College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Anthropology student digs deep at Department of Commerce internship

Katarina Benson — Wed, 07 May 2025 19:40:46 +0000

Anthropology student digs deep at Department of Commerce internship Katarina Benson Wed, 05/07/2025 - 15:40

Zain Alzubaidy, a senior anthropology major at George Mason �鶹��, recently completed an internship with the United States Department of Commerce. He worked in the Advocacy Center, a government service that provides commercial diplomatic support to American businesses in foreign markets.

The majority of Alzubaidy’s internship focused on potential partners for the Advocacy Center. He was responsible for researching applicants and presenting his findings to his colleagues, who ultimately decided if they would partner with the company.

One of his most memorable projects was crafting a persuasive letter to a foreign head of state on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce at the time, making the case for a business to be awarded a multi-trillion-dollar contract.

Zain Alzubaidy. Photo provided

“It’s one thing to read about these deals in the news, but it’s entirely different to take part in them. Assignments like those made me proud that I was part of something notable,” he said.

His passion for understanding people and cultures is what initially led him to take anthropology at the international baccalaureate level as a senior at Annandale High School. He enjoyed it so much that he decided to major in the subject at George Mason.

“I can recall being astounded by how people have such different ways of thinking and living,” he said. “My experience in that class stuck with me, and when I got to George Mason it felt an easy decision to study anthropology.”

He specifically credits his writing classes with teaching him the skills necessary for his role. “I developed strong research and writing skills [in those classes], which I absolutely needed to use in the Advocacy Center. If I didn’t have the writing and research skills that I developed at George Mason, I would not have been able perform my job to the best of my ability. "

Alzubaidy’s future goals include doing further diplomatic work, possibly in the same vein as his Advocacy Center work, and even running for public office down the road.

“I feel like I have not only the competency and capability to do well in those areas, but also the right intentions,” he said. “Helping others will always be a goal of mine, so I will try my best to do that wherever I decide to work.”

Topics

Internship

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Students

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Billups finishes his George Mason career with a record-setting season

Colleen Rich — Wed, 07 May 2025 12:38:17 +0000

Billups finishes his George Mason career with a record-setting season Colleen Rich Wed, 05/07/2025 - 08:38

Senior and men’s basketball guard Jared Billups might have joined George Mason �鶹�� as a transfer student, but in his two years here, he has managed to leave a historic mark.

Billups, who is graduating this month with a bachelor’s degree in economics, is George Mason’s first conference Defensive Player of the Year since 2001 and was a finalist for the Lefty Driesell Award, given to the nation’s top defensive player.

As captain, Billups helped lead the men’s basketball team to its best season in the program's Atlantic 10 history. With 15 A-10 league victories, the Patriots set a new university record and started league play 12-1 for the first time in the program's 59-year history.

With Billups leading the charge, the team’s Patriot Pressure defense also ranked in the Top 25 nationally this season, and the Patriots ranked third in the nation in field goal defense.

This year the A-10 Tournament was played at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., and Mason Nation packed the building to support the Patriots. The team locked up a double bye in the tournament for the first time and reached the conference title game for the first time since 2009. Behind Mason Nation's huge turnout, the A-10 Final became one of the top-3 highest attended games in the tournament's history.

Billups said the team could feel the love. “It’s one of the best feelings in the world,” he said about playing before a roaring arena. “The crowd is cheering for you and you’re playing well, and you just feel so good. I don’t think there is anything else like it in world.”

Billups started his college career playing basketball for Siena College in New York. He was interested in George Mason to be closer to family in Waldorf, Maryland, and because he wanted to play at a higher level. When he had the opportunity to visit campus, he said he knew he had found something special. “I just felt the love and support of the community here,” he said.

Billups admits that George Mason pushed him academically. He said that the George Mason Athletics makes sure everyone stays on course to graduate. “You care about your basketball. You care about your academics. You’ve got to be a whole person,” he said, adding that not all schools are like that.

While graduating is in some ways bittersweet for Billups—“We had an amazing season, and it was an amazing group of guys.”—he is looking toward the future and plans to play basketball professionally. He has already signed with an agent.

Topics

Graduation

Students

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Mason Athletics

Student athlete brings passion for teaching to the mat

Sarah Holland — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:23:10 +0000

Student athlete brings passion for teaching to the mat Sarah Holland Mon, 04/28/2025 - 10:23

Red-shirting—when an athlete is withdrawn from college sporting events for a year to develop their skills and extend their period of eligibility by an additional year—is particularly common for student athletes from the early 2020s. With many of their careers put on pause due to COVID-19, most student athletes have the chance to keep competing while pursuing graduate degrees.

