Twenty-two faculty members from Stony Brook University’s College of Arts and Sciences and School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences have received President’s Distinguished Travel Grants. The grants are intended to help these faculty share their research, scholarship, and art at conferences and events internationally.
“I am pleased that these faculty will be able to share their research, scholarship, and art with their colleagues and peers,” said Carl W. Lejuez, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. “The conversations and connections at these conferences spark new lines of inquiry and strengthen the impact of discoveries, ideas, and understanding.”
The travel grants program has been supporting faculty in the arts, humanities, and social sciences at Stony Brook University for over ten years.
“It’s always important that Stony Brook researchers connect and network frequently with a wide variety of publics, and the President’s Distinguished Travel Grants offer valuable support toward this goal,” said Janet Ward, Associate Provost for Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Initiatives.
Recipients include Izumi Ashizawa (Department of Art), who traveled to Iowa to perform her interactive piece on invisibility; Mohamad Ballan (Department of History), who presented work on medieval Muslim-Christian relations in Spain and Germany; Isak Berbic (Department of Art), who discussed Yugoslavian cultural memory in Canada; Simone Brioni (Department of English), who shared a visual storytelling project about a 1974 massacre in Italy; Robert Chase (Department of History), who spoke about incarceration history in Chicago; Robert Crease (Department of Philosophy), invited to Denmark for a talk on phenomenology; Jiwon Hwang (Asian & Asian American Studies), presenting linguistic research at Cornell; Katherine Johnston (English/Writing & Rhetoric), discussing AI’s role in gender norms in the Netherlands; Robert Kaplan (Writing & Rhetoric), presenting curriculum revisions nationally; Alan Kingsberg (Creative Writing/Film/TV), promoting MFA programs at Series Fest in Denver.
Other grant recipients included Fernando Loffredo (Hispanic Languages/Literature) leading international seminars on Latin American visual culture in Peru; Anna Melnikova (Linguistics) sharing methods for teaching Russian heritage speakers in Chicago; Nobuho Nagasawa (Art) blending traditional Japanese weaving with technology in Seoul; Douglas Pfeiffer (English) receiving an award for his book on literary criticism in France; Lauren Richmond (Psychology) discussing cognitive offloading for older adults at an APA meeting in Denver.
Tara Rider from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences presented on environmental history education at a New Zealand congress. Jeffrey Santa Ana (English) joined discussions on environmental horror literature in Baltimore. James Austin Smith (Music) performed rediscovered East German avant-garde music across several German cities. K. Tan (English) addressed queer identity among Sinophone communities at conferences in New Orleans and Edmonton.
Javier Uriarte (Hispanic Languages/Literature) explored Indigenous Amazonian river cultures during a visit to Brazil. Yi Wang (Asian & Asian American Studies) organized panels on social justice pedagogy for Chinese language educators at a New York City conference. Jennifer Young (Writing & Rhetoric) attended sessions focused on writing pedagogy, AI, and information literacy at a national event in Baltimore.
These travel grants are part of ongoing efforts by Stony Brook University to encourage scholarly exchange by enabling faculty participation at key academic gatherings worldwide.
