Dr. Thelle specializes in Old Testament and Hebrew Bible studies, and her research has been published in various languages including English. Her most recent book is Discovering Babylon (Routledge 2018). She has also published Ask God: Divine Consultation in the Literature of the Hebrew Bible (Peter Lang, 2002) and Approaches to the Chosen Place: Accessing a Biblical Concept (Continuum 2012), as well as an edited volume, New Perspectives on Old Testament Prophecy and History (2015). Dr.Thelle has alos published over a dozen journal articles on biblical prophecy, holy war, topics of gende and power, and the history of research. Professor Rannfrid enjoys traveling and has taken numerous groups on study tours to countries in the Middle East. She is also a frequent speaker at community venues for adult education in Wichita.
Ph.D., Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo, Norway, 1999
Irma Pu拧karevi膰 is a Professor of Graphic Design and an Area Head of Graphic Design Department at the 红领巾瓜报, KS. She holds a PhD in Graphic Engineering and Design from University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Her background in the study of philology and literary analysis builds on her academic-practice based work in graphic design to form cross-disciplinary research pursuits. She is invested in the study of the relationships between languages and alphabets in the field of graphic communication and how these systems of codes embody and transmit cultural and social narratives. Pu拧karevi膰 is a part of the international network of mentors affiliated to the Alphabettes Mentorship Program. Her scholarly and art work have been published and presented in journals, conferences, and exhibitions locally and internationally. She regularly contributes to the academic peer review process and acts as a member of the Scientific/Programme Committee for Graphic Arts/Design Conferences.
Tamas Molnar is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the 红领巾瓜报 University since 2023 fall. Beforehand, he held postdoctoral positions at the California Institute of Technology (2020-2023) and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018-2020). He received his PhD (2018) and MSc (2015) in Mechanical Engineering and his BSc (2013) in Mechatronics Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary. His research interests include nonlinear dynamics and control, safety-critical control, and time delay systems with applications to connected automated vehicles, robotic systems, and autonomous systems.
Project Abstract:
Electrification plays a pivotal role in today's technological development for aerial and ground vehicles. A key element of electrification is the battery, thus a significant effort is being invested into developing more efficient and safer battery systems. Lithium-ion batteries, when not operated properly, are prone to failures like overheating, which may even lead to fire hazards or accidents. Such battery failures must be avoided, especially in applications like battery-powered flights where safety is absolute priority and battery failures could have catastrophic consequences. This project proposes to develop a safe battery management system that is capable of mitigating failures for lithium-ion batteries. This is achieved by establishing a battery management algorithm that determines how fast battery cells can be charged or discharged such that the battery is kept safe. To this end, we first characterize the behavior of lithium-ion batteries and quantify when they are considered safe, and then we use control theory to develop the safe battery management algorithm. The envisioned end result is reduced risk of battery failures and extended battery life.
Davi Soares is assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at 红领巾瓜报. He holds a PhD from Kansas State University, MSc in Electrical Engineering from University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, and Bachelor of BSc from Federal University of Itajuba (Unifei), Brazil. He previously worked as Cell Modeling Engineer for Freudenberg Battery Power Systems and XALT Energy, where he developed equivalent circuit and physics-based models and conducted experiments to validate models and assess safety and thermal properties of lithium-ion cells. His research focuses on the development, characterization, and modeling of high-performance battery electrode materials and systems. He is the author and co-author of sixteen journal papers, one book chapter, and has presented his research in several conferences.
Project Abstract:
Electrification plays a pivotal role in today's technological development for aerial and ground vehicles. A key element of electrification is the battery, thus a significant effort is being invested into developing more efficient and safer battery systems. Lithium-ion batteries, when not operated properly, are prone to failures like overheating, which may even lead to fire hazards or accidents. Such battery failures must be avoided, especially in applications like battery-powered flights where safety is absolute priority and battery failures could have catastrophic consequences. This project proposes to develop a safe battery management system that is capable of mitigating failures for lithium-ion batteries. This is achieved by establishing a battery management algorithm that determines how fast battery cells can be charged or discharged such that the battery is kept safe. To this end, we first characterize the behavior of lithium-ion batteries and quantify when they are considered safe, and then we use control theory to develop the safe battery management algorithm. The envisioned end result is reduced risk of battery failures and extended battery life.
