Davis,Rebecca
History
I am social and political historian of modern American history with research and teaching interests in race, media and the New South. I teach the History department’s large surveys of American history; several courses in the General Education Essentials curriculum; and upper-level history courses in Black history, the 1960s, and World War II film and propaganda. I am one of the history department’s undergraduate faculty mentors and I work with the High School College Partnership (HSCP) program to facilitate dual-credit courses taught in area high schools. As a certified teacher myself, I am the departmental contact for School of Education students interested in a history major/minor as they pursue a career as a social studies teacher.
I am a co-editor of a forthcoming digital project on Kansas City activism and have authored various articles and essays on race, education and politics. I am working on my first book with the University of Georgia Press dealing with Mississippi press coverage of the Black freedom struggle. My next research project will focus on the desegregation of the airlines and how Black people flew during and after Jim Crow.
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DeSimone,Alison
Comp, Music Theory&Musicology
I am a musicologist with many interdisciplinary research interests. I specialize in opera, theater, and singing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, and I am currently working on research projects concerning the origins of the benefit concert in eighteenth-century England, miscellany and music, and and early modern celebrity. I also have broader interests in Baroque opera/theater, women in early music, and the history of singers before 1800. I have also been a researcher and cataloguer for a large body of musical prints and manuscripts owned privately in the Czech Republic; in the collection are works by late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Bohemian and Austrian composers, including pieces by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
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Dilks,Stephen
English Language & Literature
My research interests are focused on Irish and English Studies, Discourse Analysis, representations of the Professional Author, and Rhetorics of Emancipation. I am currently working on civil rights and strategies of emancipation developed and used in Ireland in 1783 to 1922, in the period when the Irish used military, political, and cultural activism to radically shift their relationship with their immediate neighbors in the British Isles. The project uses newspapers, journals, and magazines from the O'Hegarty Collection at KU to illustrate how popular narratives of Ireland and Irishness were developed and disseminated, specifically in Dublin, suggesting that James Joyce's *Ulysses* gathers these narratives into a complex representation of how the people who experienced the Easter Rising in 1916 understood their various intersecting identities (based on assumptions about, and experiences of, gender, nationality, economic class, religion, and sexuality).
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Dissel,Stephane
Molecular Biology&Biochemistry
Why do we sleep? While the answer to this question may appear to be straightforward, the reality is that we still do not know what the function of sleep is. Sleep and more importantly the lack of sleep impacts virtually every aspects of our life. Sleep interacts with many physiological functions, like immune responses, metabolism and cognition.
In my laboratory, we study the relationship between sleep and memory. It has been known for a while that there is a strong link between sleep and the formation of memory but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We use the powerful fruit fly genetic model to address key questions about sleep, memory and plasticity. The methods we are employing in our studies include genetics, behavioral analysis, fixed and live brain imaging and molecular biology.
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Dobens,Leonard
Molecular Biology&Biochemistry
I use Drosophila to study intercellular signaling pathways that control basic developmental processes, including cell proliferation, migration and differentiation. I combine molecular, genetic and cell biological approaches to understand the mechanisms by which gene interactions control organogenesis. The outcomes of these approaches will illuminate the conserved role of gene pathways in both normal development and disease.
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Donaldson,Susanna
Sociology
My name is Dr. Susie Donaldson (she/her) and I am a cultural anthropologist who focuses on ethnographic research in North America. My area of expertise is the regions of southern and central Appalachia with a focus on farmers and farmworkers. I have conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in this region on cultural conceptions of farming and farm work and exploring ideas like rural identity. I am always interested in mentoring students who want to explore any of these areas of the world or issues in their research. However, since coming to UMKC, my research foci have changed some.
My current research projects are in the area of Honors pedagogy (teaching and learning among high achieving students) and understanding and understanding campus culture and the ways it impacts things like diversity, social identity, and experiences of exclusion and inclusion. See below for Dr. Donaldson's research projects (all open to undergraduate involvement). I also spend a lot of time mentoring students who are interested in getting involved in undergraduate research and love to work with students to help them develop their own ideas - especially students who want to conduct ethnographic research in sociology or anthropology. So, do not hesitate to reach out if you have an idea that does not match the research interests I have listed above or below.
Neurodivergence Among High Achieving Students
This research is focused on examining the way neurodivergence is experienced among high-achieving college students. The initial goal of this research is to seek a better understanding of (1) the ways neurodivergence is experienced during the transition to college and (2) the challenges posed by neurodivergence at the college-level, especially among students who excel (or are expected to excel) academically.
College Going Culture and Identity Work
This research is focused on examining the experiences of first-generation college students who participate in the Honors Program. This study involves examining how exposure (or lack of exposure) to a “college going culture” affects students as they develop academic identities.
College Culture as it Relates to Notions and Experiences of Diversity and Identity
This research explores the role of a college-campus culture on student perceptions and experiences of diversity and inclusion or exclusion. This research will involve conducting surveys, focus groups, and interviews among students who attend different types of universities.
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