Making an
OUTSIZED IMPACT Faculty Excellence at Occidental College
Making an
OUTSIZED IMPACT Faculty define the academic experience at Occidental. They are scholars and thought leaders, bringing their expertise into the classroom and creating an active and engaged intellectual community. But well beyond campus, their knowledge and energy allow them to make a profound impact in a number of different ways. Their expertise is sought out by major media outlets and their research helps shape policy and public discourse. Through books, peer-reviewed journals and other publications or creative works, they are forging new knowledge and shaping the way their fields are approached and understood. Their scholarship attracts the attention of social and cultural institutions. Their grants define new research frontiers. And as part of an institution that has long been focused on the public good, the work of faculty elevates the College. The achievements and contributions of Occidental’s faculty are making an outsized impact on their fields—and the world at large. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................................................1 SHAPING PUBLIC CONVERSATION.......................................................................................................................3 Jane Hong Associate Professor, History.................................................................................................................................4 Phillip Ayoub Associate Professor, Diplomacy & World Affairs..........................................................................................5 Jennifer M. Piscopo Associate Professor, Politics...................................................................................................................6 Marcella Raney ’01 Associate Professor, Kinesiology............................................................................................................7
CHANGING THE FIELD...................................................................................................................................................8 Amber Stubler Assistant Professor, Biology...........................................................................................................................9 Arthur Saint-Aubin Professor, Spanish and French Studies..................................................................................................9 Leila Neti Professor, English..................................................................................................................................................10 Jeffrey Cannon ’07 Associate Professor, Chemistry.............................................................................................................10 Kristi Upson-Saia David B. and Mary H. Gamble Professor in Religion......................................................................11 Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. Associate Professor, Philosophy......................................................................................................11 Brandon Lehr Associate Professor, Economics......................................................................................................................12 Jan Lin Professor, Sociology..................................................................................................................................................12
MAKING AN IMPACT......................................................................................................................................................13 Erica Ball Professor, Black Studies / Mary Jane Hewitt Department Chair, Black Studies.......................................14 Aleem Hossain Assistant Professor, Media Arts & Culture..............................................................................................15 Kathryn Leonard Professor, Computer Science.....................................................................................................................16 Will Power Assistant Professor, Theater & Performance Studies.......................................................................................17
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Shaping
PUBLIC CONVERSATION Oxy faculty guide public discourse through media appearances and policy work on topics ranging from equity and justice to public health.
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Jane Hong
Associate Professor, History
H
ong’s work connects the anti-Asian hate and violence that came to national attention during the pandemic to a long history of anti-Asian racism. Through research and teaching, her aim is to bridge the university with broader society. Thanks to public talks and being featured in two PBS documentaries—one of which won a Peabody award—she is educating the general public on uncomfortable legacies of discrimination that are often overlooked. Hong recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post tracing how the Republican Party has made inroads among women and voters of color. Her first book, Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion, was published in 2019. Hong’s next book, which explores race and evangelical politics, is under contract with Oxford University Press.
Shaping
PUBLIC CONVERSATION
What the Election of Asian American GOP Women Means for the Party THE WASHINGTON POST
Asian Americans PBS DOCUSERIES
Far East Deep South PBS WORLD DOCUMENTARY
What will the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact be on the generations that emerge from it? KPCC, AIRTALK
AAPI Hate, Covid, and Where We Go from Here CO-PANELIST, UBER ROUNDTABLE
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Phillip Ayoub
Associate Professor, Diplomacy & World Affairs
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olitical scientist Ayoub advises governments, international organizations, think tanks and NGOs on improving the status of LGBTI rights globally. With a focus on gender and sexuality in transnational human rights, he writes regularly for The Washington Post, among other outlets, and is shaping global conversations around social justice and improving the lived experiences of marginalized groups. The sudden and rapid extension of LGBTI rights to many countries in the new century inspired Ayoub to understand what was happening. Several of his related academic papers analyze why social movements are successful in some cases and not in others. He has also spoken at European Union agencies, served as a Humboldt German Chancellor Fellow and helped governments develop best practices for incorporating LGBTI people into foreign policy.
European soccer championships got tangled up in a fight over LGBTI rights. Who won? THE WASHINGTON POST
‘The most powerful woman in the world’ is stepping down. What is Merkel’s legacy on gender equality? THE WASHINGTON POST
Attacking LGBT life helped the right-wing Polish president win reelection–barely THE WASHINGTON POST
Expert on U.S. Elections Coverage DEUTSCHE WELLE BERLIN STUDIO
Crossing Borders and Battling Homophobia THE DEVIANT’S WORLD PODCAST
Shaping
PUBLIC CONVERSATION
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Jennifer M. Piscopo Associate Professor, Politics
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iscopo is a political scientist with a focus on women and political representation. She has advised governments and think tanks across the globe on how to recruit and elect women. Her essay marking 100 years of U.S. women’s suffrage, “The Right to Be Elected,” appeared on the cover of the Boston Review, and she writes regularly for The Washington Post and Ms. Magazine, among others.
