Cornell University’s Department of Music, under the artistic direction of pianists Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky, will present its ninth springtime festival of world-class chamber music in Ithaca May 20–24. Mayfest will offer six intimate concerts in four inspiring locations: Cornell’s Barnes Hall, Klarman Hall, Lab of Ornithology, and the Carriage House Café.
Katja C. Nowack, assistant professor of physics in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been selected by the Department of Energy (DOE) to receive $750,000 for research over five years as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program for her research project, “Magnetic Imaging of Topological Phases of Matter.”
Cornell astrophysicists Saul Teukolsky and Lawrence Kidder have earned a share in the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics – a $3 million award – that recognizes those who helped create the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its ability to find gravitational waves. The discovery announced in February provided strong confirmation of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Students presented their research in the humanities and social sciences — ranging from the role of religion in society to how video game players perceive their characters — at the Humanities Showcase in Klarman Hall May 4, as reported by The Cornell Daily Sun.
Once a popular pastime, bee hunting involves capturing and feeding wild bees, then releasing and following them back to their hive.
The practice is little-known today, but bee expert Thomas D. Seeley – the Horace White Professor in Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and author of several books on honeybees – has just published a book that offers insights into the history and science of bee hunting.
A conspicuous miniature wagon is parked in Willard Straight Hall’s browsing library. In the vintage Straight interior surrounded by sculptures, paintings and scale-model ships, the antique-looking wooden wagon might seem like a part of an exposition on rural life in 18th-century Britain. But the wagon is no exhibition piece; it’s the home of a student-founded, self-funded independent community book exchange.
My poem is called, “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.” A famous title I am sure most of you will recognize. The fame is one of the reasons why I am self-conscious about what I am about to do in this reflection, which partly amounts to betraying the naïveté of my youth.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Isabel Hull has received a Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law for her book, “A Scrap of Paper: Breaking and Making International Law During the Great War” (Cornell, 2014). The award, for “a preeminent contribution to creative scholarship,” was presented at the ASIL’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. in March.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
N’Dri Assié-Lumumba, professor of Africana, recently co-edited a special issue of the International Review of Education-Journal of Lifelong Learning (IRE) titled, “Rediscovering the Ubuntu Paradigm in Education," Birgit Brock-Utne (University of Oslo) and Dr. joan.Osa Oviawe (visiting scholar at Cornell) were co–editors.
Following the April 2015 Nepal earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people, Maya Devi Neupane, president of the United Women’s Savings and Credit Cooperative, said her Kaule community on the Phyukhri Ridge “felt orphaned, abandoned.”
She continued, “The earthquake destroyed our homes and our [Women’s Cooperative] building. We had to take shelter in the plastic greenhouse ‘tunnels’ where we had begun a tomato-growing project.”
Noliwe Rooks, associate professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender and sexuality studies, and director of graduate studies at theAfricana Studies and Research Center, and Bryan Duff, senior lecturer in education, received the
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.
Chad Coates, assistant dean of admissions and advising in the College of Arts and Sciences, was voted Cornell’s 14th employee-elected trustee in an election held April 11-13. More than 1,300 staff members participated in the election.
Succeeding Alan Mittman, Coates will begin his four-year term July 1.
Jim can feel the eyes of his classmates. He stays up nights reading his law books. He knows the information. None of that matters now. What matters is he’s the only black man in a classroom of white eyes and it consumes him. He feels branded.
He starts to talk. His voice trembles. He stutters. His mind goes blank. He fails, again. He can’t exactly explain why.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Jennifer Maclaughlin has been named the new Assistant Dean and Director of Arts & Sciences Career Development. In her role, she will design and implement strategies to support the career development of A&S undergraduates at all stages in their education: as they engage in career planning, obtain experiential learning, consider and pursue graduate school options, and conduct job searches.
Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame have announced Georgette Kelly as the winner of the new “Hope on Stage” international playwriting contest. Her play "I Carry Your Heart" was selected from among 800 submissions. Kelly will receive a $10,000 cash prize, and her play will be presented at both the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y. (April 27–30, 2017), and at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles (May 18–20, 2017).
Highly educated, high-income immigrants to the United States are changing the look and feel of American suburbs by tearing down older homes built just after World War II and building sprawling new houses, pejoratively called “McMansions.” But the changes are not always welcome by long-time neighborhood residents, said Suzanne Lanyi Charles, assistant professor in city and regional planning.
Four Cornell faculty members. including two from the College of Arts & Sciences, are among 213 national and international scholars, artists, philanthropists and business leaders elected new fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare) became law in 2010, Americans have remained deeply divided in their overall assessments of the law and whether it should continue.
María Cristina García, the Howard A. Newman Professor in American Studies at Cornell, is the recipient of a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced.
Alejandro L. Madrid, associate professor of music, has won the 2016 Humanities Book Award from the Mexico Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) for his most recent book, In Search of Julián Carrillo and Sonido 13 (Oxford University Press, 2015). The prize is awarded annually to an outstanding and original contribution to the study of Mexico in book-length academic monographs and works published during the previous year.
by :
Linda B. Glaser
,
Arts & Sciences Communications
Historian Mary Beth Norton has been nominated for president-elect of the American Historical Association, the principal umbrella organization for the profession. If elected, she would serve as president beginning in January 2018, for one year. The results of the on-line election are expected in July.
It takes more than just hard work to turn an idea for advancing social justice into a successful reality. It also takes inspiration, a strong network and a lot of support, encouragement and advice.
In the first study of its kind, Cornell sociologists have found that people who have a medical emergency in a public place can’t necessarily rely on the kindness of strangers. Only 2.5 percent of people, or 1 in 39, got help from strangers before emergency medical personnel arrived, in research published April 14 in the American Journal of Public Health.
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.
by :
Melissa Ferguson
,
Scientific American, The Conversation
Professor of Psychology Melissa J. Ferguson discusses the election in an article published in Scientific American. She analyzes the question: Can presidential candidates get a second chance to make a first impression?
Using the latest computer game technology, a Cornell-led team of physicists has come up with a “suitably beautiful” explanation to a puzzle that has baffled researchers in the materials and theoretical physics communities for a century.
The Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, designed to increase the completion of doctorates among first generation, low-income and underrepresented students – ultimately diversifying the professoriate – inducted 16 undergraduates April 9.
A state of electronic matter first predicted by theorists in 1964 has finally been discovered by Cornell physicists and may provide key insights into the workings of high-temperature superconductors.
