Summer 2010 AS News Digest
Summer 2010
Oceanographer Ian MacDonald takes national lead in speaking out about size of Gulf oil spill
News organizations worldwide have been relying on the expertise of oceanographer Ian MacDonald to estimate the size of the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico after the April 20 explosion of a deepwater oil rig. MacDonald, a professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science who has been quoted by such news organizations as The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, the Associated Press, and Reuters just to name a few, was one of the first to call into question BP’s estimates of the amount of oil gushing forth after the explosion. MacDonald also said publicly that he believed it was possible to use videos of the leak to estimate the size of the spill. As it turns out, he has been right. Since then, MacDonald has continued to speak out about the response by BP and the government, telling ABC News on June 8 that he was proud of the lead taken by independent scientists. “The government, I am sorry to say, has been behind the information curve at every step in this process,” MacDonald said. “And the people who have been leading it are the independent scientists, of whom I am very proud, because, one by one, they have stood up and they have put their reputations on the line based on their best scientific judgment. And that’s good. That’s the ability of independent scientists to speak truth to power. I’m glad they did it. I’m proud of them. But they should have had more help from the authorities.” To read more about MacDonald’s role in the wake of the oil spill, go to http://deepwaterhorizon.fsu.edu/news.php
Barbara Hamby of English wins Guggenheim Fellowship
Barbara Hamby, writer-in-residence in the Department of English, has won a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship for her poetry. “Barbara won the Guggenheim for her work as a poet, but she is as good a fiction writer as anyone who’s won for their prose,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler, himself a Guggenheim Fellow in 1993 and currently Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State. “Her book of stories is downright stunning.” Hamby has had an extraordinary year, also winning a Florida State Distinguished University Scholar Award and the Iowa Short Fiction Award. In addition, five of her poems are to be included in Best American Poetry 2010, due for publication in September. With the Guggenheim money, Hamby plans to write. “Now I will have acres of time to work, which is the main thing,” Hamby said. “I love to write and I have lots of projects lined up, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry.” Each year, between 3,500-4,000 people apply for the Guggenheim, while only about 220 people win. Hamby’s husband, Professor David Kirby, won a Guggenheim in 2003, making Hamby and Kirby only the second husband and wife to win poetry fellowships in the history of the award, according to a list on the Guggenheim Foundation website. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/14/hamby.guggenheim/
Karen McGinnis of Biological Science wins NSF CAREER Award
Molecular biologist and geneticist Karen M. McGinnis has won a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation. McGinnis, who joined the Department of Biological Science in 2008 as part of the university’s Pathways of Excellence initiative, will receive $1,056,978 over the next five years. Using corn, a crop that is vital to the U.S. agricultural economy, she will research how gene expression is controlled and how those controls are passed from one generation to the next. McGinnis’s award also contains a component dedicated to enhancing science education. “Every experiment in this project will be conducted by postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate trainees,” McGinnis wrote in her proposal. “Emphasis will be placed on excellence in preparation for scientific careers and in mentoring young scientists for success.” Professor P. Bryant Chase, chair of the biology department, said McGinnis has been a superb addition to the department. “She is highly deserving of the recognition and opportunities that go along with an NSF CAREER Award. What’s more, she is also one of the few young scientists whose proposal to the NSF managed to win this hard-to-get honor the first time around.” To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/03/29/nsf.award/
Jeanette Taylor of Psychology is lead author on article in Science magazine
A Science magazine article written by Florida State researchers and based on a study of twins shows teachers play a role in how well kids read, with poor teaching preventing kids from reaching their full potential. Lead author of the paper is Associate Professor Jeanette Taylor of the Department of Psychology. Taylor’s co-authors include Alysia Roehrig, an assistant professor in the College of Education, and three others from the Department of Psychology: graduate student Brooke Soden-Hensler, Associate Professor Carol Connor, and Professor Christopher Schatschneider. “When children receive more effective instruction, they will tend to develop at their optimal trajectory,” said Taylor. “When instruction is less effective, then children’s learning potential is not optimized, and genetic differences are left unrealized.” As many parents have long suspected, teachers do have an effect on student reading achievement. “Better teachers provide an environment that allows children to reach their potential,” Taylor said. The article is based on a study of 280 identical and 526 fraternal twin pairs in the first and second grades in Florida schools. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/22/poor.teachers/
