April 2008

2008 STAFF AWARDS: This year's staff awards were presented at the Staff Appreciation luncheon on March 18th. Ralph Pezoldt (ITS) and Jo Grodsky (Chemistry) received the 2007-08 Peter W. Stanley Distinguished Staff Award (DSA), which has been awarded annually since 1999 to staff members who have distinguished themselves through a consistent high level of performance and/or through service or effort beyond what is required in their daily job.

2008 Staff Appreciation Awards
35 Years of Service:
Janis Moormann (Investments & Trusts)

30 Years of Service:
Patricia Coye (Financial Aid)
Connie Wilson (Physics & Astronomy)
David Dwiers (Chemistry)

25 Years of Service:
Gary Gleason (Grounds)

20 Years of Service:
Frank Castrejon (Housekeeping)
Anna Asker (Prospect Research & Management)
Sara Mitchell (Admissions) 

15 Years of Service:

Erica Tyron (KSPC) Suzanne Reed (Theatre & Dance) Karen Wiltrout (Admissions) Marisela Burciaga (Housekeeping) Kathy Sheldon (Mathematics)

Neil Gerard (Smith Campus Center & Student Programs) Jack Gallagher (ITS) Kathy Chalfant (Housekeeping) Rosaura Morales (Housekeeping) Barbara Clonts (English)

10 Years of Service:

Daren Mooko (Asian American Resource Center) Brett Watts (ITS) Catherine Gallant (Registrar) Lyn Sarf (Major Gifts) Alene Stolz (Student Accounts) Mitra Nag (Prospect Research & Management)

Rajeshwar Verma (Chemistry)Denis Recendez (ITS) Nancy Treser-Osgood (Alumni Relations) Lauri Bell (Chemistry) Susan Dollar (Advancement Planning) Donald Hinchey (Mail Services) Pedro Loureiro (PBI) Rita Stachniak (Study Abroad)

5 Years of Service:

Yuan Wang (ITS) Jerusha Ogden (Advancement) Andrew Crawford (ITS) Andrew O’Boyle (Office of the Controller) Miranda Paradez (Student Loans) Jennifer Rachford (Institutional Research)

Ruth Hutchison (Advancement Services) Jose Vega (Coop Fountain) Irma Flores (General Accounting Services) Glenn Gillespie (Student Mail Services) Dana Wood (Real Property) Christopher Ponce (Institutional Advancement) Lawrence Youhanna (Payroll)

Pomona People in action:
William Banks (Psychology) gave a colloquium on the neuroscience and psychology of volition, at the University of California, Berkeley, on March 31. His co-authors were Eve Isham (Claremont Graduate University), Matthew Macellaio ’09, and Kenton Hokanson ’08.

Allan Barr (Asian Languages & Literatures) attended a Sino-English Literary Translation Workshop in Moganshan, China, March 16-23.

On February 29, Graydon Beeks (Music) conducted the Pomona College Chamber Winds in a program of "Wind Divertimenti" by Franz Joseph Haydn as part of the Friday Noon Concert series. The next day, he appeared as one of the tenor soloists in a Rio Hondo Symphony performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Serenade to Music.”

Beeks also gave a paper, “Haydn, Handel, and the Concerts of Ancient Music,” on March 2 at a conference hosted by Scripps College and co-sponsored by the Society for Eighteenth-Century Music and the Haydn Society of North America.

Noell Birondo (Philosophy) presented his paper “Aristotle and the ‘Virtues of Will Power’” at the American Philosophical Association’s Pacific Division Meeting in Pasadena on March 20.

Ralph Bolton (Anthropology) chaired the session “Microfinance and Cooperative Management in Latin America” and served as a panelist in the session “Let’s Talk about Sex” at the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting, held in Memphis in March. At the same meeting, he and co-author Blake Phillips ’08 presented a paper, “Happy Cows and Milk Production: The Economic Impact of a Micro-Loan Program in Chijnaya, Peru.”

Also, Bolton’s applied anthropological work in Peru was featured on the front page of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper on March 2.

André Cavalcanti (Biology) and Hannah M. W. Salim ’09 are the authors of “Factors Influencing Codon Usage Bias in Genomes,” in Journal of the Brazilian Chemical Society 19, pp. 257-61.

Susana Chávez-Silverman (Romance Languages & Literatures) gave a performed reading, “From Killer Crónicas to la Cuenca de L.A. and In Between,” at the University of Arizona, Tucson, on March 13. She was also interviewed in the March 26 issue of BorderLore: Culture & Folklife in the US-Mexico Borderlands.

