This newsletter, prepared monthly, provides highlights of the Performance Plan Updates developed by H&SS Department Heads of news within their departments. Represented here are works accomplished: grant awards, program and curricular initiatives, appointments, publications, performances, conference papers, and the like.

AWARDS

Nao Bustamante, Assoc. Prof. in Arts, was awarded one of seven $21,000 Artist Fellowships from The Tides Foundation’s Lambent Fellowship in the Arts for her artistic excellence and potential to add a fresh voice to the art world of Metropolitan New York. The Lambent Fellowship program celebrates and fosters the intersection between art and social change. [more]

Matt Francisco, Graduate Student in STS, was awarded an NSF dissertation improvement grant for his project, “Impact of Agent-Based Computational Modeling on the Sociological Imagination in an Emerging Academic Field."

Cheryl Geisler, Prof. and Head in LL&C, and Debbie Kaminski, Assoc. Prof. in Mechanical and Aerospace, received funding from the Elsevier Foundation to work over the next three years to establish SettleNet, a regional settling-in service for PhD-employers in the Capital District.

PUBLICATIONS, PERFORMANCE, & EXHIBITIONS

Sharon Anderson-Gold, Prof. and Head in STS, published “Cosmopolitanism in a Time of Terror” in Israel, Palestine and Terror, ed. by Stephen Law, Continuum Press, UK 2008

Nao Bustamante, Assoc. Prof. in Arts, exhibited a short film at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, Untitled #1 (from the series Earth People 2507).  It is available for download.   She also conducted a performance/information booth: TALK TO THE FUTURE® Ask me how! [more]

Nathan Freier, Asst Prof. in LL&C, published “What is a Human? - Toward Psychological Benchmarks in the Field of Human-Robot Interaction,” with colleagues Kahn, Ishiguro, Friedman, Kanda, T., Severson, & Miller, in Interaction Studies, 8(3), 363-390.
(2007)

Sinhwa Kang, Sasi Kanth Ala, graduate students in LL&C, and James Watt, Prof. of Communication, LL&C, authored a paper nominated for Best Paper in the Digital Media track at the 41st Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science meeting held January 7-10, 2008. Five papers of over 50 submitted in the track were nominated for the award. The paper is published in Communicatorsí Perceptions of Social Presence as a Function of Avatar Realism in Small Display Mobile Communication Devices, Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. New York: IEEE Press.

Neil Rolnick, Prof. in Arts, premiered his Love Songs with the Albany Symphony with Theo Bleckmann and violin soloist Todd Reynolds, on 2/14 at Canfield Casino, Saratoga; 2/15 at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, and 2/16 at Colonial Theater, Pittsfield; as well as two NYC premieres: Hammer & Hair (2007) for violin and piano, and the complete Shadow Quartet (2003) at the NYU Interactive Arts Performance Series on February 25.

LECTURES & PANELS

James Adams, Prof. in Economics, has a full series of upcoming presentations including “The Geography of Scientific Ideas and the Mobility of Scientists,” at a meeting at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, on May 30-31, 2008 on labor markets for scientists and engineers, a joint venture of the governments of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, as well as the University of Maastricht; “The Role of Search in University Productivity” at a meeting at the University of Torino in Torino, Italy, on July 14-15, 2008; and “Is the U.S. Losing Its Preeminence in Higher Education?” at a conference on US Universities in a Global Marketplace, on October 2-3, 2008, Woodstock, Vermont sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts: all papers will appear in an volume to be issued by the University of Chicago Press.

Nancy Campbell, Assoc. Prof. in STS, gave an invited lecture, "Gendering Addiction" to the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on January 17, 2008.

John Gowdy, Prof. in Economics, presented “Behavioral Economics and Climate Change Policy” at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, January 11, 2008; and “The Stern report on Climate Change” at a Workshop on Changing the Climate at RPI, at Rensselaer, sponsored by the RPI Student Sustainability Task Force, January 30, 2008.

Pauline Oliveros, Distinguished Visiting Professor in Arts, along with three collaborators at Rensselaer, one at Stanford University and another at UC San Diego, presented papers on Telematic Music: Six Perspectives at the International Society for Improvised Music in December at Northwestern University. The papers presented views of the performances underwritten with a Haptics Mediated Performance EMPAC seed grant. The papers can be read at “Telematic Music Panel.”

Sal Restivo, Prof. in STS, gave the Keynote address: “Minds, Morals, and Mathematics: The Death of God, the End of Platonism, and the Meaning of Social Constructionism,” at the International Conference on Mathematics and Technology in the Body of Education: The Gender Perspective, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece, December 16-17 & 18-19, 2007. He also was Consultant to the PhD program of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology - New University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, December 12-15 and 21-24 December.