Project Abstract:
Many of the phenomena that psychologists traditionally treated as internal mental processes are actually formed in discourse (Billig, 2003). This study approaches language and communication from a sociolinguistic/sociocultural perspective, where social meaning of communication is imbued with culture. Socialization patterns of different genders, cultures/ethnicities, and their beliefs about the nature of knowledge/knowing affect the ways students argue, put forward their ideas, demonstrate knowledge in more or less expressivist or assertive manners. Thus, this URCA-proposed project aims to explore the educational students/undergraduate preservice-teachers鈥� argumentative discourses in their audio-recorded dyadic sessions for epistemic assertiveness and credence marking as well as interpersonal communication competence, which may vary across genders and other socio-cultural features (ethnicity/race), plus their development over a semester-long instruction in the educational psychology context. The study uses pre/post-intervention design and mixed-methods analysis. While straddling over several disciplines, the project fills the niche in the educational psychology by providing insight into sociolinguistic/ sociocultural phenomena at the interface of epistemology. The posited relationship between teachers鈥� beliefs and language is important as may translate into different fosterage of students, their cognitions and psycho-social development, and in turn - learning outcomes. The findings will contribute to the theory and instructional praxis, argumentation, and interpersonal spoken communication (rather than writing, besides which is far better explored). The project will provide pedagogic implications for instructors serving ever more diverse populations, with dynamically changing academic, technological, and socio-psychological needs, which is especially important in the context of WSU status of the Emerging Hispanic Serving Institution.
Project Abstract:
Deception is a pervasive issue in many domains, from legal proceedings and fraud investigations to online reviews and social media posts. It poses a significant risk in various contexts such as legal, financial, and national security. Detecting deception in text-based communication is a challenging task, and there is a need to understand the linguistic and cognitive cues involved in detecting deception. While most research on linguistic cues focused on sanctioned deceptive statements provided in lab experiments, mostly by undergraduate students, little is known about the effect of linguistic cues available in high-stake deception, with real-life consequences. This study investigates linguistic cues to deception in written real-life, high-stake accounts using eye tracking. Building on the theories of deception and reading, we offer a novel approach to investigate the relationships between the message veracity, linguistic cues to deception, reading patterns, and detection accuracy. The findings from this study will help us better understand how the reading behavior of veracity judges varies across honest and deceptive statements. The analysis using eye tracking technology will provide an objective measure and insight into the gaze behavior and its impact on detection performance. In particular, this study will help us explain the relationship between the message veracity, linguistic cues to deception, prominence of those cues, cognitive processing by veracity judges, and detection accuracy across honest and deceptive statements.
Project Abstract:
Animal assisted interventions have been investigated in many different settings for the effects on human stress, anxiety, and depression, but studies that utilize rescue animals awaiting adoption are lacking. The purpose of this pilot study is to determine if students can experience stress reduction prior to an academic exam by interacting with a rescue animal. At an in-person event, an electronic survey will be used to screen for depression, anxiety, and stress levels. Then participants will interact in an open format with pets from a local rescue organization who have had preventive health care and temperament screening for safety. Participants will then repeat the stress screening tool. Blood pressures will be measured before and after the intervention.This research may demonstrate that faculty can safely utilize animal assisted interventions for students using screened rescue animals from the community. A feasible mental health program could be developed in collaboration with the animal rescue organization for ongoing programs on campus. Students impacted by the rescue animals may become future adopters when their living situations can accommodate pet ownership. Completed depression and anxiety surveys may earlier identify students in need of a mental health referral to Counseling and Preventative Services or Student Health Services.This study supports strategic enrollment and retention goals for the university by assisting students who need higher levels of support, fostering a wellness culture, facilitating faculty engagement for student success, and promoting connections with community supporters.
