March Professional Notes
A round-up of awards, presentations, papers and the other professional achievements of SLU faculty, staff and students.
FACULTY AND STAFF
Awards and Fellowships
Brian Holoyda, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, has been awarded the Richard Rosner, M.D., Award for Best Paper by a Fellow in Forensic Psychiatry or Forensic Psychology” by the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’s Psychiatry and Behavioral Science Sections. The award was presented at the academy’s 70th annual meeting in Seattle in February.
Katrina Wade, M.D., professor of surgery and associate professor of pediatrics, received the MOCEP R.R. Hannas Physician of the Year Award from the Missouri College of Emergency Physicians (MOCEP). The award is presented to an emergency medicine physician and resident. The award will be presented to Wade at the MOCEP Annual General Membership Meeting on Thursday, April 26, in Springfield, Missouri.
Wade is director of Medical Student Education, faculty advisor for the Emergency Medicine Interest Group for medical students, preceptor for physician assistant students, and provides continuing education for prehospital colleagues. Her enthusiasm and mentoring skills have earned her multiple teaching awards from students as well as recognition from her peers. She is active in emergency medicine at the local, regional and national levels, sitting on multiple university committees and task forces, sitting on the board of a regional ambulance service, and serving as an Oral Board examiner for ABEM. A military veteran, Wade provides volunteer medical coverage at many community events, as well as staffing a Saint Louis University student-run clinic and speaking at local schools to encourage more underprivileged youth to consider careers in medicine or STEM fields.
The R.R. Hannas Award is presented to an emergency medicine physician and resident each year, and is named after Ralston R. Hannas, M.D., a “founding father” of emergency medicine.
The Missouri College of Emergency Physicians (MOCEP) is a not for profit organization created to support and advocate for emergency medicine physicians practicing in the state of Missouri. MOCEP is a state chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).
Publications
Emily Lutenski, Ph.D., assistant professor of American Studies, published an essay, “The New Negro Frontier: Jean Toomer, Wallace Thurman, and African American Modernism in the West,” in Freedom's Racial Frontier: African Americans in the Twentieth-Century West, edited by Herbert G. Ruffin II and Dwayne A. Mack (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2018).
Jaya Gnana-Prakasam, Ph.D., associate research professor of ophthalmology, published an article, “Iron Overload Accelerates the Progression of Diabetic Retinopathy in Association with Increased Retinal Renin Expression,” with several co-authors, in Science Reports.
Gregory Divers, Ph.D., of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, published translations from German of three poems, along with commentary on the translations, in Transference, Vol. 5, fall 2017: “Weh denen...” by Jakob van Hoddis; “älteres paar” and “mystery and crime” by Yaak Karsunke.
Jean-Louis Pautrot, Ph.D., of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, recently published a book chapter on French film, “Roads, Rivers, Canals: Spaces of Freedom from Epstein to Vigo,” in Screening the Paris Suburbs Before the Banlieue Film, edited by Philippe Met and Derek Schilling, (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2018): 37-49. He also recently conducted the presentation, “Presentation and post-viewing discussion of Boudu sauvé des eaux (Jean Renoir, 1932),” at the 10th Annual Classic French Film Festival at Webster University on Sunday, March 11.
Presentations and Lectures
Raul Artal, M.D., professor and chair emeritus of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health, delivered the keynote talk at the Annual Leadership Conference of the Benjamin Rush Society of the Ohio State University. His talk was called, “Medicine after the Holocaust: Lessons for Today.”
Christina García, Ph.D., of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, was part of this featured roundtable, “Ruggiero, D., B. Lafford, L. Sánchez-López, C. King de Ramirez, A. Abbott and C. García, ‘Towards a Socially Responsive LSP: Reconsidering the Scope and Objectives of LSP for the Twenty-First Century,’” a featured roundtable at the IV International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes (ISLSP), in Gainesville, Florida, on Saturday, Feb. 24.
Appointments
Kevin Walde, DDS, of the Center for Advanced Dental Education (CADE) was named executive director of the Orthodontic Education and Research Foundation (OERF) of St. Louis.
