha Patil NAR M ADA WI N E RY

When Sudha Patil, BS Chemistry ’83, was working on her degree at Mason in the early 1980s, winemaking wasn’t even on her radar. She came to the United States from Thane, a small town outside of Mumbai, India, with her husband, Pandit, so he could study engi neering. After he completed his doctorate, it was Sudha’s turn, and the young mother of two began taking classes at Mason in the evenings. “I had no idea at the time if I would get into dental school, but I loved chemistry and figured if it didn’t work out I would get a PhD and teach,” she says. It did work out, and for more than 20 years Sudha has enjoyed a career as an endodontist. In fact, she continues to practice part time. Her love of chemistry has also played a role in creating Narmada’s awardwinning wines. “My husband used to travel all over the world for his business,” she says. “That’s how we got interested in wine.”

As the Patils began pondering retirement, the plans for Narmada Winery came to be. In 1999, they purchased the 51-acre site in Amissville, Virginia. In 2007, they celebrated their first harvest of 14 tons of grapes. In between, they worked with some Virginia experts on the specifics of grape growing and farming, and Sudha took winemaking classes with one of the top winemakers in Virginia. It wasn’t long before the awards began pouring in. In the past decade, Narmada wines have won more than 64 gold medals in national and international competitions. Most recently they won a medal at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and Winemaker Challenge Platinum for their 2014 Yash-Vir Red Wine. When asked if she has a favorite wine, Sudha won’t commit. “It depends on so many things—the season, the food we are having, my mood.” For more information about the Narmada Winery, visit narmadawinery.com. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

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Sarah Meyers

BADWO LF B R E WI N G COM PANY

Sarah Meyers, BA Management ’10, says the idea to start a brewery was “deeply tied” to her Mason experience. In fact, she created the original business plan in her School of Business capstone course. Meyers co-owns BadWolf Brewing Company in Manassas, Virginia, with her husband, Jeremy. It was during a trip to Germany that Jeremy developed an interest in home brewing. Soon friends were telling the couple they should open their own brewery. The Meyers opened Little BadWolf in June 2013. “The day we opened we had a line across the plaza,” Meyers says. “We ran out of beer very quickly. The next day the same thing happened, and the third day [Jeremy] decided he needed to quit his job.” He now works full-time at the business. In addition to her work at BadWolf, Meyers also works full time in human resources for an IT firm. “A typical day is kind of insane,” she says. “I juggle my day job and back-end business stuff for BadWolf. It’s always simultaneous.”

In August 2015, the Meyers opened Big BadWolf, also in Manassas. The smaller brewery now acts as a “pilot brewery” to test recipes and get customer feedback. From there, recipes go to Big BadWolf. The company also has four distributors that serve all of Virginia and Washington, D.C. “We really built up our business, and we’re really starting to see the benefits and rewards,” Meyers says. Her Mason degree has helped with all aspects of running a business. “My management background has helped me to focus on the most important things and solve problems,” she says. Although she admits being an entrepreneur is hard work, for Meyers the greatest joy is seeing her employees and customers happy. “We’re out there doing this because we have a passion for it. We love what we’re doing, and it’s more than a hobby. It’s a way of living for us.” For more information about BadWolf Brewing Company, visit www.badwolfbrewingcompany.com. —Katherine Johnson

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Bill Karlson KO D ISTI LLI N G

When Bill Karlson, MS Software Systems Engineering ’94, retired from the information technology industry in 2009, he was looking for a new project. It came in the form of a craft distillery he started with former classmate and longtime friend John O’Mara. The two 1982 graduates of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy opened the doors of KO Distillery in Manassas, Virginia, in September 2015. Named for the co-founders— Karlson is the K, O’Mara brings the O—the award-winning enterprise is already expanding, and Karlson admits it is bigger than he expected. “We imagined it smaller,” he says with a laugh. “Kind of like you would make beer in your basement. It got on steroids really quick.” But it didn’t happen overnight. Karlson says it took them a year to find the space and another year to build it out, including the cozy tasting room with Virginia-specific decor. And they set some hefty goals for themselves, such as completing 200 mashes in 2016. Now they are expanding with the help of a $25,000 Virginia Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund grant that the City of Manassas matched. In 2016, KO used more than 100 tons of Virginia grain to produce their spirits and expected to triple that in the coming year. All their corn, wheat, and rye is produced in Virginia by Bay’s Best Feed Farm in Heathsville, Virginia, a fact that is important to Karlson. “Like the ‘farm to table’ movement, we call it ‘grain to glass,’” he says. “Not only are we making a great product, we are supporting small businesses and the local economy.” KO Distilling took part in this year’s Mason Homecoming indoor tailgate, and their spirits were recently featured at the Hylton Performing Arts Center’s gala.

PHOTOS BY EVAN CANTWELL

When asked what his favorite KO product is, Karlson admits: “I’m more of a bourbon drinker.” He prefers KO’s Bare Knuckle wheat whiskey. “John is the gin drinker,” he says. “He is the reason we make gin.” For more information about KO Distilling, visit www.kodistilling.com. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

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HOLI MOLI Students gathered in Presidents Park to celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colors. A new spring tradition sponsored by the Indian Students Association—it’s messy, it’s fun, and it’s definitely colorful.

PHOTO BY EVAN CANTWELL

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INQUIRING MINDS

Study Looks at School Safety RESEARCHERS AT GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY are conducting a four-year, $3.8 million study funded by the National Institute of Justice to improve public school safety in a Seattle neighborhood. When completed in 2020, research from Mason’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy will provide school administrators and juvenile justice officials in Rainier Beach with a multilevel approach to improving school and community safety and reducing racial disparity. The study will also address school discipline and police contact in an effort to increase nonpunitive measures among students. “This is a community-led project,” says Charlotte Gill, the center’s deputy director and a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society. “It’s a partnership between the schools and the community. It’s incentivizing good behavior and offering support for those who are struggling. We think this will carry over into the community.” The study addresses positive behavioral change as an alternative to increased police presence on public school campuses, which sometimes creates a so-called “school-to-prison pipeline” in which students may be referred to law enforcement for behavior that might have been dealt with less punitively. “We’ll try to achieve the same result of having police in school, but by changing the way the school operates,” Gill said. —Buzz McClain, BA ’77

