News Center

A Monthly Newsletter Reporting the Professional Activities of the Allegheny Community

Richard Shafranek ’10 has been selected to receive a 2011-2012 Fulbright Award to Indonesia.

The following Allegheny students (with their mentors in parentheses) had abstracts accepted and presented at the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research held March 31-April 2 at Ithaca College: Michael Albring ’11 (Ivy Garcia), Ian Armstrong ’12 (Matt Jadud and Diane Nutbrown), Keith Beach ’11 (PJ Persichini), Anna Bitting ’11 (PJ Persichini), Robert Carlisle ’11 (Ivy Garcia), David De Micheli ’11 (Shannan Mattiace and Laura Reeck), Abby Dishler ’13 (Marty Serra), Autumn Frater ’13 (Diane Nutbrown), Jocelyn Gruskiewicz ’13 (Marty Serra), Allison Hensler ’11 (Lee Coates), Sara Hillman ’11 (Lee Coates), Annie Homan ’13 (Lee Coates), Agrippine Ituze ’11 (Stephanie Martin), Britten Keep ’11 (Stephanie Martin), Zachary Lindeman ’11 (Tricia Humphreys), Derek McMahan ’11 (Shannon Mattiace), Elizabeth McMichael ’12 (Marty Serra), Jermaine Mitchell ’11 (Stephanie Martin), Miranda Porter ’11 (Lee Coates), Maxwell Prehn ’11 (Stephanie Martin), Erin Resetar ’11 (Ivy Garcia), Zachary Saylor ’11 (Ann Kleinschmidt and Tricia Humphreys), Jackie Sikora ’11 (Alice Deckert), Anthony Smith ’11 (Matt Jadud), Camille Syrett ’11 (Ann Kleinschmidt), and Caleb Zelanko ’11 (Stephanie Martin). Faculty who attended: Lee Coates, Stephanie Martin, PJ Persichini, and Marty Serra. A list of the students with the titles of their presentations can be found here. The Dean of the College funded the students and faculty participating in the conference.

Twenty-two Allegheny students participated in the Sigma Xi Undergraduate Research and Creative Accomplishment Conference held at Penn State Behrend on April 16.  They are (with their faculty advisors in parentheses):  Ashley Adamson ’12 (Rodney Clark), Stephanie Alberico ’11 (Rodney Clark), Ashley Brandebura ’11 (Rodney Clark), Sharon Dudek ’11 (Jeffrey Cross and Jeffrey Hollerman), Robin Ellege ’12 (Rodney Clark), Rachel Faber ’11 (Rodney Clark and Jeffrey Cross), Timothy Hassett II ’12 (Jeffrey Cross), Kaitlyn Huser ’11 (Rebecca Kightlinger), Alisha Kahala ’11 (Jeffrey Cross), Stacy Kmentt ’11 (Jeffrey Hollerman), Zachary Lindeman ’11 (Tricia Humphreys), David MacAdam ’11 (Jeffrey Cross), Megan Mick ’11 (Sarah Conklin), Jessica Minsterman ’11 (Rodney Clark), Kelsie Mozzoni ’11 (Jeffrey Hollerman and Jeffrey Cross), Erin Nawrocki ’13 (Tricia Humphreys), Meghan Naylor ’11 (Ann Kleinschmidt), Aleksas Nerone ’11 (Tricia Humphreys), Brendan O’Leary ’11 (Kenneth Foreman, Marine Biological Laboratory), Veronica Quinlan ’13 (Rodney Clark), Kelsey Ream ’13 (Rich Bowden), and Lauren Strawser ’11 (Rodney Clark). Faber, Kahala, Kmentt, Lindeman, Mozzoni, and Nawrocki were given awards for best presentations in their sessions. A total of 222 students and 110 faculty from eleven colleges in western Pennsylvania participated in the conference.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a letter to the editor on April 21 from Stephanie Blystone ’14, a student in Ben Slote’s FS102 about the American newspaper. Stephanie’s letter, titled “Don’t Forget the Students,” can be read here.

Molly Mattis ’12 — who partnered with Kathryn Hardey of Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana — placed 15th out of 41 teams in the senior division of the Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Competition, which took place April 9-10 in Hartford, Connecticut. “This was an admirable showing,” says Assistant Professor of Computer Science Matt Jadud, “considering the majority of the teams we were competing against had experience with the competition and came from electrical and mechanical engineering backgrounds.” A video from the competition can be found here.

Neuroscience and Psychology double majors Nicole Piccirillo ’12, Stephen Martinkovich ’12, and Ryan Brindle ’12 recently presented results of their research with Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Sarah Conklin at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in San Antonio. Their research examined associations between health behaviors, cardiovascular function, stress and mood in young adults and was conducted during an independent study with Conklin during the spring of 2010.

Eco-Reps Sara Schombert ’13, Ian Arturo ’14, Taylor Hinton ’14, and Nathan Malachowski ’14 attended the Clinton Global Initiative University conference April 1-3 at the University of California, San Diego. Admittance to the conference required a commitment to action, with the Eco-Reps tying their spring Minimization Mania campaign with global environmental issues such as air pollution, e-waste disposal, and anthropogenic climate change. The conference was headed by President Clinton and included 1,100 students from 249 universities in all 50 states and in 90 countries.

