Summer 2014 Kudos

Promotions

The following were promoted to the rank of professor: Jennifer Blyth, music; Marie Helweg-Larsen, psychology; Susan Perabo, English; Robert Pound, music; Karl Qualls, history; David Richeson, mathematics.

The following received tenure and were promoted to the rank of associate professor: Todd Arsenault, art; Andrew Farrant, economics; Lynn Johnson, Africana studies; Chauncey Maher, philosophy; Sarah McGaughey, German; Benjamin Ngong, French and Francophone studies; Mary Niblock, biology; Brett Pearson, physics and astronomy; Jerry Philogene, American studies; Jennifer Schaefer, mathematics; C. Helen Takacs, international business & management; Edward Webb, political science and international studies.

Publications

A revised and expanded version of Professor Emerita of German Beverley Eddy’s earlier biography of Danish writer, feminist and humanitarian Karin Michaëlis was published in Danish translation by the Karin Michaëlis Society: Hjertets Kalejdoskop, translated by Kirsten Klitgård, Aarhus: Scandinavian Book.

Alberto Rodriguez, professor of Spanish, published “Vicisitudes del quijotismo en Puerto Rico: ‘La peregrinación de Bayoán’ (1863) de Eugenio María de Hostos y ‘La charca’ (1894) de Manuel Zeno Gandía” in the book El Quijote: palimpsestos hispanoamericanos, ed. by María Stoopen, and published by the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Steven Erfle, associate professor of international business & management, published “Deriving a Cubic Total Cost Function from a Cubic Total Cost Curve” in International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management. The article is based on a managerial economics exam question and was written for use by students in that class. Notes Erfle, “The inspiration for writing this up as an article came from Pia Holtmeier ’16, who asked me for a more formal version when she took the course from me last year.” Erfle also published “Spatial Variations in Academic Performance and Obesity in Pennsylvania: A Geographically-Weighted Regression Analysis,” Journal of Social Sciences Research, and “Persistent Focal Behavior and Physical Activity Performance,” Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science. Both papers form the basis for his IB&M course Applied Empirical Analysis of Middle School Obesity.

Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy Hans Pfister published “The Sponge Resistor Model—A Hydrodynam Analog to Illustrate Ohm’s Law, the Resistor Equation, and Resistors in Series and Parallel” in The Physics Teacher.

Jorge R. Sagastume, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese and current director of Dickinson’s program in Málaga, Spain, published “Cervantes inmortal: lo apócrifo en el Quijote y en Borges” in Palimpsestos hispanoamericanos,  ed. María Stoopen Galán, FFL UNAM, a refereed publication. Sagastume also published two books: Cervantes novelador: Las novelas ejemplares cuatrocientos años después (a collection of studies on Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels in commemoration of the 400 years of its publication. Ed. Jorge R. G. Sagastume, a refereed publication, Fundación Málaga) and Sirena(s): Poesía extranjera fundamental en traducción castellana (selection, edition, introduction and translations by Jorge R. G. Sagastume. A selection of translations from English, German, Bulgarian, Portuguese and Hebrew poetry into Spanish, Fundación Málaga).

Kristin Strock, assistant professor of environmental science, published “Recovery from acid rain speeding up in Northeast lakes” in Environmental Science and Technology.

Tony Rauhut, assistant professor of psychology, published “Time-dependent effects of prazosin on the development of methamphetamine conditioned hyperactivity and context-specific sensitization in mice” in Behavioural Brain Research.

Grants and Awards

Alyssa deBlasio, associate professor of Russian, was awarded a $35,000 fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies. She intends to use the funds to finish a book on the transition of Russian philosophical thought from the immediate post-Soviet period (1990s) through the first decade of the Putin era (2000s). She also plans to start a new book, which explores the influence of Soviet philosophy on a new generation of Russian art-house filmmakers.

Rebecca Connor, associate professor of chemistry, received a Single-Investigator Cottrell College Science Award of $35,000 through the Research Corporation for Science Advancement to fund a summer student-faculty research project on the effects of par-the-nolide on the heat shock response system.

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) awarded a 2014 J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award to the LGBT Center of Central PA History Project, in partnership with Dickinson’s Archives and Special Collections, which serves as the permanent repository of the archival, artifact and oral-history collections of the project. Malinda Triller Doran, special collections librarian, serves as the liaison to the project and manages the collection.

Jeff McCausland, visiting professor of international security, was named a Senior Associate Fellow for the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Hans Pfister, associate professor of physics and astronomy, was awarded a $5,000 grant by the PPG Industries Foundation. Pfister designed and built a cost-effective Solar Air Heater (SAH), having a very high solar-to-thermal energy conversion efficiency. PPG in Mount Holly Springs, Pa., supported by the PPG Industries Foundation, will work with Pfister to optimize the SAH’s glazing for maximum efficiency.

The Penn Humanities Forum has awarded Antje Pfannkuchen, professor of German, a $5,000 Mellon Regional Faculty Fellowship grant. Through this award, Pfannkuchen will become a member of the forum’s weekly Mellon Research Seminar on “Color,” the program topic for 2014-15. The interdisciplinary seminar includes Mellon postdoctoral and faculty fellows from Penn and other institutions throughout the region.

The National Science Foundation awarded Sarah St. Angelo, associate professor of chemistry, a $6,500 grant through the Penn State University Materials Research Facilities Network (MRFN) Fellows Program. The program will allow St. Angelo to access HR-TEM to analyze nanoparticles synthesized with green reducing methods.

Matt Steiman, assistant farm manager at the College Farm, and Tim Wahls, associate professor of mathematics and computer science, were awarded a Northeast Region Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Partnership grant of $15,000. The grant will help them continue work on FARMDATA, an internet-based database system for inputting and reporting crop production records including seeding, transplanting, harvest, cover crop, compost, pest scouting, spray activities and customer invoicing.

Learn more

Read more from the summer 2014 issue of Dickinson Magazine.

Published July 22, 2014