Faculty & Staff Awards and Accomplishments

Faculty Accomplishments

• Fall 2025

  Katarina Anderson, assistant professor of teacher education, and Ryan Cain, chair and professor of the Department of Teacher Education, published “Thrown into the Deep End: K-12 Teachers’ Educational Technology Usage in Utah During the Pandemic” in the Journal of the International Society for Teacher Education.

  Sophie Archibald, assistant professor of social work, was the keynote speaker at the Relational Perspective in Psychotherapy of Human Systems from Individual to Society in Croatia.

  Mark Bigler, professor of social work, and Dan Scholz, instructor of social work, sponsored an education exchange in New York City with five social work colleagues from Zurich, Switzerland. The group met with New York State Senator Julia Salazar, visited three advocacy programs throughout the city, toured a neighborhood in Queens that is the focus of unique social service activities, and met with providers at the Chelsea Sexual Health Clinic in Manhattan and the Callen-Lorde Community Health Clinic in Brooklyn.

  Robert Fudge, professor of philosophy, presented "Dignity and Disability" at Western Michigan University's national Medical Humanities Conference.

  Anna Gabur, assistant professor of sociology, presented “From Schema to Shared Culture through Commensuration" at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting.

  Mariangelica Groves, assistant professor of geography, published Extreme Weather and Climate Change, A Reference Handbook (Bloomsbury).

  Jordyn Leslie, assistant professor of psychology, co-authored “The Benefits of Nature Contact at Work and Home on Well-Being: A Path to Healthier and More Satisfied Employees” in Ecopsychology. Leslie co-authored “Green from the ground up: An expanded call for research on nature contact to achieve environmental sustainability” in Industrial-Organizational Perspectives. Leslie presented “Drawing the Line: Leader and Employee Dynamics Across the Work-Nonwork Interface; A Qualitative Study of Leaders’ Decisions to Provide (or Withhold) Nonwork Support” at the annual conference for Academy of Management in Copenhagen, Denmark. Leslie presented “The leader’s perspective: A qualitative investigation of workplace experiences in providing support” and “A two-process computational model of sleep-wake regulation for employee and workplace contexts” at the Work, Stress, and Health Conference, Seattle, WA. Leslie presented “Nature Contact at Work and Home, Nature Relatedness, and Employee Personal and Job-Related Well-Being” at the Inaugural Nature and Health Conference, Houston, TX. Leslie co-hosted “Nature’s advantage: nature contact across work and home domains and employee well-being” in Sinclair, R. R. (Chair), Research Incubator: How does nature exposure impact the worker experience?” at the Annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, Denver, CO. Leslie co-authored “Sleeping To Support? The Interactive Effects of Leader Sleep Quantity and Quality on Leader-and Employee-Reported Support Behaviors” in Occupational Health Science.

  Jordyn Leslie, assistant professor or psychology, and Xin Zhao, assistant professor of psychology, co-hosted workshop “Want to Do Research? Come to the Lab Meeting!: An Open Discussion About Effectively Running Undergraduate Research Lab Meeting” at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association, Denver, CO.

  Susan Matt, professor of history, published Emotions in the US during the Long Nineteenth Century, Volume I: 1800–1865 (Routledge). Matt delivered keynote address "Self-Reliance and Loneliness in the Age of AI" at the Society for the History of Emotions Conference at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico.

  Aminda O’Hare, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience program director, was elected to the Board of Directors for the Society for Psychophysiological Research with her term starting at the society's annual meeting in Montreal, Canada, Oct. 2025.

  Carrie Ota, professor of child & family studies, co-authored “Sustained Attention in Three-Year-Old Children: The Impact of Teaching Conditions and Choice” in the Early Childhood Education Journal.

  Richard Price, professor of political science, published "Centering Schools in LGBTQ Politics" in Teaching LGBTQ Politics. Price published "Graphic Storytelling, Book Challengers, and Obscenity" in Out of the Gutters: Obscenity, Censorship, and Transgression in American Comics. Price published “The Straight College Strikes Back: 1990s Backlash Against Inclusive Campuses” in Politics, Groups, and Identities.

  Nathan Rives, assistant professor of history, presented "The State of Teaching College and High School History in Utah" at the H-Net Teaching Conference.

  Matthew Romaniello, professor and chair of the Department of History, published "Follow the Armenians: British Plans for the Caspian in the Eighteenth Century," in The Caspian World: Connections and Contentions at a Modern Eurasian Crossroads. Romaniello published Europe's Laboratory: Climate and Health in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cornell University Press).

  Emily Rupp, CSSE marketing & outreach manager, received a Master of Professional Communication from Weber State University.

  Melinda Russell-Stamp, associate professor of psychology, co-authored “Avatars vs. actors: Comparison shows difference in role-play simulations for Psychology students” in the International Journal Scholarship of Teaching & Learning.