Photo by Rafael Suanes/Athletics

For Tyler Kocak, BA Integrative Studies ’24, that extra year of eligibility gave him the chance to pursue a second degree: an MEd in secondary education.

Kocak, who received the John R. Linn Memorial Award for Outstanding Student Athlete from the College of Education and Human Development, plans to cross the stage at the Spring 2025 Commencement Ceremony.

What inspired you to go into teaching?

My brother got me into it initially. He’s a teacher, and he said he liked it, so I thought I might like it, too. I have a passion for changing the future and impacting kids. In secondary education, I can build relationships with the students and support them along their journey to shape their futures. And I chose history and social science as my focus because I’m a big history junkie.

What brought you to George Mason?

I’m from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and I was recruited for wrestling at George Mason. That was a big factor, but I also liked the area a lot, and I liked the academics.

What’s something you learned from wrestling that translated to your teaching?

Working hard is number one. If you don’t work hard, you’re not going to get where you want to be. You have to roll with the punches: If something doesn't go well or doesn’t go your way, you have to keep going forward, keep moving. Wrestling is a lot about mindset and mentality. I’m a pretty optimistic person, so I always try to look on the bright side of things and work toward improving myself, improving my teaching, and improving my wrestling. Improvement is all about consistency, too, so I learned to take those little steps forward each time to get better and reach my goals.

Photo by Rafael Suanes/Athletics

What is your greatest accomplishment from your time at George Mason?

I’ve competed nationally a lot. I placed 6th at the Mid-American Conference (MAC); I won a tournament; I made it to round 12 at Midlands Championship, which is a big tournament; and others. And I was on the MAC Honor Roll and was a National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Scholar All-American.

What advice would you give to a first-year student at George Mason?

Never give up. Work hard and manage your time well. Stay ahead of the course, and plan ahead instead of falling behind. If you do fall behind, contact your professors. And if you’re an athlete coming in, try to build a good relationship with your coaches and teammates.

What are your current plans for post-graduation?

I want to teach history and social science somewhere in Fairfax County. Maybe I’ll end up doing special education. And I want to coach high school wrestling.

2025 Spring Commencement

Topics

Students

Graduation

College of Education and Human Development

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Athletics

Wrestling

Criminology student interns at an adult detention center

Shayla Brown — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 20:28:26 +0000

Criminology student interns at an adult detention center  Shayla Brown Thu, 04/24/2025 - 16:28

When George Mason �鶹�� junior Megan Miller toured the Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center as part of her coursework, she didn’t realize she was being interviewed for an internship position. 

“It was a tour group of about eight of us, and we went into it very excited. For once, I wasn’t shy; I was talkative and outgoing, which is good because they were essentially evaluating us to see if we’d be a good fit for the environment,” said Miller, who is a criminology, law, and society (CLS) student in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.  

Megan Miller (back right) at a session in the detention center. Photo provided.

“No resumes were required. It was simply based on how we spoke and acted during the tour. I had never toured a jail before, but it was something that I was interested in because I do plan to work professionally in a prison or correctional facility one day,” she explained. 

 Miller interned from August to December 2024 in the center’s classification department and worked with inmate visitation and reentry programs, such as the center’s GED courses.  

 “They have different tiers in the adult detention center. [For example] orange is [maximum] custody, blue is middle custody, and green is lower-level crime. The classification department ranks where inmates should be placed based on their crime and prior offenses,” explained Miller. “It’s one of the most important jobs in the center, because if someone is classified wrong there could incidents that lead to injury or death because of it,” she said. 

Megan Miller. Photo provided.

 As someone who hopes to work with inmates on their reintegration into society after incarceration, Miller said she was fascinated by the center’s mental health facility. 

“I think that having a mental health unit in any type of correctional facility is extremely beneficial,” said Miller. “I hope to one day work with mentally ill inmates, evaluating their mental state and trying my best to understand mental illness and its correlation to crime.”

 Miller obtained this internship as a result of CLS professor Catherine Dobson’s CRIM 479 Introduction to Internship and CRIM 480 Internship courses. 

 Dobson is also director of the department’s internship program.  

 “Students are much more likely to have jobs after graduation if they do an internship, and many times the internship itself turns into a full-time job. [In the course] we do all the foundational work of putting together strong resumes with transferable skills and working closely with George Mason’s Career Services because they've got lots of great resources for the students,” said Dobson. 

 “Students will have a fixed idea of what they want to do, so I introduce them to different local, state, and federal options, and also nonprofit and private sector options. George Mason has a lot of great partners throughout the community for our students to reach out to,” Dobson said. 

