Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturers, 2008-2009
Abstracts
Each lecturer has designated his or her topic(s) for three different types of audiences. Where more than one level is shown, the lecture can be adjusted to the needs of the audience:
- P (Public)
Aimed at presenting scientific issues of general concern to a public audience.
- G (General)
Intended for a normal Sigma Xi audience of both scientists and other scholars representing a broad range of disciplines.
- S (Specialized)
Aimed at scientists and students in fields that are closely related to that of the lecturer.
John F. Alderete
Vice Provost of Research, Washington State
University
School of Molecular Biosciences
French Ad 324
Pullman, WA 99164
509-335-9141
E-mail: alderete@wsu.edu
Web: http://molecular.biosciences.wsu.edu/faculty/alderete/
John F. Alderete, Ph.D. is Professor of Microbiology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He received two B.S. degrees (mathematics and biology) from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Ph.D. in microbiology in 1978 from the U. Kansas-Lawrence, and postdoctoral fellowship at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has 125 publications and 54 book chapters and invited OP-ED editorials. He has given 400 presentations on the sexually transmitted agent, Trichomonas vaginalis, at universities and conferences. He has 6 patents and patents pending. He has been a member of study sections and panels for government agencies. Dr. Alderete has served on National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine panels. He speaks on issues involving minorities, higher education, and the scientific workforce. He has received honors, most notably the Premio Encuentro Award for Science and Technology in 1992, the single highest honor given to an Hispanic in America. He was elected into the American Academy of Microbiology. Hispanic Magazine selected him as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in America. He conducted for over a ten-year period a Saturday Morning Science Camp for minority students, parents and teachers. He has mentored 40 underrepresented minorities from undergraduate institutions and high schools. Dr. Alderete was president of SACNAS, and he received the 2003 Distinguished Scientist Award presented at the SACNAS annual conference. ASM honored Dr. Alderete in 2004 with the William A. Hinton Award for bringing minorities into the sciences. He is the inventor for the diagnostic for the trichomonosis STD. Dr. Alderete was inducted into the Mexican Academy of Science in October 2006. Finally, he received the 2007 Outstanding Latino Faculty in Higher Education Research/Teaching in Higher Education award from the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, Inc.
Helen M. Berman
Board of Governors, Professor of Chemistry
and Chemical Biology
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RCSB Protein Data Bank
Doolittle Hall, 610 Taylor Road
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Phone: 732-445-4667
E-mail: berman@rcsb.rutgers.edu
Helen M. Berman is a Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University. Her research area is structural biology and bioinformatics, with a special focus on protein-nucleic acid interactions. She is the founder of the Nucleic Acid Database, a repository of information about the structures of nucleic acid-containing molecules; and is the co-founder and Director of the Protein Data Bank, the international repository of the structures of biological macromolecules. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Biophysical Society, from which she received the Distinguished Service Award in 2000. A past president of the American Crystallographic Association, she is a recipient of the Buerger Award (2006). Dr. Berman received her A.B. in 1964 from Barnard College and a Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Pittsburgh.
National Academy of Science Lecturer in
Sustainable Economic Development
John B. Carberry
Director, Environmental Technology
E.I. DuPont
Experimental Station
E302/208
E.I. DuPont
Wilmington, DE 19880-0302
Phone: 302-695-3304
E-mail: john.b.carberry@usa.dupont.com
John B. Carberry is responsible for recommendations on technical programs and product development for DuPont based on an analysis of environmental issues. Since 1989, he has led this technology function in a transition to increasingly emphasize waste prevention, product stewardship and sustainability while maintaining excellence in treatment. Externally, Mr. Carberry serves on the National Academy Committee on Strategic Advice to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Academy's Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability. Mr. Carberry is a founding member of the Green Power Market Development Group. He recently was Chair of the National Academy Committee on the Destruction of the Non-Stockpile Chemical Weapons, and served on six previous National Academy Committees. He holds a B.ChE. and an M.E. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University, an MBA from the University of Delaware and is a Registered Professional Engineer.
Mr. Carberry lives in Newark DE with his wife Sandra. They have two married children and four grandchildren.
