The faculty development programs offer an opportunity for faculty members to grow professionally, to remain current with developments in their disciplines, and to infuse these experiences into the classroom to enhance student learning. As illustrated below, NKU’s faculty development programs have enabled our faculty members to undertake important work in their fields, often including students in their research, and have brought renown to the university.
SABBATICAL LEAVES are granted by the University to promote the professional growth and effectiveness of the faculty. Sabbatical leaves are granted to enable recipients, based on merit, to devote additional time to scholarly activity and research, advanced study, or artistic performance—all in pursuit of academic objectives. Tenured, full-time faculty, and department chairs are eligible to apply for sabbatical leave.
SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS provide funds to support professional development during the summer months. Examples of types of activities that may be applicable include: improving teaching skills; research; scholarly writing; creative or artistic projects; preliminary studies and literature searches; and attending seminars or courses related to one’s field or professional work. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty summer fellowship. Each faculty member awarded a fellowship for summer 2021 received an award of $6,000.
PROJECT GRANTS provide funds to pay expenses, purchase equipment, and to cover other financial needs for sabbatical leaves, faculty summer fellowships, and for other instructional, scholarly, and creative activities where financial support is not available through department budgets. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty project grant not to exceed $6,000. In 2020-21, 14 faculty members completed project grants.
The projects below were undertaken from Fall 2020 through Summer 2021.
Sharlene Boltz
Professor
Chase College of Law
Denial is Not a Safety Plan…But, do you know when to speak up?
During my sabbatical, I made significant progress towards my research on Threats, Threat Assessment, Trauma, and other triggers of violent escalations, with a particular focus on “Red Flag” laws as a mechanism for preventing active shooter events. Although I did not anticipate that a global pandemic would develop and become a significant impediment to my ability to complete my project, I was able to engage in significant research in traditional and non-traditional ways. I was able to commence drafting approximately twenty chapters of my book. I anticipate the completion of the manuscript, and acquire a publisher, in 2022. This project provides an in-depth exploration of concepts relating to threat and dangerousness within the context of legal/legislative efforts to combat specific escalations of violent behavior. The project includes an analysis of varying definitions of threat and dangerousness in cases which range from intimate partner violence to active shooter events, as well as a detailed analysis of legal/legislative responses to four specific active shooter incidents, such as Red Flag laws, and other efforts which attempt to intervene, curtail, or prevent an act of violence. The events of January 6, 2021, and several mass shooting incidents in 2021, have elevated the urgency of this project, as well as the expansion of my analysis to include issues of domestic terrorism and radicalized threat as being within the scope of escalating, yet targeted violence, and the existence of discernable threat which proceed those actions.
Tom Bowers
Associate Professor
Department of English
The Presence of Waste: Reorientations in Posthuman Spaces
The sabbatical was designed to provide time to write and edit chapters for my forthcoming book, The Presence of Waste: Reorientations in Posthuman Spaces. The book contends that given the modern challenges to eliminate waste and toxins from human encounters, we must generate new perceptions, practices, and rhetorics that afford the means to ethically exist with the presence of the dirty matter. During the sabbatical, drafts of the 5 chapters were completed and revisions were completed on the first three chapters. As a result of the sabbatical, I am on schedule to complete the revisions of the final 2 chapters and meet the publisher’s March deadline for submitting the manuscript.
Carole Cangioni
Associate Professor
Department of Management
Renewed Research Agenda During the Pandemic
When my original sabbatical plan to conduct a study in several European countries fell apart due to the pandemic and the consecutive travel restrictions, I decided to focus on two different objectives that would benefit both my research and my students. First, I enrolled in courses to advance my knowledge of skills and tools for Social Entrepreneurship while developing two new graduate classes on the subject and related experiential learning and graduate research projects. The focus of the other half of my sabbatical leave was to accelerate my research capabilities. I enrolled in Methods and Statistics courses and trained on Stata, R, and Tableau. I also set up a knowledge management system in Obsidian and created a research workflow that I would be thrilled to present to my colleagues as it considerably accelerates the organization of existing literature, the identification of research gaps, and the creation of research ideas. This resulted in a conference presentation at the Academy of Business Research conference in March 2021 and a working paper submitted to the USASBE in September 2021. Moreover, this has prompted ideas for a renewed common research stream with 2 of my co-authors. Although the original plan fell through, I had a very successful sabbatical leave that will give back exponentially both through the knowledge I will be able to disseminate and through a renewed research agenda and research process.
Mary Chesnut
Professor
Steely Library
Not Your Mother’s Library: Exploring Unique Collections and Services in Today’s Public Libraries
In an era where some are questioning the legitimacy and funding of public libraries, resilient libraries across the United States have stepped up to the plate and reinvented themselves through innovative programs, service, partnerships, and collections. Following in-depth research, I ultimately chose to focus on one hundred and seven innovative practices in public libraries. I also researched the Library of Things phenomenon and was introduced to an assortment of useful and unconventional circulating items at public libraries across the United States. Following my research, I fleshed out ideas and drafted a first chapter for a manuscript that will showcase the innovative and philanthropic spirit that is alive at ninety public libraries across thirty-three states. The manuscript will highlight the creativity and resiliency of public libraries and will demonstrate the vital support that they are providing to their communities. My Sabbatical research provided me much insight into the vital, creative and awe-inspiring innovations from public libraries across the country and I am eager to share what I have discovered through my manuscript and to the students in my Career Paths for Information Professionals course!
Nathan De Lee
Associate Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Dynamical Duos: Improving the Search for Stellar Companions Using the APOGEE Infrared Spectrograph
My sabbatical plan involved traveling to several universities around the nation to learn new analysis techniques and to do work with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V) hardware and pipeline development. As we all know, travel was not possible during the pandemic. The pandemic also delayed the deployment of the hardware upgrades to the APOGEE instrument that I was hoping to analyze during my sabbatical. The manufacturing delays also caused the SDSS-V to have to redo their entire observing plan for the first year. I worked on the Milky Way Mapper (MWM) portion of this new plan. As a result, I had to refocus two of my three research goals to reflect these travel and hardware limitations. My updated goals were: 1) Developing an observing plan for the MWM survey including fields designed for radial velocity companion detection 2) Investigating the use of Monte Carlo techniques to determine the optimum number of observations for RV companion detection 3) Learning how to incorporate light curve information from the TESS and Kepler satellites into our analysis of companion orbits. Thankfully, I was able to make significant progress on all three goals while working remotely. In this report, I will summarize the work that I did on these goals.
