» Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall

On September 1, 2021, Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota hosted Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall: The World After COVID. The event featured Richard Florida, the world’s premier urban expert, who will discuss the global future with leading experts from the US, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Florida, the author of The Creative Class and the New Urban Crisis, will be followed by Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman;  Behki Mahlobo, analyst and economic researcher at the Center of Risk Analysis in Johannesburg; Li Sun, expert of Chinese cities and professor at the University of Leeds; and Laure Mandeville-Tostain, senior reporter for Le Figaro in Paris.

The discussion was moderated by Professor Marshall Toplansky of Chapman University.

Expert Biographies

Joel Kotkin is a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University and Director of the Center for Demographics and Policy. Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally recognized authority on global, economic, political, and social trends.

Marshall Toplansky is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the University’s C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate.

Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading urbanists. He is a researcher and professor, serving as University Professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, and a Faculty Chair at NYU’s Schack School of Real Estate. He is a writer and journalist, having penned several global bestsellers, including the award-winning The Rise of the Creative Class and his most recent book, The New Urban Crisis. He is co-founder of CityLab, the leading publication devoted to cities and urbanism.  He is an entrepreneur, as the founder of the Creative Class Group which works closely with companies and governments worldwide.

Laure Mandeville is a Senior Reporter at the French newspaper le Figaro, where she covers American and European Affairs as well as intellectual debates around the world. She joined the foreign desk of Le Figaro in 1989 to cover the end of communism and spent twenty years covering the post- Soviet world. She was Russia bureau chief in Moscow from 1997 to 2000 and then US bureau chief in Washington from December 2008 to August 2016. She also covered Islam in Europe from 2000 to 2008. She is the co-founder of the Tocqueville Conversations, an annual Conference on the Future of our democracies and a member of the Board of the Tocqueville Foundation. Laure Mandeville holds a BA in Slavic languages from the University of Toulouse and graduated from L’Institut d’Etudes politiques de Paris, in International affairs. She also holds a postgraduate degree in Political Science from Science Po and was visiting scholar at Harvard University, as a Fulbright and Arthur Sachs fellow.

She is the author of “Who is Donald Trump” (2016, Les Equateurs/Le Figaro), “The Russian Reconquest” (Grasset, 2008), and “The Russian Army: A Power in Tatters” (1994, Ed n°01). She contributes to Politique Internationale and The American Purpose. She is a regular guest on the TV Show C’est Dans L’air, LCI, and France 24.

Dr. Li Sun is a lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. Prior to the UK, she worked in universities in Germany, the Netherlands, the US, and China. Besides academic positions, Dr. Sun also serves as a consultant to the UN, World Bank, and OECD, as well as various government offices in the UK, the Netherlands, and China. Her main research interest is urbanization and governance in China including rural-urban migration, social policies, land, and housing issue. Her publications appear in leading journals of relevant fields such as Cities, Social Policy & Administration, Land Use Policy. Her book entitled Rural Urban Migration and Policy Intervention in China was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019.

Bheki Mahlobo is an analyst and economic researcher at the center for risk Analysis (CRA), Johannesburg. He is primarily involved in writing chapters for the Socio-Economic Survey of South Africa, an annual publication that provides information and data on major trends in various social and economic fields. The Centre For Risk Analysis (CRA) is one of the top think tanks in South Africa that provides analysis and advice on scenario planning and macro-economic strategic advice on South African risks, as well as global trends for corporate and individual clients.

For more information about this Town Hall, contact:

The Office of Research: Thomas Piechota, Vice President for Research, piechota@chapman.edu or (714) 628-2897.

Media Contact:  Pamela Ezell, ezell@chapman.edu, 714-289-3129

The National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Please read these FAQs in advance. Frequently Asked Questions for the CAREER program (NSF 20-025).

For specific program-related questions, we encourage you to contact Sponsored Projects Services at Chapman and/or the program officer of the program that you are applying to. If after reviewing the program descriptions on the NSF website you are still not sure which program officer to contact, please use the list of division and directorate CAREER contacts who can help refer you to a specific program and associated program officer.

A Chapman NSF CAREER Workshop was held on June 2, 2021 to learn about the program and hear about tips for success.

NSF Career Workshop -Tips for Success Presentation - Piechota 2021

NSF Career Workshop - Tips for Success Presentation - Kim 2021

On Wednesday, May 12 from 12:00 – 1:00 PM PST, Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, hosted Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall: Orange County Survey – Public Perceptions of the Pandemic. This event featured O.C. Survey authors Fred Smoller and Mike Moodian, who were joined by Orange County District 2 Supervisor Katrina Foley and Director of the Orange County Health Agency Dr. Clayton Chau. The panel discussed public perceptions of the pandemic as presented in the O.C. Annual Survey. An interactive Q&A follows the discussion.  

Visit www.chapman.edu/asktheexperts  for more information on the Ask the Experts series.

Expert Biographies 

Fred Smoller, Ph.D., is Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, where he has been faculty since 1983. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His primary areas of interest are American politics, emphasizing media and politics, local government, and public administration. Smoller directs Chapman’s annual local government conference, the Orange County Annual Survey, and is the author of the 2018 book, From Kleptocracy to Democracy: How Citizens Can Take Back Local Government.

Michael A. (Mike) Moodian, Ed.D., is a lecturer of leadership studies for the Attallah College of Educational Studies, and he co-directs the Wilkinson College Orange County Annual Survey each spring. He is the editor of the textbook Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence (Sage, 2009) and a member of the UC Irvine Olive Tree Initiative Advisory Board. Two separate California governors appointed Mike to the California Commission on Judicial Performance. Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Mike to the commission in 2015 and reappointed him in 2017, and Gov. Gavin Newsom reappointed Mike for a four-year term this year. Mike’s colleagues on the commission voted him vice-chairperson in 2020 and 2021.

Clayton Chau, M.D., Ph.D., is the Agency Director and County Health Officer of the Orange County Health Care Agency. He was previously the Chief Clinical and Strategy Officer for MindOC, the nonprofit entity that supports BeWell O.C., a coordinated system to improve Orange County’s mental health services. Dr. Chau has held leadership roles in behavioral health and care management at major public and private health organizations, including Providence Health System and L.A. Care Health Plan. He started his career working for 13 years with Orange County Behavioral Health Services. Dr. Chau obtained his medical degree from the University of Minnesota and his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Chelsea University. He completed his psychiatry residency at UCLA/San Fernando Valley followed by a fellowship with the National Institute of Mental Health focusing on substance abuse and HIV. In 2012, Dr. Chau was recognized with leadership awards from the National Council for Behavioral Health and the American Psychiatric Association. 

Katrina Foley is a community leader, successful businesswoman, working mom, and attorney who became Orange County’s first Democratic woman elected to the Board in 2021. She previously served as Costa Mesa’s first directly elected Mayor in November 2018 and was re-elected in 2020. Foley also served as Mayor in 2016-2017 and was on the Costa Mesa City Council for 12 years. Previously, she served on the Newport Mesa Unified School District Board of Trustees from November 2010 to November 2014. Katrina is President of the Foley Group, A Professional Law Corporation in Costa Mesa.  Supervisor Foley’s top priorities are COVID vaccines, ending homelessness, workforce development, climate action and she supports public transparency in governance.  

For more information about this Town Hall, contact:

The Office of Research: Thomas Piechota, Vice President for Research, piechota@chapman.edu or (714) 628-2897. 

Media Contact: Amy Stevens, Director of Public Relations, amstevens@chapman.edu or (714) 289-3143.

Chapman University’s Vice President for Research Thomas Piechota hosted Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall: Human Centered Engineering on Wednesday, April 14th from noon – 1:00 PM. This conversation explored how the term “human centered”, despite its well-established reputation for resulting in superior products in terms of usability and adoption, also transcends borders in creating solutions for complex challenges and therefore takes on a much larger meaning.

The panel emphasized how human-centered engineering only emerges from diverse groups of thinkers and innovators who are also considering the broadest possible collection of users and use-case scenarios. The discussion was moderated by Fowler School of Engineering Dean Andrew Lyon. An interactive Q&A followed the discussion. 

Moderator:
Andrew Lyon, Ph. D., Dean, Fowler School of Engineering
Dr. Andrew Lyon has over 20 years of experience as a chemist, bioengineer, educator, and entrepreneur and currently serves as the founding dean of the Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler School of Engineering at Chapman University. In addition to his role at Chapman, he is the co-founder and chief scientific officer of Sanguina, Inc., SēlSym, Inc., and Split Rock Therapeutics, LLC, three early-stage biotechnology companies. He is the recipient of multiple prestigious grants and awards including a NSF CAREER, Beckman Young Investigator, and the Research Corporation Research Innovation award. Dean Lyon will moderate Ask the Experts: Human Centered Engineering.

