Experts: Life + Society

Baghurst is a professor in the College of Education and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Athletic Coaching (FSU COACH). He is an expert in coaching education, coach development, ethics in sport, and international athletes and international sports.

Beaumont is an expert on the economics of the Middle East and North Africa, and can address the ways in which unrest can affect oil prices and financial markets.

Buning is an expert on athletic coaching, athlete experiences, and mental performance for coaches, athletes, and game officials. She is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) and is listed on the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) Sport Psychology Registry.

Heffron Casserleigh is an expert in the fields of terrorism, emergency management and disaster health planning.

Terry Coonan is an internationally known human rights lawyer who has advised U.S. judges on immigration and refugee law, worked with the United Nations and the U.S. Justice Department, and litigated asylum and torture victim protection cases for more than two decades. He has done leading advocacy and policy work regarding human trafficking and has trained law enforcement, service providers and judges nationwide on the topic. Coonan serves as an associate professor in the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a courtesy professor in the FSU College of Law and the FSU Film School.  He teaches courses on international human rights, human trafficking, refugee and asylum law, and human rights and film.

Corrigan is an expert on religion in America and religious violence, including how American religion has changed in a post-Sept. 11 environment.

Cui is an expert on family relationships, parenting, adolescent and young adult development and research methodology. She was a Fulbright Scholar in the fall of 2017 in Finland.

Fincham is an expert on forgiveness and conflicts in relationships. He also studies romantic relationships among emerging adults as this period marks the development of relationship patterns carried into later relationships such as marriage.

Gabana’s research focuses on developing applied sport psychology programs to enhance athlete mental health, well-being and performance.

Giardina’s research is focused on the broad intersections of sport, media, culture, and politics. He has written extensively about topics such as sport celebrity, NASCAR auto racing, sport mega-events, and body culture.

Glueckauf is an expert on Alzheimer’s disease as it relates to caregiver support. His interests lie in the development and evaluation of eHealth and community-based interventions for individuals with severe disabilities and their family caregivers, outcomes measurement, and spirituality and health.

Gonzales-Backen is an expert on cultural processes among Latino youth and families. Specifically, her expertise focuses on how cultural strengths, like ethnic identity, and stressors, such as discrimination, are associated with adolescent psychological well-being.

Hanley is an expert on Egypt, the Middle East, digital history and socio-legal history.

Harris’ primary research interests include inequities in the psycho-social and health status among ethnically diverse families across the life course with a particular focus in mid-life and older populations. He studies family stress, violence, mental health, substance abuse and disease prevention within the context of the family and the community.

Hochwarter is the Melvin T. Stith Sr. Professor in Business Administration at Florida State University’s College of Business. He has published over 100 scientific and applied articles covering a wide range of topics including employee entitlement, worker engagement, job stress, layoffs, workplace politics, abusive work behaviors, personal accountability, optimism, and leadership-focused motivation strategies. In addition, his research has been the subject of discussions in major business/social publications, including Business Week, Inc., CIO, The Christian Science Monitor, Computerworld, HR Magazine, Workforce Week, Macleans, Psychology Today, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Times of India, China Daily, Daily Mail – UK, and news/radio programs such as NPR, Minnesota Public Radio, MSNBC, ABC Evening News and WIOD AM/FM – Miami.

Holtrop is an expert on the adaptation and dissemination of evidence-based parenting interventions with underserved populations.

Houck is FSU’s Fannie Lou Hamer Professor of Rhetorical Studies in the College of Communication and Information. Houck, who earned a doctorate in communication at Penn State University, offers expertise on political advertising, speech-making and news coverage. He’s also an expert on the American civil rights movement, war rhetoric, propaganda and media campaigns.

Houck is one of the nation’s leading experts on Emmett Till, whose 1955 murder in the Mississippi Delta helped launch the civil rights movement. Houck helped create and lead the Emmett Till Memory Project, which developed a 21st-century digital historical record of the people, places and episodes associated with Till’s murder and legacy. Houck coauthored “Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press” with Matthew A. Grindy.

Houck is collaborating with FSU Libraries’ Division of Special Collections and Archives to continue to build the only existing Emmett Till Archive. The archive will house several collections from leading scholars, filmmakers, historians and activists, many of which will be digitized to share with a global audience.

Isaac is an expert on the national economy as it relates to energy policy and government regulation.

Karioth is an expert on grief, trauma, stress and compassion fatigue who counseled the survivors of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon and children who lost parents in the World Trade Center, and can address the ways in which the nation grieves in the aftermath of a violent attack.

Keel is an expert on eating disorders and is currently working on the factors that distinguish people with purging disorder from the more commonly known bulimia or anorexia nervosa.

Keel has also examined the link between social media and eating disorders. In 2019, she received the Leadership Award in Research from the Academy of Eating Disorders at the 2019 International Conference on Eating Disorders. The award recognizes research that has produced new insights about eating disorders and advanced the field of study.

