Faculty Research Lightning Talks: Meet Linda Wunderley

The UCBA Library’s 3rd Annual Faculty Research Lightning Talks on March 10, 2020 featured four presenters and their discipline-based research projects via short, 15 minute presentations. In our  Meet the Presenters series, each presenter shares some insights into their research project.

Linda Wunderley | Assistant Professor, Adjunct | Business & Economics
Presentation: The Real Truth About What Determines Our Professional Performance

Linda Wunderley presents her research.

Linda Wunderley discusses her research.

Research Project
Today’s frenetic pace of market change and stressful organizational environments have the business world struggling with not only redesigning their professional development efforts to address this new normal, but also attempting to understand why past practices have repeatedly proven so ineffective! At the same time, Neuroscience research may have uncovered a critical correlation (between an individual’s significant life experiences and their repetitive thoughts, feelings and behavior) which could provide the very insight and direction needed for a professional development reinvention. But empirical data specific to the business world is needed. This research study is attempting to provide that data.

collage of famous people in a powerpoint slide

A slide from Linda Wunderley’s The Real Truth About What Determines Our Professional Performance presentation. Source: Linda Wunderley

What excites you most about your research?
Top management across the U.S. today, as well as the likes of Deloitte and McKinsey, report little or no behavior change on the part of the ‘trained’ or the ‘coached.’ But the need for improved soft skills such as better communication, persuasion, team building and creativity is huge and growing. This research could provide the empirical data for a potential sea change in our approach to such Professional Development.

What are your next steps with your research?
Continue to recruit participants to increase sample size.

Past Publication

Wunderley, L. J., Reddy, W.B. & Dember, W.N. (2006). Optimism and Pessimism in Business LeadersJournal of Applied Social Psychology. 28 (9) 751-760.

Additional Resources
* Library copy currently unavailable to request at this time

  • *Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random Books.
  • Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2017). The Talent Delusion: Why Data, Not Intuition, Is the Key to Unlocking Human Potential. Great Britain: Piatkus
  • Felitti, V. J. et.al. (1998). Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventative Medicine. 14, 4, 245-258.
  • Kellerman, B. (2012). The End of Leadership. New York: HarperCollins.
  • *Lipton, B. (2005). The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Publishers.
  • Merzenich, M. (2013). Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life.

San Francisco: Parnassus Publishing.

 

By Lauren Wahman

Faculty Research Lightning Talks: Meet David Freeman

The UCBA Library’s 3rd Annual Faculty Research Lightning Talks on March 10, 2020 featured four presenters and their discipline-based research projects via short, 15 minute presentations. In our Meet the Presenters series, each presenter shares some insights into their research project.

David Freeman| Associate Professor of Mathematics| Math, Physics & Computer Science Department
Presentation: Geometry from Symmetry

David Freeman giving a presentation.

David Freeman discusses his research.

Research Project
My research has been focused on the concept of symmetry. Here I use the word “symmetry” to denote a way to transform an object into itself (e.g. a reflection or rotation). My goal is to understand all possible objects that admit certain types of symmetries.

Are there any opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration with your research? If already cross-disciplinary, are there opportunities to expand it?
Yes, at least to some extent. I am very interested in the philosophy of mathematics, and I am hoping to eventually contribute to the ongoing debate about the ontology of mathematical objects (such as the ones I study). I am also quite interested in mathematically-inspired artwork. I believe there are many opportunities to express mathematical ideas through visual (and other types of) art.

What are your next steps with your research?
My long term goal is to prove a conjecture that has motivated the work I’ve already been doing. This conjecture pertains to the classification of certain mathematical objects that exhibit a high degree of “coarse” symmetry. For all I know the conjecture may end up being false, but I am somewhat optimistic that it is true. I’m not sure if a proof is within reach, but I’m willing to give it a shot. In general, this is the nature of many mathematical research projects: one group of mathematicians will pose a conjecture, and then some other group will prove (or disprove) the conjecture.

