Faculty Highlights

Lecturer of Art Elmer Guevara‘s solo exhibition House Money was presented at Charlie James Gallery from July-September 2023. The Los Angeles Times also published an in-depth piece about the exhibition and Guevara’s career, personal history, and techniques, describing his paintings as “multilayered” and “bursting with color.”

Mary Talusan Lacanlale, associate professor and chair of Asian Pacific Studies, gave a talk and performance for “Music Alive in the Archive: An Exploration of Kulintang Music in the Danongan Kalanduyan Collection” at UCLA in May 2023. The event was co-sponsored by California Revealed, the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, the World Music Center at UCLA, and Ube Arte, with additional funding from the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies. The project was administered in California by the State Librarian and made possible by funding from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. The event was also featured in Ethnomusicology Review.

Professor of Information Systems Xuefei “Nancy” Deng co-authored “Social Inclusion: The Use of Social Media and the Impact on First-Generation College Students,” published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems‘ special issue on technology and social inclusion. Using technology affordance theory and analyzing narratives of 102 first-generation college students (FGCS), the study revealed three social media (SM) user types—”Community Builders, Scholars, and Information Seekers”—and four actualized affordances, namely interconnection, inspiration, insightfulness, and intense comfort, which are conceptualized into three generative mechanisms: identity booster, academic growth, and self-care. The study shows how technology use can promote social engagement and mitigate exclusion experienced by FGCS.

Lecturer of Marketing and Management Gary Polk was included in the Los Angeles Business Journal‘s “Leaders of Influence: Nonprofit & Philanthropy 2023” for his work founding the Innovation Incubator at CSUDH and the Polk Institute Foundation, which focuses on social entrepreneurship and minority small business owners.

Associate Librarian Carolyn Caffrey co-authored “Examining Our Roots: The Origins and Evolution of Outreach in Academic Libraries, 1958-2020,” a peer-reviewed article for Journal Library Outreach and Engagement. The article traces the effects of the national outlook on higher education from the mid-century to the current neoliberal reality on outreach efforts. It also contends that the present post-pandemic moment affords practitioners a chance to turn a critical eye toward the purpose and audience of outreach, to re-orient their actions, and to reflect an original philosophy of outreach: inclusivity.

Professor of Music Jonathon Grasse‘s 2022 book Hearing Brazil: Music and Histories in Minas Gerais has been nominated for the American Musicological Society’s 2023 Judy Tsou Critical Race Studies Award, which honors outstanding musicological work in the field of critical race and/or critical ethnic studies.

Professor of Finance Rama Malladi‘s paper “Benchmark Analysis of Machine Learning Methods to Forecast the U.S. Annual Inflation Rate During a High-Decile Inflation Period” was published in Computational Economics, a Springer-Nature journal.

The paper compares 25 machine learning methods to detect U.S. annual inflation rates up to a year in advance, and tries to build a bridge between machine learning and traditional econometrics using inflation forecast as a practical example.

Professor of Criminal Justice Administration C. Augustus “Gus” Martin appeared on The Policing Conversation podcast to discuss the U.S. War on Terror and the current threat of domestic terrorism. Martin was interviewed by James Williams, a lecturer at Liverpool James Moores University’s School of Justice Studies.

“The simplest financial habit is to pay your bills on time. You can start by enrolling in auto payment plans that are offered by vendors such as utility companies, mortgage companies and credit card companies. This will take the pressure off of having to remember due dates for those bills.” – Prakash Dheeriya, professor of finance, was a featured expert in Best Credit Cards for Bad Credit by LendingTree.

“The most common mistakes people make are not reading the fine print. Comparing the interest rate is important, but some savings accounts require a minimum balance. If you don’t have the minimum balance, your interest rate will be a lot less.” – Lecturer of Finance Michael Manahan spoke to WalletHub about savings accounts.

Manahan was also a featured expert in three MoneyGeek articles: buying a house in California, types of business insurance, and finding the best debt consolidation loans.