  Leigh Shaw, professor of psychology, co-authored a former student's senior thesis research with colleague, “A comparison of turning-point memories among US and UK emerging adults: Adversity, redemption, and unresolved trauma” in Behavioral Sciences. Shaw presented “Gender and personality affect the development of wise-reasoning: A mixed methods longitudinal study in mid-adolescence” at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Minneapolis, MN.

  Story Sutton, child & family studies advisor, and Denise Wright, teacher education advisor, presented "The Foundational Nature of Trust Relationships in Academic Advising" at NACADA Region 10 Conference.

  Molly Sween, professor and chair of the Department of Criminal Justice, chaired planning committee for the fourth annual Human Trafficking & Exploitation Symposium.

  Stephanie Wolfe, professor of political science, co-authored “Survivor Agency in the Post-Genocide Memorialisation Process in Rwanda” in the Journal of Genocide Research. Wofle co-authored “Lessons from the Field: Experts Weigh in on Years of Conducting Fieldwork in Post-Atrocity Zones” in the Journal of Genocide Research. Wolfe presented “Evolving Narratives of Genocide Memorialization and Memory” at the Narrative Matters 2025 Conference held at the American University of Paris. Wolfe co-authored “How to conduct post-atrocity research -- key insights from practitioners in the field” in The Conversation. Wolfe was elected President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Wolfe presented “Memorialization and Symbolic Reparations: Post-Genocide Memory and Justice in Rwanda”, hosted workshop “Navigating Motherhood and Fieldwork in Post-Conflict and Post-Genocide Contexts” and participated in panel discussion “Conducting Fieldwork in Post-Atrocity Zones” at the International Association of Genocide Scholars, South Africa.

• Spring 2025

  Assistant professor of history James Almeida signed an advance contract to publish his first book Minting Slavery, Coining Race: Human Difference, Discipline, and Labor in Colonial Potosí with the University of Alabama Press. Almeida was invited to present “(Re)Production without Women: An Attempt at Social Control in 17th Century Potosí” at Yale University’s Latin American History Speaker Series.

  Kerri Clement, assistant professor of history, published "Contagion and Control: Rethinking Animal Diseases and Their Roles in American History and Space" in Modern American History.

  Professor of philosophy Bob Fudge presented "The Dignified Sublime," which is from a book-length manuscript he is preparing entitled "Dignity and Degradation" at the North Carolina Philosophical Society meeting.

  Jean Kapenda, instructor of criminal justice, presented a multi-part lecture series “Rumba on the Congo River” for the 2025 CSBS Black History Month Lecture.

  Assistant professor of psychology Jordyn Leslie received a $21,000 grant for “Access to and Support for Nature at Work: A Multi-Study Scale Development and Validation Project” from the Center for Health & Nature. Leslie published “Branching Out: The Nonwork Nature and Employee Outcomes (NEO) Model” in Occupational Health Science.

  Paul Neiman, associate professor of philosophy, published “Nurses on the Outside, Problems on the Inside! The Duty of Nurses to Support Unions” in Nursing Ethics.

  Assistant professor of history Nathan Rives presented "The State of Teaching College and High School American History Courses in Utah" at the Organization of American Historians annual conference.

  Matthew Romaniello, professor of history, published “‘An Epidemic disease of a very singular nature’: Evolving Knowledge of the Mumps in the Eighteenth Century” in Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science.

  Graduate director and associate professor of social work Corina Segovia-Tadehara and assistant professor of social work Lizbeth Velazquez published, with Andrea Martinez, assistant professor of teacher education, the book chapter "Authentic Cariño with Latinx preK-12 learners: An approach to transformative social and emotional learning" in Moving from Trendy to Transformative Social-Emotional Learning.

  Professor of history Eric Swedin published "Latter-day Saint Reactions to Epidemics in Utah" in Utah Historical Quarterly.

  Molly Sween, department chair and professor of criminal justice, wasnominated by Major General Eder to attend the U.S. Army’s 2025 National Security Seminar in June 2025.

  Professor of political science Stephanie Wolfe received the Citizen Diplomacy Award at Citizen Diplomacy Day on the Hill for her outstanding contributions to international goodwill and building bridges between Utah and the world. Wolfe presented “Memorializing Trauma: The Development of Genocide Memorials in Rwanda (1994-2004)” at the MSA Museums and Memory Working Group Conference. Wolfe was invited with political science student Macy McCormack by survivors of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi to attend the 31st Commemoration at the United Nations Headquarters. While there, they conducted an in-depth interview with Deputy Permanent Representative Kayinamura about his role in advancing changes to the official UN resolution language concerning the genocide commemoration.

  Xin Zhao, assistant professor of psychology, was elected as the Diversity Chair for the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association.