Faculty Expert Biographies:
Erik Linstead, Ph. D., Associate Professor, Fowler School of Engineering
Erik Linstead is an associate professor and the associate dean of academic programs and faculty development in the Fowler School of Engineering. He is the principal investigator of the Machine Learning and Affiliated Technologies (MLAT) lab. Prior to his current role, he spent 12 years at Boeing as an embedded software engineer and currently serves as a consulting senior engineering specialist for the Aerospace Corporation in the areas of deep learning and computer vision. In both academia and industry his work has focused on developing engineering solutions to socially impactful problems, whether that be utilizing artificial intelligence to better understand developmental disorders or launching the next generation of communication satellites.

Elizabeth Stevens, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, Fowler School of Engineering
Dr. Stevens is an assistant professor and the program director for the Fowler School of Engineering. Her research sits at the intersection of machine learning and behavior analysis. In particular, she has explored unsupervised techniques for modeling subtypes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and how they respond to treatment intensity and duration.

Dhanya Nair, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, Fowler School of Engineering
Dr. Dhanya Nair is an assistant professor and a founding faculty member in the Fowler School of Engineering. Her research centers around characterizing human touch and developing haptic assistive technologies. She has worked with blind individuals to design and develop tactile interfaces for mobile devices and braille readers. More recently, she engineered a wearable system for handwriting correction and visuo-motor skills training and is currently developing solutions to utilize this system for representing tactile music on the arm. As an electrical engineer, she is also passionate about making engineering education more accessible and inclusive. During the online learning, she designed a new lab course that offers students hands-on experience in building and testing real-life circuits in the remote environment using everyday stationary supplies, educational toys, and traditional circuit boards.

Franceli L. Cibrian, Ph. D., Assistant Professor, Fowler School of Engineering
Dr. Franceli L. Cibrian is an assistant professor at the Fowler School of Engineering. Her research interests focus on the design, development, and evaluation of ubiquitous interactive technology to support children's educational and therapeutic interventions, particularly children with special needs. She has authored 10 peer review Journal articles and more than 10 top-tier conference papers. She is a co-author of the Research Advances in ADHD and Technology Book and two book chapters. She belongs to the National Science System from Mexico given by CONACYT. She has also done research stays at the Design Lab at UC San Diego and in the UCL Interaction Center at University College London (UCL).

Lunch at the Forum

The first case of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in the U.S. was January 20, 2020, with the first death in late February 2020. Since then, it spread into a pandemic that swept the country and the globe with impacts to human health, inequitable parts of the society, and certain parts of the economy. Chapman faculty and students responded in extraordinary ways donating face shields, offering free counseling services, and working on the health care front lines. In addition, Chapman University began research to evaluate the health, social and economic impacts of the virus, which still continue.

Dr. Thomas Piechota has highlighted these experiences through the Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall series. Dr. Piechota will moderate this Town Hall with Chapman faculty and students who will present their perspectives, looking back one year from when COVID-19 first impacted the U.S.

Thomas Piechota Ph.D., PE, F.ASCE, is the Vice President for Research at Chapman University and Professor of Schmid College of Science and Technology. Dr. Piechota received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UCLA, and certificate from the Harvard Institute for Educational Management. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and reports, and has served on review panels for the National Science Foundation, city and state boards and committees, and various federal agencies. Dr. Piechota is a registered Civil Engineer in the State of California. Dr. Piechota has recently been hosting Ask the Expert Town Halls where Chapman faculty experts discuss topics of importance to society and the community.

Panelists:

David Frederick, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Frederick launched the Chapman University COVID-19 National Mental Health Study and will share insights from the 4,000 participants on how the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing are impacting people's mental health, physical health, romantic relationships, and experiences of prejudice and discrimination.

Steven Gjerstad, Ph.D., is Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute and the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. He will be providing an overview of the COVID-19 morbidity and mortality. He will also review recent studies of the efficacy of the vaccines against the COVID-19 variants.

Jennifer Totonchy, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapeutics at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches immunology and vaccine formulation in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. She is an accomplished viral immunologist and has worked on host-virus interactions for both DNA and RNA viruses. Her laboratory is currently focused on infection of human B cells with Kaposi Sarcoma Herpesvirus.

Debbie Nguyen is a Psychology major currently attending Chapman University pursuing a career in the field of global healthcare. Ms. Nguyen cowrote two articles with Dr. Frederick and is assisting with the draft of a third on ethnic prejudice people experienced due to the links drawn between their ethnicity and COVID-19. Her own research is on how ethnic identity and religiosity relate to prejudice towards LGBT men and women.

Sara Iisaka is a double major in Psychology and Dance at Chapman University. Ms. Iisaka assisted Dr. Fredrick with preparing multiple manuscripts as part of his Kay Family Foundation Grant titled, Applying Big Data Analytic Techniques to Understand the Predictors and Prevalence of Body Image Disturbances and Disordered Eating Patterns in National Samples. She is currently researching how COVID-19 is impacting exercise, eating, and body image.

Faculty Expert Biographies:

Jeff Goad, PharmD., MPH., is a Professor and Chair in Department of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy. Dr. Goad runs the Travel Clinic at the Student Health Center and his research program focuses on the social and behavioral aspects of consumer and healthcare professional’s decision-making process and outcomes related primarily to immunizations and travel medicine. Dr. Goad will be presenting an update on COVID vaccines and the state vaccine distribution plan.

Jennifer Totonchy, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapeutics at the School of Pharmacy. She teaches immunology and vaccine formulation in the Doctor of Pharmacy program. She is an accomplished viral immunologist and has worked on host-virus interactions for both DNA and RNA viruses. Her laboratory is currently focused on infection of human B cells with Kaposi Sarcoma Herpesvirus.

Hagop Atamian, Ph.D.,  is Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at Chapman University. He has expertise in molecular biology and genomics. Broadly, his research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant adaptation to the environment. This includes how pathogens cause diseases in plants and how to minimize crop losses from these diseases. He will present the latest information regarding the new SARS-CoV-2 strains emerging in different parts of the world. 

Gennady M. Verkhivker, Ph.D is Professor of Computational Biosciences at Schmid College of Science & Technology and Professor at the Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Chapman University School of Pharmacy.  His expertise is in computational and structural biology, bioinformatics and systems medicine. His research focuses on multidisciplinary computational and experimental studies to dissect molecular mechanisms of therapeutically important proteins in cancer and virology and develop tools for drug discovery and translational research. He will discuss the latest developments in understanding mechanisms and strategies to combat the emerging SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein mutations capable of escaping antibodies for the treatment of COVID-19.

This discussion, hosted by Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, covered how California’s business climate could best be revitalized to avoid the loss of companies, and high unemployment rates, and poverty. How can business be the key in correcting these problems and encourage government to listen more to the challenges being faced? The installment this month was moderated by Dean Thomas Turk of the Argyros School of Business and Economics.

Expert Biographies:

Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures, Chapman University
Described by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer,” Joel Kotkin is an internationally recognized authority on global economic, political, and social trends. His latest book is The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He authored, The Human City: Urbanism for the Rest of Us (Agate Press) in 2016 and co-edited, with MIT’s Alan Berger, the 2018 collection Infinite Suburbia (Princeton University Press).In addition to his work at Chapman, Joel is Executive Director of the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute. He is Executive Editor of the widely read website www.newgeography.com and a regular contributor to the City Journal, Daily Beast, Quillette, American Affairs and Real Clear Politics.

Marshall Toplansky, Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the University’s C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate. He is also Senior Advisor of The Cicero Group, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. A pioneer in the use of big data and sentiment analysis, Marshall is formerly Managing Director at KPMG, and co-founder of the firm’s Lighthouse Center of Excellence for Data & Analytics.  He is co-author, with Joel Kotkin of Orange County Focus: Forging Our Common Future and California Feudalism: The Squeeze On The Middle Class.

Lucy Dunn, President and CEO, Orange County Business Council
Before joining OCBC, she served as Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development under Governor Schwarzenegger, who also appointed her to the California Transportation Commission in 2008. Governor Jerry Brown reappointed her two more terms.  Lucy Dunn helped develop Orange County’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness and serves as a business advisor for the South Coast Air Quality Management District and Southern California Association of Governments. 

