Twelve Allegheny students gave presentations at the national meeting of the American Physical Society held in Pittsburgh last March. They are (with faculty advisors in parentheses) Adam Simbeck ‘09, Brandon Momeyer ‘09, Leah Parsons ‘09 (Professor Gary Bedrosian), Kristen Duthie ‘09, Chris Whiting ‘09, Nate Rieders ‘09, Satoko Asahi ‘09, Simon Kohnstamm ‘10 (Professor Adele Poynor), Tanya Nocera ‘09, Katlyn Meier ‘09 (Professor Doros Petasis), Barbara Dunlap ‘09 (Professor David Statman), and Kelly Salb ‘09 (Professor Dan Willey). In addition, Professor Shafiq Rahman gave a presentation titled “Civic Engagement through Differential Equations?” on the innovative Physics Junior Seminar designed to expose physics majors to the issues that lie at the intersection of science and society, Statman gave an invited talk on forging partnerships with science museums as a way to increase public outreach, and Poynor presented a talk co-authored with Corey Shemelya ‘08 on using Surface Plasmon Resonance to investigate the behavior of water near hydrophobic surfaces.
Sarah Snider ‘09, Amy Schrembs ‘09, Stephanie Ogilbee ‘09, and Katy Orchowski ‘09 – accompanied by Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Rodney Clark – attended the 35th annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI), held May 22-26 in Phoenix. Sarah, Amy, Stephanie, and Katy presented posters of their independent study and senior comprehensive research projects. Sarah’s work was titled “A Comparison of Mefloquine and Phencyclidine in a Place Preference Procedure in Rats.” Amy’s project was titled “An Application of Computer-Based Training on Facial Discrimination in Autistic Children.” Katy and Stephanie jointly presented their work: “Some Discriminative Properties of Cocaine and Caffeine; Effects of A2a, D1, and D2 Receptor Antagonists.”
Michael Peroski ‘10 recently published the article “Commissions on a Mission” in Science Progress, a journal that focuses on progressive approaches to science and technology policy. The article — which is available at http://www.scienceprogress.org/2009/08/commissions-on-a-mission/ — focuses on the evolution of bioethics commissions in the United States, the roles of a president’s commission of bioethics, and the differences between a data-driven commission and an ideology-driven commission.
Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Amy Wiseman presented a poster titled “Distinctiveness memory training reduces gist-based false recognition” at the annual Association for Psychological Science meeting in San Francisco in May. Her three student coauthors on the poster were Lauren Mursch ‘10, Ashley Brandebura ‘11, and Samantha Ford ‘10.
Assistant Director of Student Involvement Kate Gullatta was selected to be a facilitator at the Undergraduate Interfraternity Institute (UIFI) in July at Indiana University in Bloomington. UIFI is a five-day program through which undergraduate Greek students from around the country enhance their leadership skills, strengthen their commitment to their fraternity or sorority, and grow to expect values-based action from themselves and those they lead.
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies Judson Herrman recently published his second book. Hyperides: Funeral Oration; Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary has appeared as volume 53 of American Classical Studies, published by Oxford University Press.
Professor of Psychology JW P. Heuchert made a presentation titled “The Development of an Adolescent Version of the Profile of Mood States (POMS)” at the XIV European Developmental Psychology Conference in Vilnius, Lithuania in August. Heuchert also participated in the Institute of Higher Education’s “Pedagogy for Peace: Educating Moral Leaders in a Violent World” in Arlington, Texas, in June.
Associate Professor of Computer Science Gregory M. Kapfhammer was appointed to the editorial board of the International Journal of Software Engineering and Its Applications (IJSEIA), published by the Science & Engineering Research Support Society in the Republic of Korea. More information about the IJSEIA is available at http://www.sersc.org/journals/IJSEIA/. Kapfhammer also served as a journal reviewer or member of a conference program committee on twelve occasions in 2009, examining papers for publication venues such as Elsevier Journal of Information and Software Technology and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.
The Bridges Organization has published the paper “An Interdisciplinary First Seminar on Symmetry,” by Associate Professor of Mathematics Tamara Lakins. Lakins presented the paper at the Bridges: Mathematical Connections in Art, Music, and Science conference held at the Banff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery in Alberta, Canada in July 2009. In August 2009, Lakins was an invited member of the panel “Joining the mathematical community,” held at the Project NExT workshop in Portland, Oregon. Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) is a national Mathematical Association of America professional development program for new and recent Ph.D.s in mathematics; Lakins is also a co-coordinator of the local Allegheny Mountain Section NExT.
Associate Professor of Political Science Shannan Mattiace presented a paper at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies on April 10, 2009. The topic of the symposium was “Fifteen Years after the Zapatistas: Social and Political Change in Mexico and Chiapas since 1994.” Mattiace’s article “Ethnic Mobilization among the Maya of Yucatan” was published in the journal Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies in July 2009.
Assistant Professor of Art Darren Lee Miller was one of fifty artists chosen to show their work in the 2009 International Exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, Colorado. Juror Andy Adams selected Miller’s image “Heaven” from over 1,500 submissions for the show. The 2009 International Exhibition will be on display in the center’s online gallery (http://www.c4fap.org) and physical gallery October 2-31.
Associate Professor of Economics Tomas Nonnenmacher and Associate Professor of Political Science Shannan Mattiace were awarded a University of Pittsburgh Library Fellowship for their work on labor and henequen haciendas in Yucatan, Mexico for use during the summer of 2009.
Director of Pre-Professional Studies Kirsten Peterson was elected president of the North East Association of Advisors of the Health Professions (NEAAHP) at the organization’s annual meeting in Philadelphia in early April. NEAAHP is one of four regional groups that make up the National Association of Advisors of the Health Professions (NAAHP). Regional presidents serve on the national board during their tenure. Both organizations help advisors keep abreast of changes and trends in all fields of medical education in a number of ways, primary of which is sponsoring a yearly conference that brings advisors together with medical professional school deans, admissions directors, and professional association representatives to share issues of common concern. Peterson also serves on the NAAHP Communications Committee, contributing to the quarterly journal The Advisor and other NAAHP publications, as well as abstracting articles for the NAAHP website.
Mike Richwalsky, of the Office of Public Affairs, presented at the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) Information Services Conference, held at Smith College, where he led a hands-on session about Amazon Web Services. He spoke about Allegheny’s use of social media at both the Whipple Hill Annual Users Conference in Boston and at workshops in London, England, and Cardiff, Wales, presented by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and NetSkills. Finally, he was an invited speaker at the Institutional Web Management Workshop held at the University of Essex in Colchester, England. This fall, he is serving on the NERCOMP program committee.
Professor of Art George Roland is exhibiting a work of computational art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. The work was selected for inclusion in the AAP 99th Annual Exhibition, which runs through November 9. The exhibition juror was Doryun Chong, associate curator in the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Professor of History Barry Shapiro’s book Traumatic Politics: The Deputies and the King in the Early French Revolution is scheduled to be published by Penn State University Press on October 1. This work examines the political effects of the grave threats to the lives of the members of the French National Assembly posed by royal troops in June/July 1789. It seeks to demonstrate that, even though these threats were never actually carried out, the intense fear of death experienced by the deputies was sufficiently traumatizing as to profoundly influence their future political behavior. In pursuing this argument, Shapiro attempts to expand the range and scope of situations in which trauma can be considered as a significant explanatory factor in historical analysis, for historians have hitherto generally confined themselves to exploring the traumatic impact of massively violent and destructive events like military combat, genocide, and natural disaster.
