Adriana Garriga-Lopez, associate professor of anthropology, attended the 20th United States Conference on AIDS where she was interviewed by MD Magazine on the response to HIV/AIDS in Puerto Rico.
That response has long been the focus of her research. Specifically she studies the social ramifications of epidemics and how those ramifications influence the public health system in Puerto Rico. Although she finds much to criticize about the public health response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the island where she was born and raised until the age of 16, she is quick to note the debilitating influence on that response of the mitigating circumstance of the unjust power dynamic between the United States and its “unincorporated territory” of Puerto Rico.
Her work also studies the responses of the marginalized communities most affected by the epidemic, and there is much in those responses that have overcome the challenges presented by the inadequate public health response and, despite those challenges, been highly effective.
Garriga-Lopez’s interview was divided into four chapters: What is the Focus of Your Research?; Did Your Heritage Influence Your Decision to Pursue Anthropology? (which explores how colonialism manifests every day and an approach to decolonizing public health); What Challenges Do You Face? (which includes a focus on States, Bodies, and Epidemics [the title of a class Garriga-Lopez teaches at Kalamazoo College] and the fact that because social injustice affects everyone, everyone has a responsibility to understand and address it; for example, an effective response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic begins with understanding that it is in fact comprised of multiple epidemics; and What Are Your Thoughts on Some Researchers Considering Zika as the New STD?, in which Garriga-Lopez articulates the need to inextricably link public health and a social justice conscience. The former must go much further than emergency management and act on the complex issues of the latter, such as lack of access to basic rights and basic needs as well as an unbalanced power structure that denies democratic participation in distribution of resources to persons in greatest need of those resources.
David Evans, professor emeritus of biology, died on September 20, 2016. He was 77 years old, four days shy of his 78th birthday, and doing one of the things he loved most—taking a walk on a trail. David’s 39-year career at Kalamazoo College began in 1965 and concluded with his retirement in 2004. “Biology is magnificent,” he once said, “and humbling, and goofy. In some sense, biology is best approached with a good eye for silliness, for it is stuffed with paradoxes, irony, and the ridiculous. This aspect of the subject is often the most engaging for non-majors, but it never fails to lead to more sophisticated material. I often used this movement from the ridiculous to the sublime as a teaching strategy in my courses.”
Kalamazoo College announced today that Writer in Residence and Assistant Professor of English Diane Seuss ’78 will receive the 2017 Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Scholarship. It is the highest award bestowed by the Kalamazoo College faculty, and it honors the recipient’s contributions in creative work, research and publication. Seuss is the 28th person in the College’s history to receive the award.
Scientific inquiry takes no summer break at Kalamazoo College, and a culmination of the summer’s work occurred at the Dow Science Center Mini Poster Session (August 26). In the chemistry department alone some 17 students worked in the laboratories of five chemistry faculty–Professors Bartz, Furge, Smith, Stevens-Truss and Williams. Those students include first-years, sophomores, juniors and seniors, many of the latter working on their Senior Individualized Projects. The mini poster session included 12 presenters explaining the science they had conducted during the summer. Quinton Colwell ’17 (in the red tie) is pictured discussing his poster, titled “Molecular Dynamics and Real-Life Drug Metabolism.” Molecular dynamics is the study of real life systems using computer models and simulations. Colwell’s work involved a relatively novel technique,biased molecular dynamics, which, he wrote, “brings an additional layer to computer simulations relevant to bench-top experiments. It has the potential to be a game-changer.” In addition to Colwell, other presenters included Sarah Glass ’17, Myles Truss ’17, Shreya Bahl ’17, Suma Alzouhayli ’17, and Blake Beauchamp ’17.
Professor of Psychology Siu-Lan Tan convened and co-chaired a symposium titled “Film, Television, and Music: Embodiment, Neurophysiology, Perception, and Cognition” on July 6, at the 14th International Conference for Music Cognition and Perception held at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. This conference gathers more than 550 music cognition researchers from around the world.