Tracy Hernandez is the Founding Chief Executive Officer of the Los Angeles County Business Federation (BizFed), a nonprofit, massive grassroots alliance of 210 top business networks that counts, among its more than 455,000 business members, a diverse demographic, industry sector, and geographic array of small and large employers of over 4 million people in Southern California. Prior to organizing the business community for greater positive impact on public policy making Tracy had a 20+ year career publishing award winning newspapers across the country. Most recently she was the Publisher & CEO of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Jim Wunderman, President and CEO, Bay Area Council
Jim Wunderman is President and CEO of the Bay Area Council, a CEO-led public policy and advocacy organization formed in 1945 that works to make the Bay Area the most innovative, globally competitive, and sustainable region in the world. Since becoming CEO in 2004, Wunderman has honed the Council’s regionalist approach to advocacy in key areas that impact the Bay Area’s economy and competitiveness, including: business climate, housing, transportation, workforce, water, energy, communications, education, gender equity and cyber security. 

Rob Lapsley, President, California Business Roundtable
The California Business Roundtable is a nonpartisan organization comprised of the senior executive leadership of the state’s major companies employing over half a million Californians. Before Rob was named president in 2011, he was Vice President and State Political Director for CalChamber. He also served as president of RCL Consultants and vice president of Arnel Development, one of the largest private real estate companies in Southern California.

Vice President of Research Thomas Piechota and moderators Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Dean Jennifer Keene, Ph.D. and Fowler School of Law Dean Matt Parlow, J.D. had a discussion that drew on faculty expertise to contextualize and analyze the unprecedented storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The initial claim that “this is not who we are,” is being challenged with “this is exactly who we are.” Panelists considered these differing perspectives, offered insight into the U.S. Constitution, white supremacy, impeachment, and the interplay between social media and politics. 

Moderator: Jennifer Keene, Ph.D., Dean, Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Matt Parlow, J.D., Dean, Fowler School of Law

Expert Biographies: 

Lori Cox Han, Ph.D. is Professor of Political Science. Dr. Han’s research and teaching expertise include the presidency, women and politics, and media and politics. She is the author of numerous books, including Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan (University Press of Kansas, 2019); Presidents and the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2018); Women, Power, and Politics: The Fight for Gender Equality in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2018); and In It to Win: Electing Madam President (Bloomsbury, 2015). She is also the editor of several scholarly volumes, including Madam President? Gender and Politics on the Road to the White House (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020); Hatred of America’s Presidents: Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump (ABC-CLIO, 2018); and New Directions in the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2018). Dr. Han is past president of Presidents and Executive Politics, an organized section of the American Political Science Association devoted to the study of the presidency. She received her Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California. 

Janine Young Kim joined the Fowler School of Law faculty as a Professor of Law in 2016. Her scholarship focuses on criminal law theory and race and the law. Professor Kim’s most recent works include “On Race and Persuasion” in CUNY Law Review and “Racial Emotions and the Feeling of Equality” in University of Colorado Law Review, and her forthcoming article on constitutional criminal procedure, “On the Broadness of the Fourth Amendment,” will be published later this year in SMU Law Review. Professor Kim previously taught at Marquette University Law School, Southwestern Law School, and Whittier Law School. She received her JD from Yale Law School and both her M.A. and B.A. from Stanford University. At Yale Law School, she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal, a Coker Fellow, and the executive editor of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal.  

Pete Simi, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. He has studied social movements and political violence with a specific focus on right-wing extremism for the past 25 years. His research has taken him inside anti-government militia, Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazi groups across the US and Europe including many of the groups involved in the January 6th insurrection. He has authored more than 50 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters and co-authored the award-winning book manuscript, American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate.  Much of this research has been funded by the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. He provides regular consultation on legal cases involving hate crimes and domestic terrorism and is currently serving as one of the plaintiffs’ experts in the landmark civil case related to the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, VA that resulted in one fatality and dozens of injuries.

Prexy Nesbitt holds the position of Presidential Fellow in Peace Studies at Chapman University. Born on Chicago’s West Side, “Prexy” (Rozell W.) Nesbitt has spent more than five decades as an educator, activist, and speaker on Africa, foreign policy, and racism. Prexy’s career has also included extensive consulting and training on class, race, multiculturalism and diversity. Over the course of his career, Prexy has made more than one hundred trips to Africa, including trips taken in secret to apartheid-torn South Africa.  A product of the United College of Dar Es Salaam and Antioch College, he was active in USA, Canada and Europe in the struggle to end apartheid and worked to end colonialism in Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia. From 1979-1983, he worked worldwide as the Program Director of the World Council of Churches Program to Combat Racism based out of Geneva, Switzerland. In the late 80’s he served as senior consultant to the Mozambique Government organizing in North America to prevent the apartheid-backed rebel movement, RENAMO, from gaining official support from the Reagan administration and its allies.

One of his most signal lifetime achievements, according to those who know him well, is that he has had the honor of knowing and working for the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Eduardo Mondlane, Samora Machel and Mayor Harold Washington. Additionally, he has worked closely with Amilcar Cabral, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, and Graca Machel.

Kenneth Stahl is a Professor of Law and the director of the Environmental, Land Use, and Real Estate Law certificate program at the Fowler School of Law. His scholarly work focuses on the relationship between the local political process and judicial doctrine in land use and local government law, combining doctrinal analysis with insights from such disciplines as urban sociology, geography, economics, and the humanities. Professor Stahl's most recent book, Local Citizenship in a Global Age, explores how the advance of globalization and the rise of nationalist political leaders has caused local and federal citizenship to clash. Prior to joining Chapman, Professor Stahl served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Constitutional Torts, and as an Associate at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Arnold & Porter. He earned his B.A. from the University of Michigan, and his JD from Yale Law School, where he served as a Notes Editor of the Yale Law Journal and an editor of the Yale Journal of Law and The Humanities. 

This discussion, hosted by Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, will discuss the latest on COVID-19 trends, treatments and vaccines. Air date 11/16/2020.

Expert Biographies:

Dr. Gjerstad is a Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute at Chapman University. Dr. Gjerstad will review the geographical shifts of COVID-19 cases and assess the shifting mortality over the past eight months. 

Jason Douglas, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Health Sciences, Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Guided by the principles and practices of community-based participatory research, Dr. Douglas works with disadvantaged communities to investigate social and environmental determinants of public health disparities. Dr. Douglas is collaborating with Drs. Lawrence Brown, Angel Miles Nash, Emmanuel John, and Georgiana Bostean in an interdisciplinary context to examine COVID-19 morbidity and mortality risk among ethnocultural minority communities in the cities of New York and Los Angeles. By examining COVID-19 impacts in these distinct geographies, this collaborative research seeks to: (1) identify social and environmental factors that may manifest in COVID-19-related health disparities, and (2) develop a Viral Pandemic Risk Index based on study results.

Dr. Jerika Lam, an Infectious Diseases Pharmacist, and Associate Professor at Chapman University School of Pharmacy, is a member of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) COVID-19 Task Force and Education Committee. She works with an interdisciplinary healthcare team that identifies and discusses the current issues relating to the COVID-19 pandemic to update the PSMF’s national and international members about the pandemic’s impact on healthcare, public health, and communities. The Task Force and Committee also provide up-to-date perspectives from European clinicians, including those from the World Health Organization. The past webinar topics hosted by the PSMF included safety recommendations for the general public and vulnerable populations based on guidelines from the CDC and WHO; perspectives and scientific findings from survivors of COVID-19 and the long-term complications of the disease; and discussions about potential therapeutics and vaccine developments for COVID-19.

Jeff Goad, Pharm.D., MPH., is a Professor and Chair in Department of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy. Dr. Goad runs the Travel Clinic at the Student Health Center and his research program focuses on the social and behavioral aspects of consumer and healthcare professional’s decision-making process and outcomes related primarily to immunizations and travel medicine. Dr. Goad will be presenting an update on COVID vaccines and the state vaccine distribution plan.

Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota hosted the Ask the Experts: U.S. Election Analysis, One Week Later on Tuesday, November 10, 2020. The event was moderated by Wilkinson College Dean Jennifer Keene for a post-election discussion unpacking the results of the 2020 presidential election. The moderated conversation placed the election in historical perspective, considered the role of media and polling, evaluated what the election revealed about U.S. politics and society, and where we might be headed.

