November 2025
Lise Abrams, Peter W. Stanley Chair of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, co-authored three poster presentations at the 66th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, held November 20-23 in Denver. These posters, “When an F-bomb hits your funny bone: Humor buffers the taboo Stroop effect,” “A slut-hut is funnier than a slut-tray: Predicting humorous novel taboo compound words” and “The sound of inspiration: The effect of laughter perception on creativity,” were collaborations with colleagues at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Rhodes College and the University of Florida, respectively.
Malachai Komanoff Bandy, assistant professor of music, presented a paper titled “Didactics Beyond Depiction: Ratio, Sensus, and Jesuit Dialectic in Heinrich Biber’s Rosary Sonatas (ca. 1680)” at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society (AMS) on November 8, held in Minneapolis as a joint meeting with the Society for Music Theory. Bandy also organized the panel housing his paper, titled “Sound, Image, and Gesture in Composition and Performance (ca. 1425–1725),” which included colleagues from the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.
Bandy played on a newly commissioned Renaissance-model tenor viol in three performances of the program The Voice of the Viol: Petrucci—the first music printer, the 2025–26 season opener of the early music ensemble Voices of Music in Palo Alto, San Francisco and Berkeley (California) on November 7, 8 and 9. The program featured soprano Danielle Reutter-Harrah in works by Josquin des Prez, Heinrich Isaac, Marchetto Cara and others, printed by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice in the first years of the 16th century on the first moveable-type music printing technology. Bandy played Baroque double bass in Con Gioia Early Music Ensemble’s program “The Feast of St. Cecilia,” directed by Preethi de Silva and presented at Shatto Chapel in Los Angeles on November 22. A preview performance at Pomona College on November 21 was also held on the Friday Noon Concert Series, co-sponsored by Pomona College and Scripps College.
Graydon Beeks, professor emeritus of music, presented the paper “The Use of Cannons Material in Handel's Op.2 Trio Sonatas” on November 22 at the Handel Institute Conference in London. While there, he also attended a meeting of the editorial board of the Hallische-Haendel-Ausgabe.
Paul Cahill, associate professor of Spanish, presented a paper, “Unresolved Feeling(s) in Alfredo Gómez Gil’s Norte, Este, Oeste y Sur (1968),” at the fall meeting of the Southern California Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), held at the College of the Canyons on November 1.
Charlotte Chang, assistant professor of biology and environmental analysis, and Rohan Gowda Thanh Quang ’23 published a novel analysis of over $128 billion in climate tech finance in Environmental Research: Energy, finding that these investments are systematically overlooking the most high-impact solutions, especially nature-based climate solutions.
Alfred Cramer, associate professor of music, published “Intervallic intonation: Applying the Implication-Realization model of musical melody to speech intonation and prosody” in PLOS One. The article is a breakthrough in understanding relationships between speech and music, showing how the Implication-Realization Model, originally proposed as a theory of musical melody, can be used to meaningfully analyze speech intonation in language.
Cramer performed as a baroque violinist with the Con Gioia Early Music Ensemble in Los Angeles on November 22, along with Malachai Bandy, assistant professor of music, and nine other musicians. The concert celebrated the Feast of Saint Cecilia with music by Bach and Handel. Highlights of the program were presented a day earlier at Lyman Hall as a Pomona-Scripps Friday Noon Concert.
As co-chair of the Society for Music Theory’s Work and Family Interest Group, Cramer co-organized a panel on “Music in Children’s Multimedia” at the Joint Annual Conference of SMT and the American Musicological Society in Minneapolis, presented November 8.
David Divita, professor of Romance language & literatures, gave an invited lecture titled “Histoires non-racontées: Ce que j’ai appris de vous” at the Centro de España de la Región de París in Saint-Denis, France.
Virginie A. Duzer, professor and chair of the Romance Languages & Literatures Department, was a participant in one of the Family Weekend Hen Talks organized by Ken Wolf, professor of classics and John Sutton Miner Professor of History, on November 7. She talked about hands in art history, dreams and AI.
On November 21, Duzer participated at a morning session of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) in San Francisco and presented on her future spring 2026 course on Proust and AI. That same day, she was invited by Pomona Bay alumni to talk at the Quantcast offices (previous Twitter location) on “Reimagining French Literature & Art Through AI.”
Robert Gaines, Edwin F. and Martha Hahn Professor, published two articles in November. The first, “Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis–GC–MS and supervised machine learning,” was published with colleagues at Carnegie Science in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The second, “The sedimentary geochemistry and paleoenvironments project phase 2 data release: An open data resource for the study of Earth’s environmental history,” was published in Chemical Geology with colleagues from around the world.
Dean Gerstein, director of sponsored research, presented three multi-authored papers from two NSF-supported projects with colleagues from Bryn Mawr and Seattle University on November 4 in Costa Mesa, California, at the annual meeting of the Western & Rocky Mountain Regions of the National Council of Research Development Professionals: “Introducing the Grants Development Ecosystem Inventory (GDEI),” “A National Picture of Research Development in the Context of Research Administration (RD/RA) at Colleges and Universities” and “Identifying Strengths and Barriers in Implementing Research Development at PUIs and ERIs.” Gerstein also presented study results with colleagues from Colgate, Smith and Trinity (Connecticut) at the annual meeting of Colleges of Liberal Arts Sponsored Programs on November 12: “CLASP 2025 Grants Review: First Look.”
Edray Herber Goins, professor of mathematics and statistics, visited Carnegie Mellon University from November 5-7. He gave a talk for the Department of Mathematics Colloquium on November 6 titled “Clocks, Parking Garages, and the Solvability of the Quintic: A Friendly Introduction to Monodromy” and a seminar talk for the Pittsburgh Number Theory Day on November 7 titled “Quasi-Critical Points of Toroidal Belyi Maps.”
Goins attended the 2025 Summer Math Camps Consortium Conference in Atlanta from November 15-16. This annual meeting is an opportunity for the leaders of intensive summer math programs to come together to further their collective work. Goins closed out the event with a keynote titled “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Blackboards: An Introspective Look at the Pomona Research in Mathematics Experience.” Goins also attended the 2025 NSBP-NSHP Conference at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center from November 19-23. This was the annual joint meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists. Goins served as a panelist November 21 for a panel titled “Transitions in Academia.” He, along with Dwight Whittaker, professor of physics and astronomy, met up with Abby Alem ’27, Brian Calderon ’26, David Cortés ’28, Gada Tefer ’26 and Thummim Mekuria ’21.
Esther Hernández-Medina, assistant professor of Latin American studies and gender and women’s studies, presented the paper “The Right to a Complete Life: Lessons from the Dominican Feminist Movement” at the 45th annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 13. Her presentation was part of the panel “Latin American Feminisms Centering Trans-local Dialogue and Praxis from the Global South” along with Solange Simões (Brazil) and Barbara Sutton (Argentina). Hernández-Medina presented the book Embodiment and Representations of Beauty on November 16, also at NWSA, along with co-editor Sharina Maíllo-Pozo and authors Jaleesa Reed and Spencer Ciaralli. She also presented Maíllo-Pozo’s book Bridging Sonic Borders: Popular Music in Contemporary Dominican/Dominicanyork Literature that afternoon at the famous independent bookstore Casa Norberto in Plaza Las Américas.
Gizem Karaali, professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, together with colleagues Selçuk Alkan and Mehtap Taştepe, published a book titled Mathematics Beyond the Classroom: A Guide for Expansive Learning in Out-of-School Environments.
Tom Le, associate professor of politics, published an article with Annalise Chang ’26 and Sebastian Maslow titled “A Historic Win, Familiar Politics: The Paradox of Takaichi’s LDP Leadership” for the Journal of Critical Asian Studies commentary board November 6.
Le (with Kunihiro Nishimura and Masahiko Haraguchi) was awarded the Social Impact Stipend ($10,000) by the United States-Japan Foundation for his research projected titled “Smart Cities, Policies, and Communities.”
Jingyi Li, assistant professor of computer science, received a $20,000 gift from Adobe supporting their research on developing new software tools for artists.
Sara Masland, associate professor of psychological science, attended the biannual conference of the International Society for the Study of Personality (ISSPD) in Boston. In the first of three talks, she presented “Patient Feedback to Clinicians in Good Psychiatric Management: Feasibility, Acceptability, and Initial Insights,” a collaborative project with Ueli Kramer (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) and Lois Choi-Kain (McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School). She later delivered a speed data talk, “Limited Training, Lasting Impact: A Critical Examination of Personality Disorder Curriculum and Clinical Exposure in U.S. Doctoral Psychology Programs.” Co-authors include Kellyann Navarre (Monroe Community College), Laura Furtado Fernandes ’25 (Columbia University) and Isabella Lindsay Castelli SC ’26. Finally, she chaired a symposium on “Negative Attitudes about Personality Pathology.”
Two former members of Masland’s research lab, Kate Jones ’24 and Fernandes, as well as one current member, Castelli, also attended and gave presentations. Jones chaired a symposium, “BPD in Their Own Words,” in which she presented her senior thesis project, “‘I Feel Like So Much More of Myself”: Relations Among Appearance Modification, Emptiness, and Identity Disturbance in Borderline Personality Disorder.” The resulting manuscript is currently under review. She also delivered a speed data talk, “Agent of Change: A Proposal for Measuring Sense of Agency Over the Course of BPD Treatment;” participated in a second symposium, “Latent Class Analysis of Impulsivity Reveals Three Distinct Subgroups in Adults with Borderline Personality Disorder and Trauma Psychopathology” and presented a poster, “Mindfulness-Based Neurofeedback to Augment DBT Psychotherapy for Adults with Borderline Personality Disorder (MIND-BPD).” Fernandes delivered a speed data talk based on work that she began during a SURP project and which is currently under review, “Good Enough assessment: A Comparison of Brief Screener and Detailed Interview Assessments of Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms in a Clinical Research Setting.” She also presented a poster based on her senior thesis, “Social Implications of Emotion Dynamics in Borderline Personality Disorder.” Castelli gave a speed data talk based on work she is currently leading in Masland’s lab, “Examining the Impact of Myth and Fact Education on Mental Illness Stigma: Potential Backfire Effects?”
Thomas Muzart, assistant professor of Romance languages and literatures, chaired the panel “Francophone Postcolonial Remakes” at the 122nd Annual PAMLA Conference in San Francisco on November 20.
Adam Pearson, professor of psychological science, co-authored the article “Public Communication about Science in 68 Countries: Global Evidence on How People Encounter and Engage with Information about Science” in Science Communication with a global team of researchers as part of a consortium studying trust in science and scientists.
Pearson was a delegate to the United Nations Adaptation Futures Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was a co-presenter of a talk titled “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: Lay beliefs about life hardship impact judgments of climate vulnerability and resilience” with Xuwen Hua ’23 at the Behavior, Energy, & Climate Change (BECC) Conference in Sacramento, California.
Kathy Guillén Quispe, assistant director of international student & scholar services, held various roles at the 2025 NAFSA Region XII Conference in Pasadena, California. She co-led the “F-1 Student Advising: Intermediate” workshop with colleagues from Chaffey College and Arizona State University. She also served on the conference planning committee leading the special events and local arrangements team. She also co-presented a session, “From Numbers to Narratives: The Dual Role of Data in ISSS Work,” with a colleague from the international student office at the University of Nevada, Reno and with the director of institutional partnerships at Terra Dotta. Additionally, as this year’s NAFSA Region XII Southern District chair, she gave a district update meeting and hosted a networking event. Finally, she received the Service in International Education Award that recognizes an individual’s significant overall contribution to Region XII, NAFSA and international education.
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes, visiting assistant professor of gender and women’s studies, published an article in Women's Studies Quarterly titled “The Body in Paincraft: Queer, Crip Notes on Hurting.”
Hans Rindisbacher, professor of German, published a book chapter titled “The Makings of a Smellscape: Russia’s Case” in Work and Smell: Literature in Comparison, edited by Frank Krause.
Alex Rodriguez, professor of physical education, and the Sagehens coaching staff were honored as the coaching staff of the year after guiding Pomona-Pitzer to an unbeaten 12–0 conference record and earning a league high-tying four First Team All-SCIAC selections. Rodriguez has now been named the SCIAC Men’s Water Polo Coaching Staff of the Year in each of the last two men’s seasons.
Anthony Shay, professor emeritus of dance, hosted the 3rd Middle Eastern, North African, Central Asian, and Southeast Asian (MENACASEA) music and dance conference November 14-16. Pomona College hosted the conference by Zoom in which 142 attendees and 24 presenters from New Zealand and Singapore to California represented a wide range of scholarly interests in dance and music of the vast region.
Lindsay Stadler, interim registrar, presented a session titled “Managing Unapologetically” at the 100th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, held November 10 in Spokane, Washington. She was also selected to serve as the next Audit Committee Vice Chair, with her term beginning November 2026.
Ania Vu, assistant professor of music, had her string quartet Unveiling performed by members of the new music collective Musiqa at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston on November 22.
Kyle Wilson, associate professor of economics, published an article in American Economic Journal: Microeconomics titled “Does Public Competition Crowd Out Private Investment? Evidence from Municipal Provision of Internet Access.”
Yanshuo Zhang, assistant professor of Asian languages and literatures, gave a presentation at the 2025 annual conference of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) held in New Orleans. The title of her presentation was “Paradise Recrafted: Intangible Cultural Heritage Law and Ethnic Subjectivity in Contemporary China.” Zhang addressed the relationship between anthropology and literature as she discussed how China’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Law, influenced by the UNESCO notions of cultural preservation, made its way into the fictional and non-fictional literary works written by the ethnic minority authors of southwest China.
Yuqing Zhu, assistant professor of neuroscience, had her paper “Task success in trained spiking neural network models coincides with emergence of cross-stimulus-modulated inhibition” accepted for publication in the journal Biological Cybernetics. The study shows how neural network models can solve a simple task using a motif of two neuron types found in biology.
Zhu’s research student, Dashiell Fairborn ’28, presented a poster at the DeepMath Conference titled “Deep Networks Need Sleep—Just Like You.” The work demonstrates how adding sleep-like oscillatory activity can improve learning in neural network models.
Zhu contributed her piece “Celadon, Porcelain” as the cover art for Replica, a poetry collection by Lisa Low published by the University of Wisconsin Press and had additional artwork included in a group exhibition at the Elephant Room Gallery in Chicago.