RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP & CREATIVITY
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS ARHU faculty maintain close relationships and hold leadership positions with:
Society of Early Americanists: Richard Bell, fellow Latino/a Studies Association: Ana Patricia Rodríguez, president Royal Historical Society: Philip Resnik, fellow
Big Ten Band Directors Association: Mike Votta, presidentelect
Society for Music Theory: Dora Hanninen, president
Drawn by UMD’s vibrant arts and humanities community, academic strength in creative writing and location near Washington, D.C., the Association for Writers and Writing Programs will move to the university’s Discovery District.
Linda Aldoory, professor of communication, is an expert in health communication and underserved health populations. She will be the college’s new associate dean for research and programming.
The Roshan Institute for Persian Studies is partnering with Kent State University, the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Minnesota to digitize the national archives of Afghanistan. The National Orchestral Institute + Festival, which brings together aspiring orchestral musicians from across the country, launched a partnership with Wolf Trap Opera to provide joint performance and learning opportunities for students.
SCHOLARSHIP Shawn Parry-Giles, professor of communication, has been researching Hillary Clinton’s speeches and memoirs to understand public perceptions of Clinton during the recent U.S. presidential election. Hosted by the National Library of Medicine and curated by Associate Professor of American Studies Psyche Williams-Forson, “Fire & Freedom: Food & Enslavement in Early America” examined how colonial Europeans in the Chesapeake region relied on indentured servants, Native Americans and African slave labor for life-saving knowledge of food and farming. Professor of Philosophy Samuel Kerstein delved into everything from medical literature to behavioral economics to explore ethical issues surrounding kidney transplantation, including racial disparities among organ recipients and the possibility of paying donors.
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Lee Konstantinou, assistant professor of English, has written about popular culture as both a fiction writer and a scholar. His current project, “The Cartoon Art: Comics in the Age of Mass High Culture,” examines how comics are becoming a more respectable subject of study. Funded by a $300,000 grant from the New Zealand government, Professor of Second Language Acquisition Robert DeKeyser is collaborating with colleagues at the University of Auckland on how to learn a second language unconsciously. Xiaoli Nan, associate professor of communication, is researching how to use real-time data on traffic, public transit and the weather to encourage people to make more efficient and empowering choices that reduce energy use and meet their transportation needs.