Expert Biographies:

Jennifer Keene, Ph. D. is a professor of history and dean of the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She is a well-published expert on American history and will moderate Ask the Experts: U.S. Election Analysis, One Week Later.

Lori Cox Han, Ph. D. is Professor of Political Science. Her research and teaching expertise include the presidency, women and politics, and media and politics. She is the author of numerous books, including Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan (University Press of Kansas, 2019); Presidents and the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2018); Women, Power, and Politics: The Fight for Gender Equality in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2018); and In It to Win: Electing Madam President (Bloomsbury, 2015). She is also the editor of several scholarly volumes, including Madam President? Gender and Politics on the Road to the White House (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020); Hatred of America’s Presidents: Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump (ABC-CLIO, 2018); and New Directions in the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2018). Dr. Han is past president of Presidents and Executive Politics, an organized section of the American Political Science Association devoted to the study of the presidency. She received her Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.

John Compton, Ph. D. is associate professor and chair of the Political Science department.  His teaching and research interests include American political development, constitutional law, and religion and politics.  In 2012, he was awarded the Law and Society Association’s annual dissertation prize.  His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014.  In 2015, he received the Cromwell Book Prize for excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by a junior scholar (for Evangelical Origins).  Dr. Compton’s articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History. His most recent book is The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Kyle Longley, Ph. D. is the Director of the War and Society Program and professor of history at Chapman University, recently joining the faculty after more than two decades at Arizona State University.  He specializes in U.S. military history, U.S. foreign relations, and modern American politics. He is the author or editor of nine books on topics ranging from U.S.-Latin American relations to southern politics and the American presidency.  His most recent works include the prize winning, The Morenci Marines:  A Tale of a Small Town and the Vietnam War, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam, LBJ’s 1968: Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America’s Year of Upheaval, and In Harm’s Way:  A History of the American Military Experience.  He also is a prize-winning teacher, receiving the Centennial Professorship for outstanding teaching by the Associated Students of Arizona State University and the Zebulon Pearce Award for outstanding professor in the Humanities at ASU.

Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, hosted the Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall – COVID-19 and Impacts on Mental Health on Monday, November 9, 2020. The event was moderated by Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences Dean Janeen Hill, and featured panelists: Dr. Heather Huszti, CHOC; Dr. Naveen Jonathan, Chapman – Marriage and Family Therapy; Dr. Andrew Kami, Chapman University – Student Psychological Counseling Services; and Dr. Richard Afable – MindOC/Be Well OC.

Listen in to learn more about this timely topic and how COVID-19 has impacted the mental health of children, families, college age students, and the homeless.

Expert Biographies:

Janeen Hill, Ph. D. is the Founding Dean of Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Health Sciences, Chapman University.    Her research career has focused primarily on understanding the spinal neuromodulation of cardiovascular and respiratory reflexes induced by muscle contraction  As Dean of Crean College she oversees undergraduate majors in psychology, applied human physiology, and health science, a neuroscience minor, and graduate programs in physical therapy, physician assistant studies, communication sciences and disorders, and marriage and family therapy.  She has been extensively involved in university-wide task forces with the most recent devoted to understanding the status of mental and behavioral health at Chapman University and among the Chapman family,  and the community resources available to support mental and behavioral health of our community.      

Dr. Andrew Kami Ph. D., MFT is the Director of Psychological Counseling Services at Chapman University.  He is also a military veteran, Honorably Discharged from the United States Marine Corps.  He holds multiple licenses in California as a Clinical Psychologist, a Marriage and Family Therapist, and Administrator for the State of California while maintaining 12 separate clinical certificates and 6 separate memberships in a variety of orientations and treatment modalities.  He served for a decade as Clinical Director for a facility working with Schizophrenia Spectrum Illnesses and conducted cognitive, psychological, and personality assessments for the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health and Children and Family Services. Dr. Kami is also a Core Faculty/Professor of Psychology teaching on Trauma, Psychopharmacology and Clinical Practicum courses at a local institution.

Naveen Jonathan, Ph.D., MFT is a Clinical Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Marriage & Family Therapy at Chapman University. Dr. Jonathan, a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in the State of California, has a private practice - Santa Ana Community Counseling, where he works with a diverse population of families, couples, and individuals in therapy. He has worked extensively with issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community, immigration/acculturation issues and with other marginalized populations. Dr. Jonathan is very actively involved in leadership and service on both the national and state levels of the American Association of Marriage & Family Therapy (AAMFT). Locally, Dr. Jonathan currently represents Crean College at meetings of Be Well Orange County as well serves as a member of the Santa Ana Youth Mental Health Taskforce.

Heather Huszti, Ph. D. is a licensed psychologist and chief psychologist at CHOC Children’s as well as the section chief for pediatric psychology. She also is the director of training for the Psychology Training Program at CHOC Children’s. She completed her doctoral degree in clinical psychology with an emphasis in family therapy from Texas Tech University and completed an internship and fellowship at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). She was on faculty at OUHSC, where she was the director of the Pediatric Psychology Program. She joined CHOC Children’s in 2002. Dr. Huszti has served as a principal investigator on a number of federally funded research projects with a focus on adherence.

Richard Afable, MD, MPH  is currently the President and Board Chair of BeWellOC, a public-private partnership working to improve the mental health for all residents of Orange County and seeking to be a national leader in mental health.  Dr. Afable is the retired President and CEO of St. Joseph Hoag Health, an Orange County-based integrated delivery system created by the affiliation of Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and the Southern California region of St. Joseph Health.   With over 20 years of medical practice experience, he has also served as President and CEO of Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, Associate Professor of Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Clinical Assistant Professor at Northwestern School of Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine and has had added qualifications in Geriatric Medicine. Dr. Afable obtained his MD from the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine, a Master of Public Health from the University of Illinois, and a Certificate in Business Administration from Villanova. He currently serves as adjunct professor at the University of California, Irvine Merage School of Business. Dr. Afable also serves as a Chapman University Trustee.

Resources

• Frances Smith Center for Individual & Family Therapy
  (714) 997-6746  Ext. 1
  Offering Free Telehealth Sessions
• 211OC.org
  Resources for referrals for low cost medical, counseling, food banks, school support services
• Chapman Health and Wellness
• Western Youth Services - Project Reset
• CHOC Community Resources
• NAMI-OC 

This live interactive webinar covered how the middle class can survive and thrive during this time of social, political, and economic uncertainty. Air date Saturday, October 17th, 2020. The event attempted to unpack the key challenges --- economy, housing and family --- that most citizens face and yet, aren't being addressed by our leaders. This event brings you deeper insights around the issues, so that you can start bringing about change and greater opportunity in your community right away.

Event Host: Chapman Vice President of Research Tom Piechota Ph.D., PE 

Moderator: Steve PonTell, the Chief Executive Officer and President of National CORE, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit developers of affordable and senior housing

Joel Kotkin

Joel Kotkin is Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. He is the author of ten books, including most recently The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (Encounter). Kotkin writes regularly for City Journal, Quillette, Tablet, the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast. He also serves as executive director of the website, www.newgeography.com . He has written widely on the social and political impacts of Covid, particularly about the impact on cities.

Marshall Toplansky

Marshall Toplansky, MBA serves as a research fellow at the C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate and at the Center for Demographics and Policy. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate.

Michael Lind

Author of The New Class War – He is a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and a fellow at New America. His most recent book is The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite (Penguin, 2020).

Pete Saunders

Pete is a writer and researcher whose work focuses on urbanism and public policy. He is a practicing urban planner with more than twenty years’ experience in planning, economic development, and community development, with stops in the public, private and non-profit sectors. His current role is as the principal for PDS Consulting, an urban planning consulting and research firm. Pete has been the editor/publisher of the Corner Side Yard, an urbanist blog, since 2012. His principal research areas include: race and public policy; urban migration dynamics; global city demographics; economic and social inequality; gentrification; Rust Belt metro analysis; and Midwest regional analysis. He is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University

Karla López del Río

She is a community development professional committed to empowering working families to build wealth and thriving communities. Her work fosters partnerships among public, private, and grassroots organizations that result in increased civic engagement, innovative community-led projects, affordable housing solutions, including homeownership, and small business development across Southern California. Her background includes community development advocate, recent U.S. Census Bureau, Land Partnership Specialist, and member of the Board of Advisors for the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University.  Karla also contributes to the field her insight as a first-generation immigrant, background in real estate, and experience in social enterprise management.  She has received awards from UC Berkeley’s Blum Center for Developing Economies and NeighborWorks America in the categories of poverty alleviation and community building. Karla earned a Bachelor’s in Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

This discussion, hosted by Chapman University’s Vice President for Research, Thomas Piechota, covered the Key Issues Impacting the 2020 Election and was moderated by Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Dean Jennifer Keene, Ph. D., and featured panelists Lori Cox Han, Ph. D.; Joel Kotkin; John Compton, Ph. D.; Chris Bader, Ph. D.; and Charissa Threat, Ph. D. Listen in to learn more about this timely topic and how issues such as the United States Supreme Court nominee, COVID-19, and racial relations impacted the election. Air date Friday, October 2, 2020.