The Effects of War on Veterans

Mason-led project looking at the effects of war on veterans could change how the topic is taught at universities, including military academies. Jesse Kirkpatrick, assistant director of Mason’s Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, has teamed with Edward Barrett, director of strategy and research at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, based at the U.S. Naval Academy. Barrett is retired from the U.S. Air Force and is a veteran of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Coming Home: Dialogues on the Moral, Psychological, and Spiritual Impacts of War” uses sources from philosophy, history, poetry, and literature to spark discussions about the effects of war on the warrior. Homer’s Odyssey and Ernest Hemingway’s Soldier’s Home are among the selections. “It creates some space for the veterans to explore these issues on the moral, psycho logical, and spiritual impacts of war,” Kirkpatrick says. About 60 veterans are expected to participate in the project, which is designed to help the veterans themselves while building a resource and curriculum for others to use. —Michele McDonald

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RESEARCH

Increasing Fish Populations in the Gulf

ypoxia has been a growing issue in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly off the coast of Louisiana. This dead zone is caused by an inflow of nutrients from the Mississippi River into the Gulf. Algae grow on these nutrients, which later sink to the gulf floor and decompose. This process robs the water of oxygen and can create an adverse effect on the local fish population. Professor Kim de Mutsert in Mason’s Department of Environmental Science and Policy is working to create a support tool to help managers of coastal resources, such as

fisheries, understand and reduce the impacts of hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, on fish. She and her team were recently awarded a nearly million-dollar grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that will let them spend the next four years examining how reducing the flow of nutrients from the Mississippi River into the northern Gulf of Mexico might affect biomass and distribution of fish. The Environmental Protection Agency has a plan in place to reduce the hypoxic zone from about 15,000 square kilometers to 5,000

square kilometers. De Mutsert’s modeling would help simulate the effects on fish populations of reducing the zone. The project will also harness previously collected data to create a user-friendly soft ware tool that helps managers understand the effects of hypoxia and nutrient reductions on fish and fisheries to generate the best possible outcome for their needs. —Alexa Rogers

USGS satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico and coastline, where much of the Gulf Hypoxic Zone occurs

Researching New Lung Disease Treatments MASON RESEARCHERS MAY HAVE FOUND a way to reverse the progression of a pulmonary disease that’s one of the leading causes of disability and the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Thanks to the support of a nearly $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Mason chemistry and biochemistry professor Mikell Paige and his team of researchers have discovered a possible anti-inflammatory pathway that could help change the way chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is treated. Current treatments for COPD, at best, improve patients’ quality of life, says Paige, who is collaborating with the University of Virginia on this work. “We hope this new anti-inflammatory pathway we are exploiting may be able to do more than relieve symptoms, but possibly reverse disease progression,” says Paige. Paige’s research could lead to new drugs that would need lower concentrations to be effective, require fewer doses per day, and be produced in tablet form. Moving research from the lab to patients is a priority at Mason. The researchers are also trying to better understand the biological underpinnings for this pathway, which could potentially lead to other strategies for treating COPD or additional inflammatory diseases. Paige says discoveries made while working on this research grant could also reduce the incidence of lung cancer—a disease COPD sufferers are more likely to develop compared to non-sufferers. Phase I of the study is expected to be completed in the next four years. —Elizabeth Grisham, BA ’02, MA ’12 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 31

INQUIRING MINDS

PAINTBALL GUN KEYS STUDY OF BRUISE VISIBILITY

f you want to explore what impact skin color has on bruise appearance, how do you find bruises to study? If you’re Katherine Scafide, you get out the paintball gun. Scafide, a leading forensic nurse and an assistant professor in the School of Nursing, is known as the “paintball lady” for her method of creating bruises for her research, which mea

D I D YO U K N O W… Film and Video Studies professor Hans Charles was one of the directors of photography on Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th. The film, named for the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that ended slavery, was nominated for an Academy Award for best feature-length documentary.

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sures bruise visibility, how alternate light sources can help identify bruises, and how skin color, fat, and gender impact changes in bruise color. “In my clinical experience, I would see victims of sexual assault or intimate partner violence. But if the victim had a darker skin color, it was often difficult, if not impossible, to see any injury,” says Scafide. “We have to do better. Being able to accurately measure bruising and to enhance bruise visibility aids forensic investiga tions and can help lead to criminal prosecution.” Scafide’s research pro ject, made possible by a $449,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice, will examine bruise visibil

ity on six skin colors using both white and alternate light sources (short narrow band visible and long ultraviolet spectrums). “This technology may also help victims from vulnerable populations. Children and individuals with cognitive challenges are at risk for abuse and cannot always tell a practi tioner where they are injured,” Scafide explains. “This study will help fur ther our understanding of how alternate light sources impact bruise visibility. Our results have the poten tial to influence the for ensics, health care, and criminal justice fields in both policy and practice.” —Brittany Irish

RESEARCH

Driver Behavior Could Monitor Medical Conditions

eorge Mason University psychology professor Yi-Ching Lee is conducting research to learn how driving can be used to monitor health conditions. As a part of the study “Diagnostic Driving: Real-Time Driver Condition Detection Through Analysis of Driver Behavior,” Lee and her team are

looking at how teens and young adults with Attention Deficit Hyper activity Disorder (ADHD) operate cars when they take their ADHD medication versus when they forget a dose, or if the medication dosage needs to be adjusted. “We want to know how the driving behaviors are different under well-controlled medication and out-of-control medication,” she says. Machine-learning techniques are used to pick up patterns in driving behaviors, especially unsafe maneuvers, and to detect nearby traffic, road configurations, and other data. More than 300 participants will be a part of the four-year study through the use of driving simulators or by driving their own cars out fitted with special sensors and cameras. “If successful, our work will lead to transformative changes in how we monitor many types of patients, not only those with ADHD, but those with other medical and post-surgical conditions,” Lee says. Perhaps in the future, machine learning-equipped computers in cars can monitor behaviors. If deviations are detected, then warnings can be generated and feedback sent to care providers. The study, which also includes researchers from Drexel University, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the University of Central Florida, is funded by an $891,135 grant from the National Science Foundation. —Jamie Rogers

