The faculty development programs offer an opportunity for faculty members to grow professionally, to remain current with developments in their disciplines, and to infuse these experiences into the classroom to enhance student learning. As illustrated below, NKU’s faculty development programs have enabled our faculty members to undertake important work in their fields, often including students in their research, and have brought renown to the university.
SABBATICAL LEAVES are granted by the University to promote the professional growth and effectiveness of the faculty. Sabbatical leaves are granted to enable recipients, based on merit, to devote additional time to scholarly activity and research, advanced study, or artistic performance—all in pursuit of academic objectives. Tenured, full-time faculty, and department chairs are eligible to apply for sabbatical leave.
SUMMER FELLOWSHIPS provide funds to support professional development during the summer months. Examples of types of activities that may be applicable include: improving teaching skills; research; scholarly writing; creative or artistic projects; preliminary studies and literature searches; and attending seminars or courses related to one’s field or professional work. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty summer fellowship. Each faculty member awarded a fellowship for summer 2023 received an award of $6,000.
PROJECT GRANTS provide funds to pay expenses, purchase equipment, and to cover other financial needs for sabbatical leaves, faculty summer fellowships, and for other instructional, scholarly, and creative activities where financial support is not available through department budgets. Full-time tenure-track or tenured faculty may apply for a faculty project grant not to exceed $6,000. In 2022-23, 17 faculty members completed project grants.
The projects below were undertaken from Fall 2022 through Summer 2023.
Shamima Ahmed
Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Domestic Violence in Tajikistan
I received a sabbatical leave for spring, 2023. During that leave, I started to work with Ms. Takhminai Mirali, on a research focusing on domestic violence in Tajikistan. Ms. Mirali, is a faculty at the Academy of Public Administration (Dushanbe, Tajikistan). We are conducting in-depth interviews with Tajik women who have experienced domestic violence or know women who have had that experience. The ultimate goal for this research is raising the public’s awareness of the severity of this issue in Tajikistan, and hopefully to make an impact at the policy making level (in Tajikistan and at the global policy making level).
Ada Cenkci
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Charlisa Daniels
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Closing Equity Gaps in Scientific Education
Professor Daniels completed a sabbatical during the academic year of 2022-23. The goals of this sabbatical were to develop an outreach programs at NKU aimed at closing equity gaps in scientific education and the development of new chemical techniques and instrumentation. She spent the Fall semester strengthening an alliance with Duke University to create a program that connects middle school girls with undergraduate women and with a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Center that aims to strengthen programming for community college STEM students. Daniels currently engages in multiple equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives within STEM fields. During the sabbatical timeframe, she was able to develop her skill set regarding these initiatives and write multiple proposals for external funding to support this initiative. She then spent the Spring semester and both summers working in the Verduzco and Landes labs at Rice University to explore stimuli-responsive materials. Daniels currently studies stimuli-responsive polymeric materials, as they are viable tools for water remediation technologies. The goal of her research program is to understand the basic mechanisms of how small molecules (such as pollutants) interact with materials that are engineered to clean water. At Rice, she was able to include 2 NKU undergraduates in the process of learning functionalization techniques for stimuli-responsive materials as well as work with fluorescence microscopy techniques to gain a better understanding of the behaviors of the materials. The sabbatical projects allowed Daniels to gain experiences that will benefit her research program, teaching, and the current and potential student body.
Maureen Doyle
Professor
School of Computing and Analytics
Evidence-Based Practices: Broadening Participation and Improving Learning in CS
This sabbatical report covers Dr. Maureen Doyle's activities during the 2022-2023 academic year, partially funded by NKU Sabbatical Funds and partially as a sabbatical for chairs returning to faculty. Dr. Doyle's contributions include research, service, and teaching-related initiatives. Her research involved an invited talk titled "Evidence-Based Practices: Broadening Participation and Improving Learning in CS" at The 4th International Workshop on Education through Advanced Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, EASEAI 2022. She also co-authored a paper titled "NKU Applied Software Engineering Program: A Novel Approach to Software Engineering Education" with Dr. Nicholas Caporusso and Dr. Samuel Cho, which is peer-reviewed and accepted for publication at the 2023 IEEE ASEE Frontiers in Education Conference being held October 2023. In addition, Doyle made substantial revisions to the CSC 260, Object-Oriented Programming I course to support the need for larger class sizes. In service, Dr. Doyle served as co-chair for the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium in 2023.
Donelle Dreese
Professor
Department of English
Taking my own scholarship public
During the fall semester of 2022, I took a sabbatical leave in order to research, draft, and submit for publication a series of essays designed for high quality public venues. The primary goals behind this sabbatical activity were to promote community engagement through public writing that addresses current political, cultural, environmental, and literary movements, and to illustrate academic innovation by transforming academic scholarship into public scholarship that will reach a broader audience. Six of my essays were written and published during my sabbatical and five more essays were published afterward as a direct result of work that took place during my sabbatical leave. The most exciting and enduring success I can share is that I had a proposal accepted by PsychologyToday.com to write essays for my own column titled “The Green Goodbye: Being Death Positive.” The Psychology Today website receives more than forty million visitors per month, so this has been a wonderful opportunity to reach a larger audience. In writing for Psychology Today, I continue to conduct research and learn about death care, natural burial, and the psychological impact of our current end-of-life practices. I’m excited to apply all that I’ve learned to my courses, ENG 326 Literature and the Environment and HNR 330 The Green Goodbye. Below is a list of essays that I have had published as a direct result of my sabbatical leave:
• “The Chemistry of Cremated Remains.” PsychologyToday.com
• “Maranasati: Where Meditation and Green Burial Intersect.” PsychologyToday.com
• “Meditation and the Life of the Mind.” Women in Higher Education
• “Our newest U.S. Poet Laureate shows us how to be Americans together.” Lexington Herald-Leader
• “A Grave of One’s Own: The Body Politics of Green Burial.” TalkDeath
• “The Soft Goodbye.” About Place Journal
• “Remembering Love: Grief and Green Burial in HBO’s Six Feet Under.” PsychologyToday.com
• “It’s Not Easy to Become a Tree.” PsychologyToday.com
• “Grief Without a Grave: Green Burial and Accessibility.” PsychologyToday.com
• “Beauty and Grief: The Artists of Green Burial.” PsychologyToday.com
• “The Pioneering Work of Death Doulas.” PsychologyToday.com
Sharmanthie Fernando
Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Thermodynamics of Black Holes in String Theory
Black holes are formed by gravitational collapse of massive stars: they are excel-
lent theoretical labs to test new models describing fundamental forces of the Universe.
