All Experts

All Experts

Stephen Brain

Field: History of Science and Technology, Agricultural, Rural, and Environmental History, War, Power, International Affairs

Topics: environmental history, international affairs, Russia

Bio / Description:

Dr. Stephen Brain is an associate professor in the Department of History and a co-editor of Environmental History, the journal of the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society. His research focuses on Soviet/Russian history, environmental history, and forest history as well as war, power, and international affairs. He is available to comment on the Russian-…

Mike Brown

Field: Climatology, Geography, Geosciences, Meteorology

Topics: storms, tornadoes, weather, climate

Bio / Description:

Dr. Mike Brown is the state climatologist for Mississippi and a professor of meteorology/climatology in the Department of Geosciences.  His research interests include land-surface-atmosphere interactions and severe local storms, public perception of warnings, tornado damage paths and enhanced convection, lightning probabilities at NCAA stadiums, and thermodynamic characteristics of severe…

Gil Carter

Field: Rhetoric, Political Discourse

Topics: persuasion, political communication, rhetoric

Bio / Description:

Gil Carter (Ph.D., The University of Alabama) is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Mississippi State University. Dr. Carter researches and teaches rhetoric, political communication, and persuasion. Before coming to MSU, Dr. Carter was a state-championship-winning director of debate and an assistant instructional professor at the University of Florida and…

Huan Cui

Field: Geobiology, Geology

Topics: geology, sediment, earth history

Bio / Description:

Dr. Huan Cui is an assistant professor in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University who conducts multidisciplinary research that integrates sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, and paleontology to investigate the co-evolution of the environment and life in Earth’s history. The multidisciplinary nature of his research requires a holistic understanding of the Earth-life…

Hilary DeShong

Field: Clinical Psychology

Topics: psychology, personality disorders, personality , assessment and measurement

Bio / Description:

Dr. DeShong an associate professor in the Department of Psychology. Her research focuses on using the five-factor model of general personality to conceptualize, distinguish, and better understand personality disorders and personality constructs like psychopathy and Machiavellianism. She also investigates how personality can influence engagement in adaptive and maladaptive behaviors and…

Mary E. Dozier

Field: Clinical Psychology

Topics: behavioral interventions, clinical psychology, geropsychology, hoarding disorders, object attachment, psychology

Bio / Description:

Dr. Mary Dozer is a Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology.  Her research interests include geropsychology, hoarding disorder, and behavioral interventions to address psychopathology across the lifespan. Her current research focuses on hoarding disorder in older adults. She is available for commentary and analysis on these and related topics.

Nick Fitzkee

Field: Chemistry

Topics: chemistry, computation, physics , polymers

Bio / Description:

Dr. Nick Fitzkee is a professor in the Department of Chemistry whose research focuses on using a combination of physical chemistry, molecular biology, modeling, and NMR spectroscopy to understand the relationship between protein structure and function. Currently, our research is centered around three main projects: bacterial biofilms, protein-nanoparticle interactions, and structure and…

Ryan Folk

Field: Ecology, Evolution, Biology

Topics: bioinformatics, hybridization, plants, plant diversity , plant evolution

Bio / Description:

Dr. Ryan Folk is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and is the university's herbarium curator. His research interests include interspecific hybridization, reconstruction of ancestral niche and species distributions, evolution of symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and automated extraction of plant traits from biodiversity literature. In addition, he leads the…

Jesse Goliath

Field: Biological Anthropology

Topics: biological anthropology, forensics, forensic anthropology

Bio / Description:

Dr. Jesse R. Goliath is an assistant professor of Biological Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures. He is an expert in Forensic Anthropology with extensive forensic casework experience from city, state, and federal agencies. He is the Founding Director of the Mississippi Repository for Missing and Unidentified Persons Project and serves as a consulting…

Margaret Hagerman

Field: Sociology, African American Studies, Gender Studies

Topics: racial socialization and racial learning, sociology of race and racism, privilege and inequality, children and youth, families, qualitative methods

Bio / Description:

Dr. Margaret Hagerman is the author of the award-winning book, White Kids: Growing Up with Privilege in a Racially Divided America (NYU Press 2018), and she is a nationally recognized expert on white racial socialization processes. She is available for comments and analysis on how children and youth learn about racism, racial inequality, and racial privilege in their everyday lives.

Tonya Hays

Field: Theatre

Topics: acting, directing , playwriting, humanities

Bio / Description:

Tonya Hays is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication teaching acting, playwriting, directing, theatre for young audiences and theatre for change.  Her recent Theatre MSU productions include Banner: a Sea Turtle Saga which engaged audience members in the fate of sea life in climate change and challenged them to take action. This production garnered international…

Allison Jaeger

Field: Cognitive Psychology

Topics: psychology, education , spatial thinking , stem

Bio / Description:

Dr. Allison Jaeger (Berena) is an assistant professor of Cognitive Psychology. Her research interests are situated at the intersection of cognitive psychology and education. Her research explores how individual differences in cognitive capacities such as spatial thinking impact STEM learning and reasoning and how educational materials and instructions can be designed to support all types…

