Her ongoing dedication to bringing teams together to do good work recently earned Chena Tucker (right), director of SUNY Oswego’s Office of Business and Community Relations, the Nancy L. Premo – Woman of Distinction Award from the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce. "Chena embodies the very essence of this award. She is kind, passionate and community focused,” said Katie Toomey (left), director of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce. “She brings a fresh perspective, and innovative ideas to the workplace and always puts her co-workers first.” The Nancy L. Premo Award is named for a former member of the senior leadership team and vice president of human resources for the Greater Oswego Chamber of Commerce and CenterState CEO. Read full story.

The work of biological sciences faculty member Daniel Baldassarre and students Brooke Goodman and Shyla Luna appeared at the Northeast Natural History Conference, a virtual event from April 15 to 19. Baldassare and Goodman co-presented a poster session, “Comparing Song Repertoires in Urban vs. Rural Northern Cardinals,” which explored how human-generated noise may force animals to adjust aspects of their vocalizations like frequency, syllable usage and speed. The study involved automatic recording units on male Northern Cardinal territories in urban (Barry Park, Syracuse) and rural (Rice Creek Field Station) field sites. Baldassare presented “Causes and Consequences of Nest Predation in Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) in Rural and Urban Habitats,” in which he and Luna researched how living in the city can make the Northern Cardinal change color. Using the same locations as the birdsong study, it found that birds having access to different types of food might affect their coloring, finding that urban males have redder beaks and urban females have deeper pink-colored wings compared to birds living in an undisturbed area. Watch this video to learn more. 

Leanna First-Arai of the modern languages and literatures faculty published "Pipeline tells Black Memphis landowners: sell us the rights to your land or get sued" in The Guardian (UK). The piece -- a colloboration between Southerly, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism and the well-known British publication -- explores how the proposed Byhalia Connection oil pipeline is raising a variety of concerns in majority-Black neighborhoods in southwest Memphis. A freelance journalist covering environmental issues, First-Arai also wrote "Fossil fuel phase out must begin where the industry has hurt people the most" in Truthout as part of the Covering Climate Series, a global journalism collaboration.

Modern languages and literatures faculty member Catalina Iannone recently earned a national Catalina Iannone of the modern languages and literatures faculty recently earned a national award for her writingaward for her journal publication, "Visualizing Blackness in Contemporary Spain: Race and Representation in Juan Valbuena’s 'Salitre.'" The editors of Hispania, a peer-reviewed academic journal and the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) holds an annual Outstanding Scholarly Publication Award, evaluating articles published in the previous two years. One winner and one honorable mention rise from those top-notch submissions -- with Iannone’s article emerging in the latter runner-up position. "Visualizing Blackness in Contemporary Spain” appeared in the September 2020 volume of Hispania, analyzing “Salitre,” Spanish photographer Juan Valbuena’s collection of photographs and texts. Read full story.

Two SUNY Oswego students will advance to a statewide business plan competition after recent success in the CNY Competes regional event. Senior meteorology major Daniel Maslowski placed first in the emergency and first responder category with SWTRS -- short for Severe Weather Threat Ranking System -- which also won SUNY Oswego’s Launch It competition. Jeff Evans, a master of business administration student through a partnership with his employer SRC Inc., placed second in the consumer and business products category to advance for his invention, the wiNest. Evans and Maslowski will next take part in Capital Foundation’s New York Business Plan Competition on May 7, which will include a startup showcase, a series of workshops, networking opportunities and the finals featuring financial awards. Read full story.

Joshua McKeown, associate provost for international education and programs, authored a recent article in the Journal of Contemporary China (Taylor & Francis) titled "Wasted Talents? China's Higher Education Reforms Experienced Through Its Visiting Scholars Abroad" on the experiences of visiting scholars from China in the United States and elsewhere. Many of SUNY Oswego's visiting scholars from China over the past decade were surveyed, as well as many others. JCC is one of the top China studies/area studies journals.

Criminal justice faculty member Jaclyn Schildkraut published the op-ed “Public mass shootings went away; are they making a comeback?” in the April 20 edition of Syracuse.com. Schildkraut, a national expert on mass shooting research and on researching and conducting lockdown drills, looked at the recent resurgence in mass shootings and the factors behind them.

Damian Schofield, director of the college’s human-computer interaction program, published a pair of papers co-authored by his students. Schofield and Joseph Gray published “Media Multitasking: A Cross-Cultural Study” in the  International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology. He and Chukwuemeka U.E. Okere published “Improving Automobile Driver Safety and Experience when Performing a Tertiary Task using Visual, Hands-free and Gestural-based Interfaces” in the International Journal of Information Technology.

Student Adam Tatar participates in virtual Quinnipiac conference

Student Adam Tatar was selected to represent SUNY Oswego on the Student Keynote Panel at the virtual Quinnipiac Global Asset Management in Education Forum on March 25. Also named the Finance and Risk Management and Insurance Student of the Year, Tatar asked a question about emerging markets' central banks' independence and its effect on currencies and interest rates, especially the present day events unfolding in Turkey. Ethan Harris, managing director and head of global  economics at Bank of America Global Research, answered Tatar's question.  

Physics major Elina van Kempen gave an oral presentation titled “Gravitation-Free Confined Systems: Capillary Condensation Transitions” at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research on April 14. van Kempen's research adviser is physics professor Carolina Ilie and her co-authors are Oswego alumni Julia D'Rozario (now Ph.D. student at Rochester Institute of Technology) and Marie Toni Romano (who is now pursuing her master’s in human-computer interaction at SUNY Oswego). This virtual synchronous conference focused on undergraduate research and creative activity in all fields and hosts more than 4,000 students across the globe. 

Georgina Whittingham, chair of the department of modern languages and literatures, served as a guest speaker at Cornell University on March 30. The virtual event, titled "Specimens by Amanda Keller-Konya," took place at a class on “Border Environments” and was open to the public as part of a Special Series sponsored by the Central New York Humanities Corridor from an award by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. View the slides of the presentation to learn more.

Jason Zenor of the communication studies faculty worked on a profile and infographic for a Subscript Law article upcoming Supreme Court case on student speech. The student lawsuit against the Mahanoy Area School District is slated to appear before the highest court on April 28.

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