Connie Anderson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Assistant Department Chair | Dept of Health Sciences
Grant Recipients & Outcomes
The Provost Research Fellows Program encourages outstanding and ambitious research and creative activity at TU by awarding merit-based grants to faculty members.
Summer 2023 Fellows
Meet the most recent group of research fellows and learn more about their latest work.
What Goes Right and Wrong at School: Perspectives of Young Autistic Adults, Their
Parents, and Educators
For years, less than 4%* of U.S. autism research funding has been focused on autism
in adulthood. Dr. Anderson has dedicated herself to this under-researched area, conducting in-depth interviews
with young adults on the autism spectrum and their parents. The emphasis for her work
has been on what occurs after high school in terms of adult services, employment,
and postsecondary education. The goal is to reveal challenges that need to be addressed
in order to improve outcomes for autistic individuals across the lifespan.
Vanessa Beauchamp, Ph.D.
Associate Professor | Dept of Biological Sciences
Work on Novel Methods of Urban Reforestation
Dr. Beauchamp is a plant community ecologist with research interests that include urban forest
succession, the effects of invasive plant species on community diversity, the effects
of deer browse on ecosystem processes, and the ecology of riparian plant communities.
This work looks at the success of different planting methods for urban reforestation
projects used to capture nutrients and reduce pollution discharges into the Chesapeake
Bay.
Kelsey Hanrahan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor | Dept of Geography & Environmental Planning
Caringscapes of End-of-Life Care in Northern Ghana
Dr. Hanrahan is a feminist geographer interested in how everyday spaces are constructed as people
engage in caring relationships that aim to support the needs of others experiencing
dependencies and vulnerabilities, as well as how caring relations can be fraught and
harmful. Her current a project considers the ways in which end of life care is woven
together from formal health services and extensive informal care strategies. In this
context, end of life care is aimed at addressing physical and emotional needs within
intergenerational relationships that are traced along material and psychical connections
across the past, present, and future.
Small Proteins in Bacteria
Little is known about the abundance of small proteins in any organism. These proteins
are difficult to isolate and identify using standard biochemical techniques. Since
2012, we have offered a Course-based Research Experience (CURE) Molecular Biology
Laboratory class where students test for protein expression in the bacterium Escherichia
coli, potentially discovering new small proteins. Once identified, students then characterize
small protein expression and function in the lab as independent researchers. Dr. Hemm's current work in the lab focuses on characterizing the prevalence of this type of
small protein and investigating their role in E. coli cell biology.
Investor Sentiment and Holiday Effect on the Cryptocurrency Market
Dr. Huang's research explores underlying mechanisms of the cryptocurrency holiday effect, including
the influence of epidemic transmission risk and heterogeneity characteristics. Overall,
this work advances our understanding of the holiday effect phenomenon, providing valuable
insights for investors, financial researchers, and institutions in the dynamic cryptocurrency
market.
Waves of Pipe Organ Jazz Across the Ocean
Dr. Luchese has been researching the use of pipe organs in jazz and rock musical styles. Being
the first of its kind, her book, Piping Hot: Blasting the Pipe Organ Outside the Classical Music Canon, will provide the historical, social and musical contexts enveloping these examples,
as well as serve as a reference that lists every recording of the pipe organ in rock
or jazz to date, thereby filling a void in the scholarship of pipe organ practices
as well as contributing to rock/jazz scholarship.
Preparing Effective Writing Teachers
Dr. McQuitty’s research focuses on preparing teachers to implement high-quality writing instruction
in K-12 schools. This project, done in close collaboration Dr. Pamela Hickey, seeks
to determine how teachers learn to teach writing and how teacher education programs
can best support their learning. Through this work, they were able to determine how
teacher education programs can best support writing teachers and improve their writing
instruction in their future classrooms.
Work on Organizational Behavior with a Focus on Worker Owned Cooperatives in Baltimore
Dr. Mello’s present research is focused on the specific organizational context of worker cooperatives.
Worker cooperatives are defined as businesses that are cooperatively owned and democratically
controlled by their worker-owners. This project takes a mixed-method approach with
surveys of individual differences in addition to in-depth interviews with worker-owners.
The long-term goals are to better understand the unique organizational dynamics of
worker coops for the purpose of better supporting existing and new coops in the Baltimore
regional area.
Mahnaz Moallem, Ph.D.
Department Chair and Professor | Dept of Learning Technologies, Design & School Library Media
Using Immersive Virtual Reality to Enhance Intercultural Sensitivity: An Empirical
Study
Dr. Moallem's study aims to develop and pilot test implementing an immersive VR intervention
to enhance teacher education students' cultural sensitivity. It further assesses the
efficacy of I-VR as a medium to develop empathy, emotion, motivation, and desire to
understand, appreciate and accept differences among cultures.
Natalie Scala, Ph.D.
Associate Professor | Dept of Business Analytics and Technology Management
Risk Management in Election Security
Dr. Scala co-directs the Empowering Secure Elections research lab at Towson University, which
is committed to non-partisan academic research that increases the security of U.S.
elections and ensures the integrity of votes from the moment they are cast to the
moment they are counted. This project examines potential threats to in-person voting,
especially precinct count optical scan machines, which are used in Maryland and will
be used by almost 70% of the country in 2024.
Nancy Siegel, Ph.D.
Professor | Dept of Art + Design, Art History, Art Education
Work on British Satire in the Age of the Revolution
Visual metaphors, linking political figures and events to food and commodities, formed
the basis for a distinct genre of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century satirical
prints made by British artists sympathetic to the plight of the American colonists
surrounding the years of the Revolution. This project combines Dr. Siegel’s academic expertise in both art and culinary histories. She posits that the culinary
iconography found within these prints is more than merely humor-driven with popular
appeal.
Nirmal Srinivasan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor | Dept of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology
Measuring Listening Effort in Complex Environments Using Eye Tracking
Dr. Srinivasan is the director of the Spatial Hearing and Auditory PErception (SHAPE) lab. The ultimate
goal is to develop statistical models that reveal how the variability on a given behavioral
test is related to multiple predictors of speech perception and to better understand
the difficulties in perceiving speech in complex listening environments by individuals
with varying hearing abilities.