An article by Sarah Szymecki ’11, Andrea Varrato ’12, and Assistant Professor of Environmental Science TJ Eatmon — “Aquaponics at Allegheny College” — was recently accepted to appear in the 2nd quarter 2011 issue of Aquaponics Journal and will be published in early May. The article highlights student involvement in coursework, research, and civic engagement initiatives that have made contributions to environmental education, green design, entrepreneurship, and international development efforts.

Christine Ziehl ’11 presented a paper, “Civic Heroism: The Burghers of Calais,” at the West Virginia University Student Symposium on Topics in Art on April 16.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Matt Jadud, Ian Armstrong ’12, Anthony Smith ’11, and Michael Pirrone-Brusse ’10 had their paper “The Flying Gator: Towards Aerial Robotics in occam-pi” accepted for presentation and publication in the 33rd Conference on Communicating Processes Architectures, which will take place this summer in Limerick, Ireland.

Professor of French Phillip Wolfe was again nominated by the French Embassy to serve on the selection committee for the Bourses Chateaubriand, a fellowship that grants funds for post-doctoral research in France. The French Embassy has also recognized the excellence of David DeMicheli ’11 and Katie Austin ’11, who have been selected to serve as teaching assistants in Nice, France next year.

Director of User Services (LITS) James Fadden traveled to the Annual Meeting of North East Regional Computing Professionals (NERCOMP) in Providence, Rhode Island. While there he facilitated the discussion of the IT Communications Constituency Group. He also served on the conference planning committee and technology innovation squad.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Gregory M. Kapfhammer and René Just recently presented a research poster at the 4th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2011) held in Berlin, Germany. Titled “MAJOR: An Efficient Technique for Mutation Analysis in a Java Compiler,” the poster presents collaborative research between Kapfhammer and Just, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Applied Information Processing at Ulm University in Germany. While attending ICST 2011, Kapfhammer also gave research advice to doctoral students when he served as a panelist for the conference’s Ph.D. symposium.  As part of a recent visit to
Allegheny College during the Spring 2011 academic semester, Just helped Kapfhammer teach a module of the Junior Seminar course in the Department of Computer Science.

Three members of the Learning, Information and Technology Services (LITS) staff — Instructional Technologist Helen McCullough, User Support Specialist Andrew McMillin, and Director of User Services James Fadden — traveled to Hope College for the annual GLCA IT conference. McCullough led a session called “Georgia on My Mind,” which reviewed a current copyright court case involving Georgia State University and the implications for higher education. Fadden facilitated a session on the importance of developing partnerships and communicating effectively as an IT organization.

An essay by Professor of Religious Studies Carl Olson, “The Differance That Makes all the Difference: A Comparison of Derrida and Sankara,” has been published in Philosophy East and West 16/2 (April 2011): 247-259.

Associate Professor of Economics Steve Onyeiwu, Professor of Environmental Science Eric Pallant, and Molly Hanlon ’09 published a chapter titled “Sustainable and Unsustainable Agriculture in Ghana and Nigeria: 1960-2009” in Ecosystems and Sustainable Development, by WIT Press. Pallant presented the findings of their research at the 8th International Conference on Ecosystems and Development in Alicante, Spain.

Emily Ricotta ’09, Assistant Professor of Biology Tricia Humphreys, and collaborators had a peer-reviewed article, “Rapid Divergence of Two Classes of Haemophilus ducreyi,” accepted by the Journal of Bacteriology.  It will appear in the June 2011 issue of the journal.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Jeremy Wells published his first book, Romances of the White Man’s Burden: Race, Empire, and the Plantation in American Literature, 1880-1936. The publisher is Vanderbilt University Press.

The History Department is pleased to announce the following 2011 summer grants from its Endowment Funds:

Assistant Professor Guo Wu will use support from the Jonathan E. and Nancy L. Helmreich Research and Book Grant Fund to present a paper titled “Discovering an Ethnic Culture in Qing China: Local Officials’ Representations of the Miao and Their Accommodating Policies in the Yongzheng Period (1722-35)” at the annual World History Association conference in Beijing, China, and to consult archival materials located in the National Library of China.

Associate Professor Judson Herrman will use support from the Helmreich Fund to conduct summer research at the Institute of Classical Studies in London. This research is toward his project, Demosthenes: Selected Public Speeches, a monograph consisting of Greek text of select political speeches of Demosthenes, accompanied by an introduction and commentary in English. Herrman has received a contract offer from Cambridge University Press for the completed manuscript.

Professor Barry Shapiro will use support from the Helmreich Fund to cover a research trip to Princeton University, where he will consult a variety of South African newspapers as part of his continuing work on an article that contrasts African National Congress negotiating styles (more specifically, the “cooperative” style of Thabo Mbeki and the “adversarial” style of Cyril Ramaphosa) during the negotiation process that led to the end of apartheid.

Associate Professor Elisabeth Kalé Haywood is the recipient of funding from the Edwin Van Duesen Selden Fund for travel to Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. There she will work in the Archivo Casa de Morelos in order to further research capitular-state relations as reflected through the cathedral chapter of Valladolid de Michoacán. This work constitutes part of her ongoing manuscript project, Reform Becomes Revolution: The Michoacano Cathedral Chapter, 1795-1910.

Associate Professor Kenneth Pinnow will use support from the Bruce Harrison ’45 History Fund to conduct research in Moscow, Russia. He is currently working on an article about early Soviet criminology and will be embarking on a larger study of clinical research and medical ethics in the Soviet Union.