Presidential Research Scholars

Benjamin Bates

Dr. Benjamin Bates is the Barbara Geralds Schoonover Professor of Health Communication in the Scripps College of Communication.

Bates uses communication to enact change, not simply observe it. Specifically, he focuses on questions of what constitutes health, how it can be attained, and community understandings of intervention options. His aim is to provide analysis and interpretation that can better public policy and health interventions.

"As a rhetorically trained scholar, the first focus of my research provides analysis of

existing health messages to identify strengths and weaknesses, as governments and nonprofit actors persuade or fail to persuade audiences to adopt health-promoting action,” Bates said. “As a scholar who wishes to intervene in the world, the second focus of my research uses communication theory and research methods to identify appropriate strategies for communication intervention to improve the health and wellbeing of the public, alongside and with members of the community in which the intervention is to take place.”

Bates has worked both nationally and internationally. Among his impacts are working with the Ohio University Infectious and Tropical Disease Institute and the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador’s Center for Research on Health in Latin America, where his team has transformed approaches to addressing communities impacted by Chagas disease.

Adam Rapp

Adam Rapp is the Ralph and Luci Schey Professor of Sales and executive director of the Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Center in the College of Business.

Rapp is passionate about helping customers and salespeople, and his research ideas are grounded in real-world business practices that add value to the business community and generate interest among academics.

Rapp has published his research in premier journals in marketing as well as applied psychology, with more than 8,000 citations, demonstrating the impact of his contributions.

Rapp notes that his research strategy is very straightforward. First, he is diligent in building company relationships, delivering value and demonstrating empathy. As an academic, Rapp is very aware that a businessperson is not concerned about an academic publication, but rather, wants help solving a problem, increasing performance, or addressing the deficiencies in their sales organization. Second, he tackles pressing issues or emerging research ideas, having examined the role of social media in salesperson and customer perceptions and now working in the area of artificial intelligence. Third, he endeavors to have impact, working on things that people truly care about.

Lastly, “I write and research about things that are enjoyable for me,” Rapp said. “I truly love the sales field. I am passionate about helping customers and salespeople, and my research enables that as much as my teaching.”

Julie Roche

Dr. Julie Roche is a professor of Physics and Astronomy(opens in a new window) in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics(opens in a new window). She is an experimental nuclear physicist who performs experiments at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, where she has served in multiple leadership roles. The National Science Foundation has continuously funded her work since 2006.

"Protons and neutrons, which make up the nuclei at the center of atoms, are composite particles. They in turn are made up of quarks, which are held together by particles called gluons, the messengers of the Strong Force. Gluons are exchanged back and forth between quarks, and they are the source of the proton’s mass," Roche said.

The Strong Force creates over 99 percent of the mass of the visible matter in the universe. Yet, the Strong Force is the least understood of the four known fundamental forces in our universe.

Roche and her colleagues’ experiments scatter electrons off proton targets. Then, detectors measure the direction and energy of the products of the collision. Roche's current research goal is to produce a 3-D tomographic picture of the proton's internal structure, akin to medical tomographies that produce sliced images of the body. This new approach to understanding the proton's internal structure has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the Strong Force.

Arthur Smith

Dr. Arthur Smith, professor of Physics and Astronomy(opens in a new window) in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded nearly $8 million in external grant funding over his research career. Smith uses Scanning Tunneling Microscopy to view single atoms on material surfaces and molecular beam epitaxy to grow his own crystalline layer samples, one atom at a time.

But his work took a major turn in 2000.

One day, while scanning the surface of manganese nitride, a magnetic material, Smith and his students began to see a modulation due to the spins of the manganese atoms. This discovery marked a whole new direction for Smith’s lab, exploring spintronic materials, which combine normal electronic materials with magnetic spins and can lead to new devices with enhanced functionality and decreased power consumption.

Having a tool capable of seeing not only the atoms, but also their spins, positioned his group as a world leader in this area. Indeed, as noted by his colleagues in the field, Smith is one of the few researchers who designs and builds his own instrumentation, ensuring his lab is always conducting cutting-edge research.

"Most importantly for me is to never lose that sense of wonder and imagination I get when viewing the atomic arrangements of a new material’s surface and to hopefully impart this gift to my own students," Smith said.

Jason Trembly

Dr. Jason Trembly is the Russ Professor of Mechanical Engineering(opens in a new window) in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology and director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment(opens in a new window). His overarching research goal is to develop innovative, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions for the most urgent environmental problems facing the nation and Appalachia. To date, he has received more than $23 million in awards from the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal and state agencies and industry.