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
Associate Professor
Department of English
Creative Nonfiction Book Project
I spent my sabbatical of Spring 2021 writing the first draft of my second book-length project of creative nonfiction, titled Commencement, a hybrid work of memoir and craft text. Though I was not able to complete the travel I planned for this sabbatical because of the COVID-19 crisis, I was able to perform research in other ways, including a literature review of other memoirs and craft texts I see as being in conversation with my own work. In addition to writing the first draft, I was able to identify the structure of the book, which I envision as a braided narrative of four timelines spanning twenty years. The goal of my project is to fill a gap in the genre of craft texts, approaching “How to write memoir?” as a question best answered not within the structure of a textbook (which is the approach of most craft texts) but within the structure of memoir itself. In other words, the book is a meta-text, a memoir about the act of writing memoir. While my original plan was to travel back to my own college campus to revisit the time and place where I first encountered the world of professional creative writing, I instead dove into my college notebooks, syllabi, and the books I read as a college student. In the first draft, I was able to identify key questions and themes that will help me focus the work in future drafts. I am in conversations with my literary agent about how to present the book to my publisher, W.W. Norton, and will be performing at least one public reading of selected chapters in January of 2022.
William Brian Hogg
Professor
School of the Arts
Database Creation of 78 rpm Discs
My sabbatical focused on creating a database of 1,258 78rpm discs. As a part of the process, I also listened to as much as 12,000 minutes of music. Where possible, the database includes the musicians, composers, arrangers, recording date, company, matrix numbers, song titles, locations, and any other pertinent information. 78rpm records contain very little data so I had to seek out the information for each disc from a variety of sources. Secondary research led to discoveries related to women in music. In a society where women were not considered equals, I became aware of influential women in jazz that were highly regarded and respected. Due to these discoveries, I have identified new pathways for research in the future. Research into the lyrical content of many of the songs I listened to sparked additional interest. Much like the music of today, many of the songs refer to explicit sexual content or drug related topics. It became apparent that our popular music today is in fact not so different than the past. Perhaps the correlation can serve as a catalyst for understanding a more complete picture of American culture and society. I feel that the sabbatical and the research have significantly increased my knowledge base for our students. I have reworked existing syllabi to include the additional study of women, include significant musicians that have been often overlooked, and perhaps most relevant to the students, discussions about the correlation between popular music and culture of the past with the present.
Michael Mannheimer
Professor
Chase College of Law
The Fourth Amendment: Original Understandings and Modern Policing
The Supreme Court has held that the same constraints on governmental searches and seizures apply to the States and the federal government. The thesis of this book is that, based on the original understandings of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, different constraints should apply. Its central insight is that the Fourth Amendment, which forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures,” was understood when it was adopted in 1791 as being primarily about protecting the power of the States to strike their own balance between liberty and security by preserving their authority to formulate search-and-seizure policy to their own liking. The primary effect was to require that federal officials abide by state search-and-seizure rules. The primary goals of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, were to require that state laws be non-discriminatory, both as written and as applied, that state officials abide by state law and, to prevent them from discriminating in applying neutral laws, that state law not vest too much discretion in those officials. Beyond these principles of nondiscrimination, legality, and nondelegation, the Constitution leaves search-and-seizure law up to local democratic controls. Adoption of these principles would grant state and local governments more leeway to fight crime without having to abide by one-size-fits-all nationwide rules on searches and seizures. At the same time, it would require state and local governments to cabin police discretion, as when deciding to make a traffic stop, and to ensure that police obey state law, as when using deadly force.
Banwari Mittal
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
Understanding the public’s experience of COVID-19 and the lockdown
The goal of the present research project was to understand public’s experience of COVID-19 and the lockdown, especially in their role as consumers. I did a national random survey of Americans using the Qualtrics Panel, with a sample size of 550. The survey asked consumers about how they occupied their stay-at-home time, if they undertook any activities, and whether it changed their perspective on life. I also measured their enduring (pre-COVID) level of shopping enjoyment. Analyzing the data, it was possible to assign the respondents into two groups: happy campers and unhappy prisoners. This step represents an important concept in marketing: segmentation. Further data analysis revealed the following differences between the two groups (hereafter, simply, campers and prisoners):
We also found that people with resilience resources (e.g., optimism, richer social network, etc.) felt less anxiety and braved the lockdown better.
Joseph Mester
Associate Professor
Department of Bilological Sciences
Next Generation Vaccines for Hepatitis C Virus
The goal of this Project Grant was to make improvements to the vaccine delivery technology that we originally developed for hepatitis C virus (HCV). Improvements to the vaccine delivery system were made by re-engineering the herpes simplex virus (HSV) backbone utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. Ten different viral backbone modifications were made and tested in human cell models of immunogenicity. Modifications in three different viral genes were shown to improve the vector’s immunogenicity. One modification was selected for incorporation into future vaccine builds. We are currently preparing a manuscript that summarizes this work. For specific vaccine targets, eight new vaccines were made for HCV to allow the determination of the optimal delivery format for the HCV structural targets. These constructs included modified HCV gene sequences that may allow for greater levels of target gene expression and immunogenicity in humans. In addition to the HCV vaccines, combination vaccines for influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) were made, uniquely targeting a non-variant protein of SARS-CoV-2 that is conserved in all strains of the virus circulating worldwide. Additional vaccines, each targeting three different mosquito-vectored viruses (Zika, Dengue, and West Nile virus) were made. A variety of other unique viral constructs with enhanced immunogenicity that could act as vaccine adjuvants or cancer immunotherapeutics were also generated via genetic engineering. This work was initiated at Oncorus in Cambridge Massachusetts and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and it is continuing at NKU.
Gabriel Sanders
Associate Professor
School of Kinesiology, Counseling, and Rehabilitative Science
Data Analysis in Sports Science
As part of my sabbatical proposal, I set out to accomplish three different goals and each of these goals were successfully accomplished. Goal 1 was to analyze data from the past two years to prepare and submit a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal and that manuscript was published in Research Directs in Strength and Performance and another manuscript was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Additionally, I presented this research at two international conferences in 2021 that align with my sports science research. Goal 2 was met as I helped to develop key performance indicators from sports data as part of my service to university athletics. Lastly, my third goal was to add content to my textbook entitled, “Data Analysis in Sports Science” and publish a 2nd edition. While I have the textbook updated and edited, I was not able to publish the 2nd edition prior the fall 2021 semester. I will have the 2nd edition available for the spring 2022 semester. While I am happy with the work I completed, I am happier with the fact I involved students in the research process. It is imperative to note that multiple undergraduate and graduate students assisted in the process and obtained authors on both manuscripts submitted.
Ihab Saad
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
Flow Scheduling Implementation at Messer Construction
I had my first sabbatical leave at NKU during the spring semester of 2021. The original plan for my sabbatical leave was to be involved with Messer Construction, one of the leading construction firms in the tri-state area, to work with them on the implementation of a newly minted scheduling approach called “Flow Scheduling.” Flow scheduling allows for better coordination and space sharing during the construction phase of a construction project. It starts with breaking down the floor space into different zones of equivalent complexity and density, allowing for space allocation for different construction trades in order to minimize area congestion resulting in loss of productivity. “Flow” is a technique that emerged from a larger concept in construction known as “Lean Construction”, which aims at reducing any waste in the construction process resulting from lack of coordination, oversupply of materials, and unnecessary labor motion, among other sources of waste. The results of my sabbatical will be detailed in a research paper co-authored with one of Messer Construction executives on the “Best Practices in the Application of Flow Scheduling in Building Construction Projects”. The paper is currently in its final stages of development and will be submitted for publication in the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) 58th Annual International Conference planned for April 20-23, 2022, in Atlanta, GA. Findings from my research will also be integrated in my undergraduate classes CMGT 324 (Construction Planning and Scheduling and CMGT 422 (Advanced Project Controls).
