Volume 4, Issue 1
A Publication of Research and Creative Activity at Chapman University
1 2 FOOD SECURITY IN THE BALANCE:
Applying Tipping Point Theory, Joshua Fisher and team achieve a breakthrough in predicting crop failures, reducing the risk of future crises.
Daniele C. Struppa, Ph.D. President
Martina Nieswandt, Ph.D.
Vice President for Research
Jamie S. Ceman
Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications
Rachel Morrison, Ph.D.
Assistant Vice President of Communications and Brand Strategy
Jeff Brouwer
Assistant Vice President of Brand Identity and Visual Strategy
EDITOR
Dennis Arp arp@chapman.edu
PHOTOGRAPHY
Adam Hemingway
ART DIRECTOR
Julie Kennedy
CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER
Alex Quintanilla (MFA ‘22)
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Stace Dumoski, Joy Juedes, Paul Pe
PROJECT MANAGER
Karan Sirna
EDITORIAL OFFICE
One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866-9911
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Inspired by the portraiture of American visual artist Kehinde Wiley, the cover art over-interprets researcher Joshua Fisher’s application of Tipping Point Theory, which was used to establish his breakthrough predictive model, SMART. Using the SMART model, Fisher and colleagues predicted every global food security crisis within record at least three months in advance. Here, a fulcrum rooted in soil –the moisture level of which correlates to drought-related food crises – precariously tips away from images of abundant harvest toward those of desiccation.
Cover Design and Illustration by Julie Kennedy / Photography by Adam Hemingway
Anyone who has been a candidate for a position knows that research skills come in handy throughout the exploratory process. On my way to becoming the new vice president for research at Chapman, I made a point of digging into the university’s website and seeing both Chapman campuses, where I spoke with faculty members, staff and students.
What fascinated me more than anything was the depth of student engagement I saw across all areas of research and scholarly activity. I learned that these connections often continue after Chapman students graduate, as many return during their careers to work with mentors as well as with new faculty members.
As I met new people, I often heard the term “Chapman Family,” and here I was experiencing it as if I were already a family member. It confirmed for me that there’s something special about Chapman. I knew that I wanted to be part of this community.
So now I’m here, and the hard but immensely rewarding work is in full swing. I see next-phase opportunities for a university that, in a relatively short time, has developed a significant research community as an R2 institution while also modeling the best aspects of the teacher-scholar model.
The challenge of my office is to provide the support and resources so faculty in all 11 Chapman schools and colleges can pursue their research, teaching, scholarship and creative activity, fueling the university’s continuing climb as a research institution.
That rise is reflected in the connections we’re creating across academic disciplines. My background is in chemistry, education, sociology and social psychology, so during my entire career I’ve conducted research from an interdisciplinary and collaborative perspective. I’ve seen how such approaches can create great change in our communities.
In this issue of Chapman Forward, you’ll meet some of the Chapman researchers developing collaborative projects with the goal of solving real-world problems and addressing unmet needs –locally and globally.
One of the important roles for our Office of Research and Creative Activity is to provide the space for researchers to create together, so that even across disciplines we can learn to speak the same language and share our unique perspectives, whether we’re computer engineers, social scientists, choreographers, historians, physicists or filmmakers.
As we consider the value of perspective and the bridging of communities, it’s vital that we also prioritize equity and inclusion. The only way we’re going to solve complex global problems is if the creative people at the table reflect the diverse composition of our society. On this I know that my new colleagues share my perspective.
It’s clear to me that at Chapman, we have a substantial foundation on which to build even more research success. Over the months since I started in October, my appreciation for this community has only grown, and I continue to draw inspiration from the work of our scholars.
Indeed, there’s something special about the Chapman experience. And the best part is that together, we have lots more exploring to do.
Martina Nieswandt, Ph.D. Vice President for Research
A new archive will feature comics and illustrations made during WWII internment.
Because those held in World War II internment camps were not allowed to take photographs, Japanese Americans turned to drawing and illustration to document their daily lives. Now Chapman sociologist Stephanie Takaragawa is creating the first comprehensive catalog of comics and illustrations made both inside and outside the camps. In fall 2022, Takaragawa was awarded a grant of just under $125,000 from the California State Library’s California Civil Liberties Public Education program to create an archive of the internment experience for scholarly and public use.
“This project is personally important to me because I learned about this history from external sources and not from my family that was incarcerated at Heart Mountain internment camp during WWII,” said Takaragawa, director of the Asian American Studies program at Chapman. Also in 2022, Takaragawa earned Chapman’s largest grant ever from the National Endowment for the Humanities to launch the Asian American Studies minor at Chapman. The project, “Images and Imaginings of the Japanese American Internment: Comics and Illustrations of Camp,” teams Takaragawa with Chapman English professors Jan Osborn and Rei Magosaki as well as Jessica Bocinski of the university’s Escalette Permanent Collection of Art. In addition to serving college and university research scholars, the archive will be accessible to high school and middle school students.
The volume of evidence keeps growing as Chapman University continues its rise as a research institution.
In the latest edition of an internationally recognized Stanford University research database, 24 Chapman faculty members rank among the top 2% of researchers worldwide, based on the high volume of their citations. The number of Chapman honorees represents a 50% increase from a year ago.
Among the Chapman researchers honored for career impact are Nobel Prize-winning economic scientist Vernon Smith and National Medal of Science recipient Yakir Aharonov. Those recognized for their single-year work include Earth systems scientist Joshua B. Fisher. A story on Fisher’s breakthrough research predicting food security crises globally begins on Page 12.
A key measure of Chapman’s research success is its growing number of citations, said Chapman President Daniele C. Struppa, who points to two decades of progress. In 2000, work produced by Chapman faculty was cited 100 times.
“In 2020, we were up to 9,455 citations, which means that 26 times a day someone was citing the work of our scholars,” Struppa said. “That upward trajectory makes us almost unrecognizable from where we were 20 years ago. It shows that not only do our faculty publish a lot, but people pay attention to the work we’re doing.”
100% that Chapman ecosystem scientist Joshua B. Fisher and his research colleagues were able to predict within record at least three months in advance. Story on Page 12.
Percentage of global food security crises
Contracts uniting Chapman faculty researchers with industry partners
80 +
during FY 2021–22. Projects include new foodprocessing techniques, peptide designs for improving medications, and antimicrobial treatments addressing drug-resistant bacteria.
“ Sometimes it’s as if we disrupted –which is a strong word –but we disrupted the classical form. Not in a violent way or a derogatory way –it’s more about looking at what the possibilities are with the ”body.
Dwight Rhoden, on his vision for dance choreography that blends classical ballet with movements evoking jazz, hip-hop and other forms.
Read more about Rhoden’s boundary-breaking work on Page 22.
17,000 MPH research instrument aboard the International Space Station. providing images of Earth that Chapman and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists are turning into insights on plant resilience and adaptation.
8 QUADRILLION achievable by a new supercomputer cluster that puts Chapman at the cutting edge of AI research. Calculations per second
$13.3M for the research and technical assistance programs of Chapman’s Thompson Policy Institute on Disability, making education more inclusive. Total amount of foundation grant and donor support
“ When collaboration works like this, it’s quite ”magical.
Grace Fong, on Project Metamorphosis. The acclaimed pianist and director of Piano Studies at Chapman worked with colleagues in computer science and machine learning to develop a tool that translates classical compositions into “moving paintings,” making music more accessible.
The story begins on Page 16.
Hours of research time
1,000 invested by Chapman sociologist Pete Simi poring over hateful messages online before a trial of white nationalists. Simi’s testimony led to a judgment against the hate group leaders.
“ One day a student said, ‘What about stuff in space?’ Bing. Lightbulb. As soon as she asked the question, I thought, of course, stuff in space is heritage ”too.
Justin Walsh, describing a discussion in his ethics course “Cultural Heritage in the Art World.” The moment helped spark the first archaeological dig in space, aboard the International Space Station.
Read more on the project beginning on Page 6.
NOTES FROM THE FIELD
EXPLORING THE PATH OF TRAGIC DEATHS LEADS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT THE GROWING TOLL OF WILDFIRES IN THE WEST.
Wildfires throughout the American West have increased in magnitude and ferocity even as the dream homes of people who want to live in the mountains have moved deeper into the forest. This presents a dilemma for firefighters who face frenzied political pressure to save human-built structures, even though one of the safest moves for the environment – and for people – is often to let fires burn away organic debris that piles up for years into bomb-like strength.
This built-in policy conflict can lead to lethal consequences, as it did on June 30, 2013, when 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots perished at the base of Yarnell Hill in Arizona, fighting a small fire that whipped out of control. Their chief had ordered them to bushwhack down a slope into a basin full of chaparral, in apparent hopes of saving a ranch and the small retail strip of the town of Yarnell, which has a population of 649.
