August 2023
Nicholas Ball, associate professor of chemistry, gave two invited research talks at the 2023 American Chemical Society (ACS) national fall meeting in San Francisco. One talk–hosted by Organic Syntheses and the Division of Organic Chemistry–featured a symposium highlighting leaders in organic chemistry research at PUIs. The second talk was at another symposium focused on new organometallic methods using earth-abundant metals. Both talks featured the work of Pomona students, Robbins Postdoctoral scholar Ryan Cammarota, and collaborators.
Ball gave a talk titled “Synthetic Strategies toward Fluorosulfurylation of Organic Molecules and Sulfur-Fluoride Exchange (SuFEx)” at Rice University’s Department of Chemistry and the 23rd International Symposium on Fluorine Chemistry (ISFC) and the 9th International Symposium on Fluorous Technologies (ISoFT) in Québec City.
Ball published a paper in Canadian Journal of Chemistry titled “Synthesis of 2-arylpyridines by the Suzuki-Miyaura cross coupling of PyFluor with hetero (aryl) boronic acids and esters.” The paper is a collaboration with the research group of Jennifer Love at the University of Calgary.
Malachai Komanoff Bandy, assistant professor of music, published the chapter “‘Im Himmel und auf Erden’: Geometry, Alchemy, and Rosicrucian Symbol in Buxtehude’s Herr, wenn ich nur dich hab’ (BuxWV 38)” in an edited volume titled Explorations in Music and Esotericism (University of Rochester Press; Eastman Studies in Music), edited by Marjorie Roth and Leonard George. Bandy’s chapter reveals an array of 17th-century Rosicrucian textual and numerical tropes in a setting of Psalm 73 by Dieterich Buxtehude, close examination of which elucidates Buxtehude’s compositional process while challenging modern (assumed) boundaries between 17th-century occult philosophy and Lutheran musical orthodoxy.
From August 6–12, Bandy served on viola da gamba faculty at the Viols West workshop, organized by the Pacifica Chapter of the Viola da Gamba Society of America (VdGSA) and held at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he taught classes handling viola da gamba articulation techniques, music from the court of Rudolf II, and rhetoric in motets by Cristóbal de Morales.
Mietek Boduszyński, associate professor of politics and international relations, was a guest on the Chicago Council of Global Affairs Deep Dish Podcast alongside former ambassador Prudence Bushnell to discuss diplomacy and security on the 25th anniversary of the bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam.
Boduszyński published a peer-reviewed book chapter with former student Calla Li ’22 titled “External Autocratic Influence, The Balkans, and Democratic Decline” in Geopolitical Turmoil in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean, edited by Hall Gardner (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023).
Malte Dold, assistant professor of economics, published the article “Behavioural normative economics: foundations, approaches and trends“ in Fiscal Studies on August 29.
Dold appeared on the podcast ePODstemology to discuss the question “Can we make the world a 'better' place with behavioural economics?” on August 14.
Anne Dwyer, associate professor of German and Russian, presented her work at the “Archaists and Innovators” Symposium at Princeton University from August 24-25. Her paper was titled “Traces, Not Monuments: Mediated Authorship in Shklovsky's Oriental Prose.”
Robert Gaines, Edwin F. and Martha Hahn Professor of Geology, and colleagues from Yale and the University of Chicago published the article “Exceptional lower Cambrian fossils from a long-lost locality in Vermont, USA” in the journal Geology Today.
Stephan Ramon Garcia, W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and Chair of Mathematics and Statistics, gave the Hans Schneider ILAS Lecture at the 34th International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications (IWOTA) at the University of Helsinki, Finland, which took place July 31-August 4. The talk was titled, “What can chicken nuggets tell us about symmetric functions, positive polynomials, random norms, and AF algebras?”
Dean Gerstein, director of sponsored research, with colleagues from Bryn Mawr College, Seattle University, University of Southern Indiana and UMass Dartmouth, received an 18-month, $100,000 conference grant from the Office of the Director/Office of Integrative Activities of the National Science Foundation.
Edray Herber Goins, professor of mathematics and statistics, successfully completed another summer of PRiME (Pomona Research in Mathematics Experience). This eight-week summer residential program, running from June 11 through August 5, hosted 20 undergraduate students, five graduate students and five faculty to conduct research in algebraic geometry and number theory. The entire cohort traveled to Tampa, Florida, at the end of the summer to attend the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) MathFest, where two of the five research groups won honorable mention for best poster presentation. Arsh Chhabra ’25, Xuehuai He ’25 and Melinda Yang ’25 received the accolades for their work with Goins on “Adinkras as Origami.”
