Faculty News

Associate Professor Shanna Katari spoke with NPR’s Marketplace about job discrimination and the role it plays in the higher rates of economic hardship that transgendered people face in the U.S. “So it might not be something as explicit as ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re trans,’ but ‘I’m not hiring you because you don’t match my idea of what a woman should look like,’” they said.

Associate Clinical Professor Daicia Price spoke with Gray TV’s Local News Live about social media and loneliness. “Social Media has a role in our society,” she said, “but it is not a replacement for those intimate connections that people probably were really desiring.”

Associate Professor Shanna Kattari was interviewed on PBS NewsHour Weekend in a segment on the challenges of love and dating while living with disabilities.

“I think nondisabled people really buy into a lot of the notions that have been perpetuated around disability and disabled people, such as disabled folks are all asexual, which is not true,” said Kattari. “There is this idea that we should feel grateful to be asked on a date or grateful to be partnered with, which is totally not the case.”

Assistant Professor Anao Zhang has been named to the 2023 cohort of the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program. Established by the Cambia Health Foundation in 2014, the program advances the next generation of palliative care leaders across a range of disciplines — including nursing, social work, pharmacy, communications, health systems, psychology and spirituality —with a goal of increasing palliative care access, awareness and quality across the nation. Zhang will receive a two-year, $180,000 grant for his project “Developing and implementing an inclusive and equitable framework to integrate palliative care services in adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology programs.” 

Associate Professor Camille Quinn spoke with ABC affiliate KVUE in Austin, Texas, about a new state law designed to keep at-risk youth out of the juvenile justice system. “Once you touch that legal system, it's very difficult to get un-ensnared," she said.

Assistant Professor Rebeccah Sokol is quoted in the Detroit News on a new firearm storage requirement in Michigan that goes into effect next month. The new legislation will require gun owners to store their firearms in a locked box or unloaded with a locking device when there is a reasonable chance that a minor is or is likely to be on the premises. “We often assume that these safe storage laws encourage adults to store their firearms locked and unloaded,” Sokol said, “but these laws’ life-saving potential can only be realized if firearm owners know about them and public officials enforce them.”

Lecturer Erin Martinez-Gillard spoke with Crazy Wisdom Journal about sexual health education and effective ways to talk about sex and relationships with young people. “Creating an open door for questions and conversations is imperative. This is never, in any role, a one-time Q&A,” said Martinez-Gillard.

Assistant Professor Ashley Cureton was quoted in the Boston Globe about the struggles of Ukrainian refugee families. The article explores how multiple school transfers can uproot vulnerable kids and compound the trauma and loss they’ve already experienced as refugees. “It is imperative that they can stay in one place, that they can build those relationships, that they can build a sense of community, and really feel like they have a place here in the U.S.,” Cureton said.