Faculty Research Interests

My clinical and research interests include minority identity development, microaggressions, intersectionality, grief, trauma, couples therapy, human sexuality, community psychology, and more recently, the impact that social media has on both self-image/worth/esteem and the development and maintenance of intra- and interpersonal relationships. I look forward to partnering with students and faculty across disciplines around research that speaks to the lived experiences of Black people within those interest areas.

• Global Health
• Global Health Ethics
• Rehabilitation and Disability

• Fear of Failure in Learning
• Course-based undergraduate Research experiences (CUREs) and their impact on students' attitudes toward learning

• Intergenerational Identify Formation
• Social-emotional-ethical learning in school settings
• Child psychopathology in family and school settings

My research interests include online and hybrid education, developmental mathematics, and innovative approaches to teaching and learning.

My scholarly interests are closely tied to my work and experiences as a pediatric physical therapist and an academician. Those pursuits have led to collaborations with others who are teaching pediatric content in physical therapy programs where we have explored questions related to critical thinking, curriculum, and knowledge translation. My other primary research collaboration is within the Institute for Physical Therapy Education at Widener, where we are studying a variety of elements related to civic engagement, service learning, and leadership connected to our curriculum and our student-led pro bono physical therapy clinic.

Soft materials, such as granular media, colloids, emulsions, and foams, are the materials with both solid-like and liquid-like properties. They are very common in medical and industrial applications. For example, sand, blood flow, collective cells, cosmetics, petroleum, and soft robotics like an artery stent are made of soft materials.

In these systems, understanding and controlling their dynamic and structural properties, as well as their long-term evolution and stability, are of fundamental importance. My research interest is studying the properties of soft materials utilizing microfluidic techniques, microscopy and image analysis.

My research agenda has three major prongs:

1. Best Practices in the Training of Sexologists—This research seeks to identify and investigate evidence-based practice in the training of sexologists and the ways that practice is applied in the field.
2. Intercultural Issues in Sexuality Education & Training—A subset of the above, this research explores how complex understandings of culture inform the delivery of sexuality education across a wide spectrum of audiences, situations, and content.
3.  Identity Intersections in Sexology—This research thread explores the ways in which individual identity markers affect the delivery of sexuality education and sex therapy for both the educator/therapist and the recipient of those services.

My research primarily focuses on organized labor in America. This work has explored the history and function of AFL-CIO central labor councils. This historical work ultimately led to research on contemporary labor councils and a co-edited book that has become the authoritative text on the subject. It also resulted in a Political Power and Social Theory article on the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the American Labor Party, and Third Party Politics in the United States.

It also resulted in an article on the Milwaukee County Labor Council, which is one of the 50 most-cited articles in the Labor Studies Journal. My most recent work explores innovative organizing strategies being employed by the Service Employees International Unions (SEIU).

• Neurocognitive function in substance use disorders
• Healthcare service utilization in this population

• Observational astronomy
• Stars and Stellar Physics
• Exoplanets and Planetary Habitability
• Life in the Universe

My research focuses on advancing additive manufacturing of high-performance polymers, with a particular emphasis on understanding and controlling the relationships between processing conditions, microstructure, and mechanical performance. A central theme of my work is bridging microscale characterization with macroscale behavior to enable more reliable and application-ready 3D printed components.

A significant portion of my research explores materials such as PEEK and fiber-reinforced polymers, where challenges such as porosity, interlayer adhesion, and thermal management directly impact structural integrity. By leveraging advanced characterization techniques—including atomic force microscopy (AFM)—alongside mechanical testing, my work aims to establish clear process–structure–property relationships.

In collaboration with industry partners, this research is applied to real-world engineering problems in sectors such as oil and gas, biomedical devices, and advanced manufacturing. The goal is not only to improve material performance, but also to develop practical guidelines that enable broader adoption of additive manufacturing in critical applications.

My research interests focus in the area of orthopedics, manual therapy, and clinical education.

My research activities focus on the design and fabrication of mechanical systems, including robotics, mechanisms, machine/human interaction, and rehabilitation machines.

• Service learning 
• Community engagement
• Medical science
• Global health

My research interests include implicit memory and memory improvement strategies.

I am involved in pedagogical research related to advanced-level undergraduate computer science courses, focusing on simulations and active learning strategies. I routinely attend conferences on computer science education and their affiliated workshops. 

My earlier research was in the area of programming language theory. It involved crafting formal specifications of program transformations and optimizations as well as the mathematical proofs verifying the safety and correctness of those specifications.  
 

My research focuses on the phylogenetic and functional diversity of microbial communities across gradient-driven ecosystems, from soils to estuaries to the deep sea. In these environments, microbes drive major biogeochemical cycles. Yet our understanding of how microbes transform carbon and nutrient compounds, the taxa involved in these reactions, and the impact microbes have on ecosystem function remains poorly constrained. Using both field and laboratory experiments coupled with next-generation sequencing, my research examines the functional adaptations and shifts in population structure of microbial communities across physical, chemical, and biological gradients. By determining how and why microbial community structure, genomic potential, and gene expression change across environmental gradients, we can better predict how ecosystems and their resident communities will respond to environmental change. 

My current projects include assessment of microbial diversity in grassland soils of Northeastern PA as well as studying the microbial populations associated with Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in Lake Erie.

My research centers on psychology and the law. In particular, I am interested in jury decision-making, forensic assessments, and experiences of correctional personnel (primarily mental health professionals). I currently have many ongoing research projects in various stages of development. 

My research interests are focused on the development and application of state-of-the-art thermal-fluid simulation tools for complex configurations and mission-critical facilities. My current interest is in the area of the fluid-structure interactions in micro-scaled air and underwater vehicles.