Megan Miller (left) and her roommate, Sophia Figler. Photo provided.

Miller said they attended the internship expo as a class and were given the opportunity to speak to different organizations including the Fairfax and Loudoun County sheriff' departments.  

“I took the most interest in the adult detention center because of the sergeants who were there speaking that day. My roommate and I gave them our names, and we actually did the internship together,” said Miller. 

After she graduates, Miller hopes to continue her education at George Mason, earning her master’s degree in criminology, and become a full-time officer at the center.

Topics

internships

criminology law and society

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Students

Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy shares gun violence research at congressional briefing

Katarina Benson — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 15:04:07 +0000

Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy shares gun violence research at congressional briefing Katarina Benson Mon, 04/21/2025 - 11:04

In February, George Mason �鶹��’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted its 12th congressional briefing at the U.S. Capitol, focused on “Preventing Gun Violence.” The event, led by Criminology, Law and Society Professors Cynthia Lum and Christopher Koper, and held in partnership with the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, highlighted research on evidence-based strategies to reduce gun violence, reduce the illegal supply of firearms, strengthen investigations, support victim recovery, and address risks of high-risk individuals and groups.

Featured speakers included several of the nation’s leading experts on firearms violence. They presented to an audience of more than 230 registrants including congressional staff, federal agency representatives, researchers, and advocacy organizations.

The congressional briefing at the U.S. Capitol. Photo provided

“The CEBCP continues to invest in generating, translating, and disseminating research on preventing firearms violence, which remains a high priority in many U.S. jurisdictions,” said Lum, CEBCP director. "Its faculty are committed to maintaining a steady focus on research and applying scientific knowledge in this and other critical areas of criminal justice.”

Koper is a nationally recognized expert on firearms policy and policing and a CEBCP Principal Fellow. He has studied crime and justice issues for more than 30 years and is widely known for his research on the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.

“The briefing addressed several issues important to federal policy and to gun violence prevention efforts supported at the state and local levels,” he said. “I hope it helps federal policymakers evaluate the efficacy of these initiatives and find areas of common ground in the ongoing gun policy debate.”

Daniel F. Wilhelm, president of The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, praised the CEBCP’s contributions to the field:

“George Mason’s Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy is a national leader in advancing important research on crime and effective responses to it,” he said. “It holds the highest scholarly standards while engaging directly with practitioners, policymakers, and citizens working to address crime and violence in communities across the United States. It has been a longstanding and essential partner to The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation in our mission to develop and deploy knowledge that deepens our understanding of violence and how to control and prevent it.”  

Videos from the briefing are now available on the event's webpage. A special Spring 2025 issue of the CEBCP’s Translational Criminology magazine, currently in production, will include summaries of each research presentation.

Topics

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research

George Mason English professor named Guggenheim Fellow

Colleen Rich — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 15:52:30 +0000

George Mason English professor named Guggenheim Fellow Colleen Rich Thu, 04/17/2025 - 11:52

Tania James, associate professor of English at George Mason �鶹��, has been named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in the Fiction category.

Tania James. Photo by Elliott O’Donovan

James, a professor in the Creative Writing Program, was one of 198 individuals in the United States and Canada awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, which is celebrating its 100th class of Guggenheim Fellows. The Guggenheim Foundation has awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in fellowships to nearly 20,000 notable individuals, many of whom have gone on to win other prestigious awards, such as the Nobel Prize, the Turing Award, the Fields Medal, and the National Book Award.

“Professor James is receiving this award in recognition of excellence in her career, thus far, and the exceptional promise her work holds for the future,” said George �鶹�� Provost James Antony. “George Mason �鶹�� is incredibly proud of Professor James and looks forward to the continued contributions she will make as a scholar, and as a mentor to our students.”

The Class of 2025 Guggenheim Fellows represents individuals from 53 fields chosen from a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants. James was one of just 10 selected in the Fiction category. She plans to use the fellowship to work on her speculative historical fiction novel set in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.

“We are thrilled for Tania to receive this prestigious fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation,” Ann Ardis, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said. “This recognition speaks to Tania’s impact as an author. The Guggenheim Foundation celebrates those who show ‘exceptional promise,’ and we couldn’t be happier for Tania, who continues to inspire her peers and students.”

James is the author of four books, all published by Knopf. Her most recent novel, Loot, has received numerous accolades, including nominations for the 2023 National Book Award and the Carol Shields Prize in addition to being included on Book of the Year lists by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews.

