IPFW Featured Faculty

2013 Lecture Series

Students, faculty, staff, and the public are invited to meet the Featured Faculty and learn about their outstanding work.

• Simple lunch provided
• No reservation required
• No charge

Place and Time

• When: Every Wednesday in February, Noon–1 p.m.
• Where: Walb Student Union, Room G21

February 13

• Abdullah Eroglu
• Associate Professor of Engineering
• “Electromagnetic Devices and Applications”

February 20

• Peter Dragnev
• Professor of Mathematics
• “From Electrons to Orifices to Fullerenes: The Unfolding Story of Energy Optimization”

February 27

• Elaine Blakemore
• Professor of Psychology
• “‘If I saw a boy playing with dolls, I would punch him in the nose and call the police’: What Children Know and Think About Gender Norms”

Elaine Blakemore

Professor of Psychology

Elaine Blakemore has worked with dozens of student research assistants during her years at IPFW as they explored children’s gender development.

Blakemore is professor of psychology and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Her research also includes boys’ and girls’ interests and interactions with infants and toddlers, characteristics of boys’ and girls’ toys, children’s gender-related knowledge and attitudes, and parents’ influence on children’s gender development. During her years at IPFW dozens of students have worked as research assistants on this work. She has also collaborated with IPFW faculty on other gender-related research.

She earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Northern Illinois University in 1978 and came to IPFW in 1986, serving as chair of the Psychology Department from 1995 to 2009.

Blakemore has published more than 20 journal articles and book chapters and has presented nearly 40 papers at scientific meetings. Her book, Gender Development, co-written with two faculty members from the Pennsylvania State University, Sheri Berenbaum and Lynn Liben, serves as both an advanced textbook and a reference work, and has received favorable reviews in several scholarly journals. Her research has been cited extensively by other researchers, in textbooks, and in books, magazines, and newspapers written for lay audiences.

Blakemore is on the editorial board of the journal Sex Roles, and regularly serves as a reviewer for other journals and for submissions to meetings such as the Society for Research in Child Development. She has served in many capacities for the Midwestern Psychological Association (MPA), including local representatives coordinator, program moderator, secretary, treasurer, and president. MPA awarded her its first (and at this point, only) Presidential Citation Award at its 2012 meeting.

At IPFW she regularly teaches courses in child development, children’s social and personality development, gender development, and psychology of women.

Blakemore and her husband are the parents of two adult sons and a daughter-in-law. They enjoy travel, bicycling, and Western square dancing.

Peter Dragnev

Professor of Mathematics

Peter Dragnev’s groundbreaking research has led the way for others in the area of mathematical analysis.

Dragnev’s research is in the area of mathematical analysis, in particular, approximation theory and potential theory. His narrow specialty is the study of minimal energy problems and their applications in various fields of mathematics and sciences. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 articles that have been cited more than 250 times. His groundbreaking paper on asymptotics of the discrete orthogonal polyniomials collected more than 90 citations. Another article, “Balayage Ping Pong: A Convexity of the Equilibrium Measure,” was recently published by the top-ranking journal Constructive Approximation. Among his most-treasured work is the study of optimal arrangements on the sphere and their properties, a topic with wide applications in various fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, medicine, and computer science.

He received a Master of Science from Sofia University, Bulgaria, and a Ph.D. from the University of South Florida in 1997. One of his early and most cherished accomplishments was earning first prize at the prestigious yearlong correspondence competition of the Bulgarian journal Matematika in 1982.

Dragnev is professor and an interim chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at IPFW, where he has been since 1997. He has taught a variety of courses in mathematics from developmental to graduate level, such as honors calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, optimization, number theory, and analysis.

Dragnev has presented at numerous international meetings in the United States and abroad. He has been invited to the prestigious Oberwolfach Mathematics Institute (MFO) in Germany and the Banff International Research Station in Banff Center, Canada, as well as conferences or colloquia in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, China, Portugal, Turkey, and Hungary.

He is the 2002 Sigma Xi Researcher of the Year, 2003 and 2012 Pippert Sciences Scholar, 2004 IPFW Research Fellow, 2008 guest researcher for the MFO Leibnez Fellow, and 2009 Research in Pairs MFO Fellow. He has served two terms as president of IPFW Sigma Xi Chapter and is currently the Purdue speaker of the IPFW Senate.

In his spare time Dragnev enjoys jogging, playing guitar, and spending time with family and friends.

Abdullah Eroglu

Professor of Engineering

Abdullah Eroglu has been able to translate his thirst for research and teaching into reality at IPFW.

Eroglu, associate professor of electrical engineering, spent several years as a senior radio frequency (RF) engineer in a research and development group at the leading RF generator manufacturer, where he was involved in the design of RF amplifiers and surrounding circuits. Eroglu is an expert in design, simulation, modeling, and implementation of RF devices and components. He was the lead engineer in several designs and participated in several others, some of which are still being used in integrated circuit? (IC) manufacturing. He was also one of the inventors of pulsing switch mode amplifier topology, which significantly improved performance of today’s RF generators.

Eroglu was awarded M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University in 1999 and 2004, respectively. From 2000 to 2008, he worked as a senior RF design engineer in industry, where he was involved with the design of RF power amplifiers and systems. He joined the Department of Engineering in the College of Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science at IPFW in 2008. His teaching and research interests include RF circuit design, microwave engineering, antennas, wave propagation, radiation and scattering, energy systems, and modeling and simulation of power devices.

His passion for teaching and ideal to utilize his vast industrial experience in radio frequency applications with companies in northeast Indiana led him to IPFW. In 2009, he established the RF/Microwave Research Laboratory with the funding from the United States Department of Energy (DOE). Today, the laboratory is also being funded by local companies and used by several undergraduate and graduate students for their research and teaching activities.

He is the author of over 70 journal and conference papers and two books. A third book is scheduled to be released in 2013. Eroglu was a Fellow at DOE in 2009, received the ETCS Excellence in Research Award in 2010, and the Sigma Xi Researcher of the Year Award in 2011.

Eroglu likes playing soccer, table tennis, and basketball and enjoys spending time with his family when he finds time.

John Hrehov

Professor of Fine Art

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

John Hrehov has an eye for quality.

John came to IPFW in the fall of 1989 to teach for the Department of Fine Arts and is quick to praise the campus community. “I feel the support faculty have for their research makes IPFW a wonderful place to teach,” he says. “The university is very serious about research and has high standards in this area.”

A self-described painter, John’s work is frequently displayed in museums and galleries across the country and critiqued by national publications. He fondly recalls receiving an award from the prestigious National Academy in New York in 1992 as a highlight of his career in particular.

John is currently working on a series of charcoal drawings that render religious fables and domestic settings in modernity.

Talia Bugel

Professor of Assistant Professor of Spanish

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

Talia Bugel lives language.

Talia began teaching at IPFW in 2006. Much like language itself, her origins are rich and diverse; her first degree was in translation, with studies in French, Portuguese, and English. She has also worked with lexicography—the development of dictionaries—to develop bilingual dictionaries in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Additionally, Talia specializes in sociolinguistics—the study of how language evolves when it is used by people in their everyday life and how the influence of social events, like colonization and immigration, create changes in language—and language acquisition—or how people learn new languages. She has a particular interest in language attitudes and language policy, such as finding the reasons for student preferences for one language or another.

Talia relies on her wide breadth of experience when teaching Spanish translation at IPFW. “This is a service-learning class in which we work together with a community partner, Abbett Elementary, translating school materials and learning all we can about bilingualism and biculturalism in Fort Wayne,” she says.

“The purpose of my research is to make the teaching and learning of languages as effective as possible,” Talia says.

Todor Cooklev

Associate Professor of Wireless Communication

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

Todor Cooklev knows industry.

Todor came to IPFW in 2008, attracted by IPFW’s strong relationship with local industry and development. He specializes in electrical engineering with an emphasis on wireless communications, and chose northeast Indiana because of the opportunities to conduct cutting-edge research in his field.

