Brian Peterson, assistant professor of African History, and Michele Ricci, assistant professor of German, have been named the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professors for this year. The professorships provide support for promising junior faculty members in the Humanities and History. Peterson earned his Ph.D. from Yale University. His research interests include West African history, slavery and emancipation, labor migration, Islamic history, and women’s and gender history. He has taught at the College of William and Mary, Yale and the University of California at Santa Cruz. Ricci holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. She has held teaching positions at Oberlin College, University of Miami and Stanford. Her interests include 20th century German literature, expressionism in fiction and the fine arts, exile culture, postwar fiction, and visual arts and literature in 20th century Berlin.
Rebecca Koopmann, associate professor of Physics and Astronomy, presented two papers in June at the International Astronomy Union Conference on “Dark Galaxies and Lost Baryons” in Cardiff, Wales. The papers, titled “Virgo Early-Type Dwarfs in ALFALFA” and “A 500 kpc HI Tail of the Virgo Pair NGC 4532/DDO 137 Detected by ALFALFA,” describe Koopmann’s research on the hydrogen gas contents of nearby galaxies as revealed by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey. Koopmann spent her 2006-07 sabbatical at Cornell University as a visiting scientist with the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, which operates the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
Professor Emeritus of Chemistry John R. Sowa, the College's Environmental Health Safety Compliance Officer and Radiation Safety Officer, is president-elect of the NENY Chapter of the Health Physics Society, which is committed to radiation safety from radioactive materials and equipment. In addition, he was the second person featured in the Brain Injury Association of New York State’s newsletter. He has been active in this community for more than 20 years and has helped a number of Union students with such injuries.