Christopher Chabris, assistant professor of psychology, is the co-principal investigator on a $173,908 grant for a three-year, collaborative research project on measuring and modeling collective intelligence. The grant is part of the $787 billion federal stimulus recovery package enacted a year ago. The money, which is being distributed through the National Science Foundation, will enable Union researchers to investigate the concept of “collective intelligence,” or the idea that groups, like individuals, can be more or less intelligent, and why this is so. Chabris is collaborating with faculty from Carnegie Mellon University and MIT.
Teresa Meade, the Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture, has been elected president of the Board of Trustees of the Journal of Women's History. The largest journal devoted to women's history in the world, it is published quarterly by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Meade will serve a five-year term as president.
Joanne Kehlbeck, assistant professor of chemistry, has been awarded the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc. Special Program in the Chemical Sciences grant. The $26,000 grant will support her project entitled “Culinary Chemistry: Developing Laboratory Modules for General Education and Outreach.” The Culinary Chemistry course is designed to engage non-science majors by introducing scientific concepts and methods in the context of food preparation by combining lecture and laboratory experiences with exercises in the traditional chemical laboratory setting and a typical kitchen setting. Students will employ their new expertise in the science of cooking by participating in outreach activities for elementary and secondary school students and the general public with demonstrations on how science impacts our everyday lives.
April Selley, senior lecturer in English, delivered a paper titled “Where Men Have Gone Before: The Nurturing Male in ‘Star Trek’” at the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference in Queens, N.Y. She also chaired a panel. Selley’s review of Ina Rae Hark’s book, “Star Trek,” was published in the NEPCA Online Journal earlier this month. “Star Trek” is one of a British Film Institute series of books in which authors provide analytical readings that seek to explain why a television show has achieved “classic” status.