He is currently hard at work on two projects, each with incalculable contributions to advancements in communications technology. With his first project, Todor seeks to develop new algorithms for broadband wireless systems to improve wireless communication. Additionally, he is developing a common language that will facilitate communication between radio systems that would otherwise be incompatible.

Todor’s investment in industry shows in his experience and his teaching. “In my career after graduate school, I worked in industry as an engineer before becoming a professor,” he says. “So I have experience doing research in both an industrial and academic setting. I have worked with people from many different backgrounds.”

“IPFW is a great place to work,” he says. “The atmosphere on campus is very positive and conducive to scholarly research.”

Yifei Pan

Professor of Professor of Mathematics

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

Yifei Pan is searching for answers.

He came to IPFW in the fall of 1990 after receiving a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He was mentored by Professor Tom Wolff of Cal Tech, who was a colleague of Bill Gates at Harvard. This mentorship inspired Yifei to search for solutions to some of the most challenging questions in advanced mathematics.

Yifei’s research focuses on the solvability of nonlinear partial differential equations. Typically, these equations describe the behavior of sound or heat, fluidity, and elasticity and carry diverse applications to a variety of fields, including physics, biology, and engineering.

His findings could open up new ideas and new research for many disciplines of science—and the scientific community has taken notice. Yifei has been invited to discuss his research with several research institutions.

Yifei cherishes the strong academic integrity of IPFW as he continues his research. “There are outstanding faculty who work very hard to produce first-rate research in their areas,” he says. “At the same time, they are outstanding teachers as well.”

Class of 2011: Creating Knowledge

Universities exist in order to create and transfer knowledge. Whether in the form of a theory, a technique, or an apparatus, knowledge has the capacity to transform human experience. It enables innovation, creates value, instills competence, and inspires debate. IPFW faculty are engaged in the creative process of research every day in our laboratories, our studios, our classrooms, and in the surrounding community.

These featured faculty embody IPFW's commitment to this most essential facet of university life.

— William McKinney, IPFW Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

William DeMott

Professor of Biology

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

New knowledge creates value. To William DeMott, pure research has value. He studies a microcosm of the food chain — zooplankton, which are tiny aquatic animals comparable in size to a fleck of dandruff. He focuses on the behaviors, population characteristics, and evolution of these microscopic crustaceans. Zooplankton act as intermediate links in open water food chains because they eat algae and each other, and in turn, are eaten by fish. As a renowned limnologist, or researcher who studies lake ecology, William says zooplankton serve as model organisms for study due to their small size and rapid population growth.

The examination of zooplankton has relevance for environmental preservation because it demonstrates how basic populations interact with one another and how permutations, such as pollution and global warming, affect food chains. “In order to understand these very practical things, you have to understand the basic functions of life,” he says.

William enjoys the international nature of scientific exploration. He has done research at centers for limnology in Germany and The Netherlands. Close to home, at the IPFW Crooked Lake Biological Station near Columbia City, Ind., his students have the opportunity to join him and conduct their own experiments on the lake’s food chain dynamics. With four grants sponsored by the National Science Foundation, totaling $480,000, he hired undergraduate students to become more keenly involved in his aquatic research.

Hedayeh Samavati

Professor of Economics

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

New knowledge inspires debate. Hedayeh Samavati is an empirical economist — an expert who collects data, analyzes them, and recommends policies or directions to improve economic outcomes. She is drawn to events that affect people’s welfare — often controversial topics.

The span of her research has addressed Indiana’s standing as the home foreclosure capital of America during the “jobless recovery” of 2001, and the Social Security solvency debate. Major events affecting financial markets have been prominent research topics for Hedayeh. She has studied the debt crisis of the 1980s, the currency crisis of the 1990s, and the ensuing capital flight from Southeast Asia.

Hedayeh’s current research explores a local problem; between 2000 and 2001, bank robberies rose 90 percent in Fort Wayne. While authorities focused on the usual date, time, and location characteristics, Hedayeh looked for trends related to immediate surroundings, access to a police station, and proximity to a highway as potential factors to thwart future theft. “Bank robberies impact the cost of the business of banking, which affects households, businesses, and government units,” she says.