In this project, I studied a model of a black hole that is in low dimensions (two space
dimensions) and is related to string theory. I collaborated with Dr. Leonardo Balart
from Departamento de Ciencias Fsicas, Facultad de Ingeniera y Ciencias, Universi-
dad de La Frontera, Chile on this project. String theory is a popular model that is
being proposed for a uni ed theory of all forces. In this project, we studied thermody-
namics and its applications to the black hole model considered. We calculated many
thermodynamical quantities for this black hole considered such as entropy, thermo-
dynamical volume, electric potential, speci c heat capacities, internal energy and free
energy. We studied thermodynamical stability of this black hole. We observed the
possibility of phase transitions for certain parameters of the theory. As an application
of the model, we studied the Joule-Thomson expansion considering the black hole as
the system.
The completed work was submitted to the Journal, European Physical Journal
C in August 2023 and is currently undergoing review. The paper is available as a
preprint in the arXiv.org [1].
Perilou Goddard
Professor
Department of Psychological Science
The Scoop and the Pivot: A Case of Academic Agility
I was awarded a sabbatical leave and project grant for Fall 2022 to develop a new scale for measuring stigma toward people with substance use disorders. However, a very similar scale (Krendl & Perry, 2022) was published a few months after my sabbatical was approved. I was scooped!
I pivoted to focus on updating the Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale (HRAS), a measure I developed in the late 1990s. Harm reduction is the term for public health programs that reduce the harms associated with drug use without requiring people to stop using all substances. I still receive requests every year from researchers to use the HRAS, and I anticipate there will be continued interest in the future.
With input from my colleague Dr. Kinsey Bryant-Lees and my former student and University of Michigan professor Dr. Erin Bonar, I revised the HRAS to reflect current practices.
With IRB approval, my project grant paid 1000 American adults in the Prolific research panel to complete the revised Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale-2 (HRAS-2). Initial results show that the scale has impressive reliability and construct validity. In the coming months, I’ll work with Drs. Bryant-Lees and Bonar to complete the analyses and write up the results for publication.
I am grateful to the Faculty Benefits Committee, Dr. Cécile Marczinski, Dean Diana McGill, and Provost Cecil for the sabbatical leave and project grant. I anticipate that the resulting Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale-2 will be my most enduring contribution to the drug policy literature.
Steven Gores
Professor
Department of English
Assessing the Novels of Paul Creswick
This biographical and literary project focused on assessing the novels of Englishman Paul Creswick (1866-1947). My interest in Creswick stems from his friendship with the subject of my 2015 sabbatical, the Cincinnati-based publisher W. T. H. White, whom Creswick visited in the summer of 1929. Because only one of Creswick’s novels is currently in print, my Project Grant money was spent on acquiring what are now rather expensive volumes originally published between 1895 and 1930. Believing that Creswick’s audience was primarily juvenile, I initially proposed to focus on identifying values or codes of behavior that his novels promote for young readers. I found that Creswick’s early works were, as I had supposed, largely adventure tales, many explicitly written for a child or adolescent audience. I was very surprised to find that, near the millennial 1899 celebration of the end of King Alfred’s rule, Creswick penned three novels (In Aelfred’s Days, Under the Black Raven, Hasting the Pirate) set in Alfred’s time, during which Saxons and Vikings warred to decide who would control England. Overall, however, I found that Creswick’s writing was neither wholly devoted to the adventure genre nor was it geared solely to the interests of young readers. His first book, The Miracle (1895), is a combination of satire and romance. Three years later, he published Bruising Peg, a novel based on one of the first woman boxers. My marathon of reading and taking notes on Paul Creswick’s novels has left me with several different ideas for scholarly publication.
Amy Halbrook
Professor
Chase College of Law
Family Law Mediation Project
During my sabbatical period I provided mediation services to parties in 54 Northern Kentucky cases, including divorce, high-conflict custody, child support and commercial disputes. I developed forms for mediation agreements, ground rules, standard terms and formats to create drafting efficiency. One of the goals of the project was to identify community mediation needs and develop a handbook for volunteer mediators in Kentucky family cases. While I discovered great need, I also concluded that family cases are often too complex for mediators who are not family law experts (the Commonwealth apparently agrees: Kentucky recently changed its rules and now requires no specific training for general mediators, but 40 hours of training plus 15 hours of supervised practice for family law mediators.) I since have used my experience, research and materials to serve as a trainer in two family-specific mediation 40-hour trainings offered through the NKU Alternative Dispute Resolution Center. Participants in the trainings are private attorneys, retired judges, court employees and others who intend to mediate in Kentucky. I expect these trainings to continue regularly into the future, and to include commercial, felony and family law tracks. I am still researching how to develop a program whereby Chase students may provide remote mediation services to low-income parties in remote Kentucky counties. In the meantime, I have incorporated more alternative dispute resolution practices and training into my work with students in the NKU Chase Children’s Law Center Clinic.
Parmita Kapadia
Professor
Department of English
Being Asian American in the United States
My sabbatical leave focused on researching what it means to be Asian American in the United States at the present historical moment. As I stated in my application, “ ‘Asian American’ ” is a highly contested term that simultaneously confers identity and erases it.” My sabbatical work concentrated on the issue of race and the racialization of Asian Americans and the ways which Asian Americans are excluded from the predominant black/white racial paradigm that operates in the United States. “Race” is a highly fraught issue and, as a group, Asian Americans defy easy or straightforward racial categorization because of the diversity within it. An issue that I explored was the idea that “race” is not “transhistorical”—meaning that an individual’s or a community’s racial identification is not fixed but is in flux. Racial categories are themselves constructed based upon particular circumstances or necessities and are therefore arbitrary and deeply steeped in an historical moment. Racial identity is itself “fluid.” I examined how the fluidity of racial identity functions as both a catalyst for acceptance and a marker for exclusion by the predominant groups. In the ruling black/white racial paradigm of the United States, the hierarchy between these two races is clear; however, I investigated how the inclusion of Asian Americans in the prevailing model blurs the divide and challenges our understanding of racial categories. My work suggests that including the Asian American category in research/studies on race and racial categories within the United States transforms the field of race theory.
