Tag Archive for: sociology and anthropology

SOU's Kelly Szott awarded post-doc fellowship

SOU faculty member earns research fellowship on substance abuse

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Kelly Szott, an associate professor of sociology at Southern Oregon University, has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at New York University’s Rory Meyers College of Nursing to study drug use and addiction issues during her sabbatical year at SOU. The fellowship is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Her 12-month fellowship through NYU’s Behavioral Sciences Training in Substance Abuse Research program began June 30 and will be her first step in studying the effects of climate change on drug use, drug markets and treatment.

“My main aim with this fellowship is to work toward developing a grant proposal for a research project that examines the impacts of climate instability (including wildfires, drought and smoke) on drug use risks, such as overdose,” Szott said.

She is one of 16 pre- and post-doctoral researchers from around the country who were awarded fellowships in the NYU program to study a variety of drug use and abuse issues ranging from drugs among college students to politics in drug policy. The fellows meet each Monday to collaboratively review their work, listen to speakers and participate in training.

The Behavioral Sciences Training in Drug Abuse Research program at NYU has been funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1984, making it the largest and oldest such training program. It awards fellowships to researchers from a variety of academic disciplines, including public health, social work, psychology, criminal justice, sociology and nursing.

Szott is a medical sociologist who uses qualitative methods to study drug use and harm-reduction responses. She received her bachelor’s degree in social science from the University of Michigan, and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Syracuse University.

Her past research has focused on fentanyl use and harm-reduction responses in rural contexts. Her more recent research has examined wildfire’s impacts on the health and social support networks of rural, older adults – which she is now expanding to the impacts of climate crisis events on drug use. Szott’s research has appeared in publications including the monthly International Journal of Drug Policy, and the Critical Public Health and Human Organization quarterly journals.

-SOU-

Mark Tveskov's new book looks at the archaeology of war

New book on archaeology of war from SOU professor

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SOU anthropology professor Mark Tveskov has a new book about the archaeology of war and battlefields, and how war and conflict are remembered and commemorated. The volume includes a chapter on Tveskov’s research on the archaeology of the Rogue River War and a discussion of the experiences of African Americans and the Indigenous Metis people of Canada during that war.

“Conflict Archaeology, Historical Memory and the Experience of War: Beyond the Battlefield” is an edited volume from Tveskov and Ashley Ann Bissonnette, an assistant professor of public health at Eastern Connecticut State University. It was published by University Press of Florida.

Essays from a variety of contributors go beyond forensic analyses of sites of conflict “to consider the historical memory, commemoration and social experience of war,” according to the publisher’s website. The writings challenge prevailing accounts of wars throughout the “settler colonialism” of North America.

Conflicts that are examined include the battle of Chikasha, King Philip’s War, the 1694 battle at Guadalupe Mesa, the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862 and a World War II battle on the Pacific Ocean island of Saipan. The Schenectady Massacre of 1690 and colonial posts staffed by Black soldiers also are analyzed.

“This book is a collection of studies that considers a question of the day: How does a society remember, critique, commemorate, and find significance in events, artifacts and places of conflict and war?” Tveskov and Bissonnette write in its introductory chapter.

Tveskov – who teaches in SOU’s Sociology and Anthropology Department – has focused his current research on the Rogue River War of the early 1850s, shell middens on the Oregon Coast and the African American logging community of Maxville in northeastern Oregon. He has conducted research in Iceland, New England, Southern California and Alaska.

He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Connecticut, and his doctorate at the University of Oregon. He is a member of the governor’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation.

Tveskov and Bissonnette, his co-editor for the new book, both grew up in New England and received archaeological training at the University of Connecticut.