The inaugural Mong Family Foundation Fellows in Neurotech were named on June 17 and went to three pairs of early career scientists. They will work jointly under the mentorship of faculty across Cornell to advance technologies that promise to provide insight into how brains work, as well as strategies to fix them when they break.The Fellowships are part of the multimillion dollar seed grant from…
Cornell will host the Conference in Laboratory Phonology (LabPhon 15), an international meeting for researchers taking experimental approaches to the study of human speech sounds, July 13-17.The conference theme, “Speech Dynamics and Phonological Representation,” will address sounds in human language as part of a linguistic, cognitive and communicative system.“The core idea behind the conference…
Sofia Aumann ’19 could have felt completely overwhelmed as a high school freshman when she uncovered the complicated issues behind human sex trafficking as she worked on a research project.Instead, she set out to do something about it and focused her efforts on education, offering a tutoring and mentoring program for underresourced schools in her Florida town and becoming a high school ambassador…
In the class Introduction to Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity, it’s not uncommon for the professor to don colorful props as students vote electronically on which ones would make her the most attractive bird to potential mates.The point?“That got a lot of laughs, but I’m sure no one in the audience will forget about sexual selection anytime soon,” said Justin Zhu ’17, a biology major…
On July 4, the veil over Jupiter’s mysteries will be ripped away with the arrival of NASA’s Juno mission, and Jonathan Lunine will be there to watch it happen.Like cosmic archaeologists, astronomers will use Juno’s instruments to understand what went into the icy planetesimals that Jupiter swept up after it formed.“It’s a unique record for the outer solar system of what these protoplanets might…
Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute, has been name the inaugural recipient of the Barrie Jones Award by The Open University (OU), United Kingdom, and the Astrobiology Society of Britain (ASB). The award will be presented in a ceremony on July 7 at the OU campus.The Barrie Jones Award recognises an individual’s contribution to society…
Ever since studying the Supreme Court’s ruling in Worcester v. Georgia in seventh grade, Christopher Arce ‘19 has been passionate about government and the law.“This conflicting case instilled in me a desire to better understand our government, and how the government and the law can be used as a catalyst for progress, even with a potential for regress,” Arce said. This case was between Mr…
Although Jonathan Culler’s “Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction” has been translated into 22 languages including Tamil and Macedonian, a French version had never been available.That was true until this spring, when Presses Universitaires de Vincennes published “Théorie littéraire,” a French translation completed by Anne Birien, advising dean and director of the College Scholar program for…
For students who have many interests across diverse disciplines, the College Scholar Program in the College of Arts & Sciencs may fit their needs. This year’s graduating class of College Scholars recently presented their final research projects, focused on topics such the anthropology of food and China’s naval development.“The College Scholar Program is designed to allow a few A&S…
We are constantly bombarded with linguistic input, but our brains are unable to remember long strings of linguistic information. How does the brain make sense of this ongoing deluge of sound?In a new paper in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, “The Now-or-Never Bottleneck: A Fundamental Constraint on Language,” Cornell psychology professor Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater (University of Warwick, U…
From left, government faculty members Gustavo Flores-Macias and Sarah Kreps with graduate students Colin Chia, Minqi Chai & Caitlin Mastroe.Six doctoral students from the Department of Government presented papers and met fellow PhD students and faculty interested in issues of global security during a workshop May 23-25 in Sweden.Sarah Kreps, associate professor of government, and Gustavo…
Maggie Wong ‘16 signed up for Chinese classes when she came to Cornell so that she could more effectively communicate with her grandparents.Four years later, she’s using some of the classes she took in Asian studies and her language-learning abilities as she heads to a year-long internship with an international non-profit in Cambodia.Wong, an economics major with a minor in Asian studies, will…
Richard W. "Dick" Pogue's '50 freshman class wasn't like most classes that enter Cornell together. In 1946, 75 percent of the first-year students were veterans returning from service in World War II. Another 10 percent were women, and the other 15 percent were "greenhorn high school boys" like Pogue."These guys coming back from war, they were really serious about doing well in college so it was…
As Asia continues to expand its influence in the world, Cornell’s Department of Asian Studies has grown to reflect the importance of the region globally and now offers more Asian languages for study than any other American university.
Celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, Asian studies has 47 faculty members and offers courses in 20 languages, including 15 modern and five literary…
Methane-based life forms. Atmospheric colors. Planets forming out of scattered debris.At the Carl Sagan Institute’s inaugural coffee hour, conversation ranged across the universe – and the university. As CSI director Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, noted the institute includes faculty from 11 departments and five colleges and schools at…
Michael Lynch ‘70, professor of science & technology studies, has been awarded the 2016 J. D. Bernal Prize by the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) for his “long-term and highly influential contribution to Science and Technology Studies and to the intellectual life of 4S.”“Mike is one of the most influential scholars worldwide in science and technology studies,” says Bruce Lewenstein…
Cornell’s interim president, Hunter R. Rawlings III, and Gretchen Ritter ‘83, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will welcome more than 60 trustees, alumni and their families, students, faculty, members of the community and guests to campus May 26 for the formal dedication of the university’s new humanities building, Klarman Hall.The dedication is the capstone of a…
Members of the Cornell community are invited to explore issues of race in America during six simultaneous small-group discussions of the Ta-Nehisi Coates book “Between the World and Me” Thursday, April 28.
