A paper by Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology Robert A. Gastaldo has been published in the journal PALAIOS. Gastaldo’s paper, titled “New Paleontological Insights into the Emsian-Eifelian Trout Valley Formation, Baxter State Park’s Scientific Forest Management Area, Aroostock County, Maine,” appeared in the journal’s July volume. A PDF of the paper is available on Professor Gastaldo’s professional website.
Sandy Maisel, Kenan Professor of Government, notes the importance of context in a July 13 Los Angeles Times article about the consequences of party platforms. Even though platforms “tend to be more aspirational than fail-safe forecasts of what will happen,” the Times reports, they are “promises that never take into account political context, and political context is really...
Clare Booth Luce Assistant Professor of Physics Elizabeth McGrath was a guest on Maine Public Radio’s Maine Calling July 11 discussing recent astronomical news. Host Irwin Gratz talked with McGrath and two other astronomers about subjects such as the Juno spacecraft mission to Jupiter and the exoplanet 131399Ab.
Professor of Sociology Neil Gross conducted an interview on Wisconsin Public Radio about the abundance of liberal professors on college campuses. WPR’s Kathleen Dunn talked with Gross July 11 about the need to advocate for hiring more conservative professors, similar to that of affirmative action. “It’s true that professors are a liberal lot,” Gross said. “But against...
In an NPR commentary, Associate Professor of Psychology Christopher Soto examines why people act as they do. His essay, “Personality Can Change over a Lifetime, and Usually for the Better,” was published June 30 on NPR’s “Shots” page, which covers health news. “The nature, development and consequences of personality traits remain hot topics of research,...
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Philip Nyhus is the editor of a new book series, “Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes,” published by Elsevier, a leading provider of scientific, technical, and medical information products and services. Books in the series focus on specific species or taxa across disciplinary boundaries and spatial scales....
Dan Shea, professor of government and director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement, is one of the lecturers at this year’s Harding Symposium. Hosted by Ohio State University at Marion, the symposium includes nationally recognized political experts and is held at the home of former President Warren G. Harding. Shea speaks July 16,...
A special issue of the journal Radical History Review coedited by Associate Professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Lisa Arellano will be released in September. Titled “Reconsidering Gender, Violence and the State,” the issue brings together a broad range of interdisciplinary scholarship to fulfill the promise of its title as contributors,...
Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society James Rodger Fleming discusses speculative technological solutions to climate change, a subject he wrote about in the 10th and final volume of the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability. That volume is titled The Future of Sustainability. Berkshire Bookworld podcast host Karen Christensen interviews Fleming in the 21-minute audio interview...
Chemist and postdoctoral fellow Reuben Hudson received a $5,000 grant—and an $11,463 match—from the Maine Technology Institute (MTI), the Portland Press Herald reports June 9. With recent funding from the National Science Foundation, Hudson and Associate Professor of Chemistry Jeffrey Katz have designed new materials that show promise for hydrogen fuel cell applications. Compared with competing materials, theirs have the potential for increased fuel cell...
Assistant Professor of Spanish Dean Allbritton’s article “It Came from California: The AIDS Origin Story in Spain” has been published in the March 2016 Revista de Estudios Hispánicos. Adapting work from his book project, Allbritton analyzes the mediated response to the first reported cases of AIDS in Spain, along with the construction of an origins...
Assistant Professor of Biology David Angelini presented two invited seminars in April, one at the University of Rochester and another at the University of Montana. Titled “Eco-evo-devo and morphogenomics: The integrative biology of wing polyphenism in a true bug,” these presentations relayed Angelini’s recent work into the environmental and genetic causes and evolutionary consequences of multiple developmental outcomes in...
Assistant Professor of Music Natalie Zelensky’s article “Russian Church Music, Conundrums of Style, and the Politics of Preservation in the Emigre Diaspora of New York” was included as a chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). Zelensky’s chapter examines discourses of authenticity as they are articulated within the realm of sacred...
The summer 2016 issue of A/B Architecture Boston has a feature titled “Now You See It,” a series of vignettes about temporary structures that leads off with Professor of English Michael Burke’s piece called “Season’s Fleetings.” In it Burke describes the pop-up village of ice-fishing shacks that appears each winter on the pond in his...
Assistant Professor of Economics Sahan T. M. Dissanayake and Ryu Matsuura ’16 published an article in the Maine Policy Review on preferences for the proposed Maine North Woods Park. Their research, conducted with Andrew Meyer of Marquette University, contributes to the ongoing public dialogue about the proposed park by analyzing the preferences of out-of-state visitors....
Janice Liang ’16, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Travis Reynolds, and Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Biology Cathy Collins are coauthors on an article published in April 2016 in AIMS Agriculture and Food. The article (online here) is titled “Effects of exotic Eucalyptus spp. plantations on soil properties in and around sacred natural sites...
Two assistant professors of environmental studies, Travis Reynolds and Denise Bruesewitz, and three Colby students have published an article in African Journal of Ecology. The paper, titled “Ethiopian Orthodox church forests provide regulating and habitat services: Evidence from stream sediment and aquatic insect analyses,” is available in an early online version. Sara LoTemplio ’16, an...
Assistant Professor of English Aaron Hanlon describes many ways he’s mistaken for a younger person, often a student, in his essay “I’m Not a Student, I Just Look Like One” in the May 25 Chronicle of Higher Education. Considering how ageism works, he writes, “I’m also sharing these examples to draw attention to the fact...
Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology Bruce Rueger received the Charles Bassett Teaching Award May 16 from the Class of 2016. Since 1993 each senior class has voted to recognize a Colby faculty member with the award, named for the late professor of American studies and English who taught at Colby from 1969 to 2000...
On May 20 Dana Professor of Sociology Neil Gross published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times titled “Professors are overwhelmingly liberal. Do universities need to change hiring practices?” The article concludes: “As a rule, politics should play no role at all in academic employment decisions; we should neither keep conservatives out nor fast-track their...
