Brooklyn Rider, a talented string quartet well known for its creative programming and efforts to bring music to audiences in new ways, will perform Sunday, March 28 at 3 p.m. Memorial Chapel.
During their upcoming Chamber Concert Series appearance, violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, and violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Eric Jacobsen, will present quartets by Debussy and Philip Glass. They will also play a new work by Colin Jacobsen.
Brooklyn Rider String Quartet
Brooklyn Rider members are devoted to both the interpretation of existing quartet literature and to extending the borders of conventional quartet programming through the creation of new pieces. They have worked with composers such as Chen Yi, Osvaldo Golijov and Dimitry Yanov-Yanovsky, while simultaneously engaging in innovative collaborations with contemporaries in various artistic areas. Some examples include programs with Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, Syrian/Armenian visual artist Kevork Mourad and traditional and technology-based Japanese shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki.
The group is a longstanding participant in Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, which is dedicated to exploring the cultural intersections of the peoples along this ancient trade route.
Brooklyn Rider’s performance is free to members of the Union community. General admission tickets cost $20, though area students may attend for $8. For additional information on this or other Chamber Series concerts, click here.
John E. Kelly III ’76, senior vice president and director of research at IBM, was recently honored at the Independent Sector Alumni Hall of Distinction Awards ceremony. The honorees were selected for their outstanding contributions to New York State's economy by members of the Board of Trustees of the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU).
President Stephen C. Ainlay John E. Kelly III '76 CICU Alumni Hal of Distinction
The Hall of Distinction was created in 2000 to honor those who have made extraordinary contributions to the state through their careers and community involvement. The awards ceremony was part of CICU's 54th annual meeting for college and university presidents.
A gallery of honoree profiles will be on display in the Legislative Office Building in Albany from March 15-19.
The CICU represents the chief executives of New York’s 100-plus independent (private, not-for-profit) colleges and universities on issues of public policy.
To view an online gallery of all honorees, click here.
The CICU event was the latest honor for Kelly. Last fall, he was named the winner of the Robert N. Noyce Award. The award is presented annually by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) to recognize outstanding contributions to the microelectronics industry.
Kelly joined IBM in 1980. He received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Union in 1976, a master’s in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1978 and his doctorate in materials engineering from Rensselaer in 1980. He also received an honorary Doctor of Science Degree from Union Graduate College.
An avid supporter of Union, he has been a member of the College’s Board of Trustees since 2003. He also has contributed signifcantly to the Peter Irving Wold Center for Science and Engineering, scheduled to open in fall 2011. The $22 million building was made possible in large part due to a lead gift from John S. Wold ’38 and his wife, Jane. The Wolds have directed more than $14 million of their original $20 million You are Union Campaign commitment to be a catalyst for the project.
In 2006, the College dedicated the John E. Kelly III ’76 Digital Arts Lab. Kelly had earmarked part of his contribution to the College’s $250 million “You are Union” campaign for support of the digital arts program, an interdisciplinary endeavor between the departments of Visual Arts and Computer Science.
Visual Arts Professor Chris Duncan’s vibrant, playful abstractions – drawings and sculptures that evoke movement, emotion and memory – will be on display at this year’s faculty exhibition. The show opens Thursday, March 18 and runs through Sunday, May 9 in the Mandeville Gallery.
For Duncan, the process of creating these pieces is central to the final form they take. Adding and subtracting material, Duncan works until the perfect moment of tension exists between line and volume, solid and void, gravity and balance.
Artist Mario Naves, an artist writing in a catalogue essay, points to "Grand Canal” as evidence that Duncan is “a sculptor of no small gifts… What’s remarkable about ‘Grand Canal’ is less it’s crafting – though that is essential, of course, to the work’s realization – but the fact that it pirouettes,” Naves writes. “Here is a sculpture that moves.”
Duncan has exhibited widely, with solo exhibitions throughout the Northeast as well as Nanjing Normal University in China. His work is included in private and public collections, including many colleges and universities, the Hyde Collection and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art.
He will give a talk at an opening reception in the Nott Memorial on Thursday, April 8 5-7 p.m.
Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Rebecca Koopmann ’89 organized the third annual NSF-sponsored ALFALFA (Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA) Undergraduate Team Workshop at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico recently. The observatory is home to the 305-m diameter Arecibo telescope, the largest telescope in the world.
Accompanying Koopmann were SreyNoch Chin '12 and Schuyler Smith, who joined a selected group of 18 undergraduates and 14 faculty members from 16 U.S. colleges and universities. Chin and Smith presented a poster about their summer 2009 Union research, titled "ALFALFA HI Observations of the NGC 5846 Group of Galaxies." The poster describes their research on a concentration of galaxies within the ALFALFA survey area to determine how their proximity has influenced their evolution. Kaitlyn O'Brien, '11, was a co-author. Chin and Smith visited the platform suspended 450-feet above the reflecting surface of the Arecibo telescope and participated in observing runs for the ALFALFA project. The ALFALFA project, led by astronomers Riccardo Giovanelli and Martha Haynes of Cornell, is a multi-year survey of a large area of the sky at radio wavelengths appropriate for the detection of neutral hydrogen gas in other galaxies. It is expected that more than 30,000 galaxies out to a distance of 750 million light years will be detected by the survey. For more, click here.
