Damian Cristodero

This Mason business major wasn’t shy about forging his path

ckearney — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 20:33:56 +0000

This Mason business major wasn’t shy about forging his path ckearney Tue, 04/30/2024 - 16:33

Teon Frazier said he will enjoy his May graduation from 911�� to the fullest.

Honors College student Teon Frazier has a job waiting for him post-graduation. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

After his high school graduation was held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no way Frazier is going to miss the ceremony for those leaving the Costello College of Business or the larger university-wide ceremony at EagleBank Arena.

“It just feels so good to have a proper senior sendoff,” said Frazier, whose concentration is in management information systems and is a member of Mason’s Honors College. “It feels like the culmination of eight years, honestly.”

Frazier, from Capital Heights, Maryland, has much to celebrate, even beyond his graduation.

After two summer internships with J.P. Morgan Chase, Frazier has a job as a rotational HR analyst waiting for him with the company in Columbus, Ohio.

Frazier’s personal growth has been just as dramatic, as he transformed from what he called a “shy high-schooler” into the council president for the National Pan-Hellenic Council at Mason.

He is the president of the Rho Tau chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, and was elected as the associate regional director for the fraternity, the highest regional position a collegiate member can attain.

“For two years, basically from Maine to Virginia, I was traveling, meeting more of my fellow collegiate brothers, hearing their struggles and being as much help as I could,” Frazier said. “From that, I was able to take a lot from them to bring back to Mason and to my own personal development.”

Glenda Cosby, assistant director for success coaching at 911��, watched the transformation.

“I remember our first meeting, he was so nervous,” said Cosby, recalling how Frazier was concerned that one mistake would cause him to lose his scholarship and have to leave the university. “And just to see how much he’s grown, how much he has gotten involved. That fear, that lack of confidence, was completely out the window.”

Consider what Frazier accomplished at Chase, where he said he presented and helped implement a plan to increase the analytics and data retention in the HR department.

“I just looked at how I could start quantifying stuff, like how many cases that case managers were actually hearing or how many orders of a specific chair were being made because X-amount of employees had lumbar issues,” Frazier said. “So while other interns were pretty much just shadowing the whole time, I had a project I saw completed to the end.”

“Within six months or a year, he’ll be receiving a promotion or something like that,” Cosby said. “He’s that determined and that driven.”

It all started with his 911�� experience, Frazier said, in which he developed his inherent talents while showing the grit and audacity to overcome the shyness that had been a limitation.

“I loved Mason’s diversity, and I liked the campus’ potential for life,” he said. “I could tell the students here, those that are involved, are passionate about it. It taught me to really put myself out there. That’s a skill not a lot of people have.”

Spring Commencement 2024

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For this graduate, Mason’s academic options were a career road map

ckearney — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 15:29:09 +0000

For this graduate, Mason’s academic options were a career road map ckearney Thu, 04/25/2024 - 11:29

For Ari Williams, her journey toward graduation at 911�� was anything but linear.

Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

The CliffsNotes version is that of a criminology, law and society major who will graduate in May with an eye toward a career in government contracting.

The more complete story is how the options for a diversified education at 911��—Williams’ major concentration is in homeland security and justice with minors in sociology and intelligence studies—helped prepare her for that career.

“My course load has been learning a lot about the government and its agencies and what they do, and that’s actually really applicable to government contracting,” Williams said. “There’s a lot to be said for being able to read scientific research and journals. That was really great practice for me to doing things such as market research.”

The road that brought Williams toward a government contracting career was winding.

When the Fredericksburg, Virginia, native came to Mason as a first-generation student and a member of the Honors College, she wanted to work in the federal government. She also considered being an FBI agent, a police officer, and joining the military.

She landed on government contracting by chance, she said, after a faculty member in Mason’s Costello College of Business recommended giving the career a look.

Once committed, Williams took things into her own hands, securing analyst internships with CACI International, Cambridge Associates, and PingWind.

“I’ve always been a bit of a determined person,” Williams said. “When I want something or have a plan for something, I always try to enact it because closed mouths don’t get fed, right? So that’s the mentality I’ve always had.”