Trembly’s research is far-reaching and has focused on transforming mining, energy, water, and agricultural wastes into value-added products, such as building and construction materials, clean water, industrial feedstocks, and fertilizers.

He is currently working with CONSOL Energy and Engineered Profiles to commercialize sustainable carbon-based building materials, utilizing reclaimed mining wastes from Appalachia, which could result in new manufacturing facilities and jobs located in the region. He is also pivoting this technology towards 3D-printing of carbonized building structures and manufacturing carbon foams and graphite for building/construction, aerospace, defense, and lithium-ion battery applications.

“I place great emphasis in stimulating professional growth in research capabilities and independent program development of graduate students and am very proud of their achievements, as demonstrated by their awards and success subsequent to graduation.”

Susan Williams

Susan Williams is a professor of anatomy and associate dean of faculty in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. Her lab conducts experiments both in the lab and in the field to examine the functional morphology, biomechanics and physiology of feeding in vertebrates, including chewing and swallowing. The primary goal of her research is to understand how the mammalian feeding system is altered or maintained over the course of evolution, during growth and development, and in injury or disease. By leveraging the evolutionary diversity in mammal feeding, one of her next projects will focus on patterns of functional and biomechanical integration between the head, neck and forelimbs in predatory mammalian carnivores that differ in killing mode and running ability. Williams has published dozens of articles in top research journals; contributed to Feeding in Vertebrates – Evolution, Morphology, Behavior Biomechanics, a book edited by leaders in the field; and has received both National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants to support her work. 

Shiyong Wu

Shiyong Wu is a professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the College of Arts & Sciences, a member of the Molecular Cellular Biology program, and director of the Edison Biotechnology Institute. He is internationally known for research contributions on the mechanisms of non-melanoma skin cancer formation. His lab has received approximately $4.2 million in grant awards, including three from the NIH, and published more than 80 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters. His work probes the fundamental molecular mechanisms of skin cancers caused by ultraviolet light exposure and helps identify potential therapeutics for prevention and treatment. His lab has made major contributions in the field of photochemistry, photobiology and photo-carcinogenesis. Wu has given seminars and invited talks around the world. 

Devika Chawla

Devika Chawla is a professor of communication studies in the Scripps College of Communication. Her research focuses on communicative, performative and narrative approaches to studying family, home, and social identity. Specifically, she examines how people transform themselves in the relationships that surround them and with the social, political, economic resources available to them. In 2007, she embarked on an oral history project about cross-generational familial experiences caused by the division of British India into independent India and Pakistan. After conducting three years of oral history fieldwork with three generations of refugees in North India, Chawla published a book-length monograph, Home, Uprooted: Oral Histories of India’s Partition (Fordham University Press), which won the 2015 Outstanding Book Award from the Ethnography Division and the International and Intercultural Division of the National Communication Association. She has also edited and co-authored books and more than 50 essays in peer-reviewed journals and anthologies.

Robert G. Ingram

Robert G. Ingram is a professor of history in the College of Arts & Sciences and director of the George Washington Forum on American Ideas, Politics and Institutions. His research concerns religion and society in post-revolutionary Britain and its empire. In particular his scholarship grapples with the Reformation’s long-term effects on the English-speaking world. He has authored two books, four edited collections, and 19 book chapters and articles. He also has organized nine scholarly conferences, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and has held visiting fellowships at Durham University and Oxford Brookes University. His most recent book, Reformation Without End: Religion, Politics and the Past in Post-Revolutionary England, followed God in the Enlightenment and Between Sovereignty and Anarchy: The Politics of Violence in the American Revolutionary Era and Religion, Reform and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century: Thomas Secker and the Church of England.

Kevin Mattson

Kevin Mattson is the Connor Study professor of contemporary history in the College of Arts & Sciences. He is a cultural and intellectual historian of international repute who has authored and edited 14 well-regarded books and more than 200 articles in the field of American history. His research focuses on the intersection of ideas and politics in the 20th century, including participatory and deliberative democracy. In his most recent book, We’re Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan and the Real Culture War of 1980s America, Mattson utilized extensive archival research to document how the punk rock movement produced ideas and modes of expression that defied the basic assumptions of the time, with lasting cultural and political importance. His other books probe political rhetoric, and include Just Plain Dick: Richard Nixon’s Checkers Speech and the “Rocking, Socking” Election of 1952, and What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?: Jimmy Carter, America’s Malaise and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country.