Union’s mini-Baja Team can take a victory lap for its recent performance in the rough-and-tumble road race put on by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).
The SAE’s Mini-Baja East Competition, held in Cookeville, Tennessee, challenged 90 teams from the United States and Canada to design, build, promote, test and race a small single seat off-road vehicle in everything from water maneuverability to endurance. All of the vehicles, which resemble dune buggies, were powered by a Briggs and Stratton 10hp motor.
“A huge part of learning to be an engineer is applying what we learn in the classroom to a real project,” said Matt Beenen ’09, team captain. “With a small school like Union, even freshmen are able to jump in and get their hands dirty, right away.”
min-baja team 2008
Joining Beenen in the three-day intercollegiate design competition were team members Emmitt O'Connell ’11, Aaron Levine ’10, Ned Lincoln ’09, Nick Oren ’11, Joe Polcari ’10, Ryan Skeuse ’10 and Jon Wilson ’09.
“It’s a collective effort,” said Brad Bruno, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and the team’s advisor, who is valued for his expertise with internal combustion engines. “The students do all of the really hard work – everything from fundraising to design to driving.”
mini-Baja team 2008
Awards are given in seven categories: technical inspection, acceleration, water and land maneuverability, sled pull, suspension and traction, and endurance. The Union-built car achieved its best overall finish this year, 17th, and the team was particualrly excited about placing seventh in the endurance category on a course that traverses woods and contains extreme terrain and water conditions.
“The sense of accomplishment in that race was overwhelming,” Beenan said. “Leaving our car in the winners’ circle as many other big names schools looked on was just great.”
The mini-Baja teams work with a number of professional organizations and sponsors. A new sponsor this year was the Gloversville, N.Y.-based Taylor Made Group. The company, one of the boating industry’s largest manufacturers and suppliers, is owned by brothers James W. Taylor ’66 and John E. Taylor ’74. James is a noted automobile collector and international road rally participant.
mini-Baja car 2008
Beenan, a self-described automotive enthusiast, said he’s already reaping rewards from his labor of love, having recently accepted an internship with Polaris Industries, the competition’s largest sponsor. And he’s looking ahead to next year, when he, Wilson and Lincoln plan to build a second car from scratch for a possible senior project.
And, of course, Baja beckons.
“There are countless nights when we swear to ourselves that we’ll never do Baja again,” Beenan said, “but going to competition at the end of the season completely rejuvenates the drive to improve and learn from our mistakes.”
Cybercycling seniors could find a path to a healthier life, thanks to a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation given to Union to explore how interactive digital gaming can improve the health behaviors and outcomes for people age 50 and older.
The College joins 11 other research teams who will receive up to $200,000 each from the foundation’s Health Games Research program to measure the effects that playing video games has on the young and the old.
seniors exercise, cybercycling, cay anderson-hanley, robert wood foundation, health research games
Projects range from how motion-based games may help stroke patients progress faster in physical therapy to how people in substance abuse treatment can practice skills and behaviors in the virtual world of a game to prevent real-world relapses.
At Union, researchers will spend two years examining the physiological and neuropsychological impact of cybercycling on area seniors.
Players on a stationary bike will be monitored for heart rate, body composition, cognitive function, social relationships and other measures while racing against a virtual cycling partner.
The idea is to make exercise for a group not prone to participate more competitive and fun by capitalizing on the popularity of video games. Players can compete against themselves or others.
Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology
"The benefits of aerobic exercise on brain health are well documented,” said Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology and the project’s lead researcher. She is collaborating with Paul Arciero, an associate professor of exercise science at Skidmore College.
“Yet studies have shown that across the lifespan, exercise participation decreases dramatically, with fewer than 10 percent of seniors exercising at the recommended levels. We hope to clarify which factors about cybercycling may help increase exercise behaviors.”
Anderson-Hanley anticipates that for some seniors, the option to compete against one’s self or others in 3-D will enhance motivation; for others, collaborating with a virtual league will increase participation.
Players will exercise at their resident or senior center, and be evaluated at the Healthy Aging & Neuropsychology Lab run by Anderson-Hanley or the Exercise Science Lab at Skidmore. Researchers hope to recruit players and also set up work stations at area senior centers.
A cybercycle demonstration and reception to celebrate the research will be held today at 3 p.m at the Nott Memorial.