“By announcing your desire to leave, an employer might see a short-term issue with your immediate departure and make a counteroffer to buy time while they identify and train another employee.” – Thomas Norman, professor of management and marketing, offered expert insight about salary negotiation with employers for MoneyGeek.

“The reason why people procrastinate more now is that we are easily distracted by our phones and any other tech that vibrates, beeps or buzzes.” – Larry Rosen, professor emeritus of psychology, was quoted by Forbes about the causes of procrastination, and how to overcome it.

Assistant Professor of Asian Pacific Studies Mary Talusan Lacanlale authored Filipinos in Greater Boston, part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series. The book traces the presence of Filipinos in Massachusetts since the 19th century, and how the community has grown in the early 21st century, to more than 25,000 people.

Rama Malladi, associate professor of finance, co-authored “Idaho Blacks: Quiet Economic Triumph of Enduring Champions” with Phillip Thompson, director of the Idaho Black History Museum. The paper examines how Idaho is the only state in which Black people earn more than all other races, and what factors might have led to this achievement in reducing racial and economic disparities.

Professor of Criminal Justice Administration C. Augustus “Gus” Martin co-authored The Handbook of Homeland Security, published by Routledge. The book addresses areas such as countering terrorism, critical infrastructure protection, information and cybersecurity, military and private sector support for Homeland Security, risk assessment, and preparedness for all-hazards and evolving threats. It is Martin’s ninth book.

In June, Interim Director of the College of Education Student Success Center Laurie Inman, Associate Professor of Teacher Education Edward Curammeng, and Professor and MS Clinical Coordinator Marcia Reed attended the Network Improvement Community P-12 Partner Institute Conference at Michigan State University with university partners from Los Angeles Unified School District and Inglewood Unified School District.

They collaborated with other educators to help strengthen university-based teacher education through a shared commitment to racial equity and social justice. They also engaged in courageous conversations with committed educators who are sincerely invested in preparing future teachers and teacher educators to become leading scholars and practitioners who deeply understand and work to improve education in its political, social, and cultural contexts.

Associate Professor of Biology Sonal Singhal‘s proposal was selected for a CSU Creating Responsive, Equitable, Active Teaching and Engagement (CREATE) award in the amount of $50,000 for the 2023-24 academic year. CREATE Awards support faculty in implementing new, groundbreaking academic interventions and course redesign to directly address student success and focus on closing equity gaps for all CSU students.

Singhal’s proposal, “Equity-Minded Reform in STEM Gateway Courses,” aims to boost CSUDH students’ success in STEM while creating a culture of sharing best practices across STEM faculty.

“I get concerned about the fact that we just blindly believe the GPS. We don’t question it. Are we just going to blindly believe the AI? As it is, we’re overwhelmed. We’re so overwhelmed that we can’t make ourselves do a simple task and see it to completion. Anxiety is just going to ratchet up as we’re faced with this unknown thing in our world.” – Larry Rosen, professor emeritus of psychology, was interviewed by WIRED about people’s reliance on technology and the psychological impacts of AI.

Charles “Chuck” Dickerson, supervisor of special ensembles, was celebrated in The Orchestra Chuck Built, a documentary by Grammy-winning and Emmy-nominated director/producer Ryan Suffern. The film centers on Dickerson’s work in founding, directing, and conducting the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and was screened at Mountainfilm in Telluride, Colorado.

Professor of Africana Studies Salim Faraji delivered multiple presentations and lectures throughout Spring 2023.

As a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society, he co-organized and presented at the society’s Research Symposium in February. In March, he gave a lecture entitled “Early and Medieval Nubian Christianity: Ancient Rites and Cultural Convergence in the Middle Nile Valley” for the American Sudanese Archaeological Research Center, of which he is a member. He also served as a panelist and keynote speaker for the 16th Annual African American Male Summit on the theme Ausar Project: Resurrecting Black Male Excellence.

