Michael Peroski ‘10 recently coauthored policy recommendations on human embryonic stem cell research in a report titled “Stem Cells: A Life Sciences Crucible.” The report was launched at a Center for American Progress event on January 16 and is available at:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/stem_cells.html.
Professor of Environmental Science Richard Bowden received a National Science Foundation Supplemental Grant to conduct work at the Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research Site in central Massachusetts. The project, “Leaf and Root Litter Decomposition: Soil OM Contributions,” will fund collection and quantification of leaf litter inputs to a long-term study that examines controls on soil organic matter.
Professor of Philosophy Bill Bywater gave two presentations over the summer on Goethe’s delicate empiricism and the idea of apprenticeship (based on delicate empiricism) that Bywater is developing. One paper was delivered at the International Human Research Conference at Ramapo College in New Jersey. The second was delivered at the Humanistic Psychology meetings (Division 33 of the American Psychological Association) in Boston.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Melissa K. Comber recently had her paper “Learning to Participate: The Effects of Civic Education on Racial/Ethnic Minorities” published in the National Political Science Review, 2008, special symposium titled “Beyond the Boundaries: A New Structure of Ambition in African American Politics.”
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies Judson Herrman delivered a paper at the 2009 meeting of the American Philological Association titled “Getting over defeat: Hyperides’ Against Diondas and the battle of Chaeronea.” Herrman also published an article, “The authenticity of the Demosthenic Funeral Oration,” in volume 48 of Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Gregory M. Kapfhammer was recently chosen to serve as a guest editor for a special section of the Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technology. In the past few months, Kapfhammer has also served as a program committee member for the IEEE Workshop on Search-Based Software Testing and the IEEE Symposium on Search-Based Software Engineering. Finally, Kapfhammer was appointed to the position of program co-chair for the Testing: Academic and Industrial Conference (TAIC PART) that will be held in Windsor, United Kingdom in September 2009. More details about this international conference are available at http://www.taicpart.org/.
Portions of an interview with Associate Professor of Physics James C. Lombardi Jr. appeared in the Discovery Channel show “Cosmic Collisions: Galaxies,” which aired for the first time on January 28. Lombardi and his students use computer simulations at Allegheny to model what happens when stars collide. The show discussed collisions between galaxies, as well as between the stars within them, and portrayed the future collision of Andromeda and our own Milky Way galaxy.
Assistant Professor of Art Darren Lee Miller will be part of an exhibition at the Distillery Gallery in Boston from February 19 through March 26. The show, “Homestead AK 1st annual Summer Residency Show,” features diverse works by the first group of artists-in-residence at The Homestead AK, located about 100 miles north of Anchorage, Alaska. More information about Distillery Gallery and The Homestead AK can be found at http://www.distilleryboston.com/gallery_distillery.htm and http://www.thehomesteadAK.org.
Associate Professor of History Ken Pinnow’s article “Violence against the Collective Self: Suicide and the Problem of Social Integration in Early Bolshevik Russia” has been published in Histories of Suicide: International Perspectives on Self-Destruction in the Modern World, ed. John Weaver and David Wright (University of Toronto Press).
Mike Richwalsky of the Office of Public Affairs was interviewed in the January 2009 issue of University Business magazine in an article on the use of Twitter, a social networking and micro-blogging service, by colleges and universities across the country. You can follow Allegheny at Twitter here: http://twitter.com/alleghenycol. Richwalsky has also been named a Technology Fellow with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), a community-based, nonprofit initiative dedicated to helping undergraduate-centered colleges, universities, and educational organizations use technology to strengthen undergraduate education. He will be doing research and leading instructional sessions on cloud computing for other NITLE institutions around the country.
Adjunct Professor Rich Sayer has been appointed to a national committee of the United States Lawn Bowls Association to devise a new plan for the Laws of the Sport of Lawn Bowls in the United States and to make a proposal to World Bowls for changes to the international rule book. A third-generation bowler, Sayer has appeared in nine U.S. Championships, winning twice and being a runner-up five times. Sayer was also awarded another first place for a sports photograph in the National Press Photographers Association Region Three monthly contest. It is his third award this year in that contest.
Associate Professor of Political Science Sharon Wesoky recently presented papers at two conferences. She chaired a panel on “Experiences of Globalization in Greater China: Materiality, Representation, and Resistance” at the annual meeting of the Western Conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Boulder, Colorado, where she also presented a paper titled “Representing Themselves: Globalization and the Empowerment of Chinese Rural Women.” She also presented a paper, “Feminism and Critiques of Globalization in Contemporary China,” at the Second Conference of the Kartini Network on “The Future of Asian Feminisms,” in Bali, Indonesia.
Assistant Professor of History Guo Wu published a book review on Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley’s Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China (University of California Press, 2008) in The Chinese Historical Review (Fall 2008), vol. 15, no. 2. He also completed two translation projects in December. One is an 8,000- word Chinese-English translation titled “Global History: In the Historical Memory of the Nation,” which is forthcoming in Chinese Studies in History, a translation journal of M.E. Sharp; the other is a 15,000-character Chinese translation of “The Public Sphere in Modern China” by Professor William T. Rowe of Johns Hopkins University, which will appear in a translation series published by a leading academic press in Shanghai in 2009.
People & Places, published monthly during the academic year by the Office of the President, reports on the professional activities of members of the College community and highlights student achievements. Please submit items to people@allegheny.edu. We reserve the right to edit copy for length.
