October
Sharrika Adams, Education, published “The Journey to Becoming a S.A.M.: The Life and Labor List,” The Magic of S.A.M.S. (Student Affairs Moms): Powerful Stories of Mothers Working in Higher Education, ed. Alexandria White (2025): 41–42.
The College notes with sadness the death of Vicki Baker, Fiscal Technician in the School of Education, on August 1. Baker was employed by Virginia Tech for 17 years and worked the entirety of her time at the university in the School of Education. Known for her kind spirit and willingness to help wherever needed, she was a true friend to many and a valued member of the School of Education. Additional information can be found in the funeral home obituary and the Virginia Tech In memoriam.
David Brunsma, Sociology, coedited Urban Regimes of Dispossession in the Global South: A New Debate, Studies, Critical Social Sciences 333 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2025), with Lipon Mondal. His individual contributions to the volume were: “Towards a New Debate on Urban Dispossession in the Global South” and “Punishing the Urban Poor: A Violent Logic of Dispossession in Neoliberal Bangladesh,” pp. 1–45 and 121–48, respectively, both with Mondal.
Chase Catalano, Education, published “Faculty Service as Social Justice Education: Faculty Facilitators of LGBTQ+ Social Justice Educational Interventions,” Journal of Faculty Development 39.3 (September 2025): 47–52, with Rachel Wagner and Brandi Douglas; and “‘We’re Controversial by Our Mere Existence’: Navigating the U.S. Sociopolitical Context as TQ-Center(ed) Diversity Workers,” Humanities 14.10 (2025), Article 191, with Kalyani Kannan et al.
Danille Christensen, Religion and Culture, published “Preserving Fruit at the Nexus of ‘Lay’ and ‘Expert’ Knowledge,” Gardens, Flowers, and Fruit: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2024, ed. Mark McWilliams (Sheffield, United Kingdom: Prospect Books, 2025), pp. 89–101.
François Debrix, Political Science and ASPECT Core Faculty, received the 2025–2026 Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Studies Association (ISA) – Theory Section. The Distinguished Scholar award is given for lifetime contributions to international theory. Debrix will be recognized during a Distinguished Award Scholar session organized in his honor at the 2026 ISA annual conference, which will be held March 22–25 in Columbus, Ohio.
Amanda Demmer, Associate Professor in the Department of History, was awarded the Paul and Linda Austin Military History Professorship by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors. The Austins established the professorship in 2023 to help recruit and retain professors within the Department of History who are engaged in teaching or research in the field of military history. A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2018, Demmer has contributed to the department’s curriculum, strengthened the relationship with the Corps of Cadets, and developed courses in collaboration with the Army ROTC program that help cadets develop skills and knowledge of the U.S. military’s historical role in global politics. She is the author of After Saigon’s Fall: Refugees and US-Vietnamese Relations, 1975–2000 (Cambridge, United Kingdom, and New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021). Her current research examines the development of the modern human rights movement through the life of Amnesty International leader Ginetta Sagan. Demmer earned her bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Fredonia and her Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire.
Carlos Evia, Professor of Communication, Associate Dean for Transdisciplinary Initiatives, and CLAHS Chief Technology Officer, published Technical Communication and the Discipline of Content: Considerations for Research, Training, and Career Readiness (New York, New York: Routledge, 2025), with Rebekka Andersen.
Traci Gardner, English, published “Introduce Yourself With a Professional Bio,” TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments, ed. Carly Schnitzler et al., The WAC Clearinghouse (August 2025).
Will Good, a senior majoring in National Security and Foreign Affairs, was selected as a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) 2025–2026 Young Ambassador; he is one of 19 undergraduates in North America chosen for this honor. Young Ambassadors have studied or interned recently in Germany and are interested in promoting study in Germany at their home universities and colleges. Good studied at Marburg University in the summer of 2023. He is the ninth Virginia Tech student to be selected to participate in this program since 2011.
Alexis Henderson, Human Development and Family Science, was among nine faculty members from four departments who participated in the Global Teaching Scholars Workshop this past summer at the Steger Center for International Scholarship in Riva San Vitale, Switzerland. Most participants drafted a study abroad syllabus during the workshop, which took place for the second time in 2025.
During its August meeting the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors conferred the emerita title on Rachel Holloway, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs and a faculty member in the School of Communication. A member of the Virginia Tech community for more than 36 years, she published in the areas of political communication and issue management and taught, advised, and mentored hundreds of students. Holloway served as Head of the Department of Communication from 2002 to 2009, at which time she was appointed Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs in the College. In 2013 Holloway was selected as Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs, a position she held until her retirement. She received the 2025 Leadership Award from the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities, the association’s highest honor, in recognition of her volunteer service to Virginia Tech. Holloway earned her bachelor’s degree from Morehead State University and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University.
Muhammad Awfa Islam, a doctoral student in Public Administration and Public Affairs, and Afsana Kona, a master's student in Sociology, presented the poster “Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture: An Exploratory Study in Bangladesh” with Tanvir Islam Sojib at the Natural Hazards Workshop, which took place July 13–17 in Broomfield, Colorado.
Carol Mullen, Education, published “Social Justice Advocacy Through Critical Consciousness: A Cultural Dialogue With School Leaders and Teachers,” Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Social (In)Justice: Critical Perspectives, ed. Ira Bogotch and Carolyn M. Shields (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2025), pp. 1–28, with J. Kenneth Young.
ASPECT doctoral student Sara Naghibizadeh published “Differentiated Citizenship and Urban Activism: Insights from Tehran’s Planning Conflicts,” Journal of Urban Affairs, with Mojgan Taheri Tafti and Saeed Dobahri.
Edward Polanco, History, received the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society Best First Book Award for Healing Like Our Ancestors: The Nahua Tiçitl, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Central Mexico; 1535–1660 (Tucson, Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2024).
School of Public and International Affairs doctoral student Shruti Punjabi, Planning, Governance, and Globalization, and faculty member Shalini Misri published “A Conceptual Framework for Knowledge Integration in Cross-disciplinary Collaborations,” Environmental Science and Policy 172 (October 2025), Article 104197, with Megan A. Rippy et al.
Three School of Public and International Affairs students and a faculty member were the Virginia Tech winners of 2025 awards from the Virginia Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA). The outstanding student award winners were undergraduate Environmental Policy and Planning major Lauren Phan and graduate students Claire Daly and Will Heltzel, both majors in the Urban and Regional Planning master’s program. Shalini Misra was recognized with the outstanding faculty award. The awards were presented at the APA Virginia Annual Conference, which took place July 20–23 in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Liesel Ritchie, Sociology, published “Fractured Views: Environmental Risk Perceptions in Oklahoma and Colorado’s Oil and Gas Landscapes,” The Extractive Industries and Society 24 (December 2025), Article 101750, with Maggie León-Corwin and Michael A. Long, and “Industrial Wastewater Disposal and Its Socio-Environmental Consequences: Evidence from the Uttara Export Processing Zone, Bangladesh,” Sustainability 17.17 (September 2025), Article 7716, with A. B. M. Nurullah and Most Sanjida Khatun.
Science and Technology studies doctoral students Venus Azamnia, Lyndon Frommer, and Oliver Shuey, and Science, Technology, and Society faculty member Ashley Shew published “Beyond Critique: Bringing the Humanities into Technology Research,” 2025 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology (ETHICS), ed. Marc Cheong et al. (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University, 2025), with Kereshmeh Afsari et al. The three students presented the paper at the symposium of the same name, which was held June 6–8 at Northwestern University.
Rachel Scott, Professor and Chair of the Department of Religion and Culture, published Новый образ исламского права (Newton, Massachusetts: Academic Studies Press, 2025), a Russian translation of her book Recasting Islamic Law: Religion and the Nation State in Egyptian Constitution Making (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2021), with translator Yulia Kirilenko.
ASPECT doctoral student Michael Senters published “What the Shell Casings in the Assassination of Charlie Kirk Do – and Don’t – Tell Us” at MSNBC on September 13.
Brett Shadle, Professor of History, was appointed Director of the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies. A co-founder of the center in 2020, he served as its Associate Director of Outreach before assuming the directorship in June 2025.
Department of Sociology doctoral student Erin Boyle and faculty members Duane Gill and Liesel Ritchie published “A Legacy of Recreancy? Perceptions of Routinized Governmental Failure in Jackson, MS,” International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 128 (October 2025), Article 105756, with Adam M. Straub et al.
Dara Wald, Public and International Affairs, published “Assessing the Need to Grow Natural Resources Professionals’ Competencies Beyond Conservation,” Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 80.3 (2025): 222–39, with Julia A. Baker et al.
Peter Wallenstein, History, published “Reclaiming the ‘Maryville Six’: The Racial Reintegration of Maryville College, 1950–1956,” Journal of East Tennessee History 96 (2024): 30–52, for which he received the McClung Award for best article in that year’s volume. Wallenstein is also a previous winner of the same award, for “Which Side Are You On? The Social Origins of White Union Troops from Civil War Tennessee,” Journal of East Tennessee History 63 (1991): 72–103.
Marcus Weaver-Hightower, Education, published How to Craft Autoethnography: A Practical-ish Guide (London, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2025).
Laura Zanotti, Professor of Political Science, was appointed Chair of the Department of Political Science. A member of the Virginia Tech community since 2006, she previously was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute and visiting professor at the School of International Relations at the University of Trento, Italy. Prior to these appointments she served as a U.N. peacekeeper and participated in peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Croatia. Zanotti’s research and teaching explore critical political theory, international ethics, peacekeeping, and nongovernmental organizations. She is the author of two books, including Ontological Entanglements, Agency, and Ethics in International Relations: Exploring the Crossroads (Abingdon, Oxon, and New York, New York: Routledge, 2018), and coauthor of two more as well as numerous articles. Zanotti earned a Laurea from the University of Pavia, an MBA from SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy, and a doctorate from Florida International University.