Faculty & Staff Achievements

Dr. Saiyad Ahmad (International Studies) presented his paper “Fate of the Islamic Written Heritage (Al-Turath) in the Digital Age” as part of a panel discussion at an international conference on Islamic philosophy at the Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization of the International Islamic University of Malaysia held August 24–25. He also presented a paper on a comparative study of Islamic and Bhuddist Esoterism, focusing on Ibn Al Arabi and Kukai, at the International Conference on Isoteric Bhuddist Studies at Koyasan University, Japan, September 5–10.

Mr. Tarek Al-Ghoussein (Design) is currently exhibiting photographs from three bodies of work (the Self- Portrait series, A Series and B Series) at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bonn, Germany. His photographs are also included in a current exhibition entitled “Nazar: Photographs from the Arab World” at the Aperture Foundation Gallery in New York City. In July 2005, his works were on exhibit in Prague at the Langhans Gallery.

Dr. Azm S. Al-Homoud (Civil Engineering) has presented seven papers within three months at two international conferences. Five papers were presented at the 2005 Association of Engineering Geologists Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada from September 19–24: “An Innovative Soil Improvement Under Raft Foundation by a Combination of Dynamic Surcharging and Dynamic Replacement;” “Use of Seismic Surface Measurements for QC Assessment of Ground Improvement at Reclaimed Land;” “Engineering Properties of Dredged Carbonate Sands in UAE;” “Causes and Remediation of Piled Shoring System Failure in Dense Sand Deposits, Dubai, UAE;” and “Use of Underpinning (Micro-Piling) for Remediation of Cracked Villas on Swelling Soils–Case Study in Dubai, UAE.” Two papers were presented at the Sixth International Conference on Ground Improvement Techniques, July 18-19 in Coimbra, Portugal: “Liquefaction Induced Settlement of Shallow Footings on Sand Using Finite Element Analysis for A Targeted CPT Profile” and “Vibratory Ground Improvement Systems for Settlement Reduction, Stability and Liquefaction Prevention” (with W.S. Degen).

Dr. Jeremy Bendik-Keymer (International Studies) was part of a three-person panel who selected the best social philosophy book for the 2005 North American Society for Social Philosophy award, which is considered a significant prize in philosophy. At the same conference, Bendik-Keymer also presented a talk on the moral significance of taking a break.

Dr. Jorg Bley (Accounting & Finance) has been awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation, which signifies professional excellence and integrity within the global investment community. The CFA programʼs broad-based curriculum compels candidates to build a working knowledge of principles across core areas of the investment industry, from quantitative analysis, economics and accounting to asset valuation and portfolio management. The program comprises three levels, each generally requiring at least 250 hours of preparation and each culminating in an examination. Dr. Bley also presented his paper “Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Stock Markets: The Dawn of a New Era” at the Annual European Financial Management Conference in Milan, Italy, June 29–July 2.

The recent publications of Dr. Isa Blumi (International Studies) include: “Harboring Misconceptions and Introducing New Pathologies of Failure in the Balkans: A Critical Assessment of EU/UN Administration in Kosova and How We Can Teach It,” Illiriani et al. (eds.) Political Science and Balkan Society: Challenges of Democratization, Development and European Integration (Tirana: July 2005); “Austrian Strategies in Ottoman Albania: The School and the Fall of Sectarian Politics,” in Martin Scheutz et al. (eds.), Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie in der Neuzeit (Oldenbourg: August 2005); “Divergent Loyalties and Their Memory: How Three Albanians Shaped Their Histories of the Great War” inOlaf Farschid (ed.) The First World War as Remembered in the Countries of the Eastern Mediterranean (Beirut: Beiruter Texte und Studien 90: September 2005); and “Intersection of Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the Construction of Difference in Islamic Countries and Communities: The Ottoman Empire” and “Women, Gender and Pastoral Economies: The Ottoman Empire,” Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (Brill: September 2005). Dr. Blumi also offered an invited lecture and project proposal, “Reassessing Societies in Transition. Unaccounted Constituencies in the 20th c. Balkans” for the three-year project “Captive States, Divided Societies: Political Institutions of Southeastern Europe in Historical-Comparative Perspective” sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation, Wolfsburg, July 6–9, in Constanta, Romania. Dr. Blumi was also invited to discuss Albanian Catholic and Muslim communities in Kosovo at the international symposium “Religion and European Integration: Religions as a Factor of Stability and Development in Southeastern Europe” held by the University of Maribor (Slovenia) and the Slovenian government October 6–8.