Alfred Cramer (Music) presented a paper, “Back to the Grave: Intonational Phonology and Referential Accents in Telemann’s French Overtures,” at the West Coast Conference of Music Theory and Analysis in Seattle on March 8.

Steve Erickson (Philosophy) was the discussion leader at a Liberty Fund colloquium, “Redemption and Human Freedom in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion,” in Houston in March. Erickson’s essays “The Space of Love and Garbage” and “On (and Beyond) Love Gone Wrong” have also been reissued in a new volume, The Space of Love and Garbage and Other Essays from the Harvard Review of Philosophy, ed. S. Phineas Upham (Chicago: Open Court, 2008).

Kathleen Fitzpatrick (English and Media Studies) received an NEH Digital Startup Grant for MediaCommons, which is founding in conjunction with the Institute for the Future of the Book.

She also gave several talks during March, including a talk on the future of peer review at a colloquium on the future of the book at Cal State, Fresno on March 21, and a talk on the social life of publishing at Tulane University on March 27. She also participated in a panel on “Scholarly Writing in the Digital Age” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Philadelphia on March 8.

Thomas Flaherty’s (Music) “Three Pieces for Clarinet” was played by Jim Sullivan at the Pasadena Conservatory on March 7, and his “The Peace of Wild Things” had its East Coast premiere at Brandeis University on March 22.

Lorn Foster (Politics) has been awarded a John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation Faculty Fellowship for his project titled “Black Political Development in LA, 1910-1950: The Role of the Black Church.”

Stephan Ramon Garcia (Mathematics) gave a talk, “New Classes of Complex Symmetric Operators,” at the 24th Southeastern Analysis Meeting, March 8. He is also co-author, with J. Danciger and M. Putinar, of “Variational Principles for Symmetric Bilinear Forms,” in Mathematische Nachrichten 281(6).

Roberto Garza-López (Chemistry), Philippe Bouchard ’08, et al. have an article, “Kinetics of Docking in Post-Nucleation Stages of Self-Assembly,” in the Journal of Chemical Physics 128, 114701. Their article is also included in the Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology 17(13).

Dru Gladney (Pacific Basin Institute and Anthropology) served as plenary session speaker for a Social Science Research Council conference, “Inter-Asian Connections,” held in Dubai in February. His talk was entitled “Crossing Asia, Transgressing Boundaries: Reflections on Studying Trans-Border Nomadic and Diasporic Peoples in Inner Asia.”

Laura Hoopes (Biology) is the author of “Women on Ice: Detecting Global Warming in the Arctic,” in AWIS Magazine 37 (spring 2008), pp. 16-19. Nina Karnovsky (Biology) is one of the women featured in the article.

Arthur Horowitz (Theatre & Dance) wrote the entry “Drama” for the Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Karl Johnson (Biology and Neuroscience) received a $10,000 SOMAS grant from the National Science Foundation and Davidson College. The SOMAS grant is designed to support the research of new neuroscience faculty and their students at predominantly undergraduate institutions

Nina Karnovsky (Biology) presented a paper, “Contrasting Conditions in the Greenland Sea: Implications for Energy Transfer to Higher Trophic Levels,” at the 2008 Ocean Sciences meeting of the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography. Co-authors included Allison Bailey ’07, Laurel McFadden ’06 and Zachary Brown ’07.

Zayn Kassam (Religious Studies) gave a talk, “My Journey after 9/11,” on February 16 as part of Pomona’s Family Weekend. She also helped organize and present a workshop for faculty and advanced graduate students, “Teaching Gender and Islam,” held at Whittier College on March 1; and, with

Felix Kronenberg (Foreign Language Resource Center and German & Russian) participated in a panel, “Transforming Learning Centers to Meet Current and Coming Technologies,” and gave two presentations, “Redefining the Role of the Language Center” and “Digital Narratives Using Web 2.0 Tools,” at the Digital Stream conference at California State University, Monterey Bay, March 17-18. He also participated in a panel, “Language Lab Unleashed: Virtual Professional Development and Collaboration,” and gave two presentations, “Digital Narratives 2.0” and “Language Technology Boot Camp,” at the 2008 CALICO (Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium)/IALLT (International Association for Language Learning Technology) conference at the University of San Francisco, March 21-22.

Peter Kung (Philosophy) presented “On Having No Reason: Dogmatism and Bayesian Confirmation” at the American Philosophical Association’s Pacific Division Meeting in Pasadena, March 21.

Kyoko Kurita (Asian Languages & Literatures) presented “90-Minute Study Abroad: A Decade of Video Conferencing at Pomona College” at a National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) conference at Dickinson College on March 29.

