Diversity

Lan Dong is the Louise Hartman Schewe and Karl Schewe Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences. She served as Chair of the Department English and Modern Languages (2017-2019), Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2021-2022), and Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (2022-2023). She was the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellow in 2015 and worked on faculty development initiatives, faculty and staff handbooks, student petitions, and international student advising. She was a Center for Online ��ý, Research, and Service Faculty Fellow from 2020 to 2022 and conducted research on accessibility, inclusive pedagogy, and open educational resources.

Awards

Spencer Award for excellence in public and academic community service (2025)
Diversity and Inclusion Award (2024)
Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor Award (2019)
Faculty Excellence Award for career-long achievements in teaching and scholarship (2018)
Pearson Faculty Award for teaching excellence (2012)
University Scholar (2012)
Faculty Excellence Award for Scholarship, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2011)

Office Location

UHB 3050

English and Modern Languages

Phone Number

217-206-8334

Publications

Books

Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters (since 2020)

"Girlhood Reimagined: Malaka Gharib's Graphic Memoirs." Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, 2024.
"Girl Gamers and Digital Activism in Doctorow and Wang's In Real Life." Co-authored with Tena L. Helton. The Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, vol. 77, no. 2, 2023.
"Multilingual and Multicultural Childhood: Robin Ha's Almost American Girl." Journal of Literary Multilingualism, vol. 1, no. 2, 2023. Comics Studies Society Article Prize shortlist 2025
"(Un)Masking a Chinese American Superhero: Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew's The Shadow Hero." Beyond the Icon: Asian North American Graphic Narratives, edited by Eleanor Ty, Ohio State University Press, 2022. Comics Studies Society Edited Book Prize 2023
"Mapping Social Differences in the Virtual Classroom: Inclusive Multimodal Texts and Learner-Centered Design." A Socially Just Classroom: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching Writing across the Humanities, edited by Vuslat Katsanis and Kristin Coffey, Vernon Press, 2022.
"History Meets Literary Imagination: The Making of a Twelfth-Century Woman Warrior." Women's Lives: Self-Representation, Reception, and Appropriation in the Middle Ages, edited by Nahir I. Otano Gracia and Daniel Armenti, University of Wales Press, 2022.
"Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: A Milestone in Asian American Literature." Asian American Literature in Transition: 1965-1996, edited by Asha Nadkarni and Cathy Schlund-Vials, Cambridge University Press, 2021. The collection was named the American Library Association's Choice 2022 Outstanding Academic Title.
"Drawing Childhood and Politics: Malik Sajad's Munnu A Boy from Kashmir." Studies in Comics, vol. 12, no. 1, 2021.
"Drawing Histories, Documenting Experiences: Clement Baloup's Vietnamese Memories." Inks: The Journal of The Comics Studies Society, vol. 5, no. 3, 2021.
"Ambiguity in Parallel: Visualizing History in Boxers and Saints." Oxford Handbook of Comic Book Studies, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, Oxford University Press, 2020.

ldong4@uis.edu

Teaching

Asian American literature and culture; children's and young adult literature; comics, graphic narratives, & graphic medicine; women writers; world literature

Professor

Kyle Blount

Directory — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 10:15:01 +0000

Kyle Blount Directory Fri, 08/19/2022 - 05:15

Area of Expertise

Biography

Academic and Personal Background

Dr. Blount (they/them) is a socio-ecohydrologist who is interested in the interactions between hydrology (water), ecology (vegetation), and society (people). Dr. Blount joined the faculty at UIS in Fall 2022 after completing a postdoctoral research appointment in urban ecohydrology at Washington State University Vancouver. They received a Ph.D. and M.S. in Hydrology from Colorado School of Mines (2020; 2018) and a B.S. in Environmental Geosciences from Texas A&M University (2013). When not working, they enjoy spending time with their dog, running, CrossFit, outdoor recreation, and visiting coffee shops and breweries.