Daryl E. Chubin
Center Director
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-326-6785
E-mail: dchubin@aaas.org
Web: www.aaascapacity.org
Daryl E. Chubin has had three careers: academic, federal, and nonprofit. He became Founding Director, in August 2004, of the AAAS Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity (www.aaascapacity.org) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, DC. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President, Research, Policy & Programs (2001-04) at the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) Inc., in White Plains, New York, after nearly 15 years in federal service. Posts included Senior Policy Officer for the National Science Board at the National Science Foundation (NSF, 1998-2001); Division Director for Research, Evaluation and Communication in NSF's Directorate for Education and Human Resources (1993-98); and (on detail) Assistant Director for Social and Behavioral Sciences (and Education) at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1997). He began his federal career at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (1986-93), directing studies on science education and federal research funding policy.
In his first career, Dr. Chubin was a faculty member at four universities, including Georgia Tech, where he was promoted to full professor. Since 1991, he has been Adjunct Professor at the Cornell in Washington Program. He has published eight books and numerous policy reports, articles, and commentaries on issues in science policy, human resource development, program evaluation, and engineering education.
Chubin serves on the editorial boards of three journals and as a director on nonprofit Boards. Among his honors are: AAAS Fellow, Past Chair of the AAAS section on Societal Impacts of Science and Engineering, Past President of CPST, Fellow of the Association for Women in Science, member of the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Diversity in the Engineering Workforce, Integrator for the public-private partnership BEST (Building Engineering and Science Talent), co-recipient of the American Society of Engineering Education Wickenden Award for best paper published in the 2003 volume of The Journal of Engineering Education, QEM/MSE 2006 Giant of Science, and Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer 2007-2009.
National Academy of Engineering -
Sigma Xi Lecturer
W. Dale Compton
Lillian M. Gilbreth Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Purdue University
School Of Industrial Engineering
1287 Grissom Hall
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1287
Phone: 765-494-0828
E-mail: dcompton@purdue.edu
- Health Care Delivery - Can Engineering Help? (G,S,P)
Adela I. de la Torre
Professor and Director Chicana and Chicano Studies Program
University of California, Davis
Chicana/o Studies Program
Hart Hall
One Shields Avenue
Phone: 530-752-2421
E-mail: adela@ucdavis.edu
Dr. de la Torre received her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics in 1982 from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include: border/immigration policies, health-care access/finance issues, Latina/o health, risk and cultural factors associated with HIV/AIDS transmission. From 1996-2002, she was director of the Mexican American Studies and Research Center at the University of Arizona. Prior to that appointment, Dr. de la Torre chaired the Chicano and Latino Studies Department at Long Beach from 1991-1995. She also served as a syndicated columnist in the Los Angeles Times. She was past President of the American Society of Hispanic Economists. She is a member of the National Hispanic Science Network on Drug Abuse and Chair of the board of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, Her books include: Mexican Americans and Health: Sana! Sana! (2001) and Moving from the Margins: A Chicana Voice on Public Policy (2004).
Barbara Gerbert
Professor
Division of Behavioral Sciences, Professionalism, and Ethics
707 Parnassus Avenue
Box 0758
University of California San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94143
Phone: 415-502-7283
E-mail: Barbara.gerbert@ucsf.edu
Web: http://www.ucsf.edu/chips/
- Bet You and Your Doctor Don't Talk about Sex: A Conversation Starter for Patients (G)
Barbara Gerbert, PhD is Professor and Chair of the Division of Behavioral Sciences, Professionalism, and Ethics, and the Director of the Center for Health Improvement and Prevention Studies at the University of California San Francisco. She is committed to understanding the barriers to optimal health care and to improving the quality of health care. Specifically, her goals are to: 1) identify behavioral risks and patient, provider, and systemic barriers to optimal health care delivery; 2) design and test innovative interventions to support and simplify the providers' role in prevention; 3) develop new methods of providing optimal health risk assessment and prevention counseling through multimedia; and 4) disseminate her research findings to relevant policymakers and the public. Since 1980, Dr. Gerbert has received funding from six different NIH Institutes for investigations covering a range of prevention topics, including tobacco use, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, skin cancer, and domestic violence.