Examining the Effectiveness of ‘Affective Forecasting’

et’s say you’ve been asked to head up an important project at work. You envision it requiring long hours and stressful meetings, opening the door to mistakes and criticism and possible failure. Based on this prediction, you turn it down. This is the general idea behind “affective forecasting,” and it can impact how we decide, learn, and perform, especially in the workplace. Mason psychology professor Seth Kaplan has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of the Army to examine how accurate these predictions are and what impact they can have. Kaplan’s series of four studies is meant to uncover how incorrect forecasts can lead to poor decisions. That pro ject you turned down, for instance, could have boosted your prestige at work, provided the chance to learn new

things, expanded your skills, and allowed you to revel in the satisfaction of a job well done. Kaplan is working on the studies with co-investigator Jill Bradley-Geist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, along with Mason psychology professors Lauren Kuykendall and Jose Cortina, and Mason graduate students in industrial/organizational psychology. “If we find that accuracy or inaccuracy matters, we can develop some sort of intervention or training to improve the accuracy of these forecasts,” Kaplan says. “For example, the research hopefully can provide soldiers with appro priate and adaptive affective expectations before beginning deployments and help workers more generally with challenging conversations and assignments.” —Cathy Cruise, MFA ’93 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 33

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

HOMECOMING 2017

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YOU CAN GO Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 35

SHELF LIFE

Recently published works by Mason faculty

Place Matters: Criminology for the Twenty-First Century David Weisburd, Distinguished Professor, Criminology, Law and Society The last two decades have shown an increased interest in small geographic areas within cities, often as small as addresses or street seg ments, for their contribu tion to crime and other antisocial behavior. Place Matters (Cambridge Uni versity Press, April 2016), written with John E. Eck and Anthony A. Braga, provides a comprehensive review about crime and place, proving that the study of criminology of place should be a central focus of criminology in the 21st century.

The Mormon Jesus: A Biography John G. Turner, assistant professor, Religious Studies This biography (Harvard University Press, April 2016) discusses how Jesus

has connected the Latterday Saints to broader currents of Christianity, even while particular Mormon beliefs have been points of differentiation. The author argues that the tension between Mormon ism’s distinctive claims and the church’s desire to be accepted as Christian by the broader branches of Christianity continues to shape Mormon identity and attract new members.

International Public Policy Analysis George Guess, adjunct professor, Schar School of Policy and Government Written with Thomas Husted of American Uni versity, this textbook (Routledge, July 2016) takes a comparative and cross-cultural approach,

organized around policy issues, to examine impor tant policy “lessons” that affect the everyday lives of citizens. The authors demonstrate that incre mental changes in sectoral policy systems using cross-national lessons can lead to larger changes in country policies and democracy, and can improve governance.

Tropical Conservation: Perspectives on Local and Global Priorities Alonso Aguirre, associate professor of environmen tal science and policy, and Raman Sukumar (eds.) Tropical Conservation (Oxford University Press, September 2016) draws the majority of its contribu tors from the growing pool of scientists and practitioners working in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It introduces important conservation concepts and illustrates their application as the authors directly capture real-world experi ences in their home coun

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tries in preventing biodi versity loss and sustaining ecological health.

Further Wellness Issues for Higher Education: How to Promote Student Health During and After College David S. Anderson, professor emeritus of education and human development (ed.) In this volume (Routledge, August 2016) Anderson builds on his previous book, Wellness Issues for Higher Education, by focus ing on issues affecting student success in college and student wellness after graduation. Organized into distinct wellness areas—emotional, social, intellectual, physical, and occupational—the new volume is designed to help colleges better under stand and address the range of health and well ness issues faced by students, help students maximize their potential, and prepare colleges to deal with students holistically.

Intelligence Analysis as Discovery of Evidence, Hypotheses, and Arguments: Connecting the Dots Gheorghe Tecuci, pro fessor; David Schum, professor emeritus; Dorin Marcu, assistant profes sor; and Mihai Boicu, associate professor This book (Cambridge University Press, August 2016) teaches the eviden tial and inferential issues involved in “connecting the dots” to draw defensible and persuasive conclusions from masses of evidence. The book introduces an intelligent analytical tool called Disciple-CD. This tool teaches users how to formulate hypotheses, develop arguments that reduce complex hypoth eses to simpler ones, collect evidence to evaluate the simplest hypotheses, and assess the relevance and believability of evidence.

Violence, Religion, Peacemaking (Inter religious Studies in Theory and Practice) Douglas Irvin-Erickson, assistant professor, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and Peter C. Phan (eds.) This volume (Palgrave Mac millan, September 2016) explores how religious

leaders can contribute to cultures of peace around the world. Written by scholars and practitioners who have lived, taught, or worked in the areas of conflict, these essays illu minate key challenges facing interreligious dia logue and peace work.

The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnap pings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria Helon Habila, professor of creative writing Habila’s new book (Colum bia Global Reports, Decem ber 2016) deals with the

tory of colonialism and unmasks cultural and religious dynamics that gave rise to the conflicts that have ravaged the region to this day.

2014 kidnapping of 267 girls by Boko Haram. Habila interviewed family and friends for the work, giving voice both to those lost and those left behind. The book provides poig The Mean Bone in nant portraits of everyday Her Body Nigerians whose lives have Laura Ellen Scott, MFA been transformed by ’93, professor, English extremist forces. Habila In this first novel of a tril illuminates the long his ogy (Pandamoon Publish

ing, December 2016), a disturbed graduate stu dent in a university crime writing program makes a grisly discovery: a military widow and her two small children lay dead in a frigid garden pond. With the help of an ex-con, Professor Elizabeth Murgatroyd investigates the murders that have come to define the fictional town of New Royal, Ohio, but first she must explore the twists and turns of a troubled student’s grim past.

Ancient Digs Fit for a Queen In Nefertiti’s Sun Temple: A New Cult Com plex at Tell el-Amarna (Brill, September 2016), Mason Egyptologist Jacquelyn Williamson examines stone relief frag ments excavated from the site of Kom el-Nana at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, dating back to approximately 1350 BCE. This is the first time relief fragments can be associated with a specific wall from a specific temple at Tell el-Amarna. And this one just happened to belong to Queen Nefertiti. What inspired you to write this book? In 2006, I was working at an archaeological site in Egypt, and I realized that one of the rock fragments from the site had a title on it—the title of a temple people had been looking for for about a century. We knew Queen Nefertiti had a temple, but we had not been able to find it. I was a graduate student at the time, and I wrote up my findings and showed them to my professor. She said, “You realize this is now your dissertation

topic right?” So I changed my topic and have been working on the site ever since. This is an important site. Although her name is famous, we don’t know much about Nefertiti. The art and the inscriptions at the site provide us a unique window into how this very famous queen operated. There is another book that I’m still working on that covers other aspects of the temple. When you talk about reconstructing a site, what do you mean? Imagine that you have a jigsaw puzzle that’s the size of five football fields and that somebody smashed the pieces into even smaller pieces and then lost 75 percent of them. I’m examining the fragments I do have and applying a series of mathematical equations. Fortunately, Egyptian art is very controlled. With a lot of math and educated guesses, you can get the idea of what the decoration, scene, or inscription would’ve looked like. It is a lot of me sitting there with a broken piece of rock the size of my fist going “what is this?” So you calculate: “Ok this is an eye. An eye would’ve taken up this much space on a figure. Now this hand has the same proportions as that eye and faces the same direction.… It takes a lot of patience and some cursing.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA’95 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 37

