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A Guide to Arts and Sciences' News, Events and People | January 2012 |
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Contents GW-Smithsonian Research Collaboration Maternal Stress in Wild Chimps Creativity, Passion, Healing SMPA in Top Ten of U.S. Journalism Schools LAESI Named Top Ten Innovation of 2011 Nuclear Primer Clinton Global Initiative University What's next for North Korea An Active Peace A Sculpture's Permanent Home Alumni: Travel to Cuba In Memoriam Awards and Recognition Selected Published Works
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GW Collaborates with Smithsonian to Launch Five Joint Research Initiatives
Which poultry farms are sending harmful bacteria into the Chesapeake Bay? How are cell phones changing linguistics? GW and Smithsonian researchers hope to answer these questions and others as part of new joint research projects that the institutions announced today. The five new initiatives will focus on Exploration of Maritime Archaeology of the Transatlantic Slave Trade; Primate Breast Milk: Effect on Infant Growth, Development, and Adult Disease; Analysis of Political and Cultural Ecologies of Cell Phones; Impact of Turbulence on Distribution of Dissolved Gases in Aquatic Environments; and Effect of Watershed Discharge of Poultry Feeding Operations. Read more.
Examining Impact of Maternal Stress in Wild Chimps 
A long history of research has established the critical importance of a healthy mother-offspring relationship in humans and other mammals in determining offspring survival and reproductive success. Most of that research on non-human primates, however, is based on captive populations because of the inherent difficulties in examining mammals living in the wild across generations. Now, with a $745,000 research grant from the National Institutes of Health, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Carson Murray
seeks to fill that void through an extensive investigation of the interplay between maternal behavior and stress physiology in wild chimpanzees. The study, which is one of the first to examine the full impact of environmental diversity as it relates to maternal stress, may lead to new insights on anxiety-related disease in humans. Read more.
Creativity, Passion, Healing: Meet Art Therapy Director Heidi Bardot 
Heidi Bardot's
passion for art and its healing ability has taken her around the world as director of Columbian College's
Art Therapy Graduate Program. Having been born and lived in Lebanon for 18 years, her cultural sensitivity on issues involving resiliency, post-traumatic stress, grief, self-care, and battlefield exposure has helped bring new awareness to her students, many of whom have traveled with Bardot to places like India and South Africa to work collaboratively with peer groups in the field of art therapy. Closer to home, Bardot provides therapy to women, children, and adolescents through Capital Hospice and her private practice, Creative Counseling, LLC. This month, we caught up with Bardot to learn more about art therapy, the graduate program she directs, and what drives Bardot's interest in the field.
Read more.
SMPA in Top Ten Among U.S. Journalism Schools 
Columbian College's School of Media and Public Affairs (SMPA) has been ranked in the Top Ten of U.S. Journalism Schools by readers of TVWeek.com and NewsPro magazine. In NewsPro's first survey of news professionals and other readers, SMPA was the only Washington, D.C.-based school to receive top billing, which it shared with some of the best-known journalism schools in the country. In the same survey, respondents listed "writing" as the top skill to learn for those seeking a career in journalism, with news "reporting" ranking second. To read the full article about the ranking, click here, and see page 21.
Biochemistry Invention Recognized as a Top Ten Innovation of 2011 
New technology developed by Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Akos Vertes was recently included on The Scientist's
list of Top Ten Innovations of 2011. The technology, called Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionization (LAESI), allows researchers to more quickly and effectively learn the chemical composition of a very small biological sample. LAESI technology has the potential to support a broad range of applications in the fields of pharmaceutical and biological research, surgical and molecular pathology, clinical diagnostics, chemical and biological defense, forensics, agriculture, food process monitoring, and others. Read more.
A Nuclear Primer for Non-Scientific Set 
The more interaction Professor of Chemistry Chris Cahill had in recent years with nuclear policy students and experts, the more he noticed that people's technical knowledge tended to be restricted to their own wheelhouse-in the science lab or immersed in policy-with little overlap between them. "It became clear to me that the policy folks really didn't have a very good understanding of even the most basic components of the science-the origin of radioactivity, how nuclear energy works, how a nuclear weapon works," said Cahill, a uranium chemist. Now he's in the process of establishing a program to address the science piece of that equation. Cahill, along with physics professors William Briscoe and Gerald Feldman, recently received a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to design a nuclear science curriculum for the non-technical set. Read more. Clinton Global Initiative University Hosted by GW this Spring 
The Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) Annual Meeting will be held on GW's Foggy Bottom Campus March 30 - April 1, 2012. CGI U, founded by former President Bill Clinton in 2007, provides a forum to engage both domestic and international students on the challenges facing the world today. During CGI U, GW will host more than 1,200 students from around the world, as well as a large number of prominent speakers, including President Clinton. Students are encouraged to participate by applying to attend or serving as volunteers. The deadline to apply is January 23, 2012.
