Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has published a short book about Spain's international image, Leyendas negras, marcas blancas. La malsana obsesión con la imagen de España en el mundo, in a series edited by the magazine Contexto. He has also contributed an article to a thematic issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom, published by the AAUP, on recent political challenges to academic freedom in history teaching and research. In October, he interviewed Astra Taylor about student debt relief in the United States and spoke in a podcast with Jacobin's Eoghan Gilmartin about the Spanish novelist Javier Marías, who died in September.   

Assistant Professor of Writing and Communication Cortney Smith's co-authored essay, "The Communication Discipline and Peace Education: A Valuable Intersection for Disrupting Violence in Communication Centers," was recently published in the Journal of Communication Pedagogy.

Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy Jillian Scudder's new popular science book, The Milky Way Smells of Rum & Raspberries was published in the UK on November 3 by Icon Books. It will be released in the US/Global market on February 14, 2023.

Visiting Professor of French Nathan H. Dize was mentioned on NPR's All Things Considered for his translation of I Am Alive by Haitian writer Kettly Mars, which was released with the University of Virginia Press in September.

Associate Professor Ross Karre coproduced and performed in a concert featuring composers from the Iranian Female Composers Association. The works were performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble conducted by Steven Schick. Among the musicians were Oberlin alumni, Hannah Levinson, Rebekah Heller, and Joshua Rubin. The program included the world premiere performance of Inexorable Passage by Nina Barzegar, the US premiere of within the Hadal and Epi by Anahita Abbasi, the NYC premiere of Crystalline Trees by Aida Shirazi, and additional works by Golfam Khayam, Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi, Nasim Khorassani, and Bahar Royaee. Niloufar Shiri performed solo kamancheh interludes throughout the evening. (New York Times subscription needed to view article.)

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen has been awarded a $55,000 grant by the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for her project, "Probing Complex Post-Transition State Bifurcations in Reactions Between Boroles and Unsaturated Hydrocarbons". Professor Chen and her undergraduate research students will use both experimental and computational approaches to study mechanisms in this family of organic reactions.

Assistant Professor Allegra Hyde's novel ELEUTHERIA was named one of "The Best Books of 2022" by The New Yorker.

Associate Professor of Physics Jillian Scudder coauthored a publication in the Astrophysical Journal on galaxies which have undergone a recent burst of star formation, examining the frequency of mergers in combination with where within a galaxy star formation is suppressed.

Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy Jillian Scudder's recent book, Astroquizzical: The Illustrated Edition (MIT Press) was included in the longlist of eight candidates for the 2023 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books in the Young Adult Science Book category.

Multiple students who worked in Professor Marta Laskowski's lab are coauthors on a paper that appeared in the journal Development. The paper uncovers a gene regulatory network that links the size and shape of the root system to expression of genes that are known to control the life cycle stage of the shoot system. The work was done in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana.