Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Jangwoon “Leo” Lee, traveled to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, last weekend to deliver an invited talk at the Spring Central Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society. His talk was titled Discretization of Stochastic Optimal Control Problems by the h x p Version of the Stochastic Galerkin FEM.
Keith Mellinger Presents on Math & Music
Associate Professor and Chair of Mathematics Keith Mellinger recently attended the Mathematical Association of America‘s regional meeting held at Salisbury University. At the meeting, Mellinger presented Eigentriads – a musical offering in which he discussed eigenvectors, a topic found in any undergraduate course in linear algebra, and an amusing relationship they have with diminished and augmented triads.
UMW English Professor Awarded National Fellowship
Ben LaBreche, assistant professor of English at the University of Mary Washington, has been awarded a Solmsen Fellowship for 2013-2014. The fellowship will support a year of research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research in the Humanities.
As a fellow, LaBreche will research 17th-century conceptions of natural law and the problems of rationality in modern politics.
The Institute for Research in the Humanities offers four to five external Solmsen Fellowships each year to scholars working on literary and historical studies of the European classical, medieval and Renaissance periods up to about 1700.
“Although still early in his career, Ben LaBreche has already established himself as a meticulous scholar publishing ground-breaking, award-winning analyses of John Milton and other elements of 17th-century British literature and culture,” said Gary Richards, associate professor and chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication. “It’s so gratifying to see that work acknowledged and enabled by fellowships like the Solmsen.”
An expert on 16th- and 17th-century British literature and history, LaBreche received the Milton Society of America’s James Holly Hanford Award for the most distinguished essay on John Milton in 2010. He also has received fellowships from the Folger Institute and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Beinecke Library, and the Mellon Foundation, and he has recently been a seminarian at the National Humanities Center and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
LaBreche has published on authors including John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon, and topics that include free speech and religious liberty, the politics of gender, and Elizabethan patronage strategies. He is currently working on a book that will examine John Milton’s changing conception of liberty both in its historical contexts and in connection with the debates of 21st-century political theory.
LaBreche received a bachelor’s in comparative literature and a Ph.D. in English and renaissance studies from Yale University.
As a fellow, LaBreche will research 17th-century conceptions of natural law and the problems of rationality in modern politics.
The Institute for Research in the Humanities offers four to five external Solmsen Fellowships each year to scholars working on literary and historical studies of the European classical, medieval and Renaissance periods up to about 1700.
“Although still early in his career, Ben LaBreche has already established himself as a meticulous scholar publishing ground-breaking, award-winning analyses of John Milton and other elements of 17th-century British literature and culture,” said Gary Richards, associate professor and chair of the Department of English, Linguistics, and Communication. “It’s so gratifying to see that work acknowledged and enabled by fellowships like the Solmsen.”
An expert on 16th- and 17th-century British literature and history, LaBreche received the Milton Society of America’s James Holly Hanford Award for the most distinguished essay on John Milton in 2010. He also has received fellowships from the Folger Institute and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, the Beinecke Library, and the Mellon Foundation, and he has recently been a seminarian at the National Humanities Center and the Folger Shakespeare Library.
LaBreche has published on authors including John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon, and topics that include free speech and religious liberty, the politics of gender, and Elizabethan patronage strategies. He is currently working on a book that will examine John Milton’s changing conception of liberty both in its historical contexts and in connection with the debates of 21st-century political theory.
LaBreche received a bachelor’s in comparative literature and a Ph.D. in English and renaissance studies from Yale University.Larry Lehman Publishes Research
Larry Lehman, professor of mathematics, published the article “Suborder Polynomials Modulo Primes” in the February 2013 issue of JP Journal of Algebra, Number Theory and Applications. This article relates patterns in recursively defined sequences to the roots over finite fields of a certain class of polynomials.
Radio Show Features UMW Psychology Professor
University of Mary Washington Associate Professor of Psychology Miriam Liss will discuss the link between attachment parenting techniques and feminism in an interview scheduled to air on the “With Good Reason” public radio program. The show, “Humor Works,” will air beginning Saturday, Feb. 23.
Miriam Liss
The interview will focus on the 2012 study “Feminism and Attachment Parenting: Attitudes, Stereotypes, and Misperceptions” by Liss and her colleague Mindy Erchull. The study, based on a survey of hundreds of self-described feminists and non-feminists, shows that attachment parenting techniques, like co-sleeping, breastfeeding and carrying a child in a body sling, are more popular with feminists than non-feminists. The study also reveals that people hold stereotypes about the ‘typical feminist,’ when in fact those stereotypes aren’t true.
