Dr. John A. Johnson
Professor of Psychology
Research Statement: My research has been aimed at improving the validity of self-report personality tests. I am especially interested in methods for improving the validity and pragmatic utility of computer generated, narrative personality reports. In addition to my research aimed at improving personality test validity, I have conducted research in several specific content areas. These include the impact of personality on educational development, vocational choice, and job performance; personality characteristics related to empathy, deviance, and creativity; the relationship between personality, moral development and human evolution; and psychological factors influencing the conduct of scientific research.
Carroll, J., Johnson, J. A., Gottschall, J., Kruger, D., & Georgiades, S. (2010). Quantifying tonal analysis in The Mayor of Casterbridge. Style, 44(1/2), 164-188.
Johnson, J. A., Carroll, J., Gottschall, J., & Kruger, D. (2011). Portrayal of personality in Victorian novels reflects modern research findings but amplifies the significance of agreeableness. Journal of Research in Personality, 45(1), 50-58. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.11.011
Johnson, J. A. (2011). The argumentative theory of reasoning applies to scientists and philosophers, too. [commentary on Mercier & Sperber: Why do humans reason?]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 34, 81-82. doi:10.1017/S0140525X10002931
Carroll, J., Gottschall, J., Johnson, J. A., & Kruger, D. (2012). Graphing Jane Austen: The Evolutionary Basis for Literary Meaning. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dr. Richard Kopley
Distinguished Professor of English
Research Statement: My research has involved American Renaissance Literature, work from the antebellum period. My particular authors are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry David Thoreau. My approach to their works is close reading, involving seeking both literary sources and formal patterning. In my early years at Penn State DuBois, I studied Poe's novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener." In more recent years, I've focused on Thoreau's classic Walden, Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, and Poe's detective stories. I've also examined the way in which Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville critiqued Transcendentalism. My current book project, "The Enduring Center in Literature and Film," reveals and interprets the ways in which literary and cinematic structure involves a symmetrically framed midpoint.
Kopley, R. (2008). Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin mysteries. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kopley, R. (2010). Naysayers: Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville. In S. Harbert Petrulionis, L. Dassow Walls, J. Myerson (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com
Dr. Robert E. Loeb
Associate Professor of Biology and Forestry
Research Statement: Based on my doctoral research in biology, geography and geology at New York University, I examine long term forest ecology in urban and urbanizing areas as the focus of my research. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines research in forest composition resampling and comparison, fossil pollen studies, and primary historical sources, I examine the relationships between human activities and forest changes. The management of urban forests from the historical and developmental perspectives is the applied component of the research.
Loeb, R. (2012). Arboricultural introductions and long-term changes for invasive woody plants in remnant urban forests. Forests, 3(3), 745-763. doi: 10.3390/f3030745
Loeb, R. E., Germeraad, J., Griffin, L., & Ward, S. (2011). Arboreal composition changes following white-tailed deer restoration to urban park forests without off-trail park visitor trampling. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 10, 305-310. doi: 10.1016/j.ufug.2011.07.002
Loeb, R. E., & King, S. (2011). Landslides and the urban forest. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry, 37(5), 213-218.
Loeb, R. E., Germeraad, J., Treece, T., Wakefield, D., & Ward, S. (2010). Effects of 1-year vs. annual treatment of amur honeysuckle (lonicera maackii) in forests. Invasive Plant Science and Management, 3(3), 334-339. doi: 10.1614/IPSM-D-09-00054.1
Loeb, R. E. (2011). Old growth urban forests. New York, NY: Springer.
Dr. James E. May
Associate Professor of English
Research Statement: My work involves the study of physical and textural evidence in eighteenth-century books to establish what authors and printers did and where, when, how, and why they did it. I try to explain why printed works have the texts and physical features they have. I have described and analyzed the publication history, defining the author's revisions, the publisher's marketing strategies, and the press's corruptions, for works such as Tobias Smollett's histories of England, in "The Authoritative Editions of Smollett's Complete History of Egnland" in Tobias Smollett, Scotland's First Novelist (2007) and "The Publication and Revision of Tobias Smollett's Continuation of the Complete History of England, 1760-1771" in New Contexts for Eighteenth-Century British Fiction (2011).
