 Sharing Experiences
Donors | Alumni | Students | Faculty
Faculty
Emory College's internationally recognized faculty make an impact in the world each day through research that contributes to the advancement of knowledge and through teaching that makes a difference in young people's lives. Your contributions to Emory College support their work and allow us to target growth in groundbreaking areas.
Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke
Frances Smith Foster
Deborah Lipstadt
David Lynn
James Nagy
Stephen Nowicki
Natasha Trethewey
Frans de Waal
Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke
Family Storytelling Leads to Healthier Children, According to Emory Psychologists
 Family rituals such as dinners together and story telling may help adolescents avoid dangerous behaviors, according to early research findings by Emory psychologists Marshall Duke and Robyn Fivush.
"We're looking at how families tell stories about themselves: positive ones, negatives ones, heroic adventures, and plain old tales," Duke explains. "The hypothesis is that these stories make kids more resilient and able to cope with stress, perhaps through showing that bad things happen, but you can go on. You can find a way to survive."
Fivush says, "Children who have regular family mealtimes are less likely to smoke, drink, use illegal drugs, experiment with sex at a young age, or get into fights." She also points out that they are more likely to do better in school and have healthier eating habits.
 Their research, associated with Emory's Center on Myth and Ritual in American Life, has also addressed the effects of 9/11 on families. Children who knew more about their families were better able to deal with tragedies such as the terrorist attacks.
"If we can find out what contributes to resilience, says Duke, "we can go back to kids being harmed by disadvantaged backgrounds and help them become more resilient."
Duke has twice received the Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching during the course of his 30 years in Emory's psychology department. As a clinical psychologist, he works with children to ease the pain of growing up. He also specializes in working with children who have nonverbal language skills problems. He is the author of six books, including a book co-edited with his wife, Sara, a learning disabilities specialist, called What Works With Children: Wisdom and Reflections from People Who Have Devoted Their Lives to Working With Children, a collection of essays by 40 professionals, each of whom have worked with children for more than 25 years.
Fivush focuses her research on the emergence of autobiographical memory in social and cultural context, and on relations among memory, narratives and coping with traumatic experiences. She has co-edited five books on memory and its development, co-authored one book on gender development, and written numerous journal articles and book chapters.
Fivush on gift giving: Emory remains unique in higher education in its commitment to excellence in both teaching and research. As a professor at Emory for the past 22 years, I have been privileged to be able to work closely with both undergraduate and graduate students, helping to nurture the next generation of scientists and practitioners. Together we have been able to do the kind of research that matters for children and families.
Duke on gift giving: "Some years ago, from out of the blue, I received an anonymous gift of several thousand dollars from a former student to be used to fund my research. Not only did this allow me and my current students to explore some very interesting questions, but it affirmed for me the power of the relationships that we here at Emory work to establish and maintain every single day. I don't know who it was who sent this gift, but it was (and is) one of the most delightful things that has happened to me in more than three decades at Emory."
Web Resources
Marshall Duke
Robyn Fivush
Return to top
Frances Smith Foster
Emory scholar leads the way in early American literary history dealing with African Americans
 How can the hiring of one leading scholar make a difference at Emory?
Just look at Emory's African American studies, creative writing, and women's studies fields in which the College has become a national leader.
Mark Sanders, director and chair of African American Studies from 2000-2004, believes the momentum in these areas began with the 1994 appointment of Frances Smith Foster, a pioneer in early American literary history dealing with African Americans.
"That raised the visibility of the study of African American literature here and helped us to recruit two rising stars, poet Natasha Trethewey and critic Lawrence Jackson," Sanders said in a 2003 interview.
Foster, a professor of English and Women's Studies and chair of the English Department, has taught everything from undergraduate seminars (such as "Becoming a Woman" and "Slavery and the African American Literary Imagination") to upper division courses ("African American Prize-Winning and Prize Worthy Literature") to graduate seminars ("Family, Marriage and Sexual Morality in Early African America").
In recognition of her excellent teaching and contributions to the scholarly life of the university, Professor Foster received the University Scholar/Teacher Award in 2006.
She cites several reasons why Emory is an ideal location for her scholarship beginning with Emory's terrific African American special collection. "Since I've come here they've just made major moves - incredible stuff," she says. "I don't have time in my life to go through everything they have."