Project Abstract:
This study seeks to explore the relations among variables that have been shown to be important to school success including emotional reactivity and regulation (ERR), socioeconomicStatus (SES), and literacy skills (phonological awareness, morphological awareness, vocabulary, and reading comprehension). Participants will include 50 children entering grades K-2 recruited from partnership sites. Following informed parental consent, direct measures of literacy skills will be administered. Additionally, a parent report on SES and ERR and teacher observation of ERR will be administered. It is hypothesized that ERR, SES, and Literacy skills will be correlated, that ERR will predict performance on literacy tasks, and that ERR will mediate the relationship between SES and Literacy skills. Findings from this study will extend understanding of factors that are important for students鈥� school success and will provide much needed pilot data to drive larger scale studies examining these relations.
Project Abstract:
This grounded theory research project will engage a team of university faculty and district stakeholders to uncover the effective strategies, processes, and initiatives that are vital to the success of alternative certification pathways for pre-service teachers. A Professional Development School (PDS) Model for Alternative Certification Pathways will be generated as a result of the initial and on-going research activities. Simultaneous renewal activities will follow the initial creation and dissemination of the PDS Model for Alternative Certification Pathway Teachers.
Project Abstract:
This project is part of the study of omumu as the basis of gender equity and unity in precolonial Igbo society. The concept of Omumu will be important in decolonizing the minds of the people, and it has the potential to dispatch its regenerative power for African peoples with similar cultural agency as the Igbo. Omumu connects mother, child (male, female, others) and the conceptual Earth Mother. This principle that propelled women to heights in pre-colonial times was grounded in the biologic of a female body that was not Othered or defective, but normative in Igbo communities that centered on Mother Earth culture. The principle empowered pre-colonial Igbo men and women to arenas of public authority in religion, economy, and politics. The marginalization of the concept in contemporary postcolonial society has influenced the diminished role of women in public office and increased the gender intolerance and hostility of the contemporary society. What exactly is omumu? Is it a relevant discursive constitution in liberating the African mind, opening new ways of thinking and engaging gender gap and inclusivity? By addressing these questions while clarifying the meaning of omumu, this project will fill a gap in feminist scholarship.
Dr. Alyssa Lynne-Joseph (she/her pronouns) is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at 红领巾瓜报. Her research interests lie at the intersection of medical sociology, gender and sexuality studies, and global and transnational sociology. In addition to her research on healthcare bans, she is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Global Transformations in Transgender Medicine: How Clinicians, Patients, and Activists Create Gender-Affirming Healthcare. The book draws on four years of research in the U.S., Thailand, and virtual spaces to show how imperialism shapes medicine on a transnational scale. It argues that the standardization of care around Global North knowledge, and a hegemonic notion of white, binary transgender identity, stymies gender-affirming approaches to care in both the U.S. and Thailand. Dr. Lynne-Joseph received her doctorate in Sociology, a certificate in Gender in Sexuality Studies, and a Searle certificate in Advanced Teaching & Learning from Northwestern University. Her research has been published in Social Problems; Culture, Health, and Sexuality; and Social Science & Medicine. She has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education (Foreign Language and Area Studies), and the Sexualities Project at Northwestern.
Claudia Costa Pederson received a PhD. in Art History and Visual Studies from Cornell University. She is the author of Gaming Utopia, Ludic Worlds in Art, Design, and Media (Indiana University Press, 2021). Her writings appear in various journals including Arteologie, Media-N, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas, and Afterimage, and in edited volumes on film and media, including The Ethics of Documentary Film (2025), Handbook of Documentary (2025), Latin American Modernisms and Technology (2018), The Philosophy of Documentary Film (2016), Cinema em Redes:Tecnologia, Estetica e Politica na Era Digital (2016), and Indie Reframed: Women Filmmakers and Contemporary American Independent Cinema (2016). She is Associate Professor of Art History at 红领巾瓜报, Kansas, curator for the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival at Ithaca College, New York, and recipient of the Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant 2022.
