For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent honors and publications include the following:

Honors

Two University of Delaware researchers—Norman Wagner and Mary P. Watson—have been recognized by the American Chemical Society with 2025 national awards. ACS is one of the world’s largest scientific societies, with over 200,000 members globally. Norman Wagner, who is Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair, chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been selected to receive the ACS National Award in colloid chemistry. The award, sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive, honors outstanding scientific contributions to the field over a career. Colloids are collections of atoms and molecules that are too small to be visible, but are critical to life, foods and a vast array of everyday products ranging from soaps and shampoos to ceramics and semiconductors. Wagner’s research interests include the effects of applied flow on the microstructure and material properties of colloidal suspensions, polymers, self-assembled surfactant solutions and complex fluids. Among Wagner’s research discoveries is shear thickening fluid, a “smart material” colloidal dispersion that hardens under impact, making it useful for applications in advanced body armor, puncture resistant medical gloves and space suits, among other things. Wagner will be recognized next March at the ACS spring 2025 meeting in San Diego, California. Mary P. Watson, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is one of 10 researchers from across the country to be recognized with the Arthur C. Cope Scholar award, which highlights outstanding achievements in the field of organic chemistry, specifically achievements that have come to light in the last five years. Watson is known for her groundbreaking work in catalysis, particularly for her success in developing new methods and tools for constructing organic molecules. Her innovative and versatile methods are of particular interest to those working in the pharmaceutical field. ACS previously honored Watson’s efforts in this area with the 2023 ACS Catalysis Lectureship in the field of catalytic science. She will be recognized with the award and deliver an invited address at the fall 2025 ACS meeting.

Esther Biswas-Fiss, professor and chair of the Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences in the College of Health Sciences, was featured on an expert panel at Foundation Fighting Blindness’ VISIONS 2024 Conference in Chicago in June. The panel included experts in vision research, clinical scientists and retina specialists in emerging therapies who engaged with patients with Stargardt disease and inherited retinal diseases. Biswas-Fiss, who’s spent her entire career on vision research, was also recently appointed to a ClinGen expert panel through the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (NIH NCBI). Founded in 2013 by the National Human Genome Research Institute, ClinGen is a growing collaborative effort involving three grants, nine principal investigators and over 2,500 contributors from more than 68 countries. Biswas-Fiss was selected to serve on the ABCA4 Variant Curation Expert Panel, which determines the pathological significance of the ABCA4 gene implicated in inherited visual diseases. “There’s a backlog of variants, and for the ones that have been classified, our panel is tasked with determining whether they are really pathogenic or benign. Determining the authenticity is so important, so I was honored to have been selected to serve on this panel,” said Biswas-Fiss.

Lydia Timmins, associate professor and director of Undergraduate Academic Success in the Department of Communication, has been selected as a recipient of the Alex Trebek Legacy Fellowship for the Television Academy Foundation’s 2024 Media Educators Conference. The 2024 Media Educators Conference will take place in Los Angeles at the Television Academy's Saban Media Center Oct. 9-11. The Media Educators Conference brings 100-plus college educators from across the country to Los Angeles for a multi-day immersive event that provides invaluable information on how professors can connect the classroom with the television industry. For 30 years, the Television Academy Foundation has collaborated with industry professionals, creators and top executives to keep educators on the cutting edge of the entertainment business so they can provide their students, the next generation of television leaders, with a state-of-the-art education. 

Publications

Farley Grubb, professor of economics, “The Paper Money of Colonial America,” in Yeva Nersisyan and Randall Wray, eds., The Elgar Companion to Modern Monetary Theory (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2024), pp. 58-69. Print: ISBN 978 1 78897 223 9; ebook: ISBN 978 1 78897 224 6.

Alexander Selimov, Elias Ahuja Chair of Spanish, has published a selection of poems in the anthological issue of Revista Prometeo, volumes 121-122 (July 2024). This special edition features works from 68 poets who participated in the 34th International Poetry Festival in Medellín, Colombia (The Right Livelihood Award in 2006). The inclusion of Selimov's poetry in this prestigious anthology highlights his contribution to the global poetic community and his participation in one of the world's most renowned and selective literary events.

Duygu Phillips, assistant professor of entrepreneurship, has recently published two articles.  An article in the Journal of Business Research (IF: 10.5), titled “Signaling the family firm brand in recruitment materials: The role of category-based cognitive processing on applicant attraction,” is coauthored by Kincy Madison, Sandra Wolf, Andreas Hack and Franz Kellermanns. In this study, Phillips and coauthors integrate signaling theory and the theory of reasoned action to explore how signaling the family firm brand in recruitment materials affects applicant attraction. They find that family firms are perceived to be more authentic and innovative but have inferior HR systems compared to nonfamily firms, which in turn affect job seekers’ attraction to family firms differently. Another article published online in the Journal of Small Business Management, is titled “From Liability to Asset: A Receiver’s Perspective on Eponymy Signals and Market Value.” Coauthors are Jorge Arteaga-Fonseca, Matt Rutherford and Kipp Krukowski. In this study, the authors theorize about and find empirical evidence for the impact that the company name has on the firm’s market value. Using a novel dataset of acquired private firms, the study reveals that the market value of eponymous firms (firms named after their founders) declines early in the firms’ life cycle but past a threshold (at the age of 44) their value begins to increase. 

Heinz-Uwe Haus, professor of theatre, continues to publish poetry and creative nonfiction, in addition to scholarly and professional works. The recent issue of Anef (3/2024, Nicosia, Cyprus) presents six poems from a yet unreleased manuscript, titled Myth and Legends of Aphrodite. "Since I first landed on Aphrodite's Island 49 years ago, the ancient Greek legacy has always fascinated me with its impact on coping with modern-day survival,” Haus said. “I discovered a weapon against invasion and colonization and for the preservation of one's own cultural and social identity.... Believed to have emerged from the foam of the sea at the renowned archaeological site, Petra tou Romiou, Aphrodite then went on to Mount Olympus, accompanied by Eros and Pothos, to claim her place among the assembly of gods. Self-confident and self-liberated at every turn!"

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