Summer Science Shared

Summer ScienceScientific 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.

Diamonds in the Rough

Tom HigginsTom Higgins ’92 returned to his alma mater in early April as part of a visit coordinated by the Kalamazoo Section of the American Chemical Society. Higgins talked about “How Undergraduate Research Experiences Can Change Students’ Lives.” He should know.  Higgins and a number of collaborators have made great strides in cultivating future scientists by introducing undergraduate research experiences for students at two-year institutions. Known as STEM-ENGINES (Engaging the Next Generation in Exploring STEM), their research collaborative has enabled over 286 Chicago-area students, including many first-generation American citizens, to gain academic-year and summer research experience mentored by chemistry and biology faculty. Often these “diamonds in the rough” may not have envisioned research as a potential career path.

The K chemistry major cites his foreign study experience (Erlangen, Germany) as a source of insight and empathy into his own students’ discomfort in learning beyond their comfort zone. He sees community colleges as important part of the higher education landscape and his research demonstrates that small investments in a student can have a big payoff benefiting individuals, families, institutions, and communities.

Higgins is a program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education, and he also serves as a professor at Harold Washington College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago.
He began teaching at Harold Washington in 1998 after completing his Ph.D. at Northwestern. He never thought he’d be there as long as he has been, but–as he told an audience of students and faculty from K, Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley Community College– the atmosphere created by small class sizes made it hard to leave.

Text and photo by Ann Jenks

Four Awarded Fellowships for Research

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced that four Kalamazoo College alumni have been awarded 2016 Graduate Research Fellowships. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. GRFP fellows are pursuing research-based Master’s and doctoral degrees at accredited United States institutions.

The four K alums are Amanda Mancini ’14, Jared Grimmer ’15, Patricia Garay ’11 and Monika Egerer ’13. Mancini, Grimmer and Egerer majored in biology at K, Garay majored in chemistry. For the 2016 competition, NSF received close to 17,000 applications, and made 2,000 award offers. Mancini will focus her research in biological anthropology, Grimmer and Egerer work in the area of ecology, and Garay conducts her explorations in the neurosciences. All four studied abroad at K and in different countries–Mancini in Ecuador, Grimmer in Spain, Garay in Costa Rica, and Egerer in Thailand. Congratulations, Hornet science graduate students!

National Science Foundation 2016 fellowship grants will support the graduate school research of four K alumni in ecology, neurosciences and biological anthropology.

Religious “Nones” On The Rise In U.S, Reports Pew Center Researcher and Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College

FROM WMUK RADIO (102.1 FM) http://wmuk.org/topic/westsouthwest Feb 15, 2016:

Jessica Hamar Martinez, Pew Center senior researcher and 2016 Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College.
Jessica Hamar Martinez, Pew Center senior researcher and 2016 Thompson Lecturer at Kalamazoo College.

The Pew Research Center finds that more people in the United States don’t have any religious affiliation. Pew Center Senior Researcher Jessica Hamar Martinez will discuss those findings at Kalamazoo College.

Her address is called Nones on the Rise, One in Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation. It begins at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday [Feb. 16] in the Olmsted Room at K’s Mandell Hall.

Martinez says the “nones” are people who say they are atheist, agnostic or don’t identify with any particular religion. She says that group has grown significantly since Pew’s last Religious Landscape study seven years earlier. Martinez says that is driven largely by the millennial generation.

Some highlights.

  • The increase in atheists and agnostics is small, but there is also a decline in the certainty of people who say they believe in God.
  • People who do identify with a religious group have grown more observant. Martinez says that includes more scripture reading, participation in things like prayer groups and sharing their faith with others.
  • The older “millennials” have not moved in the direction of becoming more religious. Martinez says it’s still a short period of time. But so far, the lack of religious affiliation appears to be an ongoing trend.

Martinez says views on religion tend to align with social and political issues. She says there has been an increase in the religiously unaffiliated among Democratic voters, and a smaller increase of the “nones” among Republicans.

Listen to an extended interview with Jessica Hamar Martinez on WMUK’s WestSouthwest program with Gordon Evans: http://wmuk.org/topic/westsouthwest.