Gary Taylor is named lead editor of New Oxford Shakespeare
World-renowned scholar Gary Taylor has been named lead editor of The New Oxford Shakespeare and plans to ensure that the new edition is far more than a traditional book. “I will be actively pushing for a multipronged digital presence,” Taylor said. “After all, as director of the History of Text Technologies program [at FSU], I’m very aware of how new communications media have transformed the history of culture. We are living in a period of explosive expansion for text media, which will surely transform the way that we receive, teach, and understand Shakespeare.” One of the collaborators chosen by Taylor has said that the new edition will include clips from film and stage versions of Shakespeare’s plays. Taylor has a history of success leading complex scholarly projects. He served as general editor of Shakespeare’s Complete Works, published by Oxford University Press in 1986. In 2009, his Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works won the Modern Language Association’s prize for the world’s most “distinguished scholarly edition” published in the previous two years and firmly established Middleton as “our other Shakespeare.” Four other works by Taylor appear on the Random House/Modern Library list of the world’s best 100 books on Shakespeare. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.com/News/FSU-s-Gary-Taylor-named-lead-editor-of-The-New-Oxford-Shakespeare
Steve Lenhert of Biology publishes paper in Nature Nanotechnology
Assistant Professor Steve Lenhert of the Department of Biological Science is the lead author on a paper in Nature Nanotechnology. “We ended up with a fundamentally new class of material—in effect a biometalmaterial, which is a biomaterial that doesn’t exist in nature,” Lenhert said. The paper, published in April 2010 and titled “Lipid multilayer gratings,” describes a technique based on Dip-Pen Nanolithography (DPN), which is a way of depositing incredibly small amounts of materials onto a surface with a pen-like instrument. “The closest real-world application for this material is in medical diagnostics,” Lenhert said. Lenhert is a member of Florida State’s Integrative NanoScience Institute. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/19/new.face/
Le Monde newspaper interviews William Cloonan of Modern Languages
Le Monde, the French equivalent of The New York Times, has interviewed William Cloonan about literary trends in France. “Le Monde’s interview with Bill Cloonan reflects his international reputation in this field,” said Alec Hargreaves, director of the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies at Florida State and Ada Belle Winthrop-King Professor of French. “He is widely known on both sides of the Atlantic as an unrivaled authority on the contemporary literary scene in France. Bill has his finger on the pulse in a way that no one else has.” Cloonan, who is Richard Chapple Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics and chair of the modern languages department, is an expert not only on French literature but on French theater as well. Also interviewed was Professor Dominic Thomas, chair of the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. In the interview, Cloonan says, among other things, that “the supposed predominance of ‘nombrilisme’ (introspective navel-gazing) has been greatly exaggerated,” according to a summary of the interview on the MLL website. Cloonan’s annual research visits to France have brought him into contact with numerous writers and publishers there, providing a treasure trove of material for an annual survey of the field that he publishes in The French Review, where he serves as assistant editor for 20th and 21st century literature. To read the French version of the interview, go to http://www.fsu.edu/~modlang/news/cloonan_lemonde.html
Brian Inouye of Biology is named Fulbright Scholar, will do research in Sweden
Thanks to a Fulbright Fellowship, Associate Professor Brian Inouye will spend the Spring 2011 semester in Sweden studying the interaction between beetles and the colorful but invasive plant that they feed on: purple loosestrife. “Purple loosestrife is a wetlands plant that is native to Europe but has spread invasively in the United States,” Inouye said, “where it can squeeze out other wetlands species. Beetles that feed on purple loosestrife in Sweden have been introduced to the U.S. in an effort to control their populations here, so understanding populations of these insects in their native European habitats may also help guide control efforts here in the U.S.” In Sweden, the abundance of insect populations that feed on purple loosestrife varies greatly from north to south, so Inouye is hoping to do experiments to help understand why. While the layperson might guess that there are more beetle populations in the south because of the warmer climate, Inouye said the answer may have more to do with the beetles’ interactions with a predator wasp and other beetles. Inouye, who will be working with Professor Peter Hambäck at Stockholm University, said he is looking forward to interacting with biologists in Sweden and in other European countries.
