From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Hall Center for the Humanities announces speaker lineup for spring 2024

LAWRENCE – The Hall Center for the Humanities has released its featured speaking events for the spring 2024. Programming begins with a talk by University of Kansas alumnus Michael Holtz, a freelance journalist whose talk Feb. 6 will explore the controversies of expanding wind energy in Kansas and his work to report about it.

Award-winning author Ellen Oh to visit Lawrence for LitFest

LAWRENCE – The University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) and School of Education & Human Sciences will host author and activist Ellen Oh at the annual CEAS Literature Festival (LitFest) this month for events of interest to educators and public. Oh is the author of “Finding Junie Kim” and a founding member of the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books. She will give a public talk at 6 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Carnegie Building in downtown Lawrence.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Dan Oetting, Hall Center for the Humanities, [email protected], @KUHallCenter

Hall Center for the Humanities announces speaker lineup for spring 2024

LAWRENCE — The Hall Center for the Humanities has released its featured speaking events for the spring.

“These speakers broaden our intellectual horizons and enrich our lives,” said Giselle Anatol, interim director of the Hall Center for the Humanities. “Offering these programs allows the Hall Center to engage curious minds, providing rewarding opportunities to learn about and support the humanities.”

Michael Holtz, a KU alumnus who is now a freelance journalist, is the first speaker in the series. His talk Feb. 6 explores the controversies of expanding wind energy in Kansas and his work to report about it. Holtz is the Simons Public Humanities Fellow at the Hall Center this year. These fellows are individuals “of experience and accomplishment from outside the university” who conduct research while in residence.

Currently based in Topeka, Holtz reports on human rights, the environment and rural communities. His work has most recently appeared in The Atlantic and The New Yorker.

All of the Hall Center events listed below are free and open to the public.

Upcoming featured speakers

Michael Holtz: “Winds of Change: Rural Kansas and the Clean-Energy Transition”

7 p.m. Feb. 6

Hall Center Conference Hall (also available online via Crowdcast)

Lewis Gordon: “From Kitchens and Pubs to the World: Philosophy for Humanity Today and Beyond”

7 p.m. Feb. 22

Hall Center Conference Hall (also available online via Crowdcast)

Gordon, a philosopher, will address the importance of everyday philosophy and how, as we face the challenges to humanity in the 21st century, it allows us to live lives committed to equality, justice and freedom.

Meet KU Authors: Beth Bailey — “An Army Afire: How the U.S. Army Confronted Its Racial Crisis in the Vietnam Era”

6:30 p.m. Feb. 26

Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.

Bailey, a historian, traces a frustrating yet fascinating story: how the U.S. Army — a massive, conservative institution — creatively came to terms with demands for change during a racial crisis among its troops during the Vietnam War. This talk is part of Meet KU’s Authors, an ongoing partnership with the Lawrence Public Library, providing audiences an opportunity to hear researchers associated with KU discuss their work.

Humanities Book Club: Ada Ferrer — “Cuba: An American History”

4 p.m. Feb. 29

Hall Center Conference Hall

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Ferrer will explore the history of Cuba and its deeply intertwined relations with the United States in conversation with an interdisciplinary panel of KU faculty.

KU Common Book Speaker: N.K. Jemisin — “An Evening with N.K. Jemisin”

7:30 p.m. April 25

Online presentation via Crowdcast

Science fiction author Jemisin, three-time Hugo Award winner, will discuss her work and the significance of KU’s 2023-2024 Common Book, Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower.” In addition to the Hall Center, the Common Book Program is sponsored by KU Libraries and the Division of Academic Success. This year’s sponsors also include the Spencer Museum of Art, History of Black Writing, Department of English and Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

For further information about these talks and other Hall Center programming, subscribe to Hall Center social media channels and visit the Hall Center website.

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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”

a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.

https://kansaspublicradio.org/when-experts-attack

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Contact: Mego Londeen, Center for East Asian Studies, [email protected]

Award-winning author Ellen Oh to visit Lawrence for LitFest

LAWRENCE – The University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) and School of Education & Human Sciences will host author and activist Ellen Oh at the annual CEAS Literature Festival (LitFest) this month for events of interest to educators and public.

Oh is a former adjunct college instructor and lawyer with a curiosity for ancient Asian history. She won awards for several of her novels, including “Finding Junie Kim,” which is the featured book for LitFest. Oh is also a founding member of We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit dedicated to increasing diversity in children’s literature.