Research Reveals Enzyme’s Role in Shifting-Eyed Fish

Rina Fujiwara '14 and Leslie Nagy '09
Rina Fujiwara ’14 and Leslie Nagy ’09 in the Vanderbilt University laboratory of Dr. Fred Guengerich. As Leslie was completing her rotation in the laboratory Rina was just beginning hers, so Leslie helped train Rina. Both scientists did important research on a key enzyme in fish and humans.

Sometimes science uncovers a pretty interesting “what” long before researchers learn that particular “what’s” equally interesting “how.”

Two Kalamazoo College alumnae are among the authors of a recently published paper describing HOW certain fish change their eyes to see more effectively in different water environments. Such a shift in visual acuity is a pretty cool “what” that’s been known for a while. Even some of the “how” had been elucidated–like knowing the components of a room’s light switch for example. What had been unknown–until now–was the enzyme responsible for the change, or, in other words, the finger that flips the switch.

The two co-authors who share K science ancestry, so to speak, are Rina Fujiwara ’15 and Leslie Nagy ’09. Both did the research described in the paper while working in the laboratory of Fred Guengerich at Vanderbilt University. Guengerich happens to have been the thesis advisor of Laura Furge, the Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney Professor of Chemistry at Kalamazoo College, when Laura was earning her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt. Both Nagy and Fujiwara worked in the Furge Lab during their undergraduate years; talk about scientific ancestry! The paper–titled “Cyp27c1 Red-Shifts the Spectral Sensitivity of Photoreceptors by Converting Vitamin A1 into A2”–appeared this week in the high impact scientific journal Current Biology. The Atlantic also published an article on the research.

It was in the Furge Lab that Nagy and Fujiwara were introduced to the cytochrome P-450 family of enzymes. They are critical mediators of many human physiological processes. “Today we know there are 57 P-450s in humans,” said Furge. “Many were known and their functions elucidated, but with the sequencing of the human genome, scientists discovered 13 unknown P-450s, which were dubbed ’orphans,’” she added. “Because the family is so important to human health, we’d like to know what these orphans do.” Fish and human share kindred P-450s, including the orphan, Cyp27c1, that’s the subject of the Current Biology paper.

For a full appreciation of the paper’s findings, a very simplified “Vision 101” may help. That we see–and how we see–depends in part on chemicals called chromophores. These share a common chemical backbone: vitamin A. Chromophores differ depending on modifications of their vitamin A, modifications that change an eye’s sensitivity to certain colors. For example, the vitamin A of sea fish–known as vitamin A1–help them better perceive a different spectrum of color than do freshwater fish, whose vitamin A2 allow for clearer vision in the red-wavelength light characteristic of rivers and lakes. Some fish–like salmon, that live in both marine and freshwater environments–can change their eyes by converting their vitamin A’s, from 1 to 2, sort of like gaining night vision goggles according the article in the Atlantic.

Just how they accomplish this conversion is the discovery that resulted from the research described in the paper. A single enzyme member of the cytochrome P450 family (one of the so called orphans, it turns out) converts A1 to A2, thus changing the color tuning of the fish eyes when the fish enters different water environments. And the human analog of that eye-changing P450 orphan in fish, the Cyp27c1 of the paper’s title–has also been studied by Guengerich Lab at Vanderbilt. A second paper on that analog is expected to be published in 2016, and Nagy and Fujiwara will co-authors of that paper as well.

Furge noted the impact and importance of scientific mentoring across generations, citing the example of Guengerich, herself, and Fujiwara and Nagy, representing three generations of cytochrome P-450 research. “Another K [and Furge Lab] alumna, Thanh Phanh ’15, is currently a technician in the Guengerich lab,” said Furge. “She hasn’t contributed to eye project but I’m sure she’ll have her own project in the future.”

Finding Strengths

Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher
Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher

Kalamazoo College Assistant Professor of Psychology Kyla Fletcher has been awarded a grant by the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities (part of the NIH) to study African-American partner relationships and share “what goes right” in terms of daily HIV risk reduction behavior.

