In Brief Archives

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, gave an invited talk “Virtual Caribbeans” to the Caribbean Globalizations Seminar at Oriel College, University of Oxford, England, on May 4, 2012, drawing on her recently published chapter in the book Technologies of Mobility in the Americas. She was also invited to lecture on “Mobile Methodologies for Future Transitions” to the Mobile Methods Ph.D. course, in the Center for Mobilities and Urban Studies at Aalborg University, Denmark, on May 8, 2012.

Dr. Scott Warnock, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum, CoAS, had two of his blog posts featured in the National Council of Teachers of English's weekly newsletter, Inbox. The articles “A good place to start?: Demystifying Wikipedia for students” and "Punktuation” can also be found on his blog "Virtual Children."

Matthew Smith, adjunct professor of English, CoAS, was highlighted in the Philadelphia Inquirer for his project "Spaces Between Your Fingers." The nationwide project uses postcards collected from people across the country as a means to raise Alzheimer's awareness.

Drs. Brian P. Daly and David S. DeMatteo, assistant professors of psychology, CoAS, published a paper titled, “Ameliorating attention problems in children with Sickle Cell Disease: A pilot study of methylphenidate,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 33, 244-251.

Dr. Dave DeMatteo, assistant professor of psychology and co-director of the law-psychology program, and Dr. Kirk Heilbrun, professor and head of psychology, CoAS, co-edited a special issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior on the topic of diversion from standard prosecution. As part of the special issue, they also contributed "Community-based alternatives for justice-involved individuals with severe mental illness: Review of the relevant research."

Dr. Myrna Shure, clinical volunteer faculty of psychology, CoAS, presented an invited keynote address “Social-emotional learning: What is it? Why is it important?” to the Professional Development Seminar, sponsored by the El Valor Child and Family Center, Chicago, IL, April 14, 2012.

Dr. Scott Warnock, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum, CoAS was the lead author of the article “Early Participation in Asynchronous Writing Environments and Course Success,” which was published in The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks in January. Dr. Warnock authored the study with Dr. Kenneth Bingham, teaching professor of English; Dan Driscoll, associate teaching professor of English and associate director of the Writing Center; and former Drexel students Jennifer Fromal and Nicholas Rouse.

Dr. Scott Warnock, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum, CoAS will present the Magna Online Seminar “Five Ways to Build e-Learner Confidence with Low-Stakes Grading” on April 25, 2012.

In collaboration with the National Institute of Science and Technology, Berhampur, India, Dr. Shyamalendu Bose, professor of physics, organized the “International Workshop on Functional Materials” in Berhampur during December 20-22, 2011. Invited speakers and particpants came from around the world including the USA, Europe, Australia, India and Singapore.

Kathleen Volk Miller, associate teaching professor of English, CoAS, authored "Words we had after he died," an article about the death of her husband, published in Salon, April 11, 2012.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, had the article "Sustainable Mobility and Mobility Justice: towards a twin transition" published in Margaret Grieco and John Urry (eds) Mobilities: New Perspectives on Transport and Society (Ashgate, 2012), 289-304.

Dr. Maria Hnaraki, associate teaching professor of anthropology and director of Greek Studies, CoAS, published “CRETE-Souls of soil: Island identity through song,” in G. Baldacchino (ed.) Island Songs, Lanham MD, Scarecrow Press, 2011, pp. 171-185.

Dr. Enrico Vesperini, research associate professor of physics, CoAS, is co-chair of the Scientific Organizing Committee of a 3-day Special Session on “Origin and Complexity of Massive Star Clusters” which will be held during the International Astronomical Union General Assembly, Beijing China, August 2012.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, published the book Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom, with Duke University Press. The book boldly revises the history of the struggles for freedom by emancipated peoples in post-slavery Jamaica, post-independence Haiti, and the wider Caribbean by focusing on the interplay between the state, the body, race and sexuality.

Dr. Gail Hearn, research professor of biology and Shaya Honarvar, research associate of biology, CoAS, conducted a study with several other scientists on a rare and endangered African monkey that could provide a look into our climatic future. Their paper was featured by KTVZ.COM, and by ScienceDaily.