The CEAS LitFest is an opportunity to promote East Asian content to K-12 educators. With the partnership of Project PEACE, the Feb. 7-8 festival expanded to include preservice educators for three events:

Schedule of events

An in-service workshop for K-12 educators in the Lawrence area will take place at 3 p.m. Feb. 7 at Cordley Elementary School, 1837 Vermont St.
A preservice educator workshop open to School of Education & Human Sciences students, staff and faculty will take place at 11 a.m. Feb. 8 in 100 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Oh will give a public talk for the Lawrence and surrounding communities at 6 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Carnegie Building, 200 W. Ninth St.

Project PEACE (Promoting English Learners’ Academic Achievement and Cultivating Educational Equity) is one of the grants supporting these events. It is a federally funded project to support preservice and in-service teachers in Kansas in completing professional training and obtaining English as a second language endorsement to teach English learners.

English learners face a multitude of challenges in schools, one challenge being developing linguistic and cultural awareness to provide equitable education for English learners.

“Multicultural children’s literature can provide a meaningful venue for educators to explore perspectives from linguistically and culturally diverse students and their families,” said Kwangok Song, KU associate professor of curriculum & teaching. “Additionally, teachers can reflectively consider ways to incorporate multicultural literature representing their students’ diverse experiences. CEAS’ Literature Festival, centering on the theme of migration, is intended to reconfirm and strengthen preservice and in-service teachers’ understanding of the criticality of diversity, inclusion and equity in educational settings.

“Specifically, Ellen Oh’s book ‘Finding Junie Kim’ and her activism to support diverse books in classrooms and libraries can inspire teacher candidates, practicing teachers and administrators to continue their endeavor to create an inclusive environment for culturally and linguistically diverse students,” Song said.

Other support for the event comes a Department of Education Title VI grant that funds the Center for East Asian Studies. Founded in 1959, CEAS is a National Resource Center with a mission to disseminate knowledge about East Asian studies to the Great Plains region. It partners with the Kansas Consortium for Teaching About Asia (KCTA), which is funded through the Freeman Foundation.

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

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Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with the KU Center for East Asian Studies

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) and partners will celebrate the Year of the Dragon for the Lunar New Year, a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. The free, public Lunar New Year Festival will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 7 on the Lawrence campus.

Study: International organizations take oversimplified, ‘cultural essentialist’ approach to domestic violence in Nepal

LAWRENCE — Domestic violence is a problem throughout the world. To develop and support effective programs to address the issue, understandings about the problem and the strategies that are being used to address it must be grounded in knowledge of the local context. A new study from the University of Kansas has found that research reports, written or sponsored by international organizations, have often taken an over-simplified “cultural essentialist” approach to understanding domestic violence in Nepal.

Full stories below.

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Contact: LaGretia Copp, Center for East Asian Studies, 785-864-0307, [email protected], @KUEastAsia

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon with the KU Center for East Asian Studies

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) and partners will celebrate the Year of the Dragon for the Lunar New Year, a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar.

The free, public Lunar New Year Festival will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Burge Union.

The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in China and is widely celebrated in other East Asian countries. The Year of the Dragon is known for welcoming changes, creativity and a vision for prosperity.

“It would be great for the CEAS community to welcome the new year together and to nurture our hopes and dreams by turning the positive energy of the dragon into a source of our actions toward a healthy and prosperous year ahead,” said Akiko Takeyama, CEAS director.

Attendees will enjoy an evening of festivities and friendship to ring in the new year, including performances at 6:30 p.m. by Wanwan Cai from the Lawrence Art Center and at 7:15 p.m. by the KU Lion Dance club.

Games and family-friendly activities will include the red envelope giveaway and raffle, lantern-making, calligraphy lessons, bingo and ring toss. Participants can also sample a dumpling, scallion pancake fries and sushi while supplies last. The event also will feature a photo booth.

The red envelope giveaways and beverages are possible through donations from Pepsi, KU Bookstore, McLain’s Market Lawrence, Royal Crest Lanes, The Merc Coop and Toppers Pizza.

Event co-sponsors include Student Union Activities, the Chinese Student Association, Korean Student Association, Study Abroad & Global Engagement, Global Awareness Program, Asian and Asian-American Faculty & Staff Council and International Support Services.

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The official university Twitter account has changed to @UnivOfKansas.

Refollow @KUNews for KU News Service stories, discoveries and experts.