Photo by Kari Geer, Creative Commons
Arizona State Parks and Trails built a unique memorial to the firefighters: a five-mile trail to the fatality site that begins on the slope of the Weaver Mountains. I had wanted to visit because I’d been writing about the disaster in conjunction with a book titled “Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona,” to be published by the University of Arizona Press in March 2023.
This collection of 15 essays paints a portrait of my home state – one of them is about the unavoidable subject of wildfires and the thorny questions they pose that will only grow sharper as the forests get drier. Can we continue to build into what planners call the “wildland-urban interface,” so attractive to developers who want to create more pine-scented neighborhoods? Should fire agencies create “no save” doctrines for houses to ensure the safety of their personnel? Is it enough to harangue landowners to trim back branches themselves to create defensible space around their homes, or should taxes be raised to have a public agency do this every springtime to make sure the job gets done right?
I arrived at the memorial on a hot day in early June that only grew hotter as I ascended the first part of the memorial trail past the first of 19 plaques welded onto granite boulders, celebrating the lives of the men who died that day. Each relates a little biography of the firefighter – their education, their families, their hobbies, their faith. It would seem impossible for any visitor not to be moved by the collective youth and idealism of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and to understand the depth of the sacrifice they made.
The trail climbs a steep grade for a mile and a half, then levels out onto a ridge near where the commander, Eric Marsh, made the decision to advance from a safe area that had been burned away of all its fuel – “in the black,” as the parlance goes – into a bowl of oily brush that would become a killing zone when the wind unexpectedly shifted and sent a rapid wall of flame down onto the crew. They barely had time to get into their portable shelters at a spot today marked by 19 square gabion baskets of rocks collected from the hillsides.
All secular heroes are human, of course, and some questions about the fire and its aftermath may never be answered. Was Marsh acting with a city firefighter’s instincts to save the nearby ranch and town, and should the team have remained on the ridge? Should the nearby city of Prescott have staved off an unattractive fight about appropriate benefits given to the families, which some fretted would result in a tax hike?
The continuing cost of wildfires to the cities and families of the West is guaranteed, however, and one of the most persistent questions is whether firefighting policy can change along with the climate.
Temporary memorials reflect the grief felt by many in 2013 after 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots perished fighting a fire that whipped out of control.
Tom Zoellner is a professor of English at Chapman University and politics editor of The Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the New York Times best-selling author of nine nonfiction books, including “Island on Fire,” winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction for 2020.
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, SCIENTISTS BEGIN TO UNEARTH EXTRATERRESTRIAL CULTURE ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, LED BY CHAPMAN
Gaze
Researchers from five international space agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), live and work on the station in what is one of the world’s most ambitious multinational collaborative projects. Their research is well documented on NASA’s ISS blog and includes such wide-ranging topics as the effects of space travel on the human body, materials science, dark matter, spacecraft systems and countless other topics over the station’s over 21-year history.
But an additional source of endless fascination is the astronauts’ daily life in a vessel about the size of a football field, floating in microgravity with an international crew of seven people.
How do the astronauts wash their hair? (rinseless shampoo); sleep? (in a bag and attached to the wall); spend their free time? (mostly looking out the window, according to NASA). The ISS has been fastidiously designed to maximize the health, productivity and comfort of the crew while optimizing the efficient use of space and supplies.
But even as the mundane aspects of daily life are accounted for, questions remain about the more elusive but nonetheless riveting topic of culture. How do crewmembers on the ISS interact with each other and with equipment and spaces? And how do the spaces, interactions and objects inform conflict or cooperation among the crew?
provide insight into how humans adapt to their environment – to reveal new understanding of human activity in space.
Along with co-principal investigator Alice Gorman of Flinders University in Australia, Walsh recently completed Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE), the first archaeological study ever performed outside the Earth.
“It’s a microsociety in a miniworld,” says Chapman University’s Justin Walsh, associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Art. Walsh, an archaeologist by training, is using archaeology’s methods of inquiry and analysis – in which the objects and spaces of a culture are analyzed to
People tend to understand archaeology as dealing with the distant past. But at its core, the discipline is primarily concerned with a type of evidence – material culture – regardless of when that culture existed.
”IT’S A MICROSOCIETY IN A MINIWORLD.“
JUSTIN WALSH
“The past is right now – what happened 10 seconds ago is the past and is equally available for archaeological research as something a millennia ago,” explains Walsh.
In his view, archaeological techniques can be used to understand what happened at a distinct time – including the present – and what humans did in that location to adapt to it. “So, the question of when and where is irrelevant,” he says. “What we are showing with this project is the potentially practical side of archaeology as a science. We are revealing aspects of a habitat that people have lived in for over 20 years, and that the very people inhabiting it 24/7 have not been aware of.”
For Walsh, the galvanizing moment came in 2008.
Throughout his scholarly career, Walsh has conducted the type of research that most people associate with archaeology, complete with all the trappings expected from the discipline: trowels and brushes, pottery sherds and grids that divide ancient sites for excavation.
He is currently principal investigator on a Chapman excavation in Cástulo, Spain, and doing ceramics analysis at the Morgantina site in Sicily, Italy – a site with a notorious history of looting, with artifacts turning up in famous museums and private collections around the world.
The most basic archaeological technique for sampling a site is the test pit. Archaeologists divide a site into a grid of squares, usually one
meter by one meter, then select individual squares to dig in so that they can get a better sense of what the site is like and plan their future excavation strategy.
For the SQuARE project, the researchers asked the astronauts aboard the ISS to create one-meter squares on walls using tape throughout the space station – six in total. Instead of digging them to reveal new layers of soil representing different moments in the site’s history, the crew photographed each of the squares once per day to identify how those spaces were being used and how they changed over time. In a traditional test pit, each stratum of soil reveals a new layer of geographical insight and glimpse into cultural history – depth tells the story. On the ISS, it is not depth that reveals the vicissitudes of history and culture, but time.
“When you’re doing a terrestrial dig, you are present in the landscape, you are constantly assessing what is being found, and it is an unrepeatable experiment – the work is destructive by necessity. The very act of uncovering an object is a threat to its continued survival,” explains Walsh.
In 2009, Jason De León, Ph.D., an archaeologist from UCLA, gave migrants from Central America to the U.S. disposable cameras to document their journeys, in what may be the first archaeological research done with photographs. It was also the first time researchers could look at a cultural phenomenon from an archaeological – vs. historical – perspective that they couldn’t directly observe.
“Jason’s work was the impetus for us to look at photography as a viable method for space archaeology. We’ve also been using archive photos. The sole data is the photograph. But we can go back to those photographs over and over again—it’s a repeatable experiment,” explains Walsh.
In his 2013 book “Consumerism in the Ancient World,” Walsh explores the acquisition of Greek pottery by ancient peoples who were not Greek, even though the shapes of the earthenware were specific to Greek practices and behavior and were decorated with images from Greek mythology. He found that many of these pieces ended up buried intact in tombs, which typically identifies them as prized possessions, likely
only used in a funerary context. Zooming out, that research provides a framework for identifying the ways in which objects take on different meanings in new contexts; the linkages between the consumption of goods and identity construction; and how people use objects to signal social status and other information to others in their community. In many ways, the SQUaRE team’s early analysis of the ISS also conforms to this framework.
Take the galley, in the ISS Node 1 (Unity), where the crew’s dining table attaches to the wall and condiments are held tight into mesh bags attached to the wall. A bar of dark chocolate seems to shrink over the course of days; a tin of Altoids moves around; and one day, most curiously, several tubes of different colored frosting appeared.
A later Instagram Reel by U.S. astronaut Kayla Barron revealed that she and fellow astronaut Thomas Marshburn had made a birthday cake for a Russian crewmember Pyotr Dubrov using muffin tops glued together with honey, which was then decorated with the frosting.
“And that’s an interesting phenomenon, because that’s cooking, and cooking has a lot of social implications, especially a birthday cake,” says Walsh. “It shows that you care about somebody else and that they’re special
Photo credit: NASA/International Space Station Archaeological Project
The insights gained on material culture in space gleaned on the ISS will continue to have import long after the SQuARE study ends.
Enter: Brick Moon, the space-habitat consultancy being formed by Walsh and his colleagues. Named for the first work of fiction that described space launch, written by Edward Everett Hale in 1869, Brick Moon aims to use the firsthand knowledge gained from the SQuARE study to provide design guidance for companies and organizations with sights on building new space stations in the coming decades – companies such as Blue Origin, Orbital Reef, Star Lab and Axiom, Brick Moon’s implementation partner.
“We are the ones providing a view into the past,” says Walsh in reference to the SQuARE data. “So we can help design the efficiencies needed in a space habitat in advance of launch, since we can’t easily modify space after a station goes up.”
to you. Cooking is something that you really cannot do in microgravity – they usually just eat bags or cans of food. This shows us that exercising a sense of control and curating the experience of fresh ingredients is part of the culture of the American crew on the International Space Station.”
Another inference Walsh made was the adaptation of U.S. Node 2 (Harmony), a maintenance workstation, into an ad hoc laboratory space. An experimental bag takes up residence in the frame for a few days, which Walsh later learned was for experimenting with concrete production in microgravity.
“From an archaeological perspective, I wouldn’t have known that they are making concrete there, but I can determine that science is happening there, and it speaks to the flexibility of the location,” Walsh says.
One such design efficiency is what coresearcher Alice Gorman has dubbed “gravity surrogates” – technologies, such as Velcro patches on the wall, that simulate gravity. “In the SQuARE photos, we’ve been looking at where lots of these restraints appear. We see them increase over time and can also see glue on the wall where a patch has fallen away. Going forward, designers and engineers will want to be thinking about accommodations for microgravity environments. What we learn from the photos can inform those decisions.”
When the American ISS astronauts returned Earthside last spring, Walsh had the opportunity to meet with them and discuss the experiment. As Walsh recalls, the astronauts shared that they thought the researchers would be bored with the pictures.
“I assured them – ‘that’s not the case.’”
A sample location, the galley area in the NASA Node 1 module (Harmony) on the International Space Station, for the Sampling Quadrangle Assemblages Research Experiment (SQuARE). The area to be sampled is marked at the corners by yellow tape.
AROUND THE WORLD, RESEARCHERS ARE EXPLORING THE RESOUNDING POSSIBILITIES OF MACHINE LEARNING AND ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGIES. AT CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY, THOSE EXPLORATIONS INCLUDE A SPECIAL FOCUS ON ADDRESSING UNMET NEEDS.
ON THE PAGES THAT FOLLOW, WE GO INSIDE THREE RESEARCH PROJECTS AT FOWLER SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND BEYOND BORN OF CREATIVE INSPIRATION AND BUILDING TOWARD LIFE-CHANGING IMPACT.
Concert pianist and professor Grace Fong, data science researcher Rao Ali ‘18 (Ph.D. ‘22) and computer science professor Erik Linstead '01 collaborated on Project Metamorphosis, using tools of machine learning to translate classical music compositions into colorful "moving paintings."
PROJECT METAMORPHOSIS TAPS MACHINE LEARNING TO TRANSFORM CLASSICAL MUSIC INTO VISUAL ART.
Arpeggios spiral. Brushstrokes in blue, green, yellow and red bend, sway and swoop. High notes glimmer and deep bass tones bloom. Without a sound, the music of Mozart, Bach and Debussy unfolds as images on a screen.
It’s all part of an innovative collaboration between Chapman University prize-winning concert pianist Grace Fong, Associate Professor of Computer Science Erik Linstead and graduate student Rao Ali ’18 (Ph.D. ’22).
The project translates iconic piano compositions into swirling, colorful and dynamic “moving paintings.”
The cross-disciplinary Project Metamorphosis takes a deep dive into machine learning, early 20th-century music theory and an algorithm called Perlin Noise that’s used in commercial films and video games for natural-looking effects.
The result: Video versions of familiar classical works. Without a sound, the music unfolds as images on a screen.
“In the future, this system could be used to interpret music into an aesthetic experience for people with hearing impairments and hearing loss,” says Ali, a Chapman Ph.D. candidate in computational and data sciences. The translation could be via a computer app that translates recordings for small screens or for display on large video screens at live concerts, he says.
“When collaboration works like this, it’s quite magical,” says Fong, a professor and director of Piano Studies in Chapman’s College of Performing Arts, Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music. Her previous collaborations have involved dancers, painters, film directors, even Michelin-star chefs, but never computer scientists.
“This has shifted my view to understand the harmony where machines are extensions of humans through reciprocal communication,” she says. “Chapman is the type of place that provides the support and resources to make it possible for these types of projects to materialize.”
Fong, Linstead and Ali published a paper in August 2021 in the leading arts and technology journal Leonardo outlining their shared journey. “I have no background in music, though I do enjoy listening to classical pieces,” says Ali. “Working with Dr. Fong helped me get closer and closer to an aesthetic interpretation of music as visual art.”
In addition to drawing on advanced computational techniques, Ali reached back to a circa-1919 theory called Marcotones that assigns colors to musical notes, such as red for the note C and green for F sharp.
It was just the starting point. Ali worked closely with Fong and Linstead to add nuance, such as making colors darker for passages in minor keys and lighter for major keys. When Fong said she imagines arpeggios as spirals, Ali wrote code that interprets these rippling, broken chords as swirls of color. He used the Perlin Noise algorithm to produce curving, naturalistic brushstrokes, too.
“I didn’t want jagged, straight lines,” he says.
Ali is now working on a new project that uses similar techniques to translate paintings into music.
“It’s one thing to take a piano composition and just produce colors on a screen, another to make it systematic and meaningful as Rao has done,” says Linstead, associate dean at Fowler School of Engineering and principal investigator of Chapman’s Machine Learning and Affiliated Technologies (MLAT) Lab. “We wanted a mathematical, computational and musical foundation for the project so that it could be used to produce visuals of any number of musical compositions.
Every step of the way, when the machine learning team explored something new through algorithms, they would send the work to Fong for her artistic input and advice.
“The best machine learning is done when you bring together people from different disciplines like this,” Linstead said.
The insights of concert pianist Grace Fong added nuance to the project. When Fong said she imagines arpeggios as spirals, research partner Rao Ali wrote code that interprets them as swirls of color.
“ WHEN COLLABORATION WORKS LIKE THIS, IT’S QUITE MAGICAL. ”
GRACE FONG, ACCLAIMED CONCERT PIANIST AND DIRECTOR OF PIANO STUDIES AT CHAPMAN
Push it, pull it, twist it! The stretchy fabric panel set up in a school in Tijuana, Mexico, for children with severe autism seemed magical: Tap it and a glowing blue galaxy emerged. Slide your hand across it and piano music played. But “BendableSound” is more than a game. It’s a high-tech, hightouch music therapy intervention designed by Franceli Cibrian to build motor skills in neurodiverse kids.
“‘BendableSound’ and a smartphone version we designed during the pandemic support development by using several senses at the same time,” says Cibrian, an assistant professor in Chapman University’s Fowler School of Engineering. “The music, visuals and movements of the children all match up. For instance, if you push harder on the fabric, the volume of the music increases. This makes it easier for the brain to process the experience and control movements.”
Cibrian fell in love with human-computer interaction as a graduate student at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Mexico.
“One of the ideas I’ve always had is that technology should be beneficial and available for all, no matter your background, diversity, income or disability,” she says. “It can have huge benefits for children and teens with neurodiversity.”
Today, her research at Chapman focuses on the design, development and evaluation of ubiquitous interactive technology to support child development. Her projects,
often in collaboration with experts from other institutions, get results.
“BendableSound” worked as well or better than traditional music therapy for improving strength, coordination and reaction times in a 2020 study of 22 children, ages 4 to 8, with autism. An exercise game called Circus in Motion that adjusts to a child’s abilities increased the amount of activity kids got compared to traditional vestibular system exercises for balance and coordination, according to a 2021 study.
In a preliminary 2020 report, a smartwatch app called CoolCraig, developed and tested with Cibrian’s colleagues at UC Riverside and UC Irvine, was well received by preteens and teens with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and their parents. More research is planned. Parents and kids use CoolCraig together, setting goals for activities and behaviors and deciding on rewards. A smartwatch app provides reminder notifications to kids, while a smartphone app lets parents monitor and support them.
The goals are serious. The big bonus? This assistive tech is really fun.
“These kids deserve to have fun,” Cibrian says. “One of my favorite examples is little kids using their whole bodies –their heads, their backs –as they explore the elastic fabric of BendableSound. They’re learning to control their bodies and having a good time as they do it.”
“ TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE BENEFICIAL AND AVAILABLE FOR ALL, NO MATTER YOUR BACKGROUND, DIVERSITY, INCOME OR DISABILITY.”
FRANCELI CIBRIAN
What if a tiny, low-cost Braille display could fit on a smartphone? Inside the HEART Lab at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Engineering, Dhanya Nair is harnessing the science of touch to make such assistive technologies widely accessible and easily portable.
With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Nair will soon test a refreshable Braille display that uses an array of rounded pins instead of dots on a page to create an ever-changing stream of information, two to three Braille characters at a time. She envisions the device fitting on the case of a smartphone or computer tablet for instant translation of messages, search results and even touchable versions of graphics, emoticons and map directions for the sight impaired.
“Refreshable Braille displays on the market now are larger and can cost thousands of dollars,” says Nair, an assistant professor of engineering at Chapman.
