This month we are delighted to welcome five new Full members and one new Associate member, from the USA, Syria and Australia.
FULL MEMBERS
Dr Boshra Ahmed Halo (SYRIA) was born in Syria in 1988, and holds a PhD degree in Crop Sciences from Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, 2019. Her thesis focused on suppressing damping-off diseases and promoting drought tolerance in crops using desert endophytic fungi. In 2015 Dr Halo gained her MSc degree in Environment and Plant Biodiversity from Damascus University, Syria, with a thesis on improving fertilization in plants using date palm pollen extract. She also has contributed, with her father, to two books (in Arabic): Human Diversity in Quraan and Sunnah, 2015, and Social Media: Reality and Prospects, 2020. She is an active peer reviewer and her ambition is to establish an independent laboratory to conduct applied research.
Dr David Cornforth (AUSTRALIA) is an engineer, scientist, researcher and educator. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical / Electronic Engineering from Nottingham Trent University, UK, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Nottingham, UK. His research experience includes heart rate variability analysis, automated detection of diabetes, smart electrical grids for renewable energy, artificial life, machine learning, multi-agent systems, and genetic algorithms. He has held faculty positions in Australia at Charles Sturt University, University of New South Wales, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and the University of Newcastle, and has published over 160 peer-reviewed articles.
Dr Garrett Eisler (USA) is a theatre scholar and cultural historian with a PhD in Theatre Studies from the City University of New York (CUNY). He has published essays, reviews, and feature articles in the Journal of American Drama & Theatre, The Eugene O'Neill Review, Studies in Musical Theatre, and American Theatre magazine. For many years, he also wrote as a theatre critic for the Village Voice and Time Out New York. His current book project focuses on the American playwright/screenwriter Ben Hecht and his plays engaging with the Holocaust and Zionism in the WWII era.
Dr Jennifer Hoult (USA) pursued her legal education at Boston University School of Law for two years prior to graduating with her JD from New York University School of Law in 2003. In addition, she earned her BA in Computer Science & Religion from Barnard College, Columbia University (1982) and her B.M. in Harp from the Manhattan School of Music (1982). She currently practices law in her solo practice in New York, and is also a certified mediator. She has published in several publications such as lTrauma & Dissociation Journal, Legal Rights Journal, and Ethics and Behavior. A variety of research interests have captured her attention: in the legal field, examples include the advent of legal enslavement of women beginning with the advent of agriculture and legal property to its existence in current American law and a multi-disciplinary examination of the differences between consensual sex and sexual violence.
Dr Eryn O’Neal (USA) engages critical/feminist criminological perspectives and has appeared in a variety of well-respected journals including Justice Quarterly and Violence Against Women. She serves as an executive counselor for the American Society of Criminology Division on Queer Criminology and has received seven national awards for her research/teaching. Dr. O’Neal applies a care/love ethic to her teaching, mentoring, and social justice activism. She believes that pedagogies of love are crucial in the co-liberation of marginalized communities. Dr. O’Neal combines activism, teaching, and scholarship to speak truth to power and dismantle systems of oppression that impact the criminal-legal system and academe.
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS
Valerie Brown (USA) earned her MS from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Her thesis examined censorship of popular music in the 1950s. Prior to graduate school, she spent a decade and a half working as a professional musician in Portland, Oregon. Since graduation, she has worked as a freelance science journalist, publishing in Science, Environmental Science & Technology, and other journals as well as Scientific American, Sierra, and numerous additional general readership publications. The Society of Environmental Journalists awarded her first prize in explanatory journalism for an article about epigenetics. Her grant-supported work includes a history of the popular music scene in Portland in the late 1960s as well as a recently completed analysis of aluminum production in the Pacific Northwest.