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2CI Fellows

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements, Second Century Initiative

Georgia State 2CI Fellow Researches Impact and Consequence of Tobacco Use, Vaping in United States

Georgia State 2CI Fellow Researches Impact and Consequence of Tobacco Use, Vaping in United States

Robert Fairman is a 2CI Fellow at Georgia State in the Tobacco Center for Regulatory Science. Regulatory science is an arm of research that aims to develop new tools, standards, and to assess the safety, efficacy, quality, and performance of FDA-regulated policies—tobacco regulatory science helps the FDA inform regulations and policies they create regarding tobacco products. Fairman works within the health behavioral area of this informative process.

“I am a social and behavioral epidemiologist. Epidemiology is the study of diseases: how they spread, what causes them, and their outcomes. Simply, social epidemiology is looking at what social structures are more or less likely to cause an outcome.”

Arriving this past summer, Fairman did research on the modification of vaping devices—now he does research at Georgia State on the implications of vaping, and the use of other tobacco products. The recent headlines regarding vaping-related illness or death is a cause of concern for Fairman.

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements

Aging, Incarceration and Employment: How a 2CI Graduate Fellow Seeks to Improve Outcomes for Older Formerly Incarcerated Individuals

Aging, Incarceration and Employment: How a 2CI Graduate Fellow Seeks to Improve Outcomes for Older Formerly Incarcerated Individuals

Currently working under Dr. William Sabol, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Second Century Initiative Graduate Fellow Victoria Helmly is working on a project in conjunction with the DeKalb County Jail to evaluate a welding program for a group of inmates, taught by Georgia Piedmont Technical College, a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia. Ultimately, she and Dr. Sabol are looking to see whether this program will reduce the chances of reconviction and reincarceration.

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements

Shoot for the Moon: 2CI Fellow Uses Astronomy Research Opportunities to Prepare for Career Among the Stars

Shoot for the Moon: 2CI Fellow Uses Astronomy Research Opportunities to Prepare for Career Among the Stars

Second Century Initiative (2CI) fellow Deborah Gulledge is planning on using her research to apply to NASA’s Astronaut Corps after graduating. She is currently in a doctoral program focusing on Astronomy, accompanied by a Master’s in Physics. Her priority in research focuses on planetary research and evaluation—Gulledge is an advocate for the exploration of extraterrestrial planets in our solar system and beyond. She looks at both Jupiter and Saturn primarily, studying their core composition via seismology.

Through Dr. Jefferies, a 2CI hire in the Astroinformatics cluster, Gulledge will have the opportunity to travel to the South Pole in order to conduct research on these planets and their cores in an observatory. Planetary research aside, Gulledge also has her eyes set on something even larger: the frontier of space itself. After the completion of her Ph.D., Gulledge will apply to NASA’s Astronaut Corps, in hopes of being trained to become an astronaut.

Her parting advice for any potential student seeking higher education? Ask plenty of questions. Be curious. Opening a dialogue will allow for numerous opportunities to pop-up in your academic career. “It took me a long time to realize that so many more opportunities would be available to me if I would’ve just asked for them instead of sitting to the side and waiting for them to just show up.”

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements, Second Century Initiative

Former Police Officer and Second Century Initiative Fellow Studies Police Behavior

Former Police Officer and Second Century Initiative Fellow Studies Police Behavior

Second Century Initiative (2CI) Fellow Thaddeus Johnson is exploring police behavior and how it is connected to the education level of police officers.

Johnson is currently researching police professionalism, specifically the education of police officers and how it impacts different outcomes. His dissertation looks at how police professionalism impacts clearance rates and homicide rates. He said working as a police officer in the past, along with the research conducted with his mentors, is what led to his interest in this topic.

“I am a former officer of ten years. I was a ranking officer when I decided to stop and my research was always a question that I found interesting while I was working in the field,” said Johnson. “The education of officers has always been an issue in policing. Should we hire more educated officers? Should a college degree be required to become a police officer. So, I’m trying to answer those kinds of questions with my research.”

2CI Fellows, Feature Stories, News and Announcements, Second Century Initiative

Second Century Initiative Fellow Uses International Business Degree Program to Solve Waste Management Issues in the U.S.

Second Century Initiative Fellow Uses International Business Degree Program to Solve Waste Management Issues in the U.S.

Second Century Initiative (2CI) Fellow Sarah Ku is working to find a solution to something that’s puzzling local governments in the U.S. and the West: managing large amounts of waste that other countries aren’t accepting for recycling.

Ku is interested in researching waste management in China. From a business standpoint, she wants to discover ways to aid China in controlling waste after consumption and then design and develop marketing strategies to market those ideas for implementation in American markets.

To aid with waste management across the world, Ku is looking into the marketability of using insects to mitigate waste. Ku said insects can be an effective source for waste consumption and have been applied in different industries around the world.

2CI Fellows, Feature Stories, News and Announcements

Second Century Initiative Fellow Researches How Children Become Involved With Terrorist Organizations

Second Century Initiative Fellow Researches How Children Become Involved With Terrorist Organizations

Second Century Initiative (2CI) fellow Kristian Warpinski is studying the processes by which children become involved in terrorist organizations. Warpinski is working with Georgia State University’s Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative (TCV), to map the mobilization of children into terrorist organizations, and is currently looking at terrorist organizations Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements

Second Century Initiative Fellow Collaborates With Computer Science Department to Predict Solar Flares

Second Century Initiative Fellow Collaborates With Computer Science Department to Predict Solar Flares

Second Century Initiative (2CI) and Ph.D. candidate Sushant Mahajan is studying the activity of the sun to predict dangerous space weather.

The overarching goal of his research is to understand and predict the sun’s magnetic activity. He is currently attempting to discover where sunspots, regions of reduced surface temperature that appear as dark spots on the Sun’s photosphere, are originated inside the sun. Once he has done this, he will be able to use his research to assist in the prediction of space weather, specifically solar flares.

“A solar flare is a sudden increase in brightness on the sun. During a solar flare, a particular location in the sun suddenly brightens up and emits a lot of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation,” Mahajan said. “The amplification of the magnetic field is what creates sunspots on the sun and since solar flares originate in magnetically active regions, they usually originate around groups of sunspots.”

2CI Fellows, News and Announcements

Media, Perceptions of Terrorism, and Extremist Messaging – A Q&A With 2CI Fellow Allison Betus

Media, Perceptions of Terrorism, and Extremist Messaging – A Q&A With 2CI Fellow Allison Betus

Allison Betus is a Second Century Initiative Graduate Fellow in Georgia State University’s Transcultural Violence and Extremism (TCVE) Initiative, studying how media affects our perceptions of terrorism and how individual-level factors of perpetrators impact media coverage. Betus is also exploring the mechanisms behind extremist messaging insinuating itself into mainstream rhetoric.