Faculty and Staff Notes

On March 8, Professor of Mathematics Jim Walsh gave a talk in a special session on conceptual mathematical models in climate science at the 2015 American Mathematical Society Spring Eastern Sectional Meeting at Georgetown University. The talk, "New Budyko-type models of a Slushball Earth," recounted recent work with Christopher Rackauckas '12 in which two new mathematical models were developed that each reproduce ice sheet behavior known to have occurred in the extensive glacial epochs of the Neoproterozoic Era, during which time continental ice sheets flowed into the ocean near the equator.

“Transfer: Learning in and Through the Academic Museum,” co-authored by Liliana Milkova, curator of academic programs of Russian and East European studies, and Steven S. Volk, director of the Center for Teaching, Innovation, and Excellence and professor of history, has been published in Advancing Engagement: A Handbook for Academic Museums, Volume III, edited by Stefanie S. Jandl and Mark S. Gold. (Edinburgh, UK and Cambridge, MA: MuseumsEtc, 2015), pp. 8-43.

Sabine Marina Jones, faculty-in-residence and German lecturer, attended the Foreign Language Housing Symposium at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT March 5-6, 2015. There, she presented her paper "Foreign Language Housing (FLH): Engaging Students of World Languages Beyond the Classroom." She and other symposium participants will contribute to an edited volume on Foreign Language Housing.

Kazim Ali, director of the creative writing program and associate professor of creative writing and comparative literature, will be lecturing and reading his poetry at Interlochen Academy; Greenhills School in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Sonoma State University; San Jose State University; the Ohio State Poetry Out Loud Championships; the Associated Writing Programs (AWP) Conference; and the Ohioana State Library Literary Festival.

His poems will soon be appearing the New England Review, Colorado Review, Iowa Review, and Volt. His essay, "The Killer Will Remain Free: On Pat Parker and the Poetics of Madness," is forthcoming in the Journal of Lesbian Studies. Other essays on translation and pedagogy will soon appear on the website VOLTA.

Crystal Biruk, assistant professor of anthropology, presented a paper at the Africanizing Technology Conference at Wesleyan University on March 6. The paper was titled "Standards and gifts: Soap as improvisational technology in Malawian survey research worlds."

Assistant Professor of Physics Robert Owen has been granted a Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. The award will help support Owen's research on a project entitled, Spin and Horizon Multipoles in Numerical Relativity, and the Visualization of Dynamical Spacetimes.

In February, T.S. McMillin, professor of English and member of the environmental studies program committee, participated in the symposium "Navigating the Changing Nation: The River and Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Art" at the Saint Louis Art Museum. McMillin lectured on the topic "'Strangers Still More Strange’: The River, the Steamboat, and The Confidence-Man."

The symposium was part of the exhibition Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River, which explores the life along the rivers of the new frontier through the masterworks of Missouri's most famous artist.

Ellis W. Tallman, economics department chair and Danforth-Lewis professor of economics, presented the paper "What Ended Pre-Fed Banking Panics" at Rutgers University as part of "Rockoffest," a conference to honor Rutgers University Professor of Economics Hugh Rockoff. The paper was co-authored by Gary Gorton' 73.

The paper "School Quality and Educational Attainment: Japanese American Internment as a Natural Experiment" by Martin Saavedra, assistant professor of economics, has been accepted by the journal Explorations in Economic History.

Tim Scholl, professor of Russian and comparative literature, gave the lecture "From Moscow and Back: Creating and Assessing the 'National' Ballets of Caucasia in the 1930s" at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University on February 13, 2015.