Goins was elected as chairman of the board of directors for the Art of Problem Solving Initiative, Inc. (AoPSI), a non-profit organization which seeks to help underserved students find a realistic pathway towards becoming scientists, mathematicians, engineers and programmers. The organization oversees BEAM (Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics), a series of experiences for students in grades 6-12 which includes a sixth-grade summer program in Los Angeles and New York City and a seventh-grade residential summer program on college campuses. Goins will assume responsibilities as board chair on February 1, 2024.
Beth A. Hubbard, assistant director, gift planning, earned the Certified Specialist in Planned Giving (CSPGCM) designation through the American Institute for Philanthropic Studies at California State University Long Beach Research Foundation.
Hubbard was admitted to the MA in Education program at Claremont Graduate University. Hubbard's concentration is educational evaluation and data analysis, along with two semesters through CGU’s School of Education that will result in an Allies of Dreamers graduate-level certificate. The Allies of Dreamers Certificate Program is the first of its kind nationally and provides the historical context, theoretical framework and specific knowledge to offer mentorship and advocacy for Dreamers and other undocumented students.
Nina Karnovsky, Willard George Halstead Zoology Professor of Biology, presented the paper “South Polar Skua Reproductive Success Breeding on the Antarctic Peninsula and the Antarctic Silverfish Component of their Diets” at the XIII SCAR (Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) biology meeting in Christchurch, New Zealand. This paper was co-authored by Mimi Starr ’15 and Wayne Trivelpiece.
Mike Kuehlwein, George E. and Nancy O. Moss Professor of Economics, had an article co-authored with Tahir Andrabi, Stedman-Sumner Professor of Economics, titled “Information and Price Convergence: Government Telegraphs in British India” published in the Indian Economic and Social History Review.
Jade Star Lackey, professor of geology, co-authored “Magmatic surge requires two-stage model for the Laramide orogeny” in Nature Communications with colleagues from CSU Northridge and University of Vermont.
Lackey co-convened the session “Crystal to crustal perspectives on mush systems and volcanic-plutonic connections” at the V.M. Goldschmidt Conference from July 9–14 in Lyon, France.
Tom Le, associate professor of politics, completed the Mansfield Foundation U.S.-Japan Network for the Future program workshop in Montana on August 21.
Le was interviewed by the Washington Post for an article about Japan’s response to an aging and dying population.
Genevieve Lee, Everett S. Olive Professor of Music, continued her work as a faculty member of the Chamber Music Conference at Colgate University through the first week of August where she coached numerous chamber music groups. On August 5, she performed Cécile Chaminade’s piano trio as part of the faculty concert series.
Lee was a guest artist at the Garth Newel Music Center, Virginia, performing on August 26 and August 27. These concerts included the music of Schubert, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Gershwin and Gounod for piano four-hands, two pianos, and eight-hand/two piano arrangements.
Jonathan Lethem, Roy E. Disney ’51 Professor of Creative Writing, published “A Neighborhood, Authored” in the August 21 issue of The New Yorker.
Victoria Sancho Lobis, associate professor of art history and Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel ’23 Director, Benton Museum of Art, was invited to offer a course through the 92nd Street Y in New York on Dutch and Flemish drawings of the early modern period.
Susan McWilliams Barndt, professor of politics, taught workshops on “The Philosophical Origins of the Declaration of Independence” and “The Debate Over the Bill of Rights” during the first week of August at the New York Historical Society as part of the 2023 We The Educators Cohort Program. The program, which is sponsored by Civic Spirit and the Jack Miller Center, brings together middle- and high-school teachers from around the country to discuss and promote civic education in the United States.
McWilliams published “Why Allen Ran,” an article on the work of political philosopher Danielle Allen, in Polity and “The Stories of Betty Ford” in the Ford Forum.
On August 31, McWilliams was elected vice president/president-elect of the American political thought section of the American Political Science Association. McWilliams will serve a two-year term as vice-president, followed by a two-year term as president of the group.
Jorge Moreno, associate professor of physics and astronomy, published an article titled “A jolt to the system: ram pressure on low-mass galaxies in simulations of the Local Group” in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
On August 29, Moreno delivered a colloquium titled “The intriguing lives of galaxies lacking dark matter” at The University of Texas at Austin.