Jennifer Sharp
Associate Professor
School of Kinesiology, Counseling, and Rehabilitative Science
Contemplative Pedagogy in Practice: Innovative Teaching within Counselor Education and Beyond
I presented at the Association for Creativity in Counseling conference, a national peer-reviewed meeting. I spoke about Coming Home to the Body through the Screen: Incorporating Mindfulness in Virtual Counselor Education, which focused on integrating practices to support safety, nervous system regulation, and belonging to a virtual learning community. This presentation aligns with the first manuscript I developed during sabbatical, Widening the Lens of Compassion in Counselor Education, which focuses on how student-responsiveness and compassion welcome learners to engage whole-heartedly, even in the midst of the pandemic. A second manuscript, Moving Beyond Dominance Hierarchy: Mindfulness and Presence as Resources for a Pedagogy of Belonging extends these pedagogical resources to a broader faculty audience, out beyond the field of counselor education. Together these manuscripts invite faculty to center concepts of embodied safety, trauma-awareness, compassion, and mindfulness in class and curricular design. In addition to writing and presenting, I also developed external university partnerships with Research I researchers to support qualitative analysis of creative artifacts students produced in response to project-based mindfulness assignments. Additionally, I deepened my knowledge base of mindfulness through completion of an online course taught by leading US mindfulness teachers, The Power of Awareness. Finally, I applied to, was accepted to, and awarded a scholarship in the highly selective international Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, which I began in February 2021.
Ernest Smith
Professor
Department of English
Best Practices in Fully Online “Short Courses” in First-Year Writing
My sabbatical project involved researching best practices in the fully online “short course” in first-year writing. Over 5 years of teaching 7-week sessions of ENG 102 (Advanced College Writing) I’ve learned that while many best practices common to online teaching are pertinent to the short course, the demands of delivering this course within a 7-week window raise questions about what can be effectively taught and learned in such a short span. Ultimately, very little scholarship exists on the short course, likely because this sort of course is a relatively new offering at most schools. The first section of my essay, “know your demographic,” discusses types of students enrolling in 7-week courses. Often, they come from academically demanding majors, and the capability of identifying enrollees ahead of the start date of the course has yielded useful results, including allowing some individualized learning goals for students. Another necessary best practice is to streamline course design. While “less is more” is something of a mantra in online course design, this advice is especially significant in the short course. In another section, I advise instructors to “build community expeditiously.” Writing courses typically ask students to either work in groups or at least share their writing-in-progress with peers, but in the short course if this is to occur, communities must be built post-haste. The paper concludes with sections on determining course content with an emphasis on multimodal learning and deciding on assessment measures that may be unique for the short course.
Jeff Smith
Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Research Studies on Delayed Discounting
I conducted two research studies on delayed discounting. The first study examined the impact of the perception of time and risk on the ability to forgo an immediate reward for a larger delayed reward. The results indicate that as we get older, we are more willing to forgo an immediate reward for a larger delayed reward and those who are more risk averse choose the immediate reward. The second study examined the impact of an investment simulation game on the ability of the participants to forgo an immediate reward for a larger delayed reward. The results indicate that the investment simulation experience did not impact the ability of the participants to forgo an immediate reward.
Brandelyn Tosolt
Associate Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Advanced Studies
Documenting Intersectional Feminist Educational Leadership
During my one-semester sabbatical project, “Documenting Intersectional Feminist Educational Leadership”, I authored one solo manuscript and co-authored a second manuscript, both under review for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Both articles built on the critical intersectional feminist practices I’ve developed in the past few years in my work with our EdD in Educational Leadership program. My first manuscript, “Centering the Margins: Critical Pedagogical Practices in an Educational Leadership Doctoral Classroom,” builds upon Mezirow’s transformative learning framework and Crenshaw’s intersectionality to describe critical intersectional pedagogical practices in a doctoral classroom. I co-authored the second manuscript, “Feminist Citational Praxis and Problems of Practice,” with five graduates of our EdD in Educational Leadership program. In this piece, we critique current citational norms and advance a feminist citational praxis that centers on the intentional citation of Authors of Color, women, transgender and non-binary scholars, and Disabled/authors with a Disability. Taking this sabbatical in the Spring 2021 semester presented a variety of challenge due to the COVID-19 pandemic but ultimately was deeply meaningful and fulfilling to my work as a scholar and human being.
Justin Yates
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Determining if Ro 63-1908 decreases cocaine self-administration in rats
As there are currently no FDA-approved medications for psychostimulant use disorders, the goal of the present study was to determine if the drug Ro 63-1908 decreases cocaine self-administration in rats. Another goal was to determine if increased risky choice predicts cocaine self-administration. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats were first tested in a risky decision task, in which responses on one lever were associated with “safe” delivery of one food pellet and responses one another lever were associated with delivery of two pellets and probabilistic delivery of a foot shock. Rats were then implanted with an indwelling catheter in the right jugular vein before being trained to self-administer cocaine (0.75 mg/kg/infusion). After five training sessions, rats were trained in a threshold procedure, in which the dose of cocaine decreased across the session (0.75, 0.27, 0.08, 0.03, 0.006, and 0.002 mg/kg/infusion). Two parameters were measured. Demand intensity measures how much an animal self-administers a drug when the “cost” of obtaining the drug is low (i.e., responses at the 0.75 mg/kg/infusion dose). Demand elasticity measures how much an animal is willing to respond for a drug as the “price” increases. Rats received injections of Ro 63-1908 (0, 0.1, 0.3, 1.0 mg/kg) before self-administration sessions. Results showed that male high risk-taking rats had decreased demand elasticity for cocaine, meaning they were more willing to continue responding for cocaine with increases in price. While Ro 63-1908 did not significantly alter demand intensity or demand elasticity, female rats had decreased demand elasticity compared to males.
Shamima Ahmed
Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Effective Nonprofit Management Book Project
My goal with the summer fellowship was to complete and submit an updated edition of my text, Effective Nonprofit Management, to Taylor and Francis by July 2021. I have submitted the revised edition to the publisher by that deadline. I have also completed the proof readings and revisions during the first two weeks of August. The text is slated to be published sometime at the end of November 2021.
Steve Bien-Aimé
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Media Coverage After the Death of NASA Scientist Katherine Johnson
This summer fellowship explored U.S. newspaper coverage soon after the death of legendary NASA scientist Katherine Johnson, who endured much racial and gender discrimination to make integral contributions to the U.S. space program from the 1950s through the 1980s. Journalists took care to both highlight Johnson’s rarity as a woman in science for her era, but also her significant contributions to the space program which transcend her racial and gender identities. However, while journalists and commentators celebrated Johnson’s achievements, few news items included the voices of female scientists. Thus, there seemed to be a contradiction: Newspapers called Johnson a person who broke barriers for marginalized people in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, but then often omitted the voices of those same people. News items also routinely treated the racial and gender discrimination Johnson faced as part of the past and not as current issues even though research indicates there are significant barriers to entry and retention for women and racial minorities. While newspapers made sure to describe the barriers Johnson had to overcome, they did not assign blame to any person or structure. Racism and sexism existed, but there was not much explanation as to why it existed in its particular format, who benefited from the discriminatory apparatuses, and who implemented and maintained those systems.
Tracey Bonner
Associate Professor
School of the Arts
Development of African Cultural Dance Principles for dance training in a
westernized academic setting
As the word itself signifies, Embodiology is the embodiment (Emb-) of the biological tendencies (-ology) and the implementation of the mind body connection. Based on Ghanaian principles of dance, music, drumming and community leadership, this methodology and six-point discipline creates a shared language for all practitioners, regardless of their history with dance or the performing arts. The principles allow for the connection to human authenticity in creative practice, leadership, community building, and provide the opportunity to hold space for other practitioners, enhancing each person’s experience as an equal part of the community equation. This embodied and experiential learning model can provide new approaches for battling racism, cultural competency, creative development, and individualized mind body connection for its practitioners. As part of the six-week development of this program, I have served as an assistant to the founder, Dr. S. Ama Wray, developed my own personal practice, begun a teacher training cohort (begun formally in 2019), all with the intention to broaden the reach of this work. Accomplishments during this time included the development of a formal textbook outlining principles, techniques, approaches, pitfalls and more to support the programmatic implementation, the development and creation of video teaching material, reflections, and shared performances, are all in process and will be disseminated in the coming months. All of these aspects will assist in the creation of Embodiology across academic disciplines of arts, sciences, medicine, criminal justice, as well as corporations who value the mind body connection and the leadership models this training addresses.
Joe Cobbs
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
Perpetual Student Engagement with the Know Rivalry Project: Foreign Assessments
The purpose of the Know Rivalry (KR) Project is to research, organize, and comparatively analyze the phenomenon of rivalry. In the six years prior to this fellowship and project grant, NKU students in COB have been engaged in collecting and analyzing survey data from sports fans in the United States and Canada. The survey measures fans’ impressions of rivalries and associated reactions to rival fans in terms of prejudice and relationship discrimination. Findings are applied to public policy for events and sports business operations, while also resulting in peer-reviewed publications and presentations. The summer fellowship, project grant and support from Informatics+ enabled cross-disciplinary expertise to be applied to the project's expansion to achieve process sustainability and international reach, while also getting more NKU students and faculty involved in the collaboration. Specifically, Dr. Seth Adjei joined Dr. Marius Truta in recruiting and training seven COI students to develop an automated data cleaning procedure that accurately filtered survey results for public display via the project's updated website: . Moreover, a data collection interface that previously involved over ten different survey editions was streamlined into a single survey platform, thereby dramatically enhancing the sustainability. In parallel, Dr. Cobbs worked with several students from COB to execute a new round of data collection across five sports leagues in North America, and expand the collection to leagues in Asia, Australia, and Europe. Close to 20,000 valid survey responses have been recorded in 2021.
Corrie Danieley
Associate Professor
School of the Arts
Development and Writing for Publication and Presentation: Somatic Movement Training for Actor Health in Class and Career
Over the last six years, my research has focused on somatic movement training for actor health in class and career. This FBC Summer Fellowship afforded me the opportunity to solely devote my time and attention to develop and write about somatic movement exercises that help actors manage performance anxiety as well as help them exit from characters in a healthy ways. I developed a six-week summer course on Google Classroom that gave access to current students, alumni, and industry professionals from across the country who signed up and participated virtually. I developed and recorded video and podcast lessons which established a library of resources for current students and alumni to use in their college career and in their acting career. I am continuing my work in compiling and analyzing data/results of this work to generate abstracts for conference presentations and publication opportunities.
Rebecca Elkins
Associate Professor
School of Kinesiology, Counseling, and Rehabilitative Sciences
Student Perceptions of Online Learning Experiences Associated with COVID-19
The COVID-19 global pandemic forced an unprecedented move to comprehensive online learning. As a result, students experienced an immediate, dramatic, and potentially fragmented shift to remote learning. Student retention rates within higher education suffered. The purpose of the 2020-21 Faculty Summer Fellowship research project was to afford time to explore student perceptions of online learning experiences associated with COVID-19 in hopes of finding ways to improve online learning environments, student satisfaction and ultimately student retention. Higher rates of dissatisfaction with online learning experiences were found among NKU students (44%) than reports published prior to COVID-19 (14-22.6%). Male students, and those enrolled in traditional (face-to-face, hybrid, etc.) programs of study were significantly less satisfied with online learning experiences during the COVID-19 transition than their counterparts. Qualitative analyses identified three major themes for area of instructor improvement 1) unrealistic expectations, 2) poor course organization, and 3) lack of interaction. Two major themes for areas of strength emerged 1) clarity of course expectations, and 2) timely accessibility of learning materials. Project goals for the Faculty Summer Fellowship were mostly met. Data collected during the 2020-2021 school year was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. A manuscript was submitted for publication to a peer reviewed journal. An abstract was submitted to present findings at national conferences. Two students were mentored throughout the research process with one planning to submit an abstract for a poster presentation. Results may inform NKU practices and the general body of literature about students’ perceptions of online learning.
William Brian Hogg
Professor
School of the Arts
Holiday Jazz Recording of Original Works
In music, a professional recording of compositions and arrangements serves as one of the primary ways to document publications. A professional recording greatly enhances the impact and viability of the music for generations to come. It stands as a lasting testament to a composer/arranger’s musical creations. The recording process also requires an entirely different set of skills to complete. A professional recording demonstrates a musician’s ability to organize, conduct and produce their compositions/arrangements at the highest level possible. It provides an evaluative tool for any person to measure the quality of the music whereas written music implies a certain level of musical acumen from the evaluator. For my Summer Fellowship, I decided to organize and produce a professional recording of my original arrangements. In June 2021, I assembled 18 professional musicians, a chief recording engineer, two recording engineer assistants, and a photographer/assistant to produce an audio recording of my arrangements of nine holiday songs. The musicians included professionals from as far away as Colorado and Texas, NKU Jazz Faculty, and NKU Jazz Program Alumni. The recording project is scheduled to be released across all major platforms in the United States and abroad during the last week of October 2021. The title of the recording is “Views from the South Pole” by the “Boss Hogg Big Band.” To my knowledge, this is the first time a jazz recording of this scope has been attempted as a Summer Fellowship project.