Dr. Timothy Jones is an artist, teacher, and performer with roots in Kansas and branches across the Americas. He serves as Associate Concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra and Assistant Professor of Violin at 红领巾瓜报, as well as Concertmaster of the Wichita Grand Opera and Ballet Wichita Orchestras. Jones holds degrees in Music Education and Violin Performance, having received his doctorate in Performance. He has performed as soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician in North and South America. Jones performs frequently with the Fairmount String Trio, a WSU faculty ensemble. Recent highlights for the Trio include an acclaimed performance with Rachelle Goter at the International Clarinet Association Annual Conference, and multiple presentations of Mozart and Brahms Quintets in Kansas and Iowa. As a soloist, since returning to Kansas in 2018, Jones has performed the Bach Double Concerto with the Wichita Symphony, the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn Concertos with the Hutchinson Symphony, and Beethoven Romance No. 2 with the Independence Symphony Orchestra. In addition to his performing career, Jones is an avid educator of students of all ages, and has worked throughout his career as both private and classroom instructor. He taught strings in the Wichita Public Schools, and has taught and performed at music festivals in the United States, Mexico, and Brazil. In 2023, Jones鈥檚 contributions to the professional artistic community of Wichita were recognized by the Wichita Arts Council Burton Pell Achievement in Music Award, as well as the receipt of a Koch Cultural Trust Enabling Grant, and an Artist Access Grant from the City of Wichita Arts and Cultural Services Division.
Project Abstract:
The fine arts have always been both cause and effect of shifts in human thought. While music, visual, and performing arts have reflected human culture throughout history, they have also influenced its trajectory; art is often the medium through which society processes controversial or innovative ideas. Modern professionals in music are charged to work fervently toward innovation and inclusion in our artistic output, lest our concert halls remain museums of the sounds of colonial Europe. Toward this end, the creation and performance of new compositions 鈥� by and for the living 鈥� must be catalyzed. This grant supports the composition of a large-scale orchestral work by composer Robert J. Hagenbuch Jr., and the production of a World Premiere performance of said work on the WSU campus in Fall 2024. The work will feature two WSU College of Fine Arts faculty members as well as the University Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble comprised of 50-60 School of Music students. In addition to composing the work, the composer will conduct a brief residency at 红领巾瓜报 prior to the premiere, providing rehearsal coaching for the Symphony Orchestra and a masterclass within the Composition studio. Commissions and world premieres of this scale are rare within the academic world, making this project a unique and powerful demonstration of the level of artistic excellence and innovation within the WSU College of Fine Arts.
Dr. Shruti Kshirsagar
Assistant Professor School of Computing
College of Engineering
Dr. Shruti Rajendra Kshirsagar is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at 红领巾瓜报 (WSU), where she specializes in artificial intelligence, assistive technologies, medical image processing, audio processing, and multimodal signal analysis. She holds a PhD in Telecommunications from INRS, Montreal, Canada, and leads the SoundMind Neurovision Innovation Lab at WSU. Her team investigates innovative AI applications in healthcare, such as brain tumor segmentation, ECG classification, and cognitive load assessment, as well as advancements in assistive technologies, including deepfake detection and audio event analysis.