Kevin Muente
Professor
School of the Arts
Art & Design
The Persistence of Painting
I was very productive during my sabbatical leave. Over the course of the year I accomplished several goals.
I made several narrative paintings that combined landscape with the human figure. These will be shown at the faculty exhibition in January 2024 and a solo show at Gallery Kroner, Cincinnati, OH in March 2024. I produced four landscapes for Cincinnati Art Galleries all 18 x 24 inches, one of the paintings appeared in their Panorama exhibition and catalog and sold.
While on sabbatical I traveled. My travels included a workshop with internationally-renowned artist Vincent Desiderio in Orvieto, Italy, summer 2022. In December, of the same year I traveled to London after winning an Artist Professional Development Grant from the Great Meadows Foundation to visit galleries and museums. I also went to Washington DC, Chicago, IL and Wisconsin to examine paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Phillips Collection, The Hirshorn, The National Portrait Gallery, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Wisconsin Art, The Kohler Art Center and The Milwaukee Art Museum.
Julie Olberding
Professor
Department of Polictical Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Community Engagement and Volunteerism Before and After COVID
During my Fall sabbatical, I explored the evolving context of the nonprofit sector by working on various research projects, developing a study-abroad course, and taking electronic media courses. In terms of research, I worked with Dr. Douglas Olberding (Xavier University) to conduct a long-term study of event volunteers, using our survey results from the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon Weekend in 2012 and 2022 (n=2,038). Our study examines volunteer characteristics, motivations, and satisfaction during this 10-year period, before and after the COVID pandemic, and it is currently under review at the International Journal of Event and Festival Management. Another research project is a collaboration with two NKU colleagues, Teresa VanDenend Sorg in the School of the Arts (SOTA) and Mark Neikirk in the Scripps Howard Center for Civic Engagement. This research focuses on university-community engagement that integrates experiential learning into public programming. We provide an initial assessment of the integration of a dance class at NKU into a community event at the Cincinnati Art Museum. A third project is ongoing research with NKU MPA colleague Dr. Darrin Wilson that examines community councils – a form of neighborhood governance – in the City of Cincinnati. Our research examines the activities and effectiveness of these small nonprofits before and after the pandemic. Beyond this research, I developed a study-abroad course on arts administration, which was approved by the Cooperative Center for Study Abroad (CCSA) for its Ireland program in Summer 2024. Finally, I completed two electronic media courses at NKU that have informed my teaching of nonprofit management courses, particularly around community engagement.
Jonathan Reynolds
Professor
Department of History
World History Association and Book Projects
From August 2022 to August 2023, it was my honor to be awarded a two-semester sabbatical. The main goal of this sabbatical was to provide me the time and freedom necessary to serve as President of the World History Association during a portion of my two-year term as president (beginning in January of 2022 and running to January of 2024). The World History Association is the world’s largest scholarly organization dedicated to the teaching and research of World History. My primary duties in this regard have been to work closely with our institutional headquarters at Northeastern University and our elected Council to help identify and lead initiatives to further this institutional mission.
In addition, I set the ambitious goal to also work towards the completion of two major book projects during this time period. The first was to wrap up edits for a comprehensive world history textbook entitled World in Motion for publication with Hackett Press. This text, co-authored with Dr. Erik Gilbert, was previously under contract with Pearson, but shifts in their business model demanded (in 2020 and 2021) that we retrieve our rights and find a new publisher. While the book was effectively complete in 2019, the shift to Hackett necessitated certain editorial changes and updates to several chapters to reflect new research and information. The second project also related to our parting ways with Pearson. Africa in World History, Dr Gilbert and my highly regarded and influential African History textbook, had not been revised since 2011. Once we retrieved our rights from Pearson, we were able acquire a new contract with Oxford University Press. Our goal was to complete edits and updates (some quite substantial) for this text by 2023.
Going into the sabbatical, I knew this was an ambitious agenda, and, frankly, I wasn’t confident that I would be able to complete all three. I am happy to state that I have managed to complete the bulk of my Presidency with the WHA without disaster, though there have been real challenges, especially in 2023. Significant work has also been made towards the completion of my book projects, with publication of both slated for 2024.
Gang Sun
Associate Professor
Department of Physcis, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Smart Manufacturing
Manufacturing plays a pivotal role in the global economy, and fierce economic competition has driven manufacturers to embrace cutting-edge technologies such as the industrial Internet of Things, data analytics, intelligent machine vision, and artificial intelligence. During my Spring 2023 sabbatical leave, I undertook two significant research endeavors in the realm of smart manufacturing.
In the first section, conducted at NKU, I delved into data analytics for Industry 4.0-based manufacturing systems. Employing statistical time series methods like ARIMA, STL, and moving averages, I discerned patterns and seasonal variations within historical data, facilitating more informed decision-making. Additionally, I crafted a Generalized Regression Neural Network for data analysis, achieving superior predictive accuracy compared to conventional time series methods.
The second section involved an immersive two-month in-person workshop, where I acquired expertise in intelligent machine vision. Topics covered included Halcon, Visionmaster, 3D vision, deep learning, robotics, and machine vision integration. This hands-on experience enabled me to proficiently employ Halcon and Visionmaster for image analysis, explore 3D vision intricacies, and delve into advanced pattern recognition through deep learning. The fusion of robotics and machine vision revealed exciting prospects for automation and precision.
In summary, my sabbatical research holds dual significance. It enriches the NKU curriculum by infusing real-world insights into instrumentation and control courses, better equipping students for careers in smart manufacturing. Furthermore, it empowers me to contribute to the 2024 ASEE conference through a conference paper and engage in proposals for intelligent manufacturing systems design.
Jessica Taylor
Professor
School of Social Work
FUEL NKU: Higher education, support for diverse student communities, and priorities in community organization and development
The completed project involved an in-depth exploration of community organization and development in the context of a higher education community, with a focus on access, completion, and career and community engagement among diverse and under-represented minority (URM) students. Specifically, this project included two major components. As a foundation for the project, I completed a review of the literature regarding community organization and development in higher education, with particular focus on student support and social work initiatives designed to support access, completion, and career and community engagement among diverse and URM students. For the second major component of this project, I wrote a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. The manuscript is focused on community development and organization as connected to initiatives related social work and the helping professions designed to support diverse and URM students within higher education.