STUDENTS
Presentations and Panels
On Monday, March 26, the McNair Scholars Program hosted a panel discussion and mixer to provide an opportunity for current McNair Scholars to hear directly from students in master’s degree or doctoral programs about their experiences in graduate school.
The event at Il Monastero included five panelists:
- Kristina Getty, a Master’s student in occupational therapy at SLU
- Shelby Hubbard, a Master’s student in communication at SLU
- Robert O. Motley Jr., a doctoral candidate in social work at Washington University in St. Louis
- Dulce Vega, a doctoral student in psychology at Saint Louis University
- Justin Wright, a Master’s Student in theater and performance studies at Washington University
During the panel discussion, which was moderated by McNair Scholars Program graduate assistant Daniela Pedraza, the panelists answered a variety of questions about their graduate student experiences, including the factors that led to their decision to apply to graduate school, what the application process was like and what challenges and opportunities they have faced along the way.
Panelists focused on the significance of relationships with faculty to their graduate student experiences, from the grad school application process to entry into their programs and successful matriculation.
The program plans more events like the panel in the future.
“Providing opportunities for the two groups to come together and dialogue is definitely a win-win, because it expands the Scholars’ existing support network while giving graduate students an opportunity to assist with mentoring the next generation of academicians,” Jamie Motley, Ph.D., the director of the McNair program said.
Doctoral student Shahram Ahmadi Nasab Emran, of the Center for Health Care Ethics, presented his paper, “A sociological account of Iran under Khomeinism,” during the Middle East Dialogue 2018 conference held by the Policy Studies Organization in Washington, D.C.
Symposium
Graduate students from SLU’s Departments of History and American Studies hosted a symposium, “Urban Encounters: Urban Boundaries Symposium,” on Monday, March 19.
The event showcased a roundtable on role of race and citizenship in the greater St. Louis metropolitan area following World War II and keynote address by Keona Ervin, Ph.D., associate professor of history at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
- Dorian Brown of the history department presented a paper about the importation and appropriation of West African dance techniques and their influence on the development of cultural nationalism in the Metro-East. Highlighting the work of Katherine Dunham, it demonstrates the critical importance of women, dance, education, and pan-Africanism to the Black Nationalist movement with St. Louis as a central locale.
- Bryan Winston, also from the history department, charted the development of Mexican-American community formation in Kansas City as well as St. Louis. Focusing on both cities' locations on state lines, Winston demonstrates how Mexican communities transgressed these boundaries and formed communities that spanned urban, rather than geographic areas.
- Elizabeth Eikmann, of the Department of American Studies, examined the 2016 exhibit titled 4562 Enright Avenue at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, in which the structure of a St. Louis home slated for demolition was rebuilt in a “mirror site” inside the museum’s halls. The paper explored how post-museum curatorship practices can be used to create works of art that ethically engage with the very real causes of urban decline and decay.
- Michael Brickey, also from American Studies, examined African American struggles for social and economic justice through the examination of highway constructions in East St. Louis during the 1960s, the legacies of which continue to resurface in contemporary battles against racial and spatial inequality. From Pruitt-Igoe’s dramatic demolition to the BBC’s coinage of the “Delmar Divide” moniker and on to the Ferguson uprisings, St. Louis over recent decades has acquired a reputation as an exemplar of metropolitan hyper-segregation in the United States. But despite the seeming impermeability of urban racial boundaries, as the works showcased in this year’s symposium document, the city’s terrain has also been the site for unexpected cross-cultural encounters, imaginative assertions of citizenship, and political critiques that inventively blend aesthetic and activist impulses.
The symposium was the inaugural event in an urban history initiative sponsored by Brian Elsesser, Ph.D., who received his doctoral degree from SLU’s Department of History.
Experiential Learning
On Wednesday, March 4, students from the Honors and Leadership for Social Change Learning Communities visited the Saint Louis Art Museum in Forest Park, led by Scott Berman, Ph.D., faculty associate to the Honors learning community, and Ilene Berman, MFA, faculty fellow for the Leadership for Social Change learning community. Students gained a greater understanding of the history behind various pieces of artwork, discussed artist representation within museums and debated what truly constitutes a piece of art.