May, J. (2008). Revising Teerink: A critique with notes towards a revised descriptive bibliography of Swift. In H.J. Real (Ed.), Reading Swift: Papers from the Fifth Munster symposium on Jonathan Swift (pp. 69-98). Munich: Wilhelm Fink.
May, J. (2011). The printing and publication of three folio editions of Geroge Lyttelton's To the Memory of a Lady Lately Deceased (1747-1748). In R. Walker, E.D. Taylor, & W.B. Gerard (Eds.), Swiftly Sterneward: Essays on Laurence Sterne and his times in honor of Melvyn New (pp. 89-114). Neward: University of Delaware Press.
May, J. (2011). The publication and revision of Tobias Smollett's Continuation of the Complete History of England, 1760-1771. In C.D. Johnson (Ed.), New contexts for eighteenth-century British fiction: "Hearts resolved and hands prepared": Essays in honor of Jerry C. Beasley (pp. 231-354). Newark: University of Delaware Press.
May, J. (2012). Threats to bibliographical and textual studies posed by widely distributed film and digitized texts. In K.L. Cope & R. Leitz (Eds.), Textual studies and the enlarged eighteenth century: precision as profusion (pp. 61-97). Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell Univeristy Press.
Dr. B.C. Ben Park
Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies
Research Statement: The research program I have pursued has concerned a number of topics, including suicide behavior, the personal impacts of immigration, and the socialization of youth. The major strand of my research has looked at suicide, which has been an emerging public health issue in many Pacific-rim countries. A particular focus in this research has been on how the increased suicide behavior in the modern era is related to the classic sociological problem of how macro-level historical and structural forces have impacts on the micro-level of individual lives. I have also developed research that addresses politically-inspired suicide, a controversial but little studied phenomenon which has had profound impacts on modern societies. My recent research examines the relationship between one's suicidality and enculturation that compare Korean college students with the American counter parts. My aim is to understand how different dimensions of cultural forces play a role in causing and preventing suicidal behavior.
Yip, P. S.F., Chen, Y.Y., Yousuf, S., Lee, C.K.M., Kawano, K., Park, B.C.B., ... Wu, K.C.C. (2012). Towards a reassessment of the role of divorce in suicide outcomes: Evidence from five pacific rim populations. Social Science & Medicine, 75, 358-366. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.03.009
Park, B.C.B, Kim, J.J., & Lester, D. (2011). Reasons for committing suicide in South Korean university students. Suicidology Online, 2, 11-16. Retrieved from www.suicidology-online.com
Leenaars, A.A., Park, B.C.B., Collins, P.I., Wenckstern, S., & Leenaars, L. (2010). Martyrs' last letters: Are they the same as suicide notes? Journal of Forensic Sciences, 55(3), 660-668. doi:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01275.x
Dr. Debra L. Straussfogel
Associate Professor of Geography
Research Statement: My academic journey has followed questions regarding humanity's place on, and interaction with, the planet. While an undergraduate, the valued advice of a special mentor led me to pursue advanced degrees in Geography, a field defined by the integration of human, social, physical and ecological questions. The broad subject area of my work has integrated resource geography and systems science with applications to issues of sustainable development in rural resource-based communities. I seek interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches, and have utilized both quantitative methodologies and conceptual frameworks, such as world-systems theory and the bioregional perspective. Currently I am exploring two topics of interst (1) an evaluation of issues of social equity in the US as related to sustainable development, and (2) the teaching and practice of sustainability as an "abundance paradigm."
Straussfogel, D. (2006). Exploring the theoretical interface of climate change and resource dependency: Application to the vulnerability of boreal forest regions. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 11, 911-931. doi: 10.1007/s11027-005-9022-5
Straussfogel, D., & von Schilling, C. (2009). Systems Theory. In Kitchin, R. & Thrift, N. (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, volume 11, pp. 151-158. Oxford: Elsevier.