ALUMNI IN PRINT Recently published works by Mason alumni

American Military Communities in West Germany: Life in the Cold War Badlands, 1945–1990 John Lemza, PhD History ’14 McFarland & Company, July 2015 In spring 1946, a small group of American wives and children arrived at the port of Bremerhaven, West Ger many, the first of thousands of military family members who would create a net work of communities. During a 45-year period, which included some of the Cold War’s tensest moments, their presence confirmed America’s resolve to maintain Western democracy in the face of the Soviet threat. Lemza is a researcher, writer, and lecturer of his tory. He teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Pride and Profit: The Intersection of Jane Austen and Adam Smith Michelle Albert Vachris, MA ’88, PhD ’92 Lexington Books, December 2015 Jane Austen’s novels offer a no-nonsense moral philosophy of practical living that Vachris says are quite similar to that of Scottish economist and

philosopher Adam Smith. This book, written with Cecil E. Bohanon, explores the ways in which Austen’s novels reflect Smith’s ideas. It provides colorful illustra tions of Smith’s ideas on self-command, prudence, benevolence, justice, and impartiality, as well as vanity, pride, and greed. Vachris is a professor of economics at Christopher Newport University.

Undercover Patriot Laura Bush Jenkins, BA ’09 CreateSpace, February 2016 After the death of a young Marine near her hometown, a frustrated student jour nalist spends a summer infiltrating an antiwar group known as the Summer of Resistance. While observing protesters’ questionable leadership styles and dis turbing tactics, she turns to her faith and newfound friendships with soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for strength to finish her mission. Jenkins is a small business owner, wife, and activist who has cultivated a passion for volunteering with and organizing events for wounded soldiers.

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Donovan’s Devils: OSS Commandos Behind Enemy Lines—Europe, World War II Albert Lulushi, BS Computer Science ’94 Arcade Publishing, February 2016 The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) created under the command of William Donovan has been celebrated for its cloakand-dagger operations during World War II and as the precursor of the CIA. Donovan’s Devils, based on declassified OSS records, personal collections, and oral histories of partici pants from both sides of the conflict, tells a story of ordinary soldiers, recruited from among first- and second-generation immi grants, who volunteered to risk their lives behind enemy lines. Albert Lulushi is an entrepreneur, business executive, and author of narrative nonfiction books on intelligence, military, and Cold War subjects.

Times Yet to Be: A Poetic Year Jarrod Brown, BS Biology ’93 Amazon Digital Services, April 2016 The poems in Brown’s first book of American and

Christian poetry recount a typical “year in the life” of the author. These poems take the reader on a trip through gardens, woods, the seashore, and family events as the author shows appreciation for “all the gifts God has given you.”

Far as the Curse Is Found: Searching for God in Infertility, Miscarriage, and Stillbirth Abigail Waldron, MFA ’08 Wipf and Stock, April 2016 After struggling with infer tility and then experienc ing a second-trimester miscarriage, Waldron was left wrestling with questions about God as she con tinued her quest to grow her family. To help with this process, she interviewed 11 other couples on similar journeys who’ve also had their faith tested by experi ences of reproductive loss. Waldron has published articles for Ungrind, Karis!, and (in)courage, websites for Christian women. She blogs at AbigailWaldron. com.

PAT R I O T P R O F I L E

Issmar Ventura YEAR: Senior

MAJOR: Communication

PHOTO BY RON AIRA

HOMETOWN: Woodbridge, Virginia

When communication major Issmar Ventura, BA Communication ’16, was a small boy, he aspired to be an airline pilot. When he grew up, he worked for Air France for a while and decided that career wasn’t for him. His mother suggested that he become an immigration lawyer. He considered it and even shadowed one for a stint, but again—not for him. Now he is on his way to his dream career as a broadcast journalist. Claim to Campus Fame: Two years ago, Ventura started a weekly Spanish-language news show, Mason Noticias, on the university’s student-run Mason Cable Network. In 2016 the program was recognized by Mason’s Student Media with an award for best newscast. Each semester he has a group of students who work together on different aspects of the news program. What Drives Him: He started Mason Noticias because he needed the experience both in front of and behind the camera, and he wanted to share that opportunity with his fellow students. “This [show] is not for me. This is for everybody. Yes, I started it, but I’m going to leave one day. Any job will require you to have some kind of multimedia experience.” Inspiring Internships: Ventura is serious about getting broadcast experience, and he has built an impressive resume. He says there was a point in his junior year when he realized he had better get an internship. After the first one with BBC Mundo in Los Angeles, he hasn’t stopped.

Over the past year, he has interned at Telemundo Washington, VOA Latin American Division, and Univision Washington. He also received a stipend from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a well-being scholarship from Mason’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. Learning the Ropes: He believes work experience in your chosen field is essential to success, and that you should learn all aspects of the work—not just the job you are seeking. “You need to know what is happening behind the camera, what your producer is doing, how they put the ‘rundown’ together. There’s a lot of competition [in this field].” Humble Beginnings: Ventura was born in El Salvador and came to the United States at the age of 6. Last spring he traveled back to his native country and had the opportunity to reflect on his life and what he has accomplished. “I looked at the house I used to live in and the poverty there… . I never thought I would make it this far.” Extra Credit: The young man who went from ESL classes in elementary school to AP classes in high school says his parents have been a tremen dous influence on his life. “They respected me and supported me. On graduation day I’m going to look at them and cry.” After graduation Ventura plans to pursue a graduate degree in journalism or homeland security. —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95 Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 39

CLASS NOTES

This Nurse Was Always a

Leader

When Bethany Hall-Long, PhD Nursing ’93, was sworn in as lieutenant governor of Delaware on January 17, she also became the first Mason alum to hold the second highest office in state government. She is this year’s Alumna of the Year.