It was the same for her pursuit of academics.

“I was hungry to learn,” Williams said. “That’s one of the reasons I decided to come to college, because I knew I was going to be interested in what I was learning.”

“Ari is one of the most impressive students I have had the pleasure of teaching at Mason,” said Marie Mele Thomas, associate professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “Ari cares deeply about what she is learning, and her ability to think critically about complex issues and share her perspectives in insightful ways has been a joy to witness. I am confident she will continue to excel academically and professionally in whatever path she chooses.”

Continued learning is a big part of the plan for Williams, who said she plans to pursue an MBA after establishing herself in the workforce.

As for her time at 911��, Williams said the great upsides are the opportunities to network, the quality of the faculty, and its proximity to Washington, D.C.

“All in all, in the last four years I’ve been able to get a lot of work experience. I’ve been able to make a lot of connections,” she said. “I’m as prepared as I can be.”

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Her time at Mason is going swimmingly

ckearney — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 17:34:58 +0000

Her time at Mason is going swimmingly ckearney Thu, 03/21/2024 - 13:34

Ali Tyler is all about television crime shows. They are, she said, her go-to form of entertainment.

Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

At the same time, she is well aware they aren’t to be taken seriously.

Tyler is a junior forensic science major at 911��, and, as she said of Hollywood’s fast-track crime solving, “It’s not at all how it happens in real life. It’s a three-month process versus a two-second process.”

Tyler, from Cheshire, Connecticut, picked Mason because of its well-regarded Forensic Science Program and proximity to Washington, D.C., a choice that put her on her preferred career path and also allowed her to flourish as one of the Atlantic 10’s best all-around swimmers.

Tyler is a three-time conference champion in the 100-yard backstroke, a three-time champion in the 50 freestyle, and a two-time champion in the 200 backstroke. At this year’s conference championship meet, Tyler set a conference meet record of 48.84 seconds in the 100 freestyle to go along with her overall conference record of 22.29 seconds in the 50 freestyle, set in the 2021-22 season. That’s nine individual events entered, nine gold medals.

She also has been part of four relay teams that won gold, three of which set conference records, and is a member of Mason's Honors College.

“It’s been awesome to watch,” said Jamie Greenwood, interim coach of Mason’s swimming and diving team. “She’s elite in our conference, not to mention leading while staying humble. She is the athlete that every coach wants to work with.”

“I’m very glad I made the decision I did,” Tyler said of attending Mason. “I’m very satisfied with how I performed athletically. And I’m so glad I chose the forensics [program] here. The professors and everyone are fantastic.”

Still, it’s not the easiest road.

It means 5:30 a.m. wake-ups during the competitive season to get to the first of two-a-day workouts. It means working around class schedules, which Tyler said caused her on several occasions to miss practices and swim on her own to make up the time.

It means working with faculty who Tyler said have been understanding of the demands on her time and flexible when it comes to assignment deadlines.

The payoff has been both athletic and academic, as Tyler in her first two years at Mason made the Atlantic 10 Commissioner’s Honor Roll, which acknowledges student-athletes with at least a 3.0 grade-point average.

“What is amazing about her is her ability to maintain such high grades along with a rigorous aquatic training schedule,” said Steven Burmeister, an associate professor in the Forensic Science Program. “This balance demonstrates great discipline and maturity.”

Burmeister should know. He worked with Tyler last summer on a project that revealed LiDAR sensors that can be used to acquire digital crime scene data were most effective at a height of 60 feet.

“Without question, Ali has a bright future ahead of her,” Burmeister said, “and I am sure many accomplishments yet to come.”

Tyler said she is on track to graduate in Spring 2025. And because she has only five classes left for her undergraduate degree, she likely will begin an accelerated masters, also in forensic science.

From there, she said, she could pursue a career in toxicology or with a law enforcement agency.

It also makes sense that a field of study based on investigation would appeal to someone who likes puzzles.

Tyler said she loves brain teasers, disentanglement puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles. In fact, she said she just started a jigsaw puzzle with cherry blossoms.

She also appreciates the way Mason has made her feel at home, in and out of the pool.