Haoqiang Jiang
Assistant Professor
Department of Business Informatics
Continuity of Care and Nurse Patient Assignment
Continuity of care is considered critical for delivering high-quality care, yet has seldom been included as a factor in models supporting nurse-patient assignment (NPA) decisions. Research in the nursing literature suggests that assigning nurses to patients they have cared for previously can help reduce care-related error rates and increase patient satisfaction. However, it is also essential to ensure that patient workloads are allocated to nursing staff in a balanced manner to avoid overwork and burnout. Based on our prior studies, we developed hybrid nurse-patient assignment (NPA) algorithm to explore the relationship between workload balance (WB) and continuity of care (CC) in NPA, and submitted to Decision Sciences Journal. Reviews from the journal’s review board addressed several issues and gave us an opportunity for resubmission, which will be submitted by the end of fall 2021.
Boshra Karimi
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
COVID-19 Effects on Construction
The summer fellowship was used to investigate how the construction industry has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was developed and distributed among about a thousand construction professionals nationwide with the assistance of two Construction Management undergraduate students. More than eighty responses were collected during the summertime. The data has been compiled and analyzed during the last few months. The data can be categorized into three groups: impact of the pandemic, actions taken, and future prediction. The results show various impacts and actions in different phases of construction projects such as: design, construction, and post-construction. The main issues were shortage of craftworkers, materials, and PPE, along with cancellation or delay of contracts. Different strategies have been implemented to mitigate the effect of the pandemic ranging from using new technologies such as drones and webcams to stagger work schedule and shifting orders away from China. The pandemic is evolving HVAC system design along with encouraging flexible contracts and automation. Also, different sections of industry have been impacted differently. Residential construction seems to be fairing best during the COVID-19 pandemic while lodging, commercial, amusement parks, and offices got hit harder. Moreover, construction of pharmaceutical manufacturing, distribution centers, and data centers are increasing. The data shows that geographic factors have affected COVID and post-COVID effects. A full manuscript will be completed and submitted to a conference in upcoming months. It will discuss the best practices to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the construction industry for now and in the future for similar situations.
Kevin Lotz
Assistant Professor
School of Social Work
Stress, Trauma, Substance Abuse, Social Isolation and Loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Implications on Health Behaviors
As COVID-19 erupted in the US during Spring 2020, I co-designed, launched, and continue to
lead a national transdisciplinary research study and collaboration between NKU and the University of Cincinnati: “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Health Behaviors,” which examines the impact of stress, trauma, substance abuse, social isolation and loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications of such upon health behaviors. This summer fellowship provided the opportunity to advance this research; undertake, prepare, and begin writing the first manuscript from the study; a systematic review on nutrition, dietary intake, Body Mass Index (BMI), and mindfulness, which utilized the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement. This consists of a 27-item checklist and a four-phase flow diagram that guides the reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The purpose was to explore the literature related to mindful eating, self-care, and weight management. A review of the extant literature included over 1,142 scholarly articles. Each article was reviewed and 12 of those served as the basis for the systematic review. The findings will be used to develop educational content to assist people with health-promoting behaviors in times of loneliness, social isolation, and stress such as COVID-19. A draft manuscript is now being produced and is scheduled to be submitted for publication within a peer-reviewed journal during Fall 2021.
Jonathan McKenzie
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Research on Henry Thoreau’s Journal
My primary research goal for summer 2021 was to transfer initial research on Henry Thoreau’s Journal to a journal article manuscript that also serves as an initial chapter for a book manuscript prospectus. This work focuses on the ways in which Thoreau’s twenty-year Journal records Thoreau’s development of a concept of property I would call “ownership through understanding.” While working through Thoreau’s 1842-1844 journal entries in June, I found corollaries between Thoreau’s insistence on his status as a foreigner on indigenous terrain and the mood of homelessness well-known in Thoreau’s first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849). This discovery allowed me a proper frame for the article, which then took shape. I returned to A Week, using the text as a bridge between the early and the late Journal. This also required that I shift some of the focus of my research in the late Journal; instead of employing Thoreau’s indexing of Concord flora and fauna, I searched the later Journal for reflections on ownership, questions of indigenous property, and Thoreau’s larger relationship to his knowledge of Concord. I used the rest of my summer fellowship to work out the manuscript, arguing that Thoreau’s later Journal demonstrates his tenuous acceptance of his ownership of Concord (and the surrounding area) not through economic purchase, but through familiarity, sympathy, and understanding of the shifting conditions of the land. The manuscript should be submitted to a journal by November.
Tara McLendon
Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Police Social Work Programming
The purpose of my 2021 Faculty Summer Fellowship was to gain a better understanding of
different types of Police Social Work (PSW) programming from a national perspective. To this end, I undertook a survey of PSW programs across the county. A collaboration with one contact from my survey, Dr. Isabel Logan, an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Eastern Connecticut
State University, has enabled my project to a evolve to a level I could not have imagined at the
outset of my Fellowship. Through our collaboration, Dr. Logan and I created a national networking group, “The Social Work and Law Enforcement Network (SWLEN),” and developed a mission statement and goals for the organization. The SWLEN includes law enforcement personnel, police social workers, university-affiliated members, and others committed to the development of PSW programming. We have a large bi-monthly meeting on the first Tuesday of every other month and a “break-out” meeting on the last Tuesday of every other month with topic-specific content (e.g., confidentiality and documentation in PSW, funding of programs, etc.). Beyond the inherent value of the exchange of ideas, resources, and support for one another, the SWLEN has been able to procure an agreement with National Association of Social Workers (CT chapter) to provide free continuing education credits for the break-out sessions. The Network continues to grow on almost a daily basis, currently with over 60 members. Our vision is to support the advancement of PSW as articulated in our mission and goal statement.
Bridget Nichols
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
When Brands Behave Badly: Signaling & Spillover Effects of Negative Information on Perceived Ethicality and Brand Performance Metrics
The theory of triple-bottom-line (TBL) performance refers to the integration of economic, social, and environmental practices related to a firm’s sustainability efforts. In short, it promotes the interplay between people, planet, and profit – the main stakeholders of every business. Because this business philosophy is relatively new, there is much to learn about how each of these pillars is involved in firm performance. Aside from financial performance, the way consumers interpret information about a firm and how it regulates each (and the interplay between) the pillars has received little research attention to date. Moreover, the fact that high equity brands may have an innate ability to avoid consumer backlash to poor TBL management has yet to be studied. Thus, this research will employ a series of lab experiments to examine the management of these pillars from a global supply chain and consumer behavior perspective with facets of firm ethicality, brand equity, and communication source as its key contributions. It serves as a continuation of findings reported in my recent publication in the Journal of Operations Management (Nichols et al. 2019), and the Harvard Business Review (Nichols et al. 2020), both prestigious Financial Times Top 50 journals.
