Accomplishments - August, 2022
Allison Joseph, MFA creative writing director, has been named the 2022 Illinois Author of the Year by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English (IATE). The organization annually chooses an author who lives, has lived in or has written about Illinois to honor for their excellence in writing. Joseph will receive the award at IATE’s fall conference in October at Millikin University in Decatur. Joseph also recently won the 2022 Poetry by the Sea book contest for her 2021 work, “Lexicon.”
“Emma Jean’s Sew-N-Sew,” by LaShonda M. Stewart, professor, School of Management and Marketing, was recently published. The children’s book teaches readers “how to overcome adversity with conviction” and confronts the topic of fitting in at school.
Jeb Asirvatham, associate professor, agribusiness economics, is co-author of a journal article, “Organic Produce Retail Premiums Vary Across Regions and by Attributes” published in July in International Journal of Agricultural Economics. The study analyses retail premium of organic over conventional production using USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service data on specialty crops. The upshot is that, in any region, organic producers could earn larger premiums by choosing the right variety in the right season sold in the right package.
Diana Cedeño, assistant professor, curriculum and instruction in child and family services, has been selected for the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education Inc.’s 2022-23 Faculty Fellowship Program. The program starts in September 2022 followed by monthly webinars through March 2023. The program’s primary goal “is to prepare Latina/o/x faculty for successful careers in academia and beyond by increasing the number of tenured and promoted Latina/o/x faculty,” according to the organization.
Bridget Lescelius, associate lecturer, School of Journalism and Advertising, was recently appointed lieutenant governor of the American Advertising Federation District 6. The six-year term will include serving a year as governor and organization chair. In her current role she will be in charge of social media and website development. The district comprises 13 affiliate local professional advertising clubs in Indiana, Illinois and Michigan.
Matthew Young, assistant professor, biochemistry and molecular biology, recently co-authored “Heterozygous p.Y955C mutation in DNA polymerase γ leads to alterations in bioenergetics, complex I subunit expression, and mtDNA replication” in the August 2022 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Members of the Young lab from SIU include Carolyn Young, researcher, and Mostafijur Rahman, graduate assistant, in collaboration with Jaakko Pohjoismäki and Steffi Goffart from the Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences at the University of Eastern Finland. The research team used CRISPR gene editing to engineer a human cell line model containing a mitochondrial disease mutation. They showed that mutant cells had increased sensitivity to a mitochondrial toxicant. According to Young, this cell line is a new and essential tool that his lab will use to identify hard-to-detect toxicants and therapeutics to treat mitochondrial dysfunction.