“I like how the school is so connected, very community-based,” Tyler said. “But so many people come here from other places. I got a mix of small school and big school all in one.”

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For Mason professors, NEH grants are personal

ckearney — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:47:19 +0000

For Mason professors, NEH grants are personal ckearney Mon, 02/12/2024 - 10:47

Two 911�� faculty members received year-long grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), part of 260 grants worth $33.8 million from the NEH this year for humanities projects across the country.

Jo-Marie Burt. Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

Jo-Marie Burt, an associate professor in the Schar School for Policy and Government, was awarded a $60,000 fellowship to further her research for a book she will write that examines four war crimes trials that took place in Guatemala between 2013 and 2022.

Arthur Romano, an associate professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, was awarded $148,022 for the recovery of documentation and to collect oral histories of racial violence in Forsyth County, Georgia, for the purpose of creating educational materials, a video library, and an online viewing portal.

“Very happily surprised,” Romano said of the grant.

Said Burt, “I jumped up and down for quite a long time.”

Though their research of consequence is focused on different parts of the world, Burt and Romano will investigate something similar: accountability.

For Romano, it is an opportunity to hear the voices and recollections of those whose families were part of a Black community outside Atlanta, and were driven out by terrorizing White mobs in 1912.

For Burt, who previously wrote a book about political violence and authoritarianism in Peru, it is a chance for another deep dive into a Latin American country besieged by internal armed conflict, with the military, she said, primarily responsible for the violence.

“I believe that impunity, in other words the failure to investigate or prosecute those responsible for those abuses, erodes democracy,” Burt said. “It erodes the social contract. It perpetuates the idea that some people are less citizens, are less worthy than others.”

It’s not so much about relitigating the past, Romano said, as it is, in the case of Forsyth, Georgia, about giving voice to descendants of the victims. Romano's co-principal investigator is Margarita Tadevosyan, executive director of Mason's Center for Peacemaking Practice. The stories they record will be housed at the Truth Telling Project, which, among other things, helps document the impacts violence has on families and communities.

Arthur Romano. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

While there has been some reporting about what went on in Forsyth, Romano said the incident has been under-researched. He said his inquiry will provide descendants “the space to grieve and share their experiences without a media spotlight on it, where people can just share about the ways they are hurting and what they’re hoping for in the future.”

Romano is the founder of the Carter School’s Program on Urban Peacebuilding, and his book Racial Justice and Nonviolence Education is about ways to disrupt cycles of violence by recognizing that people impacted by violence can be effective educators.

For me, that’s a big part of what this is all about,” he said. “Not only understanding past harms, but what are the echoes of that and how it affects who we are today. It’s part of building a framework of repair and reconciliation for us to be able to function better and be better together and actually live out the values we hope to build.”

Burt said she has been interested in human rights violations in Latin America since college. Her book Silencing Civil Society: Political Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru came out in 2007, the same year former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori went on trial for corruption and human rights abuses committed from 1990 to 2000.

Burt attended the first week of the Fujimori trial with the help of a Mason grant. She then secured a grant from the Open Society Foundation to monitor the trial in its entirety. Fujimori was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison, an outcome regarded as a historic ruling for international justice.

Her research in Guatemala will include the trial of retired army general Jose Efraín Ríos Montt, who came to power in a military coup in March 1982. Human rights organizations estimate 10,000 people were killed in the first three months of his government, which remained in power until August 1983. Ríos Montt was convicted of genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison, though higher courts nullified the proceeding.

“These are crimes that occurred many years ago, but they’re not in the past,” Burt said. “Especially for the victims, they are very much in the present.”

And also, in a way, for Burt.

I just got hooked into this dynamic of searching for justice, for accountability, for mass atrocity crimes,” she said. “Can trials, which normally focus on perpetrators’ needs, take into account the victims’ needs, perspectives, and rights? Over the years, I began to think about trial monitoring not just as a research tool but as a tool to support and advocate on the behalf of victims.”

