Fall 2020 Faculty Updates

Professor of Physics Suzanne Amador Kane was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society in September 2020. "The APS Fellowship Program recognizes members who have made exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise in physics research, important applications of physics, leadership in or service to physics, or significant contributions to physics education. Each year, no more than one half of one percent of the Society membership is recognized by their peers for election to the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society. Citation: For the groundbreaking development of undergraduate curricula in medical and biological physics, and dissemination of innovative teaching in publications, talks, and popular media; and for research mentorship which is a model for endowing students with a superb, interdisciplinary skill set."

Visiting Assistant Professor of Writing and Writing Fellow Eli Anders presented a talk, "From Crowded Hospitals to Climatic Hinterlands: Convalescent Homes as ‘Technologies of Place’ in Nineteenth-Century England," as part of the American Association for the History of Medicine's 2020 online conference. Anders was also interviewed about his work on the history of convalescent care for an article in Reader's Digest UK ("Rekindling Convalescence") on the role of convalescence and recovery in COVID-19.

Assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Laura Been published a paper, "Estrogen withdrawal increases postpartum anxiety via oxytocin plasticity in the paraventricular hypothalamus and dorsal raphe nucleus," in Biological Psychiatry. The publication included 12 Haverford student co-authors: Elizabeth C. Heaton '18, Claudia Amaral '17, Lauren E. Benedetto '18, Clio L. Bodie '17, Breanna I. D’Antonio '17, Dayana R. Davila Portillo '19, Rachel H. Lee '17, M. Taylor Levine '18, Emily C. O’Sullivan '19, Natalie P. Pisch '19, Shantal Taveras '18, and Hannah R. Wild, '19.

Assistant Professor of Economics Carola Binder presented "Inflation Expectations and Consumption: Evidence from 1951" at the German Bundesbank and at Wake Forest. She was also a featured speaker at the macroeconomics conference at Renmin University, China. Her paper, "Political Pressure on Central Banks," was accepted for publication at the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, and her paper, "Presidential Antagonism and Central Bank Credibility," was accepted at Economics and Politics.>

Assistant Professor of Linguistics Jane Chandlee gave a virtual colloquium talk, “'Rule Application Modes Revisited,” at Johns Hopkins University in September. She also gave an invited talk, “Recursive Schemes for Phonological Analysis,” at the 17th SIGMORPHON Workshop on Computational Research in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology, which was held virtually in July.

Associate Professor of Chemistry Lou Charkoudian was awarded a $297,992 grant from the National Institutes of Health for her work on “Functional hybrid natural product syntheses by tracking acyl carrier protein binding and conformational dynamics.” She was also a part of a team of researchers to be awarded $25,000 from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancements for their work on “Moving the dial: a Network for Systemic Change.” Charkoudian also gave invited seminars at Virginia Tech, Hofstra University, Loyola Marymount University, Ursinus College, and James Madison University. She also published a manuscript, "Widening the Bottleneck; Heterologous expression, purification and characterization of Ktedonobacter racemifer minimal type II polyketide synthase in Escherichia coli," alongside Joshua Klein '19, Yang Wu '18, and Dr. Bashkim Kokona.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Quaker Studies Richard Kent Evans published his book, MOVE: An American Religion, via Oxford University Press.

Emily Judson Baugh Gest and John Marshall Gest Professor of Global Philosophy Ashok Gangadean expanded his web series, ((1776 Now: Our UnFinished American R-Evolution)). The series, which already released six episodes, published episodes 7, 8, and 9 ahead of the 2020 election along  with Ashok's "Heart-to-Heart with America,"speaking to the historic importance of this vote. The project is a collaboration with his son, Näthan Saith, a seasoned singer/songwriter and yoga teacher whose original songs are included in the series along with his versions of relevant songs from a range of well- known musical artists. In addition, they recently launched a new podcast, ((A Perfect Union)), articulating forth the emergent Evolved USA Democracy called for by our ((1776 Now Founding Principles)).

Visiting Associate Professor of Religion Pika Ghosh’s book, Making Kantha, Making Home: Women at Work in Colonial Bengal, was published by University of Washington Press.

Associate Professor of Spanish Aurelia Gómez Unamuno’s book monograph, Between Fires. Memory and State Violence: the Literary and Testimonial Texts of the Armed Struggle in Mexico, was published via UNC Press. She also presented "Memory and Testimonio of the Socialist Armed Movement in Mexico" (Spanish), at the Seminar of INEHRM (National Institute of History Studies of Revolutions in Mexico) in Mexico City in October.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Alvin Grissom II published “An Attentive Recurrent Model for Incremental Prediction of Sentence-final Verbs” in Findings of EMNLP 2020.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology Alissa Hochman published three papers: “Evaluating and dismantling an intervention aimed at increasing white people’s knowledge and understanding of racial justice issues” in American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, “The meaning of scientific objectivity and subjectivity: From the perspective of methodologists” in Psychological Methods, and “Becoming and fostering allies and accomplices through authentic relationships: choosing justice over comfort” in Research in Human Development.

Associate Professor of Linguistics Brook Lillehaugen gave two invited talks. With Felipe H. Lopez, she presented “Uplifting Zapotec: Indigeneity and Language Revitalization in a Transnational Context” at the Wofford College Office of Diversity and Inclusion. And with Moisés García Guzmán, Janet Chávez Santiago, Kimberly Aguero Martins ’22, Xóchitl M. Flores-Marcial, and Felipe H. Lopez, she presented “Speaking, Writing, and Resisting: Celebrating Zapotec Language Activism” at the Haverford Center for Peace and Global Citizenship 20th Anniversary Event online.

