Shayla Brown

This information sciences and technology instructor is a Patriot through and through

Shayla Brown — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 18:42:15 +0000

This information sciences and technology instructor is a Patriot through and through  Shayla Brown Mon, 09/15/2025 - 14:42

In This Story

Irene Bruno

When Hussna Azamy arrived on �鶹��Ƶ’s Fairfax Campus for her first advising session as a Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) transfer student, she had no idea it would be the beginning of a lifelong calling.

“Dr. [Irene] Bruno shaped me into the professor I am today,” said Azamy, recalling that 2013 meeting with the advisor who became her mentor. “Her guidance, her kindness, her belief in students—it inspired me to rise to my best self.” 

Hussna Azamy. Photo provided.

Azamy’s path to teaching wasn’t linear. After earning her BS in cyber security engineering in 2015, she ventured into the corporate world, working with Accenture, Fannie Mae, Fortune 500 companies, and Amazon Web Services. She led teams and projects, built secure systems, and navigated high-stakes environments—experiences she now brings into the classroom in the College of Engineering and Computing. 

“I always tell my students, the theories we learn are powerful—but seeing them in action is what makes them real,” she said. “When I share stories from my time in industry, I see their eyes light up. It connects the dots.” 

Even as she climbed the tech ladder, she was simultaneously pursuing her master’s through �鶹��Ƶ’s Bachelor’s to Accelerated Master’s Program. That led her back to Bruno—this time as a graduate teaching assistant in the Information Systems and Technology (IST) Department. 

“I was thriving professionally, but mentally drained,” Azamy admitted. “Then I’d walk into class, see my students’ energy, and suddenly I felt alive.” 

By 2017, she had earned her master’s in applied information technology—and clarity. Teaching wasn’t just a job. It was her purpose.   

Just as she realized this, a full-time faculty position opened in the IST department. It felt like fate. 

“I was scared to make such a big leap,” she said. “But since becoming full-time faculty, I’ve never looked back. The students, the colleagues, the energy—it feels like home.” 

Azamy brings that energy into her classroom with a twist: gamification. 

“I turn lessons into team competitions,” she said. “It sparks excitement and keeps students engaged.”   

She uses buzzers for trivia contests inspired by “Jeopardy!” and tracks team points across sessions. Winners earn fun prizes like assignment extensions or chocolates.  

“The students love it,” she said with a smile.

Azamy, who currently teaches the courses IT 372 Applied Generative AI and IT 429 Security Accreditation of Information Systems, recently expanded the games to include artificial intelligence (AI) tools, helping students explore how technology can boost their learning.   

While Azamy credits many mentors, her bond with Irene Bruno remains special. Bruno, now retired, was her undergraduate advisor and a guiding force at George �鶹��Ƶ. 

“She’s brilliant and a phenomenal problem solver,” Bruno said. “Hussna stood out in class—sharp, detail-oriented, and dependable.”   

Azamy even helped edit Bruno’s Discrete Mathematics textbook for IT 102, catching everything from math errors to grammar slips. 

“She was my go-to,” said Bruno, who hired Azamy as an adjunct in 2017. They worked side by side until Bruno’s retirement in 2022. 

“I’d sit in on her classes often,” Bruno said. “She had a gift, explaining complex ideas in ways students could grasp. That’s what makes her exceptional not just in cybersecurity, but in teaching.” 

Now, as a full-time faculty member, Azamy continues to bridge real-world experience with academic insight, creating a classroom environment where students feel seen, challenged, and inspired. Her journey from student to industry professional to educator is a powerful reminder that believing in others can spark transformation. And for every student she mentors, Azamy hopes to be the kind of guide who helps them discover not just what they can learn—but who they can become. 

Topics

faculty profile

College of Engineering and Computing

Artificial Intelligence

Bachelor’s/Acclerated Master’s Program

Alumni

From Marvel to George �鶹��Ƶ: Meet the new modern and classical languages chair

Shayla Brown — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 14:33:12 +0000

From Marvel to George �鶹��Ƶ: Meet the new modern and classical languages chair Shayla Brown Mon, 09/15/2025 - 10:33

When Liang Luo steps into a classroom—or works on a film, for that matter—she brings with her a rare blend of scholarship, creativity, and cultural sensitivity. This fall, Luo begins her role as chair of �鶹��Ƶ’s Department of Modern and Classical Languages, a position that recognizes her academic leadership as well as her global perspective. 

But it’s often another of her accomplishments that sparks the most curiosity: her work as a language and culture consultant for Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. 

Luo, who grew up in Chongqing, China, and later earned a degree in East Asian languages and civilizations from Harvard University, was tapped by Marvel for her expertise on Chinese folklore and mythology, especially the legend of the White Snake—a story that inspired many elements of the film. While advising the studio, she was also completing her second book, The Global White Snake (University of Michigan Press, 2021). 

