Please sign up here if you would like lunch during the January Mini-Symposium. More information about the symposia is below.

The Mini-Symposia Series builds on the extraordinary enthusiasm for the Faculty and Staff Research Symposium, offering a new rhythm of exchange across the academic year. Instead of one full day, we gather four times– in the fall and spring—for half-day symposia that revisit and reimagine presentations from the full Symposium. This new format allows more opportunities to engage with colleagues’ research, creative projects, and collaborations in a focused and accessible way. Next fall, the full one-day Symposium returns, as the formats will alternate in two-year cycles.

Each Symposium features one or two morning panels and one or two afternoon panels, with time for community connection. The January session will have this timeline:

- 10:00 a.m. – Coffee and light snacks at the Faculty Hub
- 10:30–11:45 a.m. – Morning Session (1-2 concurrent panels)
- 11:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m. – Lunch at the Faculty Hub
- 12:15–1:30 p.m. – Afternoon Session (1-2 concurrent panels)
- 1:30 p.m. – Conclusion

Please feel free to come for all or part of the day–no need to register; if you would like to join in the lunch, sign up above. The 2025-2026 academic year will feature the Mini-Symposia on Friday, September 26, 2025; Friday, November 7, 2025; Friday, January 30, 2026; and Friday, February 20, 2026.

The schedule for Friday, January 30, 2026, is as follows:

Session One: 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.

Panel 1: Knowledge, Persuasion, and Protest: Narrating Systems of Influence

Chair: Carrie Wu, Arts & Sciences, Biology

Jeff Seeman, Arts & Sciences, Chemistry - Revolutions in Science, Revolutions in Chemistry

Raika Sadeghein, Robins School of Business, Marketing - That’s Not What Happened: Dealing with Consumer-Generated Fake Reviews

Karen Masterson, Arts & Sciences, Journalism - Americans in Africa: How the Ghosts of Ohio's Republic Steel Corporation Helped the People of Liberia "Speak for the Trees"

Panel 2: Framing the Arts: Sacred Bodies, Sonic Spells, Curated Canons, and Re-Centered Voices

Chair: Paul Brohan, Modlin Center for the Arts

Anthony Russell, Arts & Sciences, English and Languages, Literatures, & Cultures - Body, Art, and the Sacred: From Michelangelo's Last Judgment to Serrano's Piss Christ

Jessie Fillerup, Arts & Sciences, Music - Ravel's Magical Harp Clichés

Sara Pappas, Arts & Sciences, Languages, Literatures, & Cultures - Organizing Nineteenth-Century French Art in Today's Museum

Jennifer Cavenaugh, Arts & Sciences, Dean’s Office - "Say, Boss! You Seem Rare Frightened”: Sharon Pollock’s Assault on the Ripper Myth in Saucy Jack

Lunch: 11:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Session Two: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.

Panel 1: Networks of Influence: Spies, Sovereigns, and the Art of Diplomacy

Chair: Allison Tait, School of Law

Elena Calvillo, Arts & Sciences, Art & Art History

Kristin Bezio, Jepson School of Leadership - End of an Era: The Change in Spycraft from the Tudors to the Early Stuarts

Sydney Watts, Arts & Sciences, History - Unlikely Agents under Britain’s Expanded Spy Network during the Revolutionary Wars

Panel 2: Models, Molecules, and Metrics: Mapping Influence Across Systems

Chair: Kathy Hoke, Arts & Sciences, Math

Christopher Shugrue, Arts & Sciences, Chemistry - Tools for Selectively Modifying Peptides

Jean L. B. Creamer, Office of the Registrar - Biggest Factor for a Healthy Life? It’s the Food.

Aslan Lotfi, Robins School of Business, Analytics & Operations - Modeling the Influence of Multichannel Digital Advertising: A Fractional Calculus-Based Approach

Bo Yun Park, Jepson School of Leadership Studies, Sociology - Big Data in a Small World: How Data Analytics is (Re)Shaping Presidential Elections

January Mini-Symposium Lunch