Dr. Rose Corrigan, assistant professor of political science, director of the Women's Studies Program, and Earle Mack School of Law director, CoAS, participated in a panel on "The Impact of the Federal Adam Walsh Act on Pennsylvania" at the 4th Annual Conference of the Mid-Atlantic Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, April 5, 2012.

Elliott Chiu, biology and environmental science BS/MS student, CoAS, was the first Drexel student to receive the Udall Scholarship, a prestigious and highly-competitive award for students committed to careers related to the environment.

Dr. Scott Warnock, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum, CoAS, presented “Expert Views of Pedagogy Regarding Theory and Practice for Fully Online and Hybrid OWI” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in St. Louis in March. Warnock also co-facilitated the half-day workshop “Recorded Spoken Feedback: A Compelling Alternative to Written Response.” He is the co-chair of the CCCC Committee for Best Practices in Online Writing Instruction.

Dr. Scott Warnock, associate professor of English and director of the Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum, CoAS, was interviewed as part of the Fall 2011 Computers and Composition Online review of his book Teaching Writing Online: How and Why (NCTE). The interview focused on how the book might be seen more broadly through the lens of the Sloan Consortium's “Five Pillars of Quality Online Education.”

Kenneth Bingham, teaching professor of English, CoAS has a book coming out in April 2012, The Greatest Phillies Clubs of All Time, published by Camino Books.

Alyssa Matteucci, undergraduate psychology student, CoAS, was awarded a $1500 Psi Chi undergraduate research grant to support her project "Body-Related Acceptance as a Potential Mediator of Body Image Dissatisfaction and Eating Pathology."

Dr. Donald Stevens, associate professor of history, CoAS, presented the poster "Baroque Veneration? The Proliferation of Names at Baptism in Four Mexican Parishes, 1832" at the 59th Annual Conference of the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies, March 28-31, 2012.

Alexis Gerard Finger, associate teaching professor of English, CoAS, presented a workshop" "Debating Activities Teach Critical Thinking and Effective Presentation Skills" at the TESOL Convention on March 27, 2012. She also gave a demonstration on "Drama and Technology Teach ESL Students Language and Social Responsibility" on March 31st.

Dr. Rose Corrigan, assistant professor of political science, director of the Women's Studies Program, and Earle Mack School of Law director, CoAS, presented two posters, "Fleeing from Feminism: The Troubled Legacy of Rape Law Reform" and "Crossing Boundaries, Transforming Knowledge," at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, March 22 and 23, 2012.

Elias Okwara, international area studies major, CoAS, was selected as a facilitator of "Libya: Lessons Learned" at the Security & Defence Agenda's Security Spring Jam 2012, March 19-23. The report compiled from this conference will be presented to EU and NATO leadership at the G8/NATO Chicago Summit in May.

Dr. Myrna Shure, clinical volunteer faculty of psychology, CoAS, will present a workshop titled “A Problem-Solving Approach to the Prevention of Early High-Risk Behaviors,” at the Educational Conference, sponsored by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Health and Welfare Fund, Philadelphia, PA, March 16, 2012.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, presented a paper on mobile art at "Local and Mobile: linking mobilities, mobile communication and locative media," the 3rd Joint International Conference of the Pan-American Mobilities Network and the Cosmobilities Network, and Annual Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) Research Symposium, North Carolina State University, for which she was also on the organizing committee. March 16-18, 2012.

A study conducted by Dr. James Herbert, professor of psychology and associate dean of CoAS, along with Dr. Evan Forman, associate professor of psychology, Erica Yuen and Elizabeth Goetter, clinical psychology doctoral student, CoAS, was featured as the lead story of the APA Monitor in March 2012. The study uses remote, Internet-based treatment for clients with social anxiety disorders.

Dr. Rakhmiel Peltz, director of Judaic Studies and professor of sociolinguistics, CoAS, was named the Professor Bernard Choseed Memorial Fellow in the research field of East European Jewish Studies, at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, in New York City, for 2012-2013.

Dr. Hazel Kwon, assistant teaching professor of communication, CoAS, presented a poster titled "Twitter as a metajournalism service: A co-tweet network analysis of the 2009 Gaza conflict" at the International Network for Social Networks Analysis Conference (SUNBELT), March 12-18, 2012, Redondo Beach, CA.