Health Games Research, a national program that supports research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health, is headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Other institutions to receive grants include Cornell University, University of Florida and the University of North Carolina.
“This groundbreaking study led by Union will identify new interactive behavioral health strategies to use in the design of future health games and technologies,” said the program’s director, Debra Lieberman, a communication researcher in the university’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research and a leading expert in the research and design of interactive media for learning and health behavior change.
“Together, the 12 studies will help us better understand how people respond to various types of health games, and this will potentially lead to new game-based applications that can more effectively engage and motivate players to improve their health.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on health and health care issues. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.
“A 20th-Century Faust,” a book review by Mark Walker, the John Bigelow Professor of History, appears in American Scientist, the magazine of science and technology published by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Walker reviewed “Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War” by Michael J. Neufeld (Knopf, 2007). Wernher von Braun was a German physicist and astronautics engineer and leader in rocket technology.
An article by Writing Center Director Mary Mar was included in a recent Haverford College publication, “Summer Bridge Programs and Academic Achievement.” Mar’s article is titled “Bridging the Gaps in Summer Bridge Programs: The Role of the Writing Course.”
Cheikh M. Ndiaye, assistant professor of French and Francophone studies, published an article, “Marronnage, Oralité et Écriture dans Solibo Magnifique de Patrick Chamoiseau,” in the Francophone studies journal, Nouvelles Etudes Francophones. The article is a revision of a conference paper Ndiaye had previously presented at the Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association annual convention in Idaho.
Robert Baker recently was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article on the clash between hospitals and patients over privacy rights. The article explains how medical institutions routinely use patient information as part of their fundraising efforts. Baker is chair of the Rapaport Ethics Across the Curriculum Initiative, the William D. Williams Professor of Philosophy and director of the Union Graduate College-Mount Sinai School Medicine Bioethics Program.
Judith Lewin, associate professor of English, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Religion, recently completed a scholar-in-residency program at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University for her book project on Jewish women’s writing. In addition, she has authored a book chapter about an historical fiction film, “The Governess,” which appeared in cinemas in 1998. The chapter discusses stereotypes associated with Jewish women’s sexuality in 1830s British culture and complements two other pieces on Jewish women by Lewin in print this spring. Lewin also was elected to a four-year term on the Women's Caucus board of the international Association for Jewish Studies.
An article by Associate Professor of Economics Tomas Dvorak, titled “Cross-Border Returns Differentials,” will be published in the November issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Co-authors are Stephanie Curcuru of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and Frank Warnock of the Darden School of the University of Virginia. Dvorak and his co-authors recently presented a paper, “The Decomposition of the Returns Differentials,” at the International Macro-Finance Conference at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C.
Associate Professor of Chemistry Michael Hagerman recently received a grant of $75,396 from the Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing (CAMM) at the State University of New York at Binghamton and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to fund solar cell nanomaterials research titled, “Self-Assembled Laponite/CdSe/PANI/PEDOT Nanocomposite Thin Film Photovoltaics on Flex.” This work is in collaboration with Wayne Jones, Chemistry professor at the University at Binghamton. The funding, from July 1 through June 30, 2009, will support undergraduate and graduate research in nanotechnology bridging Union College, the University at Binghamton and local industrial partner, Evident Technologies.
Cay Anderson-Hanley, Ph.D., assistant professor of Psychology, and co-authors Joseph P. Nimon ’07 and Sarah Westen ’09 presented two posters at the annual meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in San Diego recently. They presented “Neuropsychological Effects of Low-Impact Exercise for Community-Dwelling Older Adults,” whose research was a collaborative effort among Prof. Anderson-Hanley’s Healthy Aging & Neuropsychology Research Lab, the Senior Health and Wellness Program of Catholic Charities of Schenectady County, and the Retired Senior Volunteer Program in the Capital Region. Alessandro Carini ’07 and Lyndsay DeMatteo ’10 assisted with the research. Anderson-Hanley, Nimon and Westen also presented “Neuropsychological Effects of Exercise for Aging Women: Role of Steroid Hormone Biomarkers.” Co-author was Brian Cohen, professor of Biology.