To Hedayeh, the study of economics is more than dollars and cents; it’s about using sense with dollars and the entire decision-making process.

Hosni Abu-Mulaweh

Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

New knowledge enables innovation. Hosni Abu-Mulaweh’s innovative research is about converting energy, using the principles of heat transfer, thermodynamics, and fluid mechanics. As a mechanical engineer, his goal is to improve the performance of many devices such as heat pumps, refrigerators, and electronic equipment — all of which would fail prematurely if not for an effective way to dissipate large quantities of heat as the devices operate.

Hosni’s work, as he mentors his students, is about positively impacting daily life. “Engineers are continuously working on technologies to improve the performance and efficiency of energy systems,” he says. “Every kilowatt hour of electricity or gallon of gas saved by efficiency means we do not have to consume as many fossil fuels.”

He and several of his undergraduate students have established an impressive track record toward the pursuit of better energy system solutions. In collaboration with Fort Wayne-based Water Furnace International, they designed a control system for an electronic thermal expansion valve for a geothermal heat pump.

Hosni says mechanical engineering is his passion because it is the broadest engineering field. “With a technical degree one can operate and repair a device,” he says. “With an IPFW degree in engineering, our students learn the fundamentals and can design the device.”

James Moore

Professor of Management

Curriculum Vita [PDF]

New knowledge instills competence. James Moore likes to get into a person’s head. He’s not a psychologist; he’s more like a business coach.

His expertise is operations research, or applying analytical techniques to support decision making. By definition, business executives are decision makers. “I try to teach our students how to make skillful decisions, and that means bringing out the Spock in them,” he says.

James’s specific approach is to teach others how to mine relevant data, recognize patterns, and use formal models to make better decisions. “Students need formal analysis to support their decisions,” James says. “After their preparation is in place, they will gain experience and develop the instincts of effective managers.”

James’s most recent publication explores bank behavior during the current recession, and which institutional attributes led to success or demise. During a recent sabbatical, he examined data relevant to student success, searching for clues that could predict which students might be at risk — a project that could lead to an early warning system for advisors and counselors. Given the foraging nature of research, James advocates tenacity. ”You have to kiss a lot of frogs until you encounter the prince or princess,“ he says.

Class of 2009: Changing the World

A great education depends on great educators. IPFW is fortunate to have truly extraordinary faculty.

The 2009 IPFW Featured Faculty are excellent teachers. Why? Because they are dedicated, passionate, committed, tenacious, enthusiastic, and focused. They are men and women who have earned the highest degree in their field, are renowned for their ground-breaking research around the globe, and are masterful at opening their students to worlds of knowledge and experience beyond the classroom. These are scholars who celebrate beauty. Carve new paths for peace. Advocate for social justice. Bring history to life. Preserve the planet. Create knowledge. Challenge their students. Change the world. These are the faculty of IPFW.

We are proud to feature seven outstanding faculty members from among the many at IPFW. Through their pioneering work, these brilliant men and women are exploring life currently and historically, impacting the lives of students and contributing to science, the arts, the humanities, society — the world.

Melanie Bookout

Associate Professor of Music

Melanie Bookout is a musicologist. She is a Renaissance woman. Musicologists examine the history of music from the points of view of performers, of the institutions that created the performance situations, and of the society that nourished the music. Working in this field requires a broad interest in history, knowledge of European languages, and music theory.

Music has always been a part of Melanie´s life, beginning with playing the piano as a child. In graduate school, Melanie joined an “early music” ensemble and began playing the viola da gamba. This six- or seven-bowed string instrument, popular during the 16th–18th centuries, lends itself to solo repertoire, ensemble repertoire, or accompaniment.

Melanie tells the stories of music with her performances, and in her classroom. She inspires her students by relating art, films, and literature to the lives of the composers and the performers.

Melanie is contagiously enthusiastic. “When I catch fire, I have the ability to bring people along with me,” she says.