Expert Biographies:

Jennifer Keene, Ph. D. is a professor of history and dean of the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She is a well-published expert on American history and will moderate Ask the Experts Virtual Town Hall: Key Issues Impacting the 2020 Election.

Joel Kotkin is Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. He is the author of ten books, including most recently The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (Encounter). Kotkin writes regularly for City Journal, Quillette, Tablet, the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast. He also serves as executive director of the website, www.newgeography.com . He has written widely on the social and political impacts of Covid, particularly about the impact on cities.

Lori Cox Han, Ph.D. is Professor of Political Science. Her research and teaching expertise include the presidency, women and politics, and media and politics. She is the author of numerous books, including Advising Nixon: The White House Memos of Patrick J. Buchanan (University Press of Kansas, 2019); Presidents and the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2018); Women, Power, and Politics: The Fight for Gender Equality in the United States (Oxford University Press, 2018); and In It to Win: Electing Madam President (Bloomsbury, 2015). She is also the editor of several scholarly volumes, including Madam President? Gender and Politics on the Road to the White House (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2020); Hatred of America’s Presidents: Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump (ABC-CLIO, 2018); and New Directions in the American Presidency, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2018). Dr. Han is past president of Presidents and Executive Politics, an organized section of the American Political Science Association devoted to the study of the presidency. She received her Ph. D. in Political Science from the University of Southern California.

Charissa Threat, Ph. D. is Associate Professor of History at Chapman University where she teaches courses in United States and African American history.   Her research interests are in race and gender in twentieth century U.S. history, civil rights, community activism, and civil-military relations. Her first book, Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps (University of Illinois Press, 2015), won the 2017 Lavinia L. Dock Book Award from the American Association for the History of Nursing for outstanding research and writing on the history of nursing. She is also the author of several book chapters, most recently, ‘“Patriotism is Neither Masculine or Feminine”: Gender and the Work of War” in the Routledge History of Gender, War and the US Military, Kara D. Vuic, ed. (Routledge Press, 2017).  She is currently at work on her second book, "Sweethearts and Pin-Ups." It is a history that examines home-front activities, wartime participation, and investigates intimate relations among African American women and men in the context of the Second World War. 

Christopher Bader, Ph. D. is a professor in the department of sociology and the Campbell Professor of Behavior Science.   He is one of the principal investigators of the Chapman University Survey of American Fears, an annual survey project that asks a random sample of Americans about their greatest fears.  He teaches courses on the sociology of religion and deviant behavior, and is an expert on pseudo-scientific beliefs, conspiracy theories, and panic.  He is the author of five books, including Paranormal America, America's Four Gods, Fear Itself, Faithful Measures and Deviance Management.  Dr. Bader will discuss the extent to which Americans fear pandemics and how they react to them. 

John Compton, Ph. D. is associate professor and chair of the Political Science department.  His teaching and research interests include American political development, constitutional law, and religion and politics.  In 2012, he was awarded the Law and Society Association’s annual dissertation prize.  His first book, The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution, was published by Harvard University Press in 2014.  In 2015, he received the Cromwell Book Prize for excellence in scholarship in the field of American legal history by a junior scholar (for Evangelical Origins).  Dr. Compton’s articles have appeared in the Review of Politics, American Political Thought, and the Journal of Supreme Court History. His most recent book is The End of Empathy: Why White Protestants Stopped Loving Their Neighbors (Oxford University Press, 2020).

On September 18^th OC Annual Survey authors Fred Smoller and Mike Moodian were joined by panelists Seung Hee Kim, Ph.D., Associate Director of the Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations (CEESMO), Chapman University;  Georgina Bostean, Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Health, and Policy, Chapman University; and Paul A. Cook, General Manager of the Irvine Ranch Water District. The panel discussed the public perceptions of climate change, the subject of this year’s survey and implications in various sectors (e.g., water, health, wildfires). 

Expert Biographies:

Fred Smoller, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Wilkinson College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Political Science where he has been on the faculty since 1983. He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His major areas of interest are American politics, with an emphasis on media and politics, local government, and public administration. Smoller directs Chapman’s annual local government conference, the Orange County Annual Survey, and is the author of the 2018 book, From Kleptocracy to Democracy: How Citizens Can Take Back Local Government.

Michael (Mike) A. Moodian, Ed.D., is a lecturer of leadership studies for the Attallah College of Educational Studies, and he codirects the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Orange County Annual Survey each spring. He is the editor of the textbook Contemporary Leadership and Intercultural Competence (Sage, 2009) and a member of the UC Irvine Olive Tree Initiative Advisory Board. California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Mike to the California Commission on Judicial Performance in 2015 and reappointed Mike to the commission for a four-year term in 2017. Mike’s colleagues on the commission voted him vice-chairperson this year. 

Seung Hee Kim, Ph.D., is Associate Director of the Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling & Observations (CEESMO). Dr. Kim received his Ph.D. from UCLA and joined Chapman in 2012. His areas of research include climate change and its impact assessment, climate variability, and severe weather. Besides climate work, his research has attracted attention in several other fields such as wildfire, drought, and other natural disasters.

Georgiana Bostean, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Environmental Science, Health and Policy at Chapman University. She is a demographer and sociologist by training, with a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Irvine, and postdoctoral training in cancer prevention and control research at UCLA. Broadly, her research is around population health and health disparities, focusing on immigrant and Latino groups. Dr. Bostean’s research examines the factors contributing to disparities in health outcomes and health behaviors, particularly smoking and vaping. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, American Lung Association, and UC Office of the President, and has been published in journals including American Journal of Public Health, Social Science & Medicine, and Stress & Health.

Paul A. Cook is the General Manager of the Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD), which is known as a national leader among water and wastewater agencies for innovative water supply projects, creative water management solutions, and water efficiency programs.   Previously Mr. Cook served as the Manager of Engineering for the Central and West Basin Municipal Water Districts in Los Angeles County area. As a long-time Orange County resident, Mr. Cook was elected to the Orange County Water District Board of Directors where he served for three years including a term as Vice President. He is a registered Civil Engineer and Class A Licensed General Contractor in California. He holds a master’s degree in Civil Engineering from California State University, Long Beach and a master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Irvine.  Mr. Cook serves as Chair of the Chapman University Board of Governors.

 Expert Biographies:

Steven Gjerstad, Ph.D., will be joining us again, this time to discuss the recent upsurge in cases, the decline in mortality, and his projections for the minimum time required to bring new cases down to a few hundred per day, as is now the case in most of the developed world.  Dr. Gjerstad is a Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute and the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University.

Dr. Gjerstad Presentation

Claudine Jaenichen is a Professor in the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Department of Art. Professor Jaenichen has expertise in graphic design and information design. She is part of the Design Network for Emergency Management (dnem.org) and it currently with FEMA to develop a national Shelter-in-Place campaign to improve the understanding of protective actions in all hazards, including pandemics. More recently, she assisted Chapman in the CU Safely Back planning by proving feedback on visual direction focusing design decisions that support campus risk literacy as well as considerations of processing information under various levels of stress and anxiety.

Professor Jaenichen Presentation

Sara LaBelle, Ph.D.,is an Associate Professor, Assistant Dean of Academic Programs and Faculty Development, and Associate Director of the Graduate Teaching Program in the School of Communication. Her research is focused on the intersection of instructional and health communication. Specifically, Sara has published on the teaching-learning process as it applies to the college classroom, the impact of student-to-student communication on academic and health outcomes, and the implementation and evaluation of health communication campaigns. Recently, Sara served as Chair of the Health and Safety Campaign Subcommittee for the CU Safely Back Communication Task Force. She will be providing an overview of the research that was conducted for this purpose, along with key takeaways for campus messaging regarding COVID-19 safety behaviors. 