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Mason’s Evan Marie Lowder receives Outstanding Faculty Award from SCHEV

ckearney — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 14:51:56 +0000

Mason’s Evan Marie Lowder receives Outstanding Faculty Award from SCHEV ckearney Fri, 01/19/2024 - 09:51

911��’s Evan Marie Lowder is among 12 state educators to be formally recognized by the State Council of Higher Education (SCHEV) with a 2024 Outstanding Faculty Award.

Evan Lowder. Photo by Office of University Branding

The assistant professor of Criminology Law, and Society will be honored as a “Rising Star,” a designation for faculty with two to six years of full-time experience, and is the 29th Mason faculty member to be celebrated since the awards began in 1987.

“I was very surprised,” said Lowder, who has been at Mason since 2019. “Overall, just very positive news.”

Outstanding Faculty Awards recognize faculty at Virginia public and private colleges and universities who exemplify the highest standards of research, teaching, and service. The award includes a $7,500 gift from the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation to be presented at an in-person ceremony on March 7 in Richmond.

“Evan is an academic star in every sense,” said James Willis, chair of the Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, part of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “She is an excellent researcher doing vital work, and an outstanding teacher and mentor who elevates her students and provides invaluable service to the department, college, and university. She is truly deserving this prestigious award.”

Lowder originally wanted to be a lawyer, a seed probably planted by her mother, she said.

It was not a random notion.

“I was a very curious, articulate, and kind of argumentative child,” Lowder said. “My mother always said, ‘You should be a lawyer because of your ability to care about issues and fight for justice.’ ”

But while Lowder was pursuing majors in psychology and political science at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, there came a revelation.

“I realized through the law you can impact people’s lives, but it’s kind of individually, one by one” Lowder said. “I became interested in this idea of how you can use research to further policy and practices that can help a larger group of people.”

Lowder’s research focuses on reducing justice-system contact and improving behavioral health outcomes among justice-involved adults.

Her Early Justice Strategies Lab examines ways to facilitate community release, supervision, and connection to services and supports for those who are justice-involved. Many projects focus on front-end legal processing such as community-, police-, and court-based interventions.

Lowder said she is most proud of helping to evaluate the state of Indiana’s pretrial risk assessment tool. Though the tool did well in predicting outcomes overall, she said, it did not do as well for Black defendants in general.

“So that motivated this whole conversation about looking at other places in the system where we can help rectify some of those disparities,” Lowder said. “It launched a bigger conversation about race and the way it manifests in the criminal justice system. That has led to other projects working with Indiana government and local agencies to try to address some of those issues.”

“It’s rewarding to have that bi-directional relationship,” she added, “where we’re giving something back to the community, and we’re taking something that can help to advance the evidence base around a specific issue.”

It’s a sensibility that she began developing at a young age.

“Everything was a negotiation where I thought, ‘Oh, that doesn’t make sense and why does it have to be that way?’ ” Lowder said. “You’re curious, you want answers and you want to be logical. But the world doesn’t work that way. That’s hard to understand when you’re little. But when you grow up and get the chance to apply evidence-based thinking to your work and your life, that’s very rewarding.”

Investigate Criminology, Law, and Society at 911��

AI infrastructures are a national security and human safety issue, Mason professor says

ckearney — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 16:16:03 +0000

AI infrastructures are a national security and human safety issue, Mason professor says ckearney Mon, 01/08/2024 - 11:16

A team of 911�� researchers, led by Distinguished University Professor J.P. Singh, has received a $1.4 million grant from the Department of Defense to examine the way countries are implementing their national artificial intelligence infrastructure strategies.

Specifically, said Singh, who works out of Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government, his Minerva Project wants to understand “how preferences or interests from society, business, or other government actors shape policy in terms of what countries are doing with their national AI infrastructures.”

“Many countries have official national AI strategies, and they’re usually announced by the government,” Singh said. “But it’s unclear at whose behest those policies arise.”

Why is this research important?

AI systems at the ground level are built on data and the way these data are collected, because a machine can only learn from the data that goes in. The question is, whose data? If this is facial recognition, whose data went into it? Women may be excluded. If it’s mostly men’s data, certain ethnicities might be excluded. If we’re going to have an AI system that detects breast cancer, whose regional data went into that, what kind of groups? That’s why there’s that famous saying about garbage in, garbage out.

Why is this a national security issue?