“I really had to educate myself when I was assigned this consulting job,” Luo recalled. She traveled to Burbank, California, to deliver presentations to Marvel’s creative team, advocating strongly for two elements: Mandarin dialogue and dynamic female characters, such as Awkwafina’s Katy and Michelle Yeoh’s Ying Nan. 

For Luo, cultural consultation is about more than authenticity—it’s about amplifying voices that might otherwise be left out.  

“There’s a lot of controversy surrounding cultural appropriation, but my view is that cultures are always appropriated,” she said. “If you think you have ownership toward a culture and other people are appropriating it, I don't think that's a very healthy starting point for dynamic cultural changes and transformations.” 

Her curiosity has always fueled her work. “Discovering new languages leads to a different worldview that’s not available to you as a monolingual person,” Luo said. “That’s really the foundation of my passion.” 

Luo’s expertise has since led her to another consulting project, this time for Netflix’s animated film Over the Moon, which reimagines the Mid-Autumn Festival while exploring mother-daughter bonds. 

At George �鶹��Ƶ, she is eager to spotlight the breadth and depth of the department she now leads. “Our faculty are amazing—multi-talented, multilingual, and exceptional researchers and teachers winning international fellowships,” she said. “I’m very excited to get to know more of them.” 

Ann Ardis, dean of �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, praised Luo’s arrival. 

“Her scholarship and creative work in global Asian studies and on transhistorical and cross-cultural translations and interpretations of Chinese folklore and mythology, together with her interests in capaciously cross-disciplinary collaborations in both teaching and research, will elevate our George �鶹��Ƶ faculty and students,” Ardis said. 

A slide from Luo's presention. Photo provided.

As Luo takes on her new role, she sees accessibility and support as central to her leadership. “It’s very important for me as a new chair to be really accessible and to support my faculty so they can excel in their job to serve our students,” she said. 

Whether guiding students through the complexities of language and literature or shaping global narratives for the big screen, Luo continues to bridge worlds—academic, cultural, and creative.

Topics

faculty profile

Marvel Universe

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of Modern and Classical Languages

Campus News

George �鶹��Ƶ public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research

Shayla Brown — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:22:40 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ public health researchers enter new phase of NIH funded research Shayla Brown Thu, 09/11/2025 - 11:22

Scientists, nurses, and researchers in �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Public Health (CPH) have successfully progressed to the third phase of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) program studying a broad range of early life exposures on child health.

The NIH grant provides more than $157 million in awards for Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), and George �鶹��Ƶ will receive $1.35 million annually until 2030 to conduct the study.

ECHO researcher working with one of the participants in the Population Health Center. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

George �鶹��Ƶ is one of 45 research sites across the country gathering longitudinal data on more than 30,000 children; 1,059 of those children are enrolled in George �鶹��Ƶ’s ECHO program. The research is conducted in George �鶹��Ƶ’s Population Health Center, the only clinical site in Virginia.

“For this phase of ECHO, we’re gathering information on novel chemical exposures, preconception behaviors, early exposures, and the consequences of regional and social determinants of health,” said Kathi Huddleston, PhD ’08, principal investigator and CPH associate professor. “Following our large and diverse ECHO population will enhance the ability to go from society to biology to more positive health outcomes.”

George �鶹��Ƶ faculty and students working on the project include alumni Grace Lawrence, PhD ’18, Daisy Posada, MA ’18, Megan Bayne, MA ’18, Shiva Zarean, BS ‘24, and Alma Fuller, Lynda Ashie, and Bruna Mayen, a senior biology major who also acts as the project and lab manager.

The project has followed these families since their 2012 to 2019 pregnancy.

“Many of the families sharing their health information to help the next generation include George �鶹��Ƶ alumni,” Huddleston added.

While the project tracks changes in child health over time, the study had to adapt during the pandemic when researchers moved to remote data collection. Since then, ECHO has been instrumental in advancing remote research study activities.

ECHO researcher working with one of the participants in the Population Health Center. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

“When the kids were babies, we received surveys and sample kits in the mail to provide teeth and hair samples that we would send back. Now we come into the center once a year for check-ups,” said Susy Ashkar, a mother of three boys, ages 9, 6, and 4, who participate in the ECHO study.

“After quality assurance and review determined the validity and veracity of the data, we are now continuing many of these remote practices to decrease the study burden on our families,” said Huddleston.

This has added to Mayen’s role as lab manager as she collects teeth and hair samples as well as basic anthropometric measurements to assess the health and well-being of our children as they grow.

“As a biobank, we provide high-quality, well-documented biological samples ensuring they remain viable and uncontaminated, for long-term preservation under controlled conditions so they can be used for future analyses, thereby serving as a research-enabling platform that advances science,” said Mayen.

