Recent Faculty Scholarship

Goucher faculty are advancing their fields through academic research, creative expression, and collaboration with colleagues and peers. Here’s a look at what they’ve been up to—and how they’re being recognized and awarded for it.

Natural and Built Environments

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Rebekah Gray co-authored an article in the journal Environmental Research on organic contaminants in snowfall. The researchers analyzed samples of snowfall collected from the central United States over three years and found herbicides, insect repellants, and more. The article says it is “the first comprehensive characterization of organic contaminants in snow from North America.”

Data Science Associate Professor Tom Narock authored an article in Environmental Data Science about using datasets of building infrastructure for disaster preparedness. Narock and his co-authors show how open-source datasets can train machine learning models to predict the occupancy type of buildings (e.g., residential, commercial), “a major component needed for disaster preparedness and decision-making.”

For Journal of Urban Economics, Economics Assistant Professor Margaret Bock and two co-authors published “Where the rubber meets the road: Pavement damage reduces traffic safety and speed.” According to the article, by inputting data from Federal-Aid Highway System roads in different models, the team generated “the first causal evidence that decreasing pavement quality increases vehicle crash rates,” and that “the results imply significant increases in social costs attributable to road damage.”

The Arts

For her work as a filmmaker, Visiting Assistant Professor of Digital Arts Fatima Wardy received a Princess Grace Award, which honors and gives grants to artists early in their careers in theater, dance, and film. As mentioned in the award announcement, “Her work delves into the impact of displacement on the African diaspora, examining moments of connection and dis-connection in the daily lives of immigrants.” According to Variety, the winners will be recognized at a gala in New York in late October.

April Oettinger, professor of art history, wrote a review of the essay collection Women Artists and Artisans in Venice and the Veneto, 1400–1750 for the Woman’s Art Journal. Oettinger notes the challenges in developing an understanding of these early modern artists who were overlooked in their time and examines the techniques used by the essay writers to “bring Venetian women artists to the table.”

Assistant Professor of Dance Adjetey Klufio performed and led a dance workshop with Osagyefo Dance Company, which he cofounded, at the National Museum of African Art’s Teaching Africa Day, which this year had a theme of “Dancing the Message: African Dance as a Language of the Continent and the Diaspora.” The group’s performance drew inspiration from the Akom dance of Ghana.

Social Sciences

Sociology Assistant Professor Sadie Ridgeway, working with a Goucher student and a nonprofit colleague, used quantitative methods to examine library access and services across the country. Publishing their research in Sociological Spectrum, the team found “a positive association between the percentage of white residents and the odds of having a library in the county,” and that urban tracts had more access than rural ones.

In an article for Medical Anthropology Quarterly titled “No rush: The relational time ethic and faith-based medical clinics in the United States,” Associate Professor of Anthropology Carolyn Schwarz develops a concept called “relational time ethic.” The concept is based on interviews with health care workers from faith-based clinics who are “making moral claims about the high quality of their care and critiquing a bureaucratic time model for health care delivery,” she wrote.

Students and Learning

Psychology Professor Jennifer McCabe gave the keynote address, titled “‘SET’ for Success: Core Strategies for Effective Learning in a Metacognitive Framework,” at a faculty conference. McCabe shared her research on the core learning strategies of spacing, elaboration, and testing, or SET.

Bill Harder, assistant professor of political science and director of faculty development and teaching excellence, took part in a panel discussion at this year’s American Association of Colleges and Universities annual meeting. The session was presented by Project Pericles and explored how “fortifying students’ sense of civic identity, agency, and efficacy can foster institutional and political trust and resilience in challenging times.”

Harder is also on a team with Ann Duncan, American studies and religion professor and GPEP executive director, and Max Greenberg, Judaic studies assistant professor, that has been selected to take part in a teaching and learning pluralism cohort through Interfaith America. Their project, “Teaching and Learning Pluralism Across Prison Walls” will create opportunities for students from Goucher’s Towson and GPEP campuses to be in conversation together in meaningful ways.

The education podcast Moving the Needle recently featured Assistant Professor of Psychology Amanda Draheim as part of an “AI, Unscripted” series. The episode, called “Therapy Bots & Ethical Practice: AI in Mental Health Education,” explored how Draheim has used generative AI to help students learn case conceptualization for therapy—that is, the process for understanding the client’s history, strengths, needs, and more.