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 Mason's Office of University Branding).
Research
David Weisburd, Distinguished University Professor of criminology, law and society, and executive director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, received a $609,190 grant from Arnold Ventures for a project entitled “Safer Stronger Together Initiative: An evaluation of a place-based social intervention on crime.” Weisburd will lead a randomized controlled evaluation of the Safer Stronger Together Initiative, a family navigator program targeting high-need households in high-crime Maryland zip codes, to determine whether intensive social service coordination reduces arrests, calls for service, and street-level crime. Congrats, David!
Shout out to Thalia Goldstein, associate professor of psychology, who received a grant from the American Psychological Association for her research titled “Imaginative Resistance and Diverse Narrative Engagement; A Developmental Approach.” Goldstein’s study will examine how children ages 7-10 and adults engage or resist engaging with morally or aesthetically deviant narratives. Congrats, Thalia!
Congrats to Distinguished University Professor Cynthia Lum and Professor Christopher Koper, Department of Criminology, Law, and Society, and the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, on receiving $741,000 in appropriated funds for their community project proposal, “Evidence-Based Policing to Advance Public Safety.” The award, which was included in the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Bill, was shepherded through Congress by the late Congressman Gerry Connolly and was signed into law on January 23. The George Mason team, led by Lum and Koper, national leaders in evidence-based policing, proposes to strengthen policing and public safety in Northern Virginia by providing local police agencies with a training and research program that helps them to implement evidence-based practices. The team will implement at least two eight-week, multi-agency courses for Northern Virginia agency supervisors, analysts, and leaders that incorporate classroom learning and in-field practicums.
Appointments
Congrats to anthropology Professor Anne Schiller, who served on the National Screening Committee for the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for the 2026-27 award cycle. Schiller and academic colleagues from around the country help select students nationwide for the Fulbright program, which is recognized annually in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' request for funding from Congress.
Awards
Congrats to Steven Zhou, PhD Industrial and Organization Psychology '24, on receiving an award from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). Zhou, an assistant professor of psychological science at Claremont McKenna College, received the Rains Wallace Dissertation Award, for "The Dark Side of Shared Leadership: An Application of Agent-Based Modeling Based on Lab Experiment Data." Way to go, Steven!
School of Integrative Studies Assistant Professor Sophia Balakian's book, Unsettled Families: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship, was named a 2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Title (OAT). Choice is the publishing unit of Association of College and Research Librarians and the OAT list reflects the best scholarly titles reviewed by Choice during the previous calendar year, as chosen by the editors. Congrats, Sophia!
Articles
Women and Gender Studies Associate Director Holly Mason Badra recently published a multi-genre anthology showcasing the work of contemporary Kurdish women and nonbinary writers living all over the world. Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora was recently featured in The Kurdistan Chronicle. Congrats, Holly!
Anu Aneja, the director of undergraduate programs for the Women and Gender Studies Program, recently wrote the afterword for the anthology, Trigger Warnings: Teaching Through Trauma (Lever Press, 2026). Aneja's writing in the collection is titled "Afterword: Trigger warnings, trauma and their 'affects.'"
February 17, 2026