Robert B. Gilbert
Hudson Matlock Professor in Civil, Architectural
and Environmental Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
1 University Station C1700
Austin, TX 78712 United States
Phone: 512-232-3688
E-mail: bob_gilbert@mail.utexas.edu
Dr. Gilbert is the Hudson Matlock Professor in Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He joined the faculty in 1993. Prior to that, he earned B.S. (1987), M.S. (1988) and Ph.D. (1993) degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also practiced with Golder Associates Inc. as a geotechnical engineer from 1988 to 1993. His expertise is the assessment, evaluation and management of risk in civil engineering. Applications include building foundations, slopes, pipelines, dams and levees, landfills, and groundwater and soil remediation systems. He teaches undergraduate, graduate and professional level courses. He conducts research supported by federal and state agencies and private industry. Recent activities include analyzing the performance of offshore platforms and pipelines in hurricanes; managing earthquake and flooding risks for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California; and performing a forensic analysis of the New Orleans levee failures.
Kimberly A. Gray
Professor
Northwestern University
Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
2145 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208-3109 United States
Phone: 847-467-4252 E-mail: k-gray@northwestern.edu
Kimberly Gray is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has a secondary appointment in Chemical and Biological Engineering and is a member of the Center for Catalysis and Surface Science, Institute of Policy Research and the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1988 and worked as a research engineer for the Lyonnaise des Eaux in Paris, France for 2 years. She joined the Northwestern faculty in 1995 and since 2003 has been the Director of the Environmental Science, Engineering and Policy Program. She was recognized as a NSF Presidential Young Investigator, was the 1998-99 president of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, and was the Associate Director of one of the first three NSF Environmental Molecular Science Institutes in the U.S., NU's Institute of Environmental Catalysis, from 1998-2005. In 2007 she received the McCormick Excellence Award in Research, Teaching and Citizenship. Her research focuses on the development of photoactive materials for energy and environmental applications, and on the study of chemical fate in environmental systems. She works closely with the Chicago Legal Clinic to provide technical expertise to solve environmental problems for low-income urban communities. Both her teaching and research are tightly interwoven with the many issues that underpin the drive toward sustainability. She is the author of over 60 scientific papers and lectures widely on energy and environmental issues.
Robert M. Hazen
Senior Scientist
Carnegie Institution
Geophysical Lab
5251 Broad Branch Road NW
Washington, DC 20015 United States
Phone: 202-478-8962
E-mail: rhazen@ciw.edu
Web: www.hazen.ciw.edu
Robert M. Hazen, research scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory and Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University, received the B.S. and S.M. in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1971), and the Ph.D. at Harvard University in earth science (1975). After studies as NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge University in England, he joined the Carnegie Institution's research effort, where his research focuses on the role of minerals in the origin of life.
Hazen is author of more than 300 articles and 19 books on science, history, and music. He has written widely for popular audiences, including articles inNewsweek, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, New Scientist and The New York Times Magazine. A Fellow of AAAS, he received the Mineralogical Society of America Award (1982), the American Chemical Society Ipatieff Prize (1986), the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award (1989), the Educational Press Association Award (1992), and the Wood Science Writing Award (1998). He was President of the Mineralogical Society of America in 2005-2006.
Prof. Hazen is active in presenting science to a general audience. His books with coauthor James Trefil include the best selling Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy and The Sciences: An Integrated Approach, now in its fifth edition. He serves on the Committee on Public Understanding of Science of AAAS, and on Advisory Boards for NOVA (WGBH Boston), Earth & Sky, Encyclopedia Americana, and the Carnegie Council. He appears frequently on radio and television programs on science, and he developed two popular video courses: The Joy of Science and The Origins of Life, produced by The Teaching Company. Robert Hazen is also a professional trumpeter who has performed with numerous ensembles including the Metropolitan Opera, the Bolshoi Ballet, and the National Symphony. He is presently a member of the National Philharmonic and the National Gallery Orchestra.
Manjit S. Kang
Office of Vice Chancellor
Thapar Hall
Punjab Agricultural University
Ludhiana 141 004
India E-mail: manjit5264@yahoo.com
Web: http://www.geocities.com/drmanjit_kang/
Manjit S. Kang, Vice Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University in India, received his Ph.D. degree in 1977 from University of Missouri-Columbia. He has edited/authored 10 books, including Genotype-by-Environment Interaction, Quantitative Genetics, Genomics and Plant Breeding, Crop Improvement, Handbook of Formulas for Breeders and Geneticists, GGE Biplot Analysis, and Genetic and Production Innovations in Field Crop Technology. He has lectured on quantitative genetics as applied to crop improvement in Hungary under the USDA/OICD sponsorship. In 1999, he won a 3-month Fulbright Senior Scholar (Lecturing Award) to Malaysia. He was the recipient of the 2005 South Dakota Crop Improvement Association Lectureship. He has conducted workshops/seminars at International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria. He is Fellow of American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America. He serves as Technical Editor of Crop Science, Senior Editor of Journal of Crop Improvement, and Editor-in-Chief of Communications in Biometry and Crop Science.
Dr. Kang has organized successful international symposia on genotype-by-environment interaction in plant breeding, quantitative genetics, and agricultural and environmental sustainability. He has published more than 100 refereed journal articles and many book chapters and essays in encyclopedias of genetics and crop science. He has been active in Sigma Xi since 1975 and served as President of the LSU Chapter of Sigma Xi twice (2000-2001 and 2005-2006). He was recognized for his significant contributions to plant breeding and genetics by Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana at its 36th Foundation Day in 1997. Dr. Kang's biographical sketches have appeared in Marquis Who's Who.
Bruce A. Macher
Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
San Francisco State University
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
San Francisco, CA 94132
Phone: 415-338-6078
E-mail: macher@sfsu.edu
Bruce Macher is a professor of biochemistry at San Francisco State University, where he has been since 1987. Prior to his faculty position at San Francisco State University, he was a faculty member in the Cancer Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. He research has focused on glycoconjugate biochemistry and the application of mass spectrometry to biochemical research problems. Currently, his research is focused on the development of methodology for proteomic analysis. He has developed a range of programs aimed at improving biomedical research infrastructure at San Francisco State University, and in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California at Davis and San Francisco, he has developed programs designed to provide postdoctoral scholars with the knowledge, skills and experience to succeed in faculty positions.
Sigma Xi Committee on Education Lecturer
Robert D. Mathieu
Professor of Astronomy
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Department of Astronomy
475 North Charter Street
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: 608-262-5679 ext. 3071
E-mail: mathieu@astro.wisc.edu
Bob Mathieu has been on the faculty of the Department of Astronomy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1987. He was educated at Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley, after which he became a fellow of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He has served as president of the Board of Directors of the WIYN Observatory, and now chairs the University Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research involves the formation and evolution of binary stars and the dynamics of star clusters. He also directs the NSF Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL; http://www.cirtl.net), whose mission is to prepare STEM graduate students to be both forefront researchers and excellent teachers. He also is the principal investigator of an NSF project to upgrade the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG) instrument.
Philip A. Meyers
Professor of Geological Sciences
The University of Michigan
CC Little Bldg Geological Sciences
1100 North University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1005
Phone: 734-764-0597
E-mail: pameyers@umich.edu
Philip A. Meyers is an organic geochemist who is interested in the processes that are involved in the origin, delivery, and accumulation of organic matter in sediments and the evidence for paleoenvironmental changes that are recorded in the composition of sedimentary organic matter. His research focuses on paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on organic matter in Cretaceous black shales, Mediterranean sapropels, and Holocene lake sediments. The unifying element of his studies of marine and lake records is that both types of systems are sensitive to global climate change, although in ways that are differently influenced by local or regional factors. The marine records generally yield information about large-scale processes, whereas the lake records respond more rapidly to shorter-term phenomena. These various processes impact the production, delivery, and preservation of organic matter in the bottom sediments, which provides information that can be interpreted to yield histories of paleoenvironmental changes.
Use of multiple geochemical and sedimentary proxies is a distinctive feature of his approach to reconstructing paleoenvironmental histories. From his early research using bulk organic matter properties and lipid biomarkers, he has added organic carbon and nitrogen stable isotope compositions, Rock-Eval pyrolysis, and redox-sensitive trace metals to the suite of proxies he routinely uses. Active collaboration with other organic geochemists has broadened the range of organic geochemical proxies he finds useful to include hydrogen isotope values and compound-specific carbon isotope analyses for specific projects. He also works closely with marine micropaleontologists to integrate microfossil and organic geochemical evidence of paleoenvironmental conditions. An interesting aspect of his paleoreconstruction research is that his findings have relevance to estimating the future consequences of modern processes, such as human activities and climate change.
