Works in progress
Frank Wicks, professor of mechanical engineering, spoke on “Some Remarkable Engineers and the Marvels They Created” at the Engineers' Week celebration of the Hudson Mohawk Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, hosted by Union. Wicks spoke about Eliphalet Nott's invention of a revolutionary technique for burning newly available anthracite coal instead of wood. He also reviewed the work of other notable scientists and inventors with Union College and local connections including Joseph Henry, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison and Charles Steinmetz. He concluded with the futuristic possibilities of using computer transplants to repair damaged portions of the brain, as described by Theodore Berger '72 at the recent Founders Day convocation.
Anupama Jain, assistant professor of English, has received a 2005-2006 Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the fellowship provides a one-year sabbatical stipend, a research or publication stipend, and a fall retreat. The fellowship seeks to increase the presence of faculty members committed to eradicating racial disparities in core fields in the arts and sciences. An interdisciplinary committee of noted scholars reviews all applications and selects the fellowship winners based on scholarship, teaching skills and future contributions to the academic community.
Mark Toher, professor of classics, has received a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship from Harvard University in support of his work on an edition with text, translation, and commentary of the life of the first Roman emperor Augustus by a contemporary Greek writer, Nicolaus of Damascus. He will also be a visiting scholar of Wolfson College in Oxford next year.
Gretchel H. Tyson, director of community outreach and affirmative action, was selected to attend the 2005 Social Work Congress in March in Washington, D.C. The meeting brings together 500 leaders in the social work profession to produce an agenda to improve the quality of care provided by social workers. The Congress, cosponsored by the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research and the N.Y. Academy of Medicine, was convened by the National Association of Social Workers (http://www.socialworkers.org) in partnership with the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work.
John Garver, professor of geology, is co-author (with P.R. Reiners, Lydia Walker '04, former Union colleague Joan Ramage, and Stephanie Perry '04) of a paper, “Implications for timing of Andean uplift based on thermal resetting of radiation-damaged zircon in the Cordillera Huayhuash, northern Perú” in Journal of Geology. The paper details how the Andes have been uplifted and grown in the last 10 million years. The main implication is that the uplift and high topography in this part of the Andes is less than 6 million years old, which is young geologically. The paper was based largely on the senior thesis work of Walker and Perry. Walker has joined the Peace Corps to work on reforestation and conservation projects in Guatemala. Perry is pursuing her master's degree at the University at Albany with a thesis, in collaboration with Garver, about the timing of the formation of the St. Elias Mountains in Alaska.
Walter Hatke, May I. Baker Professor of Fine Arts, restored a 10- by 12-foot relief map of the Adirondacks created between 1945 and 1952 by noted naturalist Paul Schaefer. The map is a central element of the education program at the Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna. Hatke found paints to match the original colors, and used topographic maps to redraw streams and other features lost when plaster had chipped. Hatke, who donated his time, was asked to take on the project by Carl George, professor of biology emeritus and a trustee at the Center. The Center is operated by the Association for the Preservation of the Adirondacks. A copy of the map is at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake.
Hilary Tann, professor of music, premiered a piano piece, “Light from The Cliffs,” at the University at Albany. The Empire State Youth Orchestra performed her composition, “From the Feather to the Mountain,” in March. The piece, commissioned for the ESYO 25th anniversary, refers to a statement by artist and former Union colleague Arnie Bittleman (“I found a feather while walking down a road. The feather, if you look closely, has a landscape, a cloudscape in it.”). WAMC's Paul Elisha interviewed Tann for the show “Roundtable,” and she was featured in the May 15 issue of the Times Union. The Trinity Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh recently hosted the premiere of Tann's organ piece, “Pinnae Ventorum.”
Tim Olsen, associate professor of music, has been awarded an artist grant from the 2005 Saratoga County Program for Arts Funding. Olsen, a composer and performer, will write a jazz-flavored piece for wind ensemble which will be performed by school and community groups throughout Saratoga County in Fall 2005.
