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

Recent new publications, presentations, honors and awards include the following:

Publications

Anshul Rana and Roxanne Evande, graduate students in the Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences, were lead authors in the published article "Protein–DNA Interactions Regulate Human Papillomavirus DNA Replication, Transcription, and Oncogenesis." The article was published by the International Journal of Molecular Sciences with co-authors Esther Biswas-Fiss, chair and professor, and Subhasis Biswas, professor in the Department of Medical and Molecular Sciences. The article is a comprehensive review of the complex regulatory mechanisms involved in human papillomavirus (HPV) infections for the development of cancer, focusing on how the E2 protein uses two different mechanisms to hijack human host cells and over time, transform them into cancerous cells. More than 90 articles were reviewed from 1990 to 2023 to acquire information over a wide-spanning period. The long-term goal of this research is to bring scientists closer to understanding how HPV and related E2 proteins lead to the development of cancer, and use this knowledge to develop comprehensive treatments for the more than 150 variants of HPV that can affect the human body. 

Farley Grubb, economics, published a book called The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution was Financed with Paper Money (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023). The Continental Dollar is a revelatory history of how the fledgling United States paid for its first war. Grubb upends the common telling of this story, in which the United States printed cross-colony money, called Continentals, to serve as an early fiat currency — a currency that is not tied to a commodity like gold, but rather to a legal authority. As Grubb said, the Continental was not a fiat currency, but a “zero-coupon bond” — a wholly different species of money. As bond payoffs were pushed into the future, the money’s value declined, killing the Continentals’ viability years before the Revolutionary War would officially end. Drawing on decades of exhaustive mining of eighteenth-century records, The Continental Dollar is an essential origin story of the early American monetary system, promising to serve as the benchmark for critical work for decades to come.

Ann M. Aviles, associate professor in the Department of Human Development, published an edited collection and several journal articles. 

• Pulido, I., Rivera, A., & Aviles, A.M., (Eds.) (2022). Latinx Education in Chicago: Roots, Resistance and Transformation. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. 

• Payne, Y. A., Aviles, A.M., & Yates, N. (2022). Teachers think the kids around here don’t really want to learn: Street-identified Black men and women’s attitudes toward teachers and schooling. Sociology Compass, e13060.

• Hitchens, B.K., Aviles, A.M., & McCallops, K. (2022). Mothering in the Streets: Familial Adaptation Strategies of Street-Identified Black American Mothers. Journal of Marriage and Family. 

Christina Barbieri, assistant professor in the School of Education (SOE), published with Dana Miller-Cotto, and SOE doctoral students Sarah N. Clerjuste and Kamal Chawla, “A Meta-analysis of the Worked Examples Effect on Mathematics Performance” in Educational Psychology Review.

Sarah Curtiss, assistant professor in the School of Education, published “Service models for providing sex education to individuals with intellectual disabilities in the United States” in the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities with M. Stoffers and “Sex.Ed.Agram: Co-created inclusive sex education on Instagram” in Sexuality and Disability with K. Myers, M. D’Avella, S. Garner, C. Kelly, M. Stoffers, and S. Durante. 

Laura M. Desimone, College of Education and Human Development director of research and professor in the School of Education, published “‘The Good Struggle’ of Flexible Specificity: Districts Balancing Specific Guidance with Autonomy to Support Standards-Based Instruction” in American Education Research Journal with Amy Stornaiuolo and Morgan S. Polikoff. 

Robert L. Hampel, professor emeritus in the School of Education, published “What Might Have Been: A First-Rate Black Correspondence School, 1927-1930” in the American Journal of Distance Education, v37, n2, 2023, pp 151-156.

Nancy Jordan, Dean Family Endowed Chair of Education and professor in the School of Education published “Estimating the co-development of executive functions and math achievement throughout the elementary grades using a cross-lagged panel model with fixed effects” in Contemporary Educational Psychology with SOE doctoral student Haobai Zhang and postdoctoral scholar Dana Miller Cotto.

Eric Layland, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, published several articles:

• Bray B.C., Layland E.K., Stull S.W., Vasilenko S.A., & Lanza S.T. Estimating the Effects of a Complex, Multidimensional Moderator: An Example of Latent Class Moderation to Examine Differential Intervention Effects of Substance Use Services. Prev Sci. 2022 Oct 12.

• Layland E.K., Bray B.C., Kipke M.D., & Maggs J.L. Intersectional stigma subgroup differences in unhealthy drinking and disordered marijuana use among Black and Latino cisgender sexual minority young men. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2022 Dec 1;241:109652.

• Layland E.K., Caldwell L.L., Ram N., Smith E.A., Wegner L., & Jacobs J.J. Adolescent Substance Use Behavior Change Through School Intervention Is Improved by Teacher and School Implementation Support Together, Especially for Girls. Prev Sci. 2022 Oct;23(7):1251-1263.

Erica Litke, associate professor in the School of Education, and Laura M. Desimone, College of Education and Human Development director of research and professor in the School of Education, published “A Culturally Responsive Disposition: How Professional Learning and Teachers’ Beliefs About and Self-Efficacy for Culturally Responsive Teaching Relate to Instruction” in AERA Open with Meghan Comstock and Kristen Lee Hill. 