Anne Coldiron of English wins Folger fellowship
Associate Professor Anne Coldiron has added another award to her collection of honors, this one a Folger Institute long-term senior research fellowship, to be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The Folger fellowship is an international competition, and Coldiron earned both the Folger and her earlier-announced National Endowment for the Humanities award for her project "Printers Without Borders," which was developed with a Florida State University Council on Research and Creativity Planning Grant. The Folger Institute will fund her research in Washington, D.C. for eight months in 2011, from Jan. 1 through Aug. 31. The library is located on Capitol Hill and is home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials and to major collections of other rare Renaissance books, manuscripts, and works of art.
Paul Cottle of Physics publishes article in Nature
In an article published in the May 27 issue of Nature, Professor Paul Cottle of the Department of Physics takes a look at the state of technology for performing experiments relating to exotic nuclei. The article appears in the journal’s “News and Views” section and is intended for a general physics audience. To read more, go to http://www.physics.fsu.edu/news/2010/Cottle/default.asp
Book by Kristie Fleckenstein of English wins prestigious award
A new book by Associate Professor Kristie Fleckenstein has been named the most outstanding book in composition theory by the Journal of Advanced Composition (JAC). The book—Vision, Rhetoric, and Social Action in the Composition Classroom—is the winner of the 2009 W. Ross Winterowd Award, an award that has been given annually by JAC for 20 years. “Kristie Fleckenstein’s Winterowd Award is confirmation of her tremendous scholarly achievement,” said Professor Ralph Berry, chair of Florida State’s English department. “This well-deserved honor is a source of pride for all her colleagues here.” JAC is an interdisciplinary journal that publishes work on rhetoric, writing, culture, and politics and is recognized for its theoretical approach to issues in rhetoric and composition. This is not the first major book award for Fleckenstein, who joined the Florida State University faculty in 2006. In 2005, her monograph titled Embodied Literacies: Imageword and a Poetics of Teaching was honored with the “Outstanding Book of the Year Award” by the Conference on College Composition and Communication. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/06/17/book.award/
Florida State University spearheads Oil Spill Academic Task Force
Frank Brogan, chancellor of the State University System, recently asked Florida State University to coordinate the new Oil Spill Academic Task Force, an advisory panel that brings together academic experts from around the state’s public and private universities in the wake of the Gulf oil spill. “We have talented researchers at universities throughout the state who can help the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and federal agencies as they wrestle with the complex issues of controlling an oil spill and managing a recovery,” said FSU President Eric J. Barron. The consortium includes scientists from the College of Arts and Sciences. To learn more about the task force, go to http://oilspill.fsu.edu/
Deceased faculty member John Simons of Modern Languages makes gift of $300,000
Professor John Simons, a faculty member for decades in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics who died in January, has made a gift of approximately $300,000 for student scholarships. Simons, who began teaching at Florida State University in 1970, taught German. “John was my friend for a long time,” said William Cloonan, chair of modern languages and a professor of French. “He was a wonderful, crazy, and generous man. When he was alive, he gave an initial gift to the university for students, graduates, and undergraduates who were studying German. In his will he left a generous bequest of about $300,000 in all, and once again intended primarily for students. John’s generosity has created a very bright future for German studies at FSU.” In addition to being a generous man, Simons was a dedicated scholar, Cloonan said. “Our conversations often dealt with writing,” Cloonan said. “For John, scholarship either involved eloquent, clear prose, or it was not worth producing. He took pride not just in what he said, but how he said it. This was particularly welcome for me, because at the time ‘incoherence theory,’ or whatever it was called, was at its height in French studies. It was a pleasant relief to pick up an essay and understand it at first reading. Not that what John wrote was simplistic—far from it—he published in many of his field’s finest journals, but John wrote to be read, not to be deciphered. I learned a lot about writing from reading John’s work.” The fund is officially called the Ursula and John D. Simons Endowment for German, in honor of Simons and his wife, Ursula, who preceded him in death.
Greek immigrant gives $100,000 to Classics
Angelos Langadas of Boca Raton, Fla., has given $100,000 to the Department of Classics for support of graduate students. An engineer by training who was born in Greece, served in World War II, and then worked in the shipping industry, the 93-year-old Langadas has lived in Boca Raton for several years. Passionate about Greek studies, all of his many endowments to higher education have furthered Greek studies programs, students studying Greek subjects, or scholarships for students of Greek descent. Langadas’s gift to FSU’s classics department creates the Angelos C. Langadas Graduate Fellowship for full-time students in the department who are pursuing a degree in Greek studies or a related field. “The fellowship generously endowed by Mr. Langadas will provide our graduate students with the wonderful opportunity to pursue studies in Greek culture, language, and literature,” said Daniel Pullen, chair of the department. “Greek culture is the heart and soul of classics and the humanities, and his gift will greatly enhance our department's strength in Greek studies. To Mr. Langadas we say, Eucharistoume poli.” Translated from the Greek, that means “We thank you very much.”
Thomas Joiner of Psychology is named Lawton Distinguished Professor
Thomas E. Joiner, author of the 2010 book Myths About Suicide, has been named the university’s 2010-2011 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Psychology. “Thomas has changed how both academic and practicing clinical psychologists think about suicide and suicidal inclinations,” said Dean Joseph Travis. “To change how one’s colleagues think about a subject is the ultimate accolade for a scholar.” Joiner, 44, has written or edited 15 books and has written approximately 350 peer-reviewed journal articles. His 2005 book Why People Die by Suicide was named by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as one of 12 “nonfiction books that mattered” in 2006. In late April, Joiner was featured on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan. Among other honors, Joiner won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution in 2000 from the American Psychological Association. “It is hard to exaggerate the reverence with which I have always held the Lawton professorship,” Joiner said. “Now that I have it myself, my feelings about it have grown of course and are hard to summarize succinctly, but suffice it to say that I will devote myself to living up to it.” To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/30/lawton.professor/
David Kimbro of Marine Lab to lead NSF study of oyster reefs
Marine biologist David Kimbro is the principal investigator on a National Science Foundation (NSF) $850,000 grant to study oyster reefs along 1,000 miles of Atlantic and Gulf coastline. Kimbro, a postdoctoral associate at the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, called natural oyster reefs “the most degraded estuarine habitat worldwide, with only 15 percent of global oyster reefs remaining.” Then he said, “Unfortunately, here in the United States, we’ve eaten and dredged away most of the oyster habitat.” The research is especially important, he said, because “oysters promote healthy estuaries by filtering water and increasing the diversity of economically important fishes and invertebrates.” Others involved with the research include ecologist Anne Randall Hughes of the FSU Marine Lab and scientists from the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. In light of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the study is especially timely. “And now, the oil will become a part of the system and patterns that we detect,” Kimbro said. “As a result, we are quickly integrating ideas on how our project can be used to not only quantify the environmental injury caused by the oil spill but also as a means to learn how large disturbances organize ecological systems.” To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/06/01/oil.spill/
Modern Languages alumna Kathleen Parker wins Pulitzer Prize