Ashraf Ghaly, professor of civil engineering, was quoted in a recent Times Union article about the challenges architects face in transferring their designs to different climates and cultures. Climate, customs and materials are the three factors that need to affect designs to the greatest extent, he said. Get any one wrong and the building may be uninhabitable. Ghaly teaches a course called Construction for Humanity, on building designs through history and across the globe.
Robert L. Fleischer, research professor of geology, wrote an article on ancient impact cratering in the December 2004 issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science, the journal of the Meteoritical Society. Under the shock of an incoming meteorite arriving at a planetary surface, crystals in rocks can be converted into glass, a distinct, disordered material. For the 250-million-year-old Bedout crater near Australia, such glass (from a feldspar mineral) has been cited as evidence that impact produced the crater. Fleischer notes, however, that feldspar glass can also be produced by ordinary heating and cooling -one evidence being a two-pound feldspar glass, produced at General Electric, that he has been using as a paperweight.
John Sowa, professor emeritus of chemistry, was elected vice chair of the Schenectady International Inc. Community Advisory Panel (SII-CAP). The group is charged with communicating with the public and SII about concerns for safety of employees, the public and the environment.
Mary K. Carroll, associate professor of chemistry, has been appointed to a two-year term as a full voting member of the American Chemical Society Committee on Education (SOCED). Carroll, the only member of SOCED on a liberal arts college faculty, served as committee associate to the organization from 2001 to 2004. SOCED supports programs that bring the excitement of chemical science to students of all ages, improve science literacy, recruit students and retain them as contributors, and strengthen the science education infrastructure.
Charles Batson, assistant professor of French, was guest artist at the University of Illinois-Champaign, performing at Festival Dance at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. He worked with choreographer Cynthia Pipkin-Doyle in “L'Apparence,” a piece involving Baroque and modern movement and French declamation. While in Champaign, he gave a talk titled “Panique celtique, or Fest-noz in Paname: Manau, Celtic Rap, and Breton Cultural Expression,” sponsored by the Department of French, the Department of Comparative Literatures, and the School of Music.
Deidre Hill Butler, assistant professor of sociology, presented a paper, “Fictive Family Relationships and Women's Leadership Roles: An Analysis of African American Community Mothering” at the Association for Research on Mothering conference at York University in Toronto, Canada last October.
Karin Hamm-Ehsani, assistant professor of German, presented a paper titled “Cross-Se(x)ions: Issues of National, Cultural and Sexual Identities in Kutlug Ataman's Berlin-Film Lola and Bilidikid” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities in January.
Daniel O. Mosquera, assistant professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, has had an article, “Consecrated Transactions: Of Marketplaces, Passion Plays, and Nahua Christian Devotions,” accepted for publication in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies. By examining the confiscation of passion plays in the historical context of colonial marketplaces, he explores how they became spaces of cultural resilience and socialization.
Andrew Rapoff, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and colleagues Ruxandra Marinescu and David Daegling of the University of Florida, recently published a paper, “Finite Element Modeling of the Anthropoid Mandible: The Effects of Altered Boundary Conditions,” in the April issue of The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology. This was a special issue on computational modeling in vertebrate biomechanics.
Kenneth G. DeBono, Gilbert R. Livingston Professor of the Behavioral Sciences, Department of Psychology, recently presented two papers at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, held in Boston. The first was with Elena Baror '05, titled “Self-monitoring and product familiarity as predictors of ad effectiveness.” The second was with Lindsay Miarmi '04, titled “The impact of distractions on heuristic processing: Internet pop-ups ads and stereotype use.”
M. Fuat Sener, assistant professor of economics, presented a paper, “Intellectual Property Rights and Rent Protection in a North-South Product Cycle Model,” at the American Economics Association Meetings in Philadelphia. He also served as a discussant at “Globalization: Prospects and Problems,” a conference organized in honor of Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the most important trade economists of the past few decades.