2022 Summer Grant Recipients
Dr. Dylan Blackston (Department of Interdisciplinary Studies)
Dr. Blackston is an assistant professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. This funding will support Blackston's book project, "Trans*plantations of Life: How Capital Makes and Changes Kinds."
Blackston’s research interests include transgender and queer studies, trans ecologies, sexuality studies and queer and trans visual cultures. He is currently working on his first book, “Trans*plantations of Life: How Capital Makes and Changes Kinds”, which examines connections between the transnational political economies of LGBTQ philanthropy, regenerative medicine and transspecies life.
Blackston earned a Ph.D. in Gender and Women's Studies from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in Women's Studies from Georgia State University, and a B.F.A. in photography from the University of Georgia. Blackston has also taught courses at Georgia State, the University of Arizona and Hamilton College, where he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies.
To learn more about Blackston, visit his profile.
Dr. Allison Fredette (Department of History)
Dr. Fredette is an assistant professor of history education in the Department of History. This funding will support Fredette's project, "Tumult and Temptation: Love and Divorce in Postbellum Western North Carolina."
Fredette's areas of study include the nineteenth-century American South, as well as the history of marriage, gender and the family. More specifically, her work explores the connections between regional identity and the construction of marriage and marital roles in the Border South states of Kentucky and West Virginia, from the late antebellum period through the early years of Reconstruction.
Fredette earned her B.A. and an M.A. in History from West Virginia University and completed her Ph.D. in American History at the University of Florida.
To learn more about Fredette, visit her profile.
Dr. Jon Gordon (Department of Sociology)
Dr. Gordon is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology. This funding will support Gordon's project, "Vigilant: Violence and Community Transformation in Medellín, Colombia."
Gordon’s research focuses on the interconnections between patterns in violence, policing and security in marginalized communities. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University in May 2021.
Gordon is currently writing a book that examines how a criminalized group of men engaged in extrajudicial violence and drug dealing as a part of a broader project of building a safer community with residents in a zone of Medellín, Colombia. Based on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book illustrates how the men's violence was legitimized, which, in turn, created pathways for them to establish a nonprofit organization and carry out community service projects on behalf of residents of the zone.
To learn more about Gordon, visit his profile.
Dr. Kinji Ito (Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures)
Dr. Ito is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures. This funding will support Ito's project, "Translating Overlooked Literary Works."
Ito’s research focuses on Japanese language and culture, Japanese-English translation, business Japanese, language pedagogy and second language acquisition. He received his B.S. in management and M.B.A in management information systems from Binghamton University. Ito additionally received a M.A. in Japanese Language and Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his Ph.D. in Translation Studies from Binghamton University.
To learn more about Ito, visit his profile.
Dr. Marc Kissel (Department of Anthropology)
Dr. Kissel is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology. This funding will support Kissel's project, "Biological Anthropology - The Basics."
Kissel’s main areas of research include the evolution of modern humans and the processes by which hominids became human, the evolutionary arc of human warfare, Neanderthal behavior, quantitative genetics, computer modeling, semiotics and paleoanthropological theory.
He received his B.A. from New York University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
To learn more about Kissel, visit his profile.
Dr. Johnnie Lotesta (Department of Sociology)
Dr. Lotesta is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology. This funding will support Lotesta's project, "Rightward in the Rustbelt: Political Parties, Policy, and the Crisis of Representation."
Lotesta’s research interests are in political sociology, cultural sociology, labor, social movements, public policy and comparative-historical and qualitative methods. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University in 2019 and was a Democracy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School from 2019 to 2021.
Lotesta enjoys teaching Appalachian's Political Sociology, Social Movements, Wealth Power & Privilege and The Sociological Perspective courses. Believing that we learn best by doing, Johnnie's courses feature multiple opportunities to apply sociology to the world around us through activities like in-class debates, case studies and op-ed assignments.
To learn more about Lotesta, visit her profile.
Dr. Bethany Mannon (Department of English)
Dr. Mannon is an assistant professor and the director of composition in the Department of English. This funding will support Mannon's project, "I Grew Up in the Church: The Activist Rhetoric of Contemporary Evangelical Women."