Mexico’s political parties did the minimum to meet gender parity rules THE WASHINGTON POST
Electing Chile’s Constitutional Convention: Nothing About Us Without Us NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
The COVID-19 pandemic gave Piscopo the chance to answer the question, “Did women leaders matter?” She published several academic papers and U.N. Women reports analyzing women’s role in COVID-19 response and recovery. Among the multiple keynotes she delivered on the topic, she took the floor at the United Nations during the 65th Session on the Committee on the Status of Women.
Being a Woman in Politics Shouldn’t Come with Death Threats MS. MAGAZINE
Are Women Leaders Better at Fighting the Coronavirus? THE WASHINGTON POST
How Women Vote: Separating Myth from Reality Shaping
PUBLIC CONVERSATION
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
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Marcella Raney ’01 Associate Professor, Kinesiology
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aney’s research on green schoolyards and recess behavior is shaping how elementary schools make decisions about schoolyard design. Her analysis of a largescale playground greening project—replacing asphalt with plant life—at a low-income elementary school revealed a positive impact on physical activity and social interaction during recess. By increasing access to the natural environment for all children, her work promotes health and educational equity. Raney collaborates with several nonprofits in Los Angeles to secure funding for similar renovations at other elementary schools in nature-deprived neighborhoods. The California Natural Resources Agency recently awarded two grants of $1.1 million and $760,000 that will facilitate large-scale greening projects at low-income schools. As a research partner, she is working closely with the nonprofits on design concept planning and data collection.
Shaping
PUBLIC CONVERSATION
Outdoor learning started as a COVID safety measure. Schools say it’s here to stay KCRW, GREATER L.A.
Trust for Public Land and Living Schoolyard Coalition report TPL.ORG
North East Trees Inc. grant CALIFORNIA NATURAL RESOURCES AGENCY
Amigos de Los Rios grant CALIFORNIA NATURAL RESOURCES AGENCY
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Changing
THE FIELD Oxy faculty create new knowledge and chart new research frontiers through their publications, creative work and grants. Meet a few of them.
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Amber Stubler
Assistant Professor, Biology
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tubler is an expert in marine ecology. Through research funded by the National Science Foundation, she is examining how human-induced climate change is threatening the existence of oyster reefs. Bioerosion, or the natural breakdown processes of the reefs, is being accelerated by factors such as ocean acidification and predation. The all-women research team led by Stubler is striving to understand bioerosion in the context of climate change while training the next generation of marine scientists.
National Science Foundation grant DIVISION OF OCEAN SCIENCES, 2021
Arthur Saint-Aubin
Professor, Spanish and French Studies
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aint-Aubin is a literary critic and a cultural commentator whose research explores how masculinity and race are presented in the works of creative writers and artists as diverse as Victor Hugo, Toussaint Louverture and Chuck Berry. His research in literary studies spans three centuries and two continents. His book The Pleasures of Death is the first academic study to undertake a literary analysis of Kurt Cobain’s lyrics and journals from the perspective of cultural theory and psychoanalysis.
The Pleasures of Death: Kurt Cobain’s Masochistic and Melancholic Persona LSU PRESS, 2020
Changing
THE FIELD
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Leila Neti
Professor, English
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eti’s research brings Victorian, postcolonial and legal studies together to fill a critical gap in how law and literature intersect in the colonial arena. Her recent book, Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination, sheds new light on popular Victorian novels by reading them alongside concurrent Indian legal cases. Drawing on original archival research from India and the U.K., the book is interdisciplinary while preserving the complexity of each subject area.
Colonial Law in India and the Victorian Imagination CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020
Jeffrey Cannon ’07
Associate Professor, Chemistry
C
annon is helping chemists transition away from wasteful, potentially toxic experiments to “greener,” more broadly useful chemical reactions. Using new, more efficient methods, he makes and manipulates molecules that contain the element carbon to form small organic molecules like pharmaceuticals and biological probes. His recent National Institutes of Health grant supports his work developing synthetic chemistry methods for making structural carbon-carbon bonds using visible light, a safe and abundant alternative energy source.
National Institutes of Health grant NIH REPORT, 2020
Changing
THE FIELD
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Kristi Upson-Saia
David B. and Mary H. Gamble Professor in Religion
U
pson-Saia co-founded and co-directs ReMeDHe (pronounced “remedy”), an international working group composed of more than 300 scholars. Members study religion, medicine, disability and health in late antiquity using an array of methodologies. Upson-Saia is completing a new book, Medicine, Health, and Healing in Ancient Greece and Rome, which paints a rich picture of ancient health and healing based on texts, artifacts, artwork, archaeology and human remains. It includes almost 50 new English translations of Greek and Latin sources.
You’re Dead to Me BBC PODCAST ON ANCIENT MEDICINE
Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. Associate Professor, Philosophy
S
anchez is making Mexican, Latin American and Latinx philosophy accessible to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. In addition to co-hosting a blog on Mexican philosophy, he is launching the Journal of Mexican Philosophy, an open-access, online journal dedicated to promoting advanced scholarship in—and translations of— Mexican philosophy. His recent book, Latin American and Latinx Philosophy, serves as a guide for the non-specialist and builds upon his game-changing first book, Mexican Philosophy in the 20th Century.
