August 24, 2001

Suzanne Buchele, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, together with student Angela Roles, presented a paper titled "Binary Space Partition Tree and Constructive Solid Geometry Tree Representations for Objects Bounded by Curved Surfaces" at the 13th Canadian Conference on Computational Geometry in Waterloo, Ontario, Aug. 13-15. The paper was the result of a Fleming summer research study at Southwestern during the summer of 2000.

Mario Gonzales, assistant professor of anthropology, has been invited to attend a three and half-day workshop in January 2002 at the Sumner School in Washington, D.C. The workshop is sponsored by the National Park Service's Archeology and Ethnography Program and the National Center for Cultural Resources. The purpose of the workshop is to develop distance learning courses for the National Park Service over the next three years in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, Pacific Islander and Native Alaskan Perspective on Heritage Preservation and Stewardship of Ethnographic resources. Gonzales will be part of a Curricula Work Group made up of 20 anthropologists, folklorists and others with expertise in the minority American experience in the United States.

At the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association this week, Edward L. Kain, professor of sociology, was co-leader of a professional workshop on "Preparing for a Program Review." He also was on a panel discussing "Undergraduate Research Training: Lessons from MOST." The Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Southwestern is one of a dozen schools nationwide participating in the MOST program, funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Helene Meyers, associate professor of English, presented a paper titled "Jewish Gothic, Jewish Agency: 'Life is Beautiful'" at the International Gothic Association's biennial meeting, held in Vancouver, in June. Meyers also gave a talk titled "Jewish Lives, Jewish Literature: An Introduction to LeslŽa Newman" to the Sun City Havurah in July. She is serving a four-year term as a member of the MLA's Executive Committee for Jewish Cultural Studies

Jacqueline Muir-Broaddus, Departments of Psychology and Education, and psychology graduates Dalila Medina and Carney Soderberg had a paper accepted for publication in Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology. The paper is titled "Neuropsychological test performance of children with ADHD relative to test norms and parent behavioral ratings.

Dr. Gulnar Rawji received a grant from Project SEED, a mentoring program of the American Chemical Society, to support a high school student who conducted research at SU under her supervision during the summer. The student, Jason Hayes, is a Dixon Scholar and a first year student at SU.

August 17, 2001

Bob Bednar, assistant professor of communication, premiered his short film titled "Taking Pictures" at the Alamo Draft House in Austin on May 5.

Rob Roeder, holder of the Lazenby Chair in Physics, presented a paper titled "Analysis of Summer Peak UV-B Irradiance at Georgetown, TX" at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Boston, May 31 -June 2. The paper, based on six years of data obtained at Southwestern, showed a slight, but statistically significant, decrease in the peak average values of solar UV-B here. The decrease is not, however, medically significant as the average sunburn time increased from only 12.8 minutes in 1995 to 13.4 minutes in 2000 at local noon (1:30 p.m. CDT, when the sun is highest in the sky).

Rob Roeder and Emily Niemeyer, assistant professor of chemistry, together with colleagues Fred Loxsom, David Ribble, and Glenn Kroeger from Trinity University, have been awarded an Environmental Citizenship Grant of $30,000. The ACS award is to allow the group to set up "An Alliance to Monitor the Environment." The Alliance will be formalized at a conference in San Antonio, in October.

Cameron Sawyer, assistant professor of mathematics, had an article published in the August issue of the "Journal of On-line Mathematics and Its Application" (http://www.joma.org. Her article was titled "A Timeline (With Web Resources) For An Academic Job Search In Mathematics." She also attended two conferences this summer: FPSAC, an international combinatorics research conference held in Arizona, Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) conference at Mathfest in Wisconsin, where she was a participant and organizer.

June 13, 2001

Elisabeth Piedmont-Marton, assistant professor of English, had an article published as an Afterword piece in the April 27, 2001, edition of the "Texas Observer." Her article was titled "Caissons and Casseroles, Circa 1963"