This summer, Jim Wikel, a member of the Gayogohó:nǫˀ diaspora who now lives in Oregon, traveled to his ancestral homeland in New York for the first time, to learn his ancestral language with 40 other diaspora members at a Cornell camp.
Just being in the region was profound, Wikel said.
“One night as we were singing, I realized that this was the first time that land had heard those…
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St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City
This week, delegates of the Roman Catholic Church will gather in Rome for the “Synod of Synodality” initiated by Pope Francis in 2021.
Daniel Gallagher, a professor of practice in the classics department in the College of Arts & Sciences, spent eight years at the Vatican translating the pope’s messages into Latin. He says that the synod will provide an opportunity for delegates to discuss…
Neuroscientist Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz has received a New Innovator Director’s Award from the National Institutes of Health’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The Director’s Awards “support highly innovative scientists who propose visionary and broadly impactful behavioral and biomedical research projects,” said the NIH announcement.
“The HRHR program is a pillar for innovation here at…
Chris Kitchen
Anderson, left, and Peraino, right traced the arc of Anderson's multi-decade career.
Multimedia artist Laurie Anderson took a captivated Cornell audience on a trip through the arc of her career during a Sept. 26 talk at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.
The talk was recorded and is now available to view on eCornell.
Part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Arts Unplugged series, Anderson’s conversation with music Professor Judith Peraino ranged from her…
Dan Mao/Provided
Leveraging the geometric thinking in a twisted bilayer graphene lattice to predict new effects
On the dream list of many condensed matter physicists is observing fractionalization, the phenomena of a collective state of electrons carrying a charge that is a fraction of the electron charge, without a magnetic field.
“This is not to say the electron itself can be split into pieces,” said Eun-Ah Kim, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). “Rather, a group…
Grace Aiono ‘26 has been awarded this year’s Giuseppe Velli Prize by the American Boccaccio Association (ABA) for the best undergraduate student essay on the works of Giovanni Boccaccio.
The prize honors the extensive contributions of Giuseppe Velli (1928-2013), a renowned Boccaccio scholar whose work remains fundamental in Italy and North America today. It is awarded for the best essay…
Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform nearly every aspect of our world, including the economy. In this year’s George Staller Lecture, economist Jens Ludwig will explore how “big data” and AI tools help us understand and improve human decision-making. His talk, “Economics and AI” will be on Thurs., Oct. 12 at 4:30 p.m. in 185 Statler Hall. The talk is free and the public is…
Stella Ocker, Ph.D. ’23 won a Brinson Prize fellowship, which she began Sept. 1 at the California Institute of Technology and Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California
Cornell is now able to welcome Brinson Prize postdoctoral fellows, joining a select group of institutions that host the prestigious astronomy fellowship program.
A collaboration between The Brinson Foundation and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the Brinson Prize supports postdoctoral scholars in carrying out novel research in observational cosmology. The program emphasizes…
Kuzzat Altay/Unsplash
A 2021 demonstration, "Stop Uyghur genocide," in Washington, D.C.
Hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority children have been seized by the Chinese government, detained, and beaten if they speak their native language, according to numerous human rights groups.
These reported violations of children’s rights will be explored in a symposium entitled “Uyghur Children in China’s Genocide” on Fri., Oct. 27, from 1-5 p.m. in 76 Goldwin Smith Hall. The symposium…
Senate Photo Studio/public domain
Class photo of the 111th United States Senate inside the chamber, 2010
At the age of 90, California Senator Dianne Feinstein has died. In recent months, many of her colleagues had called for the Senator to step down due to her declining health.
Elizabeth Sanders, professor emerita at Cornell University, is an American politics and government expert. She says we need to recognize and remember Feinstein’s abilities and intelligence, but that it’s also time for…
The Biophysical Society has named physicist Michelle Wang a 2024 Society Fellow. Wang is the James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor of the Physical Sciences in the Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. The Fellows will be honored at the Biophysical Society’s 68th Annual Meeting, being held in Philadelphia in February…
The first woman to win a consecutive Southeast Asian Writers Award, Veeraporn Nitiprapha, will discuss her newest novel, “Memories of the Memories of the Black Rose Cat,” on Oct. 5.
Beginning at 4:45 p.m. in the A. D. White House Guerlac Room, Nitiprapha will talk about how her work explores Chinese migration and identity in Southeast Asia throughout the 20th century.
“We will…
Provided
The Cornell University Wind Symphony performs "A Place That Is Yours" by Catherine Likhuta
On Nov. 13, 2022, Bailey Hall filled with the resonant debut of “A Place That Is Yours,” a piece of music written by Catherine Likhuta in memory of composer and professor Steven Stucky. Likhuta was able to rehearse beforehand with the student musicians in the Cornell University Wind Symphony and to speak to the audience during the concert thanks to Banding Together, a collaboration amongst…
Tudorita Tumbar, professor of molecular biology and genetics in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received three related grants for the next five years, totaling $7.7 million, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS).
The work aims to understand how stem cells function to fuel normal tissue maintenance and to…
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C. elegans as seen through a microscope.
A cell’s fate is closely tied to chemical signals it receives; small changes in the concentrations of these signals translate into dramatically different developmental fates. In this year’s Racker Lecture, “Sex and Death” on Thurs., Oct. 5, molecular biologist Barbara Meyer will explore cell fates and how they come about in metazoans, using C. elegans as a model. The talk, hosted by the…
Picture a nanoscale dance floor full of independently moving particles. When things really start to heat up – or, in this case, cool down – particles partner off, but on opposite sides of the space, ‘dancing’ in synch as if telepathically.