The American College Theatre Festival invited the Theatre & Dance Department to show a scene from Thomas Leabhart’s production of Molière’s The Miser at California State University, Los Angeles, on February 12. Pomona first-year students John Maidman and Scott Duffy performed with Pitzer senior Tyrus Emory.

Fernando Lozano (Economics) lectured to alumni on “Soccernomics: How the Dismal Science Explains the Beautiful Game” in San Diego on March 8.

Pardis Mahdavi (Anthropology) was a discussant on a panel about “Muslim Youth” at Chapman University on March 12 and gave a talk, “Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll in the Islamic Republic,” on March 25 as part of a California State University, Northridge, series on Sex and Gender. She also chaired a panel on “Women and Risk” and presented a paper, “Risk and Resilience amongst Urban Iranian Women,” at the Society for Applied Anthropology/Society for Medical Anthropology annual meetings in Memphis on March 28.

Susan McWilliams (Politics) gave a lecture for alumni, “Mixing Oil and (Bottled) Water: A Preliminary Theory of the 2008 Election,” in Minneapolis on March 1.

Robert Mezey’s (English, Emeritus) poem “Fishing Around” appeared in the January 21 issue of The New Yorker, p. 78. Mezey also read his poems in the Founders Room of Honnold Library on March 26.

Gilda Ochoa (Sociology and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies) was a featured speaker at the 2008 California Association of Bilingual Educators Conference, where she presented her book Learning from Latino Teachers (Jossey Bass, 2007).

Mary Paster (Linguistics & Cognitive Science) gave a paper, “Optional Multiple Plural Marking in Maay,” at the UCLA American Indian Seminar on March 11.

With former student Chris Jazwa (HMC ’05), Jennifer Perry (Anthropology) presented a paper, “Spatial Variability in Chert Sources on the Northern California Channel Islands: Implications for Tool Manufacture and Exchange,” at the Seventh California Islands Symposium, held in Ventura in February. She also presented a paper, “Interior Sites on Santa Cruz Island: Terrestrial Resources and Residential Mobility in the Middle Holocene,” at the 2008 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 28.

Perry has also published an article, “Chumash Ritual and Sacred Geography on Santa Cruz Island, California,” in the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 27(2), pp. 103-24.

Dara Rossman Regaignon (College Writing and English) visited the University of California, San Diego, as part of the peer-review team for the university’s WASC re-accreditation.

Since the publication of her book Héroïnes françaises 1940-1945, Monique Saigal (Romance Languages & Literatures) has been interviewed on the radio and has had her book cited in several newspapers, including France-soir.

Tomás Summers Sandoval (History and Chicano/a-Latino/a Studies) delivered remarks about Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, and the struggle for justice, at the San Bernardino Community Multicultural Festival on March 29.

John Seery’s (Politics) article “Acclaim for Antigone’s Claim Reclaimed (or, Steiner contra Butler)” was republished in the anthology Judith Butler’s Precarious Politics: Critical Encounters, ed. Terrell Carver and Samuel A. Chambers (New York: Routledge, 2008).

Hung Cam Thai (Sociology and Asian American Studies) has been awarded a John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation Faculty Fellowship for his project titled “The Effects of Homeland Ties on Political Participation in Little Saigon, CA.”

Valorie Thomas (English and Black Studies), participated in a panel discussion celebrating the publication of Theorizing Scriptures: New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon, ed. Vincent Wimbush (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008), at the Institute for Signifying Scriptures in Claremont on March 6.

Nancy Treser-Osgood (Alumni Relations) was quoted in an article in the March 2008 issue of CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Currents magazine. The article "Banding Together" explores the relationship between fundraising campaigns and alumni relations programs.

On February 1, Samuel Yamashita (History) presented “Rethinking the Intellectual Landscape of Early Modern Japan” at a conference on “The Early Modern in East Asia,” sponsored by the Korean Studies Institute and Department of History at the University of Southern California and the East Asian seminar of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute. On February 20, he conducted an all-day workshop on the “Japanese Experience of World War II” at the Japan Society of New York as part of a weeklong series on the Pacific war.


March 2008

ZOOT SUIT REHEARSALS: Part of the 35-member Zoot Suit cast rehearses their dance numbers in preparation for the play's April 3rd premiere. Directed by original Zoot Suit cast member and Pomona theatre professor Alma Martinez, the production celebrates the 30th anniversary of the play and is part of The Claremont Colleges annual César Chávez Month celebration.