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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings

Study: International organizations take oversimplified, ‘cultural essentialist’ approach to domestic violence in Nepal

LAWRENCE — Domestic violence is a problem throughout the world. To develop and support effective programs to address the issue, understandings about the problem and the strategies that are being used to address it must be grounded in knowledge of the local context. A new study from the University of Kansas has found that research reports, written or sponsored by international organizations, have often taken an over-simplified “cultural essentialist” approach to understanding domestic violence in Nepal.

At its heart, cultural essentialism includes ways of talking about a group that fail to recognize diversity within that group. When cultural essentialist framings of social problems are employed in discussions about low-income countries, they tend to portray the countries and the cultures within them through a deficit lens. This implies that relatively wealthy Western nations have all the answers while overlooking the ways practitioners and communities have long worked to address domestic violence within Nepal.

Claire Willey-Sthapit, assistant professor of social welfare at KU, led a study in which researchers analyzed 26 reports funded by diverse international development organizations studying domestic violence in Nepal over two decades. The analysis showed the works often framed violence as endemic to place and a as a central aspect of Nepali culture. That approach overlooks the strengths of those working to address the problem as well as the ways that recent trends and transnational political-economic contexts, such as technological changes, the media and increasing labor migration, impact domestic violence in Nepal.

Willey-Sthapit, who lived and worked in Nepal for almost four years and whose spouse is Nepali, has a deep connection to the South Asian nation. As a country designated “least-developed” by the United Nations, and that was never colonized by an outside power, Nepal has long been a favored site for international development programs. Such programs not only fund and facilitate development activities, but also produce ideas about the country, the problems to be addressed, and potential solutions.

“That is a question I am interested in, how knowledge is circulating about Nepal,” Willey-Sthapit said. “These ideas impact how people in the U.S. and other relatively wealthy countries talk about Nepal, as well as the kinds of policies and programs that are likely to be developed and funded by international organizations as a result.”

The study, written with co-authors Taryn Lindhorst of the University of Washington, Susan Kemp of the University of Auckland, and Maya Magarati of the University of Washington, was published in the journal Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work.

In analyzing research from international developers on Nepal, the authors found that cultural essentialist ideas were often promoted.

“This problem has been identified among transnational feminist scholars since at least the ‘80s,” Willey-Sthapit said of cultural essentialism. “I am a white American researcher and sometimes in the U.S. I would hear cultural essentialist ideas, including both negative and romanticizing stereotypes, from well-meaning people with whom I spoke. This study was a way of deconstructing this way of thinking and seeing if we can do this research, and support those working against domestic violence, without reinforcing those hierarchies.”

Such essentialism in the analyzed reports tended to create binaries in terms of time and place, wherein present-day violence is explained only as a carryover from traditional Nepali culture. At the same time, social change is portrayed largely as coming from modernizing outside forces. A few publications, funded by powerful international organizations, imply that the issue is so widespread that everyone is either a victim or a perpetrator.

Essentialist approaches to understanding domestic violence in Nepal paint the nation with a broad brush, ignoring the fact that Nepal is an incredibly diverse country. More than 120 languages are spoken there, and there are more than 90 ethnic groups and considerable religious diversity. Overlooking all that misses the diverse approaches to addressing domestic violence on a community level.

“In the global context, cultural essentialist ways of framing domestic violence imply a deeply colonial (and dubious) solution, which is to change the culture by imposing Western strategies, rather than recognizing the cultural norms and practices that are already leveraged to address violence, and working together to identify and support promising strategies,” Willey-Sthapit said. “If you try to ground your understanding in Nepal, and the ways people understand the issue, you can better grasp the historical, political, structural, normative and other contexts that enable violence and those that prevent it.”

While cultural essentialism was prevalent in the analyzed material, there were some important counter narratives present. A few documents, written by first authors working in Nepali or South Asian organizations, noted that patriarchy exists in Nepal as well as in other nations, including in high-income countries, and examined how that contributes to domestic violence. Several others, including some written by representatives from Nepal, South Asia and outside the region, discussed at least one global and/or recent historical shift that has contributed to domestic violence in some way. This included discussion of Nepal’s recent civil war, rising economic migration and the breakdown of strong community ties, and even — in one case — the lack of attention given to gender-based violence in development programming that sought to empower women.