Kalif Vaughn
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
The Influence of Retrieval Practice on Academic Performance
Kalif Vaughn was awarded a one-semester sabbatical in fall 2022 to submit two manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals. The first manuscript outlined the results of a real-world study in which students were granted access to external study websites which either quizzed them (test group) or exposed them (read group) to their actual course content. We found that exam performance increased when students used the websites, but surprisingly, there was no difference between our groups (which is a departure from the modal laboratory-based findings in this area). This manuscript was rejected from Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, but the feedback helped us revise and resubmit it to College Teaching (where it was invited for a revise and resubmit). The second manuscript outlined the results of a retrieval-practice intervention on self-testing rates in learning foreign-language vocabulary. I told a random subset of students about the benefits of retrieval practice and encouraged them to self-test when studying the word pairs. Although the group of students that were told about the benefits of retrieval practice did self-test at high rates, so did the control group that was not informed of these benefits (a dreaded null effect). This manuscript required a host of nuanced analyses that I conducted within R, as well as collecting additional data from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Although the manuscript was rejected from Applied Cognitive Psychology, the feedback was valuable and highlighted that the analyses would benefit from a Bayesian approach.
Roger Zarnowski
Professor
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Dynamical Systems on Integers
Functional iteration, the process of repeatedly applying a given mathematical function to a set of numbers, is a commonly used step in solving difficult equations that arise in areas such as aircraft design, medical imaging, and weather forecasting. Mathematicians are therefore very interested when iterative processes exhibit mysterious behavior. One problem that has defied explanation for decades is the Collatz 3n + 1 conjecture, in which sequences of numbers are generated by iteratively applying a particular function to positive integers. It is believed that all Collatz sequences eventually reach the number 1, although many do so only after complicated repetitions of growth and decay. This conjecture is supported by
extensive computer experiments but a proof remains elusive.
Results of this project include an algorithm for an equivalent conjecture that yields shorter, smoother sequences than those produced by the Collatz iteration. I developed a novel threedimensional geometric representation of the resulting process that provided additional insight from which I was able to construct some new related algebraic identities. As a further extension, I explored the question of whether the methods I have successfully used in analyzing the 3n + 1 problem can be applied to similar problems. I examined three such problems in detail and have preliminary results on those, with ideas for further investigation. I also compiled ideas for a variety of student projects, some of which primarily involve computer
explorations and would be accessible to beginning students and others that would require more mathematical maturity.
Rachael Banks
Associate Professor
School of the Arts, Art & Deisgn
The Trail of the Dead
University support through the Summer Fellowship award enabled me to complete extensive research on photographic projects. During this time, I established relationships and learned about wildlife disease and survival through collaboration with regional wildlife rehabilitators and the Bluegrass Regional Coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife. I completed my photographic project, Sheryl|Fawn, and further built my ongoing creative project, The Trail. The most significant product of the fellowship is my self-published artist book, The Trail of the Dead. This publication embodies the creative research that I finalized this past summer. My publication has been selected for public showcasing at two upcoming artist book fairs in Pittsburgh, PA, and Covington, KY.
Additionally, images from this creative work have been selected for an invitational exhibition at Aurora Gallery as part of the upcoming Louisville Photo Biennial. This fellowship has been critical in furthering my creative research as a practicing artist, allowing me to complete projects and take advantage of forthcoming opportunities to exhibit my work to the greater public. The time provided for research with the summer fellowship has allowed further opportunities to continue my collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife throughout the remainder of this year. This relationship will benefit the ongoing projects I plan to finish during my sabbatical leave. I am pleased with the positive outcomes of the goals for my summer fellowship and the continued opportunities I have in the future as a result of this award.
Nicholas Caporusso
Associate Professor
School of Computing and Analytics
Generative Adversarial Networks
The project focused on Generative Adversarial Networks, a family of algorithms at the core of modern Generative AI systems. Specifically, the proposed project aimed at exploring and using generative AI to create visual representations, analyze and improve the performance of Generative AI, disseminate the outputs to the public, and gain more insight into the potential of ML and its impact on society. The objectives and expected outcomes of the project were the following: (1) four scholarly papers discussing specific aspects of the work, (2) the production of a website and book with a selection of images from the project, and (3) an exhibition featuring the images.
The project resulted in the following:
- Books:
o A book titled “The Legacy of Southgate Street School”, celebrating the legacy of an African-American school in Newport that operated during segregation (published and available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2SG2HQJ);
o A children’s book that uses a mixed technique based on of Generative AI (published and available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKCYSF3F);
o A book titled “Postcards from the invisible cities”, containing visual representations of cities from Italo Calvino’s “The invisible cities” (in review and to be published in Spring 2024);
o A book titled “Generative AI for educators”, describing how Generative AI can be used to enhance the teaching experience, from course preparation to delivery in the classroom (in review and to be published in Spring 2024);
o A book titled “AI with purpose”, describing creative projects based on Generative AI that also have a purpose (in production and to be published in Fall 2024);
- Scholarly articles:
o The article “Generative Artificial Intelligence and the Emergence of Creative Displacement Anxiety” has been accepted for publication in the Research Directs Journal in Psychology and Behavior.
- Podcast:
o A podcast titled “The Legacy of Southgate Street School”, narrating the story of the book and Southgate Street School (to be published in November 2023);
- Art exhibitions:
o A public exhibition titled “The Legacy of Southgate Street School”, displaying original artwork from the book (to be held at the Campbell County Public Library in Newport in November 2023);
o In addition to the book titled “AI with purpose”, a call for projects is being held to demonstrate purposeful creative projects based on Generative AI. The call for projects will potentially lead to an exhibition to be held in Spring or Fall 2024.
Ada Cenkci
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
The Sense of Belonging of First-Generation College Students in Online Courses
During the Faculty Senate Summer Fellowship, I worked on the proposed research project on undergraduate student sense of belonging in online classes. In the literature, there is limited research on the student sense of belonging in college courses. Thus, this phenomenological study examines how students develop a sense of belonging in online courses at a 4-year state university. The fellowship allowed me to work on the project literature review, create the related volunteer characteristics and interview eligibility survey, develop the interview guide, and finish my IRB application. I plan to continue this project during the 2023-2024 academic year and complete the article based on the results of this study. I aim to submit the article to a peer-reviewed journal.
Joshua Cooper
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Individual Undergraduate Research Projects
I was able to mentor four NKU undergraduate students through individual research projects ranging from the impacts of antibiotic pollution on freshwater microbes, to water quality assessment using diatoms, to developing new chromosome counting methods for algae, to working with unusual and rare bacteria. The fellowship allowed me to mentor my students, expand my research directions, and work on “dream projects” that I have been wanting to tackle.