This summer project was completed in terms of data collection and draft writing. The manuscript was submitted to the Journal of Business Ethics, but unfortunately not accepted. We are making some revisions to the manuscript and are submitting it to the Journal of Product and Brand Management before the end of August 2021.
Tamara O'Callaghan
Professor
Department of English
Gazemapping Medieval Manuscripts: Literature Review and Eye-Tracking Technology
My Summer Fellowship (2021) allowed me to accomplish two related research activities. I was able to prepare a literature review and annotated bibliography with respect to existing research and primary methodologies across academic disciplines and the private sector on the use of eye-tracking technology to study how people read digitized, print, and handwritten text. I was also able to learn the eye-tracking software Gazepoint, available at NKU’s Department of Psychological Science, in preparation for my sabbatical project in Spring 2022. The work I accomplished during the Summer Fellowship has provided an essential foundation for a new digital humanities project: the exploration of the reading process involved with medieval manuscripts through gazemapping (data visualizations that can communicate important aspects of visual behavior). I am now in an excellent position to begin a new and promising path of enquiry into reading practices in the Middle Ages using innovative technology that will deepen our understanding of how exactly the human eye gathers information from the written text and visual images on a medieval manuscript page.
Amal Said
Professor
Department of Accounting and Business Law
Neuroscience Approaches to Financial and Managerial Accounting Research
The purpose of my fellowship is to work on an interdisciplinary research project that utilizes a neuroscience approach to financial and managerial accounting research. The objective is to examine the impact of a manager's supervisory style on the relationship between lenders’ decisions to waive violations of debt covenants and earnings management. Recent studies indicate that accounting functions evolved to augment the cognitively bounded human brain in handling complex economic exchanges. Neuroscientific evidence shows that the activities in the ventral striatum increase with bad information/motives more than with good information/motives. Human brains have the ability to implement ‘automatic’ processes of bad and good information to make rational managerial accounting decisions. We use fMRI technology to explore how the human brain processes technical violation and waiver news. Specifically, the research team captures the neural activity in the ventral striatum of managers as they learn of their proximity to technical default and the probability of receiving a waiver from the lender. We started this research project with an interdisciplinary team of researchers and already published a research note in a refereed journal (top accounting journal) which was also invited for highlight at the Harvard Business Review Arabia. The fellowship allowed me to work with a neuroscientist and other colleagues to analyze the different scenarios and examine the results of the neuro experiment. After spending the summer working on the paper, the team is hoping to publish a paper in neuroscience journal and start a behavioral experiment to be published in an accounting journal.
Minchul Shin
Assistant Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Soft Robotics and Material Testing and Development
Funds from the summer fellowship were used to conduct research for development of soft robotics, including origami robots and pneumatic actuators. We successfully developed origami robot legs that consist of cantilever stacks with PZT-5H, PVC, and copper layers. To test the piezoelectric actuation of the material, we created a cantilever to observe how the piezoelectric strip oscillates at various voltages. The testing requires a wave generator, a piezoelectric amp, and an oscillator. Prior to initiating the test, we first polarized the PZT strip to bring out the PZT properties. We polarized the piezoelectric by applying a DC current of 10V for ten minutes. Once polarized, we set the wave generator at a sine wave at 22Hz and 4 Vpp. We successfully observed the vibration of the cantilevers. We will secure the quantitative data by using LDV and data acquisition system in future. We then successfully developed pneumatic robots that can overcome their vulnerability to total failure from cuts and punctures. To improve resilience of soft robotics to larger cuts and tears, we tested a composite material made with glass fibers and silicone. We showed that this composite is a suitable soft robotics material and increases resilience to tears and cut propagation. This composite is less extensible than plain silicone and designs that utilize the composite must account for this.
Monica Wakefield
Assoicate Professor
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy
Developing Research on Wild Olive Baboons (Papio anubis) and co-directorship of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP), Laikipia, Kenya
The primary aim of my summer fellowship tenure was to begin to establish and develop a new line of scholarly research (new species, new research site). My research will focus on evolutionary social behavior in wild olive baboons (Papio anubis) at the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP), Laikipia, Kenya. The UNBP was established 50 years ago by my former colleague Dr. Shirley Strum (UCSD) and has been continuously running since with Dr. Strum as the director. Dr. Strum is retiring and is looking for people to take over running the project. I spent two months at the site this summer with my colleague/collaborator, Dr. Corinna Most, to learn more about the site, the project, the baboons, the long-term data, and the feasibility of Dr. Most and I assuming the role of co-directors of UNBP and continuing research there. I also wanted to see if the site would be appropriate for bringing students to the field. In my project proposal I outlined two major goals and multiple sub-goals to meet these ends. I am happy to report here that I was successful on all of my goals. UNBP holds a very promising future for my continuing scholarship goals and is significantly more feasible (in terms of access, safety, affordability, ability to involve students) than my previous research site in the DRC. I am so grateful to NKU CAS for helping make this possible. I outline the accomplishments and plans for my next steps here.
Junxiu Zhou
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
A Novel Facial Emotion Recognition Feedback Collection System for Online Learning Platforms
The Summer Fellowship supported the research project using a facial emotion recognition feedback (FERF) system to monitor learner’s learning states. Specifically, the summer fellowship enabled me to conduct existing work review, system design, system experiments, and manuscript writing steps. The facial emotion recognition system focused on using a convolutional neural network algorithm to recognize six types of facial emotions, i.e., happy, sad, surprised, neutral, scared, and disgust. These facial emotions are used to identify three types of learner’s learning states, i.e., satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied. These learning states serve as feedback to the instructor as well as the learner to monitor the learning process. Different from conventional learning feedback systems, this FERF system makes use of video-sequence instead of one single image to generate more robust feedback information. The system finished its initial test with 3 candidates at a 10-minute online lecture video. While the learner is in the learning session, a video recording of each candidate is being carried over to run the FERF system at different times. The candidates are prompted to give their feedback for their learning states. Then their feedback serves as the ground truth of our FERF system. In this way, the system experiment can verify the effectiveness of the designed FERF system in the online learning process. The experiment result is analyzed and will be included in the manuscript. The manuscript will be submitted to a peer-reviewed academic journal to finish the final piece of the project by the end of the Fall 2021 semester. This FERF system accomplished its main objective of achieving a working prototype that can be successfully executed in a laboratory environment. Out next task is to expand and implement the FERF system in real-world scenarios.