Kelsay is an expert in the area of Muslim political and religious thought, including the law of war.

Dr. Kofler is the director and founder of the Children’s Learning Clinic. His research focuses on identifying strengths and building capabilities in children with ADHD. His primary research goals are to identify ways to improve ADHD behavioral treatment and also develop ADHD-centric, game-based neurocognitive training. This research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the FSU Psychology Department.

Dr. Kofler is a licensed clinical psychologist in Florida and Virginia. He has published more than 50 scientific articles and book chapters on topics related to childhood ADHD, and he serves on the editorial boards of Child Neuropsychology and the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. He is a recipient of the Young Scientist Research Award from the national ADHD advocacy group CHADD.

Marquis, who served the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as Research Department senior economist from 2000 to 2003 and as visiting scholar in 2005-2006 and 2009, can discuss national economic issues, including monetary theory and policy, and macroeconomic theory, which relates to taxes and budget deficits.

Mason is a professor of economics and associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion for the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy. His primary areas of expertise include labor, political economy, development, education, social identity and crime. He is particularly interested in racial inequality, educational achievement, income distribution, unemployment, economics of identity, family environment and socioeconomic well-being.
Mason has authored more than 90 journal articles, book chapters, books and other professional publications.

McVicar is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion. He researches the relationship between religion and politics in 20th century U.S. history, with a specific focus on the emergence of the American conservative movement in the post-World War II era.

McWey is an expert on the mental health needs of those involved with the foster care system and is focused on promoting healthy family functioning.

Dan Mears is an expert on mental health, public opinion and other aspects of mass shooting tragedies. His research expertise includes juvenile and criminal justice policy, crime theory, public opinion, “supertax” prisons, mental health, religion, sentencing and reentry.

Merle is an Associate Professor in the College of Communication & Information. He focuses on international comparisons, cultural differences, as well as international media behaviors and attitudes. Merle, a French native and former international journalist who covered Olympic sports and international news, offers particular expertise on how international media view political issues and how certain news topics get covered across cultures.

Newman’s research focuses on the cultural and political economies of sport and the active body.

Panton is an expert on the effects of strength training on strength, body composition, and functional outcomes of healthy elderly adults and chronically diseased populations. Her most recent research has focused on the effects of strength training in women with Fibromyalgia, individuals with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Breast Cancer Survivors.  A 2018 article she co-wrote for The Conversation on the benefits of weight training for breast cancer survivors was reprinted in multiple publications including the Washington Post and Salon.

Pappas is an expert on professional development in sport, college athletics and athletic administration.

G. Kurt Piehler is a World War II scholar who directs the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State. As founding director of the Rutgers Oral History Archives, he conducted more than 200 interviews with veterans of World War II. His televised lecture, “The War That Transformed a Generation” which drew on the Rutgers Oral History Archives, appeared on the History Channel in 1997.

Pomidor is an expert on Alzheimer’s disease as it relates to research of the disease and diagnosis of the disease in patients. She is also an expert on elder health care needs, driving skills for older adults, physical activity for older adults, health literacy for older adults and falls prevention.

Professor Jennifer Proffitt is director of FSU’s School of Communication. Her research focuses on media ownership, labor issues in the newspaper and digital industries, media regulation and its history, alternative media and media literacy. Proffitt also has expertise on labor issues in higher education in Florida. Her research has appeared in publications including the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, Journal of Communication Inquiry and the Journal of Mass Media Ethics.

Radey is an expert on poverty and single mothers, with extensive knowledge of economic and social barriers to self-sufficiency as well as access to fundamental services such as education, employment, and healthcare. She also studies homelessness with a focus on children and families and accurate data collection.

Rodenberg’s research focuses on sports law analytics, sports gambling, referee bias and esports video game contests.

Romanchuk is a Slavist, with interests ranging from the middle ages to the present, the peoples of former Yugoslavia to those of the former USSR, and philology to psychoanalysis. Among other topics, he has lectured on Ukrainian culture in various periods (including the contemporary), and has published on Ukrainian and Russian cross-cultural perceptions and on Ukrainian culture in periods of revolution.

Staley, director of the DeVoe L. Moore Center, is a senior research fellow at Reason Foundation and professor at FSU where he teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in urban planning, regulation and urban economics. He has authored several books and has published more than 100 articles, studies and reports.

Christopher Uejio studies how the physical environment, broadly defined, influences human health and well-being. Some of his research interests include public health, health disparities, health interventions, environmental health, and infectious diseases. His research has resulted in him frequently working with health departments.

Williamson’s expertise is on modern Europe, particularly German cultural and intellectual history. His research interests also include religious history and other aspects of European history from 1750 to present. He is an award-winning author with work published in the Journal of Modern History and the “Oxford Handbook of Modern German History.”