An article co-authored by Ernest Williams, the Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Biology, recently appeared online in the journal Insect Conservation and Diversity. “Decline of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexico: is the migratory phenomenon at risk?” will appear in a forthcoming print issue of the publication, which is a journal of the Royal Entomological Society.

Professor of Mathematics Richard Bedient presented a workshop for the mathematics faculty at Pittsfield High School in Pittsfield, Mass., on March 11, as part of the department's professional development program. The topic was an introduction to fractal geometry and was based on a summer workshop program at Yale in which Bedient participated for a number of years. He also spoke to a math class on the same topic.

Associate Professor of French Joseph Mwantuali gave an invited talk titled "The Congo in the Colonial and Post-colonial Imagination" for the Colgate University Humanities Colloquium on March 22.

Professor of Physics Emeritus Philip Pearle was invited to be the first speaker at the "New Frontiers in Quantum Foundations" conference at Clemson University, March 9-11.  He gave a technical lecture titled "Topics in Collapse," as requested and also first gave a talk, "Sociological Snippets," about his experiences in the field of foundations of physics over almost 50 years.

Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies Brent Plate wrote a review of Peter Greenaway’s “Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway” for the March 22 issue of Arts and Christianity magazine. The massive multimedia installation, recently on display at the Central Park Armory, is part of Greenaway’s “Ten Classic Paintings Revisited,” an ongoing series in which he merges iconic works of art into a cinematic experience.

A collection of 300 audio interviews with jazz musicians, arrangers, writers and critics, the jazz greats and the supporting cast from the 1930s to the present, is now available online and free to the public courtesy of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive. Listeners can click on a link and read the transcripts or listen to interviews with some of jazz’s most well-known musicians, including Dave Brubeck, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and George Shearing as well as former members of bands led by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton and the Dorsey Brothers.

Several prints by William R. Kenan Professor of Art Bruce Muirhead and Professor of Art William Salzillo are on display at the Bradley International Print and Drawing Exhibition in Peoria, Ill. Included in the exhibition are Muirhead’s “Secret Viewers” and “Fourth of July,” and “Nightingale” by Salzillo. Organized by Bradley University, the biennial juried show runs through April 15.

Patrick D. Reynolds, professor of biology at Hamilton, has been appointed dean of faculty at the college, effective July 1, 2011. He is currently serving in that capacity on an interim basis.

Associate Professor of English Steven Yao delivered a lecture titled "Global Literary Studies and the Rising Tide of the Transpacific," as part of the Faculty Research Colloquium Series at UMass, Amherst, on March 1. While there, he also taught a graduate seminar on Global Modernisms.

Assistant Professor of Psychology Jeremy Skipper has been awarded a $907,350 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his research project "Neurobiology of Speech Perception in Real-World Contexts." The long-term objective of this research “is to understand the neural mechanisms of language comprehension in real-world settings, in which the brain can use context to aid in communication.”