Understanding such research is important as international development organizations are influential in how the world views a developing nation such as Nepal. They influence international investors, policy makers and others whose actions affect the lives of those living in the nation. By recognizing cultural essentialism in international development research about social problems such as domestic violence, development professionals and social workers can clear away unhelpful assumptions and create space for more reciprocal relationships and knowledge sharing toward effective action.

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs

From the Office of Public Affairs | http://www.news.ku.edu

Headlines

Brandon Draper’s recording dam to burst in 2024

LAWRENCE — An associate professor of the practice at the University of Kansas School of Music, percussionist Brandon Draper will make the Draper Family Band’s debut blues-rock recording the first of 10 he will release in 2024 under a new deal with Symphonic Distribution LLC.

School of Architecture & Design announces Spring 2024 Design Symposium

LAWRENCE – The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design will welcome award-winning animation development artist Angela Sung on Feb. 1 as the first speaker of the spring KU Design Symposium Lecture Series. Now in its 40th year, the design lecture series (formerly Hallmark Symposium) has introduced KU students and the local community to top designers and artists working in a wide range of disciplines and professional fields.

Experts in special education, social welfare and particle physics receive KU Research Achievement Awards

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas researchers expanding our understanding of special education, social welfare and particle physics have received this year’s Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award and the KU Research Staff & Postdoctoral Achievement Awards. The annual awards recognize outstanding unclassified academic staff, unclassified professional staff and postdoctoral fellows whose research has significantly influenced their fields and expanded intellectual or societal insights.

Full stories below.

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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman

Brandon Draper’s recording dam to burst in 2024

LAWRENCE – The way Brandon Draper heard it all his life, it was the impending birth of his older sister that cost his keyboardist father a chance to audition for the Rolling Stones. In reality, he learned a few years ago — only when his dad thought he could handle it — it was his own birth in 1979 that compelled Paul Draper to rebuff guitarist Keith Richards’ 1981 entreaties to travel from Kansas to jam with the “world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band” at an East Coast recording studio.

Now an associate professor of the practice at the University of Kansas School of Music, percussionist Brandon Draper will try to make it up to his father when he makes their Draper Family Band’s debut blues-rock recording the first of 10 he will release in 2024 under a new deal with Symphonic Distribution LLC.

Brandon Draper’s own record label — Looking Up Productions — signed with Symphonic, a Tampa, Florida-based company that works with independent artists, in November.

Oz McGuire, KU music school graduate and friend of Brandon Draper, was named Symphonic’s vice president for artists and repertoire (A&R) and business development back in 2022, and he reached out to Brandon Draper to see what the multi-instrumentalist might have in his recording vault. McGuire had heard some of the ethereal music Brandon Draper has created to accompany meditation.

Brandon Draper said, “I told him, ‘Man, I’ve got more than just meditation stuff. I have 10 years’ worth of audio that I just recorded for me. I never had a place for it to go.’ And now he’s the conduit.”

Brandon Draper said that he released “Meditation Music, Vol. 1” on his own in 2018, but he planned to withdraw it from streaming services to re-release it through Looking Up via Symphonic.

“Me self-releasing it is like riding a scooter, and Oz releasing it is like a fleet of semi-trucks, and he’s in a Lamborghini leading the pack,” Brandon Draper said. “He has a way bigger reach. So the X amount of streams that I have received from my release … it’s done. It’s not gonna go much further. It had a bubble when it came out, and now it’s gone. But now it can have another life.”

The single “Aim All Around” by the Draper Family Band, with Paul Draper on the Hammond B3 organ, will be Brandon Draper’s first release on the Looking Up Productions label, scheduled for Feb. 2.

“My goal is that the first single from the Draper Family Band is released as soon as possible so I can start gaining some traction with that for summertime festival gigs,” Brandon Draper said.

Among the other recordings that Brandon Draper will release this year through Symphonic is one by Drum Safari, which has been his summertime job for several years. It’s a participatory, educational exercise in percussion for kids.

The other releases set for this year include:

Draper-Towne – organ-duo jazz.
DJB Nu Trios — jam band.
Brandon Draper Quintet live — modern jazz
Brandon Draper – “Meditation Music Vol. 2” featuring the hand pan, a type of steel drum.
Brandon Draper – “Summer of 808” re-release featuring the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer.
“I never stopped recording and making all this music,” Draper said. “I just never had the energy or the time to put into getting it out to people. But it’s all done, and now I have the label that I can send it to.”

