NCIS welcomes 12 new members based in Thailand, Ireland and United States with disciplines that include community medicine, Arabic and Islamic studies, film, and human resource management.
Safa Abdalla Abdalla, a member of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of Ireland since 2012, has have taught, mentored and examined undergraduate and postgraduate students in Sudan and Ireland on various topics in public health. Abdalla, who holds a medical degree and a doctorate in Community Medicine in 2006 from the University of Khartoum, previously was assistant professor in University of Khartoum and worked part time as a biostatistician at Stanford University. Abdalla researched and published on the burden of disease in Sudan, ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in Ireland and more recently on injury epidemiology in Sudan. He also serves the editorial board of the journal Injury Prevention.
An historian of the Middle East with a focus on late antique Iran and the late antique Roman empire, Keenan Baca-Winters received a doctorate from the University of California, Irvine in 2015 and a master’s degree from San Diego State University in 2010.
With 20 years of experience in top management and administration, both in international and Thailand as well as in private and government sectors, Saifon Chairungruang received two medals of honor from the late King of Thailand for his work as a Specialist/Expert on Development Problems and Policy in Thailand’s House of Parliament. His is currently researching entrepreneurship, family business, strategy and performance, and culture. Chairungruang holds a Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from the University of Waikato, New Zealand in 2016, with the thesis, “A Secret Ingredient for SMEs Performance: Human Resource Management in Cafés and Restaurants in Auckland and Waikato, New Zealand.
Anchalee Chaiworaporn, an independent scholar since 2002, focuses on film studies in her home country, Thailand, and throughout Asia. She is currently working with a team on a three-year project, “Common Awareness in the Evolution of Thai Art and Criticism: Significant Milestones after 1932.” She received a partial scholarship to study long distance for her doctorate at the University of Southampton where her project will be “Border Crossings and the Cinemas of Thai U.S.-Educated Arthouse Directors.” Chaiworaporn’s website is http://www.thaicinema.org.
Following a Fulbright Fellowship in Madrid, Foster Chamberlain completed his dissertation in 2017 under a Harry F. Guggenheim Dissertation Completion Fellowship. His research focused on how the cultures of military institutions in Europe helped influence the course of the continent’s violent conflicts from 1914–1945 and contributed to the fall of interwar democratic regimes.
Dorothy J. Della Noce holds a Ph.D. in Communication Sciences from Temple University and a J.D. from Western New England School of Law. She taught at the undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels for more than 20 years. Her primary research interest is communication and social change. She is especially interested in how change occurs at the micro-level during human interactions – in dialogue, conversation, negotiation, debate, argumentation, group decision making, team-building, and so on. In 2013, Dr. Della Noce founded The Academic Writing Coach, which is now her full-time occupation. She is also currently an Assistant Editor for Online Learning Journal.
Justin Lev-Tov, a visiting assistant professor, University of Alabama, Birmingham, holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee. He has been a museum reports editor at the university of Alabama and a guest researcher, University of Mainz, Germany. Lev-Tov held a three-year doctoral study fellowship with the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.
Now a CEO of an historic research nonprofit, Tom Magnuson previously worked as general manager for the American Industrial Publications, a computer-based training and logistics system vendor, and an engineering director for a high-speed optical scanning manufacturer. He also has served in the U.S. Marine Corps and Merchant Marine.
A former assistant professor in the Political Science Department at East Carolina University, Steve Modlin holds a Ph.D. from Mississippi State University and an M.P.A. from East Carolina University, focusing on local government budgeting and finance in public administration and policy. Modlin also served as a managing consultant for the town of Princeville, North Carolina, and has published widely in journals that include the Public Administration Research, Public Administration Quarterly, Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, Public Finance and Management, Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, and Public Budgeting & Finance.
Aisha Musa hold a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. Her research and teaching interests include Hadith and Sunna, translation of classical Arabic texts, Qur’anic interpretation, women’s issues, Islamic Law, and modern-day reformist and neo-traditionalist movements. Her work in the formative and classical periods of Islamic history, and her interdisciplinary work in the contemporary period, make it possible to bridge the divide between past and present.
An independent scholar, consultant, coach, writer, and wisdom seeker, Connie Taylor aims to foster an understanding of the value of our human connections in both our personal and business lives. Taylor holds a Ph.D. and MEd and has served both the for-profit and not-for-profit business sectors with strategic planning, business development, and execution strategies.
Emily Winerock, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based historian focuses on the practices and politics of dance in 16th- and 17th-century Europe. Her publications include essays in Playthings in Early Modernity (2017); The Sacralization of Space and Behavior in the Early Modern World (2015); and Worth and Repute: Valuing Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (2011); as well as reviews in Renaissance Quarterly, Early Theatre, and Dance Chronicle. She is a co-founder of the Shakespeare and Dance Project, and the founder and moderator of the Dance Historians Network on LinkedIn. A scholar-practitioner, she also teaches Renaissance dance workshops and choreographs for theatrical productions.