October 2025
Malachai Komanoff Bandy, assistant professor of music, served on the faculty at ViolSphere 2, the 26th annual workshop sponsored by the Viola da Gamba Society of Southern Arizona and held October 16–20 at the Biosphere 2 conference center in Oracle, Arizona. Across the workshop, Bandy co-programmed and performed in a faculty recital and taught 11 classes on texted polyphony by Palestrina, Morales, Rupsch, Walther, Lassus and more, in collaboration with faculty from across the U.S., including current and founding members of Parthenia Viol Consort, the Newberry Consort, Sonnambula, Washington Bach Consort, Bach Collegium San Diego, Quicksilver and the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.
Bandy facilitated and provided coaching for a day-long workshop with viola da gamba master pedagogue Mary Springfels for SoCal Viols, the Southern California chapter of the Viola da Gamba Society of America in Irvine, California, on October 25.
Allan Barr, professor emeritus of Chinese, gave a talk on the symbiosis between literary translation and cultural studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies on October 16, at Zhejiang University on October 21, at Shanghai Normal University on October 22 and at Sichuan International Studies University on October 28.
Barr’s translations of contemporary Chinese literature are the subject of a new book by Li Furong 刘芙蓉 titled Hanxuejia Bai Yaren Zhongguo dangdai wenxue yingyi yanjiu 汉学家白亚仁中国当代文学英译研究, published by Wuhan University Press.
Graydon Beeks, emeritus professor of music, joined his Music Department colleagues violinist Alfred Cramer, associate professor of music; viola da gambist Malachai Komanoff Bandy, assistant professor of music; and flutist Sherrill Herring, general manager, music facilities & Bridges Hall of Music, as harpsichordist in a program of music by Henry Purcell, Dietrich Buxtehude and Georg Philipp Telemann presented in Lyman Hall as part of the Friday Noon Concert series.
Gayle Blankenburg, lecturer in music, recorded four new works by composer Richard Cameron-Wolfe at Motor Music in Mechelen, Belgium, on October 12 and 13. In addition, she joined with other musicians from New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine and Japan in presenting chamber music concerts at the Love2Arts Gallery in Antwerp and at a concert sponsored by the Cultural Attaché to the European Union in Brussels.
Mietek Boduszynski, associate professor of politics and international relations, co-authored a new policy report titled “From Protege to Partner: The Way Forward for U.S.-Kosovo Relations” and appeared, alongside his co-author Victor Peskin, former White House Balkans advisor Robin Brooks and former U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo Jeff Hovenier in a virtual launch event for the report organized by the New Lines Institute Western Balkans Center. The report has been widely read in U.S. policy circles and in the Kosovo government. Boduszynski and his student research assistant Holden Tsai ’27 also published a commentary in Pacific Council Magazine titled “Foreign Policy Values in a New Age of Strategic Competition.” Boduszynski also published an op-ed in the USC Center on Public Diplomacy Blog titled “When the Message Undermines the Messenger.”
Boduszynski and Monica Chellam ’04 received a $180,000 grant from The States Forum to implement a study tour in spring 2026 for a select group of opinion makers. The study tour will focus on how Poles built a broad coalition to successfully challenge populist authoritarianism. Boduszynski also conducted fieldwork research in Georgia, North Macedonia and Kosovo, and separately with his SURP summer research assistant Talin Schlachet ’28 in the Philippines and Thailand. Boduszynski and Schlachet met with academics, analysts and activists to explore how great power competition with China is shaping support for human rights in these countries.
Boduszynski joined the OSCE international observer mission to the 2025 Moldovan parliamentary elections as part of the U.S. delegation.
Boduszynski spoke at a USC Center for International Studies event titled “Russia, Ukraine and Central Europe: War, Arms and Politics.”
Shannon Burns, assistant professor of psychological science and neuroscience, co-authored a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled “Neural predictors of hidden, persistent psychological states at work.” This work used machine learning to decode subjective feelings of well-being from neural activation.
Gary Champi, assistant professor of dance, was invited to perform at CO- Show 11 in Los Angeles on October 24 with Waeli Wang, visiting assistant professor of dance at Scripps College. The L.A. Dance Chronicle reviewed the evening, writing, “This pair was absolutely poised…their synchronized breath most magnetic, so parallel and connected. The dancing was stunning….”