“My lab wants to develop a version that’s affordable not just in the U.S. but also in places like India, where 40 percent of the world’s people with blindness live.”
Another of her ongoing research projects is the “haptic sleeve,” a fabric sleeve with four motors that deliver vibrations to the forearm. “We are testing whether the vibrations help train hand movements,” Nair says. “Right now we’re studying it with handwriting in healthy people. The hope is to use it in the future for rehabilitation for motor disabilities such as after a stroke, when some people lose the ability to control their hands and have to relearn how to write.”
A haptic sleeve study will launch this summer, looking at the best way to use vibrations to direct movements for making cursive letters.
Ever curious about the science of touch, Nair has added a twist called Tactile Music. “I want to know whether you can re-create the experience of listening to music as vibrations, such as for the hearing-impaired,” she says. “We’ll translate instrumental music that’s classified as happy or sad or calm into vibrations, play them using the sleeve and ask study participants which emotions they relate to it.”
This summer’s study, in potential community partnership with the Braille Institute Anaheim Center and Beyond Blindness of Santa Ana, will fine-tune the system by testing whether subtle vibrations or a sideways motion of the pins make the characters more legible.
“Braille is read by moving your fingers across it, not by pressing down on one character,” she says. “We are adding movement to simulate that sensation.”
The name of Nair’s lab – an acronym that stands for Haptic Educational Assistive & Rehabilitation Technology – refers not just to Nair’s focus on haptics (technology that produces the experience of touch) but also to her passion for using it to fill unmet human needs.
Professor Dhanya Nair’s lab is testing a haptic sleeve that delivers vibrations to the forearm. The hope is that someday it might help stroke victims relearn how to write.
FOR 30 YEARS, CHOREOGRAPHER DWIGHT RHODEN HAS BEEN EXPLODING BOUNDARIES AND CREATING SOME OF THE MOST DYNAMIC WORKS IN THE WORLD OF CONTEMPORARY BALLET.
Abreathy voice murmurs the count as a dozen dancers move in unison across a studio at Chapman University. The only other sound is the whisper of leather soles over the smooth floor, punctuated with an occasional wooden “thunk” when the rigid point of a toe shoe hits the ground.
A wall of mirrors reflects the dancers’ movements back to them, making them both performers and audience. The people that look back are a mix of skin colors and body types, uniform only in their diversity.
They practice a dance that blends the familiar forms of classical ballet – arabesques, pas de bourrées, grand jetés – with an unrestrained freedom of movement that honors tradition but breaks it apart at the same time.
Between the mirrors and the dancers sits the choreographer. His expression is hard to read –like all the dancers, he is masked, part of the newnormal of our post-pandemic world – but his attention is sharp, watching as the dancers bring the product of his imagination to life before his eyes.
Someone presses play on the stereo. A rock anthem blares out. “Boogie,” the choreographer instructs.
Dwight Rhoden is one of the newest faculty members in Chapman’s Department of Dance, but today he is working with professional dancers, not students. His company, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, has come to Chapman from New York to perform at the Musco Center for the Arts and to participate in a weeklong Leap of Art residency that will include master classes, lectures and other learning experiences for Rhoden’s Chapman students.
Rhoden has been a choreographer for more than 30 years, from the time he was a young dancer himself, making up his own routines and performing them in competitions. In 1994, he and Tony Award-nominee Desmond Richardson founded Complexions, backed by a vision that would transform the world of dance.
“It was just going to be a project,” Rhoden says. “We invited our friends from all the major companies around New York and some people who weren’t in companies but whose dancing we really loved.” The group included classical ballerinas as well as performers skilled in other dance forms, including modern, jazz, commercial and hip-hop.
At the time when there were hard lines between different styles of dance, “we brought it all into one room and made a show,” says Rhoden.
Each of the performers had a different story, a different background, a different approach, and in the process of making the show, Rhoden and Richardson realized that what they loved about it was the beauty of all those differences.
“We looked at each other and said, you know, this is so beautiful, and there’s a bigger, deeper message of unity with this. Removing boundaries between styles leads to the understanding that we are all different,” says Rhoden.
Removing boundaries would become the core value of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, a critically acclaimed and award-winning dance company that has performed in venues around the world. Not only does the company incorporate many styles of dance, but the dancers also represent different ethnicities, heights, body shapes and dance backgrounds, proving the company’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion long before that was an everyday term.
“I always thought that dance is dance. It’s all dance, and we were inspired by the contrast,” says Rhoden.“I become richer inside, knowing someone that is very different from me, and has a different background. It brings a wealth of knowledge and exposes me to something that I might not know, and that is why Complexions exist to this day.”
“Removing boundaries between styles leads to the understanding that we are all different.”
DWIGHT RHODEN
The Complexions dancers don’t move like most ballet dancers. In classical ballet, the body is held very upright, or “on center.” Precise movements that emphasize the long lines of the dancer’s body are executed with strict adherence to technique. It is graceful yet rigid, structured by rules and tradition.
But contemporary ballet stretches the boundaries of the traditional form. Bodies crumple into themselves one moment, reach outward the next, torsos and limbs hyperextended, expanding to occupy a space for an instant before, on the next beat, pivoting away to fill another. It is the deconstruction of classical ballet, the forms pulled apart but not discarded (as they are in modern dance), instead reassembled into something new. Fluid, energetic – it is the movement that matters, not the pose.
“We had a vision for really investigating and exploring other ways to take the classical form and build it out and go further with it,” says Rhoden. “Sometimes it’s as if we disrupted – which is a strong word – but we disrupted the classical form. Not in a violent way or a derogatory way –it’s more about looking at what the possibilities are with the body.”
Each performance is a fusion of elements – street dance, modern movement, jazz movement. “But all in the frame of a classical foundation that is morphing and evolving into other things,” he says.
In the studio, the Complexions dancers have moved on from learning basic steps to blocking their positions on the stage. The ballet they are learning is titled “Love Rocks” – first performed in 2020, but the company will bring it back to the stage this year.
“Sometimes it’s the music that I really like,” says Rhoden, discussing the inspiration for his creative work. “And sometimes it’s a subject matter. There’s something I really want to talk about … or sometimes it’s about what the artists need for their development, or what our audience might have an appetite for. So, it comes in different ways.”
With “Love Rocks,” Rhoden’s inspiration is the music of Grammy-winning rockstar Lenny Kravitz.
The two met at Paisley Park, where Rhoden was working on a show with Prince. Kravitz, who was going to open the show, asked Rhoden to choreograph his version of the song “American Woman” for the stage performance.
“It is a piece that kind of deals with the idea of love, which is really what Lenny writes about,” says Rhoden about “Love Rocks.” “Anybody who knows me knows that I’m still a romantic. I still think that love can save the world. That might be a little naive of me, but I’m happy to stay in that naive space, because I still really think that therein lies the answer – in unity.”
Founded in 1994, Complexions represents one of the most recognized, diverse, inclusive and respected performing arts brands in the world.
“I still think that love can save the world. That might be a little naive of me, but I’m happy to stay in that naive space, because I still really think that therein lies the answer – in unity.”
DWIGHT RHODEN
Once he starts thinking about an idea, Rhoden starts listening to music. And he writes – poetry, prose, notes about how he wants to move people around on the stage – trying to capture his idea in words before heading into the studio where he’ll begin experimenting with movement.
“I’ll experiment on myself, but I will also bring in a dancer or two and start to work on their bodies, just to generate some ideas and direction,” he says. “The dancers are everything. They are the beginning and the end to what we come up with.”
While he doesn’t expect dancers to make up the steps, he does ask them to collaborate on a certain level, experimenting and exploring together as the dance takes shape. “I never pretend I have all of the best ideas. Walking into the studio, I try to make sure that I remain a bit open, so that I can see what the possibilities are, because sometimes things happen in the studio and you’re like, Wow! I never thought of that, but this is really cool. You have to sometimes get out of your own way.”
Rhoden doesn’t think about dance in terms of “innovation.” For him, honesty is a firmer touchstone for his creative process.
“What I work on a lot is: How is this accessible? How will the audience take it in? Will it reach them? Will they feel what I want them to feel?” he says. “Innovation for me is being honest in your approach and looking for creative ways to say what it is you’d like to say.”
The dancers are intrinsic to that part of the process.
“There are many ways to express, say … love. How can we do this in a fresh and inspiring way? So, I really look at the inspiration as well the process as we’re making something new. Then I think innovation will come,” he says.
“Innovation for me is being honest in your approach and looking for creative ways to say what it is you’d like to say.”
DWIGHT RHODEN
In addition to using his voice to direct the dancers, Rhoden sometimes huddles with them around a computer screen to watch a video of an earlier performance – modern tools for a modern art form – and then they’re back on the floor, twisting their bodies into positions that should be impossible, but are somehow made to look effortless.