The discussions, set for 12:20-1:10 p.m., will take place at locations across campus and are part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ New Century for the Humanities celebration.
The book…
April can be a tough month to be a Cornell student. Just a few weeks of classes remain, finals are looming and the memory of a disastrous prelim or paper still lingers.But staff throughout the university are ready to help with new wellness initiatives, tools to help identify students who are struggling and numerous opportunities for students to maintain that balance between work and life that’s…
There are many words and phrases used to describe the relationship between blacks and Jews in America in the 20th century: golden age, strained, coalition, collaborative, adversarial, contentious, allies.In truth, all of those characterizations are accurate depending on the time period under discussion, say Rev. Kenneth Clarke, director of Cornell United Religious Work, and Ross Brann, the Milton…
Many of today’s Cornell students are acutely aware of the problems with the U.S. criminal justice system. Ask a class of students how many African-American men are incarcerated and they can give you the stats: one in six. How many people are in prison or jail in the U.S.? About 2.2 million, more than any other country in the world.
“Students are studying and reading about criminal justice…
Christian Kelley ’16 hasn’t met the incarcerated man whose words he’ll be speaking next week as an actor in a new production at the Auburn Public Theatre.But he feels like he’s an ambassador for him, nonetheless.“We’re giving him a voice beyond the walls and the chance to reach an audience that he wouldn’t be able to reach,” said Kelley, one of four Cornell students and one Cornell faculty member…
“Everyone is talking about food. Chefs and food critics have become celebrities. To state that food production and consumption are increasingly in the public eye is to understate the point,” writes Andrew Chignell, associate professor of philosophy, and his two co-editors in the introduction of “Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments about the Ethics of Eating” (2016, Routledge).Yet, they contend,…
Professor Geoffery Coates, Assistant Professor Yimon Aye and student Shivansh Chawla ’17, who works in Aye’s lab in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, were all recently honored by the American Chemical Society (ACS) with 2016 awards.Coates won the Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success, along with Scott Allen and Anthony Eisenhut, for founding the company Novomer. Aye…
Today’s music majors at Cornell will find a more flexible route through the program and a new emphasis on improvisation and other techniques to stretch their musical muscles in new ways.“We’re developing a totally new way of understanding how musical language works,” said Roger Moseley, assistant professor and chair of the music department’s curriculum committee. “There’s a strong legacy of music…
Imagine you could talk with a Cornell student, Class of 2065. What would you tell them about our life today?The College of Arts & Sciences hopes to capture life at Cornell today – especially the role of the humanities in our lives – as it assembles a time capsule to be buried May 26 during the formal dedication ceremony for the university’s new humanities building, Klarman Hall.The dedication…
Science Foundation Ireland presented its prestigious St. Patrick’s Day Science Medal March 16 to Séamus Davis, Cornell’s James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences. The presentation was made by Charles Flanagan, Ireland’s minister for foreign affairs and trade, as part of St. Patricks’ Day celebrations in Washington, D.C.“This is a wonderful honor, not only for me but…
Students in the Ceramic Analysis for Archaeology class spend most Friday mornings discussing matters of archaeological theory and method while poring over shards of ancient pottery. But on Feb. 26, the class headed to The Clay School in Ithaca to make some pottery of their own.Lori Khatchadourian, assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, said she wanted the students to work…
Resurrecting a 17th-century Italian opera whose sole musical source was incompletely notated was a challenge musicologist Neal Zaslaw and a group of students were happy to accept.What started as a spring 2015 seminar project was unveiled March 19-20 as an opera complete with Baroque instruments, Arcadian shepherds, hellish demons and classical statuary in the auditorium of Klarman Hall.Italian…
Congratulations to Roberto Sierra, Old Dominion Foundation Professor in the Humanities and professor of music, on the international release of his new CD “Boleros & Montunos” in Madrid, Spain.The CD, a compilation of classical piano pieces, contains 13 pieces composed by Sierra between 2010-2015. “The piano was my first bridge to the world of music and continues to be a fundamental tool for…
In the Society for the Humanities Annual Invitational Lecture March 2, Gerard Aching drew parallels between the calls to action in books by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Franz Fanon and the unfolding of the Black Lives Matter movement.“The ability to look upon the body affirmatively must counter the historical dispossession of the black body and, in particular, the devastating combination of undervalued…
When Leslie Adelson, professor of German literature, was living in Berlin and just beginning her research on contemporary German literature, she came across a short story or “miniature” by Alexander Kluge that’s been with her ever since.The story of a young boy whose strengths were buried as he was made to conform to society’s expectations moved her in a way she wouldn’t fully understand until…
This past December, Assistant Professor of English Elisha Cohn published her new book Still Life: Suspended Development in the Victorian Novel (Oxford University Press), an extension of her research on Victorian novels and theories of the aesthetic.Through the writings of novelists such as Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, George Meredith and Thomas Hardy, Cohn examines themes like reverie, trance…
