Faculty Research Notes and Factoids

RESEARCH NOTES
Geology professor John Chadwick (pictured above), along with researchers from Pomona College and the Lunar and Planetary Institute, will study volcanoes on Mars, including Olympus Mons, the largest planetary volcano in the solar system. Part of a three-year, nearly $400,000 NASA-funded study, the research will examine the evolution of the four largest volcanoes on Mars and the impact they had on the red planet’s environment. Using data from NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars, they hope to learn more about the life cycle of these volcanoes.

Kendra B. Stewart, political science professor and director of the Joseph P. Riley Jr. Center for Livable Communities, in collaboration with the Master of Public Administration program’s Community Assistance Program (CAP), is conducting community-focused research in Beaufort County, S.C. Stewart and CAP students, faculty and staff are working to understand residents’ quality of life in the region and where resources are needed to increase community livability, focusing in on topics like food and housing security, public health, transportation, education and workforce development.

Kris De Welde

Director of women’s and gender studies and professor of sociology Kris De Welde recently received a $1.9 million National Science Foundation grant for her research project, “ADVANCE and Beyond: Understanding Processes of Institutional Change to Promote STEM Equity and Education.” Working with colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder and Michigan State University, De Welde seeks to identify processes for institutional change to increase equity and inclusion in higher education STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, and beyond, and help close intersectional equity gaps in those areas.

FACULTY FACTOIDS
Three CofC professors received Fulbright awards to teach and study abroad for the 2021–22 academic year. Adem Ali, associate professor of geology, is teaching and working in South Africa with a focus on water supplies in the region. Richard Bodek, professor of history, is conducting research on a homicidal nurse in occupied Berlin in the 1940s and teaching in London, while communication professor Robert Westerfelhaus is teaching contemporary American popular culture in Poland.

Irina Erman, director of Russian studies, was recently awarded the inaugural Levin Article Prize given to the best article published in The Russian Review, one of the oldest and most widely read journals of Russian studies. Her 2020 article is titled “Nation and Vampiric Narration in Aleksey Tolstoy’s The Family of the Vourdalak.” Erman, who specializes in 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature and literary theory, was also invited to discuss her award-winning article on the SRB Podcast, which covers exciting topics in Russian culture.

Simon Lewis, professor of English and Faculty Senate speaker, was recently honored with the 2021 S.C. Governor’s Award in the Humanities for outstanding achievement in humanities research, teaching and scholarship. For two decades, Lewis has been enthusiastically involved with the Program in the Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World (CLAW), which promotes scholarship and engagement with the intersection of history and culture of the Lowcountry and the Atlantic rim (Europe, Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean, etc.).