Faraji was the African Distinguished Speaker for the Africa Subcommittee on the International Education Committee at California State University, Long Beach. He spoke on the topic “Engaging Original African Religions, Spiritualities and Ethics: Enduring Insights and Options for Our Times” on March 14.

Associate Professor of English Mara Lee Grayson co-edited Challenging Antisemitism: Lessons from Literary Classrooms, published by Rowman & Littlefield. The collection provides theoretical framing and historical context for understanding contemporary antisemitism and offers teachers curricular ideas and practical strategies to address antisemitism and amplify Jewish voices in secondary and post-secondary literacy classrooms.

Gilah Yelin Hirsch, professor of art emerita, gave numerous talks and presentations, including: Chronicle of Venice Legends at NeueHouse in Venice, California; Aleph to DNA: The Healing Power of Form at the Stephen Wise Temple in Bel Air; and the Artist as Healer course at McGill University. In June, she will be a keynote speaker and artist-in-residence at Lokman Hekim University in Turkey.

Hirsch’s work was featured in the UCLA Hillel exhibition Jewish Artists Capturing Sense of Self and Community, and her work is also part of the Lancaster Museum of Art’s Sages exhibition, on view through August 2023. Publisher Skira released an extensive monograph following Hirsch’s 2022 retrospective exhibition Archaeology of Metaphor: The Art of Gilah Yelin Hirsch, for which Hirsch gave an interview at the Salon for the Spiritually Creative Life.

Hirsch’s film Reading the Landscape, which has already received six film festival awards, was nominated as a finalist for Best Original Concept and Best Short Documentary at Berlin’s FilmHaus Film Festival.

Assistant Professor in the Teacher Education Division Minhye Son co-authored “Negotiating Asian American identities: Collaborative Self-Study of Korean Immigrant Scholars’ Reading Group on AsianCrit” in the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. By reading, discussing, and writing together, Son and her Korean immigrant early-career scholars made sense of the racialized epistemology imposed on Asian transnational and immigrant scholars. The study’s findings contribute to the expansion of AsianCrit scholarship by highlighting its value in supporting identity exploration among transnational or first-generation Asian immigrants in higher education. Furthermore, the research underscores the importance of identity-based peer mentoring as a means of promoting Asian solidarity.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Kevin Montes co-authored “A Mixed-Methods Examination of Language Used by College Students to Describe Alcohol Recovery” for Health Education & Behavior. The study, conducted in Montes’ CSUDH lab, examines college student perception of alcohol recovery, regardless of their drinking behavior. All ten of Montes’ co-authors are current or former CSUDH undergraduate or graduate students, and this marks their first time authoring a manuscript accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

“Key issues in the manufacturing industry include rises in raw material costs, raw material shortages, and supply chain disruption. […] The pandemic has impacted 98% of global supply chains, so we’ve seen this shift of manufacturing companies from cost to reliability.” – Assistant Professor of Finance Jennifer Brodmann appeared on Advancements with Ted Danson to discuss the pandemic and supply chain disruptions.

Through 2020, China submitted plans to launch 12,992 low-Earth-orbit broadband internet satellites. However, it doesn’t have the capacity to launch all of those satellites today. Such was the expert opinion of Larry Press, professor of information systems, who was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal for an article about the U.S.-China rivalry and satellite technology.

“Parents have to monitor their children’s use of technology–period.” – Larry Rosen, professor emeritus of psychology, was interviewed for a parenting guide for kids and tech. Rosen recommended that kids under age 10 use technology for no more than 30-60 minutes a day, and that both adults and children should have at least 1-2 hours a day with zero access to any devices.

“Being in the car on the freeway is such a function of being an Angeleno in that you’re a commuter in that space. So I turned that commuter space into the space that I desire–a natural space, a river, a native space, where it’s a highway, not just for us to destroy the environment, but a highway in which animals could thrive.” – Assistant Professor of Art Devon Tsuno was commissioned by the Los Angeles Times to create art that erased or reimagined an L.A. freeway.