Faculty Research Interests

My research focuses on the diverse interface between plants and insects. Plant-insect interactions are incredibly diverse and can largely be divided into interactions where plants co-opt insects as pollen vectors (for plant reproduction) and interactions where insects utilize plants as food sources and brood sites. Frequently these two sets of interactions are interrelated. I find it important to consider (1) insect perception of plant cues such as scent, color, shape, and texture, and (2) the multiple contexts in which plant cues, especially scent, may be used by the insect community.

Specifically, I am interested in ecological (multi-trophic) interactions related to floral and vegetative scents and how plant-to-insect olfactory signals function in concert with visual and/or tactile plant cues.

• Children's Mental Health
• Inter-professional Education
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Sensory Information
• Teaching in the Digital Age
• Trauma-Informed Practice

My research interests include (1) urban ecology in southeastern PA, spanning urban herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians), urban invertebrates (principally nocturnal Lepidoptera and aquatic macroinvertebrates), and urban invasive plants; (2) biodiversity of Honduran Lepidoptera (new project involving field and archival work in collaboration with Zamorano University at the Uyuca cloud forest preserve in Honduras); (3a) pedagogy of academic service learning (locally in Chester, PA, and internationally in Honduras) to enhance student learning, civic engagement, and engagement in global human sustainability; (3b) pedagogy of undergraduate ecological education using practitioner research.

My scholarly projects have tended to explore three occasionally overlapping areas: 1) southern fiction and postmodernism, which extends work done for my dissertation, but with a sharper focus on humor (and a less dogmatic application of postmodern theory); 2) the intersection of rock music and literature/literary theory; and perhaps most significantly, 3) the art (and aesthetic philosophies) of Flannery O'Connor, which I have striven to approach from what might be called 'undoctrinaire' perspectives.

I have published several articles on O'Connor, as well as other authors, including Don DeLillo, James Dickey, William Faulkner, Barry Hannah, and Walker Percy. I've also published on Bruce Springsteen, and I am co-editing a collection of essays on explorations of evil in rock music.

My research is focused on understanding the structure and content of mental representations. In one line of research, I examine the influence of individual and motivational differences on cognitive processing by studying how different individual-difference variables, such as self-construal and regulatory focus, interact with task environments. For example, a set of studies demonstrated how induced or chronic negative stereotypes interact with the task reward structure (e.g., gaining points) to produce performance decrements consistent with stereotype threat. My recent work is focused on how goal orientations influence language learning, including learning computer programming languages.

My research focuses primarily on all things poetry and poetics. My book, Adelante, is a collection of poetry that examines the relationships between place and loss, juxtaposing the death of my Cuban father with the suffering and resilience of the natural world. I am also interested in global poetic forms and ekphrastic modes. Other creative pursuits include creative nonfiction and place-based writing. My critical interests include immigrant, Latinx, and Caribbean literatures, and I have presented scholarship on writers such as Eduardo C. Corral and Derek Walcott. Whether crafting original poetry or critically engaging literature by others, I am interested in how images conceal and reveal ideas.  

My research interest is in the area of radiation vasculopathy. We recently completed our retrospective research study on head and neck cancer patients who received radiation therapy to the head and neck. After analyzing our medical records, the majority of patients were at high risk of cardiovascular events. More information on this work: "Carotid Intima-Media Thickness Measurement Promises to Improve Cardiovascular Risk Evaluation in Head and Neck Cancer Patients." Our future plan in this field to explore biomarkers of atherosclerosis in setting of radiation therapy among head and neck cancer patients.

My research interests are critical care nursing, including novice nurses in critical settings, and death and dying in the intensive or critical care units.

• High Resolution Imaging Radar for Self-Driving Car
• RF Sensing for Assisted Living and Remote Patient Monitoring
• American Sign Language (ASL) Recognition
• Statistical Signal and Array Processing
• Cognitive Radar
• Adaptive Beamforming
• Massive MIMO and Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRSs) for 6G and Beyond
• Sparse Arrays • Sparse Sampling
• Target Localization and Tracking
• Convex Optimization
• Machine learning

My research agenda explores Black girls and women in P-20 educational and social contexts, college student development and success, and critical qualitative methods.

As a critical qualitative researcher, I am interested in using critical theory and intersectional scholarship to examine inequities and interlocking systems of oppression. My dissertation study, “I’m Not Your Mammy: Unearthing the Racially Gendered Experiences of Undergraduate Black Women Resident Assistants at Predominantly White Institutions.” was awarded the Rita Wolotkiewicz Prize in 2019 for its contribution to advancing scholarship on equity issues in education.

My most recent work was highlighted in the Journal of Postsecondary Student Success, Urban Education Policy Annuals, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, and The HBCU Times.

• Systematic racism and how its maintained in societies 
• Clinic practice in understanding the trauma experienced by Blacks across the lifespan 
• Affinity circles (practice in creating safe space for race specific work)

I am actively researching Credit Risk Transfer products that are issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs). The products are designed to transfer default risk off the GSEs balance sheet protecting these entities from financial failure. The research focuses on the liquidity and returns of these products. I plan to expand the research to include the marketability of these products through high-interest rate time periods.

• Preventative medicine
• Sports injuries
• Orthopedics

My research agenda focuses on ‘The Business of Healthcare’ and encompasses several key content areas:

1. Expenditures, financial and economic impacts 
2. Health policy and public administration (including ethics)
3. Pedagogy and teaching.

These concepts provide full breadth and depth of the healthcare administration, business administration and public administration (specifically health policy) industries, with common elements of each captured in my research. Supporting research on these topics will include the analysis of management functions such as planning, decision making, organizational design and resource management as well as the exploration of influences on these content areas.

• 20th and 21st Century American Poetry and Poetics
• Multiethnic American Literature
• Jewish Studies
• Ecopoetry

My technical expertise is in the application of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) in concrete structures and precast sandwich panels. I'm an expert with nonlinear finite element analysis methods for ductile and brittle materials utilizing such software as ABAQUS. Past and current research is in the fields of static, creep and dynamic (blast) analyses of concrete structures.

My research interests include urban space and urban populations with a particular focus on the human/environment relationship, urban planning and social geography, and transnational exchange and adaption of ideas about nature and cities. 

I am working on two research projects: One examines the assignation of meaning to and responsibility for public space through an examination of a particular park location that became a suicide destination in fin de sicle Paris. The other work considers Franco-British greenspace design and exchange from 1660–1880.

My research interests include working to help universities drive curriculum development to align curricula with current technology trends in industry, such as software development and other "in-demand" technology fields.

My expertise is in Chemical Education Research (CER), where my interest has been in how student's self-efficacy (belief in their ability to do chemistry) changes as they progress through chemistry courses. I am also interested in understanding how we can better support student learning by leveraging the way in which we design our chemistry courses to improve student outcomes.

I am interested in the research and development of bearing systems, seals, and dampers that will lead to energy efficiency and other improvements of turbomachinery. I am especially interested in compliant foil bearings and the applications where they can provide a major technological leap, such as oil-free propulsion, small turbomachinery, and ultra-high-speed micro-turbines for distributed power generation systems. 

Another related area of interest is the development of innovative rotor supports for high-speed kinetic energy storage devices (flywheels).