Dr. Donna Murasko, dean and professor of biology, CoAS, was the recipient of the Elizabeth Bingham Mentoring Award from the Philadelphia chapter of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). The award honors Murasko’s support of women in science, most notably in the Department of Physics at Drexel, where she has been instrumental in increasing the number of female faculty members and supporting the establishment of the Women in Physics Society, whose goal is to attract and support female physics students.

Dr. Douglas Chute, professor of neuropsychology and Stein Fellow, CoAS, was awarded the inaugural 2012 Outstanding Mentor's Award by the American Board of Professional Neuropsychology for his impressive research and practice contributions to neuropsychology in the areas of head injury assessment and rehabilitation, microcomputer prosthetics in rehabilitation and neurochemistry of learning and memory, and for his extraordinary contributions in serving as a kind mentor to many young neuropsychologists.

Dr. Arthur M. Nezu, Ph.D., ABPP, Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, CoAS, was appointed to the Clinical Treatment Guideline Development Panel for Depressive Disorders for the American Psychological Association (APA). He was also appointed to the Special Medical Advisory Group for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Dr. Anne Marie Obajtek-Kirkwood, associate professor of French, CoAS, presented a paper titled "Des mots et des mets: Exquis d'écrivains" at the 20th Southeast Conference on Foreign Languages, Literatures and Films, March 2, 2012.

Dr. James Spotila, professor of biology, CoAS, coordinated a worldwide study on the migration patterns of leatherback turtles in the Pacific Ocean, using state-of-the-art satellite tracking. The study was featured in Discovery News and will be published in Ecological Applications.

Kyla LaFond, sophomore in biology, CoAS, was the recipient of the 7th Annual "Pay It Forward" Scholarship Award from CURE Auto Insurance and 94.5 PST. For the last 3 years, LaFond has volunteered as a translator and medical assistant providing critical medical care to poverty-stricken residents of Honduras.

Dr. Robert Zaller, professor of history, CoAS, had his book Robinson Jeffers and the American Sublime published by Stanford University Press.

Kathleen Volk Miller, associate teaching professor of English, CoAS, attended the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Annual Conference in Chicago, IL, 2/29-3/3. Volk Miller participated in the panel discussion "Michael Martone was Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana" with the Painted Bride Quarterly. She also co-produced her third Literary Death Match.

Kathy Volk Miller, associate teaching professor of English, CoAS, authored "Parenting Secrets of a College Professor," a guest blog piece on overparenting, published on February 27, 2012 in Salon online magazine.

Dr. Ron Bishop participated in a discussion with Rudman Institute executive director, Karen Curry, about his recent book More: The Vanishing of Scale in an Over the Top Nation. The talk was at Drexel University on February 27, 2012.

Thomas Johnson, adjunct professor of sociology, CoAS, published the book Felon Verstehen, a self-help book that assists released felons with reintegration into society. The book was published by Xlibris Corporation, February 25, 2012.

Dr. Scott Knowles, associate professor of history and director of the Great Works Symposium, gave a presentation titled “The Disaster Experts, Mastering Risk in Modern America” at the University of Pennsylvania book store on February 22, 2012.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, was co-curator of the show LA Re.Play: An Exhibition of Mobile Media Art, at the Broad Art Center, UCLA, Los Angeles and ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, February 22-26, 2012, in association with the College Arts Association Centennial Conference, where she also co-organized a double session on “Mobile Art: The Aesthetics of Mobile Network Culture in Placemaking.”

Robert McCracken Peck, naturalist and historian, and Patricia Tyson Stroud, historical biographer, Academy of Natural Sciences, CoAS, published A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science, the first complete history of the institution.

Dr. Barbara Hoekje, associate professor of communication, CoAS, presented a paper titled “The development and assessment of academic language proficiency for university-bound ESL students,” at the 2012 Association of International Education Administrators, February 21, 2012. She also presented on a panel "International exchange with the developing world: Combining service learning with academic English programs."

Dr. Donald N. Bersoff, professor and director of the law & psychology program, CoAS, presented the keynote address titled “From Informed Consent to Collaborative Assessment," at the annual meeting of Trainers of School Psychology, Philadelphia, February 20, 2012.

