About Joel Beeson & Dana Coester (Co-recipients)
Joel Beeson and Dana Coester, both professors of journalism in the Reed College
of Media, are the co-recipients of the 2021-2022 Benedum Distinguished Scholar
Award in the Humanities and the Arts. They are known for their years-long
collaborative research and creative investigative work documenting the recruitment
techniques of domestic white supremacist and extremist groups in Appalachia.
Over the last five years as journalists and editors of the digital outlet
100 Days in Appalachia, Beeson, Coester and team members have produced National
Murrow Award-winning reports on extremism. They also produced and directed
a major feature-length documentary film, “Raised by Wolves,” which has received
funding from the Democracy Fund’s Just and Inclusive Society program and
the Ford Foundation’s Creativity and Free Expression program.
Throughout their creative works investigating the digital habits of middle and high
school youth and their exposure to extremism and harmful content in the digital
ecosystem, Beeson and Coester have documented the risk of radicalization
of Appalachian rural youth through social media and gaming platforms. The
pair has provided three testimonies before Congressional committees, as well
as multiple closed-door briefings to other researchers and reporters from
NBC, The New York Times and other major media outlets. Beeson and Coester
were selected as participants in the Social Science Research Council’s Media
and Democracy Program Workshop on Extreme Right Radicalization Online: Platforms,
Processes, Prevention.
View Beeson's bio and CV online |
View Coester's bio and CV online
About Christina Duncan
Christina Duncan, professor of psychology in the Eberly College of Arts
and Sciences, is recognized as the 2021-2022 Benedum Distinguished Scholar
in Behavioral and Social Sciences for her significant contributions to the
research in and practice of pediatric psychology. During her celebrated career
at WVU, Duncan has become internationally and nationally recognized as a
leading translational expert in family-based interventions that promote optimal
outcomes and reduce the negative impact of chronic conditions on youth and
their families. She has dedicated her career to understanding how best to
support and promote self-management behaviors, adherence and positive psychosocial
outcomes for children and families with asthma, cystic fibrosis and burn
injuries. Duncan employs innovative, effective, patient- and family-centered
strategies that help to improve patients’ understanding of and ability to
follow treatment plans, ultimately minimizing their risk of medical complications
and having a beneficial impact on their daily lives.
She has acquired over $5 million in external funding for this research and
has 72 peer-reviewed and book chapter publications, including many in high-impact
journals. Duncan was recently selected to serve as editor of one of the flagship
pediatric psychology journals, Clinical Practice in Pediatric Psychology,
and is on the editorial board of the other leading journal in this field,
Journal of Pediatric Psychology. While at WVU, Duncan has provided clinical
service to youth with a variety of health conditions and generated a long
history of scholarship in improving clinical care. In addition, she has spent
over 25 years educating the next generation of child psychologists on how
to conduct applied, multidisciplinary research and effectively deliver evidence-based
clinical care to patients and their families.
View Duncan's bio and CV online
About Jessica Hoover
Jessica Hoover, associate professor of chemistry in the Eberly College of Arts
and Sciences, is honored as the 2021-2022 Benedum Distinguished Scholar in
Physical Science and Technologies. She is recognized nationally and internationally
for her significant discoveries in inorganic, organometallic and organic
chemistry, specifically transition metal catalyzed reactions. By identifying
the clear connection between reactivity and field effect, Hoover has discovered
a new way for researchers to describe reactivity differences in organic reactions
not readily explained using classical effects. She used this insight to expand
the scope of copper catalyzed decarboxylative couplings of benzoic acids,
which helps scientists shift away from very expensive noble metal catalysts
and their toxic byproducts. Hoover has also established that silver additives
form important intermediates in decarboxylative coupling reactions and found
ways to replace them with oxygen gas – which is inexpensive, abundant and
harmless – as an oxidant. Such advances are important because they uncover
new principles that govern catalysis more broadly and allow the use of simple,
readily available and inexpensive benzoic acids as coupling partners to access
pharmaceutically relevant structures under conditions that are environmentally
benign and economical.
Hoover has been recognized with a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award and a MIRA
(Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award) from the National Institutes of
Health and was selected as a Kavli Fellow, a highly distinguished recognition
from the National Academy of Sciences. She has received over $3 million dollars
in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Science
Foundation, has mentored more than 50 researchers and recently facilitated
chemistry-inspired public art installations.
View Hoover's bio and CV online