All News

Six Hamilton alumni are involved with the production of Love is in the Air, to be presented by Pig Brooch, Inc. at FringeNYC 2005. They include: Dustin Helmer ‘99, Justin Tyler ’01, Aurelia Fisher ’03, and Jordan Wishner, Sasha Kaye and Pete Harmelin, all ’05. The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) is the largest multi-arts festival in North America. 

Justin Monroe and Reagan Sayles, both '07, are working with Associate Professor of Biology Herman Lehman doing summer research. Monroe, a neuroscience major, and Sayles, a biology major, are working on a project titled "Biogenic amines and pigmentation patterns in paper wasp aggression." Their goal is to find a chemical reason why paper wasps with a certain spot pattern are more aggressive.

Construction of the new Science Center, which will be dedicated on Sept. 30, is in its final days. Planning began in 1996 for the state-of-the-art, $56 million center. Close to 100 Barr and Barr construction workers are putting in overtime in order to meet the deadline for completion of Phase 2 of the new building, thus marking the completion of all Science Center construction.

Assistant Professor of Economics Stephen Wu’s study “Where do faculty receive their Ph.Ds?” was reported in Inside Higher Education (8/5/05). The study, originally published in Academe, the magazine of the American Association of University Professors, compares the doctoral origins of faculty in six subjects (economics, history, English, sociology, chemistry and mathematics) at top research universities and liberal arts colleges. The article reports that Wu found more than two-thirds of economics faculty members at top research universities earned their Ph.D at a graduate program at a top 10 institution, the highest proportion by far of the six disciplines compared. Wu is quoted as saying, “In economics, it’s fairly well known that if you want to be a professor, you pretty much want to get into a top program, or you might as well not really bother.” He guessed that it might be easier to evaluate potential economics professors based on where they got their Ph.D. as opposed to other subjects because those with a natural aptitude for math will succeed. “In other fields, there might be more room for development, for late bloomers,” he said.

William Hoffman ’07 of Baltimore, Md., is working on a summer research project with Associate Professor of Geosciences David Bailey titled “Chemical characterization of chert  source material in the Great Basin of Central Nevada.”  (Chert is a very hard sedimentary rock). Hoffman spent two weeks in the Great Basin collecting samples and is now on campus preparing the samples for geochemical analysis. 

Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven delivered two keynote addresses at conferences during August. At the Institute on Gendered Intersections: Feminist Scholarship in Islamic and Judaic Studies at Dartmouth College in August she gave an address at the introductory plenary session. Ravven also delivered a keynote address at the International Institute of Advanced Systems Research annual meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany, in August.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies Danielle DeMuth joined faculty from nine liberal arts colleges for a weeklong seminar at Middlebury College to develop collaborative projects and teaching resources for courses covering Islam, the Arab World and the Middle East. Organizers contacted DeMuth after reading about her course on Arab and Arab-American feminisms. DeMuth is continuing to work with colleagues from Williams, Middlebury, Hobart and William Smith, and Muhlenberg colleges to develop a teaching resource on framing Iraq war news, including a wiki and a GIS map of war developments. DeMuth's contributions focus on Iraq war bloggers and on the impact of the Iraq war on women.

Sara Bert ’06 (Liberal, Kan.) returned home this summer for a reason other than to relax and enjoy the nice weather. Bert, who was awarded an Emerson Grant this year, is studying the ways in which the different ethnic groups present in Liberal are interacting or not interacting.

The Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth, a condition perhaps associated with human-induced greenhouse effects. According to the cover article published in the August 4 issue of the journal Nature, the spectacular collapse of Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, is unprecedented during the past 10,000 years. Eugene Domack, professor of geosciences at Hamilton College and the author of the paper, has been the lead scientist of a multi-institutional, international effort that combines a variety of disciplines in examining the response of the Antarctic Peninsula to modern warming. Domack says, "Our work contributes to the understanding of these changes -- where they are occurring first and with greatest magnitude and impact upon the environment."

Speaking with this year's participants in the STEP/Dreyfus program about their work, one would never guess that only five weeks ago none of them had had any college-level research experience. In fact, they had no experience with college life at all—these 10 students are members of the Hamilton class of 2009 and will matriculate as Hamilton students in the fall. The STEP/Dreyfus program provides funding for about 10 first-year students to spend five weeks in their pre-freshman summer working directly with Hamilton faculty doing summer research in biochemistry, chemistry, chemical physics, neuroscience and physics. The Hamilton program is one of only a handful of programs across the nation that allow pre-freshmen to engage in science research before formally matriculating in the institution.