Drexel's Society of Physics Students won 3 nationally-competitive awards this year: the Sigma Pi Sigma Undergraduate Research Award, the Marsh White Award (awarded for the 6th year in a row from the American Institute of Physics); and the Outstanding SPS Chapter Award (awarded for the 3rd year in a row).

Dr. Ken Lacovara, associate professor of biology, CoAS, is looking to use 3-D printing technology to create scaled-down dinosaur robots based on real fossils. Lacovara has been featured in a number of news outlets including Fast Company, PC World, ABCNews.com, Forbes, TIME, and MSNBC.com.

Dr. Lawrence Souder, associate teaching professor of communication, and Furrah Qureshi, English undergraduate student, CoAS, had their paper "Ad Hominem Arguments in the Service of Boundary Work among Climate Scientists" published in the Journal of Science Communication, Volume 11, Issue 1, January, 2012.

Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, assistant professor of political science, discussed the opposition primaries in Venezuela on television in the Al Jazeera studios on February 13, 2012.

Dr. Nunzio Pernicone, professor of history, was interviewed about fascist propaganda aimed at Italian American communities during the 1920s and 1930s, in preparation for a documentary being produced by Ric Burns on February 10, 2012.

Dr. Walter Bien, research professor of biology, CoAS, spoke at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s Winter Festival celebration, “When Fire Gives Life: A Look at the Heroism of Fire in Nature,” on the ecological role fire plays in natural systems.

Dr. Robert Brulle, professor of sociology and environmental policy, CoAS, conducted a study along with Jason Carmichael of McGill University and J. Craig Jenkins of Ohio State University, to identify the factors that influence public concern about climate change. The study, which was published in Climatic Change, one of the top 10 climate science journals in the world, reveals that opinion is most affected by mobilizing efforts of advocacy groups and elites.

The Department of History and Politics recently recruited two new political scientists who will join the faculty at Drexel in September 2012: Drs. Erin Graham and Amelia Hoover Green. Graham earned her Ph.D. from Ohio State and is currently completing a post-doc at Princeton. Her dissertation was: The Politics of International Organizational Performance. Green earned her Ph.D. from Yale and most recently taught at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation was: Repertoires of Violence Against Noncombatants: The Role of Armed Group Institutions and Ideologies. She previously worked with United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict, and is currently a member of Human Rights Data Analysis Group at Benetech, Inc.

Dr. Jennifer Quinlan, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences, CNHP, and Brian Dirks, biological sciences doctoral candidate, CoAS, completed a food study which demonstrates that plasma can be an effective method for killing pathogens on uncooked poultry. The study was published in the January issue of the Journal of Food Protection.

Dr. Scott Knowles, associate professor of history and director of Great Works Symposium, had his recently published book The Disaster Experts: Mastering Risk in Modern America featured on the cover of The Philadelphia City Paper and was interviewed on federal disaster policies on February 2, 2012.

Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, assistant professor of political science, was quoted in The Christian Science Monitor article “Weekend Violence in Oakland: Is Occupy Movement Back, or Broken?” on January 30, 2012.

Dr. Mary Ebeling, assistant professor of sociology, CoAS, was featured in the New York Times for her research on direct-to-consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals. The article was published on January 26, 2012.

Dr. Scott Barclay, professor and head of the Department of History and Politics, CoAS, along with Daniel Filler, professor and dean of the Earle Mack School of Law, led the development and creation of the Mid-Atlantic Law and Society Association, a regional academic group affiliated with the international Law and Society Association. The Earle Mack School of Law will host the Association's first academic conference on October 12-13, 2012.

The "Power of Food Scale," created and validated by Dr. Michael Lowe, professor of psychology, CoAS, was featured on "The Dr. Oz Show" website. The scale was developed to better understand the predisposition that may make some people more susceptible to food-related temptations and to losing control over their eating.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, joined 12 international experts in January to advise the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. The team met at the World Bank Headquarters in Tokyo and will reconvene in May. A report of their findings will be presented at the IMF/World Bank annual meeting in October.

