Group: Faculty

Research Focus

I have extensive research experience in India, its urban forms, material and social infrastructures, and inequalities based on class, caste, and gender. My contributions include work on urban development and the built environment, language politics and cultural identity, and the violence and social turmoil associated with caste. In current work supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the School for Advanced Research, I am examining the social impact of the Delhi Metro urban rail system by analyzing people’s everyday commuting lives, the work of urban planners, architects, bureaucrats, and transport officials, and the changing eco-geography of the city as numerous stations and lines transform the urban landscape and social habits. This research highlights issues of environmental sustainability, gendered citizenship, and social mobility in India’s increasingly aspirational culture.

Current Projects

■ A project to examine the social impact of a mass transit system

■ A project to compare mass transit systems in a global framework

■ A project to examine changing norms around family and marriage

■ A project to examine the new forms of English emerging in India

Select Publications

■ Sadana, R. (2018). “We are visioning it”: aspirational planning and the material landscapes of Delhi’s Metro. City & Society, 30(2), 186-209.

■ Sadana, R. (2018). At the “love commandos”: narratives of mobility among intercaste couples in a Delhi safe house. Anthropology and Humanism, 43(1), 39-57.

■ Sadana, R. (2010). On the Delhi metro: an ethnographic view. Economic and Political Weekly, 77-83.

■ Sadana, R. (2015). Found in translation: self, caste, and other in three modern texts. In U. Anjaria (Ed.), A history of the Indian novel in English (pp. 147-161). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Research Focus

The proliferation of Federal law and policy with respect to Information Systems and Security. The result is a number of laws / policies that overlap and are, occasionally, contradictory. Additionally, there are many Federal agencies with overlapping and sometimes conflicting roles and responsibilities. This makes it difficult for practitioners to sort through the quagmire of Federal IT Policy.

Current Projects

■ Federal IT Policy Research.

■ IT Enterprise Architectures

Select Publications

■ Curts, R. and Campbell D.E. (2015). Cybersecurity requires a clear systems engineering approach as a basis for Its cyberstrategy. Cybersecurity Policies and Strategies for Cyberwarfare Prevention Advances in Information Security, PRivavy and Ethics (AISPE) Book Series. Nantes, France: University of Nantes.

■ Curts, R. (2009). Anti- Submarine warfare architecture: DoDaF Views and Related Documentation. Fairfax, VA: ENX Group, INC.

■ Curts, R. and Campbell D.E. (2002). Building a Global Information Assurance Program. New York, NY: Auerbach Press.

Research Focus

I study the causes, dynamics, and methods of resolving conflicts involving religion and social structure. Conflicts that appear to be based solely on ideological or political differences often turn out to be generated by social and economic systems as well. My research clarifies the links between systemic and ideological, political, or psychological factors, and tries to use this knowledge to develop better means of resolving structural conflicts involving religious issues.

Current Projects

■ A book in progress – The Sixties in Our Future: Origins of the Next Period of Political Turmoil and Change in America: this book analyzes the causes and dynamics of 960s-1970s movements for political and social change and predicts a recurrence of turmoil in the next decade.

■ A US-Europe-Russia Trialogue: this practice project, set to begin in May 2019, involves US, Europen, and Russian representatives in a series of four “trialogues” aimed at exploring the deep causes of alienation between the parties and possible methods of resolving their disputes over the long run.

Select Publications

■ Rubenstein, R. E. (2017). Resolving structural conflicts: how violent systems can be transformed. London, UK: Routledge.

■ Rubenstein, R. E. (2017). State security, human security, and the problem of complementarity. In E. D. Jacob (Ed.), Rethinking Security in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 225-243). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

■ Rubenstein, R.E. (2014). Imagining the other in an age of religious violence. In M. Eid & K. H. Karim (Eds.), Re-imagining the Other: Culture, Media, and Western-Muslim Intersections. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

■ Rubenstein, R. E. (2010). Reasons to kill: why Americans choose war. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

Research Focus

I am an educational researcher currently pursuing research projects in the nexus of the nature of science, student learning, science teacher pedagogical content knowledge, and educational psychology. I have served as a Principal Investigator for 5 NSF-funded projects studying critical components of exemplary inclusive STEM schools, as well as creating an electronic notebook that fosters high school science students’ computational thinking during data analysis with self-regulated learning. I am co-editor and contributing author to the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series published by National Science Teachers’ Association Press. I am currently working with high school science teachers to develop interventions for improving students’ self-regulation of learning for science and engineering practices, particularly computational thinking.