Jeannie DiClementi

Associate Professor of Psychology

Jeannie DiClementi is a scholar in health psychology, the study of psychological and physical well-being. Her research looks at individual characteristics that impact the way people experience physical symptoms associated with disease. Other areas of her research include hypnotizability and methamphetamine drug use.

Jeannie is currently conducting a study about the psycho-social characteristics of the rural methamphetamine user, who also engages in high-risk sexual behaviors. Many people think of meth as a city or club drug; however, rural areas are seeing the biggest increase in meth use.

Jeannie describes herself with one adjective: boat rocker. “I live to challenge the status quo,” she says. “This phrase drives me crazy: ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it.’”

Quinton Dixie

Associate Professor of Religious Studies

Quinton Dixie comes from a long line of preachers. He didn’t want to go directly into what he calls “the family business,” so he chose to study and teach about all religions.

Like many scholars, research plays a big part in his work. In one project he is tracking the motivation behind why some African American religious cultures migrate from one area of the country to another. In another recent project, Quinton participated in the bicentennial of one of the oldest black churches in Harlem, taking members on a pilgrimage to Ethiopia, the country of the church’s founders.

Quinton is also a collaborator on nationally recognized projects. His collection of essays, The Courage of Hope: From Black Suffering to Human Redemption, was co-edited by Princeton University professor and award-winning author Cornell West. Along with National Public Radio journalist and news analyst Juan Williams, he published the companion volume to the PBS documentary, This Far by Faith.

Quinton says “tenacity” best describes his work ethic. “I have a real stick-to-it spirit that serves me well as a historian, and so I continue, continue, continue,” he says.

Bernd Fischer

Professor of History

Bernd Fischer is a Balkan scholar and an expert on Albania, having researched and written about this part of the world for more than 30 years. His work has helped Albanians re-evaluate their own understanding of their national history, considering Albania was once regarded as one of the most closed societies in Europe.

Bernd’s scholarship on Albania led to his 2006 appointment to the Albanian Academy of Science, the country’s most prestigious intellectual and scientific institution. In 2007 Bernd became a special advisor to the Albanian Royal Court, which asked for his help to define a role for the present monarchy in a republic. He is consulted routinely by various government intelligence agencies to analyze the current political climate in the Balkan region, and he is often asked to testify in political asylum cases.

In the classroom, Bernd teaches from his research, not just textbooks, using videos, photos, and souvenirs from his visits with Albanian people and politicians.

Bernd sees himself as committed. “I love teaching, involving, and encouraging my students,” he says.

Carol Lawton

Professor of Psychology

How do men and women find their way to a new destination? Is there a difference between their strategies? These questions are at the center of Carol Lawton’s research in wayfinding. She has determined that most men are more likely than women to use distance and compass points, while women are more likely than men to use landmarks and right or left directions to navigate in an unfamiliar area.

Carol’s next research project is a collaboration with an IPFW colleague in interior design, with assistance from an IPFW computer science student and the staff at the IUPUI Advanced Visualization Lab. They are creating a virtual environment to help people find their way by using color-coding in hallways to develop a better overview of the entire building. “Partly the idea is to see if just getting experience with a building that’s color coded helps people put the different parts of that building together in a ‘color wheel’ kind of way,” she says.

Carol says she values the opportunities IPFW students have to work directly with professors to learn all aspects of the research process, possibilities that rarely exist for undergraduates at larger universities.

Carol describes herself as focused. She has clear goals and persistently keeps moving toward them.

Frank Paladino

Jack W. Schrey Professor of Biology

Frank Paladino studies the migration, reproduction, and conservation of the largest turtles in the world — the leatherback turtle of Costa Rica. Since he came to IPFW in 1982, Frank’s research in Costa Rica has been profiled on NBC’s Today and on Discovery Channel and National Geographic TV specials.

Using satellite telemetry, Frank tracks the movement patterns of leatherback turtles. His baseline data, exceeding 25 years, has also helped researchers examine climate changes in the region long before global warming became a potent issue.

Frank enjoys teaching students and involving them in research in the field, both at the Crooked Lake Biological Station in Whitley County, Ind., and at the Goldring Marine Biology Laboratory in Costa Rica.