The three-year grant ($438,000, making it the largest single-investigator award ever received at Kalamazoo College) is titled “Substance Use and Partner Characteristics in Daily HIV Risk in African Americans.” Fletcher hopes to enroll 200 participants in the community-based study. Participants will complete daily surveys for a month (a study approach called “daily diary” that provides more reliable data than do retrospective approaches). Participants also will do confidential in-person interviews in the lab Fletcher has set up in Olds-Upton.

The study will empirically consider the role of partners, specifically relative to managing (one’s own and one’s partner’s) substance use and condom use, and negotiating the knowledge of a partner’s HIV status through testing–all behaviors that can be associated with HIV prevention.

“There are relationships where partners talk about these behaviors and negotiate them successfully,” says Fletcher. “The study will help us learn how they accomplish that, which may suggest strategies to encourage such engagement and behaviors more widely among intimate partnerships in specific populations.”

In addition to setting up the interview lab and a website for the study, Fletcher is working with her newly hired Research Associate (hailing from the greater Kalamazoo area) and her team of six Kalamazoo College students to begin the recruitment phase of the study. “I had an enthusiastic pool of K students,” smiles Fletcher. “There is great interest in human sexuality and the influences of community on relationships and the influence of partners in relationships.

“The K students, which include members of every class, bring a diverse set of experiences and new ideas to the study team,” adds Fletcher. In return, the students will learn how to think analytically and how to initiate (and collect and analyze data from) a ’daily diary’ research protocol, knowledge that would be relevant for graduate study or employment in the field of psychology, according to Fletcher.

She is particularly excited that the work will be community-based. “The grant allows us to build a cohort that is diverse in multiple ways and more reflective of the reality of the community,” she explains. “It also obligates us to disseminate the results back to the community and to seek their input on how to communicate those results most effectively.”

Fletcher has already enlisted community representatives as advisers. And, she notes, the community-based character of the research is an opportunity for the K students to get off campus and interact with people from whom they differ in a variety of ways and with whom they also share fundamental similarities. The discovery and exploration of distinctions and commonalities can be a valuable learning experience.

This academic year is Fletcher’s fourth at Kalamazoo College. She teaches courses in general psychology, adolescent development, research methods, the psychology of the African-American experience, and the psychology of sexuality.

She earned her bachelor’s degree from Howard University (Washington, D.C.) and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. In grad school she focused on developmental psychology with an emphasis on sexual socialization, and she did post-doctoral work at U of M’s Substance Abuse Research Center.

“It’s in the nature of human relationship development that partners tend to meld into one another, adopt each other’s interests and give greater consideration of a partner’s desires,” says Fletcher. “How partners influence behaviors related to substance use, sexual risk and HIV prevention is a key question of this study. What strengths in relationships work toward healthy outcomes, and can these strengths be applied more widely?”

“It’s exciting work,” concludes Fletcher, “and could be part of a cultural shift—a needed shift, in my opinion—from a deficit-based view to a strength-based view of sexuality and health.”

The Algorithm Knows

Kalamazoo College alumnus Justin HorowitzJustin Horowitz ’05 is a graduate research assistant in bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He’s also the first author of a study that describes the development a of mathematical algorithm that can ascertain intention even when the act of carrying out that intention is interrupted.

The study article is titled “I Meant to Do That: Determining the Intentions of Action in the Face of Disturbances,” and it appears in the online journal PLOS ONE. The article’s co-author is James Patton, professor of bioengineering and principal investigator of the study, which occurred at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Horowitz and Patton call the discovery a “psychic robot” and its potential applications may turn out to be profound. Imagine a car diverted from its course that could restore the driver’s intended direction faster than the driver could do so. ““The computer has extra sensors and processes information so much faster than I can react,” Horowitz said in a UIC press release (October 6, 2015, by Jeanne Galatzer-Levy). “If the car can tell where I mean to go, it can drive itself there. But it has to know which movements of the wheel represent my intention, and which are responses to an environment that’s already changed.” The algorithm can make that distinction.

The algorithm also may have potential application in treatment of stroke patients. Imagine a prosthetic device that can restore a patient’s intended course of action before that intent was changed by after-effects of the stroke, such as interruptions in motor coordination. “If you know how someone is moving and what the disturbance is, you can tell the underlying intent,” said Horowitz, “which means we could use this algorithm to design machines that could correct the course of a swerving car or help a stroke patient with spasticity.”