Current Projects

■ Fostering Student Computational Thinking (CT) with Self-Regulated Learning (SRL): the Science Practices Innovation Notebook (SPIN) is an electronic tool for lesson sharing and analysis built collaboratively by high school teachers. It will promote new transdisciplinary approaches to computational STEM teaching/learning that integrate CT and SRL into Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The project also provides instruction and training for teachers.

■ Developing a Model of STEM-Focused Elementary Schools: this grant will translate research on inclusive STEM high schools into critical components that can be applied to elementary schools. The components will be verified by studying five STEM-focused elementary schools. The logic model produced can then aid in the development of future STEM-focused elementary schools.

■ Epistemic Network Analysis for Science Learning: Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) is an analysis technique derived from Social Network Analysis and a card sorting method. ENA makes maps of the strength of the connections between ideas, the clustering of ideas, and central ideas. We use ENA to view how learners are connecting ideas and the density of these ideas.

Select Publications

■ Lynch, S. J., et al. (2018). Understanding inclusive STEM high schools as opportunity structures for underrepresented students: critical components. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(5), 712-748.

■ Peters-Burton, E. E., & Botov, I. S. (2017). Self-regulated learning microanalysis as a tool to inform professional development delivery in real-time. Metacognition and Learning, 12(1), 45-78.

■ Peters, E., & Kitsantas, A. (2010). The effect of nature of science metacognitive prompts on science students’ content and nature of science knowledge, metacognition, and self‐regulatory efficacy. School Science and Mathematics, 110(8), 382-396.

Research Focus

My current research is aimed at replacing nitrogen-based fertilizers with microbiome-based solutions for staple cereal crops using high throughput sequencing metagenomics and data from the National Ecological Observatory Network. Another research interest is the future of the Artificial Intelligence revolution. I am interested in the many applications of AI, from combat systems to automated hypothesis generation, as well as the sustainability of the technology.

Current Projects

■ AI in the Year 2030: how will AI integrate into US Air Force combat systems over the next decade and a half?

■ Elucidating rules of life from continental scale metagenomics

■ Edge AI infrastructure across the US

■ Illicit transplantation networks

Select Publications

■ Olds, J. L. (2016). The rise of team neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience Reviews 17, 601–602.

■ Olds, J. L. (2015). Neurotechnology. In W. Bainbridge & M. Roco (Eds.), Handbook of science and technology convergence. Switzerland: Springer.

Research Focus

My academic/scientific interests were born out of research and development opportunities early on in my career. As an individual who had a passion for intelligence gathering and public/homeland security, I quickly realized for the need for the professionalization of emergency management. This is in part due to my experience with a variety of natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina, manmade disasters, particularly the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and high threats, such as the Pearl High School Shooting. These experiences left me with more questions about the importance of social capital and political trust as an effective tool of communal identify and resiliency, than answers. After all, place matters. In fact, place often determines how we live and die–it is the characterization of our lives. Given this understanding, localities need to once again (if ever) become the force multipliers in addressing the complex problems we often face in the aftermath of crisis. This also includes a better sense of critical infrastructure and the role such systems play in our shared governance model – a trisectoral approach to solving wicked problems is of need.

Current Projects

■ The Frontiers in Resilience Symposium, (a partnership with Sandia National Labs), focuses on the role of communication, coordination, and collaboration for critical infrastructure resilience.

■ The Politics of Fiscal Responsibility: a Comparative Perspective, (research for the Smith Richardson Foundation), examines the daunting array of short- and long-term fiscal challenges of European nations in developing best practices for the US.

■ The Essentials of Emergency Management, (a textbook for Taylor and Francis), is a holistic introductory compilation of emergency management for modern day principles and practices in the US.

■ Managing Challenges for the Flint Water Crisis, (a book for Westphalia Press), that explores the social and political challenges Flint, Michigan, has been facing since 2016, when the contamination of lead in the water system erupted into an environmental and financial challenge facing municipal government.

Select Publications

■ Neaves, T. T., & Royer, G. A. (2017). The social construction of disasters in the United States: a historical and cultural phenomenon. Journal of Emergency Management, 15(3), 175-187.

■ Neaves, T. T., et al. (2014). Assessing reverse 911®: a case study of the 2007 San Diego wildfires. Journal of Emergency Management, 12(4), 315-325.