“From the research we’ve conducted during this phase, we can see that groups of children who share a common characteristic or experience. For example, those born in the same year give us the advantage to see development and change over time, help identify patterns, trends, and predictors. All that is possible because of the work we do every day in collecting biospecimens, anthropometrics, and many surveys in the participating ECHO families,” Mayen said.

“We have tapped on a wonderful resource of families willing to share of their time to help science to improve population health, and in that act are demonstrating to their children that citizen science matters,” Huddleston said. “I can’t wait to see some of these young ECHO participants enroll at George �鶹��Ƶ and bring with them that spirit of public health.”

In This Story

Dr. Kathi Huddleston, PhD, MSN

Topics

College of Public Health

public health research

Community Engagement

population health center

Research

National Institutes of Health

Cybersecurity student hopes to use his powers for good

Shayla Brown — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 15:49:25 +0000

Cybersecurity student hopes to use his powers for good Shayla Brown Fri, 08/29/2025 - 11:49

When �鶹��Ƶ cyber security engineering major Connor Wadlin learned about ransomware attacks on organizations, such as the one on the Health Service Executive in Ireland, in his CYSE 445 System Security and Resilience class, it confirmed his commitment to dedicating his educational and professional career to protecting and preserving human lives.

“There’s nothing more important than protecting and defending others. As an engineer, I’m driven to get important work done by thinking about complex problems and finding suitable solutions,” said Wadlin, who is from Leesburg, Virginia.

Since winter 2024, the Honors College student has been interning at the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Northern Virginia Node, George �鶹��Ƶ’s branch of the statewide network dedicated of excellence in cybersecurity research. CCI’s mission includes workforce development through training the next generation of cybersecurity experts.

CEC student and Commonwealth Cyber Initiative intern Connor Wadlin. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding.

“It’s a super exciting job because I get to work with AprilTags, which are on objects that the drone's camera then sees and scans. Instead of sharing data, the tags utilize location information for navigation, tracking objects, or pathing purposes,” he said.

Wadlin is also simulating drone flight with the Microsoft tool Air Sim, a project he presented at the CCI Symposium in April. “I created a model with a 98% accuracy, really high F1 score—higher than what we could find on the market—detecting collisions so the drones would be able to respond to anomalous factors such as objects that get too close, environmental variables, cyber-attacks, and more,” he explained.

Wadlin learned about many of the tools he’s currently using for CCI in his classes with College of Engineering and Computing professors, such as his mentor Mohamed Gebril, an associate professor in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering.

“George �鶹��Ƶ supports people where they are to get them where they want to be,” Wadlin said.

The skills Wadlin has acquired during his time at George �鶹��Ƶ and in his work with CCI have enable him to help other students in their studies.

“Connor is a very skilled student and has been able to develop different programs, as well as 12 labs for sophomore- and freshman-level students at George �鶹��Ƶ. He even assists the students during our workshops,” said Gebril.

Wadlin is participating in George �鶹��Ƶ’s Bachelor’s to Accelerated Master’s Program and will to pursuing a master’s degree also in cyber security. Gebril said he’s looking forward to having Wadlin in his classes again as a graduate student.

“It will be a smooth transition from the undergraduate to the graduate level because the curriculum aligns well with the CCI mission, which is to equip our students with the tools to conduct research activity and develop cutting-edge technology,” said Gebril.

Wadlin’s team is also working to develop a first-of-its-kind cyber drone race that incorporates cybersecurity challenges and artificial intelligence for undergraduate students.

Wadlin was diagnosed with autism at 19 and sees this diagnosis as working to his advantage by allowing him to see things from different perspectives and approach problems with his own unique ideas.

“As an engineer, you have to ask yourself ‘how is this making the world a better place?’ That's always got to be the end goal,” said Wadlin.

Explore the College of Engineering and Computing

In This Story

Mohamed Gebril

Topics

internships

College of Engineering and Computing

Honors College

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)

Cybersecurity

Students

George �鶹��Ƶ student finds his voice through dream internship

Shayla Brown — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 18:20:11 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ student finds his voice through dream internship  Shayla Brown Wed, 08/27/2025 - 14:20

For �鶹��Ƶ sophomore Nathan Ferraro, summer hasn’t been about taking a break—it’s been about chasing his dream job. The Honors College student and communication major, who’s concentrating in both journalism and political communication, spent his summer interning as a staff writer with Trib Total Media, a multimedia news network in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where he wrote two to three stories a week. 

“My favorite assignment so far was about a local state representative in Westmoreland County trying to reform a tax-collecting agency,” he said. “I got to interview both the representative and the agency to understand the challenges people are facing and what’s being done to fix them.” 

