Melissa Wilkinson, associate professor of art, is winner of the 2019 Artist Award sponsored by the Arkansas Committee of the National Women in the Arts. The award includes a grant to fund a research trip to view the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Images archived during the trip will aid in development of her current body of studio watercolor paintings, titled "UnNatural Histories."

The social attitudes and political psychology laboratory directed by Dr. Wayne Wilkinson, assistant professor of psychology, will publish two articles on censorship of gay content. The first, in Psychology of Popular Media Culture, was co-authored by psychological science graduate student Stephen Berry. Wilkinson and Berry were joined by recent undergraduate psychology alumni Lauren DuBar and Zach Garner to co-author an article for the Journal of Homosexuality.

Congratulations to members of the Artificial Intelligence Group, which finished in third place in the Multiple Myeloma DREAM Challenge, a machine-learning competition. Members of the A-State AI Group are computer science faculty members Dr. Xiuzhen Huang, Dr. Jason Causey and Dr. Jake Qualls, along with senior scientist Dr. Wei Dong. The research group was competing with 290 teams participating internationally in the DREAM Challenge, organized by Celgene, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) and Sage Bionetworks. Details are in a news release.

Dr. Matthew Wright, assistant professor of sociology, recently co-authored an article in Journal of Family Issues. In the article, Wright and his co-author examine how attitudes toward divorce have changed over a period of nearly two decades among adults aged 50 and older. They also investigate correlates of divorce attitudes and factors that play a role in changing attitudes. The article is available online.

Emily Devereux, executive director of research development, will be a panelist Monday at the Higher Learning Commission conference in Chicago. Her presentation is based on a joint proposal with Dr. Summer DeProw, interim assistant vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, and Jessica Blackburn, director of foundation and corporate engagement. Their case study, "Utilizing Student Research Symposium for Student Learning and Community Building," refers to Create@State, April 15-17.