■ Landahl, M. & Neaves, T.T. (forthcoming). Law enforcement in emergency management. London, UK: Emerald Publishing.

■ Fowler, L., et al. (2017). Cultural penetration and punctuated policy change: explaining the evolution of US Energy policy. Review of Policy Research, 34(4), 559-577.

Research Focus

My research focuses on behavioral ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. Students in my lab investigate how species respond to their surrounding environment and alterations to those environments. We use a combination of field and laboratory techniques to address research topics and work in a wide range of ecosystems. Much of our research on animal communication focuses on the ecology and evolution of acoustic signals, such as bird songs. Currently, this work centers on the problem of communicating in the presence of background noise, both natural and human generated. Components of this research range from acoustic partitioning of sound space in species-rich environments, such as the Amazon basin, to the production and perception of signals in the presence of human-generated sounds, such as rush hour traffic. Current and recent study sites include Virginia, California, Puerto Rico, and Brazil. Our conservation management research aims to maximize the efficacy of conservation management strategies for threatened and endangered species. The research uses large data sets from the IUCN to understand how each class of conservation actions is most effective at improving the status of threatened species.

Current Projects

■ Maximizing the efficacy of conservation actions for threatened species: projects are assessing a wide range of management actions from ecological restoration to reintroduction programs of captive bred animals.

■ The effects of forest fragmentation on community structure. We are working in the Biological Dynamics Forest Fragmentation Project site in Amazonian Brazil and investigating the ecological interactions of species in a tropical setting and then how fragmentation of forested habitats alters those interactions.

■ The role of background noise on the ecology and evolution of animal behavior and communication strategies. Here we are investigating how natural and human made noises effect the behaviors of wild animals.

Select Publications

■ Moseley, D. L., et al. (2018). Acoustic adaptation to city noise through vocal learning by a songbird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 285(1888), 20181356.

■ Phillips, J. N., et al. (2018). Surviving in the city: higher apparent survival for urban birds but worse condition on noisy territories. Ecosphere, 9(9), e02440.

■ Luther D and R Danner. 2016. Birds with larger bills are more active in the heat: support for the bill as a thermoregulatory organ. The Auk, 133(4): 770-778.

■ Luther, D. A., et al. (2016). Determinants of bird conservation‐action implementation and associated population trends of threatened species. Conservation Biology, 30(6), 1338-1346.

Research Focus

As a practitioner, I translate complex STEM topics into hands-on experiences for learners of all ages. My products are programs. I work closely with local K12 school districts and environmental NGOs developing large scale field programs, teacher training and networking opportunities for environmentally oriented youth. Local and regional environmental agencies are well-integrated into my Mason courses, providing essential personal connections to jobs and internships for Mason students. To ensure that the fascinating research conducted by our PEREC team reaches the public, I am developing the Exhibit Hall buildout at Mason’s Potomac Science Center.

Current Projects

■ I direct award-winning hands-on Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs), field programs directly reaching 15,000+ K12 students/year. I hire and train 30 GMU students per semester as field interpreters, who in turn engage youth in water chemistry, macroinvertebrate collection and identification, biodiversity, land use practices assessment and help direct youth efforts in stewardship projects. Our programs have directly reached over 100,000 youth since 2009.

■ I serve as translator of PEREC research to the public. I host Potomac Science Center tours, which include highlighting sustainable building resources (e.g. rain gardens, cistern, living wall) immersing civic groups in climate resiliency, land-water connectivity. I collaboratively deliver K12 teacher training programs.

■ I oversee the Potomac Science Center Visitor Experience Plan and guide development of Potomac River ecology-related exhibits and community programs. I mentor student teams in Environmental Engineering and Public Relations courses and provide academic consulting to Prince William County Division of Solid Waste in developing their Public Outreach Plan, pollinator garden design and educational programming.

Select Publications

■ Smith, C. and Palmer, A. (2019). Microplastics – Are They a Micro-Problem? Microplastics Impact on Plankton – High School Teacher Guide. Environmental Science Course Launch Training for Prince William County Public Schools, 1-5.

■ Greene, J., et al. (2009). From the Mountains to the Estuary: From the Schoolyard to the Bay: Meaningful Watershed Experiences for Grade 6 Students. Prince William County Schools, Potomac Environmental Research & Education Center, George Mason University: Woodbridge, VA.

■ Smith, C. and Landry, M. (2013). The Wonder of Worms: Inquiry-Based Learning for Early Elementary. Science and Children. National Science Teachers Association, 50(6).