Also important for her research in Afro-Protestantism beliefs is the Candler School of Theology and the Graduate School of Religion. And close by in the Atlanta community, she has access to the Interdenominational Theological Seminary and to one-of-a-kind archives and special collections at the Atlanta University College Center.
Another reason she values Emory is the opportunity she has to interact here with people in law, theology, history and science. This interaction, she says, has stretched her mind.
"When you begin talking to a range of people, you find different opinions on what your options are. You also see the importance of understanding different ways that people talk, think and do their work."
Web Resources
Return to top
Deborah Lipstadt
Emory scholar wins crushing victor over Holocaust denier
 Deborah E. Lipstadt is one of the world's top experts on Holocaust studies and has been a leading force in legal and political responses to Holocaust denial. Her six-year legal battle with David Irving, a well-known Holocaust denier who sued her in 2000 for libel in Great Britain, ended with a crushing victory ("History has had its day in court," wrote The Times). The Daily Telegraph (London) declared that the widely publicized trial had "done for the new century what the Nuremberg tribunals or the Eichmann trial did for earlier generations."
Speaking about the verdict at the time, then Emory President Bill Chace said, "Emory University celebrates Deborah Lipstadt's victory in this case as a victory for free inquiry. We hold academic freedom to be one of the single most important instruments in the long struggle to advance human knowledge and understanding. We are enormously proud of, and grateful to, Professor Lipstadt for her willingness to uphold this ideal in the face of adversity."
Her account of the libel trial, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2005), has been described as a "fascinating and meritorious work of legal – and moral – history" (Kirkus, November 2004). It won the National Jewish Book Award and is one of four finalists for the Koret Book Award. It was also ranked by the editors at Amazon.com as number four on its list of top ten history book of 2005.
In addition to her duties as director of Emory's Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies and professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Lipstadt is currently working on a book on Jewish responses to the new antisemitism. Her 1993 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (Free Press/Macmillan) was the first full-length study of those who attempt to deny the Holocaust. The book has been published in Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
An active member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and other U.S. advisory committees, Professor Lipstadt is frequently called upon by the media to comment on matters of Jewish interest. She has received numerous teaching awards including Emory's student government association's award for being the teacher most likely to motivate students to learn about new and unfamiliar topics and the Emory Williams award for her courses on modern Jewish and Holocaust studies.
Lipstadt on gift giving: Emory University has become one of the premier places in North America for Jewish Studies. Students of all backgrounds and identities feel comfortable in our classes. Our professors cover topics from the ancient world to contemporary Jewish ethnography. We teach Judeo-Arabic, a language once spoken by more Jews than any other, and about contemporary antisemitism. We teach Yiddish, Hebrew, American Jewish history, and a host of other topics. We welcome those who would like to support us and assure them that their gifts will help us go from strength to strength.
Web Resources
Return to top
David Lynn
Emory Chemist Advances the Frontiers of Molecular Evolution
 David Lynn is an internationally recognized researcher and teacher in the areas of molecular recognition, bioorganic chemistry and chemical biology. In his studies, he has uncovered and defined sophisticated chemical signaling strategies that evolve between host and parasite. This understanding has allowed his lab to develop new methods of reading the information encoded in different polymers' DNA and to resolve aspects of the structure of the amyloid fibril associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Dr. Lynn has been named one of 20 inaugural Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors. This honor includes a $1 million grant to bring scientific research into undergraduate classrooms, which he is currently doing at Emory in his freshman seminar class, Origins of ORDER (On Recent Discoveries by Emory Researchers). Taught in collaboration with colleagues, graduate students, and postgraduate students in biology, chemistry, physics, and math and computer science, this popular course provides an interdisciplinary introduction to science through the eyes of those working in the field.
Lynn on gift giving: Emory University is uniquely positioned to unify graduate training and undergraduate education for the global needs of the 21st Century. Your support will ensure our ability to produce the intellectually empowered and ethically engaged scholars of tomorrow and address directly the critical needs of today.
Web Resources
Return to top
James Nagy
Emory mathematician and computer scientist teams up with radiologist to enhance clarity of MRI scans
 Powerful imaging devices have transformed what scientists and doctors can see, whether they're using huge telescopes to peer into deep space, or medical imaging devices to diagnose disease. Getting sharp, clear images remains a challenge, but research by Emory University mathematics and computer science professor James Nagy is helping to bring such work into sharper focus. One aspect of his research may even help improve the treatment of cardiac disease by improving views of the heart.
