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Assistant Dean of Faculty for Institutional Research Gordon Hewitt was part of a panel presentation on using data in the accreditation process at the annual conference of the Association for Institutional Research in Toronto on May 23.

The Posse Foundation honored Hamilton President Joan Hinde Stewart as a 2011 Posse Star at the foundation's anniversary gala on May 25 in New York City.  Posse is a national non-profit that identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes.  Hamilton and the Posse Foundation celebrated a 10-year partnership this year.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe,was a contributing author of a paper published in the June issue of the journal Chemical Biology and Drug Design. The paper, titled “Applying Molecular Dynamics Simulations to Identify Rarely Sampled Ligand bound Conformational States of Undecaprenyl Pyrophosphate Synthase, an Antibacterial Target,” presents the results of research conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of California-San Diego, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Throughout history, the interplay of morality and law has proved to be a point of debate and intense interest for philosophers. Specifically, does one concept determine the other? And if so, does law establish what is moral or should it be the other way around? The issue is even more perplexing in modern society, where religion plays a much smaller role than in most other cultures in history. Thomas Cheeseman ’12 is studying the complex philosophical principles regarding law, morality and religion under a Levitt Research Fellowship Grant with Professor of History Doug Ambrose.

“The evolutionary history of histone H3 suggests a deep eukaryotic root of chromatin modifying mechanisms,” a paper co-authored by Assistant Professor of Biology Wei-Jen Chang, was published in the online journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.  In the paper, Chang and his collaborators present the results of their research into the evolution of histone proteins in eukaryotes.

The New York Times’ current entry on the publication’s Civil War blog is the work of James L. Ferguson Professor of History Maurice Isserman. Titled “From the Playing Field to the Battlefield,” the article reveals that during the war, the majority of Hamilton students participated on both the Union and Confederate sides and that many perished.

The Hamilton College Chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, initiated 27 members of the Class of 2011 to associate membership at the annual banquet in the Science Center Atrium on May 20. Family members in attendance heard a program of brief observations by mentors about the students and their research.

Rising juniors Alexandra Arenson ’13 and Charlotte Cosgrove ’13 will spend the summer with Professor Jeremy Skipper  studying speech and the parts of the brain that affect it.  Their project, “The Phantom Text Effect,” concerns the processes of speech comprehension in the brain among adult English speakers.

Professor of French John C. O'Neal presented a paper, "Saint-Preux comme personne transgenre dans La Nouvelle Héloïse de Rousseau," at the international colloquium "Masculin et pouvoir de Rousseau à Balzac," held at the Université Jean Monnet, May 19-20.

Professor of History Thomas Wilson presented a paper titled “The Imperial and Ancestral Sacrifices of Confucius” at the International Symposium on the Rites to Confucius held at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea.