Two faculty members and three students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy presented at the January American Astronomical Society meeting in Kissimmee, Fla. Rebecca Koopmann '89, professor of physics and astronomy, presented two talks: “The HI Content of Groups as Measured by ALFALFA” and “The Undergraduate ALFALFA Team: A Collaboration for Undergraduate Research Opportunities and Faculty Development.” Greg Hallenbeck, visiting assistant professor, presented on “Why do the HIghMass Galaxies Have So Much Gas?: Studying Massive, Gas-Rich Galaxies at z~0 with Resolved HI and H2.” Three students presented posters on their research projects:
- Kamin Sylvia '18: “Cleaning HI Spectra Contaminated by GPS RFI” (summer research project advised by Hallenbeck)
- Michael Warrener '16: “Constraining Cosmological Parameters Using the Correlation Function” (senior thesis advised by Jon Marr, visiting associate professor)
- Brent Shapiro-Albert '16: “Modeling Pulsar Trajectories to Determine Birth Locations” (senior thesis advised by Hallenbeck).
John Cox, director of performance and lecturer in choral and orchestral music, is a member of the eight-voice Skylark Ensemble, which recently completed a performance tour through North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia. The group also recently recorded its second album, “Crossing Over,” which will be released in March. Also, two of Cox’s recently completed editions of the music by Giacomo Perti were performed in Northampton, Mass and San Francisco, Calif. Last week, Cox performed the evangelist role in the performance of Heinrich Schutz’s “Wienachtsoratorio” (Christmas Oratorio) at Bard College at Simon’s Rock.
Brenda Johnson, professor of mathematics, was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to allow early career participants to attend the Alpine Conference on Algebraic and Applied Topography in Switzerland in August. The event will bring together experts in both the theoretical aspects of algebraic topology and the growing range of scientific applications of topology. She is one of the organizers for the conference, which brings together academics in many stages of their careers for diverse perspectives.
Bunkong Tuon, associate professor of English, will read from his work at the Social Justice Center, 33 Central Ave., Albany, on Jan. 21, at 7:30 p.m. NYQ Books published his first full-length collection of poetry, Gruel, in 2015. The work documents the lives of Cambodian refugees and explores the poetic landscape of a Cambodian learning to live and write poetry in America.
The College was awarded a grant from the ASIANetwork to support a postdoctoral teaching fellow. Through the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, ASIANetwork will provide a $41,000 grant to support the recruitment, hiring and mentoring of a teaching fellow to be mentored by Junko Ueno, associate professor of Japanese.