Pomona People in action:
Mark Allen (Art & Art History) gave a talk about his Machine Project at an alumni event in Santa Fe on February 23.

Graydon Beeks (Music) gave a paper, “The Covent Garden Theatre Orchestra 1757-1767: A Decade of Transition,” at a conference on the English dancer and theatre impresario John Rich in London on January 26-27.

Betty Bernhard (Theatre) attended the world premiere of Territories and six other plays as part of the Middle Eastern play festival at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco during February, 2008.

Ralph Bolton (Anthropology) presented a paper, “Childhood in the Andes: Divergent Ethnographic Perspectives,” at a joint meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research and the Society for Scientific Anthropology in New Orleans in February.
He also chaired a session, “Children, Childrearing and Language: Diverse Settings.”

Kim Bruce (Computer Science) hosted the 2008 Southern California Programming Languages and Systems Workshop at Pomona on February 2.

Laurie Cameron (Theatre & Dance) and her company performed an original work, “We Are John Doe,” at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on February 23. Cast members included Daniel Senning ’00, Ashanti Smalls ’01, and Brendan Behan CMC ’03.

José Cartagena-Calderón (Romance Languages & Literatures) is author of the book Masculinidades en obras: El drama de la hombría en la España imperial (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 2008).

André Cavalcanti and Nina Karnovsky (Biology), along with co-authors Zachary Brown ’07, J. Welcker, and A. Harding, presented the paper “A Multi-Colony Comparison of the Diving Behavior of Little Auks (Alle alle)” at the 35th annual meeting of the Pacific Seabird Group, February 29.

Susana Chávez-Silverman (Romance Languages & Literatures) was invited to give several presentations last month: a reading and discussion about her book Killer Crónicas: Bilingual Memories at Mills College on February 20; “Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles and Beyond: A Performed Reading” at Mills College on February 21; and “Radical Bilingualism: Performed Reading/Discussion from Killer Crónicas and Recent Work” at Occidental College on February 26.

Ludwig Chincarini (Economics) is the author, with Daehwan Kim, of “Another Look at the Information Ratio,” in the Journal of Asset Management (December 2007). He also lectured on the topic of hedge funds at Georgetown University on February 22 and
23.

Donna M. Di Grazia (Music) performed as a member of a 15-voice professional ensemble, The Millennium Consort Singers (Martin Neary, conductor), in recent concerts offered at First United Methodist Church in Pasadena and St. Paul’s Cathedral in San Diego. The program, which featured choral music by Jonathan Harvey, Henry Purcell, and Ralph Vaughan-Williams, was repeated in Little Bridges earlier this semester.

Richard Elderkin (Mathematics) gave an invited talk, "Oscillations in Predator-Prey Models: Chaotic Teacups, Tori, and Delayed Dynamics with Hangovers," to the University of Southern California Dynamical Systems Seminar on March 3.

Steve Erickson (Philosophy) was the director and discussion leader of a Liberty Fund colloquium, “Responsibility in the Exemplary Life: Socrates and Jesus,” in Indianapolis in February. He served as discussion leader for another Liberty Fund conference, “Persons, Property, and the State: The Views of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant,” in Houston, also in February.

Thomas Flaherty (Music) played his solo cello composition “Remembrance of Things Present” as part of a Los Angeles Violoncello Society recital of works by composers who have lived and worked in California. The recital was held at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica.

Erica Flapan (Mathematics) co-organized and lectured in an American Mathematical Society short course, “Applications of Knot Theory,” at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego, January 4-5.

Jennifer Friedlander’s (Art & Art History) book Feminine Look: Sexuation, Spectatorship, Subversion has appeared with the State University of New York Press.

Fred Grieman (Chemistry) presented the poster “Photo-Induced Nucleation Experiments: Hydrogen Bonding Networks as an Initial Seed?” with Aaron Noell, Mitchio Okumura, and Stan Sander at the 25th Informal Symposium on Kinetics and Photochemical Processes in the Atmosphere, held at UCLA on February 20. He was joined by chemistry majors Anna Mebust ‘08 and Jill Simard ’08.

Eric Grosfils (Geology) has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar. The award will allow him to travel to the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in spring 2009 to study the mechanics of magma reservoir inflation/failure and the formation of large caldera systems. It will also allow him to extend his service as a Distinguished Lecturer for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers into an international setting.