Dan O’Leary, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry, presented a talk titled “3D-Printed Molecular Orbitals and Transition State Structures for a First-Semester Organic Chemistry Course” at the American Chemical Society Fall 2023 Meeting, which took place August 13-17 in San Francisco. Students from his 3D Orbitals in Chemistry Pedagogy independent research course, including Christabel Akowuah ’25, Tymmaa Asaed ’25, Vaughn Brown ’25, Kendrick Cua ’25, Hiwot Endeshaw ’25, Elizabeth Giwa ’25, Jaylyn Gonzalez ’25, Aysha Gsibat ’24, Sokhna Lo ’25, Santiago Serrano ’25 and Haddi Sise ’25, presented three posters on this topic at the meeting.
Lina Patel, lecturer in theatre, workshopped her new play “Belonging,” centering the non-traditional family and illness, at East West Players. She is in her 17th week of striking as a proud WGA and SAG-AFTRA member.
Adam Pearson, associate professor and chair of psychological science, published the article “Public recognition of climate change inequities in the United States” in the journal Climatic Change.
Pearson and Corinne Tsai ’20 co-presented research on how to communicate effectively about climate change inequities to the Sustainable States Network, a network of local and state government officials representing over 2500 municipalities and counties in 14 U.S. states. Additionally, Pearson advised officials from the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia, on public communications for their climate equity and resilience plans.
On August 4, Pearson gave an invited address at the American Psychological Association's Science Summits series in Washington, D.C., on “The Science of Climate Equity and Justice,” part of a special session on climate change.
Pearson was named a plenary keynote speaker for the Society of Experimental Social Psychology’s annual conference in Madison, Wisconsin, in October.
Associate Professor of Theatre Carolyn Ratteray’s one woman show Both And (a play about laughing while black) was picked up for a limited run by the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for 2024. Her show, which received a Los Angeles New Play project and premiered at Boston Court Theatre, will run January 13-28, 2024.
Larissa Rudova, Yale B. and Lucille D. Griffith Professor in Modern Languages and professor of German and Russian, presented her paper “Landscape as/of Memory of Deportation and Violence in Anatoly Pristavkin’s Fiction” at the 26th International Biannual Congress of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL), Ecologies of Childhood, on August 14. She was also a moderator at the artist/author plenary for the award-winning young adult fiction author Eugene Yelchin on August 16. She was a member of the congress’s organizing committee. Pomona College was one of the Congress’s sponsoring institutions, along with Stanford University, Princeton University, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego. Aiste Abeciunaite ’25 and Asya Lyubavina ’26 served as the Congress’s assistants, from August 12-16, thanks to a generous grant from the Dean’s Office.
Anthony Shay, professor of dance, was invited to submit a peer-reviewed article, “Dance in Iran and in the Diaspora: What we can learn from analyzing dance and other Patterned Movements about Iranian Society.” The article appears on the website Iran 1400.
Penny Sinanoglou, associate professor of history, published “Partition as Imperial Inheritance” in The Breakup of India and Palestine: The Causes and Legacies of Partition, edited by Victor Kattan and Amit Ranjan (Manchester University Press).
Gary Smith, Fletcher Jones Professor of Economics, wrote a RealClear Markets opinion piece, “Be Wary of Applying Shiller's CAPE to Individual Stocks” (August 7); a MarketWatch opinion piece, “Startups no longer are $100 bills on the sidewalk—Venture capital is suffering even as the U.S. stock market is surging” (August 7); and a MindMatters opinion piece, “The LK-99 BS Further Undermines the Credibility of Science” (August 10).
Smith was interviewed by Ed Fulbright on NPR affiliate WNCU and by Renee Garfinkel on the New Books Network about his book, Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science. Distrust was also reviewed by Jeanette Ferrara for Rigaku Review: “Smith’s delivery is so delicately and effortlessly encrusted with endless dry wit that you might actually find yourself laughing out loud as you read it—surely to be followed by a deep frown as you contemplate the powerful implications of what he is saying.”
Luis Edward Tenorio, visiting assistant professor of sociology, presented “Life After Status: Gendered Relational and Contextual Shifts in Legal Consciousness and Workplace Claims for Formerly Undocumented Immigrants” at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in Philadelphia on August 19.
Miguel Tinker Salas, emeritus professor of history and Chicana/o Latina/o studies, co-authored an op-ed in Mexico City’s La Jornada newspaper August 18 on technologies of hate deployed against immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Feng Xiao, associate professor of Chinese, and Ceci Wade ’25 published a paper titled “Differences in Code-Switching between Chinese Heritage and Non-Heritage Learners in Computer-Mediated Communication” in Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology.
Xiao published a commentary titled “ChatGPT and Its Challenges for Chinese Learning Assessment” in Chinese Teaching in the World.