Dr. David Goldberg, associate professor of physics, CoAS, spoke at the Princeton Plasma Laboratory "Science on Saturday" series on January 14, 2012. The title is,"'What is the Universe Expanding Into?' and Other Perfectly Reasonable Questions."

Joey Lambert, physics doctoral candidate, CoAS, was awarded a Sigma Xi grant-in-aid for his research proposal "Macroscopic Quantum Effects in Al/Graphene/Al Josephson Junctions" under the direction of Dr. Roberto Ramos. The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and approximately only 20% of applicants worldwide receive any level of funding.

Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, assistant professor of political science, CoAS, published “Coercive Attrition and the Occupy Movement: Oakland’s Dirty War” in Counter Punch on January 9, 2012.

Dr. Rebecca Ingalls, assistant professor of English, CoAS, attended the Modern Language Association's national conference in Seattle as a Special Interest Delegate in Composition, Rhetoric, and Writing.

Dr. Dmitry Kaliuzhnyi-Verbovetskyi, associate professor of mathematics, CoAS, gave an invited talk, "Noncommutative Functions and Fixed Point Theorems," at a special session, "Progress in Free Analysis," of the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston, MA, January 4-7, 2012.

Dr. Rose Corrigan, assistant professor of political science and director of the Women's Studies Program, CoAS, presented the poster "These Are People with Secrets: Victimization, Objectification, and Criminal Justice Strategies" at the Feminist Legal Theory pre-conference of the Association of American Law Schools on Wednesday, January 4, 2012 in Washington, DC.

Dr. Dmitry Kaliuzhnyi-Verbovetskyi, associate professor of mathematics, CoAS, co-authored and published a paper, "Noncommutative Rational Functions, their difference-differential calculus and realizations," in Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing, Volume 23, Issue 1 (2012).

Dr. Myrna Shure, clinical volunteer faculty of psychology, CoAS, had “Thinking Parent, Thinking Child," a trade book for parents, republished by Research Press, Champaign, IL, January, 2012, (originally published by McGraw Hill in 2005 under the same title.)

Dr. Pamela A. Geller, associate professor of psychology, CoAS, published “The role of emerging technology in women’s response to pregnancy loss,” in Expert Review of Obstetrics & Gynecology, January 2012.

The Center for Public Policy, CoAS, was awarded a $30,000 grant from the Philadelphia Department of Commerce to run a training program for directors and staff of the city’s business improvement districts (Feb-Dec 2011). The Center is currently putting together a BID guidebook as part of the grant.

Dr. Christine Maguth Nezu, professor of psychology, COAS, and medicine, DUCOM, was elected as chair, Board of Directors, American Board of Professional Psychology Foundation, January 2012.

Elias Okwara, international area studies major, CoAS, was published in The Standard, Kenya's leading newspaper. His article "Ocampo's Successor a Tricky Proposition for Africa" appeared in the publication on December 29, 2011.

James Herbert, professor of psychology and associate dean, CoAS, was appointed associate editor of the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science.

Stephanie Rabin, fourth year clinical psychology doctoral candidate, CoAS, won a prestigious Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology (SSCP) Dissertation Award in the amount of $500 for her dissertation “The Interaction of Therapist Experiential Avoidance and Extraneous Clinical Information in Predicting Therapist Preference for Exposure Treatment for OCD,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of Clinical Science. Her project was one of only 7 picked out of 40 projects from top programs across the country. Rabin worked under the direction of Dr. James Herbert, professor of psychology and associate dean, and Dr. Evan Forman, associate professor of psychology and director of clinical training.

Dr. Dmitry Kaliuzhnyi-Verbovetskyi, associate professor of mathematics, CoAS, gave an invited talk, "Noncommutative Power Series and Noncommutative Functions," at a special session, "Noncommutative Formal Power Series in Control Theory," of the 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in Orlando, FL, December 12-15, 2011.

Dr. Audrey Melnikov, assistant teaching professor of mathematics, CoAS, wrote "Finite-Dimensional Sturm–Liouville Vessels and Their Tau Functions," published in INTEGRAL EQUATIONS AND OPERATOR THEORY, Volume 71, Number 4, 455-490.