“I think what resonated with people and why they trust me is because I’m a nurse,” says Hall-Long, who won election with 59 percent of the vote. “As a nurse you take care of people—regardless of their political affiliation.” She believes being a mother also helped her to connect with voters. She is mother to 21-year-old Brock, who is currently a junior at the University of Delaware. Always a nurse first, Hall-Long has devoted her career to working with vulnerable populations. For the past 14 years, Hall-Long served as a Delaware state representative and senator. Over that time, she sponsored nearly 1,000 pieces of legislation, many of them pertaining to health—leading one Delaware newspaper to call her the state’s most prolific legislator. Her bills on telehealth, substance abuse, and cancer and chronic disease have served as models for other states. It was while finishing her master’s degree at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston and working as a public health nurse that Hall-Long realized she might need to change the trajectory of her nursing career. “I was working in the community with mentally ill homeless, and I discovered if I really wanted to make a difference I needed to get involved with health policy.” That realization led her to make a call to the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services office, where Hall-Long landed an internship working on the national nurse shortage. While working that internship in Washington, D.C., she also had a job as an assistant manager of labor and delivery at Inova Fairfax Hospital. About the same time, one of Hall-Long’s MUSC mentors, Catherine Malloy, came to Mason to teach. She encouraged Hall-Long to join the university’s brand-new nursing PhD program. Not only did Hall-Long end up being one of the program’s first graduates at the age of 25, she says the experience helped launch her career. 40 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

“I landed at the right place,” she says. “I have really fond memories of my time at Mason.” Hall-Long says Mason gave her the opportunity to really engage in her field as a faculty member and a researcher. Her work at Mason’s Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics immersed her in public policy work as she learned her way around state politics and Capitol Hill. “My degree and my health policy training have been vital to me. While at Mason, I was exposed to a lot of great leaders at state and national levels—and on the faculty.” In addition to her legislative work, Hall-Long has been teaching since her PhD days. A professor of nursing at the University of Delaware for nearly 20 years, Hall-Long is excited that she gets to keep teaching while serving the people of her state. “I love teaching,” she says. “I have to cut back my hours and give back some of the pay, but I’m glad I can continue my work there too.” —Colleen Kearney Rich, MFA ’95

class notes 1970s

Jim McCarthy, BS Public Administration ’75, was appointed by Governor Rick Scott to serve on the Environmental Regulation Commission, a sevenmember board responsible for setting standards and rules that protect Floridians and the environment. McCarthy will serve through July 1, 2019. Kevin Brown, BS Law Enforcement ’77, is now working for the Depart ment of Homeland Security as a management analyst and division director conducting audits and inspections after a lengthy service career. Prior to his recent appointment, he served and retired from the Fairfax County Police Department, continued his law career in the U.S. Coast Guard, received his MA from the U.S. Naval War College, and finally retired from the Coast Guard as a commander.

Denyse Sabagh, JD ’77, a partner at Duane Morris LLP, recently received the second annual Duane Morris Pro Bono Leadership Award. She was recognized for her pro bono aid to hundreds of low-income immigrants throughout her career, including refugees, citizenship appli cants, domestic violence survivors, and children.

1980s

Margaret Myers, PhD Information Technology ’88, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the Volgenau School of Engineering. She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. She is the director of the information technology and systems division of the Institute for Defense Analyses. Captain Michael Shackel ford USN, BA International

Studies ’88, recently took command at the Office of Naval Intelligence (0766), the largest reserve intelli gence unit in the U.S. Navy. He previously flew ES-3A reconnaissance aircraft with the Navy and is a Navy space systems engineer. Mary Kingsley, BSEd Early Education ’86, started a nature-based preschool in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1990s

David Atkins, BS Decision Science ’90, received the Black Alumni Chapter’s Distinguished Black Alumni Award this year. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. He is the director of licensing (marketing and administration) at George Mason University. Britt Davis, BS Parks, Recreation, and Leisure Studies ’91, MPA ’96,

received this year’s Distin guished Alumni Award from the College of Edu cation and Human Develop ment. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. He is vice president of institutional advancement and senior advisor to the president of Campbell University in North Carolina.

2016-17 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT

Brian Jones, MA International Commerce and Policy ’06 IMMEDIATE PAST-PRESIDENT

Christopher Preston, BS Management ’96 PRESIDENT-ELECT

Victoria Lipnic, JD ’91, has been appointed the acting chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) by President Donald J. Trump. She has served on the commission since 2010.

Jennifer Shelton, BS Public Administration ’94

Paul J. Reagan, JD ’91, received this year’s Dis tinguished Alumni Award from the Antonin Scalia Law School. He was recog nized at the Alumni Associa tion’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. He is the chief of staff for Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s Office.

Andy Gibson, BA History ’92

VICE PRESIDENT—ADVOCACY

Kate McSweeny, JD ’04 TREASURER

Scott Hine, BS Decision Science ’85 SECRETARY

AT-LARGE DIRECTORS

Walter McLeod, MS Chemistry ‘94 Shayan Farazmand, BA Communication ‘04 Ty Carlson, BS Social Work '96 Jeff Fissel, BS Information Technology ’06

(continued next page)

What’s New with You? We are interested in what you’ve been doing since you graduated. Have you moved? Gotten married? Had a baby? Landed a hot new job? Received an award? Met up with some Mason friends? Submit your class notes to alumni.gmu.edu/whatsnew. In your note, be sure to include your graduation year and degree. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 41

A Legacy to Build On,

A FU T U R E TO A S PI R E TO

W PHOTO BY JOHN BOAL

hen offered the opportunity to serve as your Alumni Association president, I looked to challenge the way we do business, reach new and lapsed circles of alumni, and advance the value of the association to its constituents. I also knew I would have the opportunity to celebrate the first 50 years of our association and prepare it for its next 50 and beyond. The experiences that have kept us connected through the years are a simple but powerful bond, and provide the opportunity to reflect on our time at the university and the growing tradition and community that make us the Mason Nation.

