#FacultyFriday

This week's #FacultyFriday features Daniel Hanley, Assistant Professor, Biology. Hanley has found a rich array of untapped questions relating to color perception and decision-making. Consequently, he leads the Hanley Color Lab, studying the function and evolution of natural colors. Specifically, the lab uses avian brood parasitism as a model system for experimentally testing decision-making in wild, untrained animals. If you want to talk birds, stop by his office at the SciTech campus.

#FacultyFriday highlights our Mason Biology advisors: Lorelei Crerar, Associate Professor, Malda Kocache, Professor, Charles Madden, Professor, Valerie Olmo, Assistant Professor, and Deborah Polayes, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor. In addition to conducting innovative research and teaching rigorous science courses, these faculty members go the extra mile to ensure our students receive the necessary support to succeed here at #MasonScience.

As we wrap up #EarthMonth, we feature Esther Peters, Associate Professor, Environmental Science and Policy. Peters specializes in the study of diseases in corals and other invertebrates by using histopathological techniques. She had a key role in researching the Stony Coral Tissue Loss disease in Florida’s Coral Reef and continues to conduct research to fight disease outbreak amongst coral reef organisms. Peters not only feels inspired by her students, but also energized by their eagerness and passion to change the world.

This week's #FacultyFriday features Vivek Prasad, Adjunct Faculty, Environmental Science and Policy. An ESP PhD alumnus, his research focuses on how humans affect the environment and the use of geographical information systems to study global climate change. Prasad also works as an innovation advisor with the Agriculture Global Practice of the World Bank, where he focuses on issues such as rural livelihoods, climate change resilience, Agri-Tech, spatial data analytics, and data visualization. 

Our #EarthMonth celebration continues with this week’s #FacultyFriday highlight, Jennifer Salerno, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science and Policy. Salerno’s research focuses on symbiotic and free-living microorganisms and the role that they play in maintaining and destabilizing organism health and ecosystem function. When she is not teaching Environmental Microbiology and Coral Reef Ecology courses, she leads the Salerno Lab at the Potomac Science Center. 

#MasonScience continues to highlight #EarthMonth with this week’s #FacultyFriday feature, Natalie Howe, Adjunct Faculty, Environmental Science and Policy. Howe’s research focuses on disturbance and recovery in urban plant and lichen communities of urban areas in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States. In addition to educating students on mushrooms and molds and society, she works as an Agriculturist at the USDA, where she helps make sure that the fresh food plants we trade with other countries are not carrying pests or diseases that could harm farms. Most notably, Howe helped create and deliver an innovative botanical education program for the State Prison System in New Jersey.

We kick off #EarthMonth with Travis Gallo, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science and Policy, as this week’s #FacultyFriday feature. Gallo leads the URBANxNATURE Lab here at #MasonScience, where they use theories and principles in ecology and conservation science to sustain and restore biodiversity in urban ecosystems. Gallo has recently collaborated with scholars from the John Mitchell, Jr., Program for History, Justice, and Race at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution to create an online exhibit highlighting and acknowledging the hidden history of enslaved naturalists. The exhibit aims to promote narrative change by introducing the contributions that enslaved African Americans have made to our understanding of, and inextricable relationship with, the natural environment. 

Joanna Jauchen, Instructor, Associate Chair for Teaching, Mathematical Sciences, is this week's #FacultyFriday feature. Jauchen specializes in intersectional, critical feminist STEM education research on faculty engagement in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) service. While they have always enjoyed math, they fell in love with the beauty of the discipline in their undergraduate studies, “It sometimes feels magical the way things work together in mathematics and I like understanding how the magic works,” they said. As an educator, she finds joy in talking to students about their own understanding of mathematics.

This #FacultyFriday, features Anton Lukyanenko, Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences. Lukyanenko studies the quirks of non-Euclidean geometry through the lens of familiar concepts like distances, shadows, and optimal paths. He then applies this theoretical work to collaborative projects with researchers in robotics, computer science, and quantum computing. In addition to research, Lukyanenko works to engage students and the public in experimental mathematics and visualization by directing the Mason Experimental Geometry Lab (MEGL). Watch this video to learn more about MEGL.

