JCU Announces 2022-2023 Faculty Development Awards
John Cabot University’s Dean of Academic Affairs Stefano Arnone is pleased to announce the JCU Faculty Development Funds (FDC) awarded for the academic year 2022-2023. “Investing in faculty development is crucial to the success of an academic institution. There is a symbiotic relationship between research and teaching, and at JCU, we are proud to see our faculty enrich students’ learning experience with their cutting-edge findings.” said Dean Arnone.
The following professors have received FDC awards for research and professional projects during the 2022-2023 academic year (in alphabetical order):
Patrizio Angelini – Mathematics, Natural and Applied Sciences
Professor Angelini participated in two international conferences in 2022: he co-chaired the 30th International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (September 12-16) and the workshop “Constrained Graph Layouts: Methods, Models, and Applications – Planarity always strikes back,” part of the 54th Symposium on Theory of Computing (June 20-24, 2022).He also attended the second edition of the invitation-only Summer Workshop on Graph Drawing (September 1-6, 2022) and the 16th Bertinoro Workshop on Graph Drawing in Bertinoro, Italy (March 6-10, 2023).
Catherine Biocca – Art and Design
Professor Biocca received support for two new projects at her solo exhibition at the art gallery Longtermhandstand in Budapest. One project uses a late-Renaissance technique called “succo d’erba,” while the other is a series of works called Bedsides, which uses cut-out Di-Bond prints and handmade face masks.
Christin Campbell – English Language and Literature
Professor Campbell attended the 2023 AMICAL conference. The conference “brings together staff and faculty from the consortium’s 30 international liberal arts institutions” to discuss innovative ways of “improving libraries, technologies and pedagogy.”
Federica Capoferri – Modern Languages and Literature
Professor Capoferri presented a paper on Edoardo Albinati’s novel La scuola cattolica (2016) at the International Association of Italian Professors (AIPI) conference in October 2022.
Berenice Cocciolillo – Modern Languages and Literature
Professor Cocciolillo attended the virtual sessions of the Giornate della traduzione letteraria, Italy’s leading conference on literary translation. She also attended several workshops of the American Literary Translation Association’s virtual conference, which took place from April to November 2022.
Fabrizio Conti –History and Humanities
Professor Conti presented a paper titled “Shaping Identity, Forging Belonging in Late Medieval Europe: Jews and Christians in Franciscan Thought” at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds (UK) on July 5, 2022, and the paper “Molding and Contesting Religious Beliefs in Late Antique Rome” at the Conference of the International Society for Cultural History, held at the University of Verona (August 2-5, 2022). He delivered two research talks at Zayed University (UAE) in August 2022and presented his most recent book chapter at UCLA – Center for Early Global Studies, Los Angeles (USA) in November 2022.
Donatella Della Ratta – Communication and Media Studies
Professor Della Ratta received support for conducting an ethnographic study at the unit of sexual and reproductive health and research of the Niguarda Hospital in Milan. This study will lead to a scientific publication. She also presented a paper on the application of cultural studies to the study of media at the Sociology, Culture, and Communication conference in Bari, Italy, on June 22-23, 2023.
Carlos Dews – English Language and Literature
Professor Dews will deliver a special lecture at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Literature Society of Japan in Sapporo, Japan, in October 2023.
Eleonora Diamanti – Communication and Media Studies
In October 2022, Professor Diamanti organized and chaired the panel “Nocturnal Ethnographies,” as part of the International Night Studies Conference at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa. The panel also served as the pre-launch of a journal issue she edited, titled “Nocturnal Ethnographies: Aesthetics and Imaginaries of the Night.” The paper was published in the peer-reviewed journal Ethnologies in June 2023.
Michael Driessen – Political Science and International Affairs
Professor Driessen was invited to serve as a discussant for two panels at the 2022 American Political Science Association (APSA) meeting in Montreal. Here, he was voted by fellow political scientists to serve on the Executive Committee of the APSA subsection on “Politics and Religion.” He also organized a workshop at the annual European Academy of Religion on “Interreligious Engagement as Global Politics” in June 2022.
Moira Egan – English Language and Literature
Professor Egan attended the 2023 annual AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, an important gathering of creative writers and teachers of creative writing.
Rosa Filardi – Modern Languages and Literature
Professor Filardi presented a poster at the 2023 International Authentic Movement conference, describing two projects proposed within JCU: The dancing body and the course: Community Inclusion through Art and Movement.
Anna Fiorentino – Business Administration
In August 2022, Professor Fiorentino attended the International Conference on Psychology, Language, and Teaching, one of the leading international conferences presenting novel and fundamental advances in its fields.
James Gardner – Art and Design
Professor Gardner received support for developing a series of artworks as part of his research on the possibilities of innovative print techniques on ceramics. He was also an invited panelist in Impact, the leading international conference of printmakers and print scholars, on September 24, 2022, where he co-chaired with JCU’s Professor Sarah Linford the panel “Rome and contemporary printmaking.” In collaboration with Hiram College, his department developed a collaborative exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of JCU. He also attended the conference On Not Knowing: How Artists Teach in Glasgow (June 9-10, 2023).
Tara Keenan – English Language and Literature
Professor Keenan attended the 2023 AMICAL conference.