She has also written The Tusk That Did the Damage, which was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize; Aerogrammes and Other Stories, named a Best Book of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle; and the novel Atlas of Unknowns, which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. 

“I’m deeply grateful to have an institutional home like George Mason, a place where I’m so often inspired by the research and teaching of my colleagues,” James said. “There is so much uncertainty with a life in the arts, but the sense of stability and support means I can take my time with my work and take the sort of creative risks necessary to feeling fulfilled as a writer."

Check out the Creative Writing program at George Mason

Topics

Campus News

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Fellowships

Professor, students travel to Rwanda for peace-building mission

Shayla Brown — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 14:14:32 +0000

Professor, students travel to Rwanda for peace-building mission Shayla Brown Wed, 04/16/2025 - 10:14

This spring, George Mason �鶹�� Professor Al Fuertes traveled to Rwanda to facilitate workshops for former victims and perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan mass genocide.

“These are people who have extended forgiveness and reconciliation, something many of us might think is surreal or impossible,” said Fuertes, who teaches in the School of Integrative Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “But this is proof that even against the backdrop of genocide, it’s possible.”

Al Fuertes (bottom center) at a peace-building workshop in Rwanda. Photo provided.

Fuertes, who has a background in conflict analysis and resolution and specializes in trauma healing, has previously traveled to Rwanda in March and November 2024, and has taken students with him on some of his excursions as part of a study-abroad program for which he is the faculty director.

His most recent trip was in collaboration with the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Protestant �鶹�� of Rwanda (PUR) located in Huye District. Fuertes also connected and collaborated with the grassroots organization, "Light Group" in Remera, and the Aegis Trust, a program component of the Rwanda Genocidal Memorial.

Al Fuertes conducting a peace-building workshop. Photo provided.

“It's a different level of learning when students have the opportunity to meet firsthand those who were involved or impacted and are now sharing their stories,” said Fuertes.

“It is an extremely freeing and life-changing thing for students to experience, especially those who don't necessarily believe in forgiveness or who struggle to forgive.”

Each semester, Fuertes hosts a panel presentation of Rwandan survivors as part of the learning activities in my graduate courses CONF 695 Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation amid Polarization and CONF 695 Psychosocial Trauma Healing. This spring semester’s panel resulted in increased participation from George Mason students.

“Knowing that one of the challenges to reconciliation in Rwanda is poverty, students from my trauma-informed and resilience-oriented practice class decided to donate 15 goats to families of both former perpetrators and former victims, now survivors,” said Fuertes.

Dianne Rambo, BIS in Peacebuilding and Well-Being Studies ’24, has been a federal contractor in the intelligence world for more than 20 years. She came back to George Mason to study the process of healing childhood trauma in adults in hopes of becoming a mental health counselor.

“I took [CONF 695 the Praxis of Forgiveness and Reconciliation] with Al, and the course material and experiential learning have really changed the course of my life and career goals,” said Rambo, who met Fuertes at an online workshop for forgiveness and reconciliation.

Rambo, who is currently a non-degree graduate student in George Mason’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and part of George Mason's Working Group on Forgiveness and Reconciliation along with Fuertes, traveled to Rwanda with Fuertes for the 14-day winter study-abroad program focusing on genocide, healing, and reconciliation.

A healing circle. Photo by Al Fuertes.

“I met the Rwandans via Zoom panels while in Al’s class. We learned about their stories and it just blew my mind how they were facilitating this reconciliation as a nation and how it transformed their nation from this mass atrocity that happened just a couple decades ago,” said Rambo, who has also traveled to Northern Ireland, Scandanavia, and the Philippines for peace-building missions.

“�鶹�� program partners facilitated visits to the genocide memorials, and we were able to build a space that felt safe and comfortable. We'd debrief afterward where you can share the intense feelings that you may have experienced. We're seeing really hard things, but we're able to process our emotions,” said Rambo.

Rambo has been accepted into George Mason's CEHD Counseling degree program and will begin the cohort program this fall.

Rambo, Fuertes, and their program partners also have participants journal and conduct community-building activities.

“I thought of bringing healing through peace-building because it's not enough just to resolve the conflict,” said Fuertes. “If victimization is not healed, most likely, people may start embracing the victim narrative and eventually become the new perpetrator.”