Major Accomplishments:
While I received the Faculty Summer Fellowship for the Summer of 2023, I was unfortunately not awarded the funds to complete the outlined work in the Faculty Project Grant as proposed in the original award. The Summer Fellowship was to support my time mentoring my undergraduates in research for the summer, so instead I pivoted and was successful in that regard. This summer I mentored four students from May to August of 2023, conducting a variety of projects. Mentoring undergraduates in research experiences is a high impact practice shown to promote a sense of belonging and helps them realize their career readiness. The goals of the project were achieved. Two students presented at the Heather Bullen Summer Research Celebration, and the all four students will be presenting at the Kentucky Academy of Science in November, and Regional American Society of Microbiology Meetings in the upcoming year.
Anh Dang
Assistant Professor
Department of Marketing, Sports Business, and Construction Management
Applying Object Detection, a Machine Learning Method, To Digital Marketing Research
Social media and online customer reviews are becoming more crucial to our shopping habits and decisions. Companies thus use them as tools to reach and persuade consumers to buy their products. There has been plenty of research discussing the tips on creating engaging content on social media. Furthermore, previous research also investigate which customer reviews the company should feature on their product pages. However, prior studies have examined primarily the texts of social media posts and customer reviews. Whereas images and videos are gaining popularity, extant literature yields limited guidance on the factors inside those images and videos that can engage and persuade the audience. In this project, I investigate the impact of human faces shown in social media posts and customer reviews on consumers’ perceptions. My initial findings indicate that human faces are a powerful factor in helping brands engage and persuade their customers.
Joshua Elliott
Assistant Professor
School of Kinesiology, Counseling, and Rehabilitative Sciences
Considerations for Counseling Appalachian LGBTQA+ Adults
The purpose of this fellowship was to understand literature on the lived experiences of adult sexual and gender minorities residing in rural populations, specifically in the Appalachian region, in order to write an article that conceptualized culturally responsive counseling practice. In completing this project, I was able to build upon previous scholarship pertaining to multicultural counselor competence when serving Appalachian clients with diverse social identities. The fellowship also permitted me to delve deeper into the contemporary literature on sexual and gender minority stress in order to conceptualize clinical interventions that counselors might consider when treating SGM individuals who experience increased exposure to discrimination and oppression. Additionally, this fellowship contributed to my ability to serve the community, as I was invited to present an educational session on the effects of minority stress on SGM populations to St. Elizabeth’s employee pride group in June. I was also able to start work on developing a continuing education program for site supervisors who serve NKU counseling students. Furthermore, in collaboration with graduate students and faculty from NKU’s Counseling programs, I will be reporting on the results from this project via two conference presentations at the annual Kentucky Counseling Association Conference this fall.
Melissa Jones
Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Advanced Studies
Adolescence, Identity and Disability: Empowering Students for Educational Success in High School
The goal of this project was to make progress on a textbook to support the teaching and learning of special education majors, with the working title Adolescence, Identity and Disability: Empowering Students for Educational Success in High School. The published textbook would be used in a required course at NKU, EDS 572 Secondary Special Education Programs and hopefully adopted in special education certification programs at other institutions across the country. One unique aspect of the text is to wed two distinct disciplines - Special Education and Disability Studies. Special Education is driven by the Americans with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004), and instructional materials written from this perspective typically focus on the legal mandates of special education concerning eligibility and the provision of services. Disability Studies offers the unique perspective of individuals who have a disability, enhancing course content by providing a voice to people who live the disability experience. As a result of this Summer Fellowship, multiple chapters are in final stages of preparation, with the book project poised for submission to a publishing company.
Zeel Maheshwari
Associate Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
A generalized computation tool for optimization of Smart Integrated Renewable Energy System (SIRES)
Renewable energy sources are a promising solution to the problems of pollution and energy poverty in rural areas. This research proposes a genetic algorithm (GA)-based approach to minimize the cost of renewable energy devices while ensuring that they meet the basic energy needs of people in rural areas.The GA includes two main parts: a hard constraint that ensures that the loss of power supply probability (LPSP) and loss of water supply probability (LWSP) are below certain thresholds, and a soft constraint that minimizes the cost of the renewable energy devices. The costs considered in this approach include the initial cost, maintenance cost, and replacement cost over 25 years.The GA is implemented using DEAP (Distributed Evolutionary Algorithms) in Python. The methodology involves creating a fitness function to find the minimum cost, building equations of LPSP and LWSP, and then running the GA through three main steps: selection, crossover, and mutation. The GA proceeds from generation to generation until the best solution is found.Once the process is complete, the costs for each rural area can be easily calculated. This will help to determine how much funding is needed to help these communities transition to renewable energy. The web-based graphical user interface (GUI) is created using a Python-Django framework.This research is a significant contribution to the field of renewable energy. It provides a practical and efficient approach to minimizing the cost of renewable energy devices while ensuring that they meet the basic energy needs of people in rural areas.
Awad Mussa
Assistant Professor
School of Computing and Analytics
Allison Parker
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Emily Shifley
Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Identifying which members of the FGF genetic signaling family help guide embryonic development of the pharynx
The Faculty Senate supported my summer research titled “Identifying which members of the FGF genetic signaling family help guide embryonic development of the pharynx.” My lab researches the development of the embryonic pharynx, which later forms craniofacial features as well as the parathyroid and thyroid glands. We are interested in understanding how genetic signaling pathways help cells in the early embryo differentiate and construct these important organs. We used the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, to study the genetic signals that normally guide pharyngeal development. Many of the genes that guide early, embryonic development in Xenopus are conserved and play the same role in humans, allowing us to learn more about human development through our experiments with Xenopus. We hope to understand what genes might be altered in individuals with pharyngeal birth defects. We focused on a genetic signaling pathway called the Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) pathway, which is necessary for proper pharyngeal development. The goal of this summer fellowship was to determine which members of the FGF pathway are active in the developing pharynx as there are many, different potential FGF receptors and signaling molecules. We examined the gene expression of the various FGF receptors and signaling molecules and discovered that different FGF receptors are in fact expressed within different tissue layers of the embryonic pharynx. These results reveal that the FGF signaling pathway is likely playing multiple roles in these various areas of the developing pharynx revealing the complexity of this genetic signaling pathway.
