Acclaimed writer James McConkey, the Goldwin Smith Professor of English Literature Emeritus and mentor to young writers at Cornell for nearly four decades, died Oct. 24, 2019 at his home in Enfield. He was 98.
There’s a structural avalanche waiting inside that box of Rice Krispies on the supermarket shelf. Cornell researchers are now closer to understanding how those structures behave – and in some cases, behave unusually.
“Unequal Parenting,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast series, examines persistent inequalities in parenting and the earnings penalties that go along with them. The podcast’s fifth season – “What Do We Know about Inequality?” – showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about inequality.
Angelika Kraemer, Director of the Language Resource Center at Cornell and an affiliated senior lecturer in the Department of German Studies, received the Michigan World Language Association’s (MIWLA) Barbara Ort-Smith Award Oct. 24 at MIWLA’s annual conference in Lansing, Michigan.
Scholars from Germany and the UK, as well as numerous U.S. universities, will visit campus Nov. 7-9 for the first media studies conference sponsored by CIVIC (Critical Inquiry into Values, Imagination and Culture), the provost’s Radical Collaboration initiative focused on the humanities and the arts.
Nilay Yapici, assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in The College of Arts & Sciences and a Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator, recently received a $2 million grant to fund her research on taste perception and hunger in the neural system.
Lehmann and Klinck sounded out two other Cornell scientists – associate professor of entomology Kyle Wickings and assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Greg McLaskey – to join in a project to listen to the Earth. Wickings is the principal investigator on “Sounds of Soil,” a project to develop inexpensive acoustic sensors to detect, monitor and study populations of soil-dwelling organisms – in particular, disruptive insects that feed on roots, affecting both plant and soil health. The project received a Venture Fund grant from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability in June 2018.
This is an episode from the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast's fifth season, "What Do We Know about Inequality?" from Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, showcasing the newest thinking from across the disciplines about inequality. Featuring audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty, the series releases a new episode each Thursday through the fall semester.
“Health Inequities,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores how “sociological” storytelling can change health outcomes. The podcast’s fifth season -- "What Do We Know about Inequality?" -- showcases the newest thinking across academic disciplines about inequality.
Assistant Professor and Mills Family Faculty Fellow Malte Ziewitz studies the changing role of governance and regulation in, of, and through digitally networked environments – the dynamics at work, the values at stake, the design options at hand.
Goldwin Smith Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Kelly R. Zamudio studies amphibians, especially frogs, combining field work and observation of behavior with genetics and genomics to glimpse the genetic processes underlying species traits. Recently her lab has turned that expertise to studying two virulent fungi of the genus Batrachochytrium, commonly called chytrids, that affect frogs and salamanders.
New cellular and molecular processes underlying communication between gut microbes and brain cells have been described for the first time by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell’s Ithaca campus.
This column by Michael Fontaine, professor of classics and Cornell’s associate vice provost for undergraduate education, appears in this month's Ezra Magazine.
There’s a great story from the ancient world. As Cicero tells it, it goes like this:
Lawrence B. Glickman, the Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professor of American Studies in the Department of History, recently wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post discussing the historical origins of President Trump's use of the phrase "lynching" in a recent tweet concerning the impeachment inquiry.
Explore treasures of Sephardic Jewish music culture at Book of J’s performance of “LA Archivera” on Monday, Nov. 11, at 8 pm in Cornell University’s Barnes Hall Auditorium. The free event will feature mid-century Los Angeles and 20th-Century Jewish Ottoman music traditions. The public is invited.
Teaching at Cornell is in the midst of a transformation, with faculty applying the latest research and technologies across disciplines to excite and engage students.
Cornell has recognized eight members of the faculty for excellence in teaching undergraduate students and contributions to undergraduate education at the university.
The Stephen H. Weiss Awards were announced Oct. 18 by President Martha E. Pollack in a report to the Cornell University Board of Trustees. The eight awardees were unanimously recommended by a selection committee composed of six faculty members and two students, who considered 37 distinguished nominees in all.
Cornell researchers have put a new spin on measuring and controlling spins in nickel oxide, with an eye toward improving electronic devices’ speed and memory capacity.
On October 3-4, 2019, Cornell CIS (Computing and Information Science) celebrated its 20th anniversary. To mark the event, CIS hosted a symposium showcasing the game-changing impact of computing on a breadth of disciplines.