“At the end of the day, whatever we do as human beings relates to how secure we are, so the way AI infrastructures evolve in a country can enhance security because you are able to surveil populations around the world and also stop intrusions on cyber infrastructures. That’s very much related to military-type security. But we are also examining security at a different level. What does it mean to be secure as a human being?

What does it mean to have human security?

Let’s imagine Society A. Militarily they might be secure, but people who belong to groups who, in practice, have fewer rights are not so secure. In India’s case, these may be lower-caste groups. In several Middle East countries, these may be women. In the United States, unfortunately, it may be minority groups. So we’re thinking about what security means for these groups. What does it mean for them to be represented through data, which would then be run on these machine-learning systems, because security in an AI sense would mean they are also represented.

What are the consequences for being in groups whose data is not being represented?

There may be people in the developing world with tropical diseases. But the sophisticated health systems being developed in the Global North may not have enough data about the diseases in the Global South, which may be about blindness from smoke—because people have no choice but to burn wood or coal, or diarrhea, or tuberculosis, or smallpox.

Yet you also call this data repository a double-edge sword.

You may not want your data to be out there. The consequence is that we need governance systems that guard against people’s data being exchanged freely. Right now, there’s a huge battle between the U.S. and the European Union about how data that sits on the cloud can be exchanged. In the U.S., by and large, the person who collects the data can then exchange it, as long as you have the informed consent of the person when the data was collected. The European Union position has been that every time the data gets exchanged, an additional set of constraints must be met.

What is your bottom line?

Humanities travel through several roads. We may have done ships, we may have done railways, we may have done roads. In the 21st century, our road is an artificial intelligence infrastructure. It’s very important to know if we can travel down that road. Just as in the past, people may not have the ability to get on a train, even if it passed through their village, we have to now figure if everybody is on the train of an artificial intelligence infrastructure, and if it is safe for them to do so.

J.P. Singh is researching AI and how we can build a better world together.

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A cancer diagnosis helped this Mason grad find her career path

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 18:27:18 +0000

A cancer diagnosis helped this Mason grad find her career path Damian Cristodero Fri, 12/08/2023 - 13:27

Dulcce Valenzuela wasn’t going to say she would want to go through it again. But of her diagnosis, fight, and success beating back cancer as a teenager, she said, “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

That’s because the 911�� senior, who will graduate this month with a bioengineering degree, used the episode as a foundation for her life’s purpose.

“How can I help other people?” she said. “How can I leverage my skills to help somebody else?”

For Valenzuela, 30, from Stafford, Virginia, and a transfer student from Germanna Community College, that means medical school, a career in aerospace medicine, perhaps in the Air Force, and building off her research in Mason’s Applied Biosensing Laboratory.

There, under the mentorship of associate professor Parag Chitnis, Valenzuela is part of an effort to develop wearable ultrasound technology for the quantitative assessment of musculoskeletal injuries in military service members.

At the same time, Valenzuela is working part-time for Inova Health System as a rehabilitation technician. She previously worked part-time for Mary Washington Healthcare as a patient safety attendant.

"Dulcce is an exemplar student who not only achieved high academic standing in our classes but also made the most of the diverse research opportunities Mason Bioengineering has to offer for our undergrads," Chitnis said. "In my lab, she independently developed a method for characterizing the performance of novel, wearable ultrasound sensors, which has now become part of our standard protocol. This was an impressive accomplishment considering that she had no prior experience in this area."

“Once you’re out of the waters with something like cancer, your body is very much in fight or flight mode, and you’re just kind of surviving for a little bit,” said Valenzuela, who underwent two years of treatment to overcome Ewing sarcoma, which began in the soft tissue and bones of her shoulder and spread to her lungs. “Now I’m doing things with intention.”

It is that grit—including coming to the United States at 13 with her mother and sister from their native Honduras for her cancer treatments—that defines Valenzuela as a Mason student, said Shani Ross, associate chair of undergraduate programs in the Bioengineering Department.

“She is a good citizen of Mason,” Ross said. “From a diverse background, a transfer student, a good human being. And through her own struggles, really wants to help people.”

Added Claudia Borke, an academic advisor in the Bioengineering Department: “She exemplifies the best in a Mason student.”

Valenzuela said Mason helped pull the best out of her.

She said she immediately felt at home at the university during a field trip to the Fairfax Campus with other Germanna students. She appreciates the university’s diversity and the “tons of opportunities” for research with faculty who are “very open to having students in their labs so we can get some experience.”

“I feel I’m coming out with good relationships, good connections,” Valenzuela said. “I feel pretty ready to take my next steps.”

That includes beginning an accelerated master’s program at Mason in Spring 2024, continuing her research in the Applied Biosensing Lab, studying for the MCAT, and eventually applying to medical schools.

“I’m so excited,” Valenzuela said about graduating. “It is such an accomplishment to do that and give that to my mom and let her enjoy that, too.”

Learn more about the 2023 Winter Commencement Ceremonies

In This Story

Parag Chitnis

Shani Ross

More Graduation News

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July 6, 2026
Graduate student credits campus community for helping her find her course
June 11, 2026
University Scholar combines art and conflict resolution to build bridges
June 1, 2026
From 911�� to Capitol Hill: How environmental policy training shaped one graduate’s path
May 29, 2026
This Honors College student-athlete excels on and off the field
May 29, 2026

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American Society for Criminologists awards highlight special bond

Damian Cristodero — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 21:35:35 +0000

American Society for Criminologists awards highlight special bond Damian Cristodero Mon, 11/13/2023 - 16:35

Faye Taxman, a health services criminologist and Distinguished University Professor in 911��’s Schar School of Policy and Government, has mentored C.J. Appleton, a PhD student in Criminology, Law, and Society, since 2019.

They have worked together at Mason’s Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence (ACE), of which Taxman is the director, building a professional relationship that accelerated Appleton’s evolution as a scholar and provided the center with what Taxman calls “a role model for the field.”

So it is with great pleasure for both that they will be honored at this week’s American Society for Criminologists (ASC) annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Faye Taxman. Photo by Office of University Branding

Taxman, part will receive the August Vollmer Award, given to someone whose scholarship and professional activities have made outstanding contributions to justice and/or the treatment or prevention of criminal or delinquent behavior.

Appleton will receive the Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship for Racial and Ethnic Diversity, which encourages students of color, especially from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in the field, to enter the fields of criminology and criminal justice.

“For me, to be on this journey with her and to have learned from her and to see how talented and incredible she is, it’s an honor and pretty special that we both can receive something at the same time,” Appleton said.

“It’s awesome,” Taxman said. “It makes me very happy.”

Their story began in 2018, when Appleton basically cold-called Taxman in an email to ask about Mason’s PhD programs. Appleton had turned his life around after several years in correctional institutions for an assortment of drug possession and probation violations, and earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology/anthropology at Lewis & Clark College, and a master’s degree in sociology from Portland State University.

They met later at an ASC meeting and quickly learned their visions aligned. In fact, Appleton said, “[Taxman] is the reason I chose Mason.”

C.J. Appleton

“What I see in C.J. is a person who has endured a lot of struggles in his life and benefited from good, quality rehabilitative treatment services and wants to give back to the next generation,” Taxman said. “He embraces the notion that any of us can serve our community. His way is by mentoring and helping people understand that when people in society don’t do well, there are ways to help them so they can pursue a more productive life and be a productive citizen.”

Appleton said Taxman immediately made him feel part of the ACE team instead of what he called “a worker bee doing tasks for other people.”

“I have been put in charge of various aspects and components for the last five years and because of that I have a lot of confidence, not just in my skills but in my ability to figure it out,” Appleton said. “That’s one of the biggest things I’ve gotten in my experience at Mason, just confidence that comes through being put in the fire and being supported.”

Appleton said he is most proud of his research with a team that created a free resource available on ACE’s website that explains best practices and guidelines in administering probation conditions. That led to ongoing work with the state of Massachusetts to revamp its condition-setting practices.

Taxman, as Schar School dean Mark J. Rozell said, “is a powerhouse whose work on criminal justice reform reaches well beyond the academe to inform public discourse and policymaking.”

