Shiri Akrish '09 had a letter to the editor published in the Sunday (Dec. 11) New York Times. Shiri is a student in Professor of Environmental Science Eric Pallant's Freshman Seminar “All the News That's Fit to Print.”
Mark Cosdon, assistant professor of communication arts and theatre, presented a paper, “Train Smash-Ups Made Comic: The Hanlon Brothers' Le Voyage en Suisse,” at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's July 2005 conference in San Francisco. At the American Society for Theatre Research conference in Toronto this past November, Cosdon presented “Fraternal Litigation: The Hanlon Brothers and Nineteenth Century Law, Patents, and Copyright.” Cosdon has been elected conference planner for the American Theatre and Drama Society.
Vice President for Enrollment Scott Friedhoff was invited to speak on social demographics and higher education economics at a luncheon in Chicago sponsored by the Lawlor Group. He also spoke on financial aid discounting and the use of merit aid as part of a panel at two national conferences, the College Board Forum in New York City and the National Association of College Admission Counseling in Tampa. He met again with the editors and writers of US News & World Report in his role as an advisory board member to their Best Colleges publications.
Assistant Professor of Psychology Aimee Knupsky was an invited speaker at the weekly meeting of the Language Science Research Group at Pennsylvania State University on November 18. Her presentation, “Context Effects & Bilingual Language Production,” discussed original research examining the factors that impact bilingual language use.
Assistant Professor of Geology Rachel O'Brien and Professor of Environmental Science Eric Pallant have written an article, “Teaching the Watershed: Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research and Learning,” that has been accepted for publication in an upcoming Council on Undergraduate Research book on best practices for undergraduate research.
Mike Richwalsky, of the Office of Public Affairs, received the Best Poster Session award at the HighEdWebDev 2005 Conference, held November 6-9 in Rochester, N.Y. The session, titled “Gnosh: Building a Social Software Search Engine,” detailed the creation of a new web search tool that combines search results from several sources, including Google, Yahoo, Flickr, and more, into one set of results. Jesse Hixson '06 and Peter Shafer '08 also contributed greatly to the project, of which WebProNews.com said: “For once a search engine has come from an institute of higher learning that isn't called ‘Stanford.'”
Professor of Biology and Environmental Science Scott Wissinger has published two papers. One is a book chapter co-authored by Howard Whiteman '88 titled “Amphibian population cycles and long-term data sets” in Conservation and Status of North American Amphibians (University of California Press). The work describes fifteen years of monitoring the effects of human-induced changes in the atmosphere on salamander populations in alpine ponds in the Colorado Rockies. The second paper, co-authored by Charles Eldermire '98 and John Whissel '98, will appear in the December 2005 issue of the journal Oecologia and is titled “Predator defense along a wetland permanence gradient: roles of case structure, behavior, and phenology in caddisflies.” Eldermire is at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Whissel is with the Chesapeake Swan Research Program.
Several Allegheny faculty and students presented at the recent Society for Neuroscience meeting held in Washington, D.C. (Nov. 11-15, 2005):
Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Lee Coates, Assistant Professor of History Kenneth Pinnow, and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jeffrey Cross presented “Neuroscience in a Liberal Arts Context: An Undergraduate History of Neuroscience Course at Allegheny College.”
Neuroscience major Lisa Thomas '05 and Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Lauren French presented “The Search for a Conotoxin Targeting the Human Calcium activated Potassium Channel hSlo.” Lisa Thomas is now in the neuroscience Ph.D. program at Yale.
Neuroscience and psychology major Adrian Oblak '05, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jeffrey Cross, and Associate Professor of Psychology Jeffrey Hollerman presented “The Effects of Periconceptual Supplementation of Folic Acid in an Animal Model of Autism.” Adrian Oblak is now in the neuroscience Ph.D. program at Boston University.
Neuroscience and psychology major Crystal Tanguay '05, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jeffrey Cross, and Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Alec Dale presented “Detection of Deception with Evoked Potential P300 Emerging on First Stimulus at Cpz: Not Affected by Sensation Seeking State of Participants.”
Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jeffrey Cross, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Alec Dale, and Instructor in Modern and Classical Languages Nancy Smith presented “Neuroscience in a Liberal Arts Context: An Undergraduate Neuroscience of Language Course at Allegheny College.”
People & Places, published monthly during the academic year by the Office of Public Affairs, reports on the professional activities of members of the College community and highlights student achievements. Please submit items to people@allegheny.edu. We reserve the right to edit copy for length.