For Ferraro, the assignment was more than a writing exercise—it was a glimpse into his future. “I hope to work in communications for a political campaign one day,” he explained. “Getting to talk with a state representative and explore that side of the political world was really exciting.” 

Ferraro on assignment in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Photo by Massoud Hossaini/TribLive.

The Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, native recently returned from a semester abroad in Madrid through George �鶹��Ƶ’s Global Gateway Program. Jumping into local reporting has been the perfect way to reconnect with home. “This internship has been a great way for me to re-immerse myself in the community,” Ferraro said. “I love getting to talk with people from local organizations and share their stories.” 

At George �鶹��Ƶ, Ferraro is already immersed in storytelling and civic engagement. He writes for the Fourth Estate, �鶹��Ƶ’s student-run newspaper, and is active in the Society of Professional Journalists and the Public Relations Student Society of America. He is also a member of the Bonner Leadership Program, a civic-engagement initiative that connects students with community organizations. 

Through Bonner, Ferraro works as a development coordinator for Britepaths, a Northern Virginia nonprofit focused on financial literacy and workforce development. “Right now, we’re working to expand services beyond Fairfax and into all of Northern Virginia,” he said. “It’s been amazing to see the real-world impact of that work.” 

The connections he’s made at Britepaths have already opened doors—his supervisor wrote him a recommendation that helped him secure the Trib Total Media internship. Ferraro also credits his Honors 110 Principles of Research and Inquiry course for preparing him for success. “That class really strengthened my research and inquiry skills, which are essential to journalism. It also pushed me to get comfortable with feedback, which has been invaluable for the roles I’m in now.” 

Faculty and mentors have noticed his drive. “What I appreciated about Nathan is his attention to detail, strong aptitude for academic discourse, and really excellent critical thinking skills,” said Honors College professor Caroline West, who taught Ferraro in Honors 110. 

Ferraro sees writing not just as a career skill, but as a calling. “I just love writing and sharing people’s stories,” he said. “Wherever I end up, I hope that’s always at the heart of what I do.” 

In This Story

Caroline West

Internships at George �鶹��Ƶ

Topics

internships

Communication Department

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Honors College

Students

George �鶹��Ƶ’s summer camps introduce K-12 students to STEM fields and life on a college campus

Shayla Brown — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 19:49:58 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ’s summer camps introduce K-12 students to STEM fields and life on a college campus  Shayla Brown Mon, 08/04/2025 - 15:49

�鶹��Ƶ’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) summer camps, programs, and workshops are dedicated to inspiring the next generation of scientists and researchers with STEM-focused curriculum and hands-on learning experiences. 

 The camps, offered to K-12 students, are run by George �鶹��Ƶ faculty, staff, and students from the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) and the College of Science (COS).  

In addition to hands-on experience and mentorship, attendees experience life on a college campus, preparing them to enter the higher education environment. 

 Aspiring Scientists 

The College of Science’s Aspiring Scientist Summer Internship Program (ASSIP) is one of the longest running summer STEM programs at George �鶹��Ƶ. Nearly 400 students are participating in ASSIP this year both in person and remotely.

“ASSIP is an amazing eight-week program designed to give students more experience in the advanced labs. It runs every summer with different mentors from all over George �鶹��Ƶ,” said Isela Gallagher, PhD Biosciences ’19, senior research scientist, Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM) affiliate.  

Isela Gallagher (right) working with ASSIP students. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

Gallagher is an ASSIP faculty mentor working with local high school students Alex Simmonds and Yelyzaveta "Liza" Kalchenko.  

The rising seniors attended the Governor’s School at Innovation Park, which allows high school juniors and seniors to spend part of each school day experiencing life as George �鶹��Ƶ students, where they heard about this opportunity to work alongside faculty mentors on a research topic of their choosing. 

“We're learning different lab techniques and working with laser capture microdissection, or LCM, and reverse phase protein arrays, or RPBA. We're doing this work to isolate cancer cells from breast tissue samples to better research them,” explained Simmonds, who attends Forest Park High School in Woodbridge, Virginia. 

Simmonds and Kalchenko are working out of the Advanced Biomedical Research Building at the Science and Technology Campus (SciTech Campus). The students will share their findings at the end of summer presentation for the program on August 7.  

FOCUS  

The FOCUS camp is a five-day residential camp geared toward helping middle and high school students better understand career options. It also utilizes alumni and community partners. 

FOCUS was started in 2014 with four cofounders, including mathematics professor Padmanabhan Seshaiyer, forensic science professor Kelly Knight, former biology professor Claudette Davis, and George �鶹��Ƶ alumna Danielle Craddock, MA Integrative Studies ’11, founder of Girls Inspired and Ready to Lead Inc.  

This summer, FOCUS took place from July 14-18 with Craddock serving as the FOCUS program manager, while Knight serves as director of the program.  

FOCUS provides positive role models and experiences with STEM that will increase students’ confidence level in their knowledge, skills, and competencies in the respective fields. 

Each weekday of the camp focused on a different letter of STEM: Monday is science, Tuesday is tech, Wednesday is engineering, and Thursday is math, and on Friday, STEM professionals speak to the students through an interactive panel as well as do a poster presentation. 

ASSIP students working in the lab. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

“The students do all types of workshops from coding robotic arms to crime scene investigation, to building rollercoasters,” Knight said. “They also engage in team sessions where we focus on team and community building as well as reviewing content covered that day or content to be covered the next day.”  

“The high school students have an additional workshop before that focuses on college prep, confidence building, or specialized skills such as entrepreneurship,” she added. 

The camp builds students’ relationships with George �鶹��Ƶ by prioritizing returning students in the registration process and as a result, the high school program is almost always sold out by alumni of the program within minutes, explained Kelly. The middle school program also has a significant number of alumni and also sells out within minutes.  

In addition to staying in the residence halls to get taste of campus life, camp participants learn more about the college experience from George �鶹��Ƶ Admissions representatives and tour the campus. 

“This year we are also doing a workshop on college scholarships and introducing students to skills they will need to be successful in higher education,” said Knight. 

Space Exploration 

Camps such as the NASA-funded program �鶹��Ƶ Space Exploration Center (MSEC) are spread across George �鶹��Ƶ campuses and provide students with access to some of the university’s most notable facilities such as the Observatory. During its three years, the camp has expanded its offerings to meet demand.  

Ian Helm, MSEC outreach coordinator, with a student. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

“MSEC started as a summer camp but has now also expanded into many different outreach activities and family events, such as Space Day, that cater to fourth through ninth grade students,” said Rob Parks, COS assistant director of MSEC. 

 “We're hoping to be able to stay involved with these families as these kids age, so that hopefully we can encourage them to consider George �鶹��Ƶ [when thinking about colleges],” said Parks. 

Rising high school seniors Gwen Chaves and Gabby Whitefield and Rob Parks are Observatory tour guides. Chavs led the advanced camp on the Science and Technology Campus. Whitefield was the lead flight director, facilitating daily Astronomy and STEM-related lectures, activities, crafts, and demonstrations. 

“A lot of the kids in the advanced camp are asking me about my experience in George �鶹��Ƶ STEM and what it's like to live on campus,” said Chaves. “They’re really curious about what kind of labs and facilities we have, which are cool questions to be able to answer. It’s exciting to teach them about what George �鶹��Ƶ has to offer them later on in their academic careers.” 

Engineering Is a Growing Field

Camps on engineering and related topics are always popular at George �鶹��Ƶ, and there are a variety of programs on all three of the university’s Northern Virginia campuses for students looking to be inspired. 

The CEC Office of Outreach, Student Success, and Engagement (OSSE) offers outreach activities that encourage creativity and nurture a passion for STEM from an early age. Outreach activities include the Fall STEAM Fest, the Spring into STEM Event, the STEM Summer Showcase, and the Engineering 4 Us All Program. 

George �鶹��Ƶ’s Exploring Renewable Energy Engineering Summer Camp, held at �鶹��Ƶ Square is sponsored by Amazon Web Services. This camp, led by CEC professor Liling Huang, offered high school students a range of interactive science and engineering activities, including building a model town powered entirely by clean renewable energy.  

Huang’s E2 Center for Energy Exploration will host an upcoming summer camp for high school students as well. 

MSEC students. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding.

BioE-Buzz 

Carolyn Wilson, internship coordinator for the Bioengineering Department, worked with the department’s external advisory board, called the Alliance, to increase the pipeline of students coming into the department.  

Through this initiative, Wilson created BioE-Buzz, a CEC summer camp for rising high school juniors and seniors.  

“We have a number of campers who are interested in majoring in bioengineering based on what they learned and were exposed to during the camp, so that really encouraged us to expand our sessions this year from one to two weeks. We’ve also doubled the number of campers from our first year,” said Wilson. 

The camp takes place on the Fairfax and SciTech campuses. The camp’s counselors, coordinators, and volunteers are George �鶹��Ƶ students. 

“This is our second year of BioE-Buzz, and we have the campus structured so that students spend their time getting to know what �鶹��Ƶ has to offer. They have access to our Nanofabrication and EDGE facilities as well as the MIX,” said BioE Buzz camp director Khadija Zaidi-Rashid, PhD Bioengineering ’23. 

Students will give presentations on what they learned and experienced at George �鶹��Ƶ’s summer camps with a STEM End of Summer Showcase in August. 

