School of Business faculty member Andrea Pagano (pictured) was named to the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants 40 Under 40 at a July 29 ceremony. A member of the accounting, finance and law department, Pagano coordinates the college’s popular Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which provides the free service of helping community members with their tax returns. She was also one of the few academics to earn the honor.
Joshua Adams of the English and creative writing faculty and Damian Schofield, director of the human-computer interaction program, were judges for an international film festival in Australia. The Geelong International Film Festival was an online event in July that celebrated local, national and international cinema through a selection of narrative, documentary, animation and live-action features, shorts and long short films.
Adams and Schofield also co-authored two papers in the International Journal of Contemporary Humanities: "It’s the End of the World and You Watch It: Media Consumption in the Time of COVID-19" and "It’s the End of the World and You Watch It: A Brief History of Disaster Themed Media." The former presents results of an experiment to capture media consumption trends during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, correlated with the demographics and individual situations of participants. The latter presents a brief history of disaster-themed media, in particular focusing on cinema and video games.
English and creative writing faculty member Laura Donnelly published ”The Defiance of Plants: On Kathryn Nuerenberger’s ‘Rue’” in Kenyon Review. Donnelly’s review of Nuerenberger’s 2020 book of poetry explored the intersection of ecology, feminism and natural history in its works.
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier of the English and creative writing faculty had her story “Any Old Patient” published in Hyphen Magazine’s Arts & Culture section. Frazier said it was wonderful to take a break from her novel-in-progress and focus on a shorter piece.
History faculty member Gwen Kay, president of the SUNY Faculty Senate, was among the panelists for ”Stonewall to SUNY,” a virtual SUNY-sponsored panel discussion on July 1 about the intersection of Pride Month and Black Lives Matter activism.
Mathematics professor Ampalavanar Nanthakumar has been admitted as a Fellow of the Sigma-Xi, The Scientific Research Society. The society established the Sigma Xi Fellow Distinction to recognize selected members who have exhibited extraordinary service to Sigma Xi, and who have made significant contributions in research and development, outreach, teaching and curricular innovation, mentorship, leadership and/or science advocacy. Nanthakumar is a former president of the SUNY Oswego Sigma Xi chapter.
The Connecticut Broadcasters Association announced Marek Ptakowski as a recipient of a CBA Scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year. Ptakowski, who hails from New Fairfield, is a sophomore broadcasting and mass communication major who has demonstrated academic achievement. The live sports engineer for WTOP-10 TV, Ptakowski has been involved with broadcasting for seven years, beginning back in middle school.