This #FacultyFriday features Mahamadi Warma, Professor, Mathematical Sciences. Warma is currently working on two major research projects with approaches based on the rich and fruitful mathematical apparatus offered by PDE, functional analysis, controllability, optimization, and numerical approximations. He has published a total of 79 papers, with seven of those published in 2022. Warma is very active in the Center for Mathematics and Artificial Intelligence (CMAI) at Mason. His passion for math started in high school and continues to grow as he faces new challenges with an eagerness to solve them.

Our first #FacultyFriday feature of the month kicks off with Rebecca R.G., Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences. R.G.’s research is in commutative algebra, a field of math that involves studying the behavior of algebraic objects like rings and modules. R.G. is passionate about supporting students and creating a space for everyone to do math. As a result, she worked with colleagues to organize several programs including the New PhD Mentoring Program, the Graduate Learning Assistants (GLA) Program, and the PhD Launchpad Program. R.G. is a big advocate for active learning, reflected in her newly designed course, History of Math (joint with Jessica Otis). Be sure to stop by her office to see crocheted models of hyperbolic planes and a Sierpinski triangle shawl. 

This week's #FacultyFriday features Paul Betka, Assistant Professor, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences whose research focuses on the rates, timing, mechanics, and deformation styles of the Earth’s lithosphere in response to the motion of its tectonic plates. Betka currently leads the Structural Geology and Tectonics Lab and is actively recruiting graduate students with an interest in geology.

"Better forecasts. Better decisions,” is the motto for today’s #FacultyFriday feature, Kathy Pegion, Associate Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences. Pegion currently leads the Subseasonal Experiment (SubX) - a national, multi-institutional, and multi-agency research project that focuses on understanding and improving predictions on the subseasonal (2 to 4 week) timescale. In addition to leading the project, she developed and maintained the real-time forecast visualization tools and performed the comprehensive skill evaluation. When not conducting research, you can find her enjoying the outdoors.

This week’s #FacultyFriday features Benjamin Cash, Research Professor, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences, and researcher for the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies. According to Cash, getting coffee and walking around campus talking research with colleagues is probably his favorite way to work - there’s nothing quite like it for sparking interesting ideas. Just ask him about his current work developing NOAA’s new Unified Forecast System. He also continues to research the predictability of seasonal rainfall and will present on the Cape Town “Day Zero” drought next week at the International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography (ICSHMO).

To kick off this month’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences spotlight, this #FacultyFriday features Yunyao Li, Research Scientist, AOES and Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS). Since joining #MasonScience, she has worked alongside Daniel Tong, Associate Professor, AOES, on biomass burning emission and air quality modeling. Li led the charge of developing the wildfire ensemble forecasting system and the Mason daily air quality forecast system. Currently, she conducts research on evaluating and simulating the impact of wildfires on air quality and human health.

This week we highlight new faculty member L. Ren Guerriero, Assistant Professor, Neuroscience. Guerriero conducts sleep-related research and has taught several courses regarding the subject since joining #MasonScience in August 2021. This semester, Guerriero plans on starting a teaching focused lab where they will be investigating novel-sleep related genes in fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster. If you’re interested in sleep research, register for NEUR 424: Sleep & Circadian Rhythms with Guerriero this semester. 

Today we feature Nadine Kabbani, Associate Professor, School of Systems Biology, Neuroscience. Kabbani’s research centers around the discovery of mechanisms underlying brain disease, with an emphasis on cholinergic signals in cells. There are still a few seats available for Kabbani’s NEUR 101: Intro to Neuroscience course. This course fulfills the Mason Core Natural Science Non-Lab requirement- register now. 

Today we highlight William Kennedy, Co-Director, Center for Social Complexity and Associate Professor, Computational and Data Sciences. After serving in the U.S. Navy for 30 years, Kennedy went on to earn his PhD in Information Technology at George Mason University. Now, he teaches both computational data and computational social science courses, all while conducting research in cognitive processes and behavior using cognitive and agent-based models.

#MasonScience congratulates Monique van Hoek, Professor, Associate Director of Research, School of Systems Biology, for earning the Dean’s Impact Award. Her research focuses primarily on antibiotic-resistant and biothreat bacteria, with an emphasis on exploring novel antimicrobial and anti-biofilm compounds. In addition to her research, van Hoek plays an important role in SSB leadership—acting as interim associate director for research and serving as a mentor to PhD and MA students.