People & Places: July – September 2025

Students, faculty, and staff from Allegheny College participated in the 2025 Summer Leadership Institute and the 35th Anniversary Celebration of the Bonner Program, held June 15-18 at the University of Richmond. The national gathering brought together over 400 Bonner students, staff, faculty, alumni, senior leaders, and community partners from more than 100 institutions and organizations.

Allegheny students Aubrey Carion '27 and Kiran Khroud '27 attended the event alongside Colin Hurley, Director of the Community Impact Hub, and Sarah Young '20, Bonner Coordinator, who was honored with the Living the Mission award- recognizing Bonner alumni and former program participants who continue to advance the Bonner mission in their professional lives.

Dave Roncolato '79, former Director of the Global Citizen Scholars program and Professor of Community & Justice Studies, received a Spirit of Ubuntu recognition for exemplifying the values of community engagement.

Lauren R. Paulson, Associate Professor of Psychology, presented "From Courses to Collaboratives: Building Lasting Community Engagement in Liberal Arts Settings" with colleagues from Bates College, Macalester College, and Project Pericles.

Wendy Kedzierski, Director of Creek Connections, attended the first annual Pennsylvania Statewide STEM Ecosystem Convening in Harrisburg on June 23, 2025. She attended with others from the NWPA STEM Ecosystem.

Lindsay Ross '27 and Lisa Whitenack, Professor of Biology and Director of Faculty Development, presented their research "Bite-Sized Insights: Estimating Shark Size and Species from Bite Marks on Aetobatus narinari and Mobula hypostoma at the 2025 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Ross has spent the last year analyzing photos of shark bite marks on eagle rays and little devil rays to determine the size and identity of the shark species biting these rays. This work is in collaboration with the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida.

Whitenack also co-ran four allyship workshops for members and leadership of the four JMIH societies and continued her work on the Board of Directors for the American Elasmobranch Society (AES). She also presented her work centered on inclusion and belonging at JMIH and within the AES.

This past May, Mark Cosdon, Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies, and Shannan Mattiace, Arthur E. Braun Chair of Political Science, co-led an alumni travel experience to Palermo and Western Sicily.

They were joined by 21 Allegheny alums and friends examining the region's dazzling history, art and architecture, food, performing traditions, and position as a destination and transit location for contemporary migrants.

In May 2025, Cosdon returned to the University of Palermo, where he continues as a visiting professor. During his week in residence, Cosdon delivered two lectures on the Broadway musical that were particularly well-received.

Paula Burleigh, Associate Professor of Art History, published a spotlight review in the magazine Artforum (April 2025) on the exhibition "Gertrude Abercrombie: the Whole World is a Mystery," on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art. The article appeared in the print edition and can be read online here.

Burleigh also published an article titled "Amy Cutler: 'Fossa' and Feminist Speculative Fiction" in the June 2025 issue of the peer-reviewed journal the Burlington Contemporary. The article is open-access and available to read here.

In June 2025, while conducting research on the history of Buddhism and its relationship with Confucianism in China, Guo Wu, Associate Professor of History, was invited to deliver a lecture by the Guizhou Provincial Association of Anthropology.

His talk, titled "Confucian Ritualism and Chinese Local Society," was followed by an in-depth discussion with leading members of the association.

On July 15, 2025 Shannan Mattiace, Arthur E. Braun Chair of Political Science, gave a lecture in the course, Human Rights and Public Policy, at the School of Government at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C.

The talk was entitled "The Dynamics of Indigenous Resistance to Criminal Violence: the CRAC-PC system of Guerrero, Mexico."

Lisa Whitenack, Professor of Biology and Director of Faculty Development, co-edited the new open-access textbook Comparative Vertebrate and Human Anatomy: Ecology, Evolution, and Function, which includes chapters written by Whitenack; Bradley Hersh, Professor of Biology; and Jennifer Houtz, Assistant Professor of Biology.

This book provides an ecology- and function-oriented approach to understanding the evolution of vertebrate structure. The text also includes human-specific modules for each anatomical system, as many small, liberal arts colleges teach comparative and human anatomy in a single course.

Hersh wrote a chapter on development, and Houtz wrote a chapter on the urogenital system. Whitenack wrote chapters on the history of the field of anatomy, an introduction to the vertebrates, and the cardiovascular and endocrine systems. The textbook is freely available here.

Lauren Kennedy, associate director for alumni engagement, received the 2025 Independent College Advancement Associates Program of Excellence Award for Allegheny College Affinity-Based Email Communication Program.

This award recognizes a successfully deployed program within a school that enhances the advancement division and/or university as a whole, and celebrates people or teams that have developed innovative programs, tools, and systems, and additionally, to help recognize best practices in the field of advancement.

Kennedy also co-presented at the 2025 Independent College Advancement Associates Summer Conference in Columbus, OH, from July 29 to 30 at the session "Direct Mail: 5 Things You Should Be Testing" with Matt Sulzer, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Marketing Communications Resource, Inc.

Amber Pouliot '07, director of foundation and corporate relations, shared insights from her work at the 2025 SCAFRO Conference held at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia.

Her presentation, "Community Engagement Case Study," explored the challenges and opportunities in fundraising for community engagement and development initiatives.

Drawing from her experience securing a transformative $15 million grant to launch the Community Impact Hub, Pouliot highlighted innovative strategies and collaborative approaches that drive meaningful change.

Lisa Dixon, senior director of donor relations and advancement operations, is a founding member of the DRX Collab, a network of professionals focused on creating an attendee-centered annual conference.

For the 2025 unConference, she served on the content committee and led the plenary session, "Open Mic: Wins, Worries, and What's Next?"

Throughout the academic year, Dixon hosted seven DRX Collab Coffee Talks- free gatherings designed to foster community and idea-sharing among donor relations professionals.

She also partnered with Carnegie Mellon University this summer to lead a roundtable for advancement professionals, continuing a tradition of regional collaboration she began in 2013.

After serving on American Psychological Association's Council of Representatives, Ryan Pickering, Associate Professor of Psychology, presented a poster titled "Empowering students as change agents through classroom activities" for Division 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology) and gave a talk titled "Ironic exclusion: Reconsidering simulation activities to promote inclusion" for Division 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) at the 2025 American Psychological Association convention.

Ken Pinnow, Professor of History, published an invited article, "Soviet Medicine and the Problem of Public Trust: 1921-1929" in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

The article uses the historical example of violence against doctors and medical personnel in the early Soviet Union to consider wider questions about public and individual trust, an issue of growing concern in the contemporary medical community and beyond.

Pinnow was also invited to discuss his article on the journal's CMAJ Podcasts (June 2, 2025). He is the first historian to be a guest on the CMAJ podcast.