Jay Newman, the R. Gordon Gould Professor of Physics, presented a paper at the Biophysical Society annual meeting in San Francisco in February. “Amyloid Gels: Formation and Mechanical Properties of Insulin Fibrillar Networks” was co-authored with four Italian colleagues. Related work, titled “Amyloid Gels: Precocious Appearance of Elastic Properties during the Formation of an Insulin Fibrillar Network,” was recently published in the journal Langmuir by Newman and the same colleagues. This study demonstrates the unexpected onset of a macroscopic elastic modulus during the initial lag phase of insulin aggregation, earlier than has ever been observed before
John Garver, chair of the Geology Department, published a paper titled “Extension and Exhumation of the Hp/Lt Rocks in the Hellenic Forearc Ridge” in the January 2010 issue of American Journal of Science. Co-authors were A. E. Marsellos and W. S. F. Kidd. Detailing the tectonic evolution of the western part of Greece, the authors suggest that the subduction zone has been changing dramatically in the last 15 million years. This change has resulted in the pulling apart of this part of Greece, which accounts for some unusual rocks that have high pressures and some unusual extensional features at the surface.
Ray Martin, the Dwane W. Crichton Professor of Philosophy, gave a talk on personal identity theory, titled “What Really Matters,” to a recent conference on the history and philosophy of science at Florida State University. Martin’s review essay on historical methodology, “Let Many Flowers Bloom,” will appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal, History and Theory. In addition, Martin will chair an author-meets-critic session at the Pacific Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in San Francisco in early April. The session will be devoted to Galen Strawon's recent book, “Selves” (Oxford University Press).
An article in the March 7 New York Times Sunday magazine, “Building a Better Teacher,” features Katie Bellucci ’08, who is teaching math at Troy Prep in Troy, N.Y. The story, by Elizabeth Green, mentions Bellucci’s degree at Union and ends with this comment from Doug Lemov, an educational consultant and co-founder of UnCommon Schools: “You could change the world with a first-year teacher like that.” To read the story, click here.
An article by Lori Marso, “Feminism’s Quest for Common Desires,” will be published in the March 2010 issue of Perspectives on Politics (Cambridge University Press) as part of a symposium on “Women’s Choices and the Future of Feminism.” The article and symposium will discussed at the Feminist Theory Conference as part of the Western Political Science Association Meetings in San Francisco March 31. In addition, Marso’s recent article, “Marriage and Bourgeois Respectability,” will be included in the March 2010 issue of Politics and Gender (Cambridge University Press), a special issue on California’s anti-gay marriage proposition that was passed in the 2008 national election. Marso is director of Women’s and Gender Studies and professor of political science.
Suzanne Estok 11 and Rivka Fidel 12. Astounding Images of the Microworld
Todd Herman ’10 caught an image of a house fly he found on his window sill.
Alex Katz ’11 took photos of a dragonfly head from the Biology Department.
Suzanne Estok ’11, Rivka Fidel ’10 and Sarah Bacon ’12 studied volcanic glass Estok brought back from a term abroad in Italy.
Members of the campus community had an opportunity see what these and other students discovered under the scanning electron microscope (SEM) in “Astounding Images of the Microworld” at the F.W. Olin Center Atrium this week.
The show was the culmination of collaborative work by students in the Frontiers of Nanotechnology and Photography II courses, with related events co-organized by the Capital District Microscopy and Microanalysis Society (CDMMS).
The black and white images also included artistic renderings of carbon nanotubes, electospun fibers and clay nanocomposities with embedded quantum dots, as well as samples from everyday life – bees, sandpaper, a lady bug, a black-legged tick and metal shavings from the Wold Building under construction next door.
In all, 32 students from 11 departments participated. Students learned how to operate the microscope, see things in new ways and work with their peers in other disciplines.
Alex Katz, dragonfly heads. Astounding Images of the Microworld
Those who missed the show at Olin will have a chance to see select images at the Wikoff Student Gallery March 25-May 2 in an exhibit titled “Nano Grande.”
“Students from the nanotechnology course brought their understanding of SEM imaging technique and sample preparation, while the photography students brought their experience on image composition and aesthetics to the table,” said Palma Catravas, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Electrical engineering major Joshua Hernandez ’10 said he enjoyed looking at specimens of gel sorbent with Pam April ’10, an art student.
Katz, a neuroscience major, spoke of challenges he encountered imaging the dragonfly, with its compound eye, trio of simple eyes, antenna, receptors and wind-sensitive hairs.
“This specimen had a lot of charging, because of how the microscope beam is set up. There’s a lot of tinkering and trial and error involved. It’s amazing how small you can really get.”
For most, work and fun were as collaborative as art and science.
Astounding Images of the Microworld – Joshua Hernandez 10 – gel sorbent specimen
“The smallest things made us infinitely happy with our images,” said Estok, a chemistry major.
Estok’s lab partner, Fidel, an environmental science major, recounted the joy of lab work.
“I liked working on composition, brightness and form. Sometimes we’d be there for four hours on a weekend,” she said. “This is my favorite lab all year, maybe my favorite Union lab ever. Once you find your image, it’s gorgeous.”
Fidel and Bacon, a psychology major, also teamed up on Sphagnum contortum, or peat moss.
Catravas and Kevin Bubriski, visiting professor of visual arts, worked with students on the show. Catravas taught SEM labs with Bioengineering Technician Mark Hooker. She and Associate Professor of Chemistry Michael Hagerman and Biology Lecturer Brian Cohen taught Frontiers of Nanotechnology, while Burbriski taught the photo class.
"The InterfaCE of Art and Science,” an evening colloquium at Olin Auditorium Tuesday by CDMMS member Sam Bowser, a research scientist at the Wadsworth Center in Albany, discussed practical aspects of art and science collaboration. Visual Arts Professor Walter Hatke and Sandy Wimer were among the photo competition judges.
Tuesday’s event was supported by a National Science Foundation grant. In addition to the upcoming Wikoff exhibit, project participants will be reaching out to the Kenney Community Center and STEP program.