Sometimes, he joins the dancers on the floor, demonstrating not just the steps he wants them to take, but the emotion he wants them to convey through their bodies. “We must all unite,” sings Lenny Kravitz through the studio speakers, as the dancers scatter across the floor, only to come together again, fused in a single force of balletic unity.
“I like being connected to the young people,” says Rhoden, thankful for the opportunity to guide students on their way into professional dance careers. “I think one of the biggest surprises is the amount of dedication and the work that it takes to actually do it,” he says.
He doesn’t take anything for granted when it comes to being a choreographer or a director.
“I know that it is a privilege to be able to do it, and to be able to bring your ideas to a group of people and for them to present your ideas on stage. That’s a privilege,” says Rhoden. “I’m grateful for it, and I still love it.”
Dance students at Chapman will benefit from Rhoden’s expertise as a physical storyteller, and from his decades as a dancer, choreographer and director. Students will even have the opportunity to learn some of the Complexions repertory.
Julianne O’Brien Pedersen, chair of the Department of Dance at Chapman, says, “He brings a whole new understanding of ballet to our students. He works from a contemporary ballet perspective versus a traditional ballet perspective, and both are equally valid, and it’s good for our students to have that variety.”
“We’re not here to judge. We are here to love. There’s no room for hate. We are just one human race.”
“I know that it is a privilege to be able to bring your ideas to a group of people and for them to present your ideas on stage. That’s a privilege. I’m grateful for it, and I still love it.”
DWIGHT RHODEN
From the effects of toxic stress during early childhood, to infection risk in pediatric cancer patients, to the mining of big data to reduce hospital readmissions.
Across a range of research projects, the connections between Chapman University and Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC) grow stronger every day. Here, we explore a handful of those projects and consider their impact.
But beyond the lab bench and the bedside, there are more links in the chain of collaboration between Chapman and CHOC.
One way the connection changes lives is through the Thompson Autism Center at CHOC, where families, agencies and others learn to navigate the complexities of the education system. The center and Chapman’s Thompson Policy Institute on Disability assist families and schools through their partnership program: Families, Agencies and Schools Together (FAST).
Another manifestation of the bond is the Chapman-CHOC pathway to careers, as CHOC provides Chapman students with internship opportunities and, in turn, the hospital Thinks Chapman First when it has job openings. CHOC is among the top employers of Chapman graduates.
Food scientist John Miklavcic has dual appointments at Chapman and CHOC, where he's investigating buttermilk powder as a treatment for symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease.
Louis Ehwerhemuepha (MS ’13, Ph.D. ’15) knows every step on the journey between Chapman and CHOC. After starting at the hospital as an intern, he is now a senior data scientist at CHOC, and he also returns to teach classes at Chapman. In addition, he continues to collaborate on research with Chapman faculty members, including his mentor, Cyril Rakovski, associate professor of statistics and computational science in the Schmid College of Science and Technology.
“Chapman gave me the tools to succeed, and Dr. Rakovski connected me to the providers at CHOC, where advances in care are built on collaboration across all roles,” says Ehwerhemuepha, one of the first graduates of Chapman’s Ph.D. program in computational and data sciences.
“The opportunity to improve the care of children is at the heart of everything we do,” he adds. “Whether in the lab, on the floor providing care or working with data, our job is to save lives.”
RESEARCH LEADING TO IMPROVED OUTCOMES FOR PEDIATRIC CANCER PATIENTS IS THE FOCUS OF SEVERAL PROJECTS BY A FACULTY MEMBER AND CLINICAL PHARMACIST AT CHAPMAN’S SCHOOL OF PHARMACY (CUSP) IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CHOC CANCER INSTITUTE.
Sun Yang, an assistant professor at CUSP, is working to unlock insights that could improve pain management, stem-cell transplants and infection risk in pediatric oncology patients. Among them are:
Investigations into outpatient opioid prescribing for pediatric and young adult patients in California – Yang found a high degree of variability of prescription rates. Findings were published in the Journal of Contemporary Pharmacy Practice. The Kay Family Foundation-Data Analytic Grant supported the work.
A newly initiated clinical study planned to investigate the impact of mental distress on patients’ response to opioid prescriptions – The research could help identify which patients could benefit from interventions to help manage pain without extensive use of the powerful pain medications, says Yang.
A predictive risk model to determine patient likelihood for a severe infection caused by the infection C. difficile – Collaborating with CHOC oncologist and infectious disease physicians, Yang and CUSP colleague, Jason Yamaki, are working to develop a predictive risk model to determine patient likelihood for this infection. This translational research project is supported by the 2021 Faculty Opportunity Grant from Chapman University Office of Research.
Research aimed at identifying risk factors for a complication that often afflicts bone marrow transplant recipients – Called acute graft-versus-host disease, the syndrome occurs when donor cells attack the cells of the transplant recipient. The data analysis found a correlation with donor age as a risk factor, suggesting that siblings rather than parents might be preferred donors.
Opportunities to conduct translational research so close to patient impact inspires Yang daily, she says.
“Every morning you just want to go to work because you know what you’re doing is helping patients. Working with CHOC helps me see the patients we’re working to help,” she says. “It’s very rewarding.”
CHILD DEVELOPMENT EXPERTS KNOW THAT ADVERSITY AND TOXIC STRESS SUFFERED EARLY IN LIFE CAST A LONG SHADOW. CALLED ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES (ACES), THE RISK FACTORS ARE LINKED WITH A VARIETY OF CONDITIONS ACROSS THE LIFESPAN, FROM HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE TO DEPRESSION.
Chapman University professor of psychology Laura Glynn is part of a collaborative team that includes researchers from Chapman, Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC) and UC Irvine. The researchers want to better understand which children are most vulnerable to these events so that targeted interventions and preventive therapies can be deployed in early childhood.
The team was awarded a $2.8 million grant for the research project by the California Governor’s Office of Planning & Research, in partnership with the Office of the California Surgeon General. The three-year project connects with an initiative set by then-California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris to cut ACEs and toxic stress in half in one generation through targeted public health strategies.
“California is leading the way in addressing the impacts of early life adversity because of our surgeon general, and what’s really exciting is that Chapman, CHOC and UCI are part of that agenda,” said Glynn, director of Chapman’s Early Human and Lifespan Development Lab. “It’s profound and it’s important.”
A unique portion of the three-year project led by Glynn will also measure how persistent chaos and unpredictability in the household affects child neurodevelopment and cognitive function. Unlike many sources of toxic stress –including poverty, substance abuse, parental incarceration and systemic racism – household chaos can be more immediately addressed, Glynn explains.
“One could argue that things such as encouraging parents to have regular mealtimes, a bedtime routine and consistent family time are easier intervention targets,” she says.
A paper co-authored by Glynn, “A predictable home environment may protect child mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic”, was cited in the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2021 advisory document, “Protecting Youth Mental Health.” Glynn and her colleagues concluded that
“maintaining a structured, predicable home environment by adherence to family routines appears to mitigate (the) adverse effects” of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Most households with young children hit hectic patches occasionally, Glynn notes. But with the scale of the state-funded project, which will include data gathered from 100,000 children visiting CHOC clinics throughout Orange County, she hopes they can identify a tipping point at which such environments become chronic and unhealthy.
Much of the work also involves the predictive tools behind big data, which brings another Chapman connection to the collaborative effort, CHOC senior data scientist Louis Ehwerhemuepha, (M.S. ’13, Ph.D. ’15).
Additionally, project participants aim to gain insights into the role socioeconomic status plays. Such data will be the focus of Chapman postdoctoral researcher Sabrina Liu, an expert in toxic stress and health disparities.
Nearly 70% of children in Orange County visit CHOC clinics and practitioners for everyday health care needs, Glynn says.
“The CHOC landscape is very diverse. Unpredictability cuts across all socio-economic levels,” she says.
In the second component of the study, Glynn and fellow researchers at the Early Human and Lifespan Development Lab will collect DNA samples from children at birth and 12 months of age. The goal is to discover if there is an epigenetic biomarker that can predict their level of resilience to ACEs, again so targeted interventions can be provided.
“It’s exciting to get a little closer to how we can incorporate research into practice,” Glynn says. “With this multiinstitution collaboration, we are in a position to affect health and pediatric practice in a meaningful way.”
The work centers on the intersection of stress, emotion and health.
In collaboration with Children’s Health of Orange County (CHOC), Assistant Professor Brooke Jenkins is using big data analytics approaches to extract clues from thousands of medical records. She’s seeking insights on two separate fronts that can be especially stressful in childhood –asthma and pain management.
Most recently, she has looked at opioid prescribing for children at CHOC. When the opioid crisis prompted a shift away from the use of many prescription painkillers, one very important factor in the recalibration did not change. Pain.