In This Story

Al Fuertes

Discover the School of Integrative Studies

Topics

study abroad

Mental Health

Peacebuilding

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Students

Announcing the recipients of the 2025 Presidential Awards for Faculty Excellence

Lauren Reuscher — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 14:49:41 +0000

Announcing the recipients of the 2025 Presidential Awards for Faculty Excellence Lauren Reuscher Mon, 04/14/2025 - 10:49

George Mason �鶹�� President Gregory Washington has announced the recipients of the 2025 Presidential Awards for Faculty Excellence, honoring 12 George Mason faculty members for their work on behalf of the university, students, and the broader community.

The awards honor faculty with up to six years of service, six to 12 years of service, and more than 12 years of service.

This is the ninth year for the Presidential Awards for Faculty Excellence. Recipients are selected by a review committee that includes prior award recipients and senior leaders from relevant areas. They will be honored at a reception May 13.

“Faculty excellence is an undeniable reason why George Mason is consistently ranked as one the country’s top 50 public universities,” President Gregory Washington said. “We honor these faculty members’ scholarship and dedication to help students achieve their highest potential with the university’s highest faculty recognition.”

The John Toups Presidential Medal for Excellence in Teaching is presented to a faculty member whose teaching inspires and stimulates students in the finest tradition of higher education.

The Beck Family Presidential Medal for Excellence in Research recognizes extraordinary contributions by members of the Mason faculty to consequential research of high impact. The award is presented annually to a George Mason faculty member whose research represents groundbreaking advances in their field.

The United Bank Presidential Medal for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion recognizes extraordinary contributions in teaching, research, scholarship, creative works, or service that directly advances diversity and inclusion inside and outside the George Mason community.

The Earle C. Williams Presidential Medal for Excellence in Social Impact is presented to a faculty member in any discipline who makes extraordinary efforts to use their scholarship to solve real-world problems.

The complete list of 2025 honorees is below. See prior recipients for 2017 to 2024.

Bethany Cieslowski

Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award Recipient

Bethany Cieslowski

Chief Innovation Officer for Immersive Technologies and Instructional Associate Professor, School of Nursing

Bethany Cieslowski joined the faculty of the School of Nursing as an instructional faculty member in 2021. She serves as the chief innovation officer for immersive technologies and the bachelor of science in nursing director in the College of Public Health. Since 2017, when she received the Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator (CHSE) certification, she has devoted herself to educating the nursing workforce of the future using simulation and technology. Cieslowski has been a pioneer at George Mason in the use of virtual reality (VR) simulations that immerse students in clinical nursing scenarios. To aid this effort she established the College of Public Health’s VR SIM lab, which is the first lab in the country to receive accreditation from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare for the use of immersive technologies in medical scenarios.

Angela Miller

John Toups Presidential Medal for Excellence in Teaching Recipient

Angela Miller

Associate Professor, College of Education and Human Development

Angela Miller is an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development. Her primary teaching focus is on quantitative research methods. She has taught 13 different courses in her time at George Mason, and she took the lead in redesigning the research methods curriculum for PhD students and developed three new courses to that end. While her own teaching has been focused on the graduate level, she took a lead role in developing, teaching, and now mentoring graduate students and other faculty in an undergraduate statistics course that is part of the Mason Core for Quantitative Reasoning. Miller makes deliberate efforts to tailor her instruction to the unique needs of her students and she consistently receives outstanding evaluations. She has made significant contributions to graduate mentoring, having chaired six dissertation committees, served as the methodologist on an additional 18 dissertation committees, and chaired six MA thesis committees, as well as an additional 16 MA capstone projects. She was also a recipient of the 2017 George Mason �鶹�� Teaching Excellence Award.

Weiwen Jiang

Faculty Excellence in Research Award Recipient

Weiwen Jiang

Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

Weiwen Jiang, an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing, received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the �鶹�� of Pittsburgh in 2019 and spent two years at the �鶹�� of Notre Dame as a postdoctoral researcher. Jiang’s research is in the relatively new field of quantum computing, which uses quantum mechanics to enable computers to solve more complicated problems. Jiang’s research has important applications. For example, one of his recent papers combines quantum computational techniques with machine learning to solve problems relating to the discovery of new medicines. Jiang has an impressive research record of top-tier conference presentations and publications, some of which are in the most selective journals in his field (Nature Communications, Nature Electronics, Scientific Reports).