George Gmelch, the Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Anthropology, recently gave a public lecture on the changing culture of America baseball at Elon University in Elon, N.C. He also gave a talk to anthropology students and faculty that compared the Union College Barbados and Tasmania anthropology terms abroad.
Janet Anderson, professor of Chemistry, and Griselda Hernández and David LeMaster of the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, recently published an article in Biochemistry. They used electrostatic calculations to explain the observed hydrogen exchange rates for amide protons on the surface of the rubredoxin protein.
An article by Rebecca Surman, associate professor of Physics, appears in the June issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. It is titled "r-Process Nucleosynthesis in Hot Accretion Disk Flows from Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers." Co-authors are G.C. McLaughlin, M. Ruffert, H.-Th. Janka and W.R. Hix. Surman presented this work recently at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in St. Louis and in invited seminars at Duke University and North Carolina State University.
Kathleen LoGiudice, assistant professor of Biology, gave talks about her research at Bennington College and Siena College. She co-authored a paper, with J.L. Brunner and R.S. Ostfeld, titled “Estimating the Importance of Zoonotic Reservoir Hosts in Pathogen Transmission: Prevalence and Infectivity,” which was published in the Journal of Medical Entomology. Another paper, co-authored with S. Duerr, M. Newhouse, K. Schmidt, Killilea, M. and R.S. Ostfeld, was accepted for publication in Ecology. It is titled “Impact of Host Community Composition on Lyme Disease Risk.”
Benjamin Bunes ’08 has had a paper on his senior thesis in Electrical Engineering accepted for publication in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Nanotechnology Conference in Austin, Texas, in August. The paper is titled “Image Processing Algorithm for Analyzing Chirality in Carbon Nanotubes.” Associate Professor of Chemistry Michael Hagerman and Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Palma Catravas were supervisors. Bunes is a double major in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics with minors in Nanotechnology and History. He is the recent recipient of the College’s Warner King (Class of 1906) Prize, given to the senior in Engineering who has contributed most to the traditions and ideals of the College.
Andrew Rapoff, asistant professor of Mechanical Engineering, and Ronald Bucinell, the Thomas J. Watson, Sr. and Emma Watson Day Professor of Mechanical Engineering and department chair, along with Scott McGraw of the Ohio State University and David Daegling of the University of Florida, recently presented research titled "Full Field Noncontacting Strain Measurements in the Colobine Mandibular Symphysis" at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Columbus, Ohio.
Andrew Morris, assistant professor of History, attended the Policy History Conference in St. Louis last week. He organized a panel titled “Privatizing Public Policy and Public Services,” which considered various aspects of the history of privatization in the United States. He also presented a paper, “Privatizing Human Services: The Nonprofit Sector and the Contracting State,” which looked at the origins and evolution of government’s use of non-profit agencies as service delivery mechanisms. The material in his paper is derived from his forthcoming book, “The Limits of Voluntarism: Charity and Welfare from the New Deal Through the Great Society,” to be published by Cambridge University Press in early 2009.
St. John Science Fair, judges:
Front Row: Amy Frankenthaler, Natalie Grome, Juan Canales, Pieter Boskin; )back row: Carolina den Hartog, Andrew Palermo, Ken Skorenko
Cybercycling seniors could find a path to a healthier life.
Union College has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore how interactive digital gaming can improve the health behaviors and outcomes for people age 50 and older.
The College joins 11 other research teams who will receive up to $200,000 each from the foundation’s Health Games Research program to measure the effects that playing video games has on the young and the old.
seniors exercise, cybercycling, cay anderson-hanley, robert wood foundation, health research games
Projects range from how motion-based games may help stroke patients progress faster in physical therapy to how people in substance abuse treatment can practice skills and behaviors in the virtual world of a game to prevent real-world relapses.
At Union, researchers will spend two years examining the physiological and neuropsychological impact of cybercycling on area seniors. Players on a stationary bike will be monitored for heart rate, body composition, cognitive function, social relationships and other measures while racing against a virtual cycling partner.
The idea is to make exercise for a group not prone to participate more competitive and fun by capitalizing on the popularity of video games. Players can compete against themselves or others.
“The benefits of aerobic exercise on brain health are well documented,” said Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology and the project’s lead researcher. She is collaborating with Paul Arciero, an associate professor of exercise science at Skidmore College.