Dr. LaBelle Presentation

Jeff Goad, Ph.D., is a Professor and Chair in Department of Pharmacy Practice at the School of Pharmacy. Dr. Goad runs the Travel Clinic at the Student Health Center and his research program focuses on the social and behavioral aspects of consumer and healthcare professional’s decision making process and outcomes related primarily to immunizations and travel medicine. Dr. Goad will be presenting on the continuum of COVID protection: the Swiss Cheese model.

Dr. Goad Presentation

This discussion covered a presentation on Kotkin and Toplanksky's research brief, titled California Feudalism: A Strategy to Restore California's Middle Class, that discussed inequality in California and how a change in state policy could restore our state’s dream. Kotkin and Toplansky were joined by distinguished panelists for commentary and Q & A.  The event was moderated by Lisa Sparks Dean of the School of Communication at Chapman University. 

Sponsored by the Orange County's Credit Union and hosted by Tom Piechota, Ph.D. PE, Vice President of Research, Chapman University

Presenters:

Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures, R. Hobbs Professorship in Urban Studies, School of Communication, Chapman University

Marshall Toplansky, MBA, Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate, Chapman University

Panelist Biographies:

Lucy Dunn is president and CEO of Orange County Business Council, where she leads a dynamic organization of business members, working with academia and government, to ensure the region’s economic prosperity and high quality of life. She has a record of public service as California’s Director of Housing and Community Development, and currently as a member of the California Transportation Commission. Lucy is also an attorney, founder and/or director of numerous organizations including Homeful Foundation, Bolsa Chica Conservancy, Orange Catholic Foundation and Pacific Symphony.  Lucy will share thoughts on how to keep businesses and middle-class jobs in California, and promote upward mobility through changes in public policy.

Jennifer Hernandez has practiced land use and environmental law for more than 30 years and leads Holland & Knight's West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group and divides her time between the firm's San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. Ms. Hernandez is the only California lawyer ranked by her clients and peers in Chambers USA in the top tier of both land use/zoning and environmental lawyers. In addition, she was recognized as the top environmental litigator of the year in the San Francisco Bay Area by Best Lawyers, and received a California Lawyer of the Year award from the State Bar of California for her work on California's largest and most innovative land use and conservation agreement between her private landowner client and five major environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council. She also has received numerous civil rights awards for her work on overcoming environmentalist opposition to housing and other projects needed and supported by minority communities.

Steve Pontell is the chief executive officer and president of national CORE, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit developers of affordable and senior housing. National CORE owns, operates, and/or manages nearly 9,000 units serving more than 27,000 residents in California, Florida, and Texas. Under his leadership, CORE has earned wide acclaim for their proven and effective approach to building and preserving affordable housing that positively impacts communities. He has become a passionate advocate for the residents and communities we serve and today is one of the leading voices and public speakers on the topic of housing affordability and community transformation. He has led several regional and national symposiums on our nation’s housing crisis, and he is a nationally recognized authority on community development and creating forward-thinking organizations to maximize evolving market environments. In addition, Steve has addressed the California Assembly on the challenges facing the affordable housing industry.

Beyond Feudalism Presentation

Jennifer Bevan, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Communication. Her research has focused on how individuals in close relationships navigate health issues. She is currently co-editing a special issue in the international, interdisciplinary Journal of Special Relationships entitled "Relationships in the Time of Covid-19: Examining the Effects of the Global Pandemic on Personal Relationships." Dr. Bevan will discuss her own, preliminary research on family caregiving stress related to COVID-19 and relational dynamics, as well as anticipate how a variety of close relationships may be fundamentally impacted by the implications and edicts related to COVID-19. Jennifer Bevan's Presentation.

Riva Tukachinsky, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication. Her research interest lies in media psychology. She uses cognitive and social psychological models to understand how people process information in the media and the effects that media exposure has on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Riva Tukachinsky's Presentation.

Megan A. Vendemia, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication. Her research centers on the social and psychological implications of communication technology. She primarily uses quantitative methods to examine factors that make people perceive mediated information as authentic, credible, and ultimately, more influential. Their current project examines the effects of news consumption on COVID-19 protective behaviors. Data from a national survey are used to identify predictors of following CDC recommendations (e.g., social distancing) and engaging in socially undesirable precautionary behaviors (e.g., stockpiling).

Andrea Molle, Ph.D., FRAS, is a quantitative social scientist. He is Assistant Professor in Political Science and Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Society at Chapman University. From 2006 to 2008, he was JSPS Fellow in Anthropology at the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (Nagoya, Japan) studying the religious implications of martial arts and traditional warfare. His current research agenda focuses on religion and politics, international relations, religious violence, disaster studies, and martial arts and warfare studies. His work on COVID-19 addresses complex social factors that affect the spread of COVID-19 in Europe and the US, and he is co-leading a research group on “COVID-19 and Social Vulnerability: Computational Modeling, Data Analytics, and System Interoperability” supported by the National Science Foundation-funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. Andre Molle's Presentation.

Uri Maoz, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Psychology at Crean college and the Brain Institute. Together with students and collaborators, he studies the neural underpinnings of volition: how desires, decisions, and intentions transform into action. He also leads a large, international group of neuroscientists and philosophers who investigate how the brain enables conscious, causal control of decisions and actions. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Maoz initiated a collaboration of neuroscientists, psychologists, political scientists, law scholars, and others who have been gathering longitudinal data from over 1000 US participants weekly to biweekly since early April. We are tracking various dynamic psychological, economic, political, legal, and other trends related to the pandemic. Besides explicit questionnaires, we also employ different implicit measures to help us build a more-complete picture of the direct and indirect effects of COVID-19 on the US.

Moderators:

Marshall Toplansky, Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the University’s C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate

Joel Kotkin, Ph.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Management Science at Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics, and Research Fellow at the University’s C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate

Richard Florida, Ph.D., best-selling author, professor and urbanist

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a dual health and economic crisis.  The economic fallout has devastated businesses, workers, and reshaped how we come together in on our communities. But no pandemic or plague or natural disaster has killed off humanity’s need to live and work in urban clusters. That’s because the clustering of people and economic activity – the motor force of innovation and economic growth—is just too strong. This crisis will challenge us to rethink about how gather in our communities and build enterprises in our cities, possibly shaping the future of the built environment. In his presentation, international best-selling author, professor and urbanist, Richard Florida will speak to the questions that may impact real estate: (1) will urbanization increase?  (2)  how will the impact of remote work change the office? (3) how will we gather in the future? (4) will there be a period of affordability readjustment? (5) will private amenities and the desire for space push residents to the suburbs? 

Prestigious Panelists

Jennifer Hernandez, partner at Holland and Knight, LLP, and expert on the impact of environmental regulations on real estate. Pre-pandemic, the civil rights agenda had been contemptuously dismissed as anachronistic by atomized academics and foundation-funded specialized experts who preferred to focus on “environmental justice” instead of decades of racially discriminatory residential redlining. The simple fact is the pandemic has made the housing crisis worse, and has stripped away the illusion that we can continue to spend billions and trillions of taxpayer dollars building $750,000 “affordable” small apartments. The pandemic also opened a new chapter in the transportation and housing wars over an all-high, high cost density urban/bus agenda (for the climate!), and a mixed and lower cost recipe of new town homes, flats and smaller apartment buildings in “infill” urban, suburban, edge and even greenfield locations – all of which must comply with California’s suite of environmental, labor, and other laws?  The combatants in this war will not reach a compromise, with the most ardent climate/environmental advocates perfectly pleased to see more Californians (and California jobs) move to higher per capita greenhouse gas states.   The issue we see, in our law practice and in our larger policy sphere, is the greater potential for leaders who are pragmatic problem-solvers.  Whether that potential is realized or not is the question for the remainder of 2020. 

Luis Torres, Texas A&M University, and an expert on the key Texas real estate market- measuring and analyzing real estate markets to understand and forecast current and future trends. Especially, during this unprecedented period of economic hardship and uncertainty people are looking even more for insightful, reliable and timely information. COVID-19 has moved analysis from estimating monthly indicators to weekly indicators when possible. Also, it is important to distinguish short-run shocks from long-run structural changes. Currently, not everyone can work from home due to infrastructure, industry mix, labor skills, etc. This implies that some changes will happen in the long run.

Daniel Young, former president of the Irvine Company and former mayor of Santa Ana will speak to the future of real estate from the vantage point of his more than 35 years of experience in the industry. Dan worked for the Irvine Company for over 16 years serving most of those years as president of community development. The Irvine Company has built one of the largest and most successful master planned communities in the nation spanning over one fifth of Orange County and owns over 100 million square feet of diversified real estate including office buildings, apartments, retail and hotels. In addition, Dan has a background in public service having served as mayor of Santa Ana as well as on the boards of OCTA, Toll Road Authority, and Metropolitan Water Authority. He will be speaking to the issues cities and developers of real estate will face in the post COVID19 world.