Merel Keijsers – Psychological and Social Sciences
Professor Keijser was the poster chair of the 2023 Human-Robot Interaction (HAI) conference held from December 5 to 8, 2022. Directly after the conference, a week-long book sprint took place for the authors to write a second edition of the book Human-Robot Interaction: An Introduction. Professor Keijser also received support to run an online study on the platform MTurk, where people from all over the world can earn a few dollars by completing tasks. The experiment applies social identity theory to social robotics.
Jens Koehler – Art History
Professor Koehler attended the conference Bathing Culture in Budapest from September 8 to 15, 2022, where he presented his paper “On the Roof. The Upper Floor of Roman Baths” and was chairperson of the sessions “Budapest” and “Rome and Italy.”
David Levy – History and Humanities
Professor Levy presented a paper on the problem of commerce in Plato’s Laws at the 2023 Annual Conference of the Association of Core Texts and Courses, from March 30 to April 2, 2023, in Dallas, Texas.
Sarah Linford – Art History
Professor Linford proposed a panel on Rome and contemporary print practices at Impact, the leading international conference for printmakers and print scholars. She also received support for organizing a symposium on practice-based artistic research across the Mediterranean, including Palestinian, Lebanese, and Tunisian academics. In April 2023, she presented a paper at the International Symposium on Noucentisme organized by the Department of Italian Studies at NYU.
Antonio Lopez – Communication and Media Studies
Professor Lopez was an invited discussant and presenter at the Global Media Education Summit 2023 in Vancouver, Canada (March 2-4).
Barbara Magnanelli – Business Administration
Professor Magnanelli presented one of her papers on female leadership during the pandemic outbreak at the 5th Global Conference on Women’s Studies from July 28 to 30, 2023, in Dublin.
Riccardo Maiolini – Business Administration
Professor Maiolini presented a paper at the 2022 R&D Management conference in Trento (July 9-13).
Nicola Petrocchi – Psychological and Social Sciences
Professor Petrocchi participated in a residential clinical 7-Day professional training on Attachment-Focused EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a therapeutic method for healing trauma-based problems. She also participated in the 2022 EMDR Europe Workshop Conference, held in Valencia, Spain, from June 10 to 12 ,2022.
Bogdan Popescu– Political Science and International Affairs
Professor Popescu participated in the 2023 Council for European Studies (CES) meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he presented his paper “God Save the King/Queen’s English: The Economic Origins of Class, Language, and Politics in Britain.”
Paolo Prato – Modern Languages and Literature
In February 2023, Professor Prato presented a paper titled “Italian Song Abroad: Re-locating National Identity” at the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) 100th Annual Conference.
Shannon Russell – English Language and Literature
Professor Russell is currently writing a book on Charles Dickens and Frederick Douglass. One of the chapters in her book deals with the influence of JMW Turner’s painting The Slave Shipon Dickens’ writing. In Fall 2022, Professor Russell received support for visiting the painting in person.
Eszter Salgo– Political Science and International Affairs
Professor Salgo presented a paper titled “Sacralization of Time and Space: Examples from Hungarian Politics” at the international conference Spatiality and Temporality, organized by the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on February 11-12, 2023.
She also participated in the international conference “Considering Violence,” organized by the Shirley and Leslie Porter School of Cultural Studies, at Tel Aviv University, on June 18-19, 2023.
Carola Salvi – Psychological and Social Sciences
Professor Salvi presented her latest research and book at two conferences: the annual meeting of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity (SfNC) on March 24, 2023, and the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) on March 25-28, 2023. She also received support for conducting two studies – one validating a scale to measure socio-cognitive polarization and cognitive rigidity and the other on how altruism could motivate creative problem-solving.
Silvia Scarpa – Political Science and International Affairs
Together with JCU student Eleonora Cammarano, Professor Scarpa presented a paper at the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA) Conference on Challenging Borders Between Domestic and International Human Rights, held at Albion College (Albion, Michigan, US) between April 30 and May 2, 2023.
Rina Sondhi – English Language and Literature
Professor Sondhi will present her paper “Empirical, Innovation and Attitude in Developing Composition Writing” at the Innovation in Language Learning International Conference on November 9-10, 2023.
Nicholas Startin – Political Science and International Affairs
Professor Startin attended the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) Annual Conference in Lille. He participated in a panel that included international practitioners on France and Europe concerning the 2022 French Elections. Professor Startin has an article forthcoming on Marine Le Pen in a special issue he is co-editing in the journal Modern and Contemporary France.
Erika Tasini – Communication and Media Studies
Professor Tasini received support to attend the 2022 editions of the Venice Film Festival and DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary festival. On both occasions, she presented her documentary project Donnacirco, currently in production, to distributors and festival programmers.
Simone Tholens – Political Science and International Affairs
Professor Tholens received support for her research project on the making of security strategies as sites of (b)ordering. In February 2023, she interviewed Lebanese cyber security strategy stakeholders for a chapter she authored in a book on bordering practices in Lebanon. She was also a workshop convenor at the European Workshops in International Studies (EWIS), organized by the European International Studies Association (EISA) at the University of Amsterdam on July 12-14, 2023.
Brian Thomson – Communication and Media Studies
Professor Thomson attended panels related to Digital Media studies and practices at the 2023 AMICAL conference.