Forthcoming Publication

David Freeman, Enrico Le Donne. (Forthcoming).Toward a quasi-Möbius characterization of Invertible Homogeneous Metric Spaces. Revista Matemática Iberoamericana.

 

By Lauren Wahman

Faculty Research Lightning Talks: Meet Carla Cesare  

The UCBA Library’s 3rd Annual Faculty Research Lightning Talks on March 10, 2020 featured four presenters and their discipline-based research projects via short, 15 minute presentations. In our Meet the Presenters series, each presenter shares some insights into their research project.

Carla Cesare | Assistant Professor of Art History | Art & Visual Communication Department

Presentation: Networks of Design: Women at Work

Professor Carla Cesare giving a presentation

Carla Cesare discusses her research.

Research Project
Networks of Design is a research project/book proposal that looks at a body of women who were working in the emerging design disciplines in America in the 1920s-30s. It does so through the contemporary lens of design thinking which includes research, making and marketing; uncovering the breadth of work women were doing and the network they were creating, unconsciously or not. By uncovering ‘anonymous’, women are brought to the foreground of design history, not just through biographies or even the objects designed, but by linking their educational and career trajectories and reconsidering the role women have played in making our daily lives through design.

Cesare Slide showing different advertisements

A slide from Cesare’s Networks of Design: Women at Work presentation 

Are there any opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration with your research? If already cross-disciplinary, are there opportunities to expand it?
There are two areas: Women’s history and the inclusion women of the design discipline; second, I think it could be a stepping off point for people looking at the history of retail and media as the evolution of organizational structures is pretty interesting.

What are your next steps with your research?
I’m currently revising a book proposal; a publisher contacted me and they think it’s viable and a fit. So hopefully a book is next.

Additional Resources
To date I’ve primarily used archives and libraries including:  UC’s Special Collections, Purdue University, Smith College, New York Public Library, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, Henry Ford Museum, Cranbrook Academy of Art, University of Chicago and the Mattatuck Historical Society.

 

by Lauren Wahman

UCBA Faculty Share Research at 2nd Lightning Talks

by Lauren Wahman

The UCBA Library hosted its 2nd Faculty Research Lightning Talks on Thursday March 28.  This year’s event showcased a variety of research projects via short, 15 minute presentations.  UCBA faculty and staff enjoyed light refreshments, had the opportunity to learn about research outside of their disciplines, and ask thoughtful questions during the Q&A’s.

Faculty Lighting Talk presenters

(L-R) Ruth Benander, Ornaith O’Dowd, Amy Miller, Patrick Owen

Lighting Talk Presentations

Ruth Benander | Professor | English & Communication
Barriers and Supports: Demographic Patterns and Student Perceptions in Comp and Comm Courses

Ornaith O’Dowd | Assistant Professor | History, Philosophy & Political Science
The Ethics of Microaggressions

Amy Miller & Patrick Owen | Associate Professors | Biology
Blending Ecological, Microbiological, and Molecular Techniques to Create Multifaceted Undergraduate Research Projects

 

UCBA Librarians Present at the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

by Michelle McKinney and Kellie Tilton

UC Blue Ash librarians, Michelle McKinney and Kellie Tilton set off for Albuquerque, NM to attend and present at the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC). Continue reading

UCBA Library Hosts 1st Faculty Lightning Talks

lighting talk graphic

By Lauren Wahman

 

These short, 15-minute presentations will showcase faculty research and share different aspects of the research process.

Thursday, March 22 2:00-3:00 pm
Muntz 117

Sonja Andrus
‘So, You Teach for Transfer. Do You Know What You’re Looking For?’ A Quick Look at Transfer in Two-Year College Students

Wendy Calaway & Keshar Ghimire
Evidence From Classroom Research:  Evaluating Students’ Perceptions Toward Courts and Police

Heather Vilvens
Creating Effective Safe Sleep Messaging for Caregivers of Infants Less than 1 Year Old