Robert Lauzon, associate professor of biology, was recently awarded a prestigious fellowship from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), an internationally renowned biomedical and environmental research center in Woods Hole, Mass. The Frederik B. and Betsy G. Bang Fellowship Fund provides funding for visiting investigators – some of the world’s leading cell biologists, physiologists, parasitologists, microbiologists, neurobiologists, developmental biologists and ecologists – to study the immune capability of marine animals and the use of marine models for research in molecular biology or biomedicine. Lauzon is studying the functional similarities between death and tissue regeneration in the Botryllus schlosseri, or sea squirt, and the role of blood phagocytes in these processes. Project collaborators include Stefano Tiozzo, Ulrich Kuern and Snjezana Rendulic, postdoctoral researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara. MBL is the oldest private marine laboratory in the Americas.
Robert Baker, the William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy and director of the Rapaport Everyday Ethics Across the Curriculum Program, was featured on “WAMC Conversation with Alan Chartok” in August. Baker was interviewed by Chartock, the station’s president, about the Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics, the first comprehensive scholarly volume about the global history of medical ethics. Baker’s co-editor is Laurence B. McCullough, the Dalton Tomlin Chair in Medical Ethics and Health Policy Professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston. The WAMC conversation also focuses on the role of bioethics in the current health care reform debate. To listen to the interview, visit http://www.wamc.org.
Alan Taylor, the Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Mathematics and chair of the department, gave one of four invited one-hour addresses to the annual summer meeting of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) last month in Portland, Ore. One of the largest associations of mathematicians in the world, the MAA drew more than 1,500 participants to the meeting. Taylor’s talk, “Predicting the Values of an Arbitrary Function,” was based on three recent papers he published with Visiting Assistant Professor Christopher Hardin, who joined Union's faculty this fall. Other recently published works by Taylor include the second edition of “Mathematics and Politics” (Springer-Verlag), co-authored by Allison Pacelli ’97. Taylor is one of seven authors of the eighth edition of “For All Practical Purposes” (Freeman), the most widely used text for non-majors in the country. Taylor also has a chapter on “Mathematics and Voting” in the forthcoming Italian volume “La Matematica.”
Will Roy, the College’s executive chef, recently was profiled in LifeAtHome, the monthly magazine published by the Albany Times Union. Last spring, “The Ozone Cookbook,” a collection of 37 of the popular meals created by Roy for the Ozone Café, was published. The cost is $10, with proceeds benefitting The Global Child in Cambodia, where two of the College’s first Minerva Fellows, Jonathan Hill ’08 and Robbie Flick ’08, spent the last 11 months teaching.
Louisa Matthew, professor of art history, is at the National Gallery of Art in London this week, participating in “Studying Old Master Paintings – Technology and Practice, the National Gallery Technical Bulletin 30th Anniversary Conference.” Her essay, authored with Barbara Berrie, senior conservation scientist at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., will appear in the published proceedings of the conference.
ITS Chief Information Officer David Cossey recently received the Outstanding Service to the Council Award from the Capital District Library Council (CDLC). Cossey is a member of the CDLC Board of Trustees. His collaboration with the first library automation project at Schaffer Library, in 1987-88, set the stage for his sustained involvement with the libraries of the Capital Region and beyond.
Andrew Rapoff, associate professor of mechanical engineering and co-director of bioengineering, was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation with colleagues Scott McGraw of Ohio State University and David Daegling of the University of Florida. Their project, “Functional and Ecological Correlates of Bone Material Variation in Cercopithecoid Mandibles,” examines the interrelationships of feeding behavior, food texture and jaw bone structure in eight monkey species from primate populations in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire for whom diets and feeding behavior have been under study for more than 15 years.