Nagy, along with Eldad Haber, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, and John Oshinski, M.D., in Emory's Department of Radiology, have embarked on a new project involving magnetic resonance imaging, an invaluable tool for diagnosing and monitoring diseases. Nagy and his colleagues aim to apply their knowledge of super resolution to greatly enhance the clarity of MRI scans, with a particular emphasis on improving the diagnosis and treatment of cardiac diseases.
Nagy has published many research papers on scientific computing, numerical linear algebra, inverse problems, and image processing. He is a co-author of Deblurring Images: Matrices, Spectra, and Filtering (SIAM, 2006), a book intended for beginners in the field of image restoration and regularization.
Web Resources
Return to top
Stephen Nowicki
 Psychologist Stephen Nowicki has spent the past four decades studying how children can become resilient to the rigors of life. He is keenly interested in nonverbal behavior such as gestures, facial expressions, and body language.
"How close you stand to someone, the tone and volume and rhythm of speech, reactions in the face or posture— some people are very good at interpreting these signs, and others are very bad," he says.
For those who have problems with expressing or receiving nonverbal messages, Nowicki and his psychology department colleague Marshall Duke have written a book entitled Will I Ever Fit In?, which one reviewer has described as "an amazingly helpful book for the myriad of people who struggle with relationships."
To help parents and teachers who work with emotionally disturbed children, Nowicki has written Teaching Your Child the Language of Social Success (1996) and Helping the Child Who Doesn’t Fit In (1992). For his research contributions—he is the author of over 300 publications and presentations, and the scales he constructed to measure a child’s development, achievement, and resilience have been used in nearly 2,000 studies—he was awarded the 2001 Pearl S. Rieger Humanitarian Award (Rush Neurobehavior Center, Chicago).
At Emory, Nowicki (Charles Howard Candler Distinguished Professor of Psychology) has been recognized with the College’s Cuttino Mentoring Award and Williams Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as the honor of being asked by two graduating classes (1989 and 1996) to deliver their senior talk. In addition to his university teaching and research, he consults for public school programs and maintains an active clinical practice.
Web Resources
Return to top
Natasha Trethewey
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
 Poet Natasha Trethewey brings together a passion for history, language and people (especially people whose stories have gone untold) and shares this passion with her Emory students and a wider audience through her award-winning poems.
In her "Poetry and the Muse of History" class, she encourages students to write about themselves and their family within a historical context. The approach has worked well for her. Her debut collection of poetry, Domestic Work (2000), won the inaugural 1999 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry.
Her second collection, Bellocq's Ophelia (2002), received the 2003 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize, was a finalist for both the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin and Lenore Marshall prizes, and was named a 2003 Notable Book by the American Library Association. Recognizing her distinguished achievement and exceptional promise, she also received a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship.
For her third poetry collection, Native Guard (2006), she returned to her native Mississippi to research the lives of the first sanctioned regiment of black soldiers in the Union Army, who were stationed at Ship Island, Mississippi. This collection earned her the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
"In her relatively brief time at Emory, Natasha Trethewey has distinguished herself as a writer of rare excellence," said Robert Paul, dean of Emory College. "She richly deserves to be associated with one of the world's most prestigious fellowships, which also adds to the distinction of our Creative Writing Program."
Web Resources
Return to top
Frans de Waal
Emory psychologist receives highest honor for U.S. scientists
 A founder of the field of animal conflict resolution research, Frans de Waal continues to break new ground in animal behavior research. He also continues to share his research in books that appeal to a wide cross-section of scientists and the general public.
Over the course of his distinguished career, he has authored numerous books and research articles. His book Peacemaking Among Primates, an account of his fifteen years of research on conflict-resolution in nonhuman primates, received a Los Angeles Times book award. Both Our Inner Ape and The Ape and the Sushi Master were New York Times Notable Books of the Year. His scientific work has appeared in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and publications specializing in animal behavior.
In 2004, acknowledging his vital contributions to the world of science, the National Academy of Sciences named him a foreign associate, one of the highest honors accorded to U.S. scientists and engineers. A year later, he was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society, the nation's oldest learned society.
De Waal's current research includes studies of food-sharing, social reciprocity and conflict-resolution in nonhuman primates. His latest book, Primates and Philosophers, is based on the Tanner Lectures that he delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values in 2004. The book he explores the biological foundations of one of humanity's most valued traits: morality.
Web Resources
Return to top
|
