Spotlighting Research
College of Natural Science and Mathematics
Dr. Douglas Pace: Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences with an emphasis in Cellular and Development Physiology.
Dr. Pace’s Ph.D. research focused on understanding the physiological energetics of marine invertebrate larval development. He then went to the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases at the University of Georgia as a postdoctoral fellow where he studied the cellular physiology of the human parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. Recently he received a 4-year grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services for $423,500 as part of a NIH, Biomedical and Research Training project entitled, “Defining the Role of Calcium-Binding Proteins in the Human Parasite Toxoplasma gondii during the Lytic Cycle.” This research will be critical for understanding how parasite infectivity is linked to calcium regulation and can be used for developing drug therapies to treat people infected with this parasite. T. gondii is thought to infect over one third of the human population and is related to the parasite responsible for malaria, Plasmodium sp., which kills almost a million people a year.
College of Health and Human Services
Dr. Long Wang: Assistant Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics
Dr. Wang’s research interests include the improvement of taste detection and rehabilitation from the effects of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and aging as nutrition is an integral component of health promotion and disease management. He is current working with a patient who has congenital aglossia (a rare condition where a person is born without a tongue). He also serves as a mentor and member of the Internal Advisory Board for the university’s NIH BUILD grant program in support of increasing diversity in the biomedical research profession.
College of Liberal Arts
Dr. Michael Ahland: Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Dr. Ahland’s research interests include syntax (from historical, functional, and typological perspectives), African tonal systems, historical-comparative linguistics, and the syntax-phonology interface. He conducts his research in the context of describing and documenting endangered languages (with particular focus on the Afroasiatic languages of Ethiopia). Dr. Ahland conducted original fieldwork in remote parts of Ethiopia from 2007-2009 and in 2014. He wrote a grammar of the Mao language, an endangered language that was previously undocumented. His new project focuses on how the grammatical systems of the four Mao languages evolved. The project will help to build our understanding of the evolutionary pathways through which grammar develops in all languages. At the same time, it will shed light on the particular case of Western Ethiopia and its complex linguistic history. Currently, Dr. Ahland is also embarking on a new research project involving Tubatulabal, a Uto-Aztecan language of California.
College of the Arts
Dr. Mariah Proctor-Tiffany: Assistant Professor of Art History
Dr. Proctor studies women, art, and identity in the the Middle Ages, and teaches courses in medieval and Islamic art and architecture, and the cross-cultural exchange of objects. Her first book, Gothic Art in Motion: The Inventory, Identity, and Gift Giving of Clémence of Hungary, is forthcoming with Pennsylvania State University Press. It explores art and the performance of identity by royal women in 14th century courts, arguing that women, often separated from their loved ones by politically advantageous marriages, maintained their relationships through international gifts of sculptures, reliquaries, textiles, jewels, and manuscripts. Additionally, Dr. Proctor is co-editing a volume of essays called Moving Women, Moving Objects (500-1500) that includes essays from fourteen scholars who explore the key roles that mobile women played in the arts in the Middle Ages. She has received numerous fellowships and grants from institutions like the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.