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A memorial service for James L. Ferguson Professor of Psychology Jonathan Vaughan will be held on Sunday, Oct. 5, at 4 p.m., in the Hamilton College Chapel.

In an email to the Hamilton community on Sept. 15, President Joan Stewart announced the death of James L. Ferguson Professor of Psychology Jonathan Vaughan. He died on Sunday, Sept. 14, from complications of pneumonia.

Jonathan Vaughan, the James L. Ferguson Professor of Psychology, co-authored a revised computer programming text for behavioral scientists titled MATLAB for Behavioral Scientists, Second Edition. The book, written with David Rosenbaum and Brad Wyble of Penn State University, was recently published by Taylor & Paul/Routledge.

Picking up a spoon to stir your morning coffee seems uncomplicated enough, right? We simply see the object and move our hand until it is close enough to grab it. But how much harder does it become if the object gets smaller or farther away from us? Or what happens when we start using our non-dominant hand? Perhaps most of us could make an educated guess at how much harder it would make the task, but Paul Fitts took it one step further beyond just estimating.

Six Hamilton faculty members were recognized for their research and creative successes with the Dean’s Scholarly Achievement Awards, presented by Dean of Faculty Patrick Reynolds during Class & Charter Day on May 13. The awards recognize individual accomplishment but reflect a richness and depth of scholarship and creative activity across the entire faculty.

The ability to pick up an object without knocking it over is something that most people take for granted, but Emma Geduldig ’13, Sarah Andrews ’14 and John Wildman ’15 are more inquisitive when it comes to movement and motor control. Why, they ask, do we move to pick up a coffee cup from the side as opposed to the front? Such simple questions on human motion have yet to be entirely answered, and these researchers hope to shed more light on this seldom- researched subject.

Fifteen Hamilton students and three faculty and staff members traveled to the New England Center for Children (NECC) in Southborough, Mass., on March 30.  Students who had expressed interest in pursuing internships and careers at the center were invited to tour the facility and meet members of the staff.

Dean of Faculty Patrick D. Reynolds announced the appointment of two of Hamilton's most outstanding teacher-scholars to endowed chairs. Professor of Biology David Gapp was appointed to the Silas D. Childs Chair, and Professor of Psychology Jonathan Vaughan was appointed to the James L. Ferguson Chair. Both appointments were effective July 1.

As much as science has uncovered about the human brain, the relationship between brain and movement remains relatively unclear. For example, when attempting to point to or touch a specific, moving target, response times vary based on a wide variety of factors. This  summer, Elin Lantz ’13 and Robert Hawkins ’13 along with Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jonathan Vaughan will study how speed and accuracy of movement are different in the right and left hands.

Taylor Adams '11 and Deborah Barany '11 have been awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. Adams, a chemistry major, and Barany who is majoring in neuroscience, will both receive a three-year annual stipend of $30,000 and a $10,500 cost-of -education allowance for tuition and fees, and the freedom to conduct their own research at any accredited U.S. or foreign institution of graduate education they choose.