For the Record provides information about recent professional activities and honors of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent publications, service, honors, grants and presentations include the following:

Publications

Sarah Curtiss, assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development’s School of Education, has published two articles with colleagues. They include “Verse and Voice: A Guide for Poetic Inquiry in Transformative Educational Research,” published in Qualitative Research, and “Mixed-methods Study of Autistic and Non-Autistic Community Member Participation in Autism Research,” published in a special issue of Autism on the autistic rights movement and the social model of disability in autism research. Curtiss specializes in special education and contributes research on programs for autistic youth that foster resilience, facilitate positive development and are grounded in lived experience.

Greg Shelnutt, professor of sculpture in the Department of Art and Design, has had his review of Katie Hudnall’s solo exhibition at the Museum for Art in Wood (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), published on the Sculpture magazine website. Hudnall’s show, “The Longest Distance Between Two Points,” is on view through July 20, 2025. A publication of the International Sculpture Center, Sculpture magazine is the essential source of information, criticism and dialogue on all forms of contemporary sculpture internationally. It is published in print form and digitally six times per year. 

An article by Emily Day, associate professor, Elise Hoover, doctoral alumna, and Chitran Roy Chowdhury, doctoral student, all in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, entitled “Membrane-modified lipid nanoparticles for RNA delivery,” was published June 23, 2025, in Molecular Therapy – Methods and Clinical Development. 

Service

Twenty-seven Delaware Department of Labor (DOL) employees from across the state graduated from the annual DOL Leadership Academy, hosted by the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration (IPA). The cohort completed six full-day sessions focused on enhancing professional competencies, including leading practices in public sector leadership, human-centered design thinking, navigating a diverse workforce, effective communication for managing change and conflict, project implementation and organizational innovation. Program speakers included Joy Jordan, associate policy scientist, IPA; Troy Mix, associate director, IPA; Sarah Marshall, associate policy scientist, IPA; Jennifer Daniels, national poverty fellow at the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin; Christine Fischer, professor of design thinking at UD; Jennifer Clement, owner and lead strategist of Educere Institute; and Thomas H. DeWire, founder of EdScale. From March through June, the academy participants completed capstone projects to improve customer experience and outcomes. On June 12, 2025, DOL’s senior leaders attended the academy's concluding session, where each team presented its capstone project.

Honors

Jennifer Kubota, associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, has been nominated president-elect of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS), a leading organization in the neuroscience community. SANS provides a community to its members and also offers learning opportunities throughout the year, as well as information about relevant career opportunities. Kubota, who has a dual appointment in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, will serve a three-year commitment. She will serve as vice president for the next year, followed by one year as president and a final year as post-president. During her term, Kubota said she would like to focus on four primary goals: expanding SANS membership; advocating for scientists and researchers, especially those focusing on vulnerable communities; supporting students and early career members; and extending the society’s public outreach to convey its important work.   

Farida Ahmed Koly, a mechanical engineering doctoral candidate advised by associate professor of mechanical engineering David Burris, received the 2025 Jean McCoy Scholarship, a Presidential Award, from the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers during the 79th STLE Annual Meeting, May 18-22, in Atlanta. The scholarship recognizes and supports future female leaders in the field of tribology. The materials tribology team presented the poster, “Experimental Method for In-Situ Scuffing Observation in Self-Mated Steel Using Synchrotron XRD,” which received the Gold Category Award for Best Poster at the same conference. Koly was also the lead author of the article, “Methods to Observe Tribological Failures in Self‑Mated Steel Contacts,” which was published in Tribology Letters and selected as a quarterly highlighted research article in Tribology and Lubrication Technology. Coauthors include University of Delaware researchers Koly, doctoral student Arnab Bhattacharjee and Burris; Nikhil Murthy, Scott Walck and Stephen Berkebile from DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory; and Benjamin Gould, Oyelayo Ajayi and Cinta Lorenzo Martin from Argonne National Laboratory.

Stephanie Cone, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been awarded the prestigious ORAU Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award for her project “Innovation in Tendon Structure-Function Characterization for Improved Rehabilitation Strategies.” The competitive award recognizes outstanding early-career faculty and supports promising research that has the potential to make a significant impact. Cone’s work aims to advance understanding of tendon biomechanics and improve rehabilitation outcomes through innovative structural and functional analyses.

Biomedical engineering doctoral student Lily Lin won second place in the Student Paper Competition at the ASME Summer Bioengineering Conference. held in June. The recognition highlights Lin’s outstanding research and contributions to the bioengineering field.