Naomi Miller
Senior Research Scientist
University of Pennsylvania
Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA)
3260 South Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: 219-898-4058
E-mail: nmiller0@sas.upenn.edu
Naomi F. Miller is an archaeologist specializing in the study of plant remains from archaeological sites. She has conducted most of her field work in west and central Asia: Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Turkmenistan, but has also done stints in New Jersey, Tunisia, and elsewhere. Her main research interests are the long-term impact of human societies on the landscape and ancient economy and land use. Her current work at Gordion increasingly involves figuring out how to use living plants to help preserve the ancient ruins, improve pasture land, and incorporate environmental education into the presentation of the site and its museum. She has served as editor of the Journal of Ethnobiology and is on the editorial board of Paléorient and Expedition magazine. She has co-edited several scholarly books and produced an archaeological memoir illustrated with watercolors painted in the field (Drawing on the Past, an Archaeologist's Sketchbook)
Stephen L. Morgan
Professor
University of South Carolina
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
631 Sumter Street
Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: 803-777-2461
E-mail: morgan@mail.chem.sc.edu
Web: http://www.chem.sc.edu/faculty/morgan/
Stephen L. Morgan is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). He received a B.S in Chemistry from Duke University (1971), and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees (1974, 1975) from Emory University. Research interests include forensic analytical chemistry (spectroscopy and separations for trace evidence such as fibers, dyes and inks, and biological residues), chemometrics, and polymer analysis by pyrolysis and spectroscopy. Dr. Morgan has coauthored over 125 publications and four books, including Experimental Design: A Chemometric Approach (1993) and Sequential Simplex Optimization for Quality & Productivity in Research, Development, and Manufacturing (1991). Dr. Morgan has taught over 550 short courses on experimental design and statistics for the American Chemical Society. Dr. Morgan has mentored the research of 40 graduate students; in 2007, he was named Distinguished Undergraduate Research Mentor, with over 80 undergraduates having worked in his laboratory.
Sharon L. Neal
Associate Professor
University of Delaware
Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Newark, DE 19716 United States
Phone: 302-831-0719
E-mail: sneal@udel.edu
Web: http://www.udel.edu/chem/sneal/sln_rsrch/sln_home.htm
Sharon L. Neal is an associate professor in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at University of Delaware. Prof. Neal is an analytical chemist focusing on the development of multivariate spectroscopic and data analysis tools for investigating the dynamic interactions of small molecules with the complex fluids encountered in biological, environmental and clinical systems. Her articles in these areas have been published in journals such as Analytical Chemistry, the Journal of Physical Chemistry and Analytica Chimica Acta. She earned the B.S. in Chemistry at Spelman College and the Ph.D. in Chemistry at Emory University, both in Atlanta, GA. She conducted post-graduate research at the University of Washington and Naval Research Laboratory. Before moving to U of DE in 1998, she was an Assistant Professor at UC Riverside and Spelman College. She also worked as a staff chemist at The Coca-Cola Company prior to completing her graduate degree.
National Cancer Institute -
Sigma Xi Lecturer
Vito Quaranta
Professor of Cancer Biology
Co-Director, Center for Matrix Biology
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
446B PRB, 2220 Pierce Avenue
Nashville, TN 37232
Phone: 615-936-2868
Fax: 615-936-1190
E-mail: vito.quaranta@vanderbilt.edu
Dr. Vito Quaranta, MD, is a Professor of Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, since May 2003. He is Director of the Vanderbilt Integrative Cancer Biology Center, and Co-Director of the Center for Matrix Biology at Vanderbilt. Dr. Quaranta obtained a Medical Degree and a Hematology Board from the University of Bari School of Medicine, Bari, Italy. He passed the Board examination of the United States Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates and moved to La Jolla, California, in 1977. He received post-doctoral training and later held academic positions, including tenure, at the Department of Cell Biology of The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA for twenty-five years. He achieved honors from the Leukemia Society of America, the American Cancer Society and the Italian-American Medical Education Foundation.