Laura L. Mays Hoopes (Biology) is the author of “Help Women Stay in Science,” in The Scientist 22 (January 2008), p. 69, and of “Nucleic Acid Blotting: Southern and Northern,” in Current Protocols: Essential Laboratory Techniques (Toronto: Wiley &
Sons, 2008), 8.2.1-8.2.24. She is also one of the authors of “Gene Expression during Replicative Aging in Yeast,” in Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences 63A:1, pp. 21-34; her co-authors are Gloria Yiu ’08, Alejandra McCord ’07, Laty Cahoon, Alison Wise ’05, Rishi Jindal ’04, Jennifer Hardee ’05, Allen Kuo ’03, Michelle Yuen Shimogawa ’03, Michelle Wu, John Kloke (Mathematics), and Johanna Hardin (Mathematics).

Arthur Horowitz (Theatre & Dance), along with Sarah Burgess ’09, participated in a Student Perspectives on Dramaturgy panel at the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Conference held at California State University, Los Angeles, on
February 12. The presentation was entitled “An Arcadian Director/Dramaturg, Teacher/Student Collaboration.”

He also served as dramaturg on Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, currently running at Unknown Theater in Los Angeles.

Kyoko Kurita (Asian Languages & Literatures) has an article, “Koda Rohan’s Literary Debut (1889) and the Temporal Topology of Meiji Japan,” in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 67:2, pp. 375-419. “Hidden Flowers,” her translation (with James
Lipson) of Matsumoto Seicho’s “Inka no kazari,” appears in Matsumoto Seicho Memorial Museum Report 8 (January 2008).

Thomas Leabhart (Theatre & Dance) taught again this year for the USC Annenberg NEA Arts Journalism Institute, February 5-14.

Genevieve Lee’s (Music) solo piano CD, “Elements,” was released by Albany Records on February 1. In addition to works by Philippe Bodin, the CD features three pieces by Thomas Flaherty (Music): “Gleeful Variants” (written for Professor Lee), “Riverwing,” and “Nightstars.”

Pardis Mahdavi (Anthropology) represented the International Women’s Health coalition and The Sexual and Bodily Rights Group at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, giving talks every day from February 25 to 29.

Alma Martinez (Theatre & Dance) was invited to review playwright applications for the Winter 2008 Bellagio Arts Residency Program for the Rockefeller Foundation and the Institute of International Education.

Rebecca McGrew (Museum of Art) is curator of the 35th exhibition in the Project Series, an exhibition featuring artist Evan Holloway. Creator of the Project Series, now in its 10th year, she is also editor of the associated publications.

Susan McWilliams (Politics) gave a talk, “Mixing Oil and (Bottled) Water: A Preliminary Theory of the 2008 Elections,” at an alumni event in Sacramento on February 16.

Denise Miller (Romance Languages and Literatures academic department coordinator) and her family traveled to Indianapolis on February 22 where Suncrests Ms Tattletail (pony of Elizabeth Miller) was inducted into the POA Hall of Fame. Liz and Tattle have moved on to Eventing (Dressage, Stadium Jumping and X-Country). In 2007, the team finished in first place in the Beginner Novice Division for the United States.

Sandeep Mukherjee (Art & Art History) is currently exhibiting his work at Pitzer’s Nichols Gallery (February 2 to March 22) and at the Nature Morte Gallery in New Delhi, India (February 21 to March 15). His work is also featured in a group exhibition, “A New Cosmopolitanism: Preeminence of Place in Contemporary Art,” at the Visual Arts Center of California State University, Fullerton (February 2 to March 7).

Jerusha Ogden '02 (Annual Giving) was promoted from Associate Director of Annual Giving to Major Gifts Officer and will represent the College throughout the central part of the country and California. Jerusha has worked in Pomona's Office of Annual Giving since her graduation.

Mary Paster (Linguistics & Cognitive Science) gave a talk, “Optional Multiple Plural Marking in Maay,” at the 13th International Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 4.

William Peterson (Music) performed works by J. S. Bach on the Beckerath organ in Lyman Hall and works by Ibert, Gigout, Guilmant, Cage and Kohn on the Fisk organ in Bridges Hall for “Presidents’ Day in Claremont: Celebrating Claremont Organists,
Organs, and Composers,” an event sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Guild of Organists in cooperation with Pomona College and local churches.

He is also the author of “Organ Music in the Shadow of the Great War: A Preliminary Investigation,” in La Flûte Harmonique 90 (2007), pp. 28-36, a special issue devoted to the proceedings of the conference L’orgue et sa musique en France entre les deux guerres mondiales, held in Paris and Reims in November 2006.

Sheila Pinkel’s (Art & Art History) work appears in an exhibition, “Culturing Nature: Culturing Technology,” at the University of Minnesota Art Gallery from February 26 to March 27.

Sean Pollack (English) delivered a paper, “Border States: Parody and Sovereignty in ‘The Carl of Carlisle’,” at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Tempe on February 16.

Donna Ruzika (Theatre & Dance) and her husband, Tom Ruzika, co-designed the musical Li’l Abner for Reprise! Broadway’s Best at the Freud Playhouse, UCLA. She also has an article, “Designing for the Great Outdoors,” in the February 2008 issue of Live Design.

Monique Saigal (Romance Languages & Literatures) is the author of Héroïnes françaises 1940-1945: Courage, force et ingéniosité (Editions du Rocher, 2008). She also spoke to alumni in January in the Portland, Oregon, area about “Some Extraordinary Women Who Fought in the French Resistance, 1940-1945.”

Jack Sanders (Music) is serving as a guest faculty member at California Institute of the Arts this semester.


A website based on Sara Sood’s (Computer Science) thesis work, www.buzz.com, is now open to the public.

Wayne E. Steinmetz (Chemistry), Paul Robustelli ‘06, Eric Edens '07, and David Heineman ‘05 have an article, “Structure and Conformational Dynamics of Trichothecene Mycotoxins,” forthcoming in the Journal of Natural Products.

Hung Cam Thai (Sociology and Asian American Studies) has published a new book, For Better or for Worse: Vietnamese  International Marriages in the New Global Economy (Rutgers, NJ, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2008).

Samuel Yamashita (History) organized a panel, “Rethinking ‘Race’ in U.S. Relations with Asia, 1945-80,” for the recent annual meeting of the American Historical Association. At the meeting he also made a presentation on “Teaching Duties” as part of the panel “Equity for Minority Historians in the Academic History Workplace: A Guide to Best Practices.”


February 2008

GREEN AND GOLD: Pomona College received gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Program for the design and construction of our Lincoln and Edmunds Buildings. The adjacent buildings feature a photovoltaic system, which can provide up to 22.4 percent of the building's power; operable windows; waterless urinals; and high efficiency lighting. Construction involved the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) and halon refrigerants as well as the use of recycled materials and rapidly renewable materials like bamboo flooring.

Pomona People in action:

Jack Abecassis (Romance Languages & Literatures) is the author of “On Reading Maupassant’s Le Horla Problematologically,” in Revue Internationale de Philosophie 61(242), pp. 391-414.

Noell Birondo (Philosophy) gave a talk, “Naturalism and Non-Naturalism in Ethics,” at Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania.

André Cavalcanti (Biology) and Karen Ring ’07 are the authors of “Consequences of Stop Codon Reassignment on Protein Evolution in Ciliates with Alternative Genetic Codes” in Molecular Biology and Evolution 25(1), pp. 179-86. They are also authors, with Hannah M. Salim ’09, of “Patterns of Codon Usage in Two Ciliates that Reassign the Genetic Code: Tetrahymena Thermophila and Paramecium Tetraurelia,” in Protist.

José R. Cartagena-Calderón (Romance Languages & Literatures) participated in a panel on the scholarship of Carroll B. Johnson, a premier authority on Don Quixote, at the Modern Language Association conference in Chicago in December.

Ludwig Chincarini (Economics) has published “The Amaranth Debacle: A Failure of Risk Measures or a Failure of Risk Management?” in the Journal of Alternative Investments (Winter 2007).

Vin de Silva’s (Mathematics) research with collaborator Robert Ghrist was highlighted in the January issue of Scientific American Magazine as one of the 50 most important scientific developments of 2007.

Adam Edwards (Physics & Astronomy) has an article, “Study of Excited Charm-Strange Baryons with Evidence for New Baryons Xi_c(3055)^+ and Xi-c(3123)^+,” in Physical Review D 77:1 (1 January 2008).

Steve Erickson (Philosophy) gave a talk, “Philosophy and the Meaning of Life,” for the Alumni Association in the Brentwood home of Tracy Westen ’62 on January 26.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick (English and Media Studies) presented a paper entitled “Obsolescence” as part of the forum “Keywords for a Digital Profession,” held at the Modern Language Association conference in Chicago on December 29. She also presented a paper, “CommentPress: New (Social) Structures for New (Networked) Texts,” here on campus as part of NITLE’s recent conference, “Scholarly Collaboration and Small Colleges in the Digital Age.”

Fitzpatrick’s book, The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television (Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2006), was also named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice, the publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries.