Xuesu Xiao

Faculty Excellence in Research Award Recipient

Xuesu Xiao

Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department

Xuesu Xiao received his PhD in Computer Science in 2019 from Texas A&M �鶹��, and after three years in industry as a roboticist with Everyday Robots, an Alphabet/Google company, he joined the Computer Science Department in the College of Engineering and Computing. His research aims to develop intelligent mobile robots that can navigate in challenging terrain with minimal human oversight. His cutting-edge work in the field of social robot navigation seeks to develop robots that can navigate human-occupied public spaces safely while respecting social norms. At George Mason, he established the RobotiXX Lab, in which he works with postdocs, graduate students, and high school students to develop deployable robots. An outstanding researcher, he was awarded the New Generation Star recognition at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

Aarthi Narayanan

Faculty Excellence in Research Award Recipient

Aarthi Narayanan

Professor, Biology Department

Aarthi Narayanan joined the George Mason faculty as a tenure-line faculty in 2013 after spending six years at the National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease. She is currently a professor in the Biology Department in the College of Science. Her research focuses on the impact of viruses–including SARS-CoV-2, Ebola, Dengue, and HIV–on disease progression at the tissue and cell level. Her work has led to important discoveries in vaccine development, drug discovery, and biomarker identification for infectious diseases. Narayanan has an exceptional record of publications and external funding for her research. Moreover, she has been an exemplary citizen of the university and her profession. She has been a dedicated mentor to emerging scientists in academic and industry settings; a leader in mentoring junior faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and students; a vital contributor to curriculum development for undergraduate and graduate programs; and dedicated to outreach to the local community, participating in STEM programs for girls.

Allison Redlich

The Beck Family Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Research Recipient

Allison Redlich

Professor, Criminology, Law and Society Department

Founder and Director, Modeling Decision-Making in the Legal System (MoDiLS) Lab

Allison Redlich is a professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and is the founder and director of George Mason’s Modeling Decision-Making in the Legal System (MoDiLS) Lab. Her research is deeply interdisciplinary. Trained in psychology, she brings insights from that field to address critical issues facing the legal system. For example, she has published influential research about interrogations and confessions in police and military contexts. This scholarship has been widely cited in amicus briefs to states and the Supreme Court, and Redlich herself has provided expert testimony in important cases involving contested confessions. She has produced similarly influential research on topics such as guilty pleas and mental health courts. Her work is credited with transforming scholarly thinking on these topics, and by all accounts is having a significant impact on current practices within the legal system. A prolific scholar and researcher, she has been elected a Fellow to the three most influential organizations in her academic fields: the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Academy of Experimental Criminology. Redlich has also distinguished herself as a mentor and has received mentoring awards from George Mason and from the American Society of Criminology and the American Psychology-Law Society.

Daphne King

Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient

Daphne King

Assistant Professor, Social Work Department

Daphne King joined the faculty at George Mason’s Department of Social Work in the College of Public Health in 2020 as an assistant professor and also serves as the MSW Online Program director. Prior to arriving at George Mason, she had an impactful career as a social worker working with individuals experiencing mental health challenges, with homeless and incarcerated populations, and in school social work settings. King’s scholarship and national contributions focus on the intersection of social work practice, clinician identity, and pedagogical strategies. Within the Social Work Department at George Mason, she has been proactive in providing leadership in course development, course refresh processes, and faculty training, particularly around online teaching to ensure that there is adequate support for diverse learners in digital and hybrid learning environments.

Janani Umamaheswar

Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award Recipient

Janani Umamaheswar

Associate Professor, Criminology, Law and Society

Janani Umamaheswar joined the Department of Criminology, Law and Society in 2021 as an assistant professor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Women and Gender Studies Program. She is an accomplished scholar whose research addresses issues relating to social inequality, punishment and incarceration, and qualitative research methods. In her teaching she makes a point to include a broad range of perspectives on whatever subject matter she is teaching, and in her course design she creates assessment methods that give students of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints the opportunity to share their learning in different modalities. She has also created experiential co-curricular activities designed to help students grasp issues relating to inequality. For example, she worked with the Douglass Project, the country’s foremost prison visitation program, to take George Mason graduate students for a guided dialogue session in the Washington, D.C., jail. She has been an active member of the mentoring programs run by multiple divisions of the American Society of Criminology.

Jacqueline McDowell

United Bank Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Recipient

Jacqueline McDowell

Associate Professor, School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management

Assistant Dean for Faculty Success

Jacqueline McDowell is assistant dean for faculty success and associate professor in the School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism Management in the College of Education and Human Development. A well-respected scholar, her work focuses primarily on diversity and inclusion in organized sports and recreation organizations. She has published widely in this field, particularly on the experiences of women and sport, such as athletic administrators and coaches. One of her articles was awarded the 2017 President’s Award for Article of Distinction at the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association. In McDowell’s teaching, issues of inclusion are central. She has also been active in advancing inclusion in her professional service, both here at George Mason and in external professional organizations. For example, she serves on the American Kinesiology Association’s Membership Committee, where she has led efforts to bring more Historically Black Colleges and Universities into the field by developing outreach strategies. Due to the effectiveness of these efforts, she was asked to chair this committee for the American Kinesiology Association.

