Claudia Emerson, Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry, is featured in the January issue of Northern Virginia Magazine.
The issue is available on newsstands now; the article will be available online at the end of January.
Esunge, Hydorn and Lee Active at National Mathematics Meetings
Julius Esunge
Dr. Julius Esunge, assistant professor of mathematics, recently organized a session at the national Joint Mathematics Meetings held in Boston, Mass., in January. His session, titled “Stochastic Analysis in Honor of Professor Hui-Hsiung Kuo” ran for two concurrent days and brought in about 20 speakers from around the world.
Dr. Debra Hydorn, professor of mathematics, delivered a presentation titled Fostering Artistic
Debra Hydorn
Explorations with Geometer’s Sketchpad in a session on Arts and Mathematics at the conference. In addition, Dr. Hydorn had a piece of art selected for display at the Joint Meetings. A video about the art exhibit was made to showcase the event.
Dr. Jangwoon “Leo” Lee, assistant professor of mathematics, delivered the presentation Galerkin Finite Element Approximations of an Optimal Control Problem for Elliptic PDEs with Random Input Data, in a session on Numerical Analysis at the conference. Dr. Lee also served as a judge for the national undergraduate student poster competition at the same meeting.
Leo Lee
In addition, five majors in the Department of Mathematics presented results of their research projects at the meeting.
Ryan Vaughn, mentored by Dr. Randall Helmstutler, along with Katie Dillinger and Rebecca Pressor mentored by Dr. Leo Lee presented posters that detail their work as part of the national undergraduate student poster competition.
Additionally, Catherine O’Doherty and Marianne Dubinsky, mentored by Dr. Julius Esunge, delivered presentations on their research. Each of the projects extends work initiated as part of the Jepson Summer Science Institute from summer 2011.
Jason Davidson Published in Volume
Jason Davidson
Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs Jason W. Davidson’s chapter, “Italy at War: Explaining the Italian Contribution to the Kosovo War (1999),” was recently published by Lexington Books in a volume edited by Giampiero Giacomello and Bertjan Verbeek titled Italy’s Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century.
Janusz Konieczny Publishes in Semigroup Forum
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics, has published a research article, A proof of Devadze’s theorem on generators of the semigroup of Boolean matrices, in the journal Semigroup Forum.
Marjorie Och Publishes on Giorgio Vasari
Marjorie Och’s article, “Vittoria Colonna in Giorgio Vasari’s ‘Life of Properzia de’ Rossi,'” has been published in Wives, Widows, Mistresses, and Nuns in Early Modern Italy: Making the Invisible Visible through Art and Patronage, edited by Katherine McIver (Ashgate 2012).
Ranjit Singh to be Featured on Public Radio Program
Ranjit Singh
Ranjit Singh, associate professor of political science, will reflect on his experience with Bahrain’s royal family in relation to last year’s uprising in the Middle East during an interview on the “With Good Reason” public radio program beginning Saturday, January 7.
The interview can be heard on January 7 at 4:30 p.m. on WCVE 88.9 FM and on Sunday, January 8 at 7 p.m. and Monday, January 9 at 12:30 a.m. on WAMU 88.5 FM. The segment, “Reflections on Arab Spring,” is expected to be online beginning the week of the show at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/2012/01/reflections-on-the-arab-spring/.
Schiffrin and Stebbins Presenting at National Psychology Conference
Hilary Stebbins
Holly Schiffrin, associate professor of psychology, and Hilary Stebbins, assistant professor of psychology, are presenting at the 34th annual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology conference from January 3 to January 6.
Holly Schiffrin
Stebbins is presenting “It’s Not That Boring! Active Learning Activities That Help Make Teaching Biopsychology More Fun and Effective” at a participant idea exchange on Tuesday, January 3.
Schiffrin is presenting “Predicting Student Success in Introductory Statistics for Psychology: You Can Lead a Horse to Water, but You Can’t Make Him Drink It” at a poster session on Thursday, January 5.
UMW Names Billingsley Associate Vice President of University Relations
Torre Meringolo, vice president for advancement and university relations, announced that Anna Billingsley has been named associate vice president for university relations.
An administrator at UMW since 2004, Anna Billingsley previously oversaw the university’s editorial and design staff and edited University of Mary Washington Magazine. Since July 2011, she served as interim AVP during which time she successfully guided the university’s launch of its new branding campaign. Prior to her arrival at Mary Washington, Billingsley was editor of the University of Richmond alumni magazine. She also taught journalism at Mary Washington and Richmond. She previously held positions as a reporter and editor at several Virginia newspapers, including The Ledger-Star in Norfolk, the Richmond News Leader and Richmond Times -Dispatch, and The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg. She also worked for the Associated Press.
Billingsley earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in journalism and public affairs from American University.
Steve Watkins Receives Fellowship From Virginia Commission for the Arts
Steve Watkins, professor of English, is a recipient of a 2011-2012 Artist Fellowship from the Virginia Commission for the Arts.
The Virginia Commission of the Arts awards fellowships annually to artists residing in Virginia in recognition of creative excellence and to support their pursuit of artistic excellence. Watkins is one of four Virginia artists honored in the field of fiction. Each artist will receive a fellowship of $5,000.
For more information about the fellowship or the VCA, read the Dec. 19 press release.
Nabil Al-Tikriti Interviewed on Voice of Russia Program
On December 15, Associate Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti participated in a panel discussion about the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq. The discussion was hosted by the Voice of Russia radio program, and the other participants included Mohammed Ahmed, Executive Director of the Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies and Phebe Marr, historian and author of The Modern History of Iraq. The two-part program can be accessed here.