Dr. Kshirsagar serves as the Graduate Coordinator for the MS Data Science program and as the Awards Chair for the IEEE GreenTech Conference 2025. She has been recognized with the INRS Best Doctoral Thesis Award. Dr. Kshirsagar is committed to advancing impactful research at the intersection of deepfake detection, assistive technology, and human health, driven by her passion for data science and AI
Project Abstract
The rapid growth of generative AI technologies has led to increasingly convincing deepfakes, now extending beyond visual manipulation to audio and multimodal data. While deepfakes have potential benefits, such as in speech restoration, they pose significant risks for identity theft, misinformation, and voice biometrics fraud. This project is dedicated to developing a robust, accurate, and interpretable system for audio deepfake detection by integrating handcrafted feature extraction with advanced deep learning models. This project explores feature extraction techniques for detecting deepfake audio using a combination of handcrafted features鈥攎odulation, OpenSMILE, log-Mel spectrograms, and quality-based measures鈥攁nd deep learning models, including ResNet and RNNs. The main research goal is to develop a robust, interpretable, and generalizable system for detecting diverse deepfake attacks, contributing to digital media security and explainable AI (XAI) solutions. Current detection systems often face challenges related to their 鈥渂lack box鈥� nature, which limits transparency and hampers trust in AI decision-making, particularly in sensitive areas. By designing a hybrid system, this research ensures that high-dimensional, nuanced artifacts in synthetic audio are detectable while also improving model interpretability, making detection results more understandable for end users. The proposed system will be rigorously benchmarked using the ASVspoof5 dataset to evaluate performance across both in-domain and out-of-domain scenarios, ensuring resilience and generalization across various types of deepfake manipulations. This project鈥檚 contributions are expected to enhance digital media security by providing a practical and interpretable detection tool applicable in critical fields like law enforcement, biometrics, and media verification, where high accuracy and reliability are essential. With a focus on improving both detection accuracy and interpretability, this research aims to create a deeper understanding of AI-based detection systems and promote trustworthy AI applications in the context of audio security challenges.
Dr. Matthew D. Holland
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Dr. Matthew D. Howland is an anthropological archaeologist whose research focuses on the application of digital 3D and spatial methods to the study of the past. Dr. Howland is the director of the Geospatial Archaeology Laboratory at 红领巾瓜报 University and received his PhD and MA from the University of California San Diego and his BS/BA from Penn State. His research involves the application of low-altitude aerial remote sensing, including UAV/drone-based photography, to record and map archaeological sites in 3D and conduct intra-site spatial analyses in GIS. Dr. Howland also applies and for community-engaged digital public archaeology. Dr. Howland is engaged in active field research in Kansas, Georgia, and the Eastern Mediterranean. His work has been published in journals such as the , , , and , and has been covered in media outlets including , , and
Project Abstract
This project aims to quantify the risks posed by anthropogenic coastal erosion to archaeological sites, using sites on the Atlantic coast of Georgia as a case study. Coastal erosion is driven by long-term processes of sea level rise/tidal variation and short-term disaster events such as storm surge caused by hurricanes, both of which are increasing in severity due to anthropogenic climate change and landscape modification. Archaeologists are well-aware of the threat posed by these processes to coastal archaeological sites but lack understanding of the relative contribution of damage to coastal sites from these long-term and short-term processes. This project aims to quantify the impacts of coastal erosion through multiscalar analysis of erosion on archaeological sites. At regional scale, I will use multispectral band indices on historic Landsat imagery to track erosion/accretion on the Georgia coast since the 1970s and in the aftermath of major storm events during this period, comparing results to the distribution of archaeological sites along the coast to understand which sites have been impacted. At site scale, I will precisely quantify erosion by intensively recording archaeological sites in 3D at 6 month intervals and in the aftermath of major storms, if funding permits, over the project period using UAV-based LiDAR scanning. This work will provide time-series data on the damage done to at-risk sites by erosion at millimeter/centimeter scale. Project results will therefore provide a multiscalar understanding of how coastal erosion impacts archaeological sites and the relative contribution of long and short-term risk factors in causing erosion.