Nevertheless, managing discomfort is essential, so finding a healthy middle ground is vital, Jenkins says. It’s important because a tough-it-out approach can have lasting repercussions, especially in children and adolescents.
“One reason we are so concerned with pain management is that there is evidence that it can impact how you perceive pain in the future. There is evidence that it can lower pain tolerance and increase fear of medical experiences,” Jenkins says.
Jenkins’ first step has been to focus on in-hospital prescription pain medications. With support from a
$95,718 Kay Family Foundation Data Analytics Grant, the researcher is analyzing 60,000 CHOC medical records drawn from nearly every department.
One study within the project focused on differences in race, ethnicity and insurance as predictors of opioid prescribing. Assisted by CHOC senior data scientist and Chapman alum Louis Ehwerhemuepha (M.S. ’13, Ph.D. ’15), she found that white children were more likely to be prescribed opiates than their Hispanic and Black counterparts. The two published their findings in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
In the asthma project, Jenkins is looking at data from medical records to see which demographic groups may be lacking asthma action plans. Those written strategies used by patients, families, caregivers and school personnel are known to be key tools for successful asthma management. But some children and their families don’t have them. Jenkins is looking to see what factors contribute to that disparity.
“Knowing where these disparities are is the first step in helping these children and families,” she says.
A study of patient zip codes, or geocoding, is a component of another project using the CHOC data, conducted in collaboration with Ashley Kranjac, assistant professor in Chapman’s Department of Sociology. Jenkins says that work may produce a better understanding of how air quality influences asthma, which affects more than 6 million U.S. children.
A tough-it-out approach to pain can have lasting repercussions for children, says Brooke Jenkins, an assistant professor in Chapman’s Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences.
“I am incredibly fortunate to work with my collaborators at CHOC who truly value what research adds to the practice of medicine,” Jenkins says.
“ KNOWING WHERE THESE D ISPARITIES ARE IS THE FIRST STEP IN HELPING THESE CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. ”
BROOKE JENKINSBY JOY JUEDES
Since the spread of COVID-19, many have become familiar with the 1918 flu pandemic. The virus killed 2% of the world’s population and produced high rates of mortality in healthy people, including those 20 to 40 years old, as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now, a Chapman University professor has distilled the impact of the 1918-1920 pandemic on U.S. stock returns, finding that the rate of growth of pandemic-related deaths “may be an important factor in predicting stock returns and future economic conditions during a health crisis.”
Marc Weidenmier, a professor in Chapman’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, painstakingly collected data from each week of the flu’s spread and published a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), where he is a research associate. He wanted to show the economic impact of a pandemic and chose the 1918 flu because it was “the closest thing” to COVID-19 but didn’t have the same outside influences, like government stimulus packages.
Weidenmier says that while researchers have published papers about the 1918 flu pandemic, “no one has pushed the angle of pandemic variables and prediction of stock equity markets and future economic conditions and recessions.”
Other papers on the subject have used monthly rather than weekly data, which can mask reality. Using weekly rather than monthly data “gives you a lot more statistical power, and also gives you more insight into what’s really going on,” he says.
The paper shows that the most deadly spikes in the pandemic significantly reduced the stock market returns of the more than 130 firms tracked by Weidenmier and his research colleagues. The second spike of the pandemic lowered returns by 57 percent, and returns during the fourth spike were down 33 percent – a significant impact, according to the paper.
People may be tempted to use Weidenmier’s research to project the COVID pandemic’s economic impact in the United States, but there are key differences – and the 1918 flu gives a better picture of impact, he says.
“There’s very little government intervention at that time, so it gives you kind of a clear take of the effect,” says Weidenmier.
By contrast, “it’s hard to say what the impact of COVID was because there was a government-imposed lockdown. You had stimulus packages left and right, trillions of dollars. You had the Fed trying to cut interest rates to zero,” he says.
In addition, there was also no vaccine for the 1918 flu.
That virus “hit the working-age population particularly hard, as opposed to COVID-19,” which had the biggest impact on people older than 65, according to Weidenmier and his co-authors.
“That was one of the motivations for the paper – we’re going to look at a pandemic that affects the working-age population,” Weidenmier says. “It’s a short-term effect, but the effect is quite large.”
Additionally, it turned out that death rates were even better at predicting recessions than the stock market was, Weidenmier says. There were two recessions during the 1918-1920 pandemic period. Death rates may be particularly effective at predicting recessions in emerging markets in places like South America and Southeast Asia, he says.
He and his co-authors gathered and digitized weekly stock data for 136 firms, using The New York Times’ financial section from January 1918 to March 1920. They also used U.S. Census pneumonia mortality data from about 60 regions.
When Mary Daly, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, spoke at Chapman University last summer it was because of Professor Marc Weidenmier.
Since 2018, Weidenmier has organized and moderated the Shadow Open Market Committee Conference at Chapman. The conference brings monetary economists from academia and private organizations together to discuss Fed policies.
Since the first conference, “we’ve had some really heavy hitters out here,” Weidenmier says.
Those include MIT’s Deborah Lucas, former chief economist at the U.S. Congressional Budget Office; and Charles Plosser, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
The June 2022 conference at which Daly gave the keynote speech drew coverage from national media outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Fox Business.
When she gazes up at sunlight as it filters through foliage, Shenyue Jia sees cool possibilities for underrepresented communities that sometimes have been left out of planning to mitigate the expanding heat effects of climate change.
Jia, a post-doctoral researcher in Chapman University’s Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations, has worked with community partners to develop an interactive map viewer, showing the existing and potential tree canopy for Los Angeles County.
The digital tool was launched in 2020 and has since been used extensively by the Los Angeles Urban Forestry Division to identify priority areas where the planting of trees can contribute to climate resilience, environmental equity and the improvement of public health.
We asked Jia, Ph.D., about her contributions to the urban greening project.
My first involvement in community science came in 2015. A project funded by the L.A. Municipal Water District evaluated the effectivenessv of a rebate program to incentivize residents to replace lawns with drought-resistant alternatives. Then in 2020, I became co-principal investigator collaborating with TreePeople, an L.A.-based NGO, to develop the interactive map viewer showing the tree canopy coverage. So far, the tool has led to new trees being planted in previously industrial areas, mitigating the effects of urban heat islands.
These are areas that experience higher surface temperatures because infrastructure like asphalt and buildings absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes do. These are often low-income areas, close to freeways, which also means they have poor air quality. To alleviate these effects with urban greening, we first have to identify areas of greatest need. That’s where the tree canopy map becomes an especially useful tool.
As a remote sensing specialist, I work at the convergence of ecology and geographical information systems (GIS). For this project, we processed information such as state-of-the-art satellite images and air-quality data, but that’s only the first part. It’s condescending to only use technology to decide where to plant trees. So partners like TreePeople and the Center for Urban Resilience at Loyola Marymount University helped increase community involvement. In each city, there was a “tree summit” and a survey so residents could help with decision-making. Should we plant near senior centers? At bus stops? Everyone wanted to take those local voices seriously and involve them in the model.
It’s hard to measure because the first plantings are only two years old, so the trees will need time to produce more shade. But we’re encouraged by the progress. The work is ongoing in five cities, and there are new efforts underway. We secured funding from Edison International to add more functionality to the map viewer tool, and we have a proposal out to Cal Fire to expand the project into Ventura County.
I’m thrilled to see the application penetrate all the levels and reach communities that might otherwise have been left behind, and I’m eager to find more opportunities to join in community projects. It’s a great way to build bridges that solve important problems and make people’s lives better.
“I’m thrilled to see the application ... reach communities that otherwise have been left behind,” Professor Jia says.
Chapman University faculty member Jason Douglas has been awarded a grant from NASA to study the public health impacts of higher temperatures and air pollution in southeast Los Angeles as well as services that would promote environmental equity in that community.
Douglas, assistant professor of public health in Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, was recently awarded the grant totaling almost $250,000 for his two-year project “Communities for a Better Environment: Triangulating NASA Data and Participatory GIS with Local Organizing to Advance Environmental Justice in Los Angeles.”
Chapman University science and engineering student researchers show that large population growth in California’s wildland-urban interfaces — the once-open areas between the wilderness and land development — increases the likelihood of wildfires at residents’ doorsteps.
Contra Costa, Alameda and Riverside counties grew the most, placing more people and their homes at risk.
Douglas is partnering with Communities for a Better Environment, a California-based environmental justice organization that helps people who live in polluted urban areas advocate for green technology and infrastructure.
The project will enlist community members in researching public health impacts of urban heat islands and air pollution, and how equitable access to parks, open spaces, and tree canopies can counter those impacts.
Urban heat islands are urban areas that experience higher temperatures than outlying areas, typically because of more blacktop and less urban greenery.