Margarita Tadevosyan

Faculty Excellence in Social Impact Award Recipient

Margarita Tadevosyan

Research Assistant Professor and Executive Director, Center for Peacemaking Practice, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

Margarita Tadevosyan received her PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason �鶹�� in 2019 and is a research assistant professor and executive director of the Center for Peacemaking Practice at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. She is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution and local peacebuilding, with a focus on South Caucasus and other post-Soviet areas. Specifically, she focuses on long-term peacebuilding, local conceptions of peace, local practices to build peace, and ways that international and local peacebuilders can work together respectfully. Tadevosyan’s social impact involves fostering dialogue and cooperation between communities that have experienced long-standing conflicts. She has also brought Carter School students into her work as co-planners, co-facilitators, and co-evaluators of conflict resolution and media literacy programs.

Susan Howard

Faculty Excellence in Social Impact Award Recipient

Susan Howard

Instructional Associate Professor, School of Integrative Studies

Susan Howard joined George Mason as a full-time faculty member in the School of Integrative Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2016. Howard is an educator, behavioral scientist, and entrepreneur-innovator who leverages and humanizes technology for social impact. Her teaching, research, and entrepreneurial focus is broad, ranging from global health to environmental science and design thinking. Her impact beyond the university has come primarily through the free digital gaming platform that her company has produced for an audience of marginalized youth in India and Nepal. The games, which are free to play, are designed to educate youth about the social and public health decisions they face in their own lives. To extend the impact of her work, Howard has formed partnerships with stakeholders in the adolescent health sector, including NGOs, women entrepreneurs, and nonprofits. Howard’s gaming platform, “Games of Choice, Not of Chance,” has received multiple accolades for its work, including the 2024 Innovation Award at the Global Digital Health Summit.

Rebecca Goldin

Earle C. Williams Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Social Impact

Rebecca Goldin

Professor, Mathematical Sciences

Rebecca Goldin is Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences in the College of Science. For many years she has served as a driving force behind a global effort aimed at promoting statistical literacy among journalists and connecting the scientific community to the media. In that capacity she has written more than 100 articles, appeared in dozens of high-profile news shows and podcasts (CNN, NPR, ABC News, and PBS), and given a great number of public talks and interviews to audiences at major conferences and mathematics festivals. In addition to her far-reaching communication and outreach efforts, Goldin has done extensive volunteer work locally. Her efforts have been widely recognized by professional organizations in her field. In 2013, she was given the Association for Women in Mathematics Service Award for her contributions to the cause of educating women and girls in mathematics. In 2019, she was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, an extraordinary honor that goes to only a few mathematics scholars per year, for both her scholarly contributions to the field of differential geometry and for her efforts to promote mathematical and statistical thinking to a wide audience.

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Criminology, Law and Society researcher studies impact of high school principal-led interrogations

Katarina Benson — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:52:39 +0000

Criminology, Law and Society researcher studies impact of high school principal-led interrogations Katarina Benson Mon, 04/07/2025 - 12:52

Wrongful convictions upend lives, particularly those of youth, and can result in students becoming part of the school-to-prison pipeline. Talley Bettens, a doctoral candidate in George Mason �鶹��’s Department of Criminology, Law and Society, seeks to trace this issue to its roots: adolescent behavior and the school environment.

Talley Bettens. Photo provided

Bettens has received a graduate research fellowship from the National Institute of Justice to support her dissertation titled “Schoolhouse Interrogations and Confessions: Perspectives from Principals and Students.” Her research will advance the understanding of school disciplinary practices and provide important insights into the factors that may contribute to wrongful convictions of youth. Allison Redlich, Distinguished �鶹�� Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, is the chair of Bettens’s dissertation committee.

“This research will help us learn more about how principals investigate misconduct before deciding to discipline students. It will hopefully lead to the development of tools that improve the system and ensure that innocent youth are protected,” Bettens said.

Bettens will examine how high school principals interrogate students about potential misconduct and how these interrogation practices may influence the likelihood of coerced or false confessions from students. Bettens's study has two major phases. The first phase involves a survey of high school principals across the United States. Participants will be asked about the interrogation methods they use when questioning students and their knowledge of adolescents’ vulnerabilities when being interrogated.

The second phase involves direct work with students in Northern Virginia high schools. This phase involves a hypothetical interrogation scenario between the principal and a student. This will lead to more insight into how likely students are to confess under these circumstances. It also examines the problems faced by students in interrogations.

