New International Programs Directors
The University of Iowa International Programs announced new directors in three of its area studies programs and groups for 2007-2008.
Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education (FLARE)
James Pusack is the new co-director for the Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education (FLARE) program. Pusack is professor of German in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) and serves as chair of the German department. He is interested in how multimedia can be used in the learning of a second language. His extensive research on the topic includes projects such as “Multimedia in Second Language Learning” and “Applications of Digital Video to Language Learning.”
He is the instructional technology editor for “Die Unterrichtspraxis,” and a board member of Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS). In addition, he serves as executive board member and board chair of Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALIC), and is the co-principle investigator of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s foreign language multimedia consortium. He will serve as the co-director of FLARE, along with Kathy Heilenman, for one year.
Global Health Studies Program (GHSP)
Christopher Squier is the new program director for the Global Health Studies Program, replacing Paul Greenough, professor of history in CLAS. Squier is the director of the Research Training Program in the College of Dentistry and a professor in the Department of Oral Pathology, Radiology and Medicine. His research interests include the relationship between the permeability of mucosal tissues and the pathogenesis of disease, and tobacco control and cessation.
Squier directs the oral mucosal disease research program and the National Institute of Health-funded Institutional Training Program in Oral Health Research. He chairs the State Commission for Tobacco Use Prevention and Control and serves on the National Assembly of the American Cancer Society. He is a member of the American and International Associations for Dental Research and the International Association of Oral Pathologists. He will serve as the program director of GHSP for three years.
South Asian Studies Program (SASP)
Paul Greenough, professor of history in CLAS and professor of community and behavioral health in the College of Public Health, is the new co-director of the South Asian Studies Program (SASP), along with Meena Khandelwal, associate professor of anthropology and women’s studies in CLAS. Greenough specializes in environmental, public health and modern India studies. He is the former director of GHSP and the Crossing Borders program, both of which he helped found. Until recently, he was co-director of the National Resource Center in International Studies, a position he had held twice before.
Greenough has done research on the history of famine, disease and public health in India, and is currently examining smallpox eradication in Bangladesh. His other interests include the rich social history of India and India’s cultural and material and political relationships with other countries during the era of British imperialism. He will serve as the program co-director of SASP for three years.
South Asian Studies Program (SASP)
Meena Khandelwal, associate professor of anthropology and women’s studies in CLAS, is the new co-director of SASP, along with Paul Greenough, professor of history. Khandelwal specializes in the study of women in North India, particularly those who have renounced marriage, family, wealth, security and status for a life of celibacy and spiritual discipline – goals usually intended for men. Khandelwal has become increasingly interested in issues of diaspora, migration and transnationalism. She returned to India in Spring 2005 to explore transnational aspects of Hindu renunciation, and has recently collaborated with several other scholars to produce a work that examines a broader range of women pursuing spirituality in South Asia. She will serve as the program co-director of SASP for three years.