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Associate Professor of Music Lydia Hamessley presented a paper titled “From Beijing to Appalachia: Abigail Washburn’s Song of the Traveling Daughter” at the 9th biennial Feminist Theory and Music conference, held at McGill University in Montreal on June 6-10. Washburn is an old-time banjo player who blends Appalachian style music with Mandarin lyrics (which she writes) and eastern musical elements. This paper explores how this fusion of styles works, why she is interested in creating this musical synthesis, and finally how her music (in particular the banjo) is emblematic of her larger struggle to reconcile her American identity with her desire to find a place within Chinese culture.

Summer is always a busy time for physical plant employees and this summer is no exception. From major renovation projects to minor changes, many campus facilities will be modified or updated by employees and outside contractors.

Anyone who has taken organic chemistry can attest to the fact that synthesis problems are perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of the course. Indeed, much of organic chemistry involves deciding which reactions to carry out on a starting material in order to yield a specific product. Kurtis Magee '08 (Corvallis, Ore.) is spending his summer solving a complicated, real world synthesis problem under the advisement of Ian Rosenstein, associate professor of chemistry. His goal is to carry out a radical reaction to form a vinyl cyclopentane and incorporate it into a bicyclic ring system. The starting material and desired product are shown below.

More than 150 nationally elected college professors and administrators are gathering on Hamilton's campus for the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) 29th annual business meeting. The event, which began on June 20 and ends on June 24, brings together representatives in the sciences and social sciences who work to foster research participation as a central part of effective undergraduate education. There are a record-breaking number of attendees at this year's meeting.

Ronald Pressman, a 1980 graduate of Hamilton, has been appointed president and CEO of GE Real Estate, a leading global resource for commercial real estate capital. According to a press release from the company, "A 27-year GE veteran, Pressman was most recently president and CEO of GE Asset Management, a global investment business with approximately $197 billion in assets under management. Pressman held a variety of key financial roles early in his GE career and over the past 15 years, he has been CEO of a number of global GE businesses, including GE's Central and Eastern European operations, Power Systems (Europe), Real Estate, Employers Reinsurance, and Insurance Solutions. Pressman began his GE career in 1980 after graduating from Hamilton College." A biology major at Hamiton, Pressman served on the College's Board of Trustees from 1995 to 1999.

“It’s actually facilitation,” Jenney Stringer '08 (Manlius, N.Y.) said of her summer fellowship work. “I’m facilitating a garden.” Rising senior Stringer has been awarded the Community Service Fellowship, one of the two Levitt Summer Civic Engagement Fellowships. She will be working with Judith Owens-Manley, associate director for community research, on a project to create and facilitate a community garden in Utica.

One of the major challenges facing modern physicists is trying to reconcile the seemingly incompatible theories of quantum mechanics, which describes three of the fundamental forces of nature (electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and strong nuclear forces), with general relativity, the theory of the fourth fundamental force (gravity).

David Brown '10, Thomas Irvin '09 and Silas D. Childs Professor of Chemistry Robin Kinnel recently visited 9-Mile swamp, near Waterville, N.Y., to collect Aster umbellatus for their research. They also spotted three butterflies--Harris' checkerspots--that lay their eggs on these plants. This was good news as Professor of Biology and butterfly expert Ernest Williams had thought they had disappeared from that area. The three caught and released the butterflies after confirming their identity.

"It's amazing," says Nate Schreiber '08 (Sudbury, Mass.) as he's sitting across from me, "people have been working with robots for 30-plus years, and still the most advanced robots can't even walk up stairs." Annie Dickson '09 (Ottawa, Canada) agrees, and as the two bounce ideas and questions off each other, it becomes obvious why they make such a good team, "an excellent working team," as their research advisor, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Jonathan Vaughan, says. "Wait a minute," I say. "What does robotics have to do with psychology?"

“My job is to take students out into places that are beyond their normal bounds. If I'm going to do this, I should be doing it myself," explains Hamilton Director of Outdoor Leadership Andrew Jillings about his decision to enter the ninth Yukon River Quest.  "The trips I take them on shouldn't be a stretch for me - that would be irresponsible. So I chose to go to the Yukon to feel the same 'stretch' that my students do, only for me, the stretch is necessarily longer,” The race is the longest annual canoe and kayak race in the world.