For the Record - Week of Sept 13, 2024

Publication Date

In mid-August, Mary K. Carroll '86, the Dwane W. Crichton Professor of Chemistry and the 2024 President of the American Chemical Society (ACS), attended the ACS Fall 2024 meeting in Denver Colorado. Among other activities, she participated in meetings of the ACS Board of Directors and its committees, and gave introductory remarks at several events, including the plenary session and Kavli Foundation keynote lectures. She participated in ceremonies honoring the new ACS Fellows and ACS volunteers (the ChemLuminary Awards) and presided over the ACS Council Meeting.

She is featured in the Daily Highlights Videos from Day One and Day Five of the conference (https://acs.digitellinc.com/live/32/page/1050), and can be spotted briefly in the videos from Days Two to Four.

Lewis Davis, Thomas Armstrong Professor of Economics, published a paper entitled "Patriarchy, development and the divergence of women's empowerment," in Kyklos. The paper provides evidence that patriarchal culture plays a greater role in whether women work as a country gets richer, leading to the divergence of women's economic empowerment.

Elizabeth Olson, post-doctoral researcher in geosciences, published an article in Chemical Geology, including co-authors David Gillikin, the William D. Williams Professor and Chair of Geosciences, Donald Rodbell, the John and Jane Wold Professor of Geosciences, Anouk Verheyden, senior lecturer in geosciences, and seven Union students: Laura Piccirillo ‘20, Alexander Forsyth ‘25, Kirsten Litchfield ’25, Hailey Stoltenberg ’23, Avery Clavel ’23, Maryam Ramjohn ’25 and Saliha Nazir ’23. The article titled, “Cave monitoring in the Peruvian Andes reveals monsoon climate preserved in speleothem calcite” is the first from a large NSF award to Rodbell and Gillikin to study tropical paleoclimate, and involved several years of work in caves in the Peruvian Andes with multiple teams of students.

Union students in a cave in Peru

Alexander Forsyth (’25), foreground, Kirsten Litchfield (’25) and others Union students sampling a cave in Peru this past summer.

David Gillikin, the William D. Williams Professor and Chair of Geosciences, Anouk Verheyden, senior lecturer in geosciences, and Union students Emma Puhalski ‘22 and Stephen Camarra ‘20 co-authored an article in Chemical Geology. The article, titled “Stable carbon isotopes in scallop shells: a proxy of Antarctic sea-ice persistence”, is part of an NSF award to Gillikin and shows that we can use scallop shell to track sea ice in the past.