Visit George �鶹��Ƶ's SciTech Campus

George �鶹��Ƶ partners with DoD agency to bring closure to the families of lost U.S. service members

Shayla Brown — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 17:39:16 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ partners with DoD agency to bring closure to the families of lost U.S. service members  Shayla Brown Mon, 07/28/2025 - 13:39

There are currently more than 80,000 unaccounted-for service members from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War, and other conflicts. �鶹��Ƶ’s ongoing collaboration with the Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is exploring new ways of locating the missing remains of those American service members and bringing closure to their families. 

This partnership, which began December 2020, is finding success, and deeper meaning, as it extends beyond the classroom to the grieving families of prisoners of war (POWs) and missing soldiers, and it showcases George �鶹��Ƶ’s commitment to being a veteran-serving institution.   

John C. Winters, MA History ’13, is a DPAA postdoctoral research fellow at George �鶹��Ƶ’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) whose research includes war, diplomacy, and the 19th and 20th centuries. 

John C. Winters. Photo provided.

“I’ve previously worked on cemetery projects, and my responsibilities were to essentially help not only map the cemetery as it stood, but to identify places where people were not cataloged properly, or were forgotten over time,” said Winters, who has been a fellow at the center since January 2025.  

Winters is also working with the Henry Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine with the goal of supporting and expanding a wide range of DPAA operations, from initial case development to field mission planning. 

“The advantage of conducting research at the Center for History and New Media is that the people there are experts in using intricate digital mapping tools. It's really wonderful to see that faculty, as well as graduate students, are so comfortable using these tools to make their research accessible,” said Winters. 

Digital mapping is a critical tool for the agency’s mission as it helps researchers visualize where someone was lost and supports investigation and excavation proposals.   

George �鶹��Ƶ has access to ArcGIS Pro, the mapping program that Winters is currently using to track missing or unidentified soldiers.  

“ArcGIS is a really dynamic program. There are a lot of facets to it including a base-level digital cemetery mapping, and the ability to create informational and visually engaging maps. They're accurate and concise, and they deliver all the information at a glance,” said Winters, who earned his PhD in history from the City University of New York in 2020. 

Jesse Stephen, chief of innovation at Defense POW/MIA accounting agency, said their mission has two goals: to search for, locate, recover, and identify missing-in-action personnel, and to communicate. 

Jesse Stephen. Photo provided.

“These projects are multidimensional and address active casework. They also tell the story of a conflict and of our missing individuals,” said Stephen. “That involves going back into archives and looking for information about a particular case or campaign. It's organizing, reviewing, and analyzing that information we find, and then putting all these different pieces together to build a case.”  

Over the course of the partnership, DPAA has learned more about more than 3,000 unaccounted-for losses. George �鶹��Ƶ Fellows have reviewed more than 1,000 deceased personnel files of people who served alongside the unaccounted-for. 

Throughout the process, DPAA staff, Service Casualty Offices, and family members meet and review the specifics of a loss. Documentation, including maps, is shared with family members, who can see where the last-known sighting of their loved one happened. 

The partnership also employs George �鶹��Ƶ students as interns and to date has given nine interns real-world experience in managing data, giving presentations, and project management. Beyond service to students, research partner fellows are encouraged to give presentations at museums and other venues on the mission and how unaccounted-for are found.  

“These were people who gave their lives while fighting to protect democracy, so I see the important work I’m doing at George �鶹��Ƶ as a public service and it’s relevant to a very large body of veterans in the Northern Virginia area,” said Winters. 

Currently, more than 150 Virginian service members are unaccounted for. 

Topics

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media

U.S. Department of Defense

These George �鶹��Ƶ alumni were driven to succeed with a premier NASCAR race team

Shayla Brown — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 13:53:55 +0000

These George �鶹��Ƶ alumni were driven to succeed with a premier NASCAR race team Shayla Brown Fri, 07/25/2025 - 09:53

You could say Dave Alpern, BA Speech Communication ’91, started at the bottom of the corporate ladder when he joined Joe Gibbs Racing.

Dave Alpern. Photo provided.

In 1993, Alpern landed an internship with the company. As he recalls, his office was a broom closet complete with an elementary school desk, an extension cord, and a lamp.

But that didn’t put the brakes on his enthusiasm.

“Being an intern [at Joe Gibbs Racing] was really special because I really had to earn it. I have this principle of delivering more value than you're paid, and that’s what I did,” said Alpern.

Fast forward to today: the �鶹��Ƶ alum is the president of the organization and recently made a cameo appearance in the Netflix series, NASCAR: Full Speed, which documents NASCAR teams as work as they race to win the NASCAR Cup Series.

“Joe Gibbs Racing is one of the two most successful teams in NASCAR racing, so clearly if they do a show on the sport, we're going to be a part of it in some way.”