Seyed Allameh
Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Mechanical Properties of 3D Welded Structures
Additive manufacturing has evolved into an important technology with schools such as University of Cincinnati starting an MS on 3D printing. While additive manufacturing of concrete allows building houses (one such house was built in 2018 in Saudi Arabia), the 3D printed concrete is void of steel rebars. By mounting a Metal Inert Gas (MIG) electrical arc welder gun to a construction 3D printer, it was possible to make 3D welded structures here at NKU. The weldment was in the shape of a bar and the substrate was concrete, thus, demonstrating the ability to fabricate 3D printed reinforced concrete structures. As with any new material, reliability of the 3D welded steel bars is vital to its applications in residential dwellings, office structures, bridges, and other life sustaining structures. To verify such reliability, mechanical properties must be characterized. This requires cyclic loading (fatigue) test on the 3D welded steel bars. Microtensile samples were extracted from the 3D welded steel bars using a HAAS CNC and tested in an Instron load frame. One student worked on this project as his senior design project and three others participated in as part of their UR_STEM undergraduate research experience. The results of the work indicated that mechanical properties, such as fatigue resistance of the microsamples, were superior to those of the conventional steel rebars. Based on the results of this work, two paper were submitted, with undergraduate students as co-authors, and accepted for presentation at ASME conferences. One was presented and published in the proceedings of IMECE 2020 and the second one has been accepted for presentation and publication in Proceedings of IMECE 2021.
Mark Bardgett
Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Early-life antipsychotic drug treatment and risky decision-making during adulthood
Antipsychotic drugs are used in children for a host of pediatric psychiatric disorders without FDA approval despite a lack of knowledge regarding their long-term effects on brain and behavioral development. One concern is that antipsychotic drug exposure early in life alters the maturation of brain circuits involved in impulse control and enhances liability towards substance abuse later in life. Using rats as a model organism for human brain development and behavior, students in my lab determined if early-life administration of the antipsychotic drug, risperidone, modified impulsive behavior during adulthood. We found that adult rats administered risperidone early in life were more likely to choose a small, immediate food reward than a large, delayed one, suggesting an increase in impulsivity. Additional studies were performed to examine neuronal structure in brain regions linked to impulsivity but did not reveal significant group differences in different dimensions of neuronal shape. Overall, this line of work suggests that early-life antipsychotic drug administration impair impulse control during adulthood independent of gross changes in neuronal structure. Students from the lab presented data from this research as first-authors on posters presented at the 2020 Heather Bullen Research Celebration and the 2021 Society for Neuroscience Global Connectome meeting.
Ada Cenkci
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Examining the Antecedents of Workplace Loneliness
As a result of the Faculty Senate Project Grant, I was able to conduct research on the antecedents of workplace loneliness. The data for this study is collected from full-time faculty and staff employed in U.S. higher education institutions. Four hundred and sixty-two participants fully completed the online survey. The grant enabled me to write the literature review, develop my research model, create the survey questionnaire, submit the IRB application, complete the pilot study, modify the survey questionnaire based on the pilot study, collect the survey data, and work with the Burkardt Consulting Center (BCC). Within the academic year 2021-2022, I plan to continue working on this research project. I plan to present the results of this study at a conference relating to my field. During the 2021-2022 Academic Year, a manuscript based on the study results will be completed and the article will be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
Nathan De Lee
Associate Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Improving the Search for Stellar Companions Using the APOGEE Infrared Spectrograph
The primary purpose of this funding request was to support my travel for my sabbatical program during the spring 2021 semester, along with a secondary purpose of providing \money for research support, including server upgrades. As we all know, travel to universities around the nation was not possible during the pandemic. The pandemic also delayed the deployment of the hardware upgrades to the APOGEE instrument that I was hoping to analyze during my sabbatical. The manufacturing delays caused the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-V) to have to redo their entire observing plan for the first year. I worked on the Milky Way Mapper (MWM) portion of this new plan. As a result, I had to refocus two of my three research goals to reflect these travel and hardware limitations. My updated goals were: 1) Developing an observing plan for the MWM survey including fields designed for radial velocity companion detection 2) Investigating the use of Monte Carlo techniques to determine the optimum number of observations for RV companion detection 3) Learning how to incorporate light curve information from the TESS and Kepler satellites into our analysis of companion orbits. As I was working on these analyses, it became apparent that I was going to need significantly more computing power to support these complex models. As a result, I repurposed the funds from this project grant to purchase a much more powerful research server, which allows my students and me to work on these problems into the future.
Megan Downing
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
An Examination of Self-Leadership Strategies to Mitigate Impostor Phenomenon Tendencies
The 2020 Summer Fellowship and Faculty Development Grant enabled me to advance my work on An Examination of Self-Leadership Strategies to Mitigate Impostor Phenomenon Tendencies, a project that explores the effectiveness of self-leadership strategies in mitigating the negative influence of impostor phenomenon (IP) tendencies. I completed the literature review, phase one data review, and prepared IRB adjustments necessary due to Covid-19. Online resources were also developed for project participants and made available in Fall 2020. In addition, related research was conducted for a co-authored project on paring mindfulness and compassion-based practices with IP and another co-authored project on IP and career trajectory in information technology professionals. The fellowship supported the advancement of my work on three additional projects, including two co-authored manuscripts that were published in peer-reviewed academic journals. The first, completed in collaboration with Dr. Kajsa Larson, Dr. Joseph Nolan, and Mr. Mark Neikirk, High Impact Practices Through Experiential Student Philanthropy: A Case Study of the Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project at 51AV was published in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. The second, “Extreme” E-student Philanthropy: Expanding Grantmaking into Fully Online Classes and Assessing Outcomes for Students as Learners, Community Members, and Social Activists, completed in collaboration with Dr. Julie Olberding, was published in the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership. Work was also done on a solo-authored manuscript on experiential philanthropy and School Based Scholars (dual enrolled high school students) for submission to the Journal of Leadership Education.
Jacqueline Emerine
Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Hidden and invisible disabilities during a global pandemic: Parents experiences with children learning in multiple formats, becoming the teacher and communicating to obtain new accommodations
My semester long sabbatical project and grant allowed me to examine the experiences of parents and children with hidden disabilities during COVID. Participant’s children were in both private and public schools, pre-K-college, with hidden and invisible disabilities that included Autism, Anxiety, ADHD, OCD, Asperger’s, fetal alcohol syndrome, cognitive impairment, executive functioning issues, and several rare medical diagnoses. A total of 26 children were discussed by 19 mothers and 1 father who each earned a $25.00 Amazon gift card for participation. There were three features of work that I completed: 1) Interview the parents of children with disabilities; 2) Transcription that resulted in 681 single spaced pages and an analysis of the data that resulted in 6 themes. One manuscript has been submitted for publication, another is in progress, and this research was presented on September 17, 2021 at the Kentucky Communication Association conference. Future directions include examining the how to better bring about awareness/educate on hidden disabilities, designing strategies for parents to better communicate with doctors, teachers, co-parents, etc., and the vast difference between public and private school in terms of accommodations. My take-away from this sabbatical project is that the communication process, learning effectiveness and experiences gaining accommodations and negotiating co-parenting decisions with the school, doctors, jobs, and others is not easy without a global pandemic. Some children thrived in the online/hybrid environment, while others struggled. This work will help so many to gain strategies and navigate systems to help their children gain the tools needed for success and to aid educators, medical professionals, and employers.