Jess Monahan, Center for Disabilities Studies research manager, published “Initial Validation of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms – 62 for the Autistic College Population” in Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development with Brian Freedman, Vini Singh, Luke Kalb and CEHD alumna Cassidy Edmondson. 

Teo Paoletti, assistant professor in the School of Education (SOE), published “Exploring the Prevalence of Covariational Reasoning Across Mathematics and Science” in International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education with SOE doctoral students Allison L. Gantt and Julien Corven. 

Alison Travers, assistant director of Delaware Academy for School Leadership within the School Success Center, published “Lean in on Four Leadership Traits, Part 1” in the January/February 2023 NAESP Principal Magazine with Andrea Thompson and Jessica Gomez. 

Bryan A. VanGronigen, assistant professor in the School of Education (SOE), published “The Design and Characteristics of School Improvement Plan Templates” in AERA Open with with Coby V. Meyers, Rachel Antwi Adjei, SOE doctoral student Latrice Marianno and Linda Charris. 

Anamarie Whitaker, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, published “Predicting adolescent and young adult outcomes from emotional support and cognitive stimulation offered by preschool home and early care and education settings” in Developmental Psychology with Paul Yoo, Deborah Lowe Vandell, Greg J. Duncan and Margaret Burchinal.

Jackie Wilson, assistant professor in the School of Education, published Blended Coaching: Supporting the Development and Supervision of School Leaders with Gary Bloom.

Samantha Shewchuk, research associate in the Center for Education and Social Policy, published Brokering in Education Research-Practice Partnerships with Laura Wenworth, Paula Arce-Trigatti and Carrie Conaway. The open-access book includes practical tools and strategies for cultivating and sustaining impactful relationships and supportive infrastructure with research-practice partners. 

Presentations

On June 1, 2023, Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, was an invited participant in an online research seminar, "Early Twentieth-Century LGBTQ+ History Beyond the Human," sponsored by "READ (Research at Durham)," a project of the Department of English Studies at Durham University in the UK. It focused on research by Heike Bauer (Birkbeck, University of London) regarding the importance to queer writers such as Radclyffe Hall and to visual artists such as Lotte Laserstein of dogs, cats, and other pets.

On May 30, 2023, Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, presented “A Jesuit in 17th Century Shirvan: Jean Baptiste de la Maze and his Writings,” at the Ninth Biennial Convention of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies, Yerevan, Armenia.

Sarah Mallory, assistant professor in the School of Education and the Center for Disabilities Studies, was invited to speak at the Outside the Box Conference. She presented “A comprehensive and anti-ableist approach to implementing behavioral supports for students with autism” in Dover, Delaware, in May 2023.

Sharon Walpole, professor in the School of Education, was invited to speak at the Council of Chief State School Officers’ Early Childhood Education Collaborative. She presented “Building Capacity Among Early Learning Leaders to Shape Comprehensive Early Literacy Policies” in Chicago, Illinois, in May 2023.

Honors and awards

Laure Kayser, assistant professor in UD’s College of Engineering’sDepartment of Materials Science and Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been named as a member of the 2023 class of Beckman Young Investigator Awardees. This award recognizes researchers who exemplify the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation’s mission of supporting the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences. 

This year’s 11 awardees will receive $ $600,000 in funding over four years for cutting-edge research, particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments, and materials that will open new avenues of research. Kayser was selected from a pool of nearly 200 applicants after a three-part review led by a panel of scientific experts.

Jennifer Horney, founding director and professor of the epidemiology program in the College of Health Sciences, is one of four public health experts from universities in four states leading the Public Health Extreme Events Research (PHEER) network. The new, federally funded network aims to build capacity at the federal, state, and local levels for faster and more effective responses to public health crises. 

PHEER members quickly mobilize after natural disasters or other hazards and will use data to inform evolving disaster research agendas and funding decisions and advance the field of public health disaster science. Horney has responded to hurricanes Isabel, Charley, Katrina, Wilma, Irene, and Harvey to conduct rapid assessments of disaster impact on the public health of individuals and communities.  

“Our goal is to bring together a community of researchers and practitioners to build what will be a community-owned asset, in a sense, that works as such before, during, and after a crisis,” said Horney, who is also core faculty at UD’s Disaster Research Center.

PHEER also aims to fill an important research gap and will serve as the coordinating platform for the public health disaster research community of practice with a goal of building the capacity of the public health disaster workforce through hands-on training, experiential learning, and mentorship. 

Stephanie Del Tufo, assistant professor in the School of Education, was awarded the 2023 Association for Psychological Science Rising Stars Award.

Steven M. Eidelman, H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Human Services Policy and Leadership in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, was awarded the 2023 American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities’ Service to the Field Award.

Eric Layland, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, was selected for the inaugural All of Us PRIDEnet Researcher Basecamp and became the Society for Behavioral Medicine Diversity Institute Fellow.

Sarah Mallory, assistant professor in the School of Education and the Center for Disabilities Studies, received a conference presentation award for her poster, “A targeted approach to COVID-19 vaccine access for people with disabilities” at the American Association for Developmental Medicine and Dentistry One Voice Conference in Denver, Colorado. 

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