Information for Prospective Students

Dr. Blount is interested in working with M.S. and undergraduate students who are curious about exploring any aspect of water resources and urban development including physical hydrology, water quality, water management and governance, and the role of water in ecosystem functions. They are also open to any other exciting projects in the realm of physical environmental sciences or those that use innovative, quantitative data analyses. Dr. Blountâ¿¿s first M.S. advisee completed a project to model and characterize groundwater transport of Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) in a Northern Illinois community in May 2023, and a new cohort of six undergraduate and Master's students are currently working on a funded project examining urban microclimate modeling and redevelopment. They enjoy providing support and mentorship to students for individual development, whatever their individual career aspirations, including employment in the public, private, or academic sectors. Interested students should contact Dr. Blount via email (wblou2@uis.edu), and you can find updated postings of funded opportunities on the News page of my Website or on Twitter.

Additional Links and Contact Information

Academic Website: https://kyleblount.weebly.com/

Twitter: @hydro_kyleb

Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1LndTtUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Office Location

PAC 326

Research

Dr. Blount's research focuses on the interactions between hydrology, ecology, and society in the contexts of wildfire and urban development. They employ a variety of methods including remote sensing, modeling, field data collection, and hydrologic and microclimate modeling to monitor, understand, and predict environmental dynamics in these systems. Their recent work examines how urban development affects the movement of water and heat within cities with the goal of promoting equitable and sustainable water resource management and urban development. Areas of focus include:

ecohydrology
socio-hydrology
water resource management
urban heat, water, and vegetation interactions
land-atmosphere interactions
remote sensing of water resources
hydrologic and microclimate modelling

School of Integrated Sciences, Sustainability, and Public Health

Phone Number

217-206-8524

Publications

Blount, K., V. Shandas, and K. Moffett. Assessing the role of proximity to cool land covers and advective cooling on urban land surface temperature at the city scale. In preparation.
Blount, K. and T.S. Hogue. The role of urban redevelopment in closing the water supply gap in Denver, CO. In preparation.
Kubinec, K.*, K. Moffett, and K. Blount. Prediction of summer urban air temperatures from high-resolution land cover data and ground-based thermal imaging of residential streetscapes. Submitted.
Blount, K., G. Pignotti, and J. Wolfand. ET Cool Home: Innovative Educational Activities on Evapotranspiration and Urban Heat. In review, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. https://hess.copernicus.org/preprints/hess-2023-296/. 
Blount, K., R. Abdi, C.L. Panos, N.K. Ajami, and T.S. Hogue (2021). Building to conserve: Quantifying the outdoor water savings of residential redevelopment in Denver, Colorado. Landscape and Urban Planning, 214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2021.104178. 
Blount, K., J. Wolfand, C.D. Bell, N.K. Ajami, and T.S. Hogue (2021). Satellites to sprinklers: Assessing spatiotemporal patterns of outdoor water use using remote sensing. Water Resources Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020WR027587. 
Blount, K., C.J. Ruybal, K.J. Franz, and T.S. Hogue (2020). Increased water yield and altered hydrologic partitioning follow wildfire in a forested catchment in the western U.S. Ecohydrology. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2170. 
Blount, K. and A. Kroepsch (2019). Adventures in Post-Wildfire Watershed Management: Improving Water Resources Resilience in Colorado. Case Studies in the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1525/cse.2019.sc.960306. 
Blount, W.K. (2013). Future Flooding in Houston: Modeling the Impacts of Climate and Land Cover Change on Hydrology in the Buffalo-San Jacinto Watershed. Texas A&M University Honors and Undergraduate Research. Available electronically from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/154891.

wblou2@uis.edu

Involvement

Chancellor's Committee on Belonging, Dignity, and Justice (Committee Member)
Safe Zone/Brave Space (Planning Committee, Training Facilitator)
Institute on Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice (Steering Committee Member, Affiliated Faculty)
Urban Heat, Water, Vegetation, and Equity Hydrology Section Sessions at AGU Fall Meeting (Primary Convener, OSPA Liaison)
Inclusive Teaching Book Club and Conference (Member, Planning Committee)
ENS Executive and Personnel Committees (Member)
Several search committees for faculty, staff, and administrators