Douglas wrote in his proposal summary that southeast Los Angeles “is a large, underserved, environmental justice community of color that bears an uneven burden of urban heat islands and mobile and stationary sources of air pollution.”
Professor Jason Douglas is partnering with Communities for a Better Environment to study the health effects of heat islands in underserved neighborhoods.
BY PAUL PE BY JOY JUEDES RESEARCHThe research is now influencing how firefighters anticipate and respond to the spread of wildfires in regions with such expansions at the edge of wildlands, after the students presented their findings at the 2022 Fire and Climate Conference. More than 250 firefighters, public health officials and land managers attended the international gathering.
The Chapman student researchers used Census data to determine that nearly one-third of residents living in these intersectional zones experienced continued high population growth. Nearly 13% of California’s total population lives in areas at risk for wildfires like those threatening structures and scorching thousands of acres in Northern California, the Bay Area and near Yosemite National Park.
The increasing pressure from human activities at these intersections stretches over the past decade, said Shenyue Jia, visiting scholar with Chapman’s Institute for Earth, Computing, Human and Observing and mentor for the project.
“Understanding which regions of California’s wildland-urban interfaces have experienced significant population growth over the past decade can identify communities at greater risk of wildfire,” Jia said.
Fowler School of Engineering and Schmid College of Science and Technology students conducted the study for Chapman’s Grand Challenges Initiative.
AS SHE GUIDES STUDENTS TOWARD DEEP EXPLORATION OF CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE, KELLI FUERY FINDS HER OWN PATH TO MEANINGFUL RESEARCH PROJECTS.
Many sources inspire Kelli Fuery to pursue new avenues of research, but one of the most reliable is right in her classroom. Where better to start than with the curiosity of her students?
“I tend to be a research-led teacher, so whatever we’re exploring in the classroom is where my research goes,” said Fuery, associate professor in Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
“The classroom is where I feel most alive and at home. It’s where I can be open about the places conversations can go rather than where I think they need to go.”
Fuery’s new book springs from her course “Film, Gender, and Sexuality,” in which she has tested ideas and content based in part on the engagement of class members.
“The students really responded to the material, and one thing that came up was the concept of the male gaze, which is very well known but often misinterpreted,” she said.
As the discussion migrated to existential thinkers, Fuery cited the work of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, and the students’ interest grew. But Fuery also sensed an opportunity to create deeper conversations.
“In that moment I thought, ‘Aha, this is my next project,’” she said.
That spark grew to become “Ambiguous Cinema: From Simone de Beauvoir to Feminist Film-Phenomenology” (Edinburgh University Press). In the work – Fuery’s fifth book – she uses the lens of women independent filmmakers to explore Beauvoir’s ideas on how ambiguity influences the ways we think about core concepts like ethics and freedom.
“Beauvoir is trying to come to grips with how war could happen again and also how people can learn to avoid such wars,” Fuery said. “So we currently have ambiguity tied to notions of how to be responsible. What does freedom mean? How do we develop ethics?”
One of the goals for her book is “to show ways in which Beauvoir’s work can be extended,” she said.
Each chapter focuses on a different concept, as explored through the art of a particular feminist filmmaker. Chapters include “Moments of Moral Choice in Debra Granik’s ‘Leave No Trace,’” and “A Cinema of the Borderlands: Lucrecia Martel’s ‘Zama.’”
“It’s my book, so my rules – I picked the filmmakers that I enjoy,” Fuery said with a smile.
So, does Fuery think the artists she chose were directly inspired by Beauvoir’s theories?
“I would say that Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas are a good example of germinal thinking,” she said. “Even though filmmakers – or students – may not be intentionally drawing from Beauvoir’s ideas, it is without question that the philosophy and phenomenology she pioneered infuse thinking about gender relations and gender studies. Women in the 21st century, without even realizing it, have been influenced in their attitudes toward issues such as freedom, relationships and how to be an ethical person.”
As with her classes, Fuery hopes that her work initiates deeper study and perhaps even artful new interpretations of ambiguity.
“I encourage the reader to … accept a slower working through of Simone de Beauvoir’s idea so that the entire notion of ambiguity can become a more personal, embodied, debated, self-defined concept and experience as it relates to the study of one’s relationship with film,” Fuery says in her introduction.
Film studies major Sophia Bain ‘23 has taken six classes with Fuery and said she appreciates how students are consistently challenged to consider and apply concepts at depths beyond their comfort levels.
“Studying theories and philosophies in the context of film resonates with me the way that historical studies don’t,” Bain said. “With these explorations, I feel like I’ve fallen in love with film again.”
Bain and other Chapman students contribute to an annual themed issue of the national magazine Film Matters, for which Fuery is the special issues editor. Members of her class determine the topic and often write feature articles for the issue as it showcases the work of student scholars.
One such issue featured an interview by a Chapman student with Academy Award-winning director Bong JoonHo, while the upcoming issue includes a Q&A with acclaimed actor-producer Willem Dafoe. A master class series developed by Dodge College Dean Stephen Galloway has helped Fuery and her students create these rewarding connections.
“Access to these high-profile filmmakers has provided the students with wonderful scholarly opportunities,” she said. “Learning how to interview an artist is an art in itself.”
What better way to close the circle of scholarship than for class discussions to inspire meaningful student research projects?
“The beauty is seeing students develop ideas, work through problems and find solutions,” Fuery said.
“As Simone de Beauvoir defines it, ambiguity is about recognizing that we are subjects for ourselves so we understand our own importance, but we are also objects for others,” Professor Kelli Fuery says. “Beauvoir talks about the view from within and the view from without. The idea of ambiguity then is that it’s not supposed to be easily defined. It’s something we’re supposed to struggle with.”
Ambiguous Cinema: From Simone De Beauvoir to Feminist Film Phenomenology
Kelli Fuery, associate professor of film theory and contemporary visual culture | (Edinburgh University Press)
In her fifth book, Fuery explores the enduring power of Beauvoir’s ideas through the vision of independent women filmmakers.
“ ACCESS TO THESE HIGH-PROFILE FILMMAKERS HAS PROVIDED THE STUDENTS WITH WONDERFUL SCHOLARLY OPPORTUNITIES. ”
KELLI FUERYBY DENNIS ARP
WITH UNWAVERING SUPPORT AND A THIRST FOR INFORMATION, FAMILIES CARVE OUT CREATIVE PATHS TO COLLEGE, PROFESSOR STEPHANY CUEVAS FINDS.
Stephany Cuevas launched a research project seeking answers to a simple question: How do undocumented Latinx parents help their children get to college?
Little did she know that the pursuit would put thousands of miles on her SUV and sit her down at dinner tables to sample some of the best homemade tamales, traditional sweet breads and tree-ripened fruit in all of California.
“I always tell my students that if they ever want to be fed during their data collection, just interview families,” Cuevas said with a smile.
Cuevas, Ed.D., assistant professor in Chapman University’s Attallah College of Educational Studies, learned from dozens of interviews with undocumented Latinx parents that they build supportive communities and thirst for the knowledge that can make college dreams come true. Even as they encounter hurdles and worry that their children’s undocumented status will throw up extra roadblocks, they continue to promote a culture of academic achievement.
“The parents kept telling me things like, ‘I didn’t know how to support them. I didn’t have the finances. But I can always motivate my students – I can always remind them of why they are where they are,’” said Cuevas, who teaches in Attallah College’s Integrated Educational Studies program.
The Chapman professor ramped up her research as a thesis project during her studies at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her findings have been published as a book –“Apoyo Sacrificial, Sacrificial Support: How Undocumented Latinx Parents Get Their Children to College,” from Teachers College Press.
What’s more, in the 2022 work “Everyone Wins!” (Scholastic), which Cuevas co-authored with four other education colleagues, she makes the evidence-based case that family engagement benefits teachers and communities as much as students.
A first-generation college graduate, Cuevas brings personal experience and a perspective of allyship to her research. She grew up in Los Angeles, where she developed a love for education. She became a college advisor in the Oakland Unified School District while also leading a summer bridge program at UC Berkeley, where she earned her undergraduate degree.
In the early 2010s, she was one of the few bilingual college advisors at her Oakland school.
“Spanish-speaking parents swamped me with questions,” Cuevas said. “They were like, ‘We don’t know the system, but we want to help our children get to college. Can you help us?’ So I started doing bilingual workshops, and I started developing relationships with the parents.”
Those mothers and fathers came to trust Cuevas, sharing their fears that their children wouldn’t qualify for financial aid or any other benefits because they were undocumented.
“This was in 2012, when DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) was announced, so we were able to say, ‘Hey, undocumented students can go to college, it’s just harder.’”
As her information allayed some fears, Cuevas also uncovered gaps in the system. Her knowledge base grew as she asked questions the parents told her they had never been asked before.