Suk-hee Kim
Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Music and Social Empathy for Healthy Brain and Healthy Aging
The purpose of this project was to protect and sustain the brain health of aging adults living in institutional settings through a noninvasive, non-pharmacological evidence-based program. Non-pharmacological programs are becoming more widely used for common diseases such as dementia due to research showing that these programs are as effective and sometimes more effective than pharmacological programs. The research through Carmel Manor sought to support healthy brain function for adults 60 and older. The project was consistent with the Institute for Health Innovation’s mission by addressing the urgent unmet health need to increase the quality of care and life for older adults in our society and by including activities in a nursing home that drive positive cognitive aging, to improve the quality of life of our aging population and reduce economic burden to patients and health care systems. In addition to research goals, the project grant directly supported two graduate students and one undergraduate student through project stipends. Student-faculty work was presented about the study on aging to the NKU Board of Regents in March 2021. The project provided novel data about non-pharmacological intervention and healthy brain aging. The systematic scoping review was published to a peer-reviewed scholarly journal. A manuscript discussing music training in the field of aging has been submitted to a scientific peer-reviewed journal and is currently under review.
Joseph Mester
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Next Generation Vaccines for Hepatitis C Virus
The goal of this Project Grant was to make improvements to the vaccine delivery technology that we originally developed for hepatitis C virus (HCV). Improvements to the vaccine delivery system were made by re-engineering the herpes simplex virus (HSV) backbone utilizing CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing. Ten different viral backbone modifications were made and tested in human cell models of immunogenicity. Modifications in three different viral genes were shown to improve the vector’s immunogenicity. One modification was selected for incorporation into future vaccine builds. We are currently preparing a manuscript that summarizes this work. For specific vaccine targets, eight new vaccines were made for HCV to allow the determination of the optimal delivery format for the HCV structural targets. These constructs included modified HCV gene sequences that may allow for greater levels of target gene expression and immunogenicity in humans. In addition to the HCV vaccines, combination vaccines for influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) were made, uniquely targeting a non-variant protein of SARS-CoV-2 that is conserved in all strains of the virus circulating worldwide. Additional vaccines, each targeting three different mosquito-vectored viruses (Zika, Dengue, and West Nile virus) were made. A variety of other unique viral constructs with enhanced immunogenicity that could act as vaccine adjuvants or cancer immunotherapeutics were also generated via genetic engineering. This work was initiated at Oncorus in Cambridge Massachusetts and at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and it is continuing at NKU.
Banwari Mittal
Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
Understanding the public’s experience of COVID-19 and the lockdown
The goal of the present research project was to understand public’s experience of COVID-19 and the lockdown, especially in their role as consumers. I did a national random survey of Americans using the Qualtrics Panel, with a sample size of 550. The survey asked consumers about how they occupied their stay-at-home time, if they undertook any activities, and whether it changed their perspective on life. I also measured their enduring (pre-COVID) level of shopping enjoyment. Analyzing the data, it was possible to assign the respondents into two groups: happy campers and unhappy prisoners. This step represents an important concept in marketing: segmentation. Further data analysis revealed the following differences between the two groups (hereafter, simply, campers and prisoners):
We also found that people with resilience resources (e.g., optimism, richer social network, etc.) felt less anxiety and braved the lockdown better.
Emily Shifley
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Characterizing the embryonic expression patterns of pck1 and pck2 genes
When tissues form in the early embryo, their cells express different sets of genes that help them become more specialized in a process called differentiation. My research is focused on understanding and characterizing how these genes guide embryonic development. When the usual patterns of gene expression and differentiation do not occur normally, birth defects can result. My lab uses Xenopus frogs as model organisms and we identified two uncharacterized genes called pck1 and pck2 that might play important roles during early stages of embryonic development. The goal of the project grant was to analyze the roles and expression patterns of pck1 and pck2. With the help of undergraduate researchers, I was able to compare the sequences of pck1 and pck2 with each other and with their equivalent genes in other vertebrate animals, including humans. These analyses, along with research from other studies, gave us a better understanding of the roles these genes play as enzymes in developing, embryonic cells. Additionally, we worked to characterize their expression patterns during early stages of vertebrate embryonic development and found that pck1 and pck2 are both expressed in an embryonic tissue called the ectoderm. The ectoderm eventually gives rise to the integumentary and nervous systems suggesting that the pck genes might play a role in the development of these important organ systems.
Lindsey Walters
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Does maternal incubation behavior influence embryo heart rate in eastern bluebirds?
I worked with five NKU undergraduate students over two summers to investigate factors influencing the embryonic heart rate of wild birds. This research was originally planned to be completed during the summers of 2019 and 2020, but due to restrictions from the COVID-19 lockdown, it occurred in 2019 and 2021 instead. My students and I used a new noninvasive technology, the Buddy digital egg monitor, to measure the heart rate of embryos inside bird eggs. We found that this device was more successful at detecting the heart rates of eastern bluebird embryos than tree swallow embryos, so we focused our study on bluebirds. After two years of collecting data on eastern bluebirds, we found that embryo heart rate increased significantly both with increasing external temperature and as the embryos grew older. However, we found no relationship between clutch size or maternal incubation behavior and embryo heart rate. Two posters about this research were presented at NKU student research celebrations, and we plan to present at an external ornithological conference in 2022. In addition to investigating this primary question, the students supported by this award also helped collect data for several other research projects in my lab on different aspects of avian reproduction, which contributed to several other research posters. Overall, this project produced new information about avian incubation and provided valuable research experience for NKU undergraduate students.
Justin Yates
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Determining if Ro 63-1908 decreases cocaine self-administration in rats
As there are currently no FDA-approved medications for psychostimulant use disorders, the goal of the present study was to determine if the drug Ro 63-1908 decreases cocaine self-administration in rats. Another goal was to determine if increased risky choice predicts cocaine self-administration. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats were first tested in a risky decision task, in which responses on one lever were associated with “safe” delivery of one food pellet and responses one another lever were associated with delivery of two pellets and probabilistic delivery of a foot shock. Rats were then implanted with an indwelling catheter in the right jugular vein before being trained to self-administer cocaine (0.75 mg/kg/infusion). After five training sessions, rats were trained in a threshold procedure, in which the dose of cocaine decreased across the session (0.75, 0.27, 0.08, 0.03, 0.006, and 0.002 mg/kg/infusion). Two parameters were measured. Demand intensity measures how much an animal self-administers a drug when the “cost” of obtaining the drug is low (i.e., responses at the 0.75 mg/kg/infusion dose). Demand elasticity measures how much an animal is willing to respond for a drug as the “price” increases. Rats received injections of Ro 63-1908 (0, 0.1, 0.3, 1.0 mg/kg) before self-administration sessions. Results showed that male high risk-taking rats had decreased demand elasticity for cocaine, meaning they were more willing to continue responding for cocaine with increases in price. While Ro 63-1908 did not significantly alter demand intensity or demand elasticity, female rats had decreased demand elasticity compared to males.
