FACULTY & STAFF Rachid Belhachemi, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematical sciences, Tyler Houser, instructor of criminal justice-criminology, Donald McClelland, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology, Eric Shoemaker, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy, and Jacob Vargas, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, joined the faculty this 2025-26 academic year. Elisabeth Davis, Ph.D., joined the College as assistant professor and instructional services librarian, coordinator of digital experience, within library services in the fall. She published her recent article, “‘A Good Deal of Free Advertising’ Despite her ‘Obscene Character’: Nuancing Media Portrayals of an Escaped Nun in the Gilded Age and Progressive Eras,” in Journal of Religious History. A posthumous book, “Shakespeare and Authorial Networks in Early Modern Drama,” by late faculty member Meghan Andrews, Ph.D., will be published by Manchester University Press in 2026. Alan Farmer, Ph.D., Sarah Neville, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Zeman Kolkovich, Ph.D., of The Ohio State University’s department of English, served as editors for Andrews’ manuscript, and Farmer will deliver his talk about the book as Lycoming’s Douthat Lecturer on March 26, 2026. Jacob Berger, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of philosophy, published “Perception, Qualities, and Concepts,” which defends a novel account of the nature of perception, in the peer-reviewed journal Philosophia. He co-authored the article with a mentor from graduate school, David Rosenthal, Ph.D., who is one of the world’s leading philosophers of mind. Berger also edited a symposium in a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies dedicated to the recently published book “Explanatory Optimism about the Hard Problem of Consciousness” by Josh Weisberg, Ph.D. The symposium includes an editorial introduction by Berger, three commentaries by well-known philosophers of mind, as well as a precis to the book and reply to those commentaries by Weisberg. Matt Kaunert, Ph.D., director of the Clean Water Institute (CWI), led an Eastern Hellbender salvage effort in western Pennsylvania. In collaboration with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and Allegheny College Watershed Conservation Center, 18 adult hellbenders were removed from a site scheduled for bridge reconstruction this year. This effort was undertaken to reduce adult mortality within this high-density population which has been monitored since 2010. CWI will continue this partnership in the coming years to monitor effects of bridge construction on hellbender population trends and stream habitat quality. Kaunert also published an article with colleagues in the Journal of Zoology titled “Complex demographic, developmental, fitness, and physiological responses of larval eastern hellbenders to elevated water conductivity.” This study builds on the group’s previous experimental work evaluating effects of conductivity on hellbender recruitment. April Drumm-Hewitt, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology, presented research at the 66th Psychonomic Society Annual Meeting held in Denver, Colo., in November 2025. She presented a poster on her text messaging research titled “Punctuation in Texting: Age Differences in Exclamation.” Christopher Kulp, Ph.D., John P. Graham Teaching Professor of Physics, gave a presentation at Sci-Fi Valley Con on Oct. 18, 2025, titled “The AI of Sci-Fi.” In it, he explored how artificial intelligence is portrayed in science fiction and how these portrayals are used to examine broader themes, such as what it means to be human. He also explained how current machine learning and generative AI technologies work, drawing comparisons to iconic AIs from sci-fi stories. Jessica Munson, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology and archaeology, was appointed coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Archaeological Research. Published by Springer-Nature, the Journal of Archaeological Research is ranked No. 1 in archaeology with an impact factor of 4.2. It is the premier publishing venue for the discipline, bringing together the most recent international research summaries on a broad range of topics and geographical areas. Maybel Mesa Morales, Ph.D., assistant professor of Spanish, served as both presenter and chair/moderator at the international conference Moving Media in the Americas in December 2025 at Tulane University. This major event brings together about 100 scholars and creators from across the Americas and Europe to present work that explores a wide range of topics. She led the roundtable “La Gran Cuba” revisited: Contemporary Cinemas, Counter-Archives, and Transnational Resistances, where she presented her work, “Maternar el archivo: Affective Intermediality and Intimate Resistances in Cuban Audiovisual Works by Women.” Additionally, Mesa Morales was invited to participate in an international symposium, Cinematic Mothers: Mothering and Motherhood in Contemporary Latin (L to R) McClelland, Vargas, Houser, Belhachemi, Davis, Shoemaker 22 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2026 SPRING MAGAZINE
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