Cay Anderson-Hanley, assistant professor of psychology
“Yet studies have shown that across the lifespan, exercise participation decreases dramatically, with fewer than 10 percent of seniors exercising at the recommended levels. We hope to clarify which factors about cybercycling may help increase exercise behaviors.”
She anticipates that for some seniors, the option to compete against one’s self or others in 3-D will enhance motivation, while for others collaborating with a virtual league will increase participation.
Players will exercise at their resident or senior center, and be evaluated at the Healthy Aging & Neuropsychology Lab run by Anderson-Hanley or the Exercise Science Lab at Skidmore. Researchers hope to recruit players and also set up work stations at area senior centers.
“This grant allows two small liberal arts colleges to combine efforts and push the envelope of our research in some new and exciting ways,” said Anderson-Hanley. “Ideally, it would be wonderful to see that some isolated, sedentary seniors might start looking forward to climbing on their cybercycle to ‘spin’ with an old friend who may live across the country, but with whom they can work toward a common goal of improving their physical and cognitive health, all while having fun.”
Other institutions to receive grants include Cornell University, University of Florida and the University of North Carolina.
Cybercycling senior, cay anderson-hanley, robert wood foundation, health research games
Health Games Research, a national program that supports research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health, is headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“This groundbreaking study led by Union will identify new interactive behavioral health strategies to use in the design of future health games and technologies,” said the program’s director, Debra Lieberman, a communication researcher in the university’s Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research and a leading expert in the research and design of interactive media for learning and health behavior change.
“Together, the 12 studies will help us better understand how people respond to various types of health games, and this will potentially lead to new game-based applications that can more effectively engage and motivate players to improve their health.”
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on health and health care issues. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.
Friday, May 30, 6 p.m. / Schaffer Library plaza / Union College Taiko Ensemble – “A Celebration of Spring”
Friday, May 30, 8 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Alumni Writer Series presents John Donohue ’90, cartoonist and New Yorker editor
Friday, May 30 – Monday, June 2, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center / Film: “The Other Boleyn Girl”
John Donohue '90, New Yorker editor, cartoonist
Friday, May 30, 8 p.m. / Nott Memorial / Alumni Writers Series presents John Donohue ’90, cartoonist and New Yorker editor
Friday, May 30, 8 p.m. / Yulman Theater / Theater & Dance Department presents William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”; post-production discussion with guest Director Guy Roberts, artistic director of the Austin Shakespeare Festival
Saturday, May 31, 11 a.m. / Wold House / Brunch with John Donohue ’90, cartoonist and New Yorker editor
Saturday, May 31, 1 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Senior voice recital by Elizabeth Ruddle, soprano
Saturday, May 31, 8 p.m. / Yulman Theater / Theater & Dance Department presents William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”
Sunday, June 1, 2 p.m. / Yulman Theater / Theater & Dance Department presents William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It”
Sunday, June 1, 3 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Union College Choir performs music from Bach, Haydn, Rutter, Scarlatti and Seiber
Monday, June 2, 5 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Student recital
Monday, June 2, 2:30 p.m. and Tuesday, June 3, 10 a.m. / F.W. Olin Center Rotunda / Students in Chemistry 240 “Quantitative Analysis” class present posters from their water project
Tuesday, June 3, 5 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Instrumental Chamber Music class students perform
Tuesday, June 3, 10 p.m. / West College, Room 207 / 30 Days Series presents “Working in a Coal Mine”
Wednesday, June 4, 5:30 p.m. / Memorial Chapel / Keyboard extravaganza featuring piano and organ students
Thursday, June 5, 4 p.m. / Butterfield Hall / Dedication ceremony honoring Sen. Hugh Farley for leadership in the advancement of sciences at Union
Friday, June 5, 5:30 p.m. / Taylor Music Center, Fred L. Emerson Foundation Auditorium / Voice recital by soprano Adrienne Hart ’09, tenor Alex Schlosberg ’09 and bass Benjamin Bauer ’08
Friday, June 6 – Monday, June 9, 8 and 10 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center Auditorium / Film: “Vantage Point”
Saturday, June 7, 2 p.m. / Burns Atrium Art Gallery / “Senior Art Exhibition” Artists’ Reception
Saturday, June 7, 3 p.m. / Reamer Campus Center / “Wizard of Oz”