Frank is passionate, as his students and colleagues would agree. “Scientists rarely retire. We’re passionate about what we do, and we keep at it until we die,” he says.

Richard Sutter

Professor of Anthropology

Skeletons have always fascinated Rick Sutter. Now, living his dream as a bioanthropologist, Rick works with some of the earliest skeletons, mummies, and human sacrificial remains in the New World. Rick researches the migration of ancient South Americans by studying their b ones and teeth.

His most significant accomplishments are his studies of the Moche sacrificial victims, from AD 200–750. He is trying to identify who these human sacrifices were and from where they might have come.

Dedicated and enthusiastic, Rick says, “I think about my research every day, almost all day. I dream about my research; I dream about my teaching. When I’m doing my research — in the field in Perü or at the Field Museum in Chicago — I can’t wait to get back to my students and talk about it.”

Class of 2007: Reaching Beyond

A great education depends on great educators, and IPFW is fortunate to have truly extraordinary faculty. These are not just good teachers. These are men and women who have earned the highest degree in their field and still strive to accomplish more. These are doers, dreamers, skeptics, achievers, and inventors.

These are scholars who celebrate the question. Carve new paths in research. Create new knowledge. Alter the debate. Give back to the community. Challenge their students. Change lives. Reach beyond. Yes, these are the faculty of IPFW.

IPFW is proud to feature six outstanding faculty members from among the many. Through their pioneering work, these brilliant men and women are making the world a better place — for students, for scholars, for all of us.

Adam N. Coffman

Associate Professor of Mathematics

The search for knowledge isn’t just about finding answers. Sometimes it’s about the quest. At IPFW, our faculty are passionate about that.

Take Adam Coffman, for example. Coffman, an associate professor of mathematics, has always had the urge to study geometry. In fact, it’s something he can’t keep off his mind. “Geometry is all around you all the time, whether you are driving, walking, or sitting in a chair,” he says. “There are always problems to solve. In fact, there was one problem that I was stuck on for 10 years.”

The likelihood of getting stuck hasn’t kept Coffman from taking on difficult questions. If anything, it’s given him more drive, and that’s a major reason he’s passionate about research: “I work on hard questions, and I try a lot of different methods to solve them. If they don’t work, they go in a big recycling bin. So being stuck is not so bad.”

James N. Lutz

Professor of Political Science

Great scholars don’t set out to find the spotlight. They’re more interested in creating knowledge than creating a name for themselves. But often, the spotlight finds them — once others discover the brilliance of their work.

At IPFW, more than a few faculty have been recognized for leadership and achievement in their fields. One of them is James Lutz, professor of political science and chair of the Department of Political Science.

Lutz, who has garnered world-wide renown, is considered an authority on terrorism. It’s a timely subject, particularly in the context of 9/11 and the ensuing U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But Lutz’s interest in terrorism began long before those events. “My research has a lot to do with the way we look at terrorism — not just the Middle East, not just Islam, and not just 9/11.” Lutz says. “All of those are part of a broader context. These are very significant political issues — not just to our government but governments around the world.”

Elizabeth A. Thompson

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering

The best scholarship opens the imagination. It unveils new possibilities to the heart and mind, reaching beyond the boundaries of what is known. It’s groundbreaking work, and that’s why our faculty is such an important resource for this region and beyond.

Just one example is the work of Elizabeth Thompson. Thompson, associate professor of electrical engineering, explores human brain mapping utilizing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This technique uses magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to form brain activation maps, relating brain activity to task performance. Thompson investigates new methods for forming brain maps, which provide medical experts insight into the inner workings of the brain. Her work is relevant for many, particularly those suffering from disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, chronic pain, dyslexia, and epilepsy.

“Brain mapping has multiple purposes,” Thompson says. “It can be used for any brain disorder. It’s standard practice now to do a functional brain map of somebody’s brain before surgery. And, for instance, if someone has a tumor, they can perform these functional brain maps and then know where to cut so that the patient doesn’t have permanent brain damage after they remove the tumor.”