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Don’t miss new episodes of “When Experts Attack!,”

a KU News Service podcast hosted by Kansas Public Radio.

https://kansaspublicradio.org/when-experts-attack

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Contact: Dan Rolf, School of Architecture & Design, 785-864-3027, [email protected], @ArcD_KU

School of Architecture & Design announces Spring 2024 Design Symposium

LAWRENCE – The University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design will welcome award-winning animation development artist Angela Sung on Feb. 1 as the first speaker of the spring KU Design Symposium Lecture Series.

Now in its 40th year, the design lecture series (formerly Hallmark Symposium) has introduced KU students and the local community to top designers and artists working in a wide range of disciplines and professional fields. See a complete list of past lecturers at the Design Symposium Speaker Archive.

Spring 2024 lectures begin at 6 p.m. in 130 Budig Hall on the KU Lawrence campus. Events are free and open to the public.

Feb. 1: Angela Sung is a plein-air painter and animation development artist for film and television. Combining traditional painting techniques and digital design, Sung has worked on projects for Disney, DreamWorks, Netflix, Warner Brothers and other studios. Credits include “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts,” “Kung Fu Cooking Girls,” “Legend of Korra,” “Voltron: and the 2022 animated feature “The Bad Guys.”

Feb. 15: Spandita Malik is a visual artist from India. Her work is concerned with the current global sociopolitical state of affairs with an emphasis on women’s rights and gendered violence. Malik specializes in process-based work in photography, recently with photographic surface embroideries and collaborations with women in India.

Feb. 29: Polymode is a bicoastal, queer and minority-owned graphic design studio leading the edge of design with thought-provoking work for clients across the cultural sphere. The studio’s specialties include books, curation, education, exhibition, identities, interfaces, publications, visual design, websites, workshops and writing. Clients include the city of Los Angeles mayor’s office, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, David Kordansky Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art, Phaidon Press and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

March 7: Harlan Bozeman is a lens-based artist whose research-driven practice has focused on confronting the erasure of Black culture and its histories and investigating the legacies of slavery and its aftermath in the American South. His previous work explored the Gullah Sea Islands communities, specifically Wadmalaw Island, where his family is from, and the narratives that serve to prolong their cultural significance. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, British Journal of Photography, Der Grief, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

March 21: Alana Louise is an award-winning creative working in branding, illustration, typography, visual design and user experience design. She is currently a creative executive at Wheelhouse Labs and is the creative director at Kimmelot. A first-generation immigrant with a deep passion for the outdoors, she is listed as one of the first 100 people to complete the “Expert” level of the Western Native Trout Challenge. Find Louis’s most recent work on Instagram.

April 4: Alan Tipp, a KU industrial design graduate, has developed products for some of the world’s best-known brands and contributed to numerous U.S. and foreign patents. Just five years after graduating from KU in 2000, Tipp was named director of Performance Eyewear at Under Armour, where he went on to be recognized on all of the company’s design and utility patents, including the tool-free football visor clip used in the NFL. Tipp now maintains an independent studio and consultancy based in Omaha, Nebraska.

April 18: Travis Millard is an artist, illustrator and art director who brings the intimacy of one artist’s hand to work spanning media and scale. Since graduating from the KU illustration program in 1998, Millard’s work has appeared around the world in gallery exhibitions, magazines, brand campaigns, video games and on the sides of buildings. He has developed products, collections and campaigns with brands such as Burton Snowboards, The Hundreds, Lakai, The Quiet Life, Vans and Volcom. Other clients include Disney, Nickelodeon and the filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. His illustrations have been featured in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, Juxtapose, The Los Angeles Times Magazine and Thrasher. See some of Millard’s most recent drawings on Instagram.

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Contact: Vince Munoz, Office of Research, 785-864-2254, [email protected], @ResearchAtKU

Experts in special education, social welfare and particle physics receive KU Research Achievement Awards

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas researchers expanding our understanding of special education, social welfare and particle physics have received this year’s Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award and the KU Research Staff & Postdoctoral Achievement Awards.

The annual awards recognize outstanding unclassified academic staff, unclassified professional staff and postdoctoral fellows whose research has significantly influenced their fields and expanded intellectual or societal insights. This year’s recipients:

Tyler Hicks, director of quantitative methodology, KU Center on Developmental Disabilities, Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award
Pegah Naemi Jimenez, associate researcher senior, School of Social Welfare, Research Staff Achievement Award
Georgios Konstantinos Krintiras, postdoctoral researcher, physics & astronomy, Postdoctoral Achievement Award
The three will be recognized at a ceremony this spring along with recipients of other major KU research awards.

