A paper by John Garver, chair of the Geology Department, titled “Transport of the Yakutat Terrane, southern Alaska, evidence from sediment petrology and detrital zircon fission-track and U/Pb double dating,” recently was published in the Journal of Geology. Co-authors are S.E. Perry and K. Ridgeway. The paper details the basin history of the Yakatuk block, a piece of continental crust that is currently in a collision with Alaska. This collision is what drives the uplift of the mountains and the spectacular scenery. Garver and his colleagues hypothesize that the crustal fragment started in British Columbia and collided with Alaska in the last 5 million years.
Robert Hislope, associate professor of political science, presented a talk at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in March. His talk, “Theories of Corruption with Macedonian Illustrations,” will be published in a forthcoming Harriman Report. Hislope is also under contract, with co-author Anthony Mughan of The Ohio State University, with Cambridge University Press to write an introductory textbook in comparative politics.
Associate Professors Michelle Chilcoat and Cheikh Ndiaye have co-authored an article featuring an interview with prize-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Osvalde Lewat, scheduled to appear in “The French Review" in December. Lewat has made several important documentaries, including “Black Business” (2007), “A Love During the War ” (2005) and “Au-delà de la peine” (“Beyond Punishment," 2003). She focuses on issues such as unlawful imprisonment and government sponsored killings in Cameroon, and rape in Congo, showing at the same time how citizens of these countries courageously face the challenges that confront them. Chilcoat and Ndiaye have been asked to contribute a chapter on Lewat to a volume on new African cinema.
They are also writing an article featuring an interview with Léonora Miano, a celebrated Cameroonian author whose 2006 “Contours du jour qui vient” (“The Shape of the Day to Come”) was awarded the prestigious Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. Miano presented a reading from her latest novel, “Tels des astres éteints” (“Like Burnt Out Stars,” 2008) at Union in January. Chilcoat and Ndiaye have also received an IEF grant to develop a course they will co-teach, “Francophone Women Filmmakers from Africa and the Caribbean.”
Martin Benjamin, professor of visual arts, was recently named in Metroland’s 30th anniversary issue as one of “the Capital Region’s 10 most significant artists of the past 30 years.” He was named in the number 3 spot. The list appeared in the Feb. 5 issue of the alternative newsweekly.
Valerie Angell ’10 has won one of 12 American Chemical Society, Division of Organic Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships to support her summer research. The highly competitive fellowships are collaboratively sponsored through the Division of Organic Chemistry and industry. Angell will conduct her research this summer and next year in the laboratory of Chemistry Professor James Adrian Jr. Her project is titled “Developing Methods for Preparing and Testing Libraries of Pyrrolidine-Triazoles: A New Class of Organocatalysts.”
Paul Hebert ’10, a chemistry major, has received an Honorable Mention from the Goldwater Foundation. The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation annually awards scholarships to undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the United States based on academic merit in the fields of mathematics, science and engineering.