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It’s a tricky job to decide whether an event is a riot or a revolution, but Douglas Paetzell ’09 (Madison N.J.) is ready to make the call. The event is the 1967 Newark riot, a six-day uproar touched off by a white police officer arresting and beating a black cab driver. Paetzell, a history and economics major, has received an Emerson Grant to research the effect of the riots upon the residents of Newark and investigate the federal actions which may have caused it.

Hamilton College's Barbershop quartet, "That's What She Said," finished 19th in the international barbershop collegiate competition held on July 7 in Denver. Members of the quartet are Peter Mallozzi '09 (lead), Chris Boveroux '08 (tenor), Winston Cook-Wilson '09 (baritone), and Peter Kopp '07 (bass). The group is coached by Associate Professor of Music Rob Hopkins, a past president of the Babershop Harmony Society. Hamilton's quartet sang "Let the Rest of the World Go By" and "Peg O' My Heart," and also performed in the collective college barbershop chorus, singing "Blue Skies."

Assistant Professor of Art Rebecca Murtaugh is exhibiting artwork in "Toxic Color" at Exit (a gallery space), in Cleveland. This exhibition features the work of 25 national artists and resonates with the artist’s perspective of how color is mediated by technology and media. Martin Ball, artist and associate professor of painting at Kent State University, curated the exhibition. The show opened July 13 and runs through August 17. For more information visit www.exitgallery.com

Why do people faint? Travis Blood '09 (Pepperell, Mass.) might be able to tell you. As a research intern at the Integrative Cerebral Hemodynamic Lab in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, a facility of Harvard Medical School, Blood works on several projects designed to ascertain why people feel dizzy and what parts of the body account for the process of brain blood flow.

Kyla Gorman '09, Colden Prime '10 and Tom Williams '11 are working under the direction of Professor Stuart Hirshfield this summer on projects related to computer security. All of the work is being sponsored by the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, N.Y.

Lasers are versatile tools that have many applications in research and industry. Improving laser technology, therefore, is a top priority for those who use or produce equipment that utilizes lasers. At Hamilton, Professor of Physics Ann Silversmith has focused her research on developing new laser materials that would be useful in the solid-state laser industry. This summer Dan Campbell ’08 (Pittsford, N.Y.) has been working with her to study solid-state lasers that use sol-gel encapsulated rare earth metals as their laser material.

When most people hear the term global climate change, they automatically think of global warming. But as temperatures rise, more water enters the atmosphere via evaporation. Once in the air, these water molecules may cluster into aerosols (airborne solid particles), forming clouds that reflect solar radiation and cause a cooling effect. Understanding how and why these water clusters form is therefore an important component to understanding global climate change. To accomplish this task, Alexa Ashworth ’09 (Pittsford, N.Y.), Tom Morrell ’10 (Randolph, N.J.), and Elena Wood ’10 (Ridgefield, Conn.) are studying the formation of water clusters with different aerosol cores.

The emergency departments in United States hospitals are under increasing pressure due to overcrowding. Tamar Nobel ’08 (Mamaroneck, N.Y.), a Hamilton student particularly dedicated to emergency care, takes this problem as her research this summer. Funded by a Levitt Fellowship and working with Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics Selcuk Eren, Nobel is studying the availability of insurance coverage and hospital emergency department visits for asthma patients.

Stephen Okin ’10 (New York, N.Y.) is fascinated with current foreign policy, a fascination which led him straight to the big problems. The U.S. relies upon a rhetoric of liberty and democracy, but there are times when the promotion of democracy abroad conflicts with the need to secure national interests. Okin, a rising sophomore, has an Emerson grant and is working with Assistant Professor of Government Ted Lehmann to research this contradiction as regards the “Venezuelan threat:” the current political situation in Venezuela and its conflicting implications for U.S. foreign policy.

The Hamilton College Climate Change and Environment Issues Youth Poll, conducted in November by Assistant Professor of Economics Julio Videras and his class, was cited in a Christian Science Monitor article (7/5/07). The article, "Could this be the global-warming generation?," concerns the "Live Earth" concerts held around the world on July 7.