Alfred Cramer, associate professor of music, presented a paper titled “Woody’s ‘Land,’ Pete’s ‘Land’: Replaced Refrains and Rhetorical Reframings in an Emblematic American Song” to the Pacific Southwest chapter of the American Musicological Society on October 11.
Kevin Dettmar, W. M. Keck Professor of English and director of the Humanities Studio, was awarded the 2025-26 Faculty Alumni Service Award at the New Faculty Dinner on October 11.
Stephan Ramon Garcia, W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and professor of mathematics, published a paper titled “Hunter’s positivity theorem and random vector norms” (with Ángel Chávez and Ludovick Bouthat) in Operator Theory: Advances and Applications.
Dean Gerstein, director of sponsored research, presented a collaborative paper with Kara Luckey (Seattle University), “Measuring the scope, scale & quality of grant support ecosystems,” at the Pacific Regional meeting of the National Organization of Research Development Professionals at San Jose State University on October 21. Gerstein, along with Sara Olson, associate professor of biology, and Andrew Schroeder (Claremont McKenna College), participated in a panel at Scripps College on October 24 on “Defunding Discovery: A Conversation on STEM Research Funding Cuts,” organized by Critical Mass, a five-college student organization.
Melissa Givens, associate professor of music, along with Shannon Hesse, piano, presented the recital You Can Tell the World: Spirituals in Concert on the Grace Church Concert Series at Grace Episcopal Church in the Plains (Virginia) on October 12. The recital featured new and traditional settings of African-American spirituals by Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, Moses Hogan, Shawn Kirchner and others.
Givens coordinated a residency for noted American composer Lori Laitman, who visited Pomona from October 22-25. Laitman spoke to the combined Composition Since 1900 and Music in Dialog classes, met with students over lunch, coached voice students for a recital of her songs October 24 and assisted in the preparation of a concert of her works by the entire voice faculty October 25, joined by some of Pomona’s instrumental colleagues. The residency was in celebration of Laitman’s 70th birthday and included the world premiere of her song “Gift” (2021).
Edray Herber Goins, professor of mathematics and statistics, helped to organize the “Cox Centennial Celebration of 100 Years of Black PhD Mathematicians” held at Howard University. Elbert Cox became the first Black person in the world to earn a doctorate degree in mathematics when he graduated from Cornell University on September 26, 1925. Goins also gave a talk titled “The Mathematical Contributions of Dr. Elbert Frank Cox,” where Goins presented the details of the results from Cox’s doctoral thesis.
Goins was voted in as president-elect of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). The MAA describes itself as “one of the largest global communities of mathematicians, educators, students, and mathematics enthusiasts, united by a collective love for mathematics.” Goins will serve as president-elect starting in July 2026; then as president for two years starting in July 2027; and as past president starting in July 2029. He has been serving as the MAA Southern California/Nevada section representative since 2019. Goins will be the first African American to serve as MAA president since its founding in 1915.
George L. Gorse, Viola Horton Professor of Art History, delivered a lecture titled “Genoa and the Renaissance: the City as Theatre” at Pepperdine University on October 24.
Esther Hernández-Medina, assistant professor of Latin American studies and gender and women’s studies, was one of the presenters at the inaugural panel of the 5th Dominican Sociological Congress at public university UASD in Santo Domingo on October 20. The panel was titled “Democracy, Citizenship, and Critical Thinking: Challenges and Proposals from Sociology and the Social Sciences” and also included former presidential candidate and journalist Virginia Antares and sociology professor César Pérez.
Jingyi Li, assistant professor of computer science, published “Expanding Norms, Negotiating Bodies: How Artists with Disabilities Perceive and Use Creative Tools” at ACM ASSETS ’25. First author Miriam Brody ’26 presented a conference talk and poster about the work.
William Henry McGuire, academic coordinator, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, completed a master of science in organizational leadership with a concentration in organizational development from the University of La Verne. His research and coursework focused on positive and transformational leadership as catalysts for employee well-being, ethical culture and organizational innovation.