At the onset of this year, we sought an answer to what inspires us to do what we do. Through our discovery, we developed the following: We champion an environment to provide a permanent home for Patriot pride with its brave and bold citizens who bring diverse memories and opportunities to create new ones. With this foundation established, we set our focus to the future. The Alumni Association has taken the lead in promoting a philanthropic culture by developing and implementing scholarship initiatives designed to celebrate and recognize the contribution alumni leaders have made to the university and community leading up to our 50th anniversary in 2018. I am proud to say we have achieved more than 80 percent of our initial target and are on pace to endow multiple scholarship opportunities for future students in need. Why does this matter? Giving is critical for Mason to fulfill its mission to ensure that current and future students have the same opportunities to succeed as we did. This sends a clear message about the quality and value of a degree and directly ties the success of alumni to our current and future students. With All My Patriot Pride, Brian Jones, MA International Commerce and Policy ’06 President, George Mason University Alumni Association

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John “Jack” T. Fahey, BIS ’94, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinc tion held in April. He is the former senior executive of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Ken Robison, MA History ’94, published his sixth book, Yankees and Rebels on the Upper Missouri: Steamboats, Gold, and Peace, this past September. Michelle Archilla, BA International Studies ’94, is in a new romantic relation ship with Daniel Sky. She is happy in love and will be following her dreams to reside in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2017. She will be spread ing love and peace energies as a lightworker and well ness intuitive. Craig Ashbrook, Diploma Education ’96, DA Education ’02, was recently awarded the status of Fellow of the National Speleological Society. Ashbrook has dedicated many years to the scientific study and conservation of caves and karst. The society desig nates fellows based on their efforts to further the goals of the society through cave exploration, conserva tion, or administration. He has also written several

scientific articles and research papers in the field. Alma Abdul-Hadi Jadallah, MAIS ’96, PhD Conflict Analysis and Resolution ’06, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Cele bration of Distinction held in April. She is the president and managing director of Kommon Denominator, an organization committed to leveraging social science research in support of the peaceful resolution of conflict. James Davis, JD ’97, was listed as a top criminal defense attorney in Northern Virginia Magazine’s Top Lawyer issue (Decem ber 2016). He lives in Fairfax, where his practice focuses on criminal defense and personal injury law. Annette Priest, MA Psychology ’98, recently joined the Advisory Board Company as the managing director of Strategic UX (User Experience) and Product Design. She will be overseeing a large portfolio of products in health care technology. Priest speaks internationally about UX research, design, and strategy. This year she was featured as a speaker

CLASS NOTES

at UX Hong Kong and Collaborate Bristol (UK). Eric Hendrixson, MA English ’98, published his second comic novel, Drunk Driving Champion, through

Eraserhead Press in April 2016. Hendrixson moved from Washington, D.C., to the South Side of Chicago in 2013, where he lives with his wife and step-cat.

James Thweatt III, JD ’99, was recently brought on as a partner in the employee benefits and executive compensation practice of Cincinnati’s largest law firm, Dinsmore & Shohl.

2000s

Trevor Montano, BS Accounting ’00, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Business. He was

recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. He is the chief investment officer of the United States Treasury. (continued next page)

HATS OFF TO CHARITABLE WORK

hen Jay Coakley, BSEd Physical Education ’78, MEd Leadership and Human Development ’94, began collecting hats to give to kids battling cancer who had lost their hair to chemotherapy, he expected the initial rush of donations to quickly slow.

Three years later, his charity, which by Coakley’s count has distributed more than 10,000 hats across the United States, Europe, and the Philippines, is a phenomenon. Ellie’s Hats also provides gift cards, iPads, crayons, and toys to hospitals and clinics nationwide. “It’s a snowball that just keeps getting bigger and better,” Coakley says. It all began with a little girl named Ellie Whitfield. Coakley met Ellie in fall 2013 in his kindergarten physical education class at Woodburn Elementary School in Fairfax, Virginia. Ellie, with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, had lost her red hair to chemotherapy. “She was a pretty weak and frail kid,” Ellie’s mom, Jennica Whitfield, MPA ’03, recalls. “But she wanted to be at school.” “Just a teeny little thing with no hair,” says Coakley. “She always wore hats.” So for Christmas, Coakley began collecting hats for this spunky student, now a thirdgrader in remission after two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy. Between word of mouth, friends, and family, Coakley soon had almost 150 hats. After Ellie had her pick, Coakley distributed the rest to kids at the hospital where Ellie was being treated. Things took off from there, with social media as the main driver. Now hat drives occur nationwide. Mason had one; so did the NHL’s Washington Capitals. Coakley and Ellie’s Hats also were part of the successful push to get Virginia to issue a pediatric cancer license plate. “Our mission is to help the children and families that are in it right now,” says Coakley. “Just as important is raising awareness.” Coakley has given Ellie about 100 hats, and she still wears them, though her hair has returned, Jennica says. A Scooby-Doo hat was always a favorite, as was a Princess Anna hat from the movie Frozen. Then there is the one with the red ponytail in the back that Ellie wore when she had no hair. “He’s amazing,” Jennica says of Coakley. “Giving Ellie so many hats to choose from gave her a special confidence to go into school.” “I just felt like I had to get her something to brighten her day,” says Coakley. —Damian Cristodero Spring Spring 2017 2017 M MA A SS O ON N SS P P II R R II TT | 43 | 43

CLASS NOTES

Unicia Buster, MA Visual Information Technology ’01, released her first selfpublished book on Novem ber 4, 2016, through CreateSpace, an Amazon company. Her book, Coloring Curls: An Adult Coloring Book Celebrating Natural Hair, celebrates the growing trend of African American women growing their hair naturally. Buster drew each illustration, which implement shapes, patterns, and mandalas. She has already sold 126 copies.

SHE SAYS “YES”

ashville resident Rachel Beauregard, BA Theater ’09, embodies her favorite Tina Fey mantra: “Say yes. Then figure it out later.” She said yes to Mason’s Hylton Performing Arts Center, returning to campus to perform with her country band, Native Run, in October 2016.

“The Hylton Center is a special place, and that was a special night. It was way more emotional than I thought,” she says of her performance. “To hug my old [School of Theater] professors like Kaiulani Lee, Kevin Murray, Mary Lechter, Lisa and Todd Messegee, and Rick Davis.... I went home and cried tears of joy.” She credits these professors for making her into a true artist.