His fields of interest have been oncology and matrix biology for over twenty years. His favorite research topic is cancer invasion and metastasis. He authored several relevant chapters in numerous medical books and over a hundred scientific articles in the field of cancer biology. He has been and invited lecturer in numerous international congresses and distinguished conferences on cancer biology, including the American Association for Cancer Research, the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, the American Red Cross, the National Cancer Institute, the Metastasis Research Society, the Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cancer Biology. For over 15 years he held advisory positions in scientific institutions including Special Emphasis review member at the National Cancer Institute and ad hoc member of several Study Sections at the National Institute of Health. He is associate editor of two well recognized scientific journals (Journal of Cellular Physiology and Cancer Research) and regularly reviews for prestigious professional journals.
Recently, Dr. Quaranta has focused on systems biology approaches to cancer invasion. With substantial funding from the National Cancer Institute, he has started and directs the Vanderbilt Integrative Cancer Biology Center, where he is implementing a cutting-edge interdisciplinary effort melding mathematics, engineering, computation and biology, in order to solve the problem of cancer invasion and metastasis.
Lesley Reid
Associate Professor
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 5020
Dept. of Sociology
Atlanta, GA 30302-5020
Phone: 404-413-6521
E-mail: lesleyreid@gsu.edu
Web: http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwsoc/faculty/reid.html
Lesley Reid is Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University. Her research integrates three areas of sociology: Criminology, urban sociology, and stratification. Across these areas, she uses the macro-level lens of global economic restructuring to understand micro-level behaviors such as criminal offending and drug use. Her current research includes (1) a four-decade study of the influence of immigration on crime across U.S. metropolitan areas; (2) an analysis of community and economic effects on drug use; and (3) an investigation of the use of recently popularized drugs, such as methamphetamine, in urban neighborhoods. Her research has been published in numerous journals including City and Community, Social Science Research, and Violence and Victims. She is author of the book, Crime in the City: A Political and Economic Analysis of Urban Crime (2003). Dr. Reid received her B.A. in 1993 from Wake Forest University and her PhD in 2000 from Tulane University.
American Meteorological Society -
Sigma Xi Lecturer
Alan Robock
Professor II
Rutgers University
Department of Environmental Sciences
14 College Farm Road
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Phone: 732-932-9800 x6222
E-mail: robock@envsci.rutgers.edu
Web: http://www.envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock/
Alan Robock is a professor of climatology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University and the Associate Director of its Center for Environmental Prediction. Prof. Robock has been a researcher in the area of climate change for more than 30 years. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1970 with a B.A. in Meteorology, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an S.M. in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1977 in Meteorology. Before graduate school, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, developing curricula and training teachers of meteorology in the fishery vocational schools.
From 1977 until the end of 1997, he was on the faculty of the Department of Meteorology of the University of Maryland, where he was a Professor and the State Climatologist of Maryland (1991-1997). He moved to Rutgers University in January, 1998, where he is the Director of the Meteorology Undergraduate Program and a member of the Graduate Program in Atmospheric Science. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and President of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union. Dr. Robock is a Professor II at Rutgers, equivalent to Distinguished Professor at other institutions.
Prof. Robock's research involves many aspects of climate change, using analysis of observations and climate model simulations. He has published more than 250 articles on his research, including more than 145 peer-reviewed papers. He served as Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, 2000-2005, and of the Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology, 1985-1987. He was Associate Editor of Reviews of Geophysics, 1994-2000, and is once again serving since 2006. He served as a AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, 1986-1987, and spent subsequent sabbaticals at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, and in Antarctica and at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, Paris, France.
Javier Rojo
Professor of Statistics
Rice University
Statistics Dept. MS-138
6100 Main Street
Houston, TX 77005
Phone: 713-348-2797
E-mail: jrojo@rice.edu
Javier Rojo grew up and attended high school in Juárez, México where he dreamt of becoming a professional baseball player. He attended the University of Texas at El Paso earning a degree in mathematics and a spot in the baseball team. He was selected to play at the Pan-American games in 1971. A career ending injury provided the opportunity to pursue graduate school. He obtained a master's degree from Stanford University and a PhD degree in statistics from The University of California at Berkeley under the direction of Erich L. Lehmann.
Dr. Rojo is Professor of Statistics at Rice University. He has held consulting positions at Pacific Gas and Electric in San Francisco, The Rand Corporation, Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, The Department of the Interior, El Paso Natural Gas Company, and has collaborated with liver transplant surgeons from the Texas Children's Hospital in evaluating various methods for pediatric transplants. His research interests are in Nonparametric function estimation, survival analysis, microarray data, decision theory, extreme value theory, and partial orders of probability distributions.
