From the French Revolution to Religious Environmentalism: Students and Faculty Present Their Work
Dec. 17, 2012 — Faculty and students at Allegheny College have recently authored works or participated in professional activities in a broad range of subject matter.
Senior Colleen Friel won first prize for her poster presentation at the Regional Science Colloquium held on November 1 and 2 in Erie. Friel’s poster, “Auxin Effects on Root Exudation,” described her work with Associate Professor of Biology Catharina Coenen during summer 2012.
Junior Samantha Laurence and Chaplain Jane Ellen Nickell were presenters at a symposium on “The Marcellus Shale from the Perspective of Environmental Ethics,” hosted by Duquesne University and Marcellus Outreach Butler, and held at Duquesne on November 6. Laurence’s topic was “A History of Religious Environmentalism: A Judeo-Christian Perspective.” Nickell presented “A View from the East: Contributions from Islam and Religions of Asia.”
Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Shaunna Barnhart gave an invited lecture at Slippery Rock University on her biogas research in Nepal titled “From Household Decisions to Global Networks: Biogas as Sustainable Development in Nepal.”
A paper by Associate Professor of Mathematics Brent Carswell and Associate Professor of Mathematics Rachel Weir, “Weighted reproducing kernels and the Bergman space,” was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications.
A chapter titled “Perception vs. Reality: Factors Influencing the Adoption of Commercial Aquaponics in the Great Lakes Region,” authored by Assistant Professor of Environmental Science TJ Eatmon and Allegheny graduates Zach Piso and Elyse Schmitt has been accepted for publication in the book “Cases on the Adoption and Diffusion of Sustainable Development Practices,” edited by Helen E. Muga and Ken D. Thomas and published by IGI Global.
Associate Professor of Philosophy Steven Farrelly-Jackson gave an invited talk and reading on the theme “The Story of a Novel: Reflections on Africa, Memory and Writing” at Iowa-Wesleyan College on November 1.
In collaboration with Jake Cobb, Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Institute of Technology), and James A. Jones (University of California, Irvine), Associate Professor of Computer Science Gregory M. Kapfhammer recently published a paper in the Proceedings of the 9th International Workshop on Dynamic Analysis. Titled “Dynamic Invariant Detection for Relational Databases,” the paper describes and empirically evaluates a method that automatically infers meaningful invariants from real-world databases used in areas such as health care and the Internet.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Jack Meeder was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in November in the session titled “The Biscayne and other eogenetic karst aquifers: Characterization, modeling, and management.” His presentation, “Karst control of the Biscayne Aquifer groundwater flow patterns,” was co-authored with Peter Harlem as second author.
Professor of History Barry Shapiro’s contribution to “A Companion to the French Revolution,” edited by Peter McPhee, has been published by Wiley Blackwell. His essay in this collection is on “The Case Against the King, 1789-1793.” His article answering the question “What Would You Write if You Were Writing ‘Civilization and Its Discontents’ Today?” has also just been published in a special issue of “Psychoanalytic Inquiry” marking the 80th anniversary of the publication of Freud’s best-known work. In addition, his article on “Building Trust and Playing Hardball: Contrasting Negotiating Styles in South Africa’s Transition to Democracy” has been accepted for publication by the African Journal on Conflict Resolution.
Assistant Professor of History Guo Wu’s interdisciplinary research paper, titled “The Social Construction and Deconstruction of Evil Landlords in Contemporary Chinese Fiction, Art, and Collective Memory,” has been accepted for publication by “Modern Chinese Literature and Culture,” a leading journal of Chinese literature, after Wu presented it in October to the UC Berkeley Haas Junior Scholars Conference: Multi-disciplinary Interrogations of State and Society in China.