Highlights from BYU Colleges

Family, Home and Social Sciences

• BYU professors Loren Marks and Dave Dollahite have spent years looking into connections between family and faith, specifically the effects of prayer on families. They say that prayer acts as a catalyst for change, facilitates humility and positivity, improves communication between couples and helps resolve conflicts.
• BYU alumna Christina Grampp Hibbert recently launched her third book “8 Keys to Mental Health Through Exercise.” She wrote the book to help those struggling with mental illness learn how frequent exercise can help. Hibbert is not only an author, but also a clinical psychologist, mother, public speaker and radio show host.

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

• Assistant professor in BYU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Michael Scott was selected as a 2016 ISI Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher. A researcher earns this recognition by writing the largest number of articles selected as highly cited papers. He is one 54 Americans on the list.

David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies

• Nader Habibi, the director of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Brandeis University, will be speaking to BYU students on Monday Oct. 3, 2016 at 3 p.m. in room 238 of the Harold R. Clark Building. He will be speaking about the Middle East’s over-education crisis.
• Co-founder and CEO for the Reset Foundation, Jan Mitchelle, is the keynote speaker for the Law School Tour. She will be speaking about the affect students with law degrees can have on the world. This event will happen at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 28 in room 303 of the J. Reuben Clark Building.

Marriott School of Management

• BYU alumnus and Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith was named in Fortune’s 2016 40 Under 40. This publication ranks the most influential young people in the business world.

College of Humanities

• Mac J. Wilson, an assistant professor of Spanish, talked about the inaccuracies of the film “The Liberator” during an International Cinema Lecture. He explained the controversies often involved in biopic films.

College of Nursing

• Nursing professor Donna Freeborn was one of three volunteers honored recently at the United Way of Utah County Day of Caring. Freeborn frequently spends her Thursday evenings sharing her nurse practitioner skills at the Volunteer Care Clinic of Provo.
• Nursing graduate student Nicki Broby recently returned from three weeks of collecting data in Jordan and Greece for her thesis on evaluating effectiveness of emergency relief teams in refugee humanitarian camps.
• Assistant professor Deborah Himes worked with masters student Aubri Root to give a podium presentation last month in Ireland at the International Society of Nurses in Genetics World Congress.

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

• BYU professor Tyler J. Jarvis received the Karl G. Maser Excellence in Teaching Award at the Annual University Conference. He has also received the 2016 Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award from the Mathematical Association of America — an award given to only three professors in the nation and is nicknamed the “Hall of Fame” award for math professors.
• Frank Jones, an assistant professor in the BYU Department of Computer Science, is teaching his students that a degree in computer science can apply to any field of study. He is interested in researching how computer technology can help people with disabilities.

J. Reuben Clark Law School

• Justin Collings, a professor at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, published a paper titled “Appealing to Congress.” In the paper he discusses his opinion that the USA should adopt a German practice of “appeal decisions” which involves the Supreme Court appealing to Congress.
• The law school recently released a video introducing new law students.