Susan McWilliams Barndt, professor of politics, spoke to students in the political science department at Williams College on “Interpretive Research Methods Political Science” on October 10. On October 20, she delivered an Athenaeum lecture at Claremont McKenna College titled “The Campus and the Capital: Higher Education and Federal Power.”
Magally Miranda, Chau Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Chicana/o Latina/o studies, presented a paper at the Urban History Association conference titled “Data Borders at Home: Surveillant Intimacies and Tracking Latina Domestic Labor in Los Angeles.” They were also featured in a roundtable discussion, “Contesting the Territory: Radical Urban Histories of Land and Housing Struggles,” alongside members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union.
Miranda was interviewed by the Argentina-based cooperative technology podcast Codigo Libre about her research on the portable benefits app for domestic workers Alia.
For the following year, Miranda will serve on the organizing committee for the annual meeting of the international Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), taking place in Mexico City in October 2026.
Nikki Moore, visiting assistant professor of geology, presented an abstract at the annual Geological Society of America conference titled “New Method for Analyzing Rb-Sr Isotopes in Whole-rock Glasses Using Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry with Chemical Separation Techniques.” This presentation detailed the analytical procedure that she, Kyle McCarty, Oxtoby Lab technician, and Jade Star Lackey, professor of geology, have developed to analyze rubidium and strontium isotopes on the LA-ICP-MS instrument in the Pomona College David W. and Claire B. Oxtoby Environmental Isotope Lab.
Jorge Moreno, associate professor of physics and astronomy, published a paper titled “Disks no more: the morphology of low-mass simulated galaxies in FIREbox” in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Dan O’Leary, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry, served on the organizing committee and was a session chair for a memorial symposium in honor of Robert H. Grubbs at the American Chemical Society Western Regional Meeting in San Jose, California, on October 25-28. Grubbs P’93, a professor at the California Institute of Technology and recipient of the 2005 Chemistry Nobel Prize, passed away in 2021.
Alexis Reyes, director of sustainability and energy management, presented at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) conference in a session titled “The Complex Road to Purchasing High Quality Carbon Offsets.” She shared Pomona College’s process for evaluating and purchasing high-quality carbon offsets while engaging students and faculty in the effort. She was joined by representatives from Calyx Global, Second Nature and the University at Buffalo.
Benjamin Rosenberg, visiting assistant professor of neuroscience, was nominated to receive the UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research. Rosenberg also co-authored a paper with colleagues from UCLA titled “A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Two Processes of Exposure Therapy: Inhibitory Retrieval and Habituation” in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Monique Saigal Escudero, professor emerita of Romance languages and literatures, gave the presentation “Memories of a Hidden child in France during WWII and Courage Women in the Resistance” at Central Park in Rancho Cucamonga, California, on October 20.
Miguel Tinker Salas, professor emeritus of history and Chicana/o Latina/o studies, was interviewed by CBS News on U.S. strikes against alleged drug boats near South America and ABC News ( “3-minute passport to Venezuela”).
Ania Vu, assistant professor of music, had several of her works premiered and performed across the country: a premiere at the Ear Taxi Festival in Chicago and performances of four different pieces at James-Madison University, Concordia College and Eastman School of Music, where she was also invited to give a colloquium lecture to the entire Eastman freshmen class.
Ken Wolf, professor of classics and John Sutton Miner Professor of History, is the author of “Eulogius and Islam,” the lead article in the centennial edition of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies. The article unpacks the writings of a ninth-century priest living in Muslim Córdoba to appreciate the astounding depth of his knowledge about Islam. It is the culmination of a series of recent projects related to the Andalusi Christian experience, including two book-length translations of the relevant Latin texts, both published by Liverpool University Press (2019 and 2023). The article is the main product if an eight-week stint as the Lester K. Little Resident at the American Academy in Rome in early 2023.
Kevin Wynter, associate professor of media studies, contributed a video interview to the series Office Hours published on Pomona’s YouTube channel.
Feng Xiao, associate professor of Chinese, did an online workshop on how to use Luduan.ai for a language acquisition research team at the University of Pennsylvania on October 23. On October 24, he did another online workshop on how to use Luduan.ai for teachers from the Appoquinimink School District in Delaware. On October 25, Xiao gave an invited online talk titled “AI 2030: Five-Year Vision for AI-Enhanced Language Education” for the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA.