Newsmakers

Highlighting the professional and academic accomplishments of College of Liberal Arts students, faculty, and staff.

Newsmakers are a quick and easy way to acknowledge the professional and academic accomplishments of RIT students, faculty, and staff, such as publishing an article in a scholarly journal, presenting research at a conference, serving on a panel discussion, earning a scholarship, or winning an award. Newsmakers appear in News and Events as well as the "In the News" section on faculty/staff directory profile pages.

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April 2025

  • April 4, 2025

    Danielle Pafunda, associate professor of English, released her 10th poetry collection, Along the Road Everyone Must Travel, which was selected by poet Hoa Nguyen to win the Saturnalia Poetry Prize.

  • April 4, 2025

    Evelyn Brister and Evan Selinger, both professors in the Department of Philosophy, were selected as 2025 Marc Anderson Foundation Philosophy in Media Fellows. The international fellowship supports academically-trained philosophers who produce public-facing work. They will also participate in the Trade Books and Publication Workshop this summer.

  • April 4, 2025

    John Edlund, professor in the Department of Psychology, co-authored “Predicting the Replicability of Social and Behavioral Science Claims in COVID-19 Preprints,” published in Human Nature Behavior. He also co-authored “Can Swearing Improve Persuasion in Advertising Contexts” with experimental psychology MS student Jeremy Marshall and Paul Wiele ’16 (experimental psychology), which was published in Social Influence.

  • April 4, 2025

    Michael E. Ruhling, professor in the School of Performing Arts, co-edited Haydn, Sacred Music, and Perspectives of the Viennese Classical Triad. Ruhling, a historical musicologist and conductor, is president of the Haydn Society of North America and editorial director of HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America.

March 2025

  • March 26, 2025

    John Capps, professor of philosophy, organized a panel on pragmatism and the penal system and presented his paper “Pragmatism, Deterrence, and Collective Punishment” at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy on March 14 in Washington, D.C.

  • March 24, 2025

    Katrina Overby, assistant professor in the School of Communication, will deliver the keynote address titled “Gathering as Necessary Resistance: On Black Women’s Social, Communal, and Digital Belonging" at St. John Fisher University for its Women’s History Month programming. Her talk will explore the role of community and placemaking in Black women’s experiences in academia and society.

  • March 24, 2025

    Hinda Mandell, professor in the School of Communication, was invited as a visiting professor at the University of Paris-East Creteil. She delivered lectures and workshops to graduate students on craftivism, artistic-based research, and exhibition curation.

  • March 24, 2025

    Evan Selinger, professor in the Department of Philosophy, gave the keynote address at the Law Enforcement Technologies: The Realm of Facial Recognition conference, held on March 13 and 14 at Côte d’Azur University in Nice, France. The keynote address, “Normalizing Facial Recognition Technology and the End of Obscurity,” discussed the profound risk to privacy posed by facial recognition technology, including in countries protected by the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act.

  • March 19, 2025

    Eun Sook Kwon, associate professor in the School of Communication, co-authored the study “What drives addiction on social media sites? The relationships between psychological well-being states, social media addiction, brand addiction and impulse buying on social media,” published in Computers in Human Behavior. The research examines how psychological well-being affects social media addiction and consumer behavior. The study was mentioned in The New York Times article “What Does it Take to Quit Shopping?”