Wren Bareiss (Communication) is co-editor of the new book “Suicide in Popular Media and Culture: Studies in Framing a Social Catastrophe.” He also authored the chapter “Celebrity Suicide as Opportunity for Public Education: Professional Medical Sources and Themes in Press Coverage of Anthony Bourdain’s Suicide.”
Logan Camp-Spivey (Nursing) earned the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) Effective Teaching Practices Certification and was accepted into the Regional Fellows 2026 program through Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System. She and her co-authors received the Best Poster Presentation Award at the 2025 Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Poster Fair. She also co-authored “Simulation-Based Integration of Transgender Patient Care and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Competency for Prelicensure Nursing Students” in the journal Nurse Educator.
Chung-Yean Chiang (Management) published the paper “Fortifying firm resilience: The interplay of network embeddedness and AI capabilities” in the International Journal of Information Management.
Ryan Crawford ’06 (Nursing) completed the Amy V. Cockcroft Leadership Fellowship in March. The yearlong program at the University of South Carolina prepares accomplished nurses to become innovative leaders who advance health care and the nursing profession through teaching, research, and service.
Ona Egbue (IES) began serving as director of International Sustainability Management Education (ISME) in January. ISME is an interdisciplinary initiative focused on advancing sustainability education and international engagement.
Derek Fenner (Art Education) co-presented with USC Upstate alumna Morgan Kitts at the National Art Education Association annual conference in Chicago in March. Their workshop, “Unfolding Art Education: Accordion Book Pedagogy,” was selected as a special ticketed workshop and sold out. Their ongoing research continues work they started in 2024 on accordion-fold books as arts-based research tools.
Ron Fulbright (Informatics) has been issued a new patent for an “expandable drone.” The drone is made of small, connectable modules that can be added or rearranged to change what it can do. Potential applications include search and rescue missions, surveillance, farming, or even as a toy.
Charles Harrington (IDS) published the article “The Transformative Potential of Artificial Intelligence in Interdisciplinary Studies Curriculum and Programs” in the February 2026 issue of the International Journal of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education. He also co-authored “Ladders and Bridges: Strengthening Undergraduate Pipelines for Chiropractic Graduate Success” in the Journal of Contemporary Chiropractic.
Araceli Hernández-Laroche (Modern Languages) completed her first year serving on the open-access international advisory council for the Cambridge University Press Public Humanities Journal. In October 2025, she began her term representing Spartanburg on the SC Humanities board of directors and was invited to travel to Washington, D.C., in March to represent South Carolina for “Humanities on the Hill” hosted by the Federation of State Humanities Councils.
Lisa Johnson (Women’s and Gender Studies) presented her research on “Fatal Attraction” at the WGS South conference. She also participated in a roundtable of women’s and gender studies administrators on the experience of leading WGS programs and departments in South Carolina.
Polinho Katina (AMM) co-edited the textbook “Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Supply Chain Management.”
Kimberly Land (Marketing) was inducted into the Darla Moore School of Business Hall of Fame in Columbia on April 24.
Alex Lorenz (German) presented “Future-Focused Programs & Innovation at American Universities” at Global Connect Summit in Boracay, Philippines, and with Jeffrey Stinson (dean, JCBE) presented “Bridging Regions through Technology and Global Engagement” at the fourth IEEE International Conference on Advancement in Technology in Goa, India. He also spoke at the University of Texas at Austin on “The State of German Studies in the United States.”
Tracey Miller (Nursing) published an opinion piece on the online site The Minority Eye.
Victoria Pennington (Education) co-authored the article “‘It all comes full circle’: The impact of multilingual literacy pedagogies with teachers, students, and families” in the journal Reading Research Quarterly.
Laura Rikard (Theatre) was selected as the National Alliance Outstanding Acting Teaching Fellow. She will be attending the alliance’s teacher program in Los Angeles in May and its national conference in New York City in June. Earlier this year, she was honored by the American College Theatre Festival Region IV with the National Alliance of Acting Teachers Acting Teacher Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the teaching of acting at the collegiate level.
Nolan Stolz (Music) had the movement “Vacancy/No Vacancy” from his latest composition “Route 66 Suite” performed in preview by the Signature Symphony in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In November, he presented the paper “Whatever Happened to the First X-Rated Musical Film?” at the national conference of the American Musicological Society in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Tyrone Toland ’90 (IES) presented the talk “Embracing Generative AI in the Classroom” at the the 2026 Benedict College International Multidisciplinary Conference (BCIMC).
Justin Travis ’08 (Psychology) will present “A Unified Leadership Perceptions Model” at the 41st annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference in New Orleans in May.
Refika Turgut (Education) co-authored “Programming Metamorphosis: Bridging Language and Science Through Robotics” in the journal Science Activities. She also presented “Insights from an ESOL Teacher Implementing Linguistically Inclusive Computer Science Curriculum” at the annual Eastern Educational Research Association Conference in Clearwater, Florida.