Yingying Xie
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Mismatch in ecological synchrony between woody plants and vernal pool-breeding amphibians
Pond-breeding amphibian species that highly depend on seasonal pools in wetlands are very sensitive to environmental changes and are threatened with extinction. However, knowledge of the ecological synchrony between pond-breeding amphibians and co-occurring plants is limited, which prevents us in comprehensive assessing the impact and making conservation planning. The goal of this project is to understand how phenology (i.e., timing of life cycle events) of woody plants and vernal pool-breading amphibians respond to environmental changes and affect their ecological synchrony. At the Research and Education Field Station (REFS) at NKU, eight sites were developed to monitor timing of woody plants activities (e.g., leaf out and flowering) and amphibian reproduction and occurrence of multiple life stages (e.g., calling, egg mass, and tadpoles) in spring. Water gauges were set up to measure water depth of vernal pools at the sites. Data loggers were also set up to measure air and water temperatures at each site. In addition, time-lapse cameras were taking hourly photos of the vernal pools capturing the seasonal changes of vegetation and water level in spring. Due to the warm spell in February 2023, wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) and Jefferson salamander (Ambystoma jeffersonianum) showed early breeding phenology while red maples (Acer rubrum) and silver maples (Acer saccharinum) opened flowers in early spring. Continued phenology monitoring is required to quantify the associations among plants and amphibian phenological shifts and changes in environmental conditions and vernal pool hydroperiod.
Junko Agnew
Assistant Professor
Department of World Languages and Literatures
Manchukuo Films
My research project centers on the analysis of films produced in Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in northeast China that lasted only fourteen years from 1932 to 1945. Although Manchukuo was a Japanese colony, Japan presented it as an independent state. As a part of my existing interest in the role of cultural production in the state-building project in Manchukuo, I wanted to analyze the content and context of the available films produced by the Manchukuo film industry. My initial interest is the role of the well-known actress Rikoran/Yamaguchi Yoshiko in Manchukuo films who was born to Japanese parents but was promoted as a Chinese actress. Through the examination of her films, this study illuminates the simulative nature of Manchukuo film by interrogating the role of gender and ethnicity in the construction of a utopian Manchukuo identity. .
Ada Cenkci
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice, and Organizational Leadership
Overcoming Workplace Loneliness: How to Create a Sense of Belonging for Your Remote Workforce
The project grant allowed me to finish our book manuscript titled “Overcoming Workplace Loneliness: Cultivating Belonging for a Remote Workforce”. Considering the limited research on Workplace Loneliness (WL) and the accelerated remote work arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book explores the WL experience of remote employees and how to create a sense of belonging for such employees. The book offers a thorough literature review of WL topic and a research study based with a mixed-method design (an online survey and interviews). We completed the project and submitted the full manuscript file to Emerald Publishing in July 2023. We expect the manuscript to be published within 2023.
Christine Curran
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Acquisition of automated blood pressure monitoring system for laboratory mice
Heart disease is the leading killer in the United States with one person dying every 36 seconds (CDC 2021). Recent studies linked exposure to the pollutant benzo[a]pyrene with an increased risk of heart disease. Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is a known carcinogen (IARC 2018) and ranked 8th on the U.S. government’s Priority Pollutants List (ASTDR 2019). Human exposures are widespread from cigarette smoke, wildfires, fossil fuel combustion, and grilled foods (IARC 2018; ASTDR 1996). In animal models, BaP exposure increased the occurrence of heart defects during development (Huang et al. 2021; Zhang et al. 2021). This project grant provided funding for a non-invasive system to monitor blood pressure and heart rate in mice, because those are strong indicators of cardiovascular disease. The equipment is also available for use in laboratory courses in Biological Sciences. Supplemental funding was provided by a College of Arts & Sciences Collaborative Faculty-Student Project Award which supported three undergraduate research students during the project period. The students not only looked at the effect of developmental benzo[a]pyrene exposure on heart function, but whether regular exercise could prevent adverse health outcomes. The project fostered a new collaboration with University of Cincinnati experts in cardiovascular disease. The data we collected in our initial studies was presented by a UR-STEM fellow at the Heather Bullen Celebration of Student Research in August and will be submitted for presentation at a national toxicology conference in 2024. The data indicate that exercise is effective at reducing heart rates and weight in mice exposed to BaP.
Perilou Goddard
Professor
Department of Psychological Science
The Scoop and the Pivot: A Case of Academic Agility
I was awarded a sabbatical leave and project grant for Fall 2022 to develop a new scale for measuring stigma toward people with substance use disorders. However, a very similar scale (Krendl & Perry, 2022) was published a few months after my sabbatical was approved. I was scooped!
I pivoted to focus on updating the Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale (HRAS), a measure I developed in the late 1990s. Harm reduction is the term for public health programs that reduce the harms associated with drug use without requiring people to stop using all substances. I still receive requests every year from researchers to use the HRAS, and I anticipate there will be continued interest in the future.
With input from my colleague Dr. Kinsey Bryant-Lees and my former student and University of Michigan professor Dr. Erin Bonar, I revised the HRAS to reflect current practices.
With IRB approval, my project grant paid 1000 American adults in the Prolific research panel to complete the revised Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale-2 (HRAS-2). Initial results show that the scale has impressive reliability and construct validity. In the coming months, I’ll work with Drs. Bryant-Lees and Bonar to complete the analyses and write up the results for publication.
I am grateful to the Faculty Benefits Committee, Dr. Cécile Marczinski, Dean Diana McGill, and Provost Cecil for the sabbatical leave and project grant. I anticipate that the resulting Harm Reduction Acceptability Scale-2 will be my most enduring contribution to the drug policy literature.
Steven Gores
Professor
Department of English
Assessing the Novels of Paul Creswick
This biographical and literary project focused on assessing the novels of Englishman Paul Creswick (1866-1947). My interest in Creswick stems from his friendship with the subject of my 2015 sabbatical, the Cincinnati-based publisher W. T. H. White, whom Creswick visited in the summer of 1929. Because only one of Creswick’s novels is currently in print, my Project Grant money was spent on acquiring what are now rather expensive volumes originally published between 1895 and 1930. Believing that Creswick’s audience was primarily juvenile, I initially proposed to focus on identifying values or codes of behavior that his novels promote for young readers. I found that Creswick’s early works were, as I had supposed, largely adventure tales, many explicitly written for a child or adolescent audience. I was very surprised to find that, near the millennial 1899 celebration of the end of King Alfred’s rule, Creswick penned three novels (In Aelfred’s Days, Under the Black Raven, Hasting the Pirate) set in Alfred’s time, during which Saxons and Vikings warred to decide who would control England. Overall, however, I found that Creswick’s writing was neither wholly devoted to the adventure genre nor was it geared solely to the interests of young readers. His first book, The Miracle (1895), is a combination of satire and romance. Three years later, he published Bruising Peg, a novel based on one of the first woman boxers. My marathon of reading and taking notes on Paul Creswick’s novels has left me with several different ideas for scholarly publication.
