Faculty Research Interests

My research interests focus on catalysis and kinetics, chemical process development, and mathematical modeling.

My research interests include: men in nursing; diversity in the nursing profession; interprofessional education; and collaboration

• Childhood trauma
• Childhood psychopathology
• Neurobiology of trauma and toxic stress 
• Behavioral biomarkers of toxic stress and trauma 
• Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) antibody/antigen extraction 
• Measuring stress hormones: cortisol, oxytocin, alpha amylase etc.
• Nervous system dysregulation
• Allostatic Load
• Intergeneration/Transgenerational Trauma
• Compassion, relational therapy, and Self Care
• Developmental disorders 

My research interests are culturally centered educational pedagogy, therapeutic methodological frameworks, healing, counseling agency-based practice, and emancipation-oriented paradigms for African Americans and other disempowered populations.

An active and ongoing research agenda perpetuates knowledge that is meaningful to society and memorable to students in the classroom. My research focuses on communication pedagogy, ethical journalistic reporting in cases of suicide, emotional intelligence, gendered communication, and interactive interdisciplinary research. The topics of research are connected by interpersonal communication theories and application.

• Well-being
• Goals, goals selection, and effective goal pursuit
• Antecedents and consequences of motivation
• Arrogance
• Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction
• Psychological Health and functioning
• Self-Determination Theory
• Research methodology 

I examine muscle function during locomotion and feeding. Employing fish as model species, my students and I use integrated research approaches, from whole animal performance to tissue function to gene expression. Currently, my lab is focused on how a small, coastal fish, the rainbow smelt, is able to swim and feed during the extreme cold of the North Atlantic winter.

Broadly, my research focuses on how media and technology affect interpersonal and romantic relationships. I study how computer-mediated communication affects interpersonal processes such as person perception and relationship development. I particularly focus on how ambiguity in text-based interactions disrupts intimacy and how individuals attempt to reduce that ambiguity. Many of my online and laboratory projects address how emoji use in text conversations affects impression formation and perceived partner responsiveness. I also study how being ghosted on online dating apps affects future perceptions and pursuit of potential partners.

• Trauma
• Racial Stress
• Racial Identity
• Ancestral Healing 
• LGBTQ Joy/Liberation

My overarching research agenda is to explore and understand the professional identity development of social work students, how values and personal attributes contribute to that development, and then how courses can be structured to enhance and continue to support the developmental process. My research goal is to examine the process of identity development to provide insight to the process, thereby enabling the development of course content that will further strengthen the students' professional development.

• Investor Protection and Equal Economic Opportunity
• Social Justice and Criminal Legal System Reform
• Trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) as perpetuated by unequal legal systems

My research interests involve designing teaching materials that enhance conceptual understanding and problem solving. This includes use of technology and multimedia to facilitate understanding of the submicroscopic world.

My research focuses on application of machine learning to digital privacy and security. My dissertation was on applying stylometry - the study of style - to identifying the authors of collaborative documents and programs. I am interested in continuing research in applications of stylometry, but also in expanding to other applications of machine learning.

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.

My doctoral scholarship work explored the ethicality of International Service-Learning (ISL) as a teaching model. My interest lies in Global Health and disability issues in low- and middle-income countries.

• 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.