Welcome to our monthly compilation of good news, gathered from the college's faculty and staff! Would you like to include your own news or a colleague's? Send us your details on the CHSS Brag Points form (which also collects information we can share with George Mason's Office of University Branding).
Shout out to associate professor David Powers Corwin, School of Integrative Studies, and two George Mason alumni on recently publishing an article in the Journal of Feminist Scholarship. Corwin, Lindsay Lowry, BA Integrative Studies ’24, who conducted much of their research as a teaching assistant for Corwin, and Angelica Lovelace, BA Integrative Studies ’21, MEd ’22, along with high school student Siri Lalukota co-authored the article, “Occupying All Sides of the Desk: A Feminist Methodological Approach to Teaching, Researching, and Mentoring.” Learn more about their research here.
Congrats to Scott Berg, professor of English, on receiving the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award for his book, The Burning of the World: The Great Chicago Fire and the War for a City’s Soul. The award, presented by the Newberry Library and the Pattis Family Foundation, celebrates works that transform public understanding of Chicago, its history, and its people. Berg will receive the award at a ceremony on Sept. 20 at the Newberry Library in Chicago. Read more about the award and Berg’s book.
Shout out to three-time George Mason alum Jessica McCaughey, MA English ’05, MFA, Creative Writing ’11, PhD Writing and Rhetoric ’22, on receiving the Fulbright-Queen’s University Belfast Scholar Award for creative writing! She will be based in the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland for six months, beginning in Jan. 2026. McCaughey, who is an associate professor of writing at George Washington University, will teach creative writing and perform a public research project around workplace writing post-Troubles. Congrats, Jessica!
Kudos to global affairs graduate student Joey Siu on her testimony in July before the Senate Relations Foreign Committee’s Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues. Siu, an executive member of the World Liberty Congress, spoke on behalf of Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas, highlighting Hong Kong’s tightened court and prison rules. Read Siu’s testimony.
Shout out to Steven Zhou, Department of Psychology, who received the 2025 Chapman Dissertation Award from the Academy of Management’s Network of Leadership Scholars. This is the preeminent award for leadership researchers worldwide, and it is an honor for his study on computational modeling and shared leadership teams to be featured on the global platform. Zhou began appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor of psychology at Claremont McKenna College in August 2025. Congrats, Steven!
Congratulations to the Center for Community Mental Health for earning a 2025 Gold Rating from the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (NAFC) Quality Standards Program. This rating highlights CCMH’s commitment to providing quality patient care.
August 15, 2025