Grants

Julie Karand, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and her collaborators— Theresa Emmett, director of the nonprofit after school program FourYouth, and Jordan Estock, engineering faculty at Concord High School—have been awarded a Wilmington Partnership Mini-Grant to bring engineering outreach to middle school students in Wilmington, Delaware, with a focus on expanding access and opportunity in low-resource communities. Thanks to this funding, students will dive into the world of engineering through hands-on design projects and mentorship from the UD chapter of Engineers Without Borders. From biomedical marvels to creative construction challenges, students will explore what it means to be an engineer. 

Presentations

On June 27, 2025, Margaret Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and professor of humanities, gave a paper at a conference on "Decadence and War" that was held at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. The conference was sponsored by the British Association of Decadence Studies and the Decadence Research Centre at Goldsmiths. Her talk, titled "Late-Victorian and Neo-Victorian Women Writers on War: From E. Nesbit to Sandi Toksvig," examined the unexpected ways in which late-19th century women poets who wrote avant-garde works and led highly unconventional lives turned out to be staunch supporters of the British Empire and of the Boer War in South Africa. as well as how Valentine Grey, a 2012 novel by Sandi Toksvig, has represented this profoundly uncomfortable overlap of Decadence with imperialism and jingoism.

Ashutosh Khanda, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, presented “Assessing the Impact of the Use of Generative AI in Developing and Using Assessment Grading Rubrics for Engineering Courses,” with coauthors Thomas Aming’a Omwando of Simpson University, Adel Alhalawani of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Bhavana Kotla of The Ohio State University, at the American Society fir Engineering Education annual conference, held June 22-25, 2025. It was named the best paper of the Industrial Engineering Division.

Susan Conaty-Buck, assistant professor of nursing and family nurse practitioner, was selected to make two presentations at the 2025 American Association of Nurse Practitioner's Annual Conference June 18 - 22.  Collaborating with faculty from the University of Texas at Tyler and a director of telehealth for a Minnesota state practice, Conaty-Buck provided a three-hour workshop to an overflow crowd of more than 200 nurse practitioners, entitled “Digital Literacy for the NP: Mastering Generative AI in Healthcare.” The workshop, selected by a highly competitive blind peer review process, explored the transformative potential of Generative AI in nurse practitioner (NP) practice. Conaty-Buck, who developed and coordinated the workshop, said, "In the ever-evolving healthcare landscape, integrating machine learning advanced technologies such as Generative AI can significantly strengthen patient care, streamline administrative tasks, and support clinical decision-making." Despite the buzz about AI promising to deliver multiple patient and practitioner benefits, many NPs have not had significant exposure to AI or opportunities to apply this technology to NP practice. The workshop was designed to help NPs bridge that knowledge gap by offering personalized, hands-on instruction to improve the NPs' digital literacy and comfort using basic AI tools. Conaty-Buck, who teaches health information technology topics to UD's graduate nursing and healthcare MBA students, said, "Healthcare providers need a basic understanding of Generative AI application for healthcare so they will have greater confidence when considering adoption of AI technologies to improve their daily practice.” The presentation also addressed potential ethical, legal and regulatory challenges with AI adoption and shared future opportunities for strengthening patient care and research using AI technologies. Conaty-Buck's second presentation "The Digital Dilemma: The NP’s Role in Preventing Healthcare Cybersecurity Breaches," was presented with Debbi Lindgren-Clendenen, a telehealth content expert from Minnesota, to alert NPs about the growing threat of cyberattacks in the healthcare sector, which has significantly increased since 2020 with the average cost reaching $10.93 million in 2023. This represents a 53.3% increase compared to 2020, making healthcare the most expensive industry for data breaches. The presentation provided real-world examples of current breaches which compromise patient safety, as well as caused significant financial penalties and reputational damages for healthcare practices. Conaty-Buck said, "NPs need an  understanding of healthcare cybersecurity including the increasing prevalence of ransomware attacks, phishing schemes, unauthorized access and third-party vulnerabilities that can impact the safety of their patients' data."  The presentation provided recommendations on cybercrime prevention and mitigation strategies such as employee training, AI-powered threat detection and secure telehealth platforms.  With more NPs owning and operating their own healthcare practice, Conaty-Buck noted, "NPs must maintain patient trust including belief that their healthcare provider is actively working to protect their private health information including taking action to minimize cybersecurity risks and ensure compliance with evolving regulatory standards in an increasingly digital healthcare landscape."

To submit information for inclusion in For the Record, write to ocm@udel.edu and include “For the Record” in the subject line.