Steve PonTell is the chief executive officer and president of national CORE, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit developers of affordable and senior housing. National CORE owns, operates, and/or manages nearly 9,000 units serving more than 27,000 residents in California, Florida, and Texas. Under his leadership, CORE has earned wide acclaim for their proven and effective approach to building and preserving affordable housing that positively impacts communities.
He has become a passionate advocate for the residents and communities we serve and today is one of the leading voices and public speakers on the topic of housing affordability and community transformation. He has led several regional and national symposiums on our nation’s housing crisis and he is a nationally recognized authority on community development and creating forward-thinking organizations to maximize evolving market environments. In addition, Steve has addressed the California Assembly on the challenges facing the affordable housing industry.

Alex Hayden focuses on global corporate real estate advisory services, specializing in portfolio planning and site acquisition transactions on behalf of companies and organizations with diverse and complex real estate portfolios. Mr. Hayden is a key leader in the development of strategic planning for the team’s corporate clients. Mr. Hayden’s corporate clients include; ADP, Avery-Dennison, Experian, Ingram Micro, Wyndham Worldwide, Henkel Corporation, MEDNAX, UPS, Chapman University, and CoreLogic. Mr. Hayden has been the #1 office producer for CBRE’s Newport Beach office since 2015. Mr. Hayden currently serves as chairman of the Board of Counselors for Chapman University George L. Argyros School of Business & Economics. Additionally, Mr. Hayden is a founding board member for the new Master of Science in Real Estate Degree program at Chapman University. Mr. Hayden is leading the “friendraising” and fundraising efforts which led to the successful approval of their program that will be accepting student enrollment for the fall of 2020 school year. Mr. Hayden serves as a member of the Board of Directors for JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, California. Mr. Hayden graduated from Chapman University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in finance.

Hosted by

Tom Piechota, Ph.D., PE, Vice President of Research, Chapman University
Tom Turk, Ph.D., Professor and Dean of the The George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics

Faculty Expert Biographies: 

Seth G. Benzell is a postdoctoral associate at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy in the group on Productivity, Employment, and Inequality.  He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University. Seth’s work is in the economics of automation, digitization, and networks. He is also interested in public economics generally. Current research focuses are social networks, optimal regulation, and taxation of online digital platforms, and predicting how new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, will impact investment, wages and welfare. His work has received significant press attention, he has briefed legislative assistants at the U.S. Capitol. Seth will be presenting his research on how to ration social contact during the pandemic and discuss other social mobility reduction research currently underway at MIT. He will be joining Chapman’s Argyros School of Business and Economics in Fall 2020.

NPR Marketplace: Is it safe to visit gyms, cafes and stores?

NPR Latest Style Trend: Clandestine Haircuts During Stay-at-Home Orders

PNAS: Rationing Social Contact During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Transmission Risk and Social Benefits of US Locations

Jennifer Totonchy, Ph.D is Assistant Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapeutics at the School of Pharmacy. She is an accomplished virologist and has worked on host-virus interactions for both DNA and RNA viruses. Her laboratory is currently focused on infection of human B cells with Kaposi Sarcoma Herpesvirus.  In response to the pandemic, Dr. Totonchy has organized a multi-disciplinary collaboration of faculty at the School of Pharmacy and the Fowler School of Engineering to develop a low-tech but highly sensitive antigen test for COVID19 infection.

Steven Gjerstad, Ph.D will be joining us again, this time to discuss characteristics of persons with serious and fatal cases of COVID-19. Dr. Gjerstad is a Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute and the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University.

Steven Gjerstad Presentation

Dr. Michelle Samura is Associate Professor and Associate Dean in the Attallah College of Educational Studies. She also is the founding Co-Director of the Collaborate Initiative and principal investigator of the Architecture of Belonging project. Dr. Samura conducts research, publishes, and speaks on the relationship between space and belonging. She currently is drawing upon insights from the fields of design and architecture to identify key design principles and elements of built environments that promote belonging in educational, workplace, and community settings. Dr. Samura will share preliminary insights into how social distancing as a result of COVID-19 affects student belonging and connectedness.

David Frederick, Ph.D is an Associate Professor in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. He conducts national studies on the prevalence and predictors of body image and disordered eating, attraction, and factors promoting relationship and sexual satisfaction in romantic relationships.  He teaches courses at Chapman on Human Sexuality and Research Methods.  Along with 11 other faculty members at Chapman, he launched the Chapman University April 2020 COVID-19 National Mental Health Study. Dr. Frederick will share preliminary insights from the 4,000 participants on how the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing are impacting people's mental health, physical health, romantic relationships, and experiences of prejudice and discrimination.

David Frederick Presentation

Expert Biographies:

Tara Gruenwald, Ph.D., MPH

Tara Gruenewald, Ph.D., MPH is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology in the Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences. Tara is a social and health psychologist with additional training in Public Health and Geronotology. Her research focuses on the social and psychological factors which shape functioning, physiology and health across the life course.  As a stress researcher, she views the potential harm to mental, physical, social and economic well-being from the COVID-19 pandemic as unrivaled among societal stressors in the last century, yet she has been intrigued by the fact that many Americans and others worldwide have responded in ways targeted to benefit the collective good.  Dr. Gruenewald is investigating how such prosocial orientations might not only help society but also benefit givers’ mental, social and physical well-being as they cope with the pandemic threat.

Marc Weidenmier, Ph.D.

Dr. Marc Weidenmier is a Professor of Economics and Finance in the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. He will be providing an update on the impacts of COVID-19 on consumer confidence as measured from the Chapman–CMC Orange County Consumer Sentiment Index. See recent article in OC Register.

Anna Leahy, Ph.D.

Anna Leahy is a Professor of English in the Wilkinson College or Arts, Humanities, and Social Science.  Dr. Leahy will discuss the ways that writers have been affected by and are responding to the global pandemic, with a focus on journalism and science writing, new initiatives in literary culture that have emerged over the last several weeks, and the importance of individuals documenting their experiences of this historical moment of change.

Anna Leahy is the author of the poetry book Aperture and Constituents of Matter and the nonfiction book Tumor. Her essays have won top prizes from Los Angeles Review, Ninth Letter, and Dogwood. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing program and edits the international Tab Journal. See more at amleahy.com.

Daniel Tomaszewski, Ph.D.

Daniel Tomaszewsi, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in Pharmacy Administration in the Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Department. Dr. Tomaszewski has focused his research in three primary areas, use of opioids in pediatric patients, medication adherence, and drug pricing/policy. Regarding youth, Dr. Tomaszewski’s program evaluates the use of opioid prescribing patterns in inpatient care facilities, emergency departments, and ambulatory clinic visits.

Dan is currently examining, as it is expressed in academic institutions, how changes in stress during the coronavirus pandemic impact student health and learning and how psychosocial resources reduce the impact of stress on health and learning outcomes to help pinpoint resources that should be targeted in future interventions.

Experts Biographies:

Jim Doti, Ph.D. is president emeritus and professor of economics.  He founded the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research and has presented the Chapman Economic Forecast for 42 consecutive years.  Dr. Doti will be providing analyses relating to when and how the California economy should hit the restart button.

Jennifer D. Keene, Ph.D. is a professor of history and dean of the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. She is a well-published expert on World War I. She has been involved in numerous public history projects that underscore the relevance of the World War I-era to the present day. She has served as an historical advisor to the World War I Centennial Commission, an historical consultant for numerous exhibits and films, and was recently featured in the PBS documentary mini-series, The Great War. She will speak about the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and how learning about this pandemic of a century ago may give us a clearer perspective on today’s COVID-19 crisis.
Jennifer Keene presentation.pdf

Jason Douglas, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Department of Health Sciences, Crean College of Health and Behavioral Science. Guided by the principles and practice of community-based participatory research, Dr. Douglas works with disadvantaged communities to investigate social and environmental determinants of public health disparities. Dr. Douglas is collaborating with Drs. Lawrence Brown, Angel Miles Nash, Emmanuel John, and Georgiana Bostean in an interdisciplinary context to examine the extent to which ethnocultural minority groups in the cities of New York and Los Angeles may be at higher risk for COVID-19 morbidity and mortality than non-minority groups. By examining COVID-19 impacts in these distinct geographies, this collaborative research seeks to: (1) identify social and environmental factors that may manifest in COVID-19 health disparities, and (2) develop a Viral Pandemic Risk Index based on study results.