Kathleen Parker, a Phi Kappa Phi graduate of the College of Arts and Sciences, has won a 2010 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. A syndicated columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group, Parker graduated from Florida State University in 1973 with a B.A. in Spanish and in 1976 with an M.A. in Spanish. In 2008, she was named an FSU “Grad Made Good.” To read more, go to http://fsu.edu/news/2010/04/12/parker.pulitzer/
New Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science makes its debut
The Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (EOAS) made its official debut on Earth Day, April 22, combining the former departments of meteorology, oceanography, and geological sciences into one unit in the College of Arts and Sciences. “It was the graduate students who came up with the idea of tying the official creation date of the department to the celebration of Earth Day,” said Lynn Dudley, professor and chair of the new EOAS department. The departmental merger, which reflects a national trend toward interdisciplinary environmental science programs, creates high-value degrees for students and increased opportunities for collaborative research among faculty members in emerging research areas. In Fall 2010, the EOAS department will officially begin offering two new bachelor’s degrees: a B.S. in environmental science and a B.A. in environmental science and policy. In addition, the department will offer a B.S. degree in meteorology; M.S and Ph.D. degrees in geology, meteorology, and oceanography; and an M.S. degree in aquatic environmental science. “I think the new department will attract more undergraduates to the sciences,” said Jeff Chanton, the John W. Winchester Professor of Oceanography. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/22/eoas.announced/
David Whalley and Gary Tyson win 2 NSF grants to improve mobile computing
Computer science Professors David Whalley and Gary Tyson have received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to design a processor that would enable cell phones and other mobile devices to stay charged longer. The key is to design a more energy-efficient pipelined processor that will cut down on battery use, they say. A pipelined processor can handle various computer processes at once. “The problem is that current techniques used in pipeline designs can waste power by performing redundant and sometimes unnecessary computations,” said Whalley, chair of the Department of Computer Science. So Whalley, Tyson, and a colleague from the University of Pittsburgh are designing a processor that cuts out most of the redundant computations. Currently, Tyson and Whalley hold one patent in this area and have another patent under review, so the $1.2 million, four-year NSF grant complements those ideas. In addition, Tyson and Whalley have received another NSF grant involving mobile computing. It is a $500,000 three-year grant that supports their research to fight malware and other security threats. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/05/25/mobile.devices/
Christopher Patrick and Edward Bernat of Psychology win $950K grant from NIMH
Professor Christopher J. Patrick and Associate Professor Edward Bernat of the Department of Psychology have received a two-year grant for $949,368 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “The grant focuses on examination of the role of individual differences in fear/fearlessness and lack of inhibitory control in problems of impulse control exhibited by criminal offenders—including psychopathy, antisocial behavior, substance dependence, and aggression/violence,” said Patrick. “The project is directed toward addressing NIMH’s current strategic plan, which focuses on reconceptualizing mental disorders in terms of neurobiological constructs and measures.” The funds for this grant are part of the federal government’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Thousands of applications were submitted nationwide, and only the grants rated in the top 4 percent to 5 percent were funded. Both Patrick and Bernat are clinical psychologists. Patrick is the principal investigator (PI) on the grant, and Bernat is the co-PI.