The Nairobi Play Project, funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund Kenya Country Program, seeks to foster intercultural learning between groups in or at risk of conflict. In 30 after-school sessions led by teachers who are themselves refugees, students learn basic computing concepts and develop video games with community-based themes.
Glenn Altschuer, the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies and Dean of Continuing Education and Summer Session, and Sidney Tarrow, the Emeritus Maxwell Upson Professor of Government, both in the College of Arts & Sciences, recently wrote an opinion piece in The Hill on the topic of fake news.
Social psychology researcher and professor Thomas Gilovich, the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Chair of Psychology, was recently awarded The Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s Donald T. Campbell Award.
CIVIC (Critical Inquiry into Values, Imagination and Culture), the provost’s Radical Collaboration initiative focused on the humanities and the arts, is halfway toward its goal of 10 new faculty.
Cornell University Library’s Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences transforms fragile artifacts into lasting online collections for teaching and research. This year, the program has awarded funding to five projects representing a range of study, from unearthing a vanished hamlet in Enfield Falls, New York, to examining modern art in Indonesia.
Harold Bloom ’51, a bestselling literary critic and a friend to many of Cornell’s English faculty over the years, died Oct. 14 in New Haven, Connecticut. A longtime professor of English at Yale University, Bloom was 89.
Craig Steven Wilder, professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Columbia University Medal of Excellence recipient, will be the keynote speaker for the annual Reuben A. and Cheryl Casselberry Munday Distinguished lecture on Oct. 22.
The annual lectureship was established in 2014 and hosts groundbreaking scholars of African and African American studies through the Africana Studies and Research Center every fall.
This is an episode from the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast's fifth season, "What Do We Know about Inequality?" from Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, showcasing the newest thinking from across the disciplines about inequality. Featuring audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty, the series releases a new episode each Thursday through the fall semester.
Justin J. Wilson, a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, is expanding on existing chemotherapeutic treatments by investigating the biomedical application potentials of other heavy transition metals, particularly compounds of the element rhenium, in order to develop a more targeted approach to halting cancerous cell division.
With students and faculty representing 116 countries on a campus in Ithaca, New York – a sanctuary city since 2017 – Cornell is a crossroads for global mobility. This year’s Lund Critical Debate explores another contact zone for migration and exchange: the U.S.-Mexico border.
What would the Earth look like if we banded together to counter the destructive forces of climate change? Writers Aoise Stratford and Toby Ault bridge science and art in the multimedia experience “Virtual Landscapes,” which offers audiences the opportunity to contribute to the play-in-progress.
For 16 years, Cornell audiences have enjoyed lectures, performances and events sponsored by the Atkinson Forum in American Studies. This year, the Fisk Jubilee Singers will visit campus for a concert at 8 p.m. Oct. 26 in the Alice Statler Auditorium.
Doors will open at 7:15 p.m. and the concert is free and open to the public.
Around the globe and from within, the nation now faces the most vigorous challenge to the idea of liberal democracy since World War II, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff said during an Oct. 10 visit to Cornell.
This is an episode from the “What Makes Us Human?” podcast's fifth season, "What Do We Know about Inequality?" from Cornell University’s College of Arts & Sciences, showcasing the newest thinking from across the disciplines about inequality. Featuring audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty, the series releases a new episode each Thursday through the fall semester.
On the brink of ecological collapse, how do we think, write and speak about the various forms of energy we encounter? The Society for the Humanities’ annual fall conference, Oct. 18 and 19, will examine the human relationship to energy in its myriad forms.
Liberal democracies occupy a tiny sliver of the human experience, and their hold on the West is crumbling, the conservative journalist and author Andrew Sullivan warned Oct. 3 at Cornell.
Sullivan joined Ezra Klein, editor-at-large of Vox.com, at the Law School’s Landis Auditorium in the second installment of The Peter ’69 and Marilyn ’69 Coors Conversation Series, titled “Is Illiberalism Corroding Our Democracy?”
The economics department will welcome Ariel Rubinstein for its annual George Staller Lecture Oct. 28.
“Ariel Rubinstein is one of the world’s most prominent economic theorists, with seminal work in game theory,” said Kaushik Basu, C. Marks Professor of International Studies and Professor of Economics. “What makes him special is the philosopher’s touch that he brings to his writings.”
