News Archive

Facultivities: Rad women, photosynthesis and technical education

WVU Tech’s faculty members are dedicated to the advancement of the fields they teach. Outside of the classroom, they’re researchers, writers, presenters, go-to experts and road warriors who share their passion for learning with the world.

Here’s what our faculty members have been up to:

Dr. Cortney Barko (English) presented “Teaching College Undergrads about ‘Rad’ Women in History” at the Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 2-4. At the conference, Dr. Barko also participated in and chaired several discussion panels.

Dr. Andrea Kent (Political Science) presented a paper entitled “From James Madison to Veronica Roth, Factions of University – Commentary by a New Professor” at the Northeastern Political Science Association Annual Conference in Philadelphia on November 12. Dr. Kent also served as a discussant on a panel on Secession, Ethnic Conflict & Self-Determination.

Dr. Janis Rezek (Sociology) was a featured subject expert in a September WalletHub study about cultural assimilation among Hispanic communities in the United States.

Dr. Melissa Sartore (History) presented “Robin Hood Goes To Neptune: The Collective Social Bandit in Veronica Mars,” at the Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 2-4. Dr. Sartore chaired several additional panels at the conference.

Dr. Sartore also presented “Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur . . . aut utlagetur, aut exuletur: Magna Carta and the Relationship between Imprisonment and Outlawry in Early Thirteenth-Century English Custom and Law” at the Midwest Medieval History Conference in Terre Haute, Indiana, October 9-11.

Dr. Houbing Song (Electrical and Computer Engineering) gave an invited talk entitled “Green Networking and Data” in the first IEEE Big Data Initiative (BDI) Standards Workshop on November 2 in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He was one of the only two representatives from the IEEE Green ICT Initiative.

In October, Dr. Song served as a team member of IEEE Day 2015 on October 6 and published an article “Smart Energy Efficient Hierarchical Data Gathering Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks” in Smart Computing Review. He also gave an invited talk entitled “Cyber-Physical Systems for Smart Transportation and Beyond” to graduate students in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, on October 23.

Dr. Richard Squire (Chemistry) presented “Coherent exciton-polariton model for photosynthetic energy transfer” with colleagues at the American Physical Society Mid-Atlantic Meeting in Morgantown, West Virginia, October 23-25.

Dr. Zeljko “Z” Torbica, Dean of the Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering and Sciences, was elected a Fellow of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) by the Society’s board of directors on November 5. Dr. Torbica was among only 22 Fellows elected in 2015 from ASQ’s more than 70,000 members.

Andrew Wheeler (Forensics) presented a paper entitled “Training and Education: Different Tools for Different Goals” at the West Virginia Criminal Justice Educators Association’s 19th Annual Conference on November 13 in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Dr. Matthew Williamson (Computer Science and Information Systems) published a paper in the Journal of Discrete Algorithms in October titled “On the negative cost girth problem in planar networks.”

David Yost, Ed.D., Richard Yocke and Paul Lovett (Career and Technical Education) presented “Beginning Technology Skills of New Career and Technical Education Teachers in West Virginia: Changing Characteristics over 10 Years” and “Technology Skills of Beginning CTE Teachers: Implications for Planning Teacher Professional Development” at the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 18-20.

Richard Yocke (Career and Technical Education) was named to the New and Related Services National Policy Committee for the Association for Career and Technical Education.

David Yost, Ed.D., (Career and Technical Education) was named incoming Program Chair for the Association for Career and Technical Education Research National Conference for 2016.