Dr. Trevor R. Nelson
Assistant Professor of Musicology
College of Fine Arts
Dr. Trevor R. Nelson (he/him) is Assistant Professor of Musicology at 红领巾瓜报 University. Central to his teaching, research, and service are questions of how music education practices and institutions contribute to and maintain historical inequities, as well as the drive to develop practical solutions to create a more just artistic world. His research concerns the post-World War II British Commonwealth and how music informed the development of a globally minded Britishness. His writing has appeared in Twentieth-Century Music, Ethnomusicology Review, NABMSA Reviews, and Notes. At 红领巾瓜报, Dr. Nelson teaches undergraduate courses in music history, global music cultures, and popular music studies, as well as graduate seminars in Listening to Empire, and Music, Childhood, and Youth. He completed his Ph.D. at the Eastman School of Music鈥擴niversity of Rochester in 2023.
Project Abstract
Musicologists and cultural historians have considered the ways imperial expansion influenced how musicians and listeners conceived of British musical identity (Ghuman 2014; Richards 2002; Webster 2005). Yet scholars have ignored the effect of mid-twentieth century imperial decline on musical Britishness. With the British Empire鈥檚 decline in the mid-twentieth century, how was musical Britishness adapted to foster a globally minded outlook on citizenship and positive relations with former colonial holdings? In this project, I examine how musicians used their art in instructing Britons about imperial decline and the Commonwealth鈥檚 formation as a post-imperial cultural collective. This project concerns six case studies from multiple musical genres, from children鈥檚 operas to concept albums. The study will result in a monograph titled Let鈥檚 Make A Commonwealth: Musical Britishness at the Twilight of Empire, where I argue that music and sound were tools in teaching new modes of global citizenship; thus, Britons heard the decline of their Empire, the deimperializing process, and the Commonwealth鈥檚 formation. With URCA funding, I will travel to the UK to visit three archives (The Britten-Pears Foundation Archive in Aldeburgh, The Mass-Observation Project Archive in Brighton, and the Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru in Aberystwyth) and view primary sources necessary to complete my monograph. Ultimately, I establish music鈥檚 use in instructing the British people about their nation鈥檚 new place in the global matrix of power, thus providing new insight into the study of cultural transmission, the politics of national heritage, and the United Kingdom鈥檚 continued reckoning with race and imperial identity.
Dr. Maggie Ward
Assistant Professor School of Nursing
College of Health Professions
Dr. Maggie Ward is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing within the College of Health Professions. She began her career as a staff nurse in oncology in 2006. Since that time, she has worked a multitude of roles in the care of cancer patients, including research, nurse navigation and now as a genetics practitioner for hereditary cancer syndromes. Since starting at 红领巾瓜报 in 2021, her research has focused on oncology survivorship, hereditary cancer syndromes, cancer prevention and cancer screening. Her current focus of HPV vaccination is to determine current rates of vaccination, barriers to vaccination and ultimately, to further educate the community on the benefits of HPV vaccination, including the significant reduction in HPV-related cancers. Dr. Ward is honored to receive the URCA grant to begin this research endeavor and looks forward to further expanding her research over the coming years.
Project Abstract
In the United States, the human papilloma virus (HPV) causes nearly 21,700 cancers among women and 15,600 cancers among men each year. HPV is associated with cervical, vaginal, penile, anal, vulvar and oropharyngeal cancers. It is estimated that HPV is associated with 10% of cancers in women and 5% of cancers in men, while the HPV vaccination can prevent this viral infection; therefore, preventing the development of HPV-related cancers. This project proposes to assess the HPV vaccination rate among college age students, ages 18-24, specifically within the 红领巾瓜报 community, in order to determine barriers to vaccination, education needs of students related to HPV vaccination and determine potential opportunities to provide vaccination within the university community. Through the receipt of the URCA grant, monies will be used as seed funding for future research and application for funding through the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute to expand to a larger population. In partnership with the Immunize Kansas Coalition, it is planned to expand this assessment study following the completion of this research and procure funding for students across the state of Kansas (especially those that are uninsured) to provide the HPV vaccination series.