Horowitz earned his bachelor’s degree at K in biology.

K’s 3 of 300

Rina Fujiwara
Rina Fujiwara

Three Kalamazoo College chemistry majors presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology meeting, a joint meeting of six different societies including the American Association for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) as well as societies for physiology, nutrition, pharmacology, pathology, and anatomy. More than 15,000 scientists attended the meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

Rina Fujiwara ’15, Sarah Glass ’17, and Victoria Osorio ’16 shared results of the research they did in collaboration with Professor of Chemistry Laura Furge. Their presentations were part of both the Undergraduate Poster Competition and as part of the regular scientific session for ASBMB. Some 300 undergraduate posters composed the ASBMB competition from students across the country and from a variety of college and universities.

Fujiwara’s work, part of her Senior Individualized Project (SIP), showed how the work of two human liver enzymes vital to the body’s processing of medicines is halted by two small molecule inhibitors. The research took place in the Furge lab at Kalamazoo College and was published in Drug Metabolism and Disposition (Fall 2014). Other co-authors included Furge, Amanda Bolles ’14, and Erran Briggs ’14.

Victoria Osorio
Victoria Osorio

Glass and Osorio presented a poster that centered on recent work in the Furge lab with variants of an enzyme responsible for metabolism (or processing in the body) of about 15 percent of all medicines. The presence of these enzyme variants in different individuals can lead to vastly different responses to some pharmaceutical drugs, including cough syrup, the breast cancer drug tamoxifen, and many more. Though not present at the meeting, Mike Glista ’06) and Parker de Waal ’13) were co-authors on the posters.

This summer Fujiwara will enter the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Program in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. Osorio and Glass will continue research with Furge this summer. Both plan to attend graduate school after graduating from Kalamazoo College.

Sarah Glass
Sarah Glass

At the Boston meeting Professor of Chemistry Regina Stevens-Truss once again directed her highly acclaimed HOPES project, connecting science teachers with practicing scientists to enhance the quality and hands-on authenticity of primary and secondary classroom science instruction.

Professors Furge and Stevens-Truss are members of the ASBMB and attend the meeting every year. Travel to ASBMB for students Fujiwara, Glass, and Osorio was supported by grants from the Richard J. Cook Research Fellowship Fund (Fujiwara), an award from the ASBMB Student Affiliate (Fujiwara), the Provost Office (Glass, Osorio), and a grant to Furge through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Travel for Furge and Truss was supported by the Hutchcroft Endowment as well as NIH and grants from ASBMB.

Prayer Provenance

Sarah Guzy“God, grant me the serenity …”

It’s been spoken by millions seeking inspiration and solace, just twenty-six words that form the backbone of many 12-step programs, including Alcoholics Anonymous. It was chosen by World Almanac as one of the “10 Most Memorable American Quotes” of the 20th Century:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

So when Fred Shapiro, a law librarian at Yale University, called into question the authorship of the Serenity Prayer it caused a bit of a stir. Sarah Guzy ’10 found herself playing an important role in Shapiro’s quest to find who actually wrote one of the world’s most recognizable prayers.

In 2008, Shapiro published a story in Yale’s alumni magazine. He argued that Reinhold Niebuhr, a towering American theologian who is widely credited with authoring the prayer, may not actually have written it. Shapiro cited newspaper articles and a book in which versions of the prayer (written by women) were seen as far back as 1936. Niebuhr’s daughter, Elisabeth Sifton, had written a book in 2003 in which she said her father was the original author of the prayer, first using it in 1943.

In the years that followed his article Shapiro spent more time investigating the prayer’s origin. That’s where Guzy, a graduate student studying religion at Harvard University’s Divinity School and staffer at the school’s famous Schlesinger Library, entered the exploration. Shapiro needed someone to look through the diaries of Winnifred Crane Wygal, who knew Niebuhr and had a version of the prayer attributed to her in a 1933 Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper article.

“I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Guzy says, adding she spent 20 hours going through the diaries. “I was worried there would be nothing to shed light on the prayer’s provenance, but there was something. In fact the diaries were the key to answering the question. The toughest part? Trying to read Wygal’s handwriting.”

Shapiro wrote of Guzy’s findings: “Schlesinger’s staffer, Sarah Guzy, struck gold when she read Wygal’s diary entry for Oct. 31, 1932. Wygal wrote there: ‘R.N. says that ‘moral will plus imagination are the two elements of which faith is compounded. The victorious man in the day of crisis is the man who has the serenity to accept what he cannot help and the courage to change what must be altered.’”

Although not a mirror image of the prayer we know today, the basic elements were there, according to Shapiro. Niebuhr was the author after all, he wrote.

“I was really surprised about the buzz,” Guzy says. “Being in divinity school, it’s nice of him to mention me. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Shapiro recanted his doubts about Niebuhr in a story that spread widely, winding up in the Washington Post, Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Huffington Post, among others. Guzy’s efforts were cited in each of those stories.

And what of Sarah Guzy’s “provenance,” so to speak. If it wasn’t for one of her K professors, Guzy might never have been asked to go through those diaries.

An art history and religion double major at the College, Guzy’s academic trajectory was altered profoundly when she began taking classes with Assistant Professor of Religion Shreena Gandhi.

“She brought interesting frameworks of racial and gender issues to class. It was the first time I had really encountered them,” Guzy says. “It was so exciting, so different than other religion classes. I really connected with her. I never intended to study religion, but I loved the classes. K encourages that exploration.”

Guzy studied abroad in Bonn, Germany, and after graduation spent a year in Costa Rica, working in international education, an endeavor helped along by her work at the College’s Center for International Programs. When she returned home, she wondered what she should do next. Gandhi offered some advice.

“I said, ‘Why not look at Harvard?’” says Gandhi, who earned her master’s degree in religion there. “Sarah had the interest and the intellect. Her experience and her writing and ideas are what got her in.”

Guzy’s time in the Schlesinger Library has been nothing short of inspiring, she says. The library, home of the nation’s largest collection of documents and materials detailing women’s lives and contributions to American society, is a treasure trove of letters, telegrams, diaries, books, objects and plenty of interesting people.

In her time there, she has unpacked Julia Child’s silver soup ladle and soup tureen from Tiffany, scanned letters from Sigmund Freud, ate birthday cake with Judy Chicago, chatted-up Gayle Rubin, and read from the original papers of Adrienne Rich, a poet she first encountered at K. She even received a scan order for a telegram written by a K professor in the 1970s, she says.

Guzy applied to K “because the college had a funny name,” she says, and was included in the book: “Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges.”

A native of Evanston, Ill., she came to K with her mom, almost on a whim. They just showed up–no campus tour scheduled, no professors or admissions officials lined up to talk with. A few K students approached the two and asked if they needed directions, then wound up taking them on a two-hour tour of the College, Guzy says.

That friendly openness impressed her immediately.

“There are similar schools that look the same on paper. But at K the feeling on campus was markedly different,” she says. “I was sold the minute I stepped on campus.”

That inclusive spirit extended to many of her other professors, she says.

“There was an encouragement to connect with your professors,” she says. “We would go to dinner;I would dog sit for them. I still maintain a lot of relationships. The environment there fosters the ability for making meaningful bonds because the professors care about the students, not just their research.”

She adds, “There’s a sense of the importance of the student. Faculty (at K) are so much more approachable than even those at Harvard, many of whom are focused on their personal brand. It’s not like that at K–it’s about relationships.”

There’s also another source of her admiration for the College: the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. While a student Guzy participated in the search for the center’s first executive director.

“I’m very proud of K. The (Arcus) center is an amazing thing,” she says. “It speaks to K’s commitment to giving voice to those not given voice in society generally and in institutions of higher education specifically.”

The College was also the place where Guzy was first broadly exposed to issues of inequality related to gender, socioeconomic status, race and sexuality, matters she learned about extensively in Gandhi’s classes. It’s no surprise, then, that Guzy’s academic research revolves around gender dynamics in colonialism, and how women exerted their influence in patriarchal societies, through witchcraft in Africa and Latin America, or voodoo in New Orleans.

