Holly Bendorf, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry, and Chriss McDonald, Ph.D., professor of chemistry, were awarded a $70,000 grant from the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society for their project titled “Remote Stereocontrol Through Nucleophilic Ring Opening of Quaternized N,N-Acetals.” Successful development of the proposed chemistry will offer an efficient route to a diverse array of nitrogen heterocycles, structures that are ubiquitous in pharmaceutical compounds. In other words, this chemistry is anticipated to provide chemists with the tools needed to prepare new therapeutic candidates. The grant will support laboratory research by Bendorf, McDonald, and a total of eight Lycoming students as summer research fellows between May 2025 and August 2028. Cullen Chandler, Ph.D., Frank and Helen Lowry Professor of History, was interviewed for an episode of “The Medieval Podcast” with Danièle Cybulskie. Started in January 2019, “The Medieval Podcast” has over 11,000 subscribers and has racked up approximately two million downloads across the world. The episode, released on Sept. 26, 2024, was dedicated to the reign of Charlemagne (768-814 CE), how he ruled such a massive empire, and how he still took the time to care about font. Chandler was invited to the interview on the basis of his recently published book, “Introduction to the Carolingian Age” (Routledge, 2024). A new poem, “The Historian’s Pen,” by Sascha Feinstein, Ph.D., Robert L. & Charlene Shangraw Professor of English, was published in the journal Portrait of New England. Another poem, “The Saga of the Bark Zamora,” appeared in The Shore, and a third, “Coltrane’s ‘Wise One’,” was featured in a show called A Love Supreme: A Multimedia Exhibition, sponsored by the Tioga Arts Council. It was also printed as an 11” x 17” broadside with art by Michael Husted. In January 2025, Lycoming’s Humanities Research Center welcomed Feinstein as he presented new poems from his manuscript, “Cape Cod’s Winged Skulls.” The poetry was inspired by grave markers he encountered while working on his sabbatical project. John Han, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing analytics, presented his research, “On the Interaction of Chance and Promise in Trust Games,” at Centre Interuniversitare de Recherche en Economie Quantitative of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In this research, he investigates whether making promises has a positive or negative impact on overall welfare between trustors and trustees. He finds that the mere possibility of making a promise has an overall negative impact on welfare. April Drumm-Hewitt, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, traveled with Addison Angstadt ’24 to present research at the 65th Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting held in Times Square in New York from Nov. 21-24, 2024. Drumm-Hewitt presented a poster on her text messaging research titled “Punctuation in texts: Exclamation points to the opposite gender are even more friendly!” Addison presented a poster co-authored with DrummHewitt as an extension of her Haberberger Fellowship research titled “An Eyetracking Study on Viewing Computer Altered Faces.” This collaborative work enabled Addison to ambitiously present at a conference during her first semester in the cognitive psychology doctoral program at Binghamton University. Michael Heyes, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of the religion department, wrote several articles on the use of demons in politics. The first article, “A Match Made in Hell,” addresses the use of demons at crisis points in American history, suggesting that the way Americans lean on demons in today’s political world is not unique but rather “business as usual.” The other two articles are more focused on current political movements. The first deals with his experience at The Courage Tour, an attempt by apostles in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) to galvanize the Christian vote for Trump in the 2024 election. The second is on the disturbing use of The Jezebel Spirit in recent political rhetoric emerging out of the NAR, which is often paired with language of violence and emasculation. Much of this is an extension of his recently published monograph, “Demons in the USA: From the Anti-Spiritualists to QAnon” (Routledge, 2024). Biliana Stoytcheva-Horissian, Ph.D., chair and professor of theatre, presented the newest results from her ongoing collaborative research on faculty job satisfaction and its effects on well-being at The European Higher Education Society’s “Resilience, Sustainability, and Wellbeing” 46th annual forum at the University College Cork in Cork, Ireland. The European Higher Education Society is a unique international association with a mission to support research and development in higher education research, policy, and practice to the general benefit of higher education. Chris Kulp, Ph.D., John P. Graham Teaching Professor of Physics, was interviewed on “The Billion Insights Podcast” with Shree, episode 40. He talked about his research and textbooks, Artificial Intelligence, and his science fiction novels. The episode is available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. 26 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2025 SPRING MAGAZINE
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