Faculty and Staff Achievements Roundup: Silverman appointed vice chair of Commission on Public Relations Education

Deborah Silverman, chair and associate professor of communication, was recently appointed as vice chair (chair-elect) of the national Commission on Public Relations Education (CPRE), replacing the late Pamela Bourland-Davis. Silverman, the current secretary of CPRE, will become co-chair of CPRE next January for a two-year term, working alongside co-chair for PR practitioner Christopher Brathwaite. She is the first public relations educator/practitioner from Buffalo to be serving in these capacities.

Silverman was previously elected to a one-year term as secretary in 2024, the first year of the commission’s operation as a 501(c)(3) organization and was elected to a two-year term as secretary in 2025. 

“Dr. Silverman is an advocate of the communication department programs here on campus and in the local community,” said Kelly Frothingham, dean of Buffalo State’s School of Arts and Sciences. “I know she’ll bring the same enthusiasm to the national stage while serving as the CPRE vice chair.”

CPRE, the authoritative voice on public relations education, was founded in 1973 by the Public Relations Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and the Public Relations Society of America to address the quality of public relations education in the United States. Since then, CPRE has issued periodic research reports and recommendations on undergraduate and graduate education in public relations for universities, accrediting bodies, and professional associations around the world. 

In addition to Silverman’s appointment: here are some other recent outstanding achievements by Buffalo State faculty members and staff:

Lyubov Burlakova, senior research scientist, and Alexander Karatayev, director of the Great Lakes Center, were awarded the prestigious Chandler-Misener Award alongside their co-authors Richard Barbiero, James Watkins, and Barry Lesht, at the International Association for Great Lakes Research Conference in June for their paper “The benthic nepheloid layer in the offshore waters of the Great Lakes and its post-dreissenid dissapearance.” The Chandler-Misener Award is presented annually to authors of a peer-reviewed paper in a current volume of the Journal of Great Lakes Research judged to be most notable.

Bridget María Chesterton, professor of history and social studies education, recently published a blog post for the Recipes Project special Spring 2025 edition on “War and Food.” Her post considers how a Paraguayan cookbook helped form ideas about the nation following the War of the Triple Alliance. In addition, Chesterson published the new book chapter in the text volume A Violent Peace: A Global History of the Interwar Period (University of Kansas Press) entitled “The Chaco War, 1932–1935.” She is also currently editing a special dossier on Paraguay, Dictatorship, and Everyday Life for the Middle Atlantic Journal of Latin American Studies. The edition is scheduled for publication in June and will contain her article entitled: “Cooking Up 'Peace:' White Middle-Class Paraguay Women in the Kitchen’s during the stronato.” Chesterton also won the 2025 Middle Atlantic Conference on Latin American Studies Davis prize for the best article published by a member in the past two years for her article entitled “In Guaraní Lands: Paraguay as a Tourist Destination in the Magazines and Newspapers of Brazil during the Stroessner Era,” which appeared in the journal Revista Historia Autónoma (Spain).

Associate Professor of English Kim Chinquee's ninth book, a prose poetry collection Contact with the Wild, was released by MadHat Press. In addition, Chinquee's novella, I Thought of England (published in the Triptych Agency 3: novellas), with Baobab Press will be released on September 9. In June, Chinquee completed the IRONMAN 70.3 Tours Metropole in Loire Valley, France, which involves a 1.2-mile swim in the Chez River, a 56-mile bike along medieval and Renaissance castle estates, and a 13.1-mile run through the valley's parks and riverside paths. One of Chinquee's current projects involves writing a book based on her life as an athlete, growing up on a dairy farm, serving in the military, and her experience during the Boston Bombings in 2013. 

Maria C. Garrity, senior systems programmer, and Andrew T. Garrity, associate database administrator, were speakers for a professional development session on artificial intelligence and accessibility at the SUNY Technology Conference (STC) in Lake Placid, New York. The session, titled “A ‘EYE’ (AI) Enhancing Accessibility and Ethical Fairness,” welcomed representatives from SUNY universities and community colleges and explored how emerging AI tools can be leveraged to improve accessibility in higher education while ensuring ethical fairness and inclusivity. 

Ilya Grinberg, chair and SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of engineering technology, has written a book chapter, “Lend-Lease Aircraft on the Soviet-German Front: The Test Case of the Air Battles over Ukraine in 1944,” in The German-Soviet War edited by Jeff Rutherford and Robert von Maier, published by Cornell University Press.  

Joelle Leclaire, chair and professor of economics and finance, appeared on Radio-Canada's (CBC Canadian national news) Zone Economic for a live national evening news television interview in French with Gérald Filion, to discuss the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

David Ben-Merre, chair and professor of English, has written a new book, O: Apostrophic Ghosts and the Disappearing Acts of Lyric Poetry, which will be released in October 2025.

Kristen Mruk, special assistant to the provost and Senate, successfully defended her dissertation in practice entitled “Ready or Not? Pre-service Teachers and Emergency Preparedness for School Settings.” She received her doctor of education (Ed.D.) from the Learning and Teaching in Social Contexts Department of Learning and Instruction at the University at Buffalo at the Commencement ceremony in May.

Suparna Soni, associate professor of economics and finance, was invited by her alma mater, the University at Buffalo, to give the annual Pi Sigma Alpha talk for the Political Science Department’s awards ceremony.

Angela Thering, lecturer of higher education administration and adult education, participated in two events at the 2025 SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology. She co-presented a session titled Reflections on SUNY-CMU Partnership Opportunities and Realities of Adapting to a Changing Educational Landscape alongside Karen Caldwell (SUNY Potsdam) and Erin Czerwinski (OLI, Carnegie Mellon University) and presented a poster titled The Brightspace Organization Page: A Hub for Graduate Student Engagement and Success, which she co-authored with Andrea Nikischer, associate professor of social and psychological foundations at Buffalo State. This student-centered Brightspace organization page was awarded first place in the 2025 SUNY Online Effective Practice Awards. Thering also facilitated a professional development workshop on artificial intelligence at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Washington, D.C. in May. Hosted by Ambassador Catalina Crespo, the session—“Unlock the Power of Artificial Intelligence: A Workshop for Diplomats”—welcomed representatives from Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, Honduras, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Spain.

Jie Zhang, SUNY Distinguished Professor of sociology and director of Buffalo State’s Center for China Studies, and coauthors Qin Zhou, Ning Li, and Chang An Li published their 2024 paper “Interpersonal Relationship and Suicide Attempt: The Role of Family and Social Relationship” in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. With coauthors Lulu Zhao and Dorian A. Lamis, Zhang published the 2024 paper “Deprivation and Aspiration Strains as Function of Mental Health among Chinese Adults: Study of a National Sample” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Photos by Buffalo State Marketing & Communications.