Gregory Goldsmith, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of biology and the director of the Grand Challenges Initiative. Dr. Goldsmith will present preliminary results from a project that is building a comprehensive database of the response of U.S. colleges and universities to the emergence of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Working with a team of 10 Chapman University undergraduates, Goldsmith and his collaborators have collected data on when higher education institutions transitioned to online learning, closed residence halls, and instituted remote work for faculty and staff. The results have the potential to improve epidemiological models of disease transmission, inform policy developed by public health officials, and provide insights for decision makers within the higher education community.
Gregory Goldsmith presentation.pdf

Erik Linstead, Ph.D. is associate professor and the associate dean of academic programs and faculty development in the Fowler School of Engineering. He is the principal investigator of the Machine Learning and Affiliated Technologies (MLAT) lab. Prior to his current role, he spent 12 years at Boeing as an embedded software engineer and currently serves as a consulting senior engineering specialist for the Aerospace Corporation in the areas of deep learning and computer vision. He will be sharing how students and faculty at Chapman have leveraged curriculum related to 3D printing and modeling to manufacture face shields as a response to PPE shortages arising from COVID-19. To date, over 2,000 units have been donated.
Erik Linstead presentation.pdf

Expert Biographies:

Steven Gjerstad, Ph.D will be joining us for his regular update. Dr. Gjerstad is a Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute and the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. He will be providing the latest COVID-19 numbers for the local community, State of California, nation and world.

Stephanie Saldivar, MS, PA-C is a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Director of Clinical Education for the PA Studies Program within Crean College. She is a certified Physician Assistant (PA) and specializes in Emergency Medicine. Stephanie currently practices medicine in a local Orange County Emergency room and has been on the front lines as a healthcare provider during the COVID-19 pandemic. She will be sharing how her workplace is currently preparing for and managing suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients, how medical education has been affected, and how PAs are responding to the pandemic.

Hillard Kaplan, Ph.D is Professor of Health Economics and Anthropology in the Economic Science Institute within the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. He is the principal investigator on a collaborative and multi-disciplinary research program studying cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s disease among two tribal populations in lowland Bolivia. However, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the team has paused their research and are now redirecting their efforts to mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 on the tribal populations with whom they work. They are currently engaged in a collaborative effort with the tribal leadership and government authorities responsible for responding to the pandemic engaging in a collective decision-making process to determine the response needed to combat the epidemic. They hope to create an approach that can be adapted more generally for global tribal and aboriginal populations.

Shenyue Jia, Ph.D. along with her colleagues in the Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations (CEESMO) within the Schmid College of Science and Technology at Chapman University are working on identifying at-risk communities for COVID-19 using crowdsourced connectivity data. The team’s research focuses on rural and relatively isolated communities of the hardest-hit states in the U.S. by the COVID-19 pandemic. She will share how information from crowdsourced connectivity data from Facebook Disaster Maps and the CDC’s vulnerability index can help decision making in vulnerable communities as cases surge. Team members include Drs. Seung Hee Kim and Menas Kafatos from CEESMO at Chapman, Dr. Son V. Nghiem from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Dr. Andrew Schroeder from Direct Relief.
Shenyue Virtual Town Hall Presentation
Recent media coverage of work by Dr. Shenyue Jia can be found here.

Faculty Expert Biographies:

Dr. Steven Gjerstad – Economic Science Institute

Drs Gjerstad is a Presidential Fellow in the Economic Science Institute and the George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics. He will be providing the latest COVID-19 numbers for the world, national, California and local community
Gjerstad COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall Presentation

Dr. Michael Burney – Chair, Department of Physician Assistant – Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Burney is Chair of the Department of Physician Assistant Studies. He has been a Physician Assistant for 28 years and practiced Family Medicine in the Orange County area for over 15 years. He is works in an occupational medicine clinic. Dr. Burney and others in the Physician Assistant program are working on the front lines of the caring for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients during this critical time.
Burney COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall Presentation

Dr. Peter Simi  – Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Department of Art
Department of Sociology

As part of their long-term efforts to investigate the causes and consequences of domestic terrorism and hate crimes, Dr. Simi and his research group are monitoring how violent extremists are responding to COVID-19 as well as how anti-Asian racism related to COVID-19 is fueling a substantial increase in both hate crimes and verbal harassment. Their studies are examining the role of social media in terms of providing extremists a platform to discuss how to “weaponize” COVID-19 as well as providing a mechanism to circulate COVID-19 related propaganda suggesting various conspiracy theories about the origins and spread of the virus.
Simi COVID-19 Virtual Town Hall Presentation

Claudine Jaenichen – Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; Department of Art

Professor Jaenichen is part of the Design Network for Emergency Management (dnem.org) that launched a survey to collect data to benchmark the effectiveness of information and visual infrastructures (this includes written text in print and on screen) distributed to the public on COVID-19. They plan to assess the data and determine a timeline of distribution to identify communication gaps. They will map these communications onto the disaster risk management cycle and produce best-practices and guidelines in visual communication with a high-level of understanding public cognitive processing in crisis. In addition, she has been working with FEMA since November 2019 to improve public understanding terms shelter-in-place, stay put, and sheltering for various disaster scenarios. FEMA’s objective was to make actionable items more clear but COVID-10 is altering this work with additional conceptual (and confusing) terms, including safer-at-home, lockdown (previously associated with active shooting), stay-at-home order, and social vs. physical distancing.
Jaenichen COVID19 Virtual Town Hall Presentation

Faculty Expert Biographies:

Dr. Jerika Lam – School of Pharmacy, jlam@chapman.edu

Dr. Lam, an infectious disease pharmacist, is a member of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation COVID-19 Task Force that webinars every Friday morning, where Task Force members provide the national and international members weekly updates about the coronavirus, particularly about preventive and management strategies of COVID-19 from an interdisciplinary group of healthcare professionals (medicine, pharmacy and nursing) in different healthcare settings. They also provide updated perspectives from European clinicians, including those from the World Health Organization. Last week’s webinar topics included: assessment of the current COVID-19 situation, recommendations for the general public, general guidelines from the CDC and WHO, vulnerable populations (pregnancy, lactating mothers, newborns and infants, children and teenagers), recommendations for hospitals, recommendations for clinicians, coronavirus testing, telehealth/telemedicine, and treatments. She is the only Infectious Diseases pharmacist on the Task Force and provides updates about the drug treatments and management strategies against COVID-19.
Lam-Chapman COVID-19 Town Hall
Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1
Temperature and latitude analysis to predict potential spread and seasonality for COVID-19

Dr. Steven Gjerstad – Economic Science Institute, gjerstad@chapman.edu and Dr. Andrea Molle – Political Science, molle@chapman.edu

Drs. Gjerstad and Molle have published a note that considers the question of whether age is an independent factor that contributes to mortality or whether comorbidity factors such as heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension are the major contributors to mortality.  These morbidity factors increase rapidly with age, but otherwise healthy people appear to have low mortality at all ages. Dr. Molle is working with a team of Italian computational social scientists to address social factors that affect the spread of COVID-19. They focus on the role of social networks, such as the prevalence of extended family cohabitation in Italy, in the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Gjerstad is predicting COVID-19 cases over the next several weeks in the U.S.  The predictions are based on the past exponential case growth, the impact of a lowered transmission rate that will arise after social distancing is implemented, and the lag between implementation of the social distancing measures – which results from the 6 day incubation period for the disease and the 3 day lag from test to test result – and the fall in the number of new cases.
Molle-Chapman COVID-19 Town Hall
Gjerstad-Molle Chapman COVID-19 Town Hall
Comorbidity_Italy_2020/04/01

Dr. Hesham El-Askary – Schmid Science and Technology, elaskary@chapman.edu

Dr. El-Askary and the Earth Systems Science Data Solutions lab (EssDs) Scientists are processing remote earth observations to monitor how different countries are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and their response level matching with the outbreak. Their work is monitoring the emissions (Nitrogen oxides) which can be used as the indictor of human activities, such as fossil fuel combustion, and biomass burning for three COVID-19 hotspot regions, namely East Asia, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. These three periods are selected to show how the aforementioned regions are responding to this global situation: 1) before the outbreaks of Wuhan; 2) during the outbreaks of Wuhan; and 3) after the outbreak in Wuhan and the period of the global outbreak.