Faculty and Staff Notes

“NOVA transmission chain models for epidemic forecasting: Ebola and Measles,” co-authored by Richard Salter, professor of computer science, and Wayne M. Getz, A. Starker Leopold professor of wildlife ecology at UC Berkeley, was presented by Getz on March 24 at the Impact of Environmental Changes on Infectious Diseases conference in Sitges, Spain.

Getz's presentation showcased the results of the pair's NOVA model of disease transmission as described in their recent journal article, "Tactics and Strategies for Managing Ebola Outbreaks and the Salience of Immunization." NOVA, a software platform designed by Salter for building rich, multi-layered simulation models, continues its growth with users around the world.

Salter, who built the models Getz presented at the conference, is continuing his development of NOVA as both a desktop and web-based platform for simulation. He and Nancy Darling, professor of psychology, will be presenting a 70-minute NOVA workshop at Innovations in Collaborative Modeling in the Social Sciences at Michigan State University in early June. A weeklong conference in Oberlin titled Workshop on Quantitative Reasoning Pedagogy & Computational Modeling with NOVA Software will take place in mid-June. The conference is in collaboration with CLEAR Center Director Marcelo Vinces.

Shelley Lee, associate professor of history and comparative American studies and affiliate of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies, has accepted an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation fellowship at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, for two months in summer 2015. The fellowship will allow Lee to work on a book project about immigration and race relations in Los Angeles since 1965.

Dan Stinebring is a senior member of NANOGrav, a research group searching for low-frequency gravitational waves. The National Science Foundation has awarded NANOGrav $14.5 million over five years to create and operate a Physics Frontier Center. The project will focus on the direct detection of low-frequency gravitational waves, which are produced by orbiting supermassive black holes and exotic changes in the early universe.

Stinebring will play a critical role in the project by using methods and analysis to remove interstellar delays of distant pulsars. Read the full article, Chasing Cosmic Waves.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Jiyul Kim published a chapter on the "Strategic Culture of the Republic of Korea" in Security Cultures and Security Policies In the Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2015). This is a book edition of the article published in a special issue of the journal Contemporary Security Policy (35.2, June 2014). The chapter explores the interaction between Korean culture and its foreign/security policy.

Professor of Psychology Nancy Darling presented the results of three research projects at the Society for Research in Child Development 2015 Biennial Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her work involved collaborations with colleagues from Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Tanzania. 

Darling co-authored a paper on parents' sexual socialialization of their adolescent children in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with Lusajo Kajula, Sylvia Kaaya, and Heinz De Vries. This qualitative paper focused on the marked differences in parents' attitudes toward girls and boys as they enter adolescence. 

She also presented a poster on differences in how adolescents interact with their romantic partners during socially supportive and conflictual conversations. These data involved intense codinga of videotaped interactions. This paper was co-authored with Andrew Burns and four Oberlin undergraduates: Akensheye Daniels, Elena Gold, Will Lynch, and Caitlyn Rodgers.

Finally, Darling served as discussant for a panel of papers on the juncture between adolescents' right to privacy and parents' socialization goals and privacy invasion. Work included a discussion of parenting in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada.

Darling (March, 2015). Privacy and Parenting During Late Childhood and Adolescence: Exploring Links Among Cognitions and Behaviors. Discussant for symposium presented at the Society for Research on Child Development Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Darling, N., Burns, A., Daniels, A., Gold, E., Lynch, W., & Rodgers, C. (March, 2015). Continuity in Observed Adolescent Behavior During Conflict and Social Support Interactions with Romantic Partners. Poster presented at the Society for Research on Child Development Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Kajula, L., Kaaya, S., Darling, N. De Vries, H. (March, 2015). Parenting practices and styles associated with adolescent sexual health in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Poster presented at the Society for Research on Child Development Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Adrian Bautista, associate dean of campus life and director of residential education, presented at the symposium Las Hermanas: The Struggle is One held March 19-21 at University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas. The symposium honored the history, development, and legacy of Las Hermanas, a grassroots Latina movement formed 40 years ago to challenge and change the church and its role in society.

Bautista's paper, “Hermanas, Esposas, y Feministas: The Deacon’s Wife as an Agent of Social Change,” was part of a Latinas/os in Ministry panel presentation.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Cynthia Taylor recently gave two presentations at the Association for Computing Machinery's Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2015. Taylor presented a poster on Conceptum, an online infrastructure for developing concept inventories. Work on this poster was done in conjunction with students Ben Rempel and Eli Rosenberg. Taylor was also in a special session on concept inventories for computer science.

"How to Navigate an 'Upside-Down' World: Using Images in the History Classroom," a publication by Steven S. Volk, director of the Center for Teaching, Innovation, and Excellence and professor of history, has been published in New Directions in Teaching and Learning, Volume 2015, Issue 141, pp. 53-65, Spring 2015.

Of 733 applicants, Bernard Matambo '07, assistant professor of creative writing, is one of six finalists for the Brunel University African Poetry Prize.

Randal Doane, assistant dean of studies, will deliver the keynote "Hitsville, USA: How The Clash Broke America and WPIX Broke Our Hearts" at the WIOX Community Radio and Spillian: A Place to Revel event Stealing All Transmissions: An Evening of Local Celebrity, Subversive Commentary, Community Radio, and Fancy Cuisine on Saturday, March 21.

Doane offers this preview of his keynote: "At the heart of this talk is a love story. It’s the story of how The Clash fell in love with America, and how America loved them back. The romance commenced in 1977 when select deejays in New York at WNEW and WPIX aided the band’s quest to depose the rock of indolence that dominated American airwaves. In this talk, I review the rise of free-form radio through the early 1970s, the punk scene flourishing in New York at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB, and the culmination of The Clash’s September 1979 performances at the Palladium in New York City. The September 21 concert marked one of the last opportunities for fans to see The Clash as a punk band, teetering between conviction and uncertainty, before they became a seriously brilliant rock group. In March 1980, WPIX management abandoned the 'Elvis to Elvis' format, and thereby broke the hearts of 'PIX listeners, only because they dared to fall in love. This talk concludes with a consideration of the key differences between musical fandom in the analog and digital eras."