Dr. Miriam N. Kotzin, professor of English and co-director of the Certificate Program In Writing & Publishing, CoAS, recently published "Surface Wounds," Salome Magazine, (December 5, 2011); " Back Silver," Riverbabble, 20 (Winter 2012); "Albino," Eclectica, Vol. 16. No 1 (January 2012); " Cinzano," "The Garden," "Lost," "News from Home," and "Spell," The Tower Journal, 2:5 (January 2012); and "Buckets," Anemone Sidecar, No. 16 (Fall 2011).

Dr. Gordon Richards, associate professor of physics, CoAS, is the recipient of a Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Germany-based Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The honor includes a fellowship that will allow Dr. Richards to pursue sabbatical research at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. Richards will be working on the development of an algorithm for identifying quasars in the upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project, which is scheduled to begin construction in 2014.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor, sociology, Culture and Communication, and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS was quoted in an article on driverless cars in Macleans Magazine, Canada.

Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, assistant professor of political science, CoAS, attended the "Venezuela in its Bicentennial" symposium at the University of Toronto, October 21, 2011.

Dr. Mimi Sheller, professor of sociology and director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, CoAS, was an invited Lecturer in the International Association for Traffic, Transport and Mobility (T2M) Summer School on “The Passenger: Mobility and Modernity”, Berlin, 9/30-10/6, 2011; and she presented “Speed Metal: from Streamline to Airstream” at the T2M Conference “Transport and Mobility on Display”, 6-9 Oct. 2011, Berlin, Germany.

Dr. Ron Bishop, professor of communication, published the book MORE: The Vanishing of Scale in an Over-The-Top Nation with Baylor University Press. Dr. Bishop was interviewed about the book on C-SPAN2's "After Words" and on WHYY's Radio Times.

Dr. Christine Maguth Nezu, professor of psychology and of medicine, was the recipient the Outstanding Contributions to the Specialty of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychology Award, jointly sponsored by the American Board of Cognitive & Behavioral Psychology and the Academy of Cognitive & Behavioral Psychology.

Dr. Jennifer Morse, professor of mathematics, CoAS presented a talk, “Tableaux Families for Macdonald Polynomials, Gromov-Witten Invariants, and Affine K-theory,” at an American Mathematical Society Meeting at Wake Forest University on September 25, 2011. The talk was in a session on Representation Theory and Symmetric Functions.

Dr. Robert Gilmore, professor of physics, CoAS, was honored with a workshop “From Laser Dynamics to Topology of Chaos” to celebrate his 70th Birthday. The event was hosted by the DYCOEC group at the Universite de Rouen and it was focused on two of the main topics investigated by Gilmore during his career. The program included 15 worldwide-recognized speakers and 9 contributors.

The Drexel chapter of the Society of Physics Students, CoAS, was awarded the 2011 Blake Lilly Prize, which recognizes SPS chapters and individuals who make a genuine effort to positively influence the attitudes of school children and the general public about physics.

Dr. Steve McMillan, professor of physics, CoAS, and collaborators Dr. Cameron Abrams, associate professor of chemical engineering, Dr. Jeremy Johnson, professor of computer science, and Dr. Nagarajan Kandasamy, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, built a cluster that is capable of delivering 176 Teraflop of GPU performance. The system comprises 68,352 NVIDIA GPU cores and 48 TB RAID disk storage. This system is funded by an NSF-MRI grant, of which Dr. McMillan is the principal investigator. This supercomputer is used to perform research at two extremes of science: simulations of star-forming regions in space, including galactic nuclei, and molecular dynamics.

Dr. Dmitry Kaliuzhnyi-Verbovetskyi, associate professor of mathematics, CoAS, presented a paper, “Noncommutative Power Series and Noncommutative Functions,” at the International Workshop in Operator Theory and Applications (IWOTA-2011), in Seville, Spain, July 3-9, 2011.

Dr. Joel Oestreich, associate professor and director of International Area Studies, CoAS, attended the annual meeting of the International Studies Association in Montreal, Canada. While there he chaired a round table on “Teaching Ethics and International Relations,” presented a paper on “International Organizations and Diplomatic Studies,” and chaired a panel on “Reform of International Institutions.”