Modern Languages student wins Pickering Fellowship, one of only 20 nationally
Aleksey Sanchez, who graduated magna cum laude in May 2010 with bachelor’s degrees in Russian and international affairs, has won a Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship. The fellowship, which is funded by the U.S. Department of State, provides up to $50,000 per year for two years of graduate work in international studies. Sanchez is planning to begin work on his master’s degree at George Washington University in the fall, with an eye toward a career in the U.S. Foreign Service. Sanchez was born in Russia to a Russian mother and Cuban father. When he was 2, he moved to Cuba, and when he was 9, he moved to Florida. “My interest in finding out more about my Russian heritage really began at FSU when I started taking Russian language classes,” Sanchez said. “With each class I took, I became more interested and really fell in love with the language, history, and culture.” In Summer 2009, Sanchez won a Winthrop-King Undergraduate Scholarship through the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, enabling him to participate in FSU’s International Program in Moscow. Before that, Sanchez won a Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study in Astrakhan, Russia, in Summer 2008. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/05/27/prestigious.pickering/
2 A&S undergraduates win prestigious Goldwater scholarships
Two Florida State University students, both from the College of Arts & Sciences, have won Goldwater Scholarships, national awards intended primarily for students studying math, science, or engineering. Interestingly, both students graduated from high school in Tallahassee. Vivek Pal, who graduated from Rickards High School, is majoring in mathematics and statistics, with the goal of earning his Ph.D. and becoming a math professor, while Kristen Ramsey, who graduated from Leon High School, is majoring in biochemistry, with the goal of earning a combined M.D./Ph.D. and doing cancer research. “Since candidates must be nominated by their institutions, the entire applicant pool is quite elite,” said D. Craig Filar, director of FSU’s Office of National Fellowships. “Despite the fact that he’s just a junior, Vivek is conducting research at a graduate level, which is exemplary in terms of the type of scholarship he’s producing,” Filar said. “And Kristen’s win is all the more impressive when you consider that only about one-third of the coveted awards go to sophomores each year.” Ramsey will receive the award for two years, and Pal will receive the award for one year. Pal’s older sister, Priya Pal, won the Goldwater in 2007 while a student at FSU. Each Goldwater scholarship covers school expenses up to $7,500 per year, with 300 scholarships awarded each year. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.com/News-Archive/2010/April/Two-students-chosen-for-prestigious-Goldwater-Scholarships
3 undergraduates win national scholarships to study foreign languages abroad
Cornelius Canton and Anne Lippitt have each won a Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State, while Caitlin Stull has won a Boren Undergraduate Scholarship. Canton, a Middle Eastern Studies major, will continue his Arabic studies over the summer in Oman. Lippitt, who graduated in May 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in international affairs, will study over the summer in Jordan. “Cornelius and Anne are two of the best from our thriving Arabic language program, which is populated by dedicated, motivated students helping to meet the nation’s needs in a critical area,” said Zeina Schlenoff, head of the Arabic division within the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. Stull, a double major in English and international affairs, will study Turkish in Istanbul for a year. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/06/03/foreign.languages/
3 meteorology undergraduates win national Hollings Scholarships
Three students majoring in meteorology have won scholarships from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship Program. They are Daniel Gilford of Clearwater, Fla.; Chad Robin of New Orleans; and Carrie Roller of Melbourne, Fla. All three were sophomores when the scholarships were announced at the end of the Spring 2010 semester. The scholarship provides funding of up to $8,000 per academic year for the students’ junior and senior years as well as paid summer internships with a NOAA agency between the junior and senior years. Gilford, a double major in meteorology and mathematics, hopes to eventually earn his Ph.D. and become a professor. Robin, a double major in meteorology and geography, hopes to eventually attend graduate school. And Roller, who hopes to become a certified TV meteorologist, is also considering graduate school. Across the nation, 121 scholarships were awarded this year through the program, created in 2005 to honor former U.S. Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/30/meteorology.students/
Timothy Cross wins American Chemical Society’s 2010 Florida Award
Professor Timothy Cross is the winner of the American Chemical Society’s 2010 Florida Award. The award was given in May at the ACS’s Florida Local Section’s Annual Meeting and Exposition near Tampa. Cross is the Earl Frieden Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State, as well as director of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Program at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. Cross was quick to credit the help and work of his colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students at FSU and the Mag Lab. “None of this work is done in a vacuum,” Cross said. “I am honored to have been selected for this award. I have many deserving colleagues here at FSU as well as at the other institutions throughout Florida, but the honor really goes to my students and postdocs who have done all of the work—not only the challenging physical activities of preparing samples, conducting sophisticated experiments and analyzing data, but in many cases designing the experiments and challenging assumptions and hypotheses in the literature. I have been fortunate to have many bright people in my group who make me look good.” Cross’s most recent work has concentrated on flu and tuberculosis proteins, with an eye toward developing new drugs to combat these deadly diseases. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/04/20/cross.honored/
Southeast Climate Consortium receives $2.5 million from U.S.D.A.