Saying yes has opened other doors for the multitalented Mason alumna. As part of her Mason degree, Beauregard took classes in contemporary Irish poetry, British theater, and BBC television while studying abroad at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Beauregard also obtained her yoga teaching license in fall 2016 because she “wants to be able to teach other musicians that are on the road and need to feel grounded in an unstable environment.” Most recently, Beauregard said yes to Nashville musician Dean Berner, whom she married in December 2016. Native Run, Beauregard’s country music duo with bandmate Bryan Dawley, has had some huge successes, including playing the Grand Ole Opry three times, and opening for the band Alabama as well as musicians Sam Hunt, David Nail, and John Hiatt. But she has a long wish list that includes such items as playing live on TV with Jimmy Fallon. Theater is still a draw for her—Beauregard hasn’t ruled out returning to the stage. In fact, many of her seminal Mason memories take place in the theater. Playing Satan in the Mason Players production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot tops the list. “[It was] one of the most compelling productions I’ve been able to do,” Beauregard says. “[It was] so challenging to play this role, and intimidating to embody the darkest spirit that’s ever existed.” Native Run is currently in a creative phase, writing and producing new songs. Beauregard says the duo plan to start trying these tunes live in early 2017, with a record deal forthcoming. —Teresa D. Allen, MFA ’12 44 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

Jennifer Furlong, BA Communication ’01, MA Communication ’05, has been admitted to the PhD in English Language and Applied Linguistics program at the University of Birming ham in the United Kingdom. Zachary Tudor, MS Information Systems ’01, CERG Information Systems Security ’02, was recently elected to the board of directors of ISC, an inter national professional membership organization. He holds his Certified Infor mation Systems Security Professional certification and will serve a three-year term on the board. Abigail “Abby” Neyenhouse, BA Religious Studies ’02, received the Lambda Alumni Chapter’s Distinguished Lambda Alumni Award this year.

CLASS NOTES EDITOR’S NOTE: Class Notes are submitted by alumni and are not verified by the editors. While we welcome alumni news, Mason Spirit is not responsible for information contained in Class Notes.

She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. She is the assistant director for com munity and nonprofit internships at the Center for Social Concern. Harry Foxwell, PhD Infor mation Technology ’03, is now a full-time associate professor at Mason’s Volgenau School of Engi neering in the Information Sciences and Technology Department. Prior to returning to Mason, he worked in the IT industry for Oracle and Sun Micro systems and taught gradu ate coursework as an adjunct for Mason’s Com puter Science Department. Tina P. Laguna, BS Crimi nology, Law and Society ’04, MPA ’06, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the Schar School of Policy and Government. She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. She is currently the assistant chief of police for the Manassas City Police Department. Paul Phillips, JD ’04, was appointed circuit court judge for the Sixth Judicial District in Campbell County by Wyoming Governor Matt Mead. He has engaged in the private practice of law in Gillette for more

than 10 years. Prior to that, he served as a law clerk for the district court judges of the Sixth Judicial District. Matthew Bruno, BA Integrative Studies ’05, MAIS ’08, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Integrative Studies. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. He is the assistant director of education and training at American University. David S. Goldberg, MS Health Systems Manage ment ’06, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Health and Human Services. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. He is the senior vice president of Allegheny Health Network. Angelica M. (Betts) Stephens, BA Government and International Politics ’06, recently completed the nonresident James A. Kelly Korea Fellowship with the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic Inter national Studies. Her paper, “The Juche factor: North Korea’s political ideology and human rights reform,” has been published and is available online. Jennifer Kubilus (Ruhl), BFA Dance ’07, owns a pre-

professional dance company and dance studio, J. Dance Kollective. The company is in its third season and has moved into the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia. As of spring 2017, she is also an adjunct faculty member with Mason’s School of Dance. Anna Escobedo Cabral, JD ’08, received the Latino Alumni Chapter’s Disting uished Latino Alumni Award this year. She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. She is the senior advi

sor at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Rion Amilcar Scott, MFA ‘08, was awarded the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction for his story collection Insur rections: Stories. Published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2016, the book centers on the fictional town of Cross River, Mary land, founded in 1807 after the only successful slave revolt in the United States. Zorayr Manukyan, PhD Statistical Science ’09, has been promoted to senior

director of quantitative clinical science at Pfizer Clinical R&D Worldwide Research and Development (Boston). Manukyan is a clinical trials biostatistician working on new pharma ceuticals in autoimmune diseases.

2010s

Kyle Dudek, JD ’10, is now a senior associate attorney at the Morehouse Law Firm in Manassas, Virginia. His practice focuses on per sonal injury, estate planning, (continued next page)

In early 2017, actress and Mason alumna Jade Wheeler, BA Theater ’07, played the role of Cat, a liberal law clerk who spars with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (played by Mason theater professor and award-winning actor Edward Gero), in the Asolo Repertory Theatre’s production of The Originalist in Sarasota, Florida. The play premiered in 2015 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., where Gero originated the role. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 45

CLASS NOTES

family law, and continued service to the community as guardian ad litem. Ryan Arnold, BA Global Affairs ’11, recently com pleted a postgraduate program in social innova tion management from the Amani Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, and is now apply ing to master’s programs. After graduating from Mason in 2011, Arnold went on to serve in Cameroon as a Peace Corps volunteer working with youth with a focus in HIV-related work alongside a local nonprofit. After two years in Camer oon and a brief stint with a nonprofit in the states, he moved to Kenya to work as the operations director for an NGO called CARE for AIDS. He looks back on his time at Mason fondly and with a smile. He is now and always a proud Patriot!

Victor Provost, BM ’12, MM ’14, released a new recording project, Bright Eyes, in January on the Paquito/Sunnyside label. The record debuted at #5 on the iTunes Jazz Charts and was featured in the Washington Post. Allison McDaniel, BA Film and Video Studies ’12, received this year’s Distin guished Alumni Award from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. She was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebration of Distinction held in April. She is a pro ducer and editor for the Public Broadcasting System. Matthew Weinstein, JD ’12, has been appointed to a four-year term as com missioner on the Arlington County Transportation Commission in Virginia.

Nick Collier, BFA Art and Visual Technology ’13, was selected as the National Parks Arts Foundation Inaugural Military Veteran Artist in Residence. For the month of November 2016, Collier was in residence in a remote part of Big Bend National Park on the Texas/ Mexico border with fellow artist in residence, singer/ songwriter Russell James Pyle. Chelsea McDow, BA English ’13, has accepted a position with the University of Colorado at Boulder working as a development assistant with its College of Engineering and Applied Science. A proud Mason alum, she officially joined the development office at Mason as a student employee in 2013. Upon graduating, she became a

full-time member of Mason’s Advancement and Alumni Relations staff. She has diligently served her alma mater and is now embark ing on an exciting new adventure as she moves to Boulder.

income populations with major utility turn-offs and/ or restoration since her graduation in May 2015. She is currently loving her new life in Florida and actively pursuing employ ment down in the sunshine.