Lectures

Blount, K., G. Pignotti, and K. Moffett. Urban microclimate interactions: Land cover heterogeneity affects near-surface heat and water dynamics. AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 13, 2023.
Blount, K. Evaluating the Impacts of Urban Configuration on Heat and Water Transfer using ENVI-met Microclimate Simulations. AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December 12, 2023.
Small, E. and K. Blount. Using Geospatial Analyses to Identify Contaminant Source Area and Transport of a PFAS Plume at the Sandy Hollow Groundwater Contamination Site in Winnebago County, Illinois. Emerging Contaminants in the Environment Conference, Champaign, IL, April 18-19, 2023.
Small, E. and K. Blount. Identifying PFAS contaminant source area and transport via geospatial methods: A case study in Winnebago County, Illinois. UIS Student Technology, Arts, & Research Symposium (STARS), Springfield, IL, April 14, 2023.
Blount, K. Water and Heat in U.S. Cities: Examining Biophysical Feedbacks for Sustainable Urban Environments. Energy-Water-Environment Sustainability (EWES) Seminar, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, March 27, 2023. Invited presentation.
Blount, K. Water in Changing Cities: Managing Urban Water Resources Under Redevelopment and Climate Change. UIS Confluence Lab Speaker Series, Springfield, IL, March 22, 2023. Invited presentation.
Blount, K., G. Pignotti, and J. Wolfand. Feelinâ¿¿ the Heat: Adapting a Classroom Activity on Urban Heat and Water Dynamics for Informal ��ý Experiences. AGU Fall Meeting. Chicago, IL, December 12, 2022.
Blount, K. and T.S. Hogue. Opportunities to Reduce Regional Water Supply Gaps through Infill Development in Denver, Colorado. AGU Fall Meeting. New Orleans, LA, December 15, 2021.
Blount, K. and K. Moffett. Cityscape Configuration and Streetscape Composition Impacts on Urban Surface and Air Temperatures. AGU Fall Meeting. New Orleans, LA, December 15, 2021.
Blount, K. Fire and watershed hydrology: re-plumbing source water supplies in the Western U.S. National Academies of Sciences: Natural and Prescribed Wildland Fire Impacts on Soil Health Meeting. Virtual. November 2, 2021. Invited presentation and panelist.
Blount, K., R. Abdi, C. Panos, N.K. Ajami, and T.S. Hogue. Changes to Outdoor Water Demand Associated with Residential Redevelopment Highlight the Importance of Integrated Land Use and Urban Water Planning. AGU Fall Meeting. Virtual [COVID-19], December 15, 2020.
Blount, K. Toward sustainable urban systems: Water, vegetation, heat, and urban redevelopment. Colorado School of Mines CEEN 596 Environmental Seminar Series. November 6, 2020. Invited presentation.
Blount, K. The collaborative management of watersheds in response to wildfire. Portland State University School of the Environment Seminar Series: Geographies of Uncertainty. October 22, 2020. Invited presentation.
Blount, K. Collaborative governance for post-wildfire watershed management. Cascadia Wildfire & Urban Smoke Working Group Webinar. October 14, 2020. Invited presentation.
Blount, K., J. Wolfand, C.D. Bell, N.K. Ajami, and T.S. Hogue. Modeling Irrigation using Remote Sensing to Assess the Influence of Evolving Urban Dynamics on Water Demand in Denver, Colorado. American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting. San Francisco, CA, December 12, 2019.
Blount, K., C.D. Bell, K. Spahr, and T.S. Hogue: Understanding Urban Evapotranspiration Changes Due to Redevelopment and Infill through Remote Sensing Analysis in Denver, Colorado. AGU Fall Meeting. Washington D.C., December 14, 2018.
Hogue, T.S., K. Blount, C.J. Ruybal and A. Rust: Wildfire and water: Utilizing remote sensing and in situ observations to monitor post-fire impacts on water supply in the western U.S., AGU Fall Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 11, 2018. Invited presentation.
Ruybal, C.J., Blount, K., and T.S. Hogue: Evaluating Hydrologic Partitioning and Water Yield Following Wildfire in Forested Watersheds. AGU Fall Meeting, Washington, D.C., December 12, 2018.
Blount, K., K. Clarke, M. Darveau, P. Eranki, K. Knechtel, M. Mattjik, A. Salazar-Morgan, J. Simbai, A.E. Landis: Engineering ��ý in the Minesâ¿¿ Strategic Plan for Diversity, Inclusion, & Access. Engineering ��ý Conference, Golden, CO, August 14, 2018.
Blount, W.K., T.S. Hogue, K.J. Franz, and K.R. Knipper: Advancing Remotely-sensed Evapotranspiration Estimates using the MODIS Soil Moisture-Evapotranspiration (MOD-SMET) Model. American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, January 7-11, 2018.
Blount, W.K., T.S. Hogue, K.J. Franz, and K.R. Knipper: Application of MODIS Soil-Moisture-Evapotranspiration (MOD-SMET) Model to Evaluate Landscape and Hydrologic Recovery after the High Park Fire, Colorado, USA. AGU Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA, December 11-15, 2017.
Blount, W.K., T.S. Hogue, K.J. Franz, and K.R. Knipper: Use of remote sensing products to evaluate hydrologic response in fragmenting landscapes in East Africa. University of Oklahoma International WaTER Conference, Norman, OK, September 18-20, 2017.
Blount, W.K., T.S. Hogue, K.J. Franz, and K.R. Knipper: Evapotranspiration and partitioning of the hydrologic cycle in fragmented landscapes in the Western United States. University Council on Water Resources/National Institute of Water Resources (UCOWR/NIWR) Annual Conference, Fort Collins, CO, June 13-15, 2017.
Hogue, T.S., S. Saxe, R. Logan, K. Knipper, and W.K. Blount: Short and Long-Term Recovery in Burned Watersheds and the Impact on Streamflow Dynamics. Geological Society of America (GSA) National Conference, Denver, CO, September 25-28, 2016.