In the ultra-pure isotope helium-three (3He), this dance starts at a very specific, very low temperature, when it converts into the superfluid phase …
Chris Kitchen
Alexa Easley is working to develop materials for low-energy carbon capture that are organic and easy to make on large scales and in realistic conditions.
Vehicle by vehicle and building by building, carbon emissions are pouring into the atmosphere, a major contributor to heating up the Earth.
“Global warming is a big issue we’re facing, and the increasing atmospheric level of carbon dioxide is one major contributor,” said Alexa Easley, Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in chemistry and chemical biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Chemists…
Provided
St. Hovhannes Church of Chahuk (built in the 12th or 13th century and renovated in the 17th and 19th centuries) was destroyed between 1997 and 2009, as documented in a new report from Caucasus Heritage Watch.
This week, the ongoing conflict in the South Caucasus between the Azerbaijani military and the separatist Armenian Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh entered a new phase as Azerbaijan shelled cities and towns in a renewed effort to retake the territory through violence. As the Armenian population is removed from Nagorno-Karabakh, hundreds of Armenian monasteries, churches, cemeteries and shrines…
Provided
Nozomi Ando running crystallography experiments at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source
… chemistry and chemical biology, is being honored with the 2024 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology …
Leonardo Medrano Sandonas of the University of Luxembourg; background image by rawpixel.com on Freepik
Graphical depiction of the rational molecular design process, which involves a “needle-in-a-haystack” search for molecules with a desired set of properties
The number of molecules thought to exist is unfathomably large – somewhere between 1050 and 1060 (for comparison, there are only 1022-1024 stars in the observable universe). The chemical and pharmaceutical sciences have sought a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental relationships in this vast “chemical compound space” that connects the structure of a given molecule and its properties.
…
John Munson/Cornell University
Brenda Schertz teaches her students American Sign Language as well as deaf history, education and cultural norms.
Students who are interested in learning American Sign Language (ASL) have a number of new opportunities at Cornell this year.
They can now minor in ASL, take advantage of an expanded set of upper-level classes, participate in a number of ASL events on campus and be part of an active student club.
“I’ve taken an ASL class every semester and can’t imagine my college career without this…
Landon Schnabel, the Robert and Ann Rosenthal Assistant Professor of Sociology, received the Early Career Award from the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Section.
The organization encourages and enhances research, teaching, and other professional concerns in the study of religion and society. This award recognizes a scholar who has made an outstanding contribution…
Mike Tewkesbury/Creative Commons 2.0 license
A vole
Alexander Ophir, associate professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study mating tactics in mammals, with a focus on the prairie vole, to learn about the underlying neural sources of social behaviors.
“Across vertebrates, males use a diversity of tactics to gain access to reproductive females, and…
Undergraduate students in scientific field courses often talk about their research with mentors, peers, family and friends and those interactions are important in shaping student views of themselves as scientists, according to research by Cornell doctoral student David Esparza.
Esparza’s paper, “Professional social connections are associated with student science identity in a research-based…
A new “Religions on the Move” lecture series kicks off Sept. 28 at 5 p.m. with "Make the Sound the Creator Is Waiting for Us to Make': Native American Anti-Nuclear Activism." The lecture, given by religious historian Jennifer Graber, will be held in Rm. 106, White Hall.
In her talk, Graber will consider Native American anti-nuclear activism in light of scholarly conversations about spiritual…
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik ’91 has been named the 2023-24 Zubrow Distinguished Visiting Journalist in the College of Arts and Sciences. The program brings accomplished journalists to Cornell each year to interact with the campus community.
Folkenflik’s stories and analyses are broadcast on multiple NPR programs, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and …
Cornell University
Trevor Pinch working with a Moog synthesizer.
The legacy of the late Trevor Pinch, a pioneer who helped found three areas of study related to science, technology and sound, will be celebrated at a memorial symposium Sept. 21-23. “Trevor-Fest” will bring together his former students, colleagues and collaborators in a series of roundtables and other events that reflect the wide range of Pinch’s work and interests.
“The symposium will mingle…
As President Biden travels to India for the G20 meeting, the White House is encouraging other multilateral development banks to boost lending for climate change and infrastructure projects in the Global South.
Richard T. Clark is a political scientist who studies policymaking at the World Bank. He describes the objectives as bolstering the Bank’s budget, reorienting lending to tackle…
Starting in November, Google will require political ads to label the use of artificial intelligence. Sarah Kreps, professor of government in the College of Arts & Sciences and director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, has studied how generative AI threatens to undermine trust in democracies when misused.
“With AI-generated content increasingly…
When Jackie DeAngelis ’02 was working as a financial researcher and writer at CNBC, she longed to try out what it would be like in front of the camera. So, on Friday nights after the broadcasts were over, she’d hang out in the studio, writing scripts and filming herself on the anchor desk.
The managing editor thought she had potential, but the vice president of news said she still needed…
This year, 34 new faculty enrich the College of Arts & Sciences with creative ideas in a vast array of topics, including quantum materials, artificial intelligence, moral psychology and misinformation, adding to the College’s collaborative and interdisciplinary nexus of discovery and impact.
Click here to explore profiles of all the new faculty members.
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A view of Solano County, CA
Silicon Valley elites have unveiled their vision for the utopian city they hope to build on 55,000 acres in Solano County in California.
Raymond Craib, professor of history in the College of Arts & Sciences, is author of “Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit, from the Era of Decolonization to the Digital Age” – an exploration of the dubious track record of utopian, free…