Gwendolyn Beck, CERG Gerontology ’15, recently accepted a position as the assistant manager of senior health at Virginia Hospital Center, Mayo Clinic Care Network.

Ryan Valdez, PhD Environ mental Science and Public Policy ’15, received this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Science. He was recognized at the Alumni Association’s 2017 Celebra tion of Distinction held in April. He is senior manager of conservation science and policy at the National Parks Conservation Association.

BreAnna Strevig, MS ’15, relocated to Saint Johns, Florida, with her family in late October. She resigned from her position as pro gram specialist with a nonprofit organization in Maryland, Human Services Programs of Carroll County Inc. She had been working with human services programs to assist low-

ALUMNI CHAPTER REPRESENTATIVES BLACK ALUMNI

LAMBDA

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

Chantee Christian, BA Communication ’05

Aléjandro Asin, BA ’11

Tiffany Ha, BS Chemistry ’10, MS ’13

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

ANTONIN SCALIA LAW SCHOOL

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

Ben Owen, JD ’13

Gleason Rowe, BA Global Affairs ’11

Anthony DeGregorio, BS Physical Education ’84, MS Physical Education ’89 COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS

Shannon Baccaglini, MM Music ’06, MA Arts Management ’09 VOLGENAU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Mariana X. Cruz, BS Civil and Infrastructure Engineering ’11

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

GOLDEN QUILL

Sumeet Shrivastava, MBA ’94

Kushboo Bhatia, BA ’16

SCHAR SCHOOL OF POLICY AND GOVERNMENT

Kyle Green, MA International Commerce and Policy ’13 and MPA ’14 LATINO

Cristian Pineda, BA Communication ’12

46 | FA S T E R FA R T H E R : T H E C A M PA I G N F O R G E O R G E M A S O N U N I V E R S I T Y

CLASS NOTES

Obituaries

ALUMNI AND STUDENTS

Joan Anderson, MEd Elementary Education ’71, October 13, 2016

Patricia Skinner, BA English ’87, November 5, 2016

Roberta Henry, BA English ’75, October 21, 2016

Linda Stern, BA Sociology ’87, November 16, 2016

Dennis Dinneen, BA History ’76, December 1, 2016

David Doughery, JD ’88, October 27, 2016

Kristina Olanders, BS Systems Engineering ’94, MS Systems Engineering ’96, November 17, 2016

Elizabeth Scherschel, BSN ’89, September 5, 2016

Susann Arsuaga, BA Speech Communication ’98, November 13, 2016

Christopher Mack, BS Law Enforcement ’79, December 17, 2016 Richard Rau, JD ’80, November 24, 2016 Maria Snow, BA History ’80, October 13, 2016 Lynn James, BIS ’81, October 22, 2016 Michael J. Cain, BM ’82, October 20, 2016 Larry Packett, JD ’82, October 1, 2016 Christine Coviello, BA Studio Art ’84, October 16, 2016 Karen Byrd, BS Management ’86, MAIS ’99, April 30, 2016

Patricia Atwood, BIS ’90, November 24, 2016 Gina Scalise, BS Mathematics ’91, April 18, 2016 Marie Travesky, BA Government and Politics ’92, November 16, 2016

Patrick W. Johnson, BA Government and Politics ’94, MPA ’97, May 22, 2016

Anthony De Santis, BS Accounting ’02, October 14, 2016 Ene Buckley, BIS ’03, September 24, 2016 John Burrow, BA Art and Visual Technology ’13, October 11, 2016

Christian Bartlett, BFA Theater ’93, October 10, 2016

Todd Wyatt, PhD Psychology ’13, September 8, 2016

Kenneth Duncan, BS Geology ’93, MS ’03, November 14, 2016

Theres Opoku-Boakye, former student, October 6, 2016

Arthur Moosally, BS Biology ’93, October 21, 2016

David Warren, former student, October 3, 2016

F A C U LT Y, S TA F F, A N D F R I E N D S Charles J. “Chuck” Colgan died January 3 at the age of 90. The longest-serving state senator in Virginia history, Colgan, whose home district included Prince William County and Manassas, championed higher education in the commonwealth and was a long-time advocate and benefactor for Mason. In his 10 consecutive terms in the Virginia Senate, Colgan introduced 560 bills and 120 joint resolutions. During his career, Colgan was named the “Most Influential Citizen in Prince William County” by Potomac News and “Man of the Year” by the Manassas Journal Messenger. For his years of service, the university recognized Colgan with the Mason Medal in 2016. In addition, Mason renamed the Occoquan Building Senator Charles J. Colgan Hall and installed a bronze statue of his likeness on Mason’s Science and Technology Campus. Colgan is survived by eight children, 24 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren, most of whom still live in Prince William County.

Walter Mircea-Pines, PhD Education ’09, an instructor of German and an IT coordinator in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, passed away on January 3. He specialized in instructional design and development, with an emphasis on assessment. Born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Mircea-Pines earned a bachelor’s degree in Germanic languages and literature at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, in 1985. Upon graduation, he began teaching foreign languages at a local high school. He spoke ten languages, six fluently. He later worked with the U.S. Department of State as a translator and an escort-interpreter, and began work at Mason in 1998. Throughout his career, he cultivated his computing skills and appreciation for technology while emphasizing assessment and foreign language acquisition. He designed and tested placement and proficiency exams and worked with faculty or native speakers to develop, digitize, and test placement and proficiency exams for students. He is survived by his wife, mother, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. The Department of Modern and Classical Languages has established a fund in his memory. Donations can be made online at give.gmu.edu. For further details, please contact the college’s develop ment office at chssalum@gmu.edu. Spring 2017 M A S O N S P I R I T | 47

4400 University Drive, MS 3B3 Fairfax, VA 22030

In February, the Patriots won their first Atlantic 10 Conference Indoor Track and Field Championship in program history in front of a boisterous home crowd at the Field House. Mason junior John Seals led the charge with an impressive three gold medals in the high jump, 60-meter hurdles, andâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; breaking his school and facility recordsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the heptathlon.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ATHLETICS