Teaching

At UIS, Dr. Blount primarily teaches classes that focus on water resources, physical environmental sciences, and environmental methods. Courses taught or planned to develop include:

ENS 251 - Introduction to Environmental Sciences
ENS 404 - Fundamentals of Geographic Information Systems
ENS 465 - Water Resources and Society
ENS 466 - Ecohydrology
ENS 467 - Ecohydrology Lab
ENS 543 - Environmental Data Analysis with R
ENS 551 - Environmental Natural Sciences

Editorial Boards

Journal of Hydrology, Associate Editor (Urban hydrology; Ecohydrology)
Active reviewer for: NSF Division of Earth Sciences - Hydrologic Sciences Program, GIScience & Remote Sensing, Journal of Hydrology, Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment; Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, Landscape and Urban Planning, Scientific Reports, Science Advances, Sustainable Cities & Society, Sustainability, and Water Resources Research

Assistant Prof.

Area of Specialization

ecohydrology
water resource management

Jennifer Martin

Directory — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 14:58:52 +0000

Jennifer Martin Directory Mon, 12/07/2020 - 08:58

Area of Expertise

Dr. Jennifer Martin is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Prior to working in higher education, Dr. Martin worked in public education for 17 years, 15 of those as the department chair of English at an urban alternative high school for students labeled at-risk for school failure in metropolitan Detroit. She has been the editor of the Journal of Urban ��ý Teaching and Research since 2018. She is the editor of Racial Battle Fatigue: Insights from the Front Lines of Social Justice Advocacy (Recipient of the 2016 AERA Division Bâ¿¿s Outstanding Book Recognition Award), She is the 2019 recipient of the Paula Silver Case Award for Volume Year 2018, UCEA Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership (Volume 21): for â¿¿The Bathroom Case: Creating a Supportive School Environment for Transgender and Gender Non-conforming Students.â¿¿ Her most recent co-authored book is: Mentoring the Mentor: Celebrating the Intersection of ��ý Together, A Reciprocal Journey. In 2021, she was awarded the Burks Oakley II Distinguished Online Teaching Award (University of Illinois at Springfield). She was named University Scholar at UIS for the 2022 â¿¿ 2023 academic year.