“I’ve been able to develop models about how to implement improvements in how the criminal legal system can actually help people change and reduce their criminal behavior,” Taxman said. “So this award means that I am recognized, but that my work is recognized in terms of highlighting to the next generation of researchers the different ways people can pursue having an impact on public policy and engage public institutions in change.”

A lesson that helped lead Appleton to success.

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Fuse at Mason Square hits construction milestone

ckearney — Wed, 01 Nov 2023 20:30:32 +0000

Fuse at Mason Square hits construction milestone ckearney Wed, 11/01/2023 - 16:30

911��’s new Fuse at Mason Square destination in Arlington will reach a major milestone this month with the “topping out” of what will become a 345,000-square-foot collaborative and digital innovation space in the heart of the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

New Fuse at Mason Square destination in Arlington will reach a major milestone this month with the “topping out.” Photo courtesy of Mason Facilities

A “topping out” is commemorated when the structural frame of the building is complete.

Regional economic development leaders will join Mason leadership and Clark Construction in a hard-hat celebration on Friday, Nov. 3.

“As Mason expands from Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William County, Fuse is a groundbreaking project that is redefining the modern university’s role in catalyzing business and talent growth in the region,” said Liza Wilson Durant, associate provost for strategic initiatives and community. “With it, we are one step closer to having a destination to collaborate with partners to development of new technologies.”

Watch the video about how Fuse will expand Mason’s commitment to research and innovation.

Mason President Gregory Washington will speak at Friday’s event, as will Ryan Touhill, director of Arlington Economic Development. Tours will be given to media and industry and government partners, and workers from Clark Construction will sign a commemorative banner.

When open—tenant occupancy is scheduled to begin in August 2024—Fuse at Mason Square will transform the innovation landscape in Arlington, with opportunities for students, researchers, and commercial partners to be part of an immersive atmosphere of ideation and innovation.

Fuse will be the headquarters for the Institute for Digital Innovation (IDIA), but all of Mason’s academic units will have a presence with expertise to amplify our collective impact on digital innovation.

That firmament will include the School of Computing, the first in the commonwealth, and the Volgenau School of Engineering, working together with the Schar School of Policy and Government, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the Antonin Scalia Law School, the College of Education and Human Development, and the Donald G. Costello College of Business. The College of Public Health, College of Science, College of Visual and Performing Arts, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences will also bring their expertise and programs in digital innovation to Mason Square.

“This destination really reflects computing being ubiquitous and at the center of all other applications,” said Andre W. Marshall, vice president for research, innovation, and economic impact at Mason. “Mason is growing the future businesses and future talent for the region through investments in entrepreneurship and more bachelor’s degrees in computing than any other Virginia university.”

That synergy will perfectly align with Mason’s mission of propelling Northern Virginia’s transition into a global technology hub while also expanding research opportunities at a university already classified as a top research institution by the Carnegie Classification of Institutes of Higher Education.

Further, Mason is ahead on its commitment as part of the Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP), a statewide initiative to increase the number of bachelor’s and master’s graduates in computer science, applied computer science, computer engineering, and software engineering.

Students and faculty will be on hand Friday to demonstrate the novel technologies, inventions, and solutions that will flourish at Fuse.

“We really want to encourage what we call effective intellectual collisions,” said Page architect Rob McClure said. “On every floor of this project, there is adjacency of industry partners to Mason, and the labs, all the robotics, the cool stuff. The idea is there is cross pollination for all these different users. It’s really taking the ecosystem of innovation and putting it into practice architecturally.”

Sustainability is also at the forefront of the building with such features as a vertical solar array, a high-performance HVAC system, and the capture and treatment of stormwater via a green roof.

“Fuse will hit the mark on so many levels,” Wilson Durant said. “It will be at the nexus of all 911�� does in digital innovation.”

Check out what is planned for Fuse

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Gregory Washington

Liza Wilson Durant

Andre Marshall, PhD

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Fuse at Mason Square

Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA)

Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

Strategic Direction

Technology on the field and court helps Mason student-athletes in the gym

ckearney — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 14:39:54 +0000

Technology on the field and court helps Mason student-athletes in the gym ckearney Mon, 10/23/2023 - 10:39

Corey Dulak-Sigler said he doesn’t necessarily have a philosophy when it comes to athletic training.