The Office of Research established the Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award in 2006 to honor unclassified academic staff researchers. Winners receive $10,000 in research funds. The KU Research Staff & Postdoctoral Achievement awards were established in 2018, with honorees receiving $5,000 for approved research or professional development activities.

Tyler Hicks

Hicks is the director of data science, research design and methodology as well as an assistant research professor at the KU Center on Developmental Disabilities housed within the Life Span Institute. He also holds an appointment in the research design and analysis unit at LSI. Hicks has been instrumental in designing new ways to analyze special education practices and collaborating with colleagues to make their projects work.

Hicks began his time at KU as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Special Education in 2017. He then served as a research associate at LSI’s SWIFT Education Center.

Methodology specialists don’t often have the opportunity to serve as the primary investigator on funded projects, but without their expertise, many proposals wouldn’t get off the ground. To date, Hicks has served as a co-PI or lead methodologist on funded projects totaling more than $34 million. He is noted as a leading expert in analyzing cost-effectiveness of special education interventions.

Hicks earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and doctorate in special education, both from the University of South Florida.

Pegah Naemi Jimenez

Naemi Jimenez is an associate researcher senior in the School of Social Welfare. Prior to her current role, Naemi Jimenez was an associate researcher at KU’s Center for Public Partnerships & Research from 2015 to 2021.

Naemi Jimenez’s scholarship focuses on cross-system approaches and community-engaged research that addresses social problems experienced by children and families in marginalized communities. This involves working with communities, practitioners and other interested parties, such as state agencies in Kansas, Missouri and Texas. She has received multiple federal grants to support this work.

Naemi Jimenez serves as the principal investigator on three multiyear state and federally funded research projects: Safe Sleep Program Evaluation, in partnership with the Missouri Children’s Trust Fund; THRIVE, a sexual health program for foster care professionals and youth involved in foster care, in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin; and Kansas Bravely Raising and Activating Voices for Equity, a collaborative initiative that centers Black and Brown youth and family experts to advance racial equity in child welfare, for which she recently was awarded $2.5 million in federal funding to implement. She also leads evaluation for Kansas Strong: Parent Youth Facilitation Strategy and the Racial Equity Collaborative. At the university level, Naemi Jimenez represents the School of Social Welfare on the Campus Council on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging.

Naemi Jimenez’s equity research goes far beyond the region. She also conducted a study of how Iranian women use social media in social justice movements.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of California, Davis, a master’s degree in psychology from California State University at Sacramento and a doctorate in social psychology from KU.

Georgios Konstantinos Krintiras

Krintiras is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Physics & Astronomy. His work on some of the smallest building blocks of matter has attracted considerable international attention in the discipline.

Many learn that atoms are composed of subatomic particles, including protons and neutrons. But these particles are in turn made up of smaller components called quarks. Quarks normally remain confined within the protons and neutrons, but they can be studied when certain heavy elements, such as lead, collide into each other in large scientific instruments. Krintiras uses such instruments to study free quarks at KU and at Fermilab as a distinguished researcher.

Krintiras serves in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, one of the largest collaborative efforts ever formed, hosted at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. He has served as a convener of the luminosity group and the heavy ion group, which help coordinate research at the facilities. Under Krintiras’ tenure, the luminosity group released the first publication that now counts more than 400 citations, and the heavy ion group was one of the most productive teams with CMS, producing almost one paper per month despite being one of the smaller teams.

Beyond his project management skills, Krintiras’ luminosity-related work has been recognized with a CMS achievement award, and he has made notable discoveries in his field. The American Physics Society praised his observation of top quarks in collisions between protons and lead nuclei in 2017. He also participated in the association’s particle physics community planning, which set a roadmap for future research.

Krintiras earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and a bachelor’s degree in experimental nuclear physics from Lund University, Sweden. He also holds a master’s degree in experimental astroparticle and elementary particle physics from the University of Amsterdam and a doctorate from the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

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KU News Service

1450 Jayhawk Blvd.

Lawrence KS 66045

Phone: 785-864-3256

Fax: 785-864-3339

[email protected]

http://www.news.ku.edu

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, director of news and media relations, [email protected]

Today’s News is a free service from the Office of Public Affairs