Office Location

One University Plaza, MS BRK 330

School of Education

Phone Number

217-206-6682

jmart315@uis.edu

Associate Prof.

Devin Hunter

Directory — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 14:58:52 +0000

Devin Hunter Directory Mon, 12/07/2020 - 08:58

Area of Expertise

Associate Professor of History

Chair, History Department

Ph.D. Public History and United States History

Loyola University Chicago

Email: dhunte2@uis.edu

Phone: (217) 206-7432

Office: UHB 3056

Teaching Concentration: Public History, Urban History, Twentieth Century United States History

CV upon request

Devin Hunter is a public historian and scholar who focuses on issues of community identity, social equity, redevelopment and cultural heritage tourism. He arrived in academia after several years working in the archives and museum fields in Washington, DC, and Chicago. His first book, A Cosmos in the City: Postwar Politics, Culture, and Diversity in Chicagoâ¿¿s Uptown, is under contract with the University of Illinois Press. Dr. Hunterâ¿¿s next project traces the history of the commemoration and interpretation of race riots and massacres in Springfield (1908), Chicago (1919), and Tulsa (1921). His past and current board and committee memberships include: the Illinois State Historical Society, the Illinois Historical Sites Advisory Committee, and the Vachel Lindsay Association, among many others.

Recent Publications:

â¿¿Urban/Rural Frictions in the Midwest: The Chicago-Downstate Battle for Legislative Reapportionment in Illinois, 1953-1965,â¿¿ in The Conservative Heartland: The Rise of Conservatism in the Midwest, 1946-2016, edited by Jon Lauck and Catherine McNickol Stock. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2020.

â¿¿Interpreting Lincoln Today and Tomorrow: A Round Table Discussion on the State of Lincoln Public History,â¿¿ convener and editor, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter 2019).

Review of The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century, by Julianne Crouch. Illinois Geographer, Vol. 60, Issue 1 (Fall 2018).

â¿¿Uptown: The Roots of Diversity in the Twentieth-Century â¿¿City within a City,â¿¿ in Illinois Heritage, May/June 2015.

Review of 1950sâ¿¿Rocketmanâ¿¿ TV Series and Their Fans: Cadets, Rangers, and Junior Space Men, edited by Cynthia Miller and A. Bowdoin Van Riper. Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 47, Issue 1 (February 2014), 198-201.

Awards and Grants:

Illinois Innovation Network Social Innovation Seed Grant" ($30,000), "Journeys to Justice: Reckoning with Illinois' History and Legacy of Anti-Black Terror," co-director with Lesa Johnson (UIS SOA), Peter Cole (Western Illinois University), and Tandra Taylor (Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, 2024-2025.

UIS Faculty Engagement Award, 2024.

University of Illinois Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and Humanities ($180,000), â¿¿I-Heritage as Public Engagement and Economic and Social Development,â¿¿ co-principal investigator with Helaine Silverman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019-2025.

University of Illinois Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and Humanities ($150,000), â¿¿The Humanities Innovating New Knowledge (THINK),â¿¿ co-investigator with Jennifer Brier, University of Illinois at Chicago (co-principal investigator); Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois Chicago (co-principal investigator); and Kathryn Oberdeck (co-investigator), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019-2025.

2020 Mid-America Emmy Award for Short Format Program, â¿¿Face to Face.â¿¿ Chris Costello, Director and Editor; Devin V. Hunter, Producer; Josh Hester, Executive Producer; featuring Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese.

Office Location

UHB 3050

History

Phone Number

217-206-7432

History

dhunte2@uis.edu

Associate Prof.

His Department Chairperson

Area of Specialization

Public History, Twentieth-Century United States History. Commemoration and Memory. Museums, Historic Sites, and Historic Preservation. Illinois History. Chicago History.