Audrey A. Ushenko

Professor of Fine Arts

If there’s one trait that distinguishes the best and the brightest, it’s the desire to never stop learning. To explore the imagination. To create new forms of art. That’s why so many IPFW faculty are accomplished in their fields.

An example is Audrey Ushenko. Ushenko, professor of fine arts, has been passionate about art for more than 35 years. She’s produced innumerable paintings, many featured in public settings across the country. She’s received prestigious awards. Her work is lauded as “magnificent,” “masterful,” and “profound” by respected critics. The accolades are well-deserved — but that hasn’t stopped this artist from continuing to cultivate and refine her craft.

Ushenko especially enjoys exploring the complexities of her favorite artistic subject: people. “Exploring individuality is a very important part of my work,” she says. “I’ve done abstract painting, and I’ve done landscapes. But the big fascination is seeing individual people. In fact, when I see a group of people and I think of composing art, I think of it like picking blueberries: I want this one, I want this one, I want this one. And when you do sketches of someone, something looks back at you and you realize the entire universe is behind this person’s face — it’s an authentic miracle.”

Robert J. Visalli

Assistant Professor of Biology

Passion for knowledge is contagious. It ignites the minds of those it touches, awakening them to new ideas, new ways of experiencing the world. Ultimately, it inspires them to become masters of their own love for learning.

At IPFW, inspiring minds is what our faculty do best. Professors like Robert Visalli pursue life-changing research every day, and in the process, motivate others to make discoveries of their own.

Visalli, an assistant professor of biology, has studied the biology of the Herpesviridae since 1986. His work has focused on eight different human herpes pathogens, all capable of causing serious illness or death, especially in people with compromised immune systems. Some of his most influential research began at Wyeth-Ayerst Research, a major pharmaceutical company, where Visalli was a full-time researcher in the 1990s. “I was asked to join that company for antiviral drug discovery for herpes viruses,” he says. “These viruses can kill people — there are more deadly pathogens than just the STD form or the cold sore that a lot of us get. My group discovered a set of antiviral compounds that inhibited a herpes virus known as varicella-zoster virus. That’s the virus that causes chicken pox and also reactivates shingles — a very serious disease.”

Stephen J. Ziegler

Assistant Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs

The pursuit of new knowledge involves bold measures — challenging the status quo, asking hard questions, opening new lines of inquiry. At IPFW, that creative intensity is at work every day, and that’s why our faculty’s research is so visionary.

An example is the provocative work of Stephen Ziegler. Ziegler, an assistant professor of public and environmental affairs, has drawn attention from around the world for his research in pain treatment and end-of-life issues. He recently returned from Zurich, Switzerland, where he studied the regulation of assisted death. His articles about barriers to pain treatment have been cited in scholarly journals in India. And here, in Fort Wayne, Ziegler serves on St. Joseph Hospital’s Clinical Ethics Board, where he seeks to improve the lives of hospital patients.

In some ways, Ziegler’s work is politically charged — it brings to light many flaws in the U.S. healthcare system — but that doesn’t keep him from grappling with difficult issues. They’re too important for too many people, he says. “The goal of all science is to improve people’s lives. That’s certainly been the purpose of my research — whether it’s end-of-life decision making or the treatment of pain.”

About the Program

Each year, several IPFW faculty are honored as Featured Faculty for their outstanding performance in the area of research, scholarly activity, or creative endeavor. As a quality measure that distinguishes IPFW from other institutions of higher education, the accomplishments of the Featured Faculty illustrate the comprehensive and significant contributions of IPFW faculty to the sciences, the arts, the humanities, and society.

Objectives

• To showcase IPFW faculty
• To emphasize the scholarship at IPFW
• To communicate the benefits of intellectual opportunity for students at IPFW
• To demonstrate the benefits of IPFW’s intellectual resources for our community and society
• To elevate the significance of creating new knowledge
• To create prestige, recognize, and motivate faculty

Contact Us

Louise Teague
University Relations and Communications
Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne
2101 E. Coliseum Blvd.
Fort Wayne, IN 46805-1499

Telephone: 260-481-6495
Email: teaguel@ipfw.edu