Alpern may have had the inside track at the company as the best friend of Jason Dean “JD” Gibbs, the son of the company’s founder, Joe Gibbs, but he had to earn his way into every role. Alpern has held nearly every position in the front office and witnessed the company grow from a team of 18 employees to more than 500, including 50 engineers and an aviation department.

Around the office Alpern was known as “the T-shirt guy” because of his dedicated work in merchandise and consumer products.

Alpern was named president of the JGR in 2016 during the illness and eventual death of his friend JD in 2019.

“When he got sick and passed away, I was named president and essentially took my best friend's job for his family's business, which was very difficult,” Alpern said.

Coach Joe Gibbs (left) and Dave Alpern. Photo provided.

Now Alpern is also sharing some of the things he’s learned during his time with JGR. He’s written a book, Taking the Lead: Winning Business Principles That Fuel Joe Gibbs Racing, with all proceeds going toward the JD Gibbs Legacy Fund, in honor of his friend.

While Alpern was navigating the growth of JGR, his colleague and fellow George �鶹��Ƶ alum, Chris Helein, BA Speech Communication ’91, was following a parallel path.

The summer before his senior year, Helein got a full-time internship with the Washington Commanders in the organization’s public relations department, where Joe Gibbs was the head coach and led the team to three Super Bowl victories.

“Thankfully my professors were pretty understanding. That experience was my introduction into the world of PR and communications on that front. I really enjoy being part of an organization as opposed to the journalistic side,” said Helein, who followed Gibbs to JGR and has now been at the organization for 17 years.

Helein, who is vice president of communications and partner activation at JGR, credits George �鶹��Ƶ for giving him the tools he needed to begin his career. While on campus, he got involved in WGMU, the campus radio station, and Broadside, the student newspaper.

Chris Helein at Daytona. Photo provided.

“George �鶹��Ƶ had a tremendous amount of assets for me from the location of the campus to the connections in different fields. It [provided] incredible opportunities regardless of the industry you want to work in,” said Helein.

Topics

Alumni

Internship

Communication Department

College of Humanities and Social Science

internships

Alumnus uses his creative voice to build connections, honor heritage, and foster peace

Shayla Brown — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:09:19 +0000

Alumnus uses his creative voice to build connections, honor heritage, and foster peace Shayla Brown Wed, 06/18/2025 - 10:09

Federico Frum, BA Art and Visual Technology ’05, believes in the power of art to bring people together. Known professionally as MasPaz—Spanish for “more peace”—Frum has spent his career fusing activism and creativity, using bold street murals, community engagement, and cultural storytelling to spread a message of unity.

Federico Frum/MasPaz poses in front of one of his murals. Photo credit Omar Garcia.

A multidisciplinary artist based in Washington, D.C., Frum most recently gained national attention for contributing to the design of a stamp for the Art of the Skateboard stamp series for the U.S. Postal Service, a project five years in the making.

“The graphic designer on the project had seen my work at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and really connected with it—especially coming from a Latino background himself,” Frum said. “When he reached out, I was thrilled. Skateboarding has been a part of my life for years—I even used to have my own skateboard company—so this project felt like home.”

That deep connection to skateboarding culture is more than a personal passion. Frum has worked in skate shops, helped manage an amateur skate team, and continues to sponsor local youth, offering them skateboards bearing his signature artwork.

While Frum’s work often appears on concrete walls, his art is rooted in something older and deeper—his Colombian heritage, Indigenous traditions, and a lifelong reverence for the planet. He draws inspiration from the intricate geometric designs of molas, the handcrafted textiles created by Indigenous peoples in Panama and Colombia.

“Growing up, my mother would hang molas around the house. They became my connection to our land, our ancestry,” Frum recalled. “Now I keep that tradition alive in a contemporary way—using a spray can or a paintbrush but always honoring that cultural lineage.”

His mural work is widely recognized for its themes of earth preservation, Indigenous identity, and community empowerment. But Frum’s impact goes far beyond public art. He visits high school classrooms, co-creating murals with students that are proudly displayed on campus—an invitation for young people to find their voice through art.

“I’ve always felt connected to Indigenous practices and the family dynamic,” Frum says. “And I’ve always respected the Earth. A big part of who I am is about protecting and preserving the planet.”

As a student at George �鶹��Ƶ, Frum studied photography and digital art, with a thesis in 3D animation. He credits classes in web design and printmaking with giving him the technical foundation to support his creative vision. He also found mentorship from School of Art professor Chawky Frenn, a fellow advocate for art as a force for peace.

“My heart is filled with so much joy and gratitude to see that Federico is using his artistic voice for social change,” says Frenn, a two-time Fulbright Scholar whose own work explores art and peace. “As teachers, we never truly know what seeds we’re planting—but seeing Federico’s journey is a beautiful reminder of what’s possible.”