Latin American and Latinx Philosophy ROUTLEDGE, 2021
Changing
THE FIELD
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Brandon Lehr
Associate Professor, Economics
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potlighting issues of welfare and policy, Lehr’s innovative new textbook brings together theory and cutting-edge data while emphasizing experimental strategies for testing economic theory. Equally important, he focuses on how current behavioral economics research impacts the way we think about poverty, wealth redistribution, health, political engagement, unemployment and exploitative contracts. This approach helps to promote economics as a more inclusive discipline with practical relevance.
Behavioral Economics: Evidence, Theory, and Welfare ROUTLEDGE, 2021
Jan Lin
Professor, Sociology
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in has forged a long career in public sociology and urban social justice. His book Taking Back the Boulevard argues that urban gentrification is not a single transition, but part of a larger, race-related cycle of disinvestment, reinvestment and ultimately displacement. Working with partners like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Southern California’s TV station KCET-TV, he has developed urban policy and raised awareness about gentrification.
Taking Back the Boulevard: Art, Activism, and Gentrification in Los Angeles NYU PRESS, 2019
Changing
THE FIELD
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Making
AN IMPACT Oxy faculty make a profound impact in the world through research, advocacy and creative work that is making waves and getting noticed.
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Erica Ball
Professor, Black Studies Mary Jane Hewitt Department Chair, Black Studies
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all is a historian who writes about the many ways African Americans have harnessed the power of visual, print and other cultural forms to support the ongoing freedom struggle. Working in the tradition of those black intellectuals who came before her, she hopes these stories from the past can serve as a usable history for those fighting for freedom today. Recently, Ball published a biography of the African American hair-care pioneer, businesswoman and philanthropist Madam C.J. Walker. She also co-edited the historical volume As If She Were Free, bringing together biographies of 24 women of African descent and exploring how they sought and found freedom in Latin America, the Caribbean and the U.S. Her next book is about the contested popular memory of slavery in America.
Making
AN IMPACT
Madam C. J. Walker: The Making of an American Icon ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD, 2021
As If She Were Free: A Collective Biography of Women and Emancipation in the Americas CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2020
Association of Black Women Historians FAR WEST REGIONAL DIRECTOR
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Aleem Hossain
Assistant Professor, Media Arts & Culture
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s a film writer-director, Hossain is reimagining popular genres like sci-fi and superhero films in ways that explore race, gender and politics. His work, which also extends to the realms of augmented and virtual reality, is deeply influenced by his identity as a mixed-race, multicultural American. He recently wrote and directed the sci-fi feature film After We Leave, which won Best Feature Film at Sci-Fi London and was released in theaters and on Amazon Prime. New York Stage and Film invited Hossain to join their NEXUS Initiative, a series of conversations focused on creating new and expanded forms of storytelling that resonate with our time. He also created an anti-bullying VR project for Google that is being used in middle schools around the world.
Making
AN IMPACT
Feature film: After We Leave AFTERWELEAVE.COM
Interview with Director Aleem Hossain SCI FI LONDON 2019
Conversation on Overcoming Anti-Muslim & AntiArab Representations in the Media and Hollywood CTSJ ‘THE MATRIX’ EVENT
NEXUS Initiative NEW YORK STAGE AND FILM
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Kathryn Leonard
Professor, Computer Science
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eonard is committed to increasing representation of women and other marginalized groups in the computational sciences. An expert in geometric models for computer graphics, computer vision and data analysis, she recently won a National Science Foundation research grant. It facilitated a project related to mathematical modeling of shapes of 2D and 3D objects, and included funding for an international research collaboration workshop for women.
National Science Foundation grant DIVISION OF MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES, 2020
Journal Co-editor-in-chief LA MATEMATICA
President, Association for Women in Mathematics ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS
Because she fought hard to get to where she is in her field, Leonard is working to make it easier for those who follow her. To that end, she has established collaborative research communities for women mathematicians and organized targeted conferences and workshops. She has served as president of the Association for Women in Mathematics and co-editor-in-chief of the journal La Matematica.
Making
AN IMPACT
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Will Power
Assistant Professor, Theater & Performance Studies
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n innovator and explorer of new theatrical forms, Power is known as one of the pioneers and cocreators of hip-hop theater. This art form not only paved the way for iconic works such as Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, but also for programs that use hip-hop theater as a tool for education and activism. He is recognized internationally as a playwright, performer, lyricist and educator, and was called “the best verse playwright in America” by New York Magazine. A production of Seize the King, Power’s contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, was named a New York Times Critic’s Pick. He is also a passionate teacher of writing and performance who is committed to diversifying theater audiences across all measures and supporting the next generation of theater artists.
Making
AN IMPACT
Critics Pick: In ‘Seize the King,’ ‘Richard III’ Goes to Harlem NEW YORK TIMES
Seize the King review NEW YORKER
Classical Theater of Harlem and Will Power Refashion Richard III NEW YORK MAGAZINE
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