Florida State University has received $2.5 million from the federal government to help develop better weather forecasts for farmers, said U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd, a Democrat representing northern Florida. The U.S. Department of Agriculture grant is targeted for the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC), of which FSU is the lead institution. “Agriculture is one of Florida’s largest industries, and for more than a decade the [SECC] has helped strengthen the contributions the agriculture sector makes to our local and national economies,” said Boyd. “I commend FSU for their leadership in the consortium and for the invaluable research they have provided farmers throughout the Southeast region.” Boyd made the comments in a news conference held in Tallahassee in May. He was joined by James O’Brien, emeritus Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Oceanography and former director of the FSU Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) and Raymond Bye, director of federal relations and economic development at FSU. To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/05/07/usda.grant/
Arts & Sciences students win NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
The Graduate School has announced that a record number of FSU students have received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships. Most of these students are from the College of Arts and Sciences. Each winner receives a $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, and a $1,000 international-travel allowance for three years. Graduate School Dean Nancy Marcus called the award “immensely prestigious.” Current FSU graduate students receiving the award are biology students Lisa Nicole Barrow, Megan Anlis Jones, and Alexa Rosemary Warwick; neuroscience/psychology student Kimberly Renae Smith; and engineering student Alyse Michelle Taylor. Undergraduates receiving the award who will be studying at other universities include meteorology student Evan Anthony Kalina and engineering student Ashley Anne Thomson.
USA Today names Jesse O’Shea one of top 20 college students
USA Today has named Jesse O’Shea, 21, to its 20-member All-USA College First Academic Team. Winners, announced on June 9, were chosen based on their excellent scholarship and their efforts to reach beyond the classroom to benefit society. O’Shea, majoring in a biological science and interdisciplinary social sciences, is the younger brother of Joe O’Shea, who won the same award in 2007 and went on to be named a Rhodes Scholar in 2008. Jesse O’Shea founded the Global Haiti Initiative, which has grown to around 20 chapters at various universities. And he also founded Protect Our Professors, which raised more than $125,000 in one semester to help protect faculty and staff jobs at FSU. Jesse O’Shea is planning to graduate in May 2011, after which he hopes to earn a medical degree and a doctoral degree. To read about the 20 winners, go to http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-06-09-AllUSA09_CV_N.htm
French scholar Doris Gray is quoted by German Press Service
Doris Gray, who teaches in the FSU Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, was interviewed by the Germany Press Agency about the expulsion of Christian aid workers this spring from Morocco. Gray, who taught for two years at a university in Morocco, is an authority on Arab women in France and North Africa. “That the German Press Agency would turn to Dr. Gray is a very positive reflection on her standing as a scholar and says something good about FSU as well,” said William Cloonan, chair of the department. This summer, Gray has accepted an invitation from Tel Aviv University to participate in an exclusive conference on Israel and the Middle East. The invitation-only workshop, sponsored by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, is limited to 15 participants worldwide. It focuses on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and contemporary issues related to Israel and the broader Middle East.