“We aim to gain information from both sides of the interrogation: from the principals and from the students,” Bettens said. “The use of guilt-presumptive, confession-driven interrogation methods when questioning students could increase the chance that students, even innocent ones, fall into the school to prison pipeline. By addressing the root of the issue from both sides, we can better understand how to prevent these numbers from increasing.”

The interdisciplinary approach combines criminal justice studies and psychological studies, finding common ground in how the school-to-prison pipeline may be initiated in these interrogations. Bettens said she takes a special interest in innocence, given an apparent lack of presumption of innocence for students at school, which may affect their view of themselves and their surroundings. This impact could play a large role in the students’ futures. which leads to the question Bettens aims to explore: How do we improve the tools for these educators who investigate misconduct while simultaneously protecting students?

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Poetry Alive! expands services to Prince William County

Colleen Rich — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 18:02:19 +0000

Poetry Alive! expands services to Prince William County Colleen Rich Tue, 03/11/2025 - 14:02

Poetry Alive! is an arts outreach program designed to inspire and empower students at the Fairfax County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) through interactive workshops centered on contemporary poetry. Now in its third year, Poetry Alive! has extended its reach to a new site, the Patrick D. Molinari Juvenile Shelter in Prince William County.

Photo by Getty Images

Poetry Alive! sends teaching fellows, recruited from the George Mason �鶹��’s Creative Writing Program, into centers to teach poetry workshops. At the JDC, the teaching fellows work with students in the center’s Beta program—a year-long therapeutic initiative for male residents aged 14-17. The Molinari Shelter in Manassas, Virginia, is a nonsecure facility that acts as an alternative to detention and provides emergency placements for youths aged 11-17.

George Mason alumnus Ronald Pannell, MEd ’02, PhD ’12, supervisor of specialized instruction for Prince William County Schools, heard about the JDC poetry workshops through an article in the Mason Spirit magazine. While a doctoral student at George Mason, Pannell had done research on strategies using written expression to help elementary school students with emotional and behavioral disabilities. He immediately saw the value of implementing a Poetry Alive! program at the Molinari Shelter.

Pannell secured funding through a Virginia Department of Education grant and collaborated with Poetry Daily, which runs Poetry Alive!, to bring the program to Molinari in fall 2024.

Katey Funderburgh. Photo provided

The program at Molinari employs five teaching fellows: four MFA graduate students—Katey Funderburgh, McKinley Johnson, Martheaus Perkins, and Nicholas Ritter—and one undergraduate student, Faith Baylor, who is participating as part of their practicum coursework for a Poetry Daily course.

Funderburgh and Ritter are the lead teaching fellows in charge of expanding the program to the Molinari Shelter. Ritter and Funderburgh both served as Poetry Alive! teaching fellows last spring and are extremely passionate about the program.

“We spend each Poetry Alive! session introducing the students to new poets, discussing what different poems mean and how they’re crafted, and then we watch and listen as the students take these tools into their own hands,” said Funderburgh. “Whenever I am lucky enough to hear a student read their own poetry aloud, I remember that this is why I’m here, this is what poetry is for.”

“�鶹�� sessions are chances for these students to express [themselves] in new and creative ways,” said Ritter, who has been working with the program for three years. “Working with Poetry Alive! has shown me a pathway for poetry to work in the world in ways I hadn’t imagined before. �鶹�� work makes a direct and tangible difference, and I think that carries tremendous value.”

Nicholas Ritter. Photo provided

Pannell said the youth at the shelter really enjoyed the workshops. “It gave them another outlet to express themselves.”

He said that the teachers working at Molinari also benefited from the workshop and that Funderburgh and Ritter has passed on skills to the faculty there, enabling them to support the students as they explored writing and journaling outside of the workshop.

Founded in 1997, Poetry Daily is a nonprofit daily anthology of contemporary poetry that moved to George Mason in 2019 to continue its work connecting 570,000 readers across the world to the finest contemporary poetry. It also serves as a learning lab for George Mason students in teaching the art and practice of poetry publishing and is part of Watershed Lit: Center for Literary Engagement and Publishing Practice.

Poetry Alive! is modeled after the successful pilot initiated in spring 2022 by the inaugural Fairfax Poet Laureate and George Mason alumna Nicole Tong and has continued with the support of funding from ArtsFairfax. The program at the Fairfax County JDC is funded by ArtsFairfax.

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Criminology, Law and Society researcher studies impact of high school principal-led interrogations

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Poetry Alive! expands services to Prince William County

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