Fulbright College Announces the 2024 Connor Faculty Fellows
Sandra and Robert Connor.
This year, 20 outstanding, hard-working faculty members have been selected as the 2024 class of Connor Faculty Fellows at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
Their expertise spans the natural sciences, humanities, fine arts, and social sciences, and the funds from the Connor Fellowship are intended to help each rising academic further their professional pursuits.
This honor comes with a $6,000 award, used by fellows to facilitate travel, expand research initiatives and support classroom activities.
“I want to congratulate this year’s Connor Fellows, who are among the best and brightest rising faculty in our college,” said Kathryn Sloan, interim dean of Fulbright College. “Their dedication to academic excellence, service to the college, and pursuit of innovative new ideas and research is admirable.”
“The future is exceptionally bright for this group,” she added. “And we’re so proud of each and greatly appreciate all they do to help our students and college succeed. We can’t wait to see what each achieves next.”
Robert and Sandra Connor established the Connor Endowed Faculty Fellowship in 2004 to provide essential faculty development opportunities to up-and-coming academic experts in the college. These faculty members are selected annually by a college committee, including the dean, for their contributions to the college and their departments.
Since its inception, the resulting endowment has enabled Fulbright College to recognize 268 Connor Fellows and counting, awarding more than $964,000 in support. Many previous Connor Fellows are now leaders in their departments, serving in top administrative roles, or in prominent teaching and research positions with impressive publication records.
“We cannot thank the Connors enough for their ongoing gracious support,” Sloan said. “These phenomenal faculty achievements would not have been possible without them.”
Congratulations to our 2024 Fulbright College Connor Faculty Fellows!
Milad Odabaei, assistant professor, Department of Anthropology
Milad Odabaei studies predicaments of culture, forms of subjectivity, and fugitive itineraries that are born in the experience of geopolitical violence and socioeconomic devastation in modern Iran and the broader Persianate and Islamicate societies of the Middle East and Central Asia. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will facilitate the completion of his current book, A Dying Revolution: Translation, Mourning, Iran. The work is a study of the translation of European theoretical discourses in post-revolutionary Iran, drawing upon two years of ethnographic and archival research.
Danqi Cai, assistant professor, School of Art
Danqi Cai’s work centers on creating innovative art that combines handmade papers with projection-mapped animations, resulting in multi-dimensional pieces that reflect the complexity of her identity as a 1.5-generation Chinese immigrant. She explores the themes of adaptation, identity, and unlearning inherited values, particularly focusing on rethinking traditional Chinese family ideals related to generational and gender hierarchies. With the support of the Connor Fellowship, she plans to further explore the concept of gender hierarchy in her art, using Chinese characters and instructional materials to delve deeper into what it means to be a “woman.”
Henry Gepfer, assistant professor, School of Art
Henry Gepfer’s work in printmaking explores the historical traditions of fine art, craft, and industrial-cultural production through performance and humor. Gepfer plans to use the Connor Fellowship funds to support the production and documentation of his recent collaborative work with Canadian artist K. MacNeil, culminating in an exhibition at Open Studio Toronto Contemporary Printmaking Centre in the summer of 2025.
Maribeth Latvis, assistant professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Maribeth Latvis is a plant systematist and herbarium director, aiming to utilize “Big Data” techniques such as genomics and bioinformatics to inform conservation strategies for plant biodiversity. Her research involves molecular methods to understand evolutionary relationships and population structures, alongside statistical analysis to explore trait evolution and community assembly. Alongside her research, she aims to enhance botanical education and provide research opportunities for students, intending to use Connor Fellowship funds to support an undergraduate student’s research on the genetic makeup of rare Arkansas plants.
Dylan Girodat, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Dylan Girodat’s research focuses on understanding how ribosomes, which are crucial for making proteins in all living organisms, move and function. By using advanced techniques like cryo-electron microscopy and molecular dynamics simulations, he aims to uncover how these movements affect the use of antibiotics and contribute to diseases like ribosomopathies, which are precursors to cancer. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will help him obtain the necessary resources for his research, such as computational tools and equipment for studying ribosomes, allowing him to delve deeper into their mechanics and medical implications.
Joe Hatfield, assistant professor, Department of Communication
Joe Hatfield’s research focuses on public memory, or the ways people come to imagine themselves as members of broader communities through representations of a shared past. More specifically, he is interested in contemporary transformations in public memory caused by shifting cultural, technological, and economic conditions in the U.S. The Connor Fellowship will support his ongoing projects on the intersections of public memory and corporate philanthropy, and his publication examining the Walmart Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, which is due for publication in the journal, Memory Studies.
Ringo Jones, assistant professor, Department of Communication
Ringo Jones is a non-fiction storyteller working primarily in documentary film and augmented reality to produce stories about social issues. He is currently working on a feature-length film entitled, Food Fight, discussing food insecurity in Arkansas and the American South. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will allow him to complete this movie, funding animated elements and a score produced by an Arkansas-based composer.
Rebecca Howell, assistant professor, Department of English
Rebecca Howell is the author of two collections of original poetry and two published and performed librettos, the translator of two collections of international poetry, and the co-editor of an anthology. She will use Connor Fellowship funds to support her work on her third book of original poems, Erase Genesis, a set of erasure poems made from redacting the creation myth found in the Book of Genesis. The work will be one of the inaugural titles published by Southern Methodist University’s Bridwell Press next spring.