Kimberly Kelly

Field: Sociology, Gender Studies

Topics: reproductive politics , social movements, white Christian nationalism, qualitative methods

Bio / Description:

Kimberly Kelly is Professor of Sociology and Director of Gender Studies at Mississippi State University. She studies the intersections of religion and reproductive politics, focusing upon abortion activism in the United States. Her previous work addressed the crisis pregnancy center movement, ‘post abortion syndrome,’ and the diffusion of religious ideology into public policy and appears in…

Terry Likes

Field: Communication

Topics: radio-tv writing, reporting, anchoring, media performance, audio production, news, journalism , media, popular culture

Bio / Description:

Dr. Terry Likes, an award-winning educator and journalist, is the head of the Department of Communication and tenured full professor at Mississippi State University. He is an expert in radio-tv writing, reporting, production, and producing. Likes has won over 100 awards and honors in his career, and has conducted 37 presentations at a variety of conferences. His research interests include…

Kelly Moser

Field: Curriculum and Instruction, Spanish, World Languages

Topics: rural world language teacher preparation, teacher cognition and practice, world language teacher development, world language teacher shortage

Bio / Description:

Dr. Kelly Moser is an Associate Professor of Spanish and World Language Teaching in the Department of Classical & Modern Languages and Literatures. Her research explores language teacher identity, teacher cognition, and teacher practice. Moser’s critical research in System in which she uncovered how K-12 and post-secondary world language teachers enacted emergency remote instruction at the…

Keith Moser

Field: French-Francophone Literature, Modern Foreign Languages

Topics: anti-vaccination movement, environmental humanities, environmentalism, fake news and disinformation, French-Francophone literature, Harki studies , late-stage capitalism, medical humanities, neoliberalism, post-truth politics

Bio / Description:

Dr. Keith Moser is a Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of Classical & Modern Languages and Literatures.  He has more than 100 major publications including nine books and eighty-five articles.  Moser’s research examines many issues linked to social-ecological justice.  He is widely recognized by the international academic community as an expert in…

Michael Nadorff

Field: Clinical Psychology

Topics: depression, nightmares, insomnia, sleep

Bio / Description:

Dr. Michael Nadorff is a professor of psychology and also directs the clinical psychology PhD program. His research focuses on the association between sleep difficulties, nightmares, and suicidal behavior. He is available for commentary and analysis on these and related topics.
 

Donna M. Pierce

Field: Astronomy, Astrophysics

Topics: comets, space, physics

Bio / Description:

Dr. Donna Pierce is an associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Mississippi State University. Her research concerns the physical and chemical properties of comets. She collaborates with observational astronomers to build interpretive models of the chemistry and structure of comet atmospheres that are in turn used to determine chemical and physical properties of…

Holli Seitz

Field: Health Communication, Media Effects, Message Effects, Science Communication

Topics: health communication, media and message effects, public service announcements

Bio / Description:

Dr. Holli Seitz is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and director of the Message Laboratory at the MSU Social Science Research Center. Seitz's research focuses on health communication, message effects, media effects and health equity. She is an applied communication scientist, using her knowledge to help others craft more effective messages.

Brian Shoup

Field: Political Science

Topics: conflict, identity politics, nation building

Bio / Description:

Dr. Brian Shoup is Professor of Political Science and Public Administration where he teaches comparative politics and public policy. His primary research interests are identity politics and conflict and state and nation-building. He is the author of Conflict and Cooperation in Multi-Ethnic States: Institutional Incentives, Myths, and Counterbalancing and his research has appeared in…

Dr. Tara Sutton

Field: Sociology

Topics: children and youth, families, gender , intimate partner violence, sexual assault, marginalized groups, sexual identity

Bio / Description:

Tara E. Sutton, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Sociology, Gender Studies affiliate, and African American studies affiliate at Mississippi State University. Dr. Sutton's work on perpetration and victimization incorporates queer criminology and feminist criminology perspectives. Specifically, her research addresses child abuse, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and the cycle of…

Robert Swanson

Field: Physics , Meteorology

Topics: weather, physics , space

Bio / Description:

Robert Swanson is an Instructor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Mississippi State University. He writes and performs children’s music about weather and astronomy for school and library groups. In an effort to teach science in an innovative and interesting way, Bob combines his passions for both science and music. A self-trained musician who plays guitar, harmonica,…

Angelle Tanner

Field: Astronomy, Astrophysics

Topics: planets, space, stars

Bio / Description:

Dr. Angelle Tanner is an associate professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Mississippi State University. She has been interested in finding habitable planets outside our solar system since she was young. Her research is focused on multiple methods of extrasolar planet detection including using radial velocities, astrometry and direct imaging. She is also involved in…

Jacob Tschume

Field: Calculus, Linear Algebra, Trigonometry

Topics: calculus, linear algebra, sports statistics, trigonometry

Bio / Description:

Jacob Tschume is an instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Tschume serves as the course coordinator for both Trigonometry and Business Calculus. In addition, his primary teaching areas are Calculus and Linear Algebra. Tschume received his M.A. in Mathematics in 2012 from Mississippi State University. He is available for commentary and analysis on these and…