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

Recent activities presentations, publications and honors include the following:

Presentations

Larry Purnell, professor emeritus of nursing, discussed “Cultural theories and models and individualism and collectivism” on April 7, 2022, at the Donato Post-Doctoral Institute, Prava University, Milan Italy.

Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, and Mark Samuels Lasner, senior research fellow at the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press, were the invited speakers on March 30, 2022, at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia. Their evening of back-to-back illustrated lectures, titled "The Decadent Aubrey Beardsley," was the Rosenbach's first in-person event in more than two years. Stetz's talk, "In Bed with Aubrey Beardsley," examined the 1890s British artist and writer's daring representations of gender and sexuality, especially in his self-portraits and in his unfinished novel, Under the Hill. Samuels Lasner's talk, "The Doctor and the Decadent: Beardsley at the Rosenbach," explored how and why the bookseller A. S. W. Rosenbach's collection came to include important work by Beardsley, such as the manuscript of Under the Hill, as well as the history of how other Beardsley items joined the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection at the University of Delaware.

David R. Wunsch, state geologist and director of the Delaware Geological Survey, was a panelist at a policy roundtable cosponsored by Interstate Council on Water Policy (ICWP), the Western States Water Council (WSWC) and the National Water Supply Alliance (NWSA) on April 5, 2022, in Washington, DC. The panel’s subject was “Basin Wide Water Planning and Climate Resilience,” and panelists representing water management agencies from across the U.S. presented planning and modelling initiatives being undertaken in response to climate change.

Thomas Kaminski, director of the athletic training program and professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, recently presented his concussion research at the 29th annual Biomedical Distinguished Lecture Series at Chestnut Hill College’s Center for Natural and Behavioral Sciences and the Center for Concussion Education and Research. His talk was entitled “Trying to Stay aHEAD of the Curve: The Implications of Repetitive Head Impacts in Sport on Long-Term Neurological Outcomes – Especially in the Sport of Soccer.” He discussed the importance of limiting exposures to heading in youth soccer as the brain is developing: “Every successive year, cumulative exposure can be dangerous and harmful.” He also told the engaged audience at CHC that protecting head space is pivotal and answered questions about whether a ban on heading would help prevent injury. “If you banned aerial challenges in the sport of soccer, you would see concussions go down immensely.” Read more about how women soccer players are more at risk from heading here.

Publications

Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, continues her record of publication of poetry that reflects her scholarship and brings her research to new audiences. The current issue of Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought (Volume 6: 1) contains her poem "The Depths of the Sea (1887) by Edward Burne-Jones"--a commentary on Pre-Raphaelite painting, as well as on the Victorian fashion for women of wearing animal parts, including beetle-wing dresses and hats trimmed with taxidermied birds.

Honors

The Courtyard by Marriott Newark-University of Delaware, managed by Bill Sullivan, was awarded two honors at the 10th annual awards ceremony for the Delaware Small Business Chamber on April 7, 2022. The hotel was named “Best in New Castle County” and “Best Franchise” in awards voted on by the chamber membership.

University of Delaware undergraduate students studying computer science, math and engineering made their mark in early March 2022 at the Association for Computing Machinery’s International Collegiate Programming Contest Mid-Atlantic Region. Two teams of three students each competed against more than 100 other teams from universities in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Team “Code Gibbons” placed 12th while “Coding Hens” placed 48th, inspiring them to return next season. On team “Code Gibbons” were Jinay Jain, Amani Kiruga and Leon Zhao. On team “Coding Hens” were Jan Ahmed, Sean O’Sullivan and Alex You. In the past, UD teams have excelled in the contest, advancing to finals multiple times in the 1990s. In 1996, the University team ranked seventh in the world. The last time a UD team competed in the international finals was 2007. This is the first year since 2016 that UD students have participated, said retired computer scientist David Saunders. “A return next year with more practice and ambition to score even higher is very much in the cards,” he said, adding that future teams will need a new faculty member to coach them toward victory. Kiruga is spearheading an effort to form a student organization dedicated to competitive programming. Interested students can contact Kiruga at akiruga@udel.edu.

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