Allyson Graf
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Proof-of-Concept Study: Examining Sexual Possible Selves as a Lifespan Concept
My project grant centered around expanding research on the concept sexual possible selves into the adult lifespan. Up until this point, this concept has only been studied in adults up to 29 years of age (Anders et al., 2019). Working with the original researchers (Anders and Olmstead), a graduate student from University of Connecticut (Hanna-Walker), and five undergraduate research assistants from NKU (Wallace, Mason, Ely, Litteral, and Mitchell), we finalized a quantitative measure appropriate to be used in diverse adult populations, launched a full-scale survey employing the new measure and other related measures for the purpose of scale validation, planned and started a qualitative investigation using the original interview protocol in a sample of adults 30 years and older, and presented pilot data at a professional conference. Although the project morphed due to progress made prior to our involvement and proceeded slower than expected, the three primary goals of the project grant were satisfied, including launching original research on sexual possible selves among adults, disseminating findings, and providing collaborative and professional development opportunities for NKU students and myself. Data analysis and dissemination of the survey data and data collection for the qualitative component are ongoing and provide additional opportunities to involve NKU students.
Wei Hao
Professor
School of Computing and Analytics
The impact of edge computing on mobile/cloud app performance and mobile device energy consumption
Mobile apps change the way we live and bring many benefits to us. However, mobile devices have limited hardware resources, such as battery, CPU, memory, and storage. Mobile app performance and energy consumption are becoming the most urgent issues that need to be fixed. In this project, we researched computational offloading from mobile devices to edge servers and studied the impact of edge computing on mobile/cloud app performance and mobile device energy consumption. We used AWS (Amazon Web Services) edge device and Amazon cloud and edge services to develop experimental studies to evaluate the edge computing approach. The major accomplishments include (1) We worked with NKU students on the project, and I co-authored 3 papers with 3 NKU students. The paper titles are “Exploring the Impact of Cloud Computing and Edge Computing on Resource Consumption for Mobile Devices with Generative Artificial Intelligence APIs”, “Improving Performance and Battery Consumption through Edge Computing”, and “An Empirical Study of Caching Impact on an AWS-Hosted Website”. The three papers were submitted to 2024 IEEE 21st Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC). The papers are under review. (2) I used Amazon cloud and edge computing services for my project, so I gained a deep understanding of cloud and edge computing. It helped me develop new teaching materials for my CIT 438 Cloud Computing, CYS 439 Cloud Security, MCY 611 Cloud Computing, and MCY 612 Cloud Security classes.
Suk-hee Kim
Associate Professor
School of Social Work
Yasue Kuwahara
Professor
School of Media and Communication
Chindon Bentenya: Gender, Sexuality, and Perceptions of Japan’s Unique Subculture
The purpose of this project is to advance my research on chindonya by focusing on two issues that resulted from my previous studies. Chindonya is a troupe of street musicians and performers dressed in elaborate costumes who are hired to draw customers to shops. They also perform as musical groups at various events, such as company parties, weddings, and festivals. Little known to the public, chindonya is a truly unique subculture of Japan. Its importance in Japanese cultural history lies in its role as the root of popular culture and the advertising industry.
The project grant partially financed my ethnographic study of Chindon Bentenya in Nagoya, Japan in June 2022. Bentenya is unique among chindonya because they are not only the only all-female troupe but innovative in various ways, including their appearance and social media presence. During my study I was allowed to 1) observe Bentenya’s weekly practices and the final rehearsal before their annual concert; 2) accompany them to their performances at a local beer garden, and 3) be involved in their preparations for the annual concert. I also interviewed the members of the Bentenya fan club. Additionally, I was able to meet with Hayashi Kojiro who was regarded as the leader of the chindon trade and who had been the mentor for a Bentenya leader Susie. Through these activities my study focused on 1) the gender and sexuality issue Bentenya faced in the male-dominated trade and society and 2) the issue of the perception of chindonya among the Japanese which seemed crucial to the future of the trade.
Debra Meyers
Professor
Department of History and Geography
Sexual Assault Anthology
Debra Meyers, PhD and Mary Sue Barnett have published two anthologies in recent years that address the crisis our society faces regarding sexual assault. Sexual assault, while an important theme in both projects, was not the only focus. As a result these two projects, Hating Girls (Brill, 2021) and Crisis and Challenge (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020), reified for us the enormous problem as well as its complexity specifically related to religion in our society. Thus, we embarked on a third anthology project focused solely on healing after sexual assault. The Faculty Senate Project Grant allowed me to pay for indexing, cover art, and travel to meet with my co-editor as we completed Spiritual Healing from Sexual Violence: An Intersectional Guide (Routledge, 2023).
Kevin Muente
Professor
School of the Arts
Painting Workshop with Vincent Desiderio and Bernardo Sicilano July 4-15 Summer 2022
I took a figure painting workshop with artists Vincent Desiderio and Bernardo Sicilano. I learned their techniques of figure drawing and painting and made a few drawings and paintings. I now have new techniques that I may use. Both painters have unique ways to make work, and I found it interesting to explore their way of crafting a painting. Sicilano's way of working requires HUGE amounts of white paint, (I went through a whole tube of white in three days!) whereas Desiderio explores variations of warm and cool colors building volumes in the light areas while keeping shadow areas flat, gray and warm. There was also a one day landscape painting workshop offered by their assistant Katie Hemmer in which we painted the view from Orvieto, Italy.
Chris Strobel
Professor
School of Media and Communication
Gang Sun
Associate Professor
Department of Physics, Geology, and Engineering Technology
Industry 4.0-based Manufacturing Systems Design using Real-Time Industrial Data Analytics and Intelligent Machine Vision
Manufacturing plays a pivotal role in the global economy, and fierce economic competition has driven manufacturers to embrace cutting-edge technologies such as the industrial Internet of Things, data analytics, intelligent machine vision, and artificial intelligence. During my Spring 2023 sabbatical leave, I undertook two significant research endeavors in the realm of smart manufacturing.