“I wanted to design a study that looked for stories of success,” Cuevas said. “At the core was a commitment to developing relational trust. I did the interviews in Spanish, and I didn’t push a protocol but let the stories come up naturally.”
“She said, ‘Look, my daughter got into college, so my sacrifice was worth it,’” Cuevas said. “That’s one of the themes that came out in my study – this idea of sacrifice. Parents really saw access to higher education as an opportunity for upward social mobility.”
As a college advisor, Cuevas was disheartened by some of what she learned, because she knew that scholarships and free college-prep courses were available.
“If these courses were better publicized or more counselors were sharing this information, parents wouldn’t have to go the pain route,” she said.
Parents of undocumented students shared a range of insights, including that they equate speaking with a teacher to talking with a government official. One said, “I understand that if I go to a parent-teacher conference, it doesn’t mean that I’m walking into an Immigration Office, but that’s the feeling I get,” Cuevas related.
Some stories were heart wrenching. One mom was living paycheck to paycheck, but she wanted her daughter to benefit from a pricey college-prep program. So she quit taking her bloodpressure medicine and used that money to pay for the program.
Cuevas works to dispel misconceptions, such as that Latinx parents don’t want to get involved in school activities. Sometimes all it takes for parents to volunteer is to hold an event at a time that accommodates those who work multiple jobs, Cuevas said.
“One of the biggest barriers is a lack of communication between families and educators,” she noted. “Creating those lines of communication takes time, which of course is in short supply. But if educators can make that commitment, we now know it can be fruitful for all parties involved.”
“ ONE OF THE BIGGEST BARRIERS IS A LACK OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN FAMILIES AND EDUCATORS.”
STEPHANY CUEVASBY DENNIS ARP
When mothers and daughters talk, Michelle Miller-Day listens.
Stories shared with her during two decades of research fill Miller-Day’s two books, infuse a podcast (“Hello Mother, Hello Daughter”) she cohosts, and even inspired her to write a play. Still, the Chapman University professor remains eager to peel back even more layers of the mother-daughter dynamic.
“It’s always evolving,” says Miller-Day, Ph.D., a professor of communication studies in the Chapman School of Communication. “Motherdaughter communication takes many forms and spans lifetimes.”
In her Chapman classroom, students learn how intellectual study of communication theory can help inform personal relationships, including “how they can gain personal insights into their own communication behaviors with their moms,” she said.
“Ultimately, I want my students to realize that like all relationships, these take work, and the students contribute to the relationship as much as their moms do.”
As students share insights about their own motherdaughter relationships, it helps Miller-Day piece together the tapestry of her anecdotal research.
Professor Michelle Miller-Day leads a discussion with students in her class “Mother-Daughter Communication.”
Miller-Day’s interest in mother-daughter communication dates to ethnographic research she did as a student and which ended up being her doctoral dissertation. Insights from motherdaughter interviews also became fodder for her play “Two of Me,” about intergenerational communication and not repeating the mothering mistakes we experience as children. For four years, the play was staged in Phoenix on and around Mother’s Day.
For a chapter in one of her books, Miller-Day interviewed more than 100 women about the turning points in their relationships. Her book “Constructing Motherhood and Daughterhood Across the Lifespan” is now the textbook for her class.
Relational stories from research mix with everyday tips during the podcast Miller-Day co-hosts with Baylor University Professor Allison Alford. “Hello Mother, Hello Daughter” is available on Spotify, Apple and other platforms.
So how have those relational stories changed over the years? Well, for one thing, when MillerDay started her research, she didn’t hear tales of smartphone apps that allow mothers to track the whereabouts of their daughters 24-7.
One student shared that she didn’t know such an app was on her phone until one day her mom pulled up alongside her car and admonished her for being somewhere Mom didn’t think she should be.
“So many trust issues,” Miller-Day says.
As her research continues, Miller-Day highlights some other findings of note:
Social media is an important source of support for many daughters, especially on Mother’s Day. Even those whose moms have passed away find community in sharing that they continue to maintain a relationship with their mothers. “I started this work before my mom and dad had passed away. I totally understand this perspective now,” Miller-Day says.
In our culture, we use the term “mothering” when what we really mean is “daughtering,” Miller-Day notes. As daughters increasingly are called on to care for aging parents, they deserve to have that role recognized and respected as distinctive from the care mothers provide to infant and adolescent daughters.
Students these days talk about the shaming they experience if they say that they don’t want to be a parent. “It seems to be socially acceptable to shame someone for this, which amazes me,” Miller-Day says. “This warrants more research.”
But even as times change and communication issues evolve, core truths endure, the professor says. For instance, bonds grow stronger when daughters and mothers communicate at a level that defies cellphone tracking.
THE TERM “DAUGHTERING” SHOULD JOIN “MOTHERING” IN OUR LEXICON, MILLER-DAY SAYS.
NEW RELEASES REFLECT THE BREADTH AND DEPTH OF CHAPMAN FACULTY MEMBERS’ SCHOLARSHIP.
Jared Rubin, Ph.D., professor and codirector of the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics and Society; with Mark Koyama, Ph.D. | Polity Press
Through the lenses of geography, politics, culture, demography and colonialism, Rubin and Koyama explore how wealth has grown throughout history, with most human wealth gained in the last two centuries.
John Thrasher, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy; with Dan Halliday, Ph.D. | Oxford University Press
Thrasher and Halliday apply classical political philosophy to answer the question: Can capitalism have a moral foundation?
Terence Burnham, Ph.D., associate professor of finance; with Jay Phelan, Ph.D. | Princeton University Press
The unwritten rules of thriving in college through storytelling from their own experiences with students and practical tips.
John Thrasher, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy; with Gerald Gaus, Ph.D. | Princeton University Press
Thrasher and Gaus introduce the analytical tools for studying social and political issues.
Federico Pacchioni, Ph.D., chair of Italian studies; with Gian Marco Farese | Carocci Pacchioni and Farese explore the complexities of the foreign language-learning experience, its deeper rewards and its important implications for intercultural communication and mediation.
Franceli L. Cibrian, assistant professor of computer science, Ph.D., with two co-authors | Morgan & Claypool Publishers
Historic and state-of-the-art technology aimed at supporting people diagnosed with ADHD.
Stephany Cuevas, Ph.D., assistant professor of education; with four co-authors | Scholastic
In this guide, Cuevas and coauthors argue that engaging students’ families can enhance student achievement, strengthen families, boost teacher effectiveness and build community.
Leah Beekman, Ph.D., assistant professor, communication sciences and disorders; with illustrations by Alice Premeau ’22
Beekman uses her experience as a speech pathologist to teach kids about diversity using the character of a cat, Lefty, who meets a variety of bugs.
Patricia C. Lopes, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences, with three co-authors | Oxford University Press
Lopes and her co-authors examine how different kinds of animals behave to avoid infection.
Gail Stearns, Ph.D., associate professor of religious studies | Orbis Stearns argues for liberating mindfulness from its current status as a tool of consumerism and individualism, imagining new possibilities for ethical and spiritual practice.
Mark Axelrod, Ph.D., professor of comparative literature | Dalkey Archive Press
This latest work of fiction by Axelrod is a postmodern black comedy written from the point of view of a smalltown English professor.
Ann Gordon, Ph.D., associate professor of political science; with Kai Hamilton Gentry ’18 | Routledge Gordon and Gentry delve into how Americans can ensure their own security when a mass shooting and/or terrorist attack happens.
Celestine Richards McConville, JD, professor of law | West Academic Publishing Co. McConville and two co-editors address traditional federal courts issues in this interactive casebook.
Rebecca Tukachinsky Forster, associate professor of communication studies, Ph.D. | Lexington Books
Tukachinsky Forster analyzes how people develop romantic feelings toward people they “know” from the media, including fictional characters.
Stephany Cuevas, Ph.D., assistant professor of education | Teachers College Press
Cuevas explores the experiences of undocumented Latinx parents as they support and guide their children to higher education and how their immigration status impacts this support.
Uri Maoz, Ph.D., assistant professor, Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences; with Walter SinnottArmstrong, Ph.D. | Oxford University Press Maoz, who teaches psychology, biology, electrical engineering and computer science provides a series of dialogues between neuroscientists and philosophers about the millennia-long conversation on free will.
Michael Bazyler, JD, professor of law; with three co-authors | Carolina Academic Press
Bazyler and his co-authors explore four legal traditions from around the world, including Western –German civil law and English common law – and non-Western –Chinese law and Islamic law.
Suzanne SooHoo, Ph.D., professor emerita of education; Kevin Stockbridge, assistant professor of education; Charlotte Achieng-Evensen (Ph.D. ’16) | Myers Education Press
The three authors, inspired by the legacy of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, gather lectures given at Chapman about education and society.
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