All News

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Michelle LeMasurier presented a paper, "Nonstandard Topics for Student Presentations in Differential Equations," at the DCDIS third International Conference on Differential Equations and Dynamical Systems, in Guelph, Canada, July 29-31. The pedagogical paper explained and gave topics and sources for student talks given in differential equations courses at Hamilton. The students give short presentations on an application of differential equations to another area of science, such as economics, physics, biology, chemistry or ecology. The paper will be published in the conference proceedings.

Sharfi Farhana of West Haven, Conn., and Tim Currier of Danvers, Mass., both '09, are participating in five weeks of summer research in a neuroscience lab with Associate Professor of Biology Herman Lehman as part of the STEP/Dreyfus program for incoming freshmen interested in the sciences. "I was attracted to the STEP program mainly because I had prior research experience and really loved it. I figured this would be a great way to not only do more research, but also to meet other students, professors, and familiarize myself with the campus, all before orientation," said Currier.

Three Hamilton students are helping Associate Professor of Biology William Pfitsch and Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Biology Ernest Williams continue their extensive research on the effect of tree removal on wild Lupine butterfly populations in the Rome sand plain this summer as summer science students. Veteran researchers Heather Michael '07 (Red Hook, N.Y.), Megan Malone '06 (Guilford, Conn.) and Max Falkoff '08 (Stamford, Conn.) are working together to study the lupine and butterfly population in the nearby Rome Sand plain. Their project is titled "Butterfly Oviposition and Habitat Management."

News of the March discovery of an Antarctic ecosystem by Professor of Geosciences Eugene Domack, and his recently published study on this finding, was reported in The Washington Post (8/1/05). The article, titled “Beneath the Ice Shelf’s Remains, Life Blossoms,” highlights the serendipitous discovery of bacteria underneath the collapsed Larsen B ice shelf, and the many scientific mysteries and possibilities that have resulted since. Domack is quoted as saying that the finding means “the chance of life happening in other places that are even more restricted is increased.”  Regarding the significance of the location of the Antarctic ecosystem mentioned in the article, Domack said this new discovery “could take us a step further to understanding life where there’s no photosynthesis.”

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, the Margaret Bundy Scott Professor of Comparative Literature, published an article in Heliios: A Journal Devoted to Critical and Methodological Studies of Classical Culture, Literature, and Society Vol. 32 Spring 2005:29-54. It is "Tragedy and Terrorism" and takes up the question of how reading Greek tragedy might help or have helped in the analysis of terrorist attacks.

The Nature Handbook, by the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Biology Ernest Williams, was featured in an outdoors column in the Albany Times Union (7/28/05). Outdoors columnist Fred LeBrun writes: "My personal frustration with nature study in general is this: as much time as I spend outdoors, as varied as my outdoor interests are and as much as I read about as many aspects as I can, I am so pathetically ignorant about so many corners of the natural world that I don't even know enough to ask a decent question. That's where Ernest Williams, Princeton Ph.D. and the chair of the biology department at Hamilton College, comes in. Implicitly in the 227 descriptive entries, averaging a half-page each, are a host of questions that I could never frame. And of course, their answers."  LeBrun observes, "it's like having your own personal interactive nature library on the porch swing, randomly observing what's out there."     It's like having your own personal interactive nature library on the porch swing randomly observing what's out there

Professor of Government Carol Drogus is the co-author (with Hannah Stewart-Gambino, Lehigh University) of Activist Faith: Grassroots Women in Democratic Brazil and Chile (Penn State University Press). The book examines the impact of religiously inspired activism in Latin America, including the fates of the activists and social movements that rose to prominence there during the 1980s.

Twenty Hamilton students working with Winslow Professor of Chemistry George Shields and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karl Kirschner presented their work at the fourth MERCURY Computational Chemistry conference on July 28. MERCURY (Molecular Education and Research Consortium in Undergraduate Computational Chemistry) group is an organization of investigators, faculty and undergraduate students, at eight liberal arts colleges in the United States. The conference was held at Hamilton from July 27 to July 29.  

Hamilton College’s Class of 2009 is the most academically competitive ever enrolled at the institution as measured by SAT scores and class standings. Average SAT scores are 1346, and 69 percent of the students rank in the top 10 percent of their class. These first-year students also comprise the most culturally diverse class in the college’s history. Eighteen percent of entering students are multicultural students from the U.S. Thirty-six states and 22 countries are represented. The College anticipates enrolling a first-year class of 500 students.

A junior year abroad in France, a growing interest in French culture and politics and a background in history was what prompted Alexandra Field ’06 (New York, N.Y.) to spend her summer doing research for a project titled “Franco-German Relations After the Iraq War.” As a Levitt Fellow, Field is working with Alan Cafruny, professor of government, as she studies the strengths and weaknesses of the Franco-German alliance in order to assess the impact of Franco-German cooperation on U.S.-European relations, and on France’s desire to pose a counterweight to the United States.