In the first section, conducted at NKU, I delved into data analytics for Industry 4.0-based manufacturing systems. Employing statistical time series methods like ARIMA, STL, and moving averages, I discerned patterns and seasonal variations within historical data, facilitating more informed decision-making. Additionally, I crafted a Generalized Regression Neural Network for data analysis, achieving superior predictive accuracy compared to conventional time series methods.
The second section involved an immersive two-month in-person workshop, where I acquired expertise in intelligent machine vision. Topics covered included Halcon, Visionmaster, 3D vision, deep learning, robotics, and machine vision integration. This hands-on experience enabled me to proficiently employ Halcon and Visionmaster for image analysis, explore 3D vision intricacies, and delve into advanced pattern recognition through deep learning. The fusion of robotics and machine vision revealed exciting prospects for automation and precision.
In summary, my sabbatical research holds dual significance. It enriches the NKU curriculum by infusing real-world insights into instrumentation and control courses, better equipping students for careers in smart manufacturing. Furthermore, it empowers me to contribute to the 2024 ASEE conference through a conference paper and engage in proposals for intelligent manufacturing systems design.
Monica Wakefield
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Philosophy
Developing Research on Wild Olive Baboons (Papio anubis) and Co-directorship of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP), Laikipia, Kenya
In spring 2022, I took a sabbatical to focus on my newly established research project and received a Faculty Project Grant to help support the fieldwork portion of my activities. The primary goal was to develop new scholarly research on behavioral ecology of wild olive baboons at the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project (UNBP), Kenya. Working in collaboration with other researchers, I assumed codirectorship
of UNBP to conduct my own research and continue operations at the site. UNBP is one of the longest-running primatological research sites with continuous observation and data collection spanning 50 years. This presents a wealth of opportunities for myself and NKU students in terms of research at the site and access to long-term data yet to be analyzed. My sabbatical phase focused on developing and writing
grant proposals for my ongoing scholarship and involvement at the site. This included a 6-week visit to the site to establish connections and collect pilot data/samples. I was able to meet all of my goals for the sabbatical period. In addition to meeting stated goals, I worked with long-term project data to analyze and present research female reproductive parameters and am working on a manuscript with these data; submitted two grant proposals; and established a “lab group” at NKU for collaborative student research experience utilizing the UNBP data. I hope to bring students to the field with me as well starting next summer. In this report, I highlight my accomplishments and discuss the outcomes of my proposed goals.
Lindsey Walters
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Assessing the use of nestling tree swallow feathers as a bioindicator of environmental mercury contamination
I used this project grant to provide stipend support for 4 undergraduate student researchers during the summers of 2022 and 2023. For this project, we developed a new method which uses tree swallow feathers as a bioindicator of environmental mercury pollution. Mercury is a persistent environmental toxin with harmful impacts on many organisms, but ecotoxicologists need more tools to assess patterns of organismal mercury uptake from the environment. In birds, ingested mercury is sequestered into growing feathers in order to eliminate it from the body. Our goal was to determine whether enough mercury was present in the feathers of nestling tree swallows so that feather samples could be used to assess environmental mercury amounts on their own, instead of using more invasive blood samples. We compared the concentration of total mercury found in samples of feathers and blood, which we took from the same tree swallow nestlings at the same time. We determined that feathers had proportional, but much higher, levels of mercury than blood did. With almost no mercury present in the blood at this stage, we concluded that feathers alone may be used to gauge lifetime body burden in tree swallow nestlings. This means that feathers from nestling tree swallows are an ideal way to assess mercury contamination because they are both more accurate and easier to sample than blood. These data can be used to develop a non-invasive protocol that can utilize this abundant bird for continent-wide assessment of local mercury pollution levels.
Lauren Williamson
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Role of sex hormones in learning impairments caused by inflammation
The purpose of this project was to examine how sex hormones, such as estradiol and testosterone, may mediate inflammation within the brain and how those hormones may alter cognition following inflammation. Previous work in my laboratory has shown that males are more sensitive to inflammation in adulthood, but the role of sex hormones is still unclear in a specific behavior, context-object discrimination. My hypothesis was that estradiol, expressed more highly by female rats, may protect their brains from inflammation during learning events. I further hypothesized that testosterone may predispose male rats to increased sensitivity to inflammation, leading to their memory impairments. Three undergraduate students worked on this project, including Jenna Dunham, who attended the Southeastern Regional IDeA Meeting in Columbia, SC to present a poster on this work. We tested 32 rats on context-object discrimination. We processed their brains for microglia expression with immunohistochemistry and inflammatory gene expression with quantitative PCR. Overall, this project produced novel data about endocrine effects on inflammation and learning and gave several NKU undergraduate students a valuable research experience.
Justin Yates
Associate Professor
Department of Psychological Science
Validating the equivalent expected value (EEV) task, a novel paradigm for measuring risky choice in rodents: dissociating the effects of the psychostimulant d-amphetamine on risk preference, suboptimal decision making, and behavioral flexibility
Risky choice is conceptualized as decision making in the face of uncertainty. Several psychiatric disorders are characterized by maladaptive risky choice, such as gambling disorder and substance use disorders. There are several behavioral paradigms that purportedly measure risky choice in rodents. One issue is that these tasks confound risky choice with other constructs such as pain sensitivity and behavioral flexibility. The purpose of the Faculty Project Grant was to design a novel task that better measures risky choice in rodents: the equivalent expected value (EEV) task. In the EEV task, rats make a choice between one of two reinforcers (food pellets). The magnitudes and probabilities associated with each food reinforcer differed; however, the expected value (or utility) of each reinforcer was identical. For example, during one block of trials, rats could earn 6 pellets delivered with a probability of 33.33% or 3 pellets delivered with a probability of 66.67%. Because the expected value was equivalent across reinforcers (expected value of 2 pellets), there was no suboptimal choice as rats earned the same number of food pellets over time. Yet, one option was “riskier” as the probability of receiving reinforcement was lower. Using the EEV task, we found that female rats were more risk averse than males. To further validate this procedure, rats were treated with the psychostimulant drug methamphetamine (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 mg/kg), as it has been tested in multiple tasks that claim to measure risky choice. Administration of methamphetamine decreased risk aversion in both males and females.