“Sarah has always been an outspoken feminist, and outspoken on social justice issues broadly,” Gandhi says. “She’s interested in how things work. You start seeing inequity and oppression and begin to develop ideas on how to solve it. She always had that passion, and now it’s blossoming in her. I’m super proud of her.”

As for the future, Guzy says she has no plans to pursue additional academic endeavors after earning her master’s degree. She wants to get to work.

“There’s a huge trend in sending students abroad, but with not a lot of preparation and training to be culturally sensitive,” she says. “The more attuned to other cultures you are, the more the student gets out of the experience, and the more those in the host nation understand us as well.”

Text by Chris Killian. Photo courtesy of Sara Guzy.

Kalamazoo College Faculty Members Achieve Outside the Classroom

Kalamazoo College faculty members not only teach, also advise students, and serve on numerous committees that help direct the College’s academic programs, they publish books, essays, scientific papers, and other writings, and they receive awards, grants, and countless other accolades. Below are recent achievements by just a few K faculty members. Well done, professors!

(By the way, K has a very low (13-1) student-to-faculty ratio. Of the nearly 100 full-time “resident” faculty, 96 percent hold a Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree.

 

Bob Batsell, professor of psychology, received a 2014-2015 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant, from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee, for his project “Test Enhanced Learning in the Psychology Classroom.”

Jeff Bartz, professor of chemistry, received a $220,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project entitled “Photodissociation Dynamics Studied by Velocity-Mapping Ion Imaging.”

Lisa Brock, academic director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership and associate professor of history, co-edited a special issue of the Radical History Review on the global antiapartheid movement.

Henry Cohen, emeritus professor of romance languages and literature, published the article “The river, the levee, love and confession: The thematic of Grazia Deledda’s L’argine” in Forum Italicum.

Kiran Cunningham, professor of anthropology, received a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee, for her project “An Assessment of Transformative Learning through Change-Oriented Research.”

John Dugas, professor of political science and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership associate, published two book chapters. “Old Wine in New Wineskins: Incorporating the ‘Ungoverned Spaces’ Concept into Plan Columbia,” appeared in U.S. National Security Concerns in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Concept of Ungoverned Spaces and Failed States. “Colombia” appeared in Politics of Latin America.

Peter Erdi, Luce professor of complex systems studies, co-authored Stochastic Chemical Kinetics, a book published by Springer.

Dennis Frost, Wen Chao Chen associate professor of East Asian social sciences, published “Sporting Disability: Official Representations of the Disabled Body at Tokyo’s 1964 Paralympics” in the Asia Pacific Journal of Sport and Social Science. He also received a 2014-15 scholarship of teaching and learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for his project “Acquiring the Gift of Gab: Demystifying Public Speaking.”

Laura Furge, Roger F. and Harriet G. Varney professor of chemistry, published two papers with student co-authors: “Mechanism-based Inactivation of Human Cytochrome p450 3A4 by Two Piperazine containing Compounds” appeared in Drug Metabolism and Disposition; “Molecular Dynamics of CYP2D6 Polymorphisms in the Absence and Presence of a Mechanism-based Inactivator Reveals Changes in Local Flexibility and Substrate Access Channels” appeared in PLoS One. Also, her article “Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education” was published in Social Ecology of the Classroom: Issues of Inclusivity

Adriana Garriga-Lopez, assistant professor of anthropology and Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership associate, published “Azucar dura y melaza vaga” in the online journal 80grados.

Menelik Geremew is the new Stephen B. Monroe assistant professor of money and banking, a chair held by the faculty member within the Department of Economics and Business who teaches in the field of money and banking. Charles J. Monroe established this chair in 1966 in honor of his father, Stephen B. Monroe.

Christine Hahn, assistant professor of art and art history, has begun a three-year term on the College Art Association’s (CAA) Committee on Diversity Practices, one of CAA’s nine Professional Interests, Practices, and Standards Committees. Her committee supports the development of global perspectives on art and visual culture; promotes artistic, curatorial, scholarly, and institutional practices; and assesses and evaluates the development and implementation of curricular innovation, new research methods, curatorial and pedagogical strategies, and hiring practices that contribute to the realization of these goals. The Committee is committed to organizing conference sessions that address issues concerning race and ethnicity.