Instead, 911��’s head strength and conditioning coordinator figures that “there’s a time and place for everything, and adjustments are the most important part.”

Mason athletic trainer Corey Dulak-Sigler holds the Catapult harness. Photo by Cristian Torres/Office of University Branding

His study on the workload demands of Mason’s women’s lacrosse players falls squarely into that parameter.

“For me, in my realm of strength and conditioning, it helped validate what I was doing in the weight room to help the players keep those qualities that make them do well on the field, and make tweaks where I need to,” Dulak-Sigler said.

The study, titled “Analysis of Accumulated Workloads and Performance Testing Across a Collegiate Women’s Lacrosse Season,” was published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research and is believed to be the first to focus solely on the training demands and in-season physical demands of Division I women’s lacrosse players, timely research given lacrosse's return to the Olympics in 2028.

Joining Dulak-Sigler as co-authors of the study are Margaret T. Jones, director of the Patriots Performance Lab; Andrew Jagim, director of sports medicine research at the Mayo Clinic Health System; Nicholas M. Kuhlman, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Connecticut; and Mason alumnus Jennifer B. Fields, PhD Kinesiology '20, an assistant professor of nutritional science at the University of Connecticut.

The study, conducted during the 2022 season, looked at the accumulated workload demands of players during games and practices to assess the most productive training for the athletes to meet the gameday workloads.

In a 16-week study, athletes were tracked on their total distance run, changes in direction, high speed distance, and heart rate.

This was done through Catapult load monitoring technology, a three-inch tall, one and a half-inch wide, half-inch thick device worn in a harness between the shoulder blades. It includes an accelerometer that monitors movements, a gyroscope that measures rotation, and a magnetometer that measures direction and orientation. A separate small device monitors heart rate.

The data is pinged to satellites and then to a central computer. A receiver can provide real-time data for use during games. But data from practices are generally accessed later through an app, where it was analyzed by Dulak-Sigler and Jones at the Patriots Performance Lab.

“We have a unique situation here at 911�� where the strength coach and scientists work together,” Jones said. “That’s not commonplace.”

That kind of collaboration is a hallmark of a Mason core value, which is to provide a positive and collaborative community that contributes to the well-being and success of every member.

But the information goes nowhere if coaches are not on board, Jones said.

Not an issue, Mason women’s lacrosse coach Kara Mupo said.

^{Having that data allows us to do something called undulate,” Mupo said. “That means we change our training schedule based on our load. We meet certain benchmarks, so when we get to that gameday, we have solidified a large chunk of our training to comprise those numbers we’ll see on gameday.”}

“Credit to Corey in that he has embraced this technology, and done a deep dive into it, more so than other people would, and he had an interest in working with us [the Patriots Performance Lab] to write this up,” Jones said. “So I don’t know if we didn’t have Corey if we would have been able to get this done.”

The lacrosse team is not the only Mason squad using Catapult. Women’s basketball and soccer and men’s basketball also use the system.

Faith Brown, the strength and conditioning coach for women’s basketball and volleyball, has also worked with Jones as lead author on several papers on load monitoring, with two more scheduled to be published.

Load monitoring and management will be key during basketball’s preseason, Brown said.

“That preseason period is meant to prepare the athletes for the demands of games, so we want to have practices where they experience higher loads than what they experience in games,” Brown said. “We want to make sure their bodies are comfortable and can withstand the stress.”

What did Dulak-Sigler find as he dug into the numbers? That the load training he used with the lacrosse team was appropriate for the loads the athletes faced during games.

“We looked at all the load monitoring of the in-season, and it ended up great,” he said. “No one got worse. Everybody stayed the same or better. It was more of a validation that we were doing things correctly.”

“Without Corey being a major resource, breaking down practice games and really educating me and my staff, we would have this amazing resource we wouldn’t be using to its full advantage,” Mupo said. “We say all the time, success is measured in the win column. But we can’t get the wins unless we’re healthy and safe. That’s the measurement we use.”

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