Liss, a licensed clinical psychologist, is an expert on gender issues and autism and developmental disorders. She received the UMW Outstanding Young Faculty Member Award in 2005 and was a finalist for the SCHEV state award in 2006 and 2009. Her research has appeared in numerous journals including the Journal of Personality and Individual Differences, the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines. The 2013 study “Helping or Hovering? The Effects of Helicopter Parenting on College Students’ Well-Being” and the 2012 study “Insight into the Parenthood Paradox: Mental Health Outcomes of Intensive Mothering,” both co-authored by Liss and her colleague Holly Schiffrin, garnered international media attention.
Liss earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Connecticut and a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University.
“With Good Reason” airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/.
“With Good Reason” is the only statewide public radio program in Virginia. It hosts scholars from Virginia’s public colleges and universities who discuss the latest in research, pressing social issues and the curious and whimsical. “With Good Reason” is produced for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is broadcast in partnership with public radio stations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Janusz Konieczny Publishes in Semigroup Forum
Janusz Konieczny, professor of mathematics, has co-authored a research article, Centralizers in the full transformation semigroup, published in the journal Semigroup Forum.
Keith Mellinger Publishes Research Article
Keith Mellinger, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, saw his co-authored article “Blocking semiovals containing conics” published in the January 2013 issue of Advances in Geometry. The article addresses the construction of blocking semiovals, a mathematical object that finds application in areas of modern cryptology and the design of experiments.
Leo Lee Presents Research in Korea
UMW Emeritus Professor Receives VCA Fellowship
Steve Griffin, professor emeritus of art at the University of Mary Washington, is a recipient of a 2012-2013 Artist Fellowship from the Virginia Commission of 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. Griffin is one of five Virginia artists honored in the field of painting. Each artist will receive a fellowship of $5,000.
Griffin, an accomplished photographer, painter and printmaker, was awarded a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts professional fellowship in 2011. His work has appeared in more than 150 local, regional and national exhibitions.
Griffin joined the UMW faculty in 1983 and taught printmaking, photography, drawing and design courses for 25 years. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Artist Fellowships from the Virginia Commission of the Arts are offered on a rotating basis to Virginia artists in the disciplines of crafts, photography, sculpture, fiction, music composition, choreography, painting, works on paper (prints and drawing), poetry, playwriting and filmmaking. The Virginia Commission for the Arts is the state agency that supports the arts through funding from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. The commission distributes grant awards to artists, arts and other not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions, educators and local governments and provides technical assistance in arts management.
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. Griffin is one of five Virginia artists honored in the field of painting. Each artist will receive a fellowship of $5,000.
Griffin, an accomplished photographer, painter and printmaker, was awarded a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts professional fellowship in 2011. His work has appeared in more than 150 local, regional and national exhibitions.
Griffin joined the UMW faculty in 1983 and taught printmaking, photography, drawing and design courses for 25 years. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Artist Fellowships from the Virginia Commission of the Arts are offered on a rotating basis to Virginia artists in the disciplines of crafts, photography, sculpture, fiction, music composition, choreography, painting, works on paper (prints and drawing), poetry, playwriting and filmmaking. The Virginia Commission for the Arts is the state agency that supports the arts through funding from the Virginia General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts. The commission distributes grant awards to artists, arts and other not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions, educators and local governments and provides technical assistance in arts management.Radio Show Features UMW Anthropology Professor
Jason James, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Mary Washington, discusses the cultural struggles that persist in post-Nazi Germany during an interview scheduled to air on the “With Good Reason” public radio program. The show, “After the Berlin Wall Came Down,” will air beginning Saturday, Dec. 1.
Jason James
The program will focus on James’ argument that “there are still divisions within German culture – between the ‘good’ former West Germans and the ‘bad’ former East Germans – and that both sides struggle with a problematic past that includes Nazi and Fascist associations.”
James is an expert in nationalism, ethnic identity, Germany and East Germany, heritage preservation movements, tourism and collective memory and commemoration of the past.
James earned master’s and doctoral degrees in anthropology from the University of California, San Diego, after receiving a bachelor’s in philosophy and political science from Boston University. His two years of dissertation research in eastern Germany focused on the symbolic and political dimensions of conflicts over urban redevelopment and historic preservation.
“With Good Reason” airs weekly in Fredericksburg on Sundays from 1-2 p.m. on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital. To listen from outside of the Fredericksburg area, a complete list of air times and links to corresponding radio stations can be found at http://withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/.
“With Good Reason” is the only statewide public radio program in Virginia. It hosts scholars from Virginia’s public colleges and universities who discuss the latest in research, pressing social issues and the curious and whimsical. “With Good Reason” is produced for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and is broadcast in partnership with public radio stations in Virginia and Washington, D.C.
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News release prepared by: Charlotte Rodina