T. Wistar Brown Professor of Philosophy Danielle Macbeth gave an invited talk, "Ways and Means of Meaning," to the fellows at the Center for Discursive Inquiry at the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

Associate Professor of Political Science Paulina Ochoa Espejo's book, On Borders: Territories, Legitimacy and the Rights of Place, was published by Oxford University Press in July. The book was featured in the Political Theory Review Podcast in September.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Linguistics Amanda Payne published "The UMLS SPECIALIST Lexicon and Lexical Tools: Development and Applications" in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and "PP-Extraposition and the Order of Adverbials in English" in Linguistic Inquiry.

Visiting Assistant Professor of English Reema Rajbanshi’s novel, Sugar, Smoke, Song, a collection of nine linked stories and winner of the Women's Prose Prize, was published by Red Hen Press in August.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Concentration Zainab Saleh’s book, Return to Ruin: Iraqi Narratives of Exile and Nostalgia, came out this fall with Stanford University Press.

Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Director of Visual Studies Erin Schoneveld’s book, Shirakaba and Japanese Modernism: Art Magazines, Artistic Collectives, and the Early Avant-garde (2019), which is part of Brill’s Japanese Visual Culture series, was featured in the New Books in East Asian Art History Series. Schoneveld was also invited to present her scholarship in the New Books in East Asian Art History Series Symposium for first-time authors who published monographs about East Asian art history in 2019 and 2020. The event provided an opportunity for art historians who research, write, and teach about East Asian art and visual culture to share their current research and discuss the state of the field.

Professor Emeritus of German and German Studies Ulrich Schönherr wrote a review article on Jon Gestermann,"Zu einfache Analogieschlüsse. Anmerkungen zu Jon Gestermanns Vergegenwärtigungen der Vergangenheit. Geschichtsbilder in W. G. Sebalds Prosa,” in Literaturkritik’s November 2020 issue.

Professor of English Gustavus Stadler’s book, Woody Guthrie: An Intimate Life, was published by Beacon Press Books. It received favorable reviews in The Observer, Booklist, and The Progressive. He also published two essays: "'Fascist Storm Troopers': Racist Police Violence in 1940s America" at Aljazeera.com and "A Communism of Feelings" in Public Books.

Associate Professor of Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Jill Stauffer did a podcast on "Truth and Atonement" with the Shalom Hartman Institute in September.

Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies Raegan Truax’s 37-hour performance, Citation (2017), was reviewed by Alexis Bard Johnson, curator of ONE archives at USC, in the Fall 2020 issue of Ecumenica: Journal of Theatre and Performance. A photo of Truax from the performance is on the cover.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Spanish Almudena Vidorreta published a chapter, “Panorama neoyorquino de la poesía reciente en lengua española, con algunas notas sobre su traducción,” in Materia frágil. Poéticas para el siglo XXI en América Latina y España, edited by Erika Martínez. Vidorreta also gave two presentations: “Recreaciones de Teresa de Jesús en diálogo con sus interlocutoras modernas” at the International Golden Age Association Conference at the Université de Neuchâtel in Switzerland, and “Postmística femenina: Hacia una genealogía transatlántica de Teresa de Jesús”, as a guest speaker at Universidade de Vigo in Spain.

David Harrington Watt, the Douglas and Dorothy Steere Professor of Quaker Studies, published "Eugenicists, Quakers, and Rufus Jones, 1893-1938" in Quaker Religious Thought.

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies and Director of the KINSC Helen White published four papers: “Rapid spectroscopic techniques to identify persistent oil residues in Prince William Sound, Alaska” in Marine Pollution Bulletin, “Gas chromatography - mass spectrometry as a preferred method for quantification of insect hemolymph sugars” in Journal of Insect Physiology, , "Rapid Identification of Plastics via Spectroscopic Techniques and Classification Methods” in Environmental Science & Technology, and “Silicone wristbands as passive samplers in honey bee hives” in Veterinary Sciences. Four of those publications were co-authored with Haverford undergraduates. White was also appointed to the National Academies of Science, Engineering & Medicine committee Oil in the Sea IV.

A photograph by William Earle Williams, Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Fine Arts, was included in Deborah Willis’ book The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship.

Associate Professor of Political Science Susanna Wing spoke live about the sociopolitical crisis in Mali in August on Al Jazeera English and BBC News World Service. Wing also wrote about Mali in the Washington Post.

Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Kathleen Wright published "Bruya Brian, ed., The Philosophical Challenge from China" in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Talia Young received a $299,065 NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy grant, and was recognized as the 2020 Snailblazer for Fishing + Waterways by Slow Food Nations. She also gave an oral presentation, "'A spark can cause a huge fire': Lessons learned and resources to share from a justice-oriented, youth-centered community seafood program," at the Building Inclusive Agricultural Value Chains online seminar. Her work as founder of Fishadelphia was covered in two articles: “Meet Philadelphia’s First ‘Community-Supported Fishery,’” in NextCity Magazine, and “Fishadelphia is connecting the community with local fisheries” in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Professor of English Christina Zwarg’s new book, The Archive of Fear: White Crisis and Black Freedom in Douglass, Stowe, and Du Bois, was published by Oxford University Press in November. Zwarg also shared a paper in the "Translation and Resistance" seminar hosted by Susan Gilman and Rodrigo Lazo at the Virtual C19 conference.

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