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

AWARDS

Shawn Lawson, Asst. Prof. in Arts, received a $1,500 grant for The Death of Sardanapalus project from the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and Experimental Television Center’s Finishing Funds Program.

Neil Rolnick, Prof. in Arts, received a $3,000 commission from the Argosy Foundation's Contemporary Music Fund for a new work titled Extended Family for the string quartet Ethel to be premiered in 2009; and an $8,000 travel grant from the Asian Cultural Council to support a month-long trip to China to work on his project, The Economic Engine to premier in Beijing in April and May 2008.  During the first two weeks of June, he held several workshops with a faculty ensemble from the Chinese Central Conservatory of Music, which will perform the piece for erhu, guzheng, yangqin, pipa and western string quartet.  He also held several work sessions with video artist Cindy Ng Sio Ieng.  Prof. Rolnick also received a commission from the Albany Symphony Orchestra for Love Songs.  The songs, premiering in February 2008, will be a double concerto for vocalist Theo Bleckmann and violinist Todd Reynolds as soloists with the Orchestra.

James Watt, Prof. in LL&C and Director of the Social and Behavioral Research Lab, will head a study and survey of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)/Lou Gehrig’s Disease sufferers funded by a $110,000 gift from the Patricia Wieler Memorial ALS Project at Rensselaer Fund.  The survey project is intended to cover a broad range of potential factors in the onset of ALS, with attention to currently suspected factors as well as potential factors that have not yet been investigated.  The project was funded by RPI alumnus Eric H. "Rip" Wieler in the name of his late wife. 

PUBLICATIONS, PERFORMANCE, & EXHIBITIONS

Sharon Anderson-Gold, Prof. in STS,  has published "Cosmopolitan Community and the Law of World Citizenship" in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy Volume 3, Human Rights, edited by Zeynep Davran, Boğaziçi University Istanbul, Philosophical Society of Turkey, Ankara 2007.

Nao Bustamante, Assoc. Prof. in Arts, participated in the group show organized by Michael Oatman, Prof. in Architecture, and MFA graduate, C. Ryder Cooley. The show, Vestuary Operatics, was held at St. Anthony's Church in Albany, June 1, 2007.  Her short film "The Perfect Ones," was screened at Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco, California. Also in June, Bustamante was named a 2007 Fellow for the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Caren Canier, Prof. in Arts, was in a group show called "What's in a Face", curated by Susan Mastrangelo and David Fratkin at Brik Gallery in Catskill, NY.

Faye Duchin, Prof. in Economics, published these book chapters: Duchin, F. 2007, “Energy and the Global Economy,” forthcoming in: Aloys Prinz, Albert E. Steenge and Jörg Schmidt (Eds.), The Rules of the Game: Institutions, Law and Economics, Lit Verlag, Münster, as well as Duchin, F. and A. E. Steenge, 2007, “Mathematical Models in Input-Output Economics,” to appear in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS): Mathematical Sciences.

John Gowdy, Prof. in Economics, published, “Does the King Have any Clothes?” (with Charles Hall), Chapter 1 in Making World Development Work: Scientific Alternatives to Neoclassical Economic Theory, Grégoire Leclerc and Charles Hall (editors), University of New Mexico Press, 2007.

Pauline Oliveros, Distinguished Prof. in Arts, participated in the International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD) - McGill University, Montreal QC - Pauline Oliveros invited paper presented - Improvising with Spaces; organized and performed with Tintinnabulate ensemble drawn from the Faculty and graduate students in Arts and Architecture in telepresence performance with three remote sites - three performers at McGill, three performers at RPI NYSTAR Lab, one SoundWire performer at CCRMA Stanford University Palo Alto CA, and one in Korea.  Eight channel CD quality audio was achieved and DV quality video was used for the first time in this ongoing research effort between Pauline Oliveros Arts Department and Jonas Braasch Architecture Department.

Sal Restivo, Prof. in STS, published: "Sturm und Drang in Mathematics: Casualties, Consequences, and Contingencies in the Math Wars," Philosophy of Mathematics Education Journal No. 20 (June  2007) with Deborah Sloan; "Mathematics," The Language of Science, Monza: Polimetrica. (June 4, 2007) and Bring Me the Brain of Nikola Tesla, a novel.  iUniverse, Inc., New York, 2007.

Neil Rolnick, Prof. in Arts, his works, Fiddle Faddle, was performed at the Kennedy Center for the Arts on the Millennium Stage series by violinist Ana Milosavljevic; and Digits was performed at the NIME: New Interfaces for Musical Expression 07, Frederick Lowe Theater, by Kathleen Supové with live video by Luke DuBois.

Ron Sun, Prof. in Cognitive Science, published, I. Naveh and R. Sun, “Cognitively Based Modeling of Scientific Productivity,” in: J. Rennard (ed.), Handbook of Research on Nature Inspired Computing for Economics and Management (Volume 1, Chapter 11), pp. 141-152. Idea Group Inc., Hershey, PA.

LECTURES & PANELS

Audrey Bennett, Assoc. Prof. in LLC, delivered a keynote presentation, "Boyer's model of discovery: A case study on effective cross-cultural graphics," the first research-focused, education conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts; and with Paul Nini, Professor at Ohio State University, she co-organized a panel titled "On the Shoulders of Giants: The Rise of Research in Graphic Design" both for Intent/Content 2007, the first research-focused, education conference of the American Institute of Graphic Arts.  Prof. Bennett also participated in a book signing and reading at Market Block Books in Troy, NY for her anthology "Design Studies: Theory & Research in Graphic Design" published by Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.

Nancy D. Campbell, Assoc. Prof. in STS, gave an invited presentation titled "Needle Park Revisited: The Halls of Lexington, the Monkeys of Michigan, and the Streets of New York" at the annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence in Quebec City, Quebec, on June 18 and 19.

Ron Eglash, Assoc. Prof. in STS, spoke on African Fractals as an invited lecturer at the Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) Conference, TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania.

John Gowdy, Prof. in Economics, presented “Biophysical Economics and Behavioral Economics”, presented at the meetings of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics, New York City, June 2007.  “Behavioral Considerations in Ecological Economics”, presented at the meetings of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics, New York City, June 2007.

John Heim, Clinical Assoc. Prof. in Economics, presented "Which Interest Rate Seems Most Related To Business Investment?" and  "Do Falling Import Prices Increase the Demand for Domestically Produced Consumer Goods?" at the 2007 Hawaii International Conference on Business, May 24 -27, both to be published in the conference proceedings later this year.  Heim also presented "Does the Exchange Rate Really Affect Consumer Spending?" and "Was Keynes Right?  Does Current Year Disposable Income Drive Consumption Spending?" at the 2007 International Conference on the Social Sciences in Hawaii where he also chaired a session on macroeconomic issues related to consumption theory and third world micro-investment at this conference.

Kenneth L. Simons, Asst. Prof. in Economics, presented, "Two Roads to Riches? The (In)Frequency of Disruptive Technological Change" at the Atlanta Competitive Advantage Conference, 15-17 June 2007.

Bram van Heuveln, Clinical Asst. Prof. in Cognitive Science, Julie Gutmann, Clinical Asst. Prof. in LL&C, John Gowdy, Prof. in Economics presented "Revisioning: A Pathway to Critical Wisdom" at the "Learning Together: Pedagogy, Technology & Course Redesign VII" conference at Fairfield University, June 6-8. The presentation was co-authored by Jim Fahey, Clinical Asst. Prof. in Cognitive Science, who unfortunately was unable to attend.