Dr. Richard Gassan’s (International Studies) article “The First American Tourist Guidebooks: Authorship and the Print Culture of the 1820s” was accepted to Book History Volume 8, 2005.

Dr. Cindy Gunn’s (Language & Literature) article “Evaluating Teacher Feedback in Writing Classes,” co-authored with Dr. John Raven, was published this summer in Academic Exchange Quarterly Volume 9, Issue 2. She also presented her paper “Reflections on Group Project Work in ESOL Classrooms” at the 15th IATEFL Hungary Conference in Budapest in October.

Ms. Christine Jensen (SOE Dean's Office) had two articles published this summer. “Images of Identity” appeared in Canvas: Art and Culture from the Middle East and Arab World (July– August 2005). “A Portrait: Myth and Meaning” was published in InterCulture, the electronic journal of the interdisciplinary program in the humanities at Florida State University (August 2005).

Mr. Masood Khan’s (Design) research on the human-computer interaction aspects of multimodal human-computer interaction (MHCI) was presented at the 19th British HCI Group Annual Conference at Napier University in Edinburgh, UK, September 5–9. On the average, only 37–38 percent of the submitted papers are accepted annually for this premier HCI event.

Dr. Anatholiy Kharkhurin (International Studies) presented the poster “The Role of Linguistic Fluency: Age of L2 Acquisition and Experience with New Cultural-Linguistic Environment in Bilingualsʼ Divergent Thinking” at the X International Symposia on Child Language in Berlin. He also presented the paper “The Influence of Bilingualism on Divergent Thinking: The Spreading Activation in Bilingual Memory,” at the Cognitive Linguistics Conference in Brighton, UK. His poster “The Influence of Native Language Phonology on Auditory and Visual Word Recognition in Russian-English Bilinguals” was accepted for the 150th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Nada Mourtada-Sabbah (International Studies) was an invited participant at the international conference “Eurogolfe Forum for Human Development: Sharing a Sustainable Future” organized under the aegis of President Jacques Chirac by the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) June 17–19. She was also an invited participant at the June 16 workshop “War on Terror, War on Iraq, and Presidential Powers in the US” organized by the French Center on the United States, Institut Francais de relations internationals, and the symposium “Checks and Balances: Perspectives on American Democracy at the Beginning of the 21st Century” organized by the Center for American Progress and American Universityʼs Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies in Washington. She was also an invited participant at the workshop “Building Capacity for Public Opinion Research in the Arab World” at the University of Michiganʼs Institute for Social Researchʼs Center for Political
Studies. Dr. Mourtada-Sabbahwas named to the editorial board of Maghreb-Mashrek, one of the most renowned international journals dedicated to the Arab world and Northern Africa.

Mr. Neema Noori (International Studies) presented the paper “Constructing the State One Community at a Time: The Mahallah Initiative and State Formation in Uzbekistan” at the American Sociological Associationʼs annual meeting in August. His paper “Governing through the Mahallah Initiative: Decentralization and State Formation in Uzbekistan” was accepted at the American Political Science Association annual meeting in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kassem Saleh (Computer Science) passed the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) examination recently. CISSP is considered the most prestigious certification for senior computer security professionals, and one of the most challenging certifications to achieve.

Dr. Bassel Salloukh’s (International Studies) most recent article, “Syria and Lebanon: A Brotherhood Transformed,” appears in the Fall 2005 issue of the Middle East Report. He presented the paper “The Use and Abuse of Cross-Confessional Alliances: Elections in Post- War Lebanon” at the workshop “Crossing Ideological Divides” at the Rockefeller Foundationʼs Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, in August. He also participated in the workshop “Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon,” organized by the Middle East Programme at Chatham House of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London), in Limassol September 16–18. The Center for Advanced Studies, IBM Toronto Software Laboratory invited

Dr. Imran Zualkernan (Computer Engineering) to demonstrate his software designed to automatically generate assessments from design models at the CASCON 2005 Technology Showcase in Toronto. CASCON is the premier computer and software engineering conference in Canada—bringing together software developers from industry and academia and software companies from around the world.