Six panels of faculty from across various disciplines in Arts and Sciences will share glimpses of their latest research on topics as diverse as technology and humanitarianism in a series of “Big Ideas” panel discussions this semester.The panels are part of the College of Arts and Sciences’ New Century for the Humanities celebration, which will culminate May 26 with the dedication of Klarman Hall,…
The ice stretches as far as the eye can see, but it is rotten: nowhere can the polar bear find safe footing. It lifts its massive head, desperately scrambling for purchase as the ice crumbles beneath its massive paws. – Polar Bear PSAWe are all at risk from climate change and other 21st century environmental dangers, and technology alone does not hold the answers. Humanists at Cornell offer a…
Oil shapes human life and affects human values in profoundly connected ways across the planet. Yet rarely is oil – or other forms of energy – considered beyond technology and policy. A Feb. 26 symposium, “Oil and the Human: Views From the East and South,” will consider the relationship of oil with everyday life, human choices, politics and art across Africa, Latin America, Russia and East Asia…
As the Cornell Chorus and Glee Club meandered through Guatemala and Mexico during their three-week winter break tour, they filled churches, sang at orphanages, worked with college-age musicians and even spent a day making a professional studio recording.More than two years in the making, the tour included 96 students, along with director Robert Isaacs and assistant conductor Steve Spinelli…
The Black Power movement of the 1960s and '70s is often described as essentially rhetorical. But as assistant professor of history Russell Rickford explains in his new book, “We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination,” the movement was galvanized by complex political and cultural ideas that found their expression in black national and Pan-African…
Starting in February, the College of Arts and Sciences is launching a semester-long celebration of the arts and humanities with marquee events, a series of speaker presentations and panel discussions, all culminating in the grand opening celebration for its new humanities building, Klarman Hall, on May 26.“The New Century for the Humanities events will showcase the important work that our arts…
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Hotel Administration and the College of Human Ecology welcome fresh faces to campus this week, as the university’s first group of spring first-year students arrives.Hailing from places like Florida, California, Kentucky and New York, Australia, Singapore, China, Thailand, Korea and Hong Kong, 115…
When Jocelyn Vega ’17, Anthony Halmon ’17 and Mary Khalaf ’17 arrived here three years ago as members of Cornell’s first Posse Scholar class in 2013, they knew they would become role models for groups of students to come.They didn’t realize, however, how important they would become to each other or how much their backgrounds and experiences would shape what they would decide to study.Today, all…
Professor Emeritus of Musicology Don M. Randel was named an honorary member of the American Musicological Society (AMS) during its recent annual meeting in Louisville. This award is to given to scholars “who have made outstanding contributions to furthering the Society’s mission and whom the Society wishes to honor.”The award was presented to Randel in honor of his scholarly writings and his…
Iftikhar Dadi, associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, is the editor and a contributor to the recently-released “Anwar Jalal Shemza” (Ridinghouse, 2015).The book surveys the life and career of Shemza, an artist born in 1928 in India and known for layering postwar geometric abstraction alongside Arabic calligraphic forms.The volume includes more than 120…
Jeremiah Grant '17
Major: Africana Studies with a concentration on the Caribbean.
Hometown: Queens, NY
Why did you choose Cornell?
It just felt right. You’re looking at colleges and wondering which one would be the best fit for you. And there came a time when everyone who was entering my life had some connection to Cornell and the people I met here were just genuinely nice and willing…
When Alex Gruhin '11 and Ariel Reid '09, MMH '10, needed to hire a director for their new entertainment venture, the choice was an obvious one -- their favorite theater professor, Bruce Levitt."Nightcap Riot" – which runs Jan. 15 to Feb. 14 at Magick City, 37 Box St., Brooklyn – is the first in what Gruhin and Reed say will be a series of events offering an evening of new music, theater and some…
As a pre-med student, Kasey Han ’18 knows the mental and physical benefits of a good workout. Han’s favorite workouts are a bit out of the ordinary, though, as they usually take place three stories up in the air.Han has been a fan of circus arts since she tried out the flying trapeze as a middle-schooler during a family vacation. And she’s kept up her craft, now working out and teaching children…
This semester, the College of Arts & Sciences, together with the Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives (OADI) welcomed the third cohort of Posse Program students to Cornell.And for the first time, OADI sponsored visits for First Year Parents Weekend, welcoming parents of this freshman group to visit their children, meet with other Posse families and explore Ithaca.“Posse is providing him…
From the locomotive-like roar of Clubfest to the calm stillness of a midnight walk across the suspension bridge, a class of students has created a blog offering an audio tour of Cornell sounds.Members of Professor Kim Haines-Eitzen’s “Sound, Silence and the Sacred” class in the Department of Near Eastern Studies spent the semester using texts, recordings, videos and performances to explore the…
When Martha Austen ’13 used to say she was fixin’ to eat supper, she wondered why her Cornell friends would raise their eyebrows a bit in her direction.Now, she’s made the study of sociophonetics — the study of sound and how speech varies based on different social factors — her focus as a graduate student at Ohio State University.And she’s using Twitter as a way to gain access to a mountain of…