Ruby Daily, assistant professor, Department of History
Ruby Daily is a historian of Modern Britain and the British Empire. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will allow her to spend time at “The Keep,” an archive at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England housing more than 15,000 questionaries collected in Britain during the 1950s. Daily will examine the intersecting and longstanding influences on British culture, focusing particularly on their understanding of authority in a post-war period. These materials will be used in two chapters of her upcoming book and one standalone article.
Brian McGowan, assistant professor, Department of History
Brian McGowan’s research interests include civil rights, African American history, the history of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and digital humanities. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will facilitate his work on HBCUs, facilitating a trip to Washington D.C. to complete research for his upcoming book. The award will also allow him to reprint photographs and draw maps necessary for the completion of his manuscript.
Edmund Harriss, assistant professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences
Edmund Harriss’ work intersects mathematics and art, focusing on bridging abstract and physical realms and communicating ideas across disciplines. He aims to illustrate mathematical concepts not just for education or outreach, but also for research purposes, exploring new mathematical ideas through images and objects. Additionally, he challenges traditional notions of manufacturing by incorporating digital and computational concepts into classical artistic practices. With the Connor Fellowship, he plans to support projects that test new techniques and illustrations, travel to collaborate with others, and disseminate his work more widely.
Katherine Raoux, assistant professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences
Katherine Raoux is a mathematician studying the topology of spaces called manifolds and investigating their connections. She has been working on creating tools developed for studying four-dimensional spaces, using a mix of geometry and algebra. Funds from the Connor Fellowship will allow her to obtain the necessary technology for her work and facilitate travel to conferences to share her findings. It will also allow her to collaborate more heavily with researchers outside of the U of A, alongside graduate students.
Ashley Purdy, assistant professor, Department of Philosophy
Ashley Purdy is a scholar of practical reasoning, and her current work explores the compatibility of acting from loyalty and acting as a good friend characteristically does. She plans to use Connor Fellowship funds to complete her research on this subject ahead of the Honors Colloquium on the same topic she will be leading in the fall.
Heasun Choi, assistant professor, Department of Political Science
Heasun Choi’s work explores public sector human resource management, focusing on public workforce diversity and bureaucratic decision-making. Her mission is to foster diversity and inclusion in public organizations that achieve effective and equitable outcomes of the government. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will facilitate a survey experiment comparing AI bias with human bias in a policing context, examining how these biases may disproportionately affect policy outcomes.
Anastasia Makhanova, assistant professor, Department of Psychological Science
Anastasia Makhanova’s research focuses on the way people’s motivational and physiological states influence how they view other people. Her recent project examines how illness can affect workplace decisions and the physiological and psychological changes people experience as they become first-time parents. Connor Fellowship funding will allow her to train undergraduate and graduate researchers to conduct hormone assays in her lab, alongside facilitating material needs for her research.
Erin Nolen, assistant professor, School of Social Work
Erin Nolen is a mixed methods researcher studying body image, objectification, and sexual development. She plans to use Connor Fellowship funding to springboard her research agenda and facilitate professional development opportunities that will help advance her work supporting healthy body image development in women and girls. Specifically, the award will provide research participant compensation for qualitative studies, and funding for data analysis software, conference travel expenses, and other relevant research expenditures.
Rowena Pedrena, assistant professor, School of Journalism and Strategic Media
Rowena Pedrena’s interdisciplinary research draws from the disciplines of narrative television and filmmaking, documentary and reality television production, screenwriting, and education. Her current projects include a children’s cooking program, a reality television production textbook, and several documentaries about Northwest Arkansas. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will support data collection, analysis, and dissemination of results, alongside equipment fees, various production costs, professional memberships, and travel.
Christianne Corbett, assistant professor, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Christianne Corbett is a scholar of status-based inequality focusing on gender and its intersection with race. Her research identifies mechanisms at the interactional and organizational levels that contribute to contemporary gender and racial inequalities, focusing on inclusion and barriers to equity. The Connor Fellowship will provide necessary funds for Corbett to attend the American Sociological Association’s annual conference as a featured speaker and allow her to establish an experiments lab starting in the fall.
Morgan Hicks, assistant professor, Department of Theatre
Morgan Hicks is an exemplary performer and theatrical director/adaptor, alongside her role as co-founder of TheatreSquared. In a typical year, she directs a mainstage show, writes and directs an outreach show, adapts and directs a Shakespeare script for the Summer Drama Academy, and directs and/or dramaturgs a reading for the Arkansas New Play Fest and one show here at the U of A. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will allow her to travel to London to attend several productions and take advantage of various research opportunities in libraries throughout England, focusing on the evolution of Shakespearean performance in a contemporary context.
Heather Offerman, assistant professor, Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Heather Offerman explores the ways technology in the form of soundwaves and other speech visualization tools can be used to teach second language learners the differences in pronunciation in their first and second languages and how to improve their second language pronunciation. Funding from the Connor Fellowship will allow her to participate in and obtain a certificate in instructional design through the Association for Talent Development, alongside facilitating a graduate student project on visual feedback to be presented at the upcoming American Association of Applied Linguistics Conference. The award will also allow her to continue her research into code-switching from a regional indigenous language in Baja California, Mexico to Mexican Spanish.