Pilar Moyano, professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies, delivered a paper titled ¨De señoras nobles, esclavas y ¨gariyas¨: Clase social en la obra de las poetas de al-Andalus¨ at the Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas, pre-1800 (Women in Spain and the Americas before 1800), hosted by Mount Holyoke College and UMass-Amherst in September.
Mechanical engineering professor Frank Wicks authored an article titled “Credit to the Bicycle” for the July issue of Mechanical Engineering, a membership publication of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering. The article by Wicks, a frequent contributor, notes the remarkable energy efficiency of the bicycle. He traces the technologies such as metal tubing, chains and sprockets, wire spoke wheels, and rubber tires that led to a practical bicycle, as well as how the bicycle provided vital technologies for the first motorcycles, automobiles and flying machines developed. The article also traces ever-expanding modifications for recreation, exercise and competitive sports, and the growing enthusiasm for bicycles as an alternative form of transportation to help solve environmental, resource and traffic challenges.
Scott LaBrake, senior lecturer of physics and astronomy and accelerator manager, and Maria Battaglia ’12 attended the 21st international Conference on the Applications of Accelerator in Research and Industry (CAARI) in Fort Worth, Texas in August. LaBrake gave an invited talk on “Teaching Materials Analysis using PIXE at Union College,” which detailed the use of the department’s 1MV particle accelerator to study environmental pollution in atmospheric aerosols and liquid precipitation in New York state using the ion beam analysis technique of PIXE. Battaglia presented a poster detailing her research project, “Trace Elemental Composition and Concentration of Liquid Precipitation in New York Using PIXE,” which demonstrated seasonal variations in the elemental composition and concentration of rainwater and snow. LaBrake also submitted a paper at the conference that has been accepted for publication in a special edition of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B along with co-authors Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Battaglia, Chad Harrington ’11, Colin Gleason ’11, Katie Schuff ’12, Shivani Pathak ’10, Rob Moore ’12 and Colin Turley ’13.
Robert Sharlet, the Chauncey Winters Research Professor of Political Science, was the opening speaker at the memorial service for the late professor Robert C. Tucker at Princeton University earlier this month. Professor Tucker, a seminal scholar on Marx and on Russia, was Sharlet’s mentor when he taught at Indiana University, and later his colleague. Sharlet has also co-authored a tribute to Tucker’s career in Slavic Review, the major field journal. In addition, he is co-organizer of a roundtable discussion on Tucker’s scholarly work at a national conference to be held in Washington, D.C. in 2011.