Phil Chidester, Communication

Phil Chidester recently completed a doctorate degree in communication studies at the University of Kansas, where he was the recipient of both the Conboy Leadership Award and the Giffin Research Award as the department’s top student researcher. He earned a bachelor’s degree in communication at Southern Utah University in 1990 and a master’s degree in communication studies at the University of Kansas in 2002. Prior to his enrollment in graduate school, Phil served as a reporter and staff writer at a daily regional newspaper and as a lecturer of communication and director of advancement relations at Southern Utah University. Phil’s academic research interests area includes individual and social identity, in relation to race and class, as they are created and reinforced by media artifacts; he is also actively engaged in research on song as a communication system, on contemporary myth and on the formation of modern publics through a shared fandom of various media texts. He has also presented his work at numerous conferences of the National Communication Association, the International Communication Association, the Central States Communication Association and the Conference on Race at Harvard University, and has received top competitive paper awards from both the NCA and the CSCA.

Seow Ting Lee, Communication

Seow Ting Lee is an outstanding mass communication teacher and researcher with interests in media performance and ethics, international communication, and new communication technologies. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1999 and 2002. Originally from Singapore, she was a former newspaper journalist with the Straits Times, Singapore. She graduated from the National University of Singapore with a BA in English Language and Economics. Prior to joining the Illinois State faculty, she was an assistant professor in the School of Communication, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, from July 2002-July 2004. Her publications include articles in the Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Newspaper Research Journal, Mass Communication & Society, and Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Her current research projects include peace journalism and global media ethics. She is writing a book on communication in knowledge management. She teaches media ethics and media effects.

Karie A. Barbour, Economics

Karie Barbour is an Assistant Professor of Economics with research interests in public finance and environmental economics. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Her work on welfare program outcomes appears in the Southern Economic Journal and has been presented before the National Association on Welfare Research and Statistics. Her work on the effects of various forms of taxation appears in the National Tax Association Proceedings and will be presented before the American Economic Association.

Steve Lamos, English

Steve Lamos, Assistant Professor of English, is from the University of Illinois, where he directed the Writing Center. In addition to his expertise in issues of race and composition history, which he has explored in his dissertation, “Sponsoring ‘Educational Opportunity’: Race, Racism, and Writing Instruction at One Predominately-White University, 1968-1994,” Dr. Lamos’s specialties include writing across the curriculum, scientific writing instruction, and developmental writing.

Amy Robillard, English

Amy Robillard, Assistant Professor of English, comes to Illinois State from the program in Composition and Cultural Studies at Syracuse University. Dr. Robillard’s dissertation, “Autobiography, Authorship, and the Circulation of Writing: Reimagining Student’s Writerly Authority,” reflects her interests in contemporary authorship theories, feminist autobiography, literacy studies and composition pedagogies. Her research and teaching interests also include narrative theory and working-class literacies.

Lynn Worsham, English

Lynn Worsham, Professor of English, is a distinguished scholar of rhetorical theory, critical theory, feminist theory, women’s literature, African American literature, and postcolonial literature. The author of numerous books and articles, Dr. Worsham is also the editor of JAC, a quarterly journal devoted to the interdisciplinary study of rhetoric, culture, and politics. Her Ph.D. in Humanities is from the University of Texas at Arlington, and she has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she coordinated the Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Composition Studies (1992-1994) and the Graduate Program in Modern Studies (1994-1996), and at the University of South Florida, where she also coordinated the Graduate Program in Rhetoric and Composition (2003).

Julia Palmer, Foreign Languages

Julia Palmer is a new assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Languages. She holds a B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish and a M.A. in Spanish Literature from the University of Virginia; and a second M.A. and doctorate in Romance Linguistics from the University of Michigan. Prior to accepting our post she taught at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, and at the University of Virginia's College at Wise. Her dissertation topic was "The Development of Subjunctive Use in Expressions of Emotion from Latin to Spanish." In addition to historical research, she has conducted fieldwork in Costa Rica to explore the contemporary sociolinguistic aspects of subjunctive use in such expressions, comparing usage and explanations by subjects with varying levels of formal education.

Amy Bloom, Geography-Geology

Amy M. Bloom is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Geography. She received her B.A. in Geology, with a double minor in Biology and Environmental Studies, from Augustana College and her M.S. in Geography from the University of Utah. Currently, she is in the final stages of completing her PhD. in Geography from the University of Utah. Amy’s research interests lie in the areas of Quaternary environments, climate and environmental change, paleolimnology, and biogeography. Her dissertation research focuses on the study of lake sediments from alpine lakes in the Sierra Nevada, California to quantitatively reconstruct a high-resolution record of past climatic and environmental conditions, including drought events, for the region throughout the last 10,000 years. Bloom will teach courses in introductory physical geography, natural disasters, and geographic information systems (GIS). Next year she plans to add a newly developed course in biogeography to the current curriculum.