Frum’s work has been featured by ABC News, Telemundo, and The Washington Post, and he has collaborated with major institutions including Nike, National Geographic, Sierra Club, Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, and the New Museum.

Recently, Frum returned to George �鶹��Ƶ’s Fairfax Campus to install We All Belong, a 30-by-30-foot tapestry mural on the Art and Design Building. The vibrant piece weaves together earth elements, ancestral motifs, and community imagery to deliver a powerful message of inclusion.

“It’s about showing that we’re all connected—that we matter,” Frum says. “That art can help us remember: We all belong.”

Topics

Alumni

School of Art

Community Engagement

College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

George �鶹��Ƶ student composers create original pieces in this ongoing collaboration between School of Music and Special Collections

Shayla Brown — Wed, 28 May 2025 17:12:08 +0000

George �鶹��Ƶ student composers create original pieces in this ongoing collaboration between School of Music and Special Collections Shayla Brown Wed, 05/28/2025 - 13:12

�鶹��Ƶ music professor June Huang sees connections between musical collaboration and peacebuilding, and she and her students demonstrate those connections with The Spheres Project, a strings faculty and student collaborative space established in 2021.

The project aims to foster connection and conversation between different communities and the name emphasizes its constant state of evolution.

“I looked at how creativity is at the heart of peacebuilding and experimented with this concept with five of my string pedagogy students. We started exploring compositions of these concepts and having rehearsals,” said Huang, who is the director of strings and associate professor of violin in the Dewberry School of Music.

A string quartet including Professor June Huang (left). Photo by Emily Schneider/CVPA.

Huang earned her master’s certificate in contemporary dispute resolution from the Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution in spring 2023. She was part of the very first cohort, which focused on principles of conflict resolution as they pertain to our domestic front.

“I started to draw connections between music and the peace building concepts I was learning about in class. Studying conflict resolution inspired me to listen with curiosity, not assumptions, which helps parties appreciate different perspectives and discover solutions,” said Huang.

The group’s most recent event, Spheres of Engagement was a collaboration between project, Dewberry School director of composition Andrea Reinkemeyer, and the University Libraries’ Special Collection Research Center (SCRC), where the students sourced images on which to base their compositions.

“Classical music tends to be grounded in tradition, so our interpretation of a piece of music is essentially imitation. On this project, we worked with new compositions that had never been performed before,” said Huang.

“The writing in some of these student compositions was not idiomatic, so the project challenged us to create musical interpretations and explore a wide range of possibilities. The connection between curiosity and creativity was a significant component for both composers and performers in this project,” she said.

Abigail Onstott is a junior composition major and one of the students who presented their original works for written for electronics or a string quartet at the Spheres of Engagement performance in April. Onstott’s composition was based on soldier-medic Gustav Klemp’s World War I archive collection.

“Getting to look through all the archives was the coolest thing ever for me because one of the areas I really like to focus on with music is culture, history, and politics, so this project was right up my alley,” said Onstott.

The students learned how to search through the collections as well as how to properly handle the archival materials from Mieko Palazzo, SCRC’s research services coordinator, and Cindy Badilla-Meléndez, George �鶹��Ƶ’s music and media librarian.

The string quartet presents Onstott's composition. Photo by Emily Schneider/CVPA.

The center also assisted Onstott in translating Klem’s letters from his native language, German, to English.

“Klemp was also a painter, so a lot of the things in the collection were actually artwork that he had done while he was overseas. As a composer that really fascinated me because it's not easy to work off of a physical artwork, but it's something that definitely helped with inspiration,” said Onstott.

Senior Stellan Hinz took an alternative path in the creative process, composing a fixed media piece using only electronics and human voices. Hinz gravitated toward a collection of letters that were sent to C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb.

“I wanted to explore compositionally using the human voice as the musical material. I got my roommates and some friends together to record a bunch of these letters and then chopped up the audio in order to bring voice to these letters,” said Hinz, a music composition major.

“You could see the progression of how people communicated [from the years 1809, 1978-2012], because there were some handwritten letters, some from a typewriter. It was from a very early stage of the world that we are now living in now where we're all connected and able to communicate all the time,” said Hinz, who plays the saxophone in George �鶹��Ƶ’s Wind Symphony.

Another goal of this collaboration was to teach the students about the business side of composition. Students worked with their individual applied composition instructors to write project proposals, said Reinkemeyer, an associate professor in the Dewberry School.

“We tried to make the process very similar to applying for a grant,” said Reinkemeyer.

“The student composers loved working on this project, and I hope we get the work with The Spheres Project again soon,” Reinkemeyer said. “Our goal is to have events like this one every semester if we can. Music can interact with every discipline in surprising ways—data sonification, astrophysicists, biology. It's a really enriching place for connection.”