COAPS researchers predict active hurricane season
Using a numerical model unveiled in 2009, researchers at the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) predict that 2010 will be an active year for storms and hurricanes. COAPS researchers are forecasting an average of 17 named storms, with 10 of those storms developing into hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, said Associate Scholar Scientist Tim LaRow. “The predicted high number of tropical systems means there is an increased chance that the eastern United States or Gulf Coast will see a landfall this year,” LaRow said. Last year, the model proved amazingly accurate. It predicted that there would be eight named storms, with four of them becoming hurricanes. In reality, there were nine named storms, and three of them became hurricanes. COAPS researchers spent about five years developing the numerical model, which uses the university’s high-performance computing resources. Development of the model has been primarily funded by a $6.2 million, five-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). To read more, go to http://www.fsu.edu/news/2010/06/01/hurricane.season/
FSU Physics Department gets privileged look at Large Hadron Collider
The Department of Physics announced this spring that it was one of just eight sites in the United States that had been set up with video and internet feeds to connect directly with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. “This is a tremendously exciting time to be involved in high-energy physics,” said Harrison Prosper, FSU’s Kirby W. Kemper Professor of Physics and a Distinguished Research Professor. “The Large Hadron Collider has the potential to unlock many of the mysteries of the universe that science has pondered for more than a century. Our students are quite fortunate to have a front-row seat as history is being made.” Prosper was referring to the March 30 experiment at LHC that set a world record for the highest-energy, man-made particle collisions. All members of Florida State’s High Energy Physics Group are involved in the LHC in some way. In addition to Prosper, those physicists include Jeff Owens, Laura Reina, Takemichi Okui, Bernd Berg, Todd Adams, Andrew Askew, Susan Blessing, Kurtis Johnson, Sharon Hagopian, Vasken Hagopian, and Horst Wahl. To read more, go to http://www.physics.fsu.edu/news/2010/LHC/default.asp
Several anthropology graduate students receive NSF dissertation grants
In the 2009-2010 academic year, a banner crop of graduate students in the Department of Anthropology received Dissertation Improvement Grants from the National Science Foundation. According to graduate student Timothy Parsons, six students received the grants. Those students are Hanneke Hoekman-Sites, Stephanie Litka, Alexandra Parsons, Tim Parsons, Ian Pawn, and Dan Seinfeld. To read more, go to http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/news/NSF_Announcement.shtml
Arts & Sciences students fare well in end-of-year awards ceremonies
Eight of 10 winners of the university’s 2010 Outstanding Senior Scholar Award are Arts and Sciences students. Those 10 winners are meteorology majors Joshua Cossuth and Evan Kalina; philosophy major Felicia Holloman; sociology major Jesse Klein; biology major Will Overholt; psychology major Alana Resmini; history major Kevin Uhler, mathematics major Kurt Vinhage, Spanish major Julie Walker; and engineering major John Walsh. The Phi Beta Kappa Society has also honored Vinhage, naming him the winner of its Marion Jewell Hay Award. The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi has announced special awards for three FSU students: undergraduate biology major Jeremy R. Bary from the Netherlands Antilles, graduate anthropology student Joshua D. Englehardt from Orlando, Fla., and graduate art education student Yi-Jen Wu from Taiwan. The National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society has announced that Spanish major Michelle Ramirez-Matabuena has received its Gabriela Mistral Award for her achievements in Spanish.
FSU English majors nab 3 of 6 awards in regional writing competition
The Department of English says that FSU English majors won three of six student writing prizes at the March meeting of Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers. Those students are undergraduate Christen Buckler and graduate students Holly Wilson and Katherine Burgess.
Article by Physics researchers makes cover of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Ibrahim Abou Hamad and Per Arne Rikvold suggest a new way to cut charging time for lithium-ion batteries in an article that made the cover of the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (PCCP) on March 21. Lithium-ion batteries can be found in many popular portable electronic devices such as cell phones, Blackberries, and laptop computers, and these batteries also have military and aerospace applications. Hamad is a postdoctoral associate and Rikvold is the James. G. Skofronick Professor of Physics. Other authors on the paper are Mark A. Novotny and David O. Wipf from Mississippi State University. To read more, go to http://www.physics.fsu.edu/news/2010/Li-ion/default.asp
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About the College of Arts and Sciences News Digest
The College of Arts and Sciences News Digest includes information about the research and educational accomplishments of A&S faculty, staff, and students. Aimed at fostering collaboration and encouraging excellence within the college, items include news about major grant awards, professional honors, scholarly publications, advances in research, and major gifts. If you would like to submit a news item to be considered for the next digest, please send it to Susan Hellstrom at shellstrom@fsu.edu