Robert Sharlet, professor of political science who specializes in Russian and post-Soviet law and politics, has accepted a position as coordinator of the major U.S. Rule of Law
program to assist the former Soviet republics.
Sharlet is taking a leave from the College while working in Washington.
The program, funded by Congress under the auspices of the U.S. Agency of International
Development, is designed to render technical assistance to twelve of the former republics of the USSR
in the area of legal and Robert Sharlet political development.
Sharlet will be the coordinator of institutional building in the Rule of Law program, which is responsible for Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. He is the principal member of the Russian Federation Assessment Group and deputy team leader for the Ukrainian assessment effort, for which he conducted a two-week field study in January.
Sharlet has published six books and more than 100 articles and chapters, testified before Congress, and been a frequent source to the national and international press. Before the December referendum on the Russian Constitution, he was one of four scholars asked to assess the draft by the U.S. State Department.
Martin Benjamin, associate professor of photography, had a number of his photographs on exhibit last fall at Nanjing Normal University in China. Benjamin had been in Nanjing with the College's Term Abroad program there.
Roset Khosropour, assistant professor of physics, Rawlings Lamberton '93, and Scott Paulinsky '95 are the authors of “SpacePhone: Propagating Interest in Waves” in a recent issue of The Physics Teacher. The article describes an experiment that Lamberton and Paulinsky demonstrated at a meeting at Union of physics faculty from several colleges. The experiment was designed to teach the basic features of wave propagation using a toy that would generate interest and discussion in lecture halls and laboratories.
John Sowa, professor of chemistry, led a panel discussion by families and survivors of head injuries
at a conference sponsored by the Independent Living Center, New York's Developmental Disability Planning Council, and a number of agencies that serve head-injured people.
Thomas Werner, professor of chemistry, presented a seminar on “The Use of Fluorescence Probes to Study Binding Sites in Cyclodextrin Polymers” to the Department of Chemistry at Louisiana State University. A paper, “The Binding of 2-Acetylnaphthalene to Cyclodextrins Studied by Fluorescence Quenching,” was scheduled to appear in the journal Applied Spectroscopy. Coauthors of the paper were Lee Fraiji '90 and Tim Cregan '91.
Richard Wilk, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a three-year, $130,000 research grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to study the combustion behavior of alcohol fuels. The research will involve conducting experiments and computer modeling to assess the combustion characteristics of methanol and ethanol, both promising candidates for widespread use as fuels.
Brenda Wineapple, professor of English, is the author of “And Judas Writes the Biography” in the fall issue of the journal culturefront, which was devoted to feminist biography. She spoke in
December at a meeting of the New York Council for the Humanities on topics raised by this issue.