Autumn Hostetter, associate professor of psychology, had three articles published recently. “Gesture-speech integration in children with specific language impairment” appeared in the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders; “Gesutre in Reasoning: An Embodied Perspective” appeared in The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition; and “Action Attenuates the Effect of Visibility on Gesture Rates” appeared in the journal Cognitive Science. She also received a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for her project “Test Enhanced Learning in the Psychology Classroom.”

Patrik Hultberg, associate professor of economics, received a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for his project “Assessing the Flipped Classroom.”

Andrew Koehler, associate professor of music and director of the Kalamazoo Philharmonic won the American Prize in Orchestral Programming – Community Division.

Maksim Kokushkin, assistant professor of sociology published “Standpoint Theory is Dead, Long Live Standpoint Theory! Why Standpoint Thinking Should Be Embraced by Scholars Who Do Not Identify as Feminists?” in the Journal of Arts and Humanities.

Amy Lane, visiting assistant professor of sociology, received a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for her project “An Assessment of Transformative Learning through Change-Oriented Research.”

Charlene Boyer Lewis, professor of history, was selected into the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lectureship Program.

 

Sarah Lindley, associate professor of art, had an exhibition at the Lansing Art Gallery titled “Of Consequences: Industry & Surrounds.” She also received a Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA) Expanding Collaboration Initiative titled “Surrounding Industry and Environs: An Intellectual Resource Collective.”

Amy MacMillan, L. Lee Stryker assistant professor of business management and her co-authors received the award for best conference refereed paper from the Marketing Management Association for their paper “Improving the Collaborative Online Student Evaluation Process.”

Simona Moti, assistant professor of German, had her essay “Between Political Engagement and Political Unconscious: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the Slavic East” published as a chapter in the edited volume of German Literature as World Literature.

Andy Mozina, professor of English, published Quality Snacks, a book of 15 short fiction stories.

Stacy Nowicki, Title IX coordinator and library director, was appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to the Library of Michigan Board of Trustees.

Jennifer Perry, visiting assistant professor of psychology, received a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grant from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for her project “Test Enhanced Learning in the Psychology Classroom.”

Taylor Petrey, Lucinda Hinsdale Stone assistant professor of religion, published his article “Semen Stains: Seminal Procreation and the Patrilineal Genealogy of Salvation in Tertullian” in the Journal of Early Christian Studies.

Di Seuss, writer in residence and assistant professor of English, received residency at Hedgebrook, a writing retreat for women writers on Whidbey Island, Wash. Her essay/prose poem was published in Brevity and several of her poems have been selected to be published in the Missouri Review. Her piece “Wal-Mart Parking Lot” received the “½ K Prize” from the Indiana Review and her piece “Free Beer” was selected to be included in Best American Poetry 2014. Di is now in a tenure track position at K.

Mike Sosulski, associate provost and chair and associate professor of German, won 2014’s Best Article Award from the journal Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German with his article “From Broadway to Berlin: Transformative Learning through German Hip-Hop.”

Noriko Sugimori, assistant professor of Japanese, received a grant from the GLCA Expanding Collaboration Initiative for the project “Bringing East Asia to the Great Lakes Region: An Intergenerational Cross-Cultural Digital Oral History Project.”

Amanda Wollenberg, assistant professor of biology, was a recipient of a 2014-15 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Grant, from K’s Teaching and Learning Committee for her project “Assessment of Student Experiences in the Cell and Molecular Biology Lab.”.

Margaret Wiedenhoeft, associate director for the Center of International Programs, was selected as one of three co-editors of the forthcoming 4th Edition of NAFSA’s Guide to Education Abroad for Administrators and Advisors.

Michael Wollenberg, assistant Professor of biology, co-authored “Propioniobacterium-Produced Coproporphyrin III Induces Staphylococcus aureus Aggregation and Biofirm Formation.” a paper titled in mBio.

[Malllory Zink ’15, helped compile this list. Thanks, Mallory!]