Dr. Rojo has organized and chaired the Lehmann Symposia and is Director of the Rice University Summer Institute of Statistics (RUSIS). See, for example, http://www.stat.rice.edu/~jrojo/3rd-Lehmann/ and http://www.stat.rice.edu/~jrojo/RUSIS07.html
Both of these activities have the goal of providing a venue for theoretical statistics. The former at the professional level; the latter by developing human resources interested in pursuing graduate degrees in theoretical statistics.
Dr. Rojo has edited two volumes of research papers and has published close to fifty technical papers. He has been Statistics and Probability Program Director at NSF; has chaired the American Statistical Association Committee on Fellows; is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, The American Statistical Association, The Royal Statistical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, he is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, and has served in several National Academy of Sciences committees and NSF panels.
Vincas P. Steponaitis
Professor of Anthropology and Director of the
Research Laboratories of Archaeology
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Research Laboratories of Archaeology
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3120
Phone: 919-962-3846
E-mail: vin@unc.edu
- The Meaning of Mississippian Palettes (S)
Vincas Steponaitis (A.B., Harvard University 1974; Ph.D., University of Michigan 1980) is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His archaeological research interests focus on the precolonial Indian cultures of the American South, the development of chiefdoms, and the analysis of ancient ceramics. In addition to numerous articles, his books include Ceramics, Chronology, and Community Patterns: An Archaeological Study at Moundville (Academic Press, 1993), and Archaeology of the Moundville Chiefdom (co-edited with Vernon J. Knight, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998). He has served as board chairman of the Archaeological Conservancy, president of the Society for American Archaeology, editor of the scholarly journal Southeastern Archaeology, and on numerous other professional boards and committees.
Emily A. Tobey
Professor and Nelle C. Johnston Chair
University of Texas at Dallas
Callier Advanced Hearing Research Center
1966 Inwood Road
Dallas, TX 75235
Phone: 214-905 3105
E-mail: etobey@utdallas.edu
Web: dcip.org
Dr. Emily Tobey is Professor and Nelle C. Johnston Chair in Early Childhood Communication Disorders at the University of Texas at Dallas. She heads the Dallas Cochlear Implant Program and was named the Polykarp Kusch Lecturer for UT Dallas, the highest honor granted by the University to an individual faculty member. Additional honors include Summer Distinguished Lecturer-in-Residence at Texas Woman's University; Distinguished Academy Scientist, Louisiana Academy of Sciences; Fellow of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association and Acoustical Society of America; Visiting Scholar at the Australian Bionic Ear and Hearing Research Institute; and Visiting Research Professor at the University of Montpellier. She has delivered the Marjorie Sherman Memorial Lecture, University of Nottingham; the Graham Fraser Memorial Lecturer at Royal Academy of Medicine in London, England and the keynote address at the Nalli-Ingolia Symposium, Toronto, Canada. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles involving cochlear implants.
Robert H. Tykot
Professor of Anthropology
University of South Florida
Department of Anthropology
4202 E. Fowler Ave., SOC 107
Tampa, FL 33620
Phone: 813 974-7279
E-mail: rtykot@cas.usf.edu
Web: http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~rtykot
- Sardinia in the Mediterranean (P,G,S)
Robert H. Tykot, Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, received a BS in Archaeology and Chemistry (1983) and an MA in Classical Archaeology from Tufts University, and an MA (1993) and PhD (1995) in Anthropology from Harvard University. His research emphasizes scientific analysis of archaeological materials, especially elemental and isotopic studies, to investigate trade, technology, and dietary patterns in many parts of the world, including Algeria, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cyprus, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Greece, Guatemala, India, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Tunisia, Turkey, South Africa, Sweden and the United States.
For 25 years, he has worked on obsidian in the central Mediterranean, including a recent survey and analysis of the obsidian sources on Sardinia, Lipari, Palmarola and Pantelleria and of artifacts found at Neolithic archaeological sites throughout the region. Professor Tykot has also conducted excavations at a Bronze Age site in Sardinia where a metal workshop was discovered, and a survey and excavation at Sennixeddu in Sardinia, a large obsidian quarry and workshop area. At the same time, his expertise in isotopic analysis of skeletal remains led to studies of fishing practices in coastal Italy, and of maize agriculture in New World societies. These projects have included analyses of South American mummies to look at seasonal variation in diets; differences based on social status in Mesoamerica; and the importance of marine resources in Florida.
