People & Places: December 2018

Associate Professor of Biology Tricia Humphreys and colleagues published a paper in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, titled “Multiple Class I and Class II Haemophilus ducreyi Strains Cause Cutaneous Ulcers in Children on an Endemic Island.” They found that the composition of bacterial strains found on Lihir Island in Papua New Guinea is not affected by mass administration of antibiotics, which will affect disease eradication efforts in the region.


Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology Matt Carter attended the national Geological Society of America conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, from November 4 to 7, 2018, to present research. He gave an oral presentation, entitled “An experimental investigation into fluid transfer mechanisms in the mantle lithosphere,” and collaborated with an Allegheny senior, Duncan Freeland, who presented a poster, entitled “Paleocurrent and sedimentological analysis of Cambrian metasedimentary rocks of Beavertail State Park, RI.” Carter also brought two other Allegheny students to the conference, Nathan Pastorek and Kurtis Tucci.


Associate Professor of Political Science Shanna Kirschner chaired a panel at the Peace Science Society Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, in November. In addition, Kirschner published an article on the scholarship of teaching and learning in the Journal of Political Science Education, titled “Simulating Negotiation in Protracted Conflicts.”


Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Matthew Mitchell has been selected to participate in a workshop on “Religion, Economy and Value: Histories of Religious Fundraising” at the University of Copenhagen on December 17 and 18. Mitchell will present a paper, “Regulating Chance: Buddhist Temple Lotteries, Government Oversight, and Neo-Confucian Discourse in Early Modern Japan,” there. The workshop notice and poster are available here.


Professor Emeritus of Economics Don Goldstein
As a board member of Common Roots, a grassroots community-development group focused on sustainable and affordable housing, Professor Emeritus of Economics Don Goldstein was active in purchasing an old duplex on South Main Street and beginning its rehabilitation into affordable housing units. Margaret West ’18 is Common Roots’ VISTA super-volunteer and has helped Common Roots to secure and ready the building and to apply for funding.  Community partners in this effort are Women’s Services and CHAPS, both frequent collaborators with Allegheny as sites for student and graduate volunteering and employment.


Paris and the Marginalized Author book
Professor of French Laura Reeck’s essay “Bernardo Toro: Beyond Lieux Communs” has appeared in Paris and the Marginalized Author: Treachery, Alienation, Queerness, and Exile (eds. Orlando and Pears, Lexington Books). Reeck wrote around her interview with Chilean-born author Bernardo Toro that explores questions of language choice, memory and inheritance, and the psychological impact of exile. It was a collaborative effort with students: last year’s French Teaching Assistant Charline Bordat transcribed the interview, and Elsie Hendricks ’20 translated it from French into English.


John MacNeill Miller, assistant professor of English, was awarded the 2018 Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research for his article “When Drama Went to the Dogs; Or, Staging Otherness in the Animal Melodrama,” an essay on nineteenth-century performing animals that was published in PMLA in 2017. The prize recognizes the best essay on theater research published by an early career scholar in a refereed journal.


EPA logo
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Sustainability Benjamin Haywood was recently appointed to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT). Recognizing that a vast array of environmental policy perspectives exist outside the agency, the U.S. EPA established the NACEPT in 1988 to provide independent advice to the EPA administrator on a broad range of environmental policy, technology and management issues. NACEPT helps the EPA to gain broad points of view from a diverse range of interest groups that would otherwise be unavailable to the agency. NACEPT members serve as representatives from academia, business and industry, non-governmental organizations, and state, local, and tribal governments. Since its inception, the NACEPT has approved and published over 80 major reports containing over 1,500 recommendations to the EPA administrator on a variety of issues. More recently, the NACEPT has provided recommendations on environmental justice communities and other vulnerable populations, workforce planning and leadership development, and incorporating sustainability into federal processes. Haywood will serve a two-year term through 2020.