Eight students were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa on November 11. They are Amy C. Bonaparte, Meghan Cole, Christopher Donatelli, Daniel M. Flanagan, Nathan Haines, Caroline LaRochelle, Jessica Papia, and Nathan R. Shively.
Professor of Environmental Science Richard Bowden recently presented four papers at the National Science Foundation Long-term Ecological Research All-Scientists Meeting in Estes Park, Colorado. Environmental Science major Laura Nagel '07, who also attended, co-authored and co-presented three of the presentations. The presentations — “Long-term change in vegetation composition and biomass in a Central European oak forest at the Sikfokut International Long-Term Ecological Research (ILTER) Site, Hungary”; “Rapid Changes in Soil Carbon and Organic Matter at the Sikfokut International Long-Term Ecological Research Site, northeast Hungary”; “Components of soil CO2 efflux in an old growth coniferous forest: a tale of roots, microbes, and priming”; “Contributions of Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Sources to Total Soil Respiration in Temperate Forests: Site Productivity Controls on Aboveground and Belowground Carbon Allocation” — described research that examines the role of forest soils in controlling forest productivity and contributing to long-term storage of carbon as a means to mitigate global climate change.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Melissa K. Comber presented a paper titled “The Effects of State Civic Education Policies on Young Women” at the Annual APPAM (Association for Public Policy and Management) conference in Madison, Wisconsin on November 4.
Professor of English Diane D'Amico's essay “Rossetti and the Tractarians,” co-authored with Professor David Kent, has been published in the Spring 2006 issue of Victorian Poetry. She has also had accepted for publication her essay “Christina Rossetti's Breast Cancer: ‘Another Matter Painful to Dwell Upon,'” which will appear in the Fall 2006 issue of The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies.
Associate Professor of English Kirk Nesset has been awarded the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, one of the nation's most prestigious honors for a book of short stories. Nesset is the author of Mr. Agreeable, a book of short stories (Mammoth Press, forthcoming), and a nonfiction study, The Stories of Raymond Carver (Ohio University Press). His stories, poems, and translations have appeared lately — or will soon appear — in The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Kenyon Review, Gettysburg Review, Agni, American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Boston Review, The Sun, Fiction, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. His short-short stories have reappeared (or will soon reappear) in two of Norton's anthologies, Flash Fiction Forward (August 2006) and New Sudden Fiction (January 2007).
Professor of Psychology Elizabeth Weiss Ozorak recently published “The View from the Edge: Pilgrimage and Transformation” in On the Road to Being There: Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity, edited by William Swatos, Jr. She is also the pianist with Scottish country dance band the Music Makars, which just released the group's fourth CD, Catch the Wind. She is currently spending a term as the Procter Scholar in Residence at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass.
The Phi Beta Kappa Society held its 41st Triennial Council meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, October 26-29 with 389 attendees. Assistant to the Dean of the College Sonia Esterly Parry '90 was the official delegate from the Eta of Pennsylvania, Allegheny College chapter. This Triennial Council meeting was also the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Visiting Scholar Program, with a series of three visiting scholar symposia featuring six speakers.
Associate Professor of Modern Languages Barbara Riess received a Summer Research Fellowship this past summer from the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, which is a National Resource Center for Latin American Studies.
Research by Associate Professor of Computer Science Robert S. Roos, Kristen Walcott '05, Mary Lou Soffa (University of Virginia), and computer science instructor Gregory M. Kapfhammer was recently presented at Microsoft Research in China. The presentation, titled “Exploring Time-Aware Test Suite Prioritization,” describes a technique to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software testing. The presented algorithms heuristically solve the NP-complete knapsack problem. More details are available at: http://cs.allegheny.edu/~gkapfham/research/kanonizo/.
Professor of History and Senior Faculty in Women's Studies Paula Treckel has been awarded the Harry A. Logan Professorship of American History on the basis of her superb general record at Allegheny and specifically for her work on Ida Tarbell. The professorship is to recognize “the long-standing relationship between American history, as evidenced by the likes of Ida Tarbell and the local oil industry, and Allegheny College.”
The Heinz Endowments awarded $100,000 to Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Caryl Waggett as principal investigator of a project to identify, prioritize, and map environmental health disparities within the Commonwealth. She is coordinating the efforts of colleagues from around the state.
Professor of Physics Dan Willey has been awarded the St. Clair Professorship, which is meant to support “a distinguished faculty member providing leadership in our comprehensive program to ensure that all graduates are equipped to think critically, to communicate clearly and persuasively, and to meet challenges in a diverse and ever-changing world.”
Assistant Professor of Psychology Amy Wiseman successfully defended her dissertation, “Imagery reduces false recognition in younger and older adults through the use of a distinctiveness heuristic,” from the psychology department of Harvard University. Katherine Mickley '06 attended the defense.
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.