Professor Tykot is the author or coauthor of more than 100 books, articles, and other scholarly publications, and has given more than 50 public lectures. He is a board member or reviewer for many scientific journals and grant agencies, and is an active member in more than a dozen national and international societies and organizations. His website may be found by searching Google for "tykot" or "bone chemistry" (http://shell.cas.usf.edu/~rtykot/)
Veronica Vaida
Professor
University of Colorado, Boulder
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Boulder, CO 80309-0215
Phone: 303-492-8605
E-mail: vaida@colorado.edu
Dr. Veronica Vaida is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado. She obtained her undergraduate degree at Brown University, a Ph.D. in 1977 from Yale University, New Haven, CT and was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University before coming to Colorado in 1984. Her current research at the interface of physical chemistry and atmospheric science involves the study of spectroscopy and photoreactivity of atmospheric radicals, their complexes and aerosols.
Roger White
University Research Professor
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Department of Geography
St John's, NF A1B 3X9
Canada
Phone: 709-737-7417
E-mail: roger@mun.ca
Web: http://www.mun.ca/geog/people/faculty/
rwhite.php
Roger White is University Research Professor in the Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Canada, and since 1990 has also been Visiting Professor and Senior Scientist with the Research Institute for Knowledge Systems in Maastricht, The Netherlands. He received his PhD in geography from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 1972, and taught at the University of Western Ontario before moving to Memorial in 1977. He has been visiting professor at several universities in Europe and North America, and has worked as a consultant at Los Alamos National Laboratory and as an invited researcher at the Santa Fe Institute. He has lectured widely in North and South America, Europe, and Australia. His research involves the use of algorithmic techniques like difference equations, cellular automata and agent based modeling to understand the structure, functioning, and evolution of geographical systems. Initially the focus was on cities and urban centered regions, and produced models with immediate relevance to problems such as traffic flow and urban sprawl. However, more recently the emphasis has shifted to integrated models of human-natural systems in which the geographical model provides a platform for linking other models of human systems, such as economic and demographic models, to models of natural systems in order to understand the functioning of the entire system as an integrated dynamic whole. This work underlies a developing theory of cities and regions as self-organizing, complex adaptive systems. It is also the basis of new software being developed to aid integrated planning of cities and regions, with trials currently underway in several countries. The work is also driving innovations in validation techniques for theories of complex, far-from-equilibrium systems.
Michael Wolf
Professor of Mathematics and Chair
Rice University
Department of Mathematics MS-136
Houston, TX 77005
Phone: 713-348-6293
E-mail: mwolf@math.rice.edu
Michael Wolf received his B.S. in Mathematics and Philosophy from Yale in 1981 before earning his Ph.D. at Stanford in 1986. After a term as a Moore Instructor of Mathematics at M.I.T., he moved in 1988 to Rice University where he is now Professor and Chair of the Mathematics Department. His research is in the geometry of surfaces, especially surfaces which are optimal in some way. In particular, one of his interests is the classical subject of minimal surfaces - mathematical versions of soap films -- which despite theory and examples stretching back through the centuries to Euler, is an active field of contemporary mathematics. In this area, Wolf and his co-authors have found several new examples with some surprising properties while ruling out other types of films. He was a Sloan Research Fellow in 1991-3, and is presently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Geometric Analysis and the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.
Society for Risk Analysis -
Sigma Xi Lecturer
Felicia Wu
Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health
University of Pittsburgh
Bridgeside Point
100 Technology Drive
Room 560, BRIDG
Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3130
Phone: 412-624-1306
E-mail: fwu@eoh.pitt.edu
Web: http://www.pitt.edu/~few8/
- Indoor Air and Health Impacts (P,G)
Dr. Wu begins her term on January 1, 2007.
James Wyche
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Robert M. Bird Library, Room 164
Oklahoma City, OK 73117
Phone: 405-271-2390
E-mail: James-Wyche@ouhsc.edu
Web: http://w3.ouhsc.edu/BIOCHEM/wyche.htm
- Pleasures of Being a Professor and Barriers Yet to Overcome (P,G)