April Faculty and Staff Features 2013

Anita A. Nadal, Assistant Professor of Spanish, School of World Studies, College of Humanities and Sciences

Nadal participated in a colloquium at Harvard Law School in honor of Margaret Montoya, J.D., Emerita Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico and author of “Mascaras, Trenzas, Y Grenas: Un/Masking The Self While Un/Braiding Latina Stories And Legal Discourse,” which was published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender nearly 20 years ago.

According to the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender website, Montoya’s article addressed the challenges and obstacles faced by those who are outsiders (or perceive themselves to be) in legal education and discourse and the impact this has on the legal community.

A portion of an essay written by Nadal that reflects on her first meeting with Montoya was featured during the March 28 colloquium.

Nadal, who is also the Spanish instruction liaison within the VCU Division of Community Engagement, designs and implements language and culture classes on- and off-campus.  Her research interests include transculturation, cultural awareness and immigration.

 

Carl F. Ameringer, Ph.D., Professor of Health Policy and Politics, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, College of Humanities and Sciences

Ameringer has been recognized by The Federation of State Medical Boards with an award of merit. 

Ameringer was cited for making exceptional contributions in the field of medical licensure and discipline, particularly to state medical boards for his research about state medical boards, health professions, delivery systems and health care workforce issues.

Ameringer is the author of “State Medical Boards and the Politics of Public Protection,” “The
Health Care Revolution: From Medical Monopoly to Market Competition” and “State-Based Licensure of Telemedicine: The Need for Uniformity but not a National Scheme.”
 
From 1987 to 1992, Ameringer served as assistant attorney general and deputy counsel to the Maryland health department. His responsibilities included oversight of disciplinary actions before Maryland's health licensing boards and commissions. He has served on health policy task forces in Maryland, Wisconsin and Virginia.

The Federation of State Medical Boards is a national non-profit organization representing all medical boards within the United States and its territories that license and discipline allopathic and osteopathic physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals.

Ameringer had planned to accept the award during the federation’s annual meeting in Boston from April 18 to April 20 but travel restrictions in the city after the Boston Marathon bombings prevented him from attending the meeting.

 

Myung H. Jin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Public Administration, L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, College of Humanities and Sciences

Jin was recently awarded a 24-month, $100,000 grant by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a national philanthropy that focuses on health and health care. Jin is among a select group of junior investigators to receive a grant through the foundation’s New Connections program.

The grant will allow Jin to develop a model of performance evaluation and health services access and utilization that examines the increasing role of alternative health care practitioners on patient treatment. With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration, one of the most pressing challenges will include dealing with the current shortage of physicians without compromising the quality of health services. Jin’s research will be pivotal in understanding the extent to which alternative health care practitioners can be most effective in addressing these issues.

The New Connections program is designed to introduce new scholars to the foundation and expand the diversity of perspectives that inform the foundation’s programming. New Connections supports early to mid-career scholars who are historically underrepresented ethnic or racial minorities, first-generation college graduates or individuals from low-income communities.

Jin teaches public administration theory, public management and leadership and public policy analysis. His research interests are in citizen participation, state and local governance, administrative behavior and public policy.

 

Michael Schreffler, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Art History

Schreffler was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in February. The $42,000 fellowship gives Schreffler the opportunity to spend 10 months in residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Schreffler is an art historian whose research focuses on the history of art and architecture in colonial Spanish America. He authored “The Art of Allegiance: Visual Culture and Imperial Power in Baroque New Spain,” published by Penn State Press in 2007. The book examines the history of painting and architecture in 17th-century Mexico City. Schreffler’s work also has been published published in journals such as The Art Bulletin and Art History.

During his fellowship, Schreffler will work on his new book, currently titled "Inca Cuzco, Spanish Cuzco: Space and Time in Colonial Peru." It is a study of the transformation of Cuzco — which, prior to the Spanish conquest, was the capital of the Inca empire — into a Spanish colonial town in the 16th and 17th centuries.

“My research seeks to understand how this transformation was understood by the ethnically diverse population of Cuzco at that time,” Schreffler said.

 

Brien Patrick Riley, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, and
Ananda B. Amstadter, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Riley and Amstadter have both been selected to receive $100,000 independent investigator grants from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (formerly NARSAD, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression).

The 2013 NARSAD independent investigator grants were awarded to mid-career scientists from 10 countries and 34 institutions. Grantees will pursue innovative research related to depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety disorders such as obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders. Since 1987, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation has awarded researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University 22 grants totaling $1.5 million.

Riley proposes to sequence all protein-coding DNA in the genomes of a group of Irish patients with schizophrenia in multiple affected families in order to identify rare, damaging genetic variations. Such families have a substantially higher risk of illness than the general population, and likely harbor gene variations with greater impact in the causation of a disease in which hundreds of variants have been implicated.

Amstadter will examine changes in methylation status and associated gene expression pre- to post-treatment using a form of psychotherapy called Risk Reduction Family Therapy to treat adolescents who have been exposed to sexual abuse and suffer from subsequent post-traumatic stress disorder and drug abuse. The study aims to examine the biological mechanisms of response to the treatment, results of which may then inform other treatment approaches to trauma-induced illness.