Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Theater & Africana Studies Justin Emeka's latest film, Songs of Black Folk has been praised as an Oscar contender and is premiering on PBS’s POV on November 25, Songs of Black Folk is a poetic exploration of Juneteenth’s living spirit. Filmed in the Pacific Northwest, it captures a powerful gathering of Black musicians whose voices summon history, testify to resilience, and reveal how music becomes both refuge and revolution.

Associate Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies KJ Cerankowski's book Nothing Wanting: Asexuality and the Matter of Absence was published by University of Minnesota Press. He gave a talk and reading from the book at Miami University in Oxford, OH on November 5.

Director of Intercultural Engagement for International Student and Scholar Services Sam Yang presented at the 2025 Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) annual conference. His research on Chinese international students’ perceptions of non-academic misconduct and institutional belonging in U.S. higher education highlights implications for culturally responsive policy and equity-focused international student support across campus residential life and student affairs.

Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing Tom Hopkins was a finalist for the 2024 New American Fiction Prize, for his manuscript The Obligations of the Morning. Previously, the manuscript was a longlist honoree for the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction. An earlier draft was selected as a finalist for the Noemi Press Prose Award.

Francis D. Federighi Professor of Physics and Astronomy Yumi Ijiri gave an invited seminar November 18 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Neutron Research. Her talk was entitled "Polarized SANS experiments on ordered magnetic ferrite nanoparticle assemblies."

Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies Cindy Frantz, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology John Petersen, and recent student Julia Blotner ’22, had their paper, "How do we measure and increase systems thinking? Comparing self-reported and performative metrics in response to building causal loop models," published in the journal Systems Research and Behavioral Science.  

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers' poem "Arkansabop" was featured on The Slowdown, a poetry podcast produced in collaboration with American Public Media, the Poetry Foundation, and the Library of Congress.

Professor of Statistics Jeff Witmer was interviewed by the American Statistical Association (Amstat News, October 2025) and by the editor of Significance magazine (November 2025).

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder tabled with her newest book, 40 Ways to Know a Star (Princeton Architectural Press), at the Books by the Banks festival in Cincinnati on November 15. She gave a guest lecture for the Cincinnati Astronomical Society to an audience of enthusiastic amateur astronomers later that evening.