Michelle Beadle Holder (’16, Sociology) is an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri. Her research examines the role that religious organizations play in narrowing the gap in health disparities in African American communities. Her specific areas of emphasis focuses on HIV, African American dietary behaviors, and substance use. Michelle’s research has been published in the Journal of African American Studies and Substance Use and Misuse.
James Hutson ('08, Art and Archaeology) is chair of Art History and program manager of Pre-Art Therapy and Pre-Art Conservation at Lindenwood University. He is also Assistant Dean of Graduate and On-Line Programs for the School of Arts, Media, and Communication, as well as Chair of Study Abroad. Since 2006, James has taught at five universities across the country, coming to Lindenwood in 2010. Specializing in Early Modern Italian art of the Renaissance and Baroque, his scholarship focuses on the exchange between art, theory and the nature of beauty from 1400-1700. He belongs to several professional organizations for artists and art historians, including College Art Association, Renaissance Society of America and Sixteenth-Century Society. His most recent manuscript On the Symmetry of Human Bodies has been submitted for review at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
Jeng-Da Chai ('05, Chemical Physics) has been a professor of Physics at National Taiwan University (NTU) since 2009. After his doctoral work, Jeng-Da did postdoctoral research at the UC Berkeley. At NTU, he was promoted to associate professor in 2013, and full professor in 2017. His group has focused on the development of new quantum-mechanical methods suitable for the study of nanoscale systems, and their applications to materials for new energy (e.g., solar cells and hydrogen storage materials). Besides this work, Jeng-Da is one of the active developers of Q-Chem (a well-known quantum chemistry software). As of now, his 39 published papers have been cited more than 5,600 times. He was also elected “TWAS Young Affiliate” by The World Academy of Sciences - for the advancement of science in developing countries in 2013. He received “EPSON Scholarship Award” from The International Society for Theoretical Chemical Physics in 2011, “Young Theorist Award” from the National Center for Theoretical Sciences of Taiwan in 2012, “Career Development Award” twice from NTU in 2013 and 2015, respectively, “Youth Medal” from the China Youth Corps of Taiwan in 2015, “Project for Excellent Junior Research Investigators” from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan in 2015, “Outstanding Young Physicist Award” from The Physical Society of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in 2016, and “Junior Research Investigators Award” from Academia Sinica in 2017.
Jessica Magidson ('13, Clinical Psychology) is excited to return to University of Maryland, College Park in 
January 2018 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Psychology department. Since graduating, she has worked at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School on global psychiatry and behavioral medicine focused research. Her team has been aiming to improve the integration of substance use and HIV treatment in South Africa. She is currently funded by a 5-year NIH K23 award that supports research and training in global addiction and implementation science. She will be initiating this research at University of Maryland in January upon her return, as well as continuing local collaborations to support evidence-based substance use treatment in DC and Maryland.
Jonathan Rayer ('15, Geographical Sciences) is a HIFLD Data Manager supporting the Geospatial Management Office at the Department of Homeland Security, through Ardent Management Consulting. He is responsible for managing and manipulating data on ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Online, and Portal for ArcGIS. As a result he has been able to contribute to numerous government GIS projects at both Census Bureau and Department of Homeland Security. More recently, he set up an Open Data site through ArcGIS Online to support the hurricane Harvey relief efforts.