What's next for North Korea 
The December death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, 69, has raised many questions about the long-term sustainability of the isolated country, its international relationships and nuclear ambitions.Gregg Andrew Brazinsky, a GW associate professor of history and international affairs, offered insight about the potential aftermath, including North Korea's new leadership and the United States' response. Read more. An Active Peace 
All is fair in love and war. Or is it? That's one of the first questions Associate Professor of Religion Irene Oh asks students in her Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies course, one of the required courses in George Washington's new Peace Studies major.Housed in Columbian College's Department of Religion, the program requires students to develop a sophisticated understanding of peace as a concept and as a practice. Read more. A Sculpture's Permanent Home 
In a quiet corner of GW's Foggy Bottom Campus, tucked behind the G Street Townhouses in a newly renovated park, sits a woman with a bird on her knee. She's still and silent, and the bird shows no intention of flying away. The woman and bird are sculpted out of steel that has weathered to a soft brown color. "Sitting Woman with Bird" was created by the late Slaithong Chengtrakul Schmutzhart, MFA '83, and donated to GW by her former spouse Berthold Schmutzhart.Schmutzhart originally created "Sitting Woman with Bird" in 1982 as part of her MFA work while a student at GW. She became a faculty member on the Mount Vernon Campus when it was still Mount Vernon College, teaching studio art, sculpture, ceramics, three-dimensional design and printmaking between 1978 and 1991. Read more. Alumni Travel Program: Experience Cuba 
Attention alumni: Don't miss your opportunity to immerse yourself in the culture, people, and architectural riches of Cuba through a special "People-to-People" exchange program sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The eight-day excursion features travel to Havana, Trinidad and Cienfuegos February 26 � March 4, 2012. (Other dates may be available.) All participants must first join the National Trust for a nominal fee ($20 for individuals, $30 for families). Space is limited; call today to register at (888) 484-8785 and don't forget to mention you are a GW alumnus/a). Learn more through the National Trust website
or by visiting the Alumni Travel Program.
In Memoriam: Jennifer Gonzalez Perdomo 
We note with regret the passing of Women's Studies' graduate student Jennifer Gonzalez Perdomo, 27, after a sudden illness. She was a member of the GW Graduate Feminists, as well as a practicum leader in the Department of Women's Studies. She was also a member of the leadership council of the D.C. chapter of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, and was a leadership program intern at the American Association of University Women. Read more.
Awards and Recognition The Jazzies, D.C.'s Jazz Awards, named Herman Burney, part-time faculty in the Department of Music, D.C.'s Best Bassist for 2011. Yvonne Captain, associate professor of Spanish and international affairs, was recently honored with an award in her name: the Yvonne Captain Faculty Award for Outstanding Contributions to International Education. She also chaired a session and presented a paper at the 6th biennial conference of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora. Lindsay Garvin, graduate student in the Institute for Biomedical Sciences, was awarded a PhRMA Foundation Fellowship, which provides a two-year stipend to support her pre-doctoral studies. Richard Grinker, professor of anthropology, was lead investigator for the study "The Epidemiology of Autism in South Korea," listed as one of the Editor's Choices 2011 in Nature. Professor of Mathematics Valentina Harizanov gave a lecture at the Kurt Gödel Research Center for Mathematical Logic, University of Vienna. Alexander Huang, associate professor of English, will be a research fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library from January to March in 2012. He also was appointed to the Modern Language Association's (MLA) Committee on the New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare and was elected to the MLA executive committee on East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900. Qing Pan, assistant professor of statistics, received a Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Children's National Mentored Research Career Development Award. Selected Published Works Professor of Chemistry Chris Cahill and his research group co-authored the article "Uranyl Sensitization of Samarium (III) Luminescence in a Two-Dimensional Coordination Polymer" published in and featured on the cover of Inorganic Chemistry. Elizabeth Fisher, professor of classics, served as co-editor of Byzantine Religious Culture: Studies in Honor of Alice-Mary Talbot. She also published an article in that volume, "Michael Psellos on the 'Usual' Miracle at Blachernae, the Law, and Neoplatonism". Lisel Hintz, a graduate student in political science, published "Explaining Democratic Failure in the Post-Soviet Space" in The Washington Review of Turkish and Eurasian Affairs' December issue. The Shakespearean International Yearbook, edited by Associate Professor of English Alexander Huang, with a special section edited by Professor of English Jonathan Gil Harris, was published. Harris Mylonas, assistant professor of political science and international affairs, authored "Greece" in the European Journal of Political Research. Gregory Squires, professor of sociology and public policy and public administration, authored "Professors Stand with Occupy Protesters" in the Occupied Washington Times. Clay Warren, Chauncey M. Depew Professor of Communication, authored "Family Sex Communication Quotient" in Handbook of Sexuality-Related Measures.
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