At Lasell’s annual Employee Recognition Breakfast, several employees were recognized for outstanding achievement:

• Champion of Collaboration Award: JENNIFER MULDOWNEY, M.A., dean of student
  financial services, and THOMAS HUNT, B.A., associate director of financial aid; and SERGEANT JOHN D’AURIA and OFFICER CHHAYA UONG of the Lasell University Police Department
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award: KELLIE WALLACE, PH.D., associate professor of
  criminal justice
• Early Distinction Award: STACEY WILSON, M.S., head of research and learning at the Brennan Library, and ANNE GAUGHEN, MFA, M.ED., director of alumni engagement and annual fund
• Torchlight Award: MICHELLE NIESTEPSKI, PH.D., dean of student success

JAMES COLLINS, M.S., adjunct professor, was the keynote speaker at the National Strength and Conditioning Association of Massachusetts’ state clinic. The presentation was titled “A novel approach to training load monitoring — The multi-metric model.”

ETHAN GILSDORF, MFA, lecturer, published a personal essay, “The Wisdom of My Three-Legged Pooch,” in The Boston Globe Magazine’s “Connections” section in December 2024. He also published* “How Dungeons & Dragons Taught Me How to Be Brave in the Real World” in the Huffington Post and “Plastic Water Bottle: Origin Story” in Witness magazine.

JOSÉ R. GUZMÁN, PH.D., professor of Spanish, presented a paper, “Building a Bilingual Community: Blurring the Lines Between Teachers and Students,” at the Modern Language Associationconvention in New Orleans in January.

ELIZABETH HARTMANN, PH.D., professor and chair of the graduate education program, co-authored two recent publications: “Simple But Not Easy: A Case Study of Caregivers and CVI Resources in Early Intervention” and “Using reflective practice to collaborate with caregivers and their young children with cerebral visual impairment” in the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness. She also delivered an address on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) research and practice at the Odyssey Trust UDL Conference with Lasell President Eric M. Turner in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in November 2024.

MEG KEARNEY, M.A., director of Lasell’s Solstice MFA in Creative Writing program, published two poems in Vox Populi in January. “Hearts of Poets” and “Neruda’s Heart (and Death)” are two sonnets from Meg’s heroic crown of sonnets, Cardiac Thrill, forthcoming as a chapbook from Green Linden Press in September.

ROSEMARY LEGER, PH.D., assistant professor of fashion and director of the Lasell Fashion Collection, successfully defended her doctoral dissertation and graduated with a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Rhode Island in May. Her dissertation research explored zero-waste fashion consumer culture through an ethnographic lens across online and offline communities.

CLAUDIA RINALDI, PH.D., professor of education, provided training on the new Massachusetts Individualized Educational Program (IEP) for multilinguals with disabilities to school personnel across 14 districts. She also published an article related to the training, “Optimizing the new DESE IEP guidelines for multilingual learners in MA,” in MATSOL Currents, the professional magazine for the Massachusetts Association of Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages (MATSOL).

PHOEBE ROBERTS, MFA, adjunct professor, released Mrs. Hawking Part V: Mrs. Frost, a filmed production of an original steampunk series of plays, which is free to view on YouTube.

SANDRA SCOFIELD, PH.D., adjunct professor, published her eighth novel, Little Ships, the storyp of a grandmother holding a complex family together after tragedy.

DINA TANVUIA, M.S., chair of hospitality and associate professor of hospitality and event management, was interviewed by Boston 25 News about the impact of rising costs on restaurants and customers when dining out.

ANH TRAN, PH.D., the Joan Weiler Arnow ’49 Professor/professor of economics and management, served as a peer reviewer for the International Journal of Environment and Pollution in September 2024. He also published an article, “U.S. Trade Policy Under the New Trump Administration,” in ThanhNien, Vietnam’s national daily newspaper, in November 2024.

ERIC M. TURNER, MBA, president of Lasell, was honored at the Massachusetts Black and Latino Caucus’ celebratory event, “Black Excellence on the Hill,” at the Massachusetts State House in February. He also delivered the keynote address at the Odyssey Trust UDL Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in November 2024.

KELLIE WALLACE, PH.D., CAGS, associate professor of criminal justice and queer initiatives facilitator, was invited to facilitate the doctoral summit of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ 62nd annual meeting, where she ran a session, “Networking in the Digital Age.” She was also on a panel to discuss the graphic memoir The Flying Couch at ReggieCon at Illinois State University in March.

BRIAN WARDGYA, ED.D., professor of communication, is working on the third edition of The Video Games Textbook. He spent part of this academic year as a 2025 TAA Textbook Awards judge for communication and media studies and as a BEA Festival of Media Arts judge for its faculty documentary competition.

ZANE ZHENG, PH.D., professor of psychology and chair of academic research, was awarded a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (American Psychological Association Division 2) for his work in developing and testing a model of intergenerational learning.