Roberto Garza (Chemistry) will publish the paper "Kinetics of Docking in the Post-Nucleation Stages of Self-Assembly" in the March issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics. He co-authored the paper with Philippe Bouchard '08, and the work was done in collaboration with professor Gregoire Nicolis, head of the Center for Nonlinear Phenomena and Complex Systems at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, and John J. Kozak, a visiting professor at the James Franck Institute of the University of Chicago.

Eric Grosfils (Geology) is the author of “Magma Reservoir Failure on the Terrestrial Planets: Assessing the Importance of Gravitational Loading in Simple Elastic Models,” in Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 166(2), pp. 47-75. He is also the author, with Anjani Polit ’03 and colleagues from Finland and Russia, of “Topographic and Morphologic Characteristics of Reull Vallis, Mars: Implications for the History of the Reull Vallis Fluvial System,” in Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets 112: E11001, doi:10.1029/2006JE002848. Eric and Steve Hochman ’09 presented Steve’s SURP results at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December.

Russell Heskin (Alumni Relations) was quoted in the February issue of CASE Currents on how our alumni office is using class listservs to connect alumni to one another and increase attendance at reunions.

Laura Hoopes (Biology) has an article, “Courageous Decision of Frank Douglas,” in AWIS Magazine 36(3), pp. 20-22, and another article, “H. Craig Heller,” the inaugural Educator Highlight feature, in Cell Biology Education-Life Sciences Education 6(4), pp. 275-76.

Arthur Horowitz (Theatre & Dance) served as guest scholar-in-residence at A Noise Within theatre in Glendale, giving a presentation entitled “J. M. Barrie’s Never Never Land for ‘Might-Have-Beens’” prior to a performance of Barrie’s play Dear Brutus. He also delivered a paper, “Shakespeare’s New Problem Plays for the New Millennium,” to the Shakespeare Club of Pomona Valley.

Malkiat Johal (Chemistry) has published three recent articles: “Tuning the Optical Properties of a Water-Soluble Cationic Poly(p-Phenylenevinylene): Surfactant Complexation with a Conjugated Polyelectrolyte,” coauthored by Jeremy Treger ’09 and Vincent Ma ’08, in Journal of Physical Chemistry B 112(3), pp. 760-63; “A Real-Time QCM-D Approach to Monitoring Mammalian DNA Damage Using DNA Adsorbed to a Polyelectrolyte Surface,” coauthored by Cynthia Selassie (Chemistry) and Bob Rawle ’08, in Biomacromolecules 9(1), pp. 9-12; and “Study of the Non-Covalent Interactions in Langmuir-Blodgett Films: An Interplay between Pi-Pi and Dipole-Dipole Interactions,” with collaborators from Los Alamos National Laboratory, in Thin Solid Films 516(1), pp. 58-66.

Nina Karnovsky (Biology) presented the results from last summer’s field season at the MariClim (Marine Ecosystem consequences of climate-induced changes in water masses off West-Spitsbergen) meeting in Tromso, Norway, on January 17-18. She also co-authored the paper “Can Stable Isotope . . . Measurements of Little Auk (Alle Alle) Adults and Chicks Be Used to Track Changes in High-Arctic Marine Foodwebs?” in Polar Biology (DOI 10.1007/s00300-008-0413-4).

Zayn Kassam (Religious Studies) gave a lecture titled “The Veil: Piety or Punishment?" at the Skirball Cultural Center on January 17.

Felix Kronenberg (Foreign Language Resource Center) has been elected president of the SouthWest Association for Language Learning and Technology.

Jade Star Lackey (Geology) presented a co-authored paper, “Using Oxygen Isotopes of Zircon to Evaluate Magmatic Evolution and Crustal Contamination in the Halifax Pluton, Nova Scotia,” at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco in December.

Thomas Leabhart (Theatre & Dance) taught a workshop in Paris in January for Pas de Dieux, a theatre company directed by Won Kim ’95.

Ann Lebedeff (Physical Education) spoke on a panel at Brentwood School in Los Angeles on October 8 on the "Realities of College Recruiting." She was also a keynote speaker at the Southern California Tennis Association's "Community Development Workshop: Advocacy in Your Command" at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on October 21, and made a presentation on "Mentoring: Creating Positive Role Models in Collegiate Tennis" on December 15 at the National Intercollegiate Tennis Coaches' Convention in Naples, Fla.

Lebedeff also announced that the Pomona-Pitzer Women's Tennis program was represented at the October National Small College Championships in Mobile, Ala. Siobhan Finicane '10 won the regional singles and doubles with partner Olivia Muesse '10. They represented the western region of the U.S., and from a draw of eight regional winners, the pair won the National Doubles Title and Siobhan finished as the national runner-up in singles.

