Faculty and Staff Notes

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Simanti Banerjee participated in the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis Spring 2014 Colloquia at Indiana University. On March 24, she presented a lecture entitled “Participation and Spatial Coordination in Conservation Incentive Schemes: Role of Transaction Costs and Localized Communication."

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, led a group of ten students to the American College Dance Festival Association's Northeast Conference at the College of Brockport in New York, from March 13 to 16. Students took classes in ballet, Paul Taylor technique, improvisation, composition, percussion, release technique, tap, and hip hop. They attended numerous concerts of student, faculty and guest artist work.

Several fourth-year biology students attended the Ohio Physiology Society Annual Meeting at the Northeast Ohio Medical University this Fall with Associate Professor of Biology Maureen Peters. These included members of her lab, Nelson (Trip) Freeburg, Phoebe Hammer, Sam McCright and a member of Associate Professor of Biology Taylor Allen's lab, Helen Rich. The students presented posters describing their respective research projects, while Peters presented a talk entitled "As the Worm Turns: Understanding How an Intestinal Calcium Wave Elicits a Motor Program." Several students received recognition for their work. Phoebe Hammer '14 was awarded a Poster Presentation Prize. Nelson (Trip) Freeburg and Sam McCright both won the Peter K. Lauf Travel award to fund expenses associated with attending the Experimental Biology annual meeting in San Diego, CA in the spring.

Sarah Hamill, assistant professor of art history, helped organize a workshop on the photography of sculpture. Sponsored by and held at The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, the workshop took place on January 16 and 17. The workshop was written up in VIEWS, the newsletter of the Visual Materials section of the Society of American Archivists.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics Kate Jones-Smith, along with fourth-year physics majors Kathryn Hasz and Jocienne Nelson, recently attended the regional Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics held at Pennsylvania State University, from January 17 to 19. Both students presented the results of their honors research projects (Hasz, "Polarized Analyzed Small Angle Neutron Scattering of Magnetic Nanoparticles," with advisor Professor of Physics Yumi Ijiri and Nelson, "Overtone Spectroscopy of Adsorbed Hydrogen in Metal Organic Frameworks" with advisor Professor of Physics Stephen FitzGerald.) Hasz came in second place for Best Talk at the Conference.

Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova organized two two-day seminars on "Frames in Literature and Across the Arts" at the convention of the American Comparative Literature Association at New York University, which ran from March 20 to 23. She also presented a paper on literary frames in Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. 

Professor of Politics Stephen Crowley has given two radio interviews recently on the situation in Ukraine. On March 19, he discussed developments in that country on WEOL’s Morning Show When asked if his knowledge of the region had allowed him to sense a crisis was coming, Crowley said, “I don’t think anybody predicted exactly what would happen in Ukraine. But there’s always been tension, particularly centered around Crimea, between Russia and Ukraine.” Noting that Crimea had long been a part of Russia and that its populace is overwhelmingly Russian speaking and Russian oriented, Crowley said “Putin and Russia have seen Crimea as a special case” and that he doesn’t expect Russia will press militarily any further into Ukraine. Crowley’s entire interview is archived on the WEOL website. On February 26, Crowley joined two other panelists for a segment on WCPN’s The Sound of Ideas titled “What Next in Ukraine,” which can be accessed on WCPN’s website.”

Professor of Psychology Nancy Darling is a coauthor of a paper that was awarded the Albert Bandura Award For Excellence for graduate research by Psi Chi, the international honor society in psychology, and the American Psychological Society. The award was given for the paper “Rejection sensitivity and (mis)perceptions of romantic ” which will be presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence’s biennial meeting, taking place March 20 to 22 in Austin, Texas. A collaborative research project with Jerika Norika, Joe Salvatore (a graduate student at the University of Tennessee), Deborah Welsh, and Nancy Darling, the paper began as Jerika’s master's thesis project. Jerika traveled to Oberlin last spring to learn some advanced statistical techniques and consult on the project, completing the work over the summer.

Professor of Computer Science Richard Salter, along with Wayne M. Getz, A. Starker Leopold Professor of Ecology at UC Berkeley, and alumnus Nick Sippl-Swezey ’11, led a five-day workshop in February on the use of modeling in conservation ecology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Twenty ecology professionals—faculty members and graduate students from research institutes across Israel—attended the workshop, the goal of the which was to introduce Salter's Nova modeling platform.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics M. Garrett Roth participated recently as a paper presenter, chair, and discussant at the Public Choice Society's 2014 Conference, held March 7 to 9 in Charleston, South Carolina.