Posted on Aug 31, 2006

The faculty welcomed 18 new colleagues this week. They include (with the remainder to be noted next week):


ANTHROPOLOGY: Derick Fay, visiting assistant professor, earned his Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from Boston University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley. He has held teaching positions at Colby College, Keene State College, Boston University and Tufts.


BIOLOGY: Jeffrey Corbin, assistant professor, holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has held positions as research scientist, lecturer and postdoctoral associate/lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests include plant community/ecosystems interactions; mechanisms of species effects on nutrient cycling; impact of exotic species invasions; and conservation and restoration of California grasslands. Scott Kirkton, assistant professor, holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State University. His professional experience includes an NIH postdoctoral fellowship and teaching positions at Arizona State and Denison University. His research interests include comparative physiology, and developmental physiology of insect respiratory systems and locomotory performance.


CHEMISTRY: Laura MacManus-Spencer, assistant professor, holds a Ph.D. in analytic environmental chemistry from the University of Minnesota with a dissertation, “Chemiluminescent Probes for the Detection of Singlet Oxygen.” Her teaching interests include increasing the cross-disciplinary nature of chemistry; using inquiry-based methods and student-designed experiments to teach analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis; and teaching general chemistry from an environmental perspective.


COMPUTER SCIENCE: Brendan Burns. instructor, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His dissertation was titled, “A Utility-Guided Approach to Robotic Motion Planning.” He has taught at his alma mater as well as at Smith and Bennington colleges. His primary research interest is autonomous robotics.


ECONOMICS: Lewis Davis, assistant professor, earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a dissertation titled, “Three Essays on Endogenous Specialization and Economic Development.” He has held teaching positions at UNC-Chapel Hill, Smith College, University of New Hampshire and State University of New York College at Oswego.