Pardis Mahdavi (Anthropology) gave a talk, “’But What If Someone Sees Me?’ Social and Viral Risks for Urban Iranian Women,” at the American Anthropological Association in Washington, DC, in December. The following month she spoke on “Risk and the Aftershocks of Iran’s Sexual Revolution” at the annual Iranian American Medical Association meeting in Irvine and on “Health Promotion, Disease Prevention in Islamic Countries” at New York University’s School of Public Health.

Alma Martinez (Theatre and Dance) directed an eight-minute public service announcement for the American Diabetes Association. the film, Small Steps, was funded by the Center for Disease Control and produced by the National Latina Health Network. Alma also completed a run of Sweet 15: Quinceñera at San Diego Repertory. The San Diego Union Tribune praised her performance on November 30: "Martinez owns the show. Her comic timing, blazing energy and feminine warmth blithely steal every scene she's in."

Sandeep Mukherjee's (Art) solo exhibition, "Spell," is taking place now through March 22 at Pitzer's Nichols Gallery in the Broad Center. He's also taking part in the group exhibition "A New Cosmopolitanism: Preeminence of Place in Contemporary Art" at Cal State Fullerton's Visual Arts Center through March 7.

Karen Parfitt (Biology) presented a poster, “Synaptic Transmission Is Altered in Palmitoyl Protein Thioesterase-1 (PPT-1)-Mutant Drosophila Melanogaster,” at the Nature Neuroscience symposium Genes, Circuits, and Behavior, held at the Salk Institute in January. She coauthored the poster with students Sarah Jenkins ’08, Joyce Kim ’09, Laura Johnson ’08, and Kelly Sinnott SCR ’08.

Mary Paster (Linguistics and Cognitive Science) will speak on "Optional Multiple Plural Marking in Maay" at the 13th International Morphology Meeting in Vienna on February 4.

Dara Regaignon (English and College Writing) presented “But What Difference Can It Make? A Small-Scale Study of Course-Based Peer Tutoring” as part of a Council of Writing Program Administrators panel, “Current Research Agendas in Composition and Writing Program Administration,” at the Modern Language Association Conference in Chicago in December. In addition, with Jill Gladstein of Swarthmore and Lisa Lebduska of Wheaton College, she co-organized the first meeting of Small Liberal Arts College Writing Program Administrators, held at Swarthmore in January.

Larissa Rudova (German & Russian) is coeditor, with Marina Balina, of Russian Children’s Literature and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008). The volume includes her essays “From Character-Building to Criminal Pursuits: Russian Children’s Literature in Transition” (pp. 19-40) and “Invitation to a Subversion: The Playful Literature of Grigorii Oster” (pp. 325-41). Her review of Eternity’s Hostage: Selected Papers from the Stanford International Conference on Boris Pasternak, ed. Lazar Fleishman, appears in Slavic Review 66:4 (Winter 2007), pp. 783-84.

Erin Runions (Religious Studies) has an essay, “Signifying Proverbs: Menace II Society,” in Theorizing Scriptures: New Critical Orientations to a Cultural Phenomenon, ed. Vincent Wimbush (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2008).

Monique Saigal-Escuado (Romance Languages and Literature) spoke to an alumni group in Portland, Ore., on January 13 on her research on women in the French Resistance.

Shahriar Shahriari (Mathematics) was an invited speaker at an Applied Combinatorics conference held at the University of South Carolina in October; his talk was titled “Chain Partitions of Normalized Matching Posets.” He gave another talk, “Nested Chain Partitions of Normalized-Matching Posets,” at the Combinatorics Seminar at the California Institute of Technology in November. And at the annual national Joint Mathematics Meetings held in January in San Diego, he taught a mini-course, “Beyond Formulas and Algorithms: Teaching a Conceptual/Thematic Single Variable Calculus Course,” and gave two more talks: “Abu’l Wafa and the Rusty Compass” and “Thematic Calculus: Approximations and Primes.”

Shahriari was also appointed to the editorial board of the Mathematical Association of America’s new Textbook series, and his book, Approximately Calculus (Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society, 2006), has been named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2007.

Slavi Slavov (Economics) presented a paper entitled “Do Common Currencies Facilitate the Net Flow of Capital among Countries?” at the Stanford Center for International Development on January 22.

Nancy Treser-Osgood (Alumni Relations) was quoted in an article in the January 25 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education about alumni credit card programs. She also spoke at the combined CASE District VII and VIII conference in Las Vegas in December. Nancy is currently serving a three-year-term on the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support for Education) International Commission on Alumni Relations.