Mannon’s research focuses on feminist rhetoric, religious rhetoric and social movements in the United States. Her current projects also look at teaching first-year writing and writing program administration. In 2021, Bethany was awarded the CCCCs Emergent Researcher Award [BM1] for her study “Assessing Online Writing Instruction to Move from Crisis to Sustainability [BM2] .”
Bethany joined Appalachian in 2018 as a Visiting Assistant Professor and became assistant professor and Director of Composition in 2020. As Director of Composition, she supports faculty teaching RC 1000 and 2001 (and students in those classes), mentors graduate students teaching RC and directs the graduate certificate in Rhetoric & Composition.
To learn more about Mannon, visit her profile.
Dr. Nii-Armah Okine (Department of Mathematical Sciences)
Dr. Okine is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. This funding will support Okine's project, "Ratemaking in a Changing Environment."
Okine specializes in research related to actuarial science, more specifically, loss reserving, dependence modeling, machine learning, ratemaking and micro-insurance. Okine joined the department in Fall 2020 after completing his Ph.D. in Actuarial Science, Risk Management and Insurance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also a member of the Society of Actuaries.
To learn more about Okine, visit his profile.
Dr. Roshani Silwal (Department of Physics & Astronomy)
Dr. Silwal is an assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. This funding will support Silwal's project, "Finalize the X-Ray Irradiation Setup and Perform Spectroscopic Measurements at the NIST Electron Beam Ion Trap Facility."
Silwal’s research interests include ion traps, the trapping of highly charged ions, atomic spectroscopy for plasma diagnostics, the study of nuclear effects in atomic transitions and testing atomic theories. She also studies radiation effects and radiation therapy with x-ray sources, x-ray and extreme-ultraviolet spectroscopy to study laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, fundamental physics and atomic mass measurements of exotic nuclides.
To learn more about Silwal, visit her profile.
Dr. Kyle Stevens (Department of English)
Dr. Stevens is an assistant professor in the Department of English. This funding will support Stevens' project, "Against Bodies: Cinema, Identity, and Inner Voice in the Age of Headphones."
Stevens’ academic specialities include film history (particularly US), film theory, television history, digital media, critical theory and film and philosophy. Kyle is editor of New Review of Film and Television Studies and received his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh.
To learn more about Stevens, visit his profile.
Dr. Juhee Woo (Department of Sociology)
Dr. Woo is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology. This funding will support Woo's project, "Examining the 'African American Smoking Paradox' through a Local Context in North Carolina."
Woo's research interests broadly include social inequalities, health disparities, intersectionality, aging, the life course and mixed methods. Woo's recent research projects have focused on racial/ethnic disparities in cigarette smoking and its implications for social policies. Woo joined the department in Fall 2020 and has taught Research Methods, Sociological Perspectives, and Medical Sociology. She also serves as one of the Sociology Club faculty advisors.
To learn more about Woo, visit her profile.
Dr. Stephanie Yep (Department of Philosophy & Religion)
Dr. Yep is an assistant professor of religious studies in the Department of Philosophy & Religion. This funding will support Yep's project, "Hagiographical Innovation and Aniconism in the Work of Majid Majidi."
Yep’s research explores the ways in which premodern biographers of Muhammad sought to articulate boundaries of emotional comportment to their audiences. While there is a rich amount of scholarship on the ways in which sacred biographies function as sources of ethical reflection, the crucial role of emotion in the formation of the ethical self remains an understudied topic in Islamic studies. Like the once marginalized study of gender, Yep argues that integrating emotion as an analytical category, rather than viewing it as a specialized field, may serve to enrich religious studies.
In addition to her work in Islamic studies, Yep has extensive training in the field of Jewish studies. She is particularly interested in how Jewish studies “fits” in relation to other domains of knowledge, and how it is frequently positioned as an interdisciplinary field of study.
To learn more about Yep, visit her profile.
Biographies compiled by Sophia Woodall on August 25, 2022.