Richard L. Hughes, History

Richard Hughes is the History Department’s new history education specialist. Before obtaining his master’s degree in History from Wake Forest and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in 2002, he taught history, government, and economics for four years at Southern High School in Durham, North Carolina. While he was working on his Ph.D., he served for six years as the field coordinator of the University of Kansas Center for Economic Education. For the last three years Richard has had a tenure-track position at Eastern Oregon University. Richard’s scholarly interests lie in the second half of the twentieth century. He is currently working on two book manuscripts: “The ‘Disco Sucks’ Movement of the 1970s: Popular Music and the Cultural Backlash,” for the University of Florida Press, and “Tangled Up in the Sixties: Progressive Activism and the Pro-Life Movement,” for the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Katrin Paehler, History

Katrin Paehler, a native of the Federal Republic, is the History Department’s new expert on modern German history. This spring she will be offering for the first time at Illinois State an upper-level course on the Holocaust, thus preparing our students to teach this mandated topic. She obtained her master’s degree from Phillips-Universität in Marburg (the oldest Protestant university in Germany) and just successfully defended her dissertation at American University in Washington. The topic is “Espionage, Ideology, and Personnel Politics: The Making and Unmaking of a Nazi Intelligence Service.” This is an especially timely topic because it deals with the misinformation that intelligence services report to their political superiors. Katrin has participated in several summer institutes and workshops at the Holocaust Museum in Washington and at the Holocaust Educational Foundation at Northwestern University.

Fusun Akman, Mathematics

Dr. Akman joins us from Coastal Carolina University where she has been an assistant professor since 1999. Her research interests include generalizations of algebraic structures in differential geometry to modern mathematical physics as well as fractal properties and distributions of prime numbers in the integers. Previous to her position at Coastal Carolina University, Dr. Akman had earned her Ph.D. in 1993 from Yale University and she had been on faculty both at Utah State University and as an H.C. Wang Assistant Professor at Cornell University.

Olcay Akman, Mathematics

Dr. Akman will join us this Fall as a visiting assistant professor and in Fall 2005 move into an assistant professor position. He joins us from the College of Charleston where he was an assistant professor. His statistical research interests include modeling for lifetime data, weighted distributions, selection models, and statistical computing. Previous to his position at the College of Charleston, Dr. Akman earned his Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of Maine and he has been on faculty at Cornell University, Utah State University, and Coastal Carolina University.

Gaywalee (Gail) Yamskulna, Mathematics

Dr. Gail Yamskulna joins us from SUNY Binghamton where she has been a visiting assistant professor since 2001. Her research interests in mathematical physics include the representation theory of vertex operator algebras, orbifold theory, and classification problems for rational vertex operator algebras. Previous to her position at SUNY Binghamton, Dr. Yamskulna earned her Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Michaelene D. Cox, Politics and Government

Dr. Cox received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 2002. Prior to that, she received her master’s degree in International Studies from Troy State University in Alabama in 1995. Her undergraduate degree is in Political Science and Journalism from Arizona State University. Since receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Cox taught at Brescia University and Western Kentucky University. Her expertise is on Comparative Politics and International Relations with emphasis on Europe. Dr. Cox is already an established scholar with publications in journals such as the Journal of Peace Studies. Michaelene will be teaching courses on European politics, international relations and international law.

Gary L. Cates, Psychology

Gary Cates joins our School Psychology faculty after three years as assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University. His doctorate is from Mississippi State University and his internship was at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His specialty is children's academic performance problems and designing and evaluating curriculum-based interventions for them. His interest in data-based decision-making and accountability is central to current efforts at educational reform. He will be starting a children's academic intervention service at the Psychological Services Center. He will be teaching Educational Psychology to teacher-education students and curriculum-based assessment to School Psychology specialist and doctoral students.

William Joel Schneider, Psychology

William Joel Schneider received his clinical psychology doctorate from Texas A & M, spent an internship year at Dutchess County (NY) Department of Mental Hygiene, and has served two years here as a non-tenure-track faculty. His wide-ranging interests include transtheoretical models of psychological change in individuals, couples, and families, and psychological assessment, including design of scoring and interpretative software. He has already taught General Education courses in psychology and statistics and will be teaching courses in cognitive assessment and theories of counseling. He also directs the College Learning Assessment Service at the Psychological Services Center.

Richard Sullivan, Sociology & Anthropology

Richard Sullivan is the newest faculty member to join the Department of Sociology & Anthropology. He recently earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he specialized in political sociology, social movements, and labor studies. Richard’s dissertation examined the social movement dynamics of labor organizing. Political sociology is an area of renewed interest within the discipline, and his expertise will be an important complement to others represented among our sociologists. Richard has significant teaching experience for a recent Ph.D., and has a solid research agenda. He will be teaching Introductory Sociology, Social Movements, and Social Problems for the department in his first year, and we look forward to his future development and teaching of new courses in political sociology and labor studies.

Tena McNamara, Speech Pathology/Audiology

Dr. McNamara received her Doctor of Audiology degree from the University of Florida in 2002 and is clinically certified in both Speech Pathology and Audiology. She has worked as an Instructor and Clinical Supervisor at the Eckelman-Taylor Speech and Hearing Clinic at Illinois State University since 1996. She has previously worked as